Charlie Goose

There is a reality show about hairy bikers, I don't think this one will have a problem.

It sounds interesting to me, and I've never been a comic book guy.

Michael Corvin

Wow. Bunch of assholes.

Smith was on Carolla's podcast earlier in the week "feuding" over a lost TV deal and playing the blame game. They both seemed like they could have done more to make it work, but Kevin just came across as a pampered baby that didn't get his way.

I dumped SMOD sometime last year (when they launched SIR) and it doesn't look like I'm missed much.

I was vaguely interested in checking out this show, but I might have to pass.

dex14

Damn, that bastard's faster than Walt Flanagan's dog!

brilk

I quit listening to the podcast when Smith started getting high every episode. You can only hear "dude, I'm so high right now, ha ha ha ha!" so many times before it gets old. As long as the show doesn't just have boring stoned guys being stupid it might be okay.

wmansir

First, I have to agree that the Smodcast went downhill after Smith became a pothead. Also, lately most of the podcasts have been recordings from live shows instead of in the studio, which further decreases the quality.

That aside, the impression I get from the Tell'em Steve Dave podcast is that Smith is a lot less involved then the promos let on. I'm a regular TeSD listener and even I'm luke warm on this show. Not that I don't think it could be good. I'll be giving it a shot, but you never know with these things.

I don't know about it being an hour long. I thought it was a half hour, to be like Pawn Stars but funnier. It being an hour lowers my expectations because I know how hit or miss the podcast can be. I thought that if they edit material down to fit in a half hour it could be pretty good, but an hour is a lot of time to fill.

As for the article posted, I wouldn't give it too much weight. First of all, the name dropping was ridiculous. Sure, there are people with better comic book credentials, but that's a very small part of it. In addition to running a comic book store for 15 years, and creating comics themselves, the TeSD crew are semi-proven performers with the podcast and live shows.

And dear god, "how much better would this show be if it was Comic Book Women?" Umm, negative better? Does this guy really think people are going to tune in every week to watch a documentary following comic creators around. Sure it sound kind of interesting, maybe once or twice, but an hour a week, times 16 episodes, times x number of seasons. Not going to happen, no matter what combination of tits and testies the cast has. For the show to survive it has to have mainstream appeal, with a comic hook sure, but it can't only be of interest to comic nerds.

As for the blog post/sexism. The guys talked about this on the podcast. Basically Kevin pitched A&E the show as Pawn Stars in a comic book shop. He used some clips from the TeSD podcast as an example of what it would be like but thought they would get in a real cast to make the show. The producers thought the TeSD crew would work themselves, but they wanted to add some "new characters", including a woman. They held auditions and had a few tryouts. A woman who auditioned but didn't get a call back then wrote a blog post saying she never had a chance because it was just a boys club. That started the back and forth. Maybe they were sexist, I don't know, but the fact is they didn't end up hiring anyone, male or female, instead they decided to stick with the original group, who were life long friends in real life.

Michael Corvin

^ That doesn't even remotely mesh with the woman's story.

Boba Fett

Yeah and anyone who listened to the podcast could tell Walt didn't want a woman in there; the woman's story makes perfect sense. The network wanted her, but the guys sabotage her with the costume stunt.

wz42

Hmmm...then they sound exactly like the disgusting type of human being that does well on (and I suspect view) reality shows.

If this is how they act perhaps it'll do well then.

Boba Fett

To be fair, Walt has run that store for years and takes it very seriously. The only reason the show was happening is because Smith actually owns the store.

I don't blame the guy for not wanting business disrupted for a show that will likely amount to nothing, but the whole issue could have been handled with more class than it was.

devilshalo

Haven't we already seen portions of this in Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?

wmansir

The woman quoted in article, Zoe, was the girl who got the call back. She wrote a nice post about it Jan 4.

A couple of days later another woman who auditioned wrote a blog post saying the show wouldn't make it without a woman, they never really wanted a woman on the show, and so on. She mentioned Zoe was a friend who made the pilot but got cut.

Bryan, who is pretty sensitive to criticism, then tore into Jill on that week's podcast. I listened to the 20 minutes or so where they talked about it and I didn't hear them say that Zoe claimed she "deserved to be on the show", but I might have missed it. They really didn't talk about her much at all, except Walt making acrack about her being concerned about her image after showing up to the first day of shooting half naked.

Her full response is here.

wmansir

I think your right, except for the sabotage part. In the second Zoe post I linked to above she says "My part in the original show was that of the newly hired female worker at the Secret Stash store, which would cause opposition with part owner Walt who believes that girls know little to nothing about comics." So she knew her role was to cause conflict with Walt, who would act chauvinistic.

The fact that she ended up near tears with the producers pushing her to fight back is probably the reason she didn't make the cut, not because Walt and Bry tricked her into wearing a skimpy costume. If Ming were that sensitive he would have hung himself years ago.

resinrats

What I could see as an interesting set up for a show like this is a 1/2 epsiode with 3 separate segments.
1st segment is someone bringing in rare comic book or comic related collectible. Pawn Stars style wiht a little history of it and the value.
2nd is an interview with someone in the comic related field. A writer, artist, a comic store owner with tales of weird stuff that happened in the store.
3rd: A group of guys humorusly discussing something in the comics world. Something along the lines of how stupid Wonder Woman's invisible plane is when she's visible or how does Bruce Banner afford to buy new clothes twice each episode since Hulk tears his apart.

Mike86

I like your ideas for a show like this. I have to wonder how well a show that revolves around a comic book shop is really going to do though. I mean sure people are big on comic movies since they're pretty popular now days but it still seems like a rather niche market that actually goes out and buys a comic book/graphic novel. I'm not overly enthusiastic about this show because Smith is kind of meh to me anymore. He had his moments but he's kind of lost something in my opinion over the past decade or so. I might tune in just to see what this is like but I dunno if I'm in for the long run.

Jimmy James

This is just another example of what I have been feeling for years...my path diverged from Kevin Smith's some time around when he started smoking reefer and building a podcasting network. Lots of luck, Kev. I think I'm out.

Gizmo

How many SIR jerseys does Kevin have?

crazychris88

This was kinda "meh" for me. Kinda surprised this is on at 10 pm and Talking dead is on at midnite.
CBM seems much more niche than Talking dead.

Gizmo

Offering $100 for that Chucky doll? It's going for less on eBay. Pretty sure they know very little about the whole buying/reselling thing.

PhantomStranger

The show was much more entertaining than I thought it would be, though some of the witty banter was so quick it had to have been rehearsed and written before filming. No one comes up with quip after quip like that spontaneously.

I thought it was funny the one guy thought his movie lobby cards were so valuable he had to have them handcuffed/chained to him in a briefcase.

wmansir

That was better than I expected. If they wanted to make Pawn Stars but only about comics and funnier then I think they succeeded. Although I don't know if their is an audience for that.

I don't think dialog was scripted, although obviously scenes were setup in advance and probably rehearsed or reshot. It was probably heavily edited to get it down to just the funny bits.

As I suspected, it looks like the NJ crew does all the day to day filming then some time later they get together with Kevin to film the "podcast recording" segments that are edited into the final shows. The fake podcast is an interesting way to get Kevin involved in the show since he's usually on the west coast or touring and isn't really that involved with the store or the recording of the NJ guy's podcasts.

wmansir

Generally I think they are on the retail side more than collectibles.

As a comic shop they deal with some of this stuff but obviously these "walk ins" were setup by the producers and a lot of it is outside of what they normally deal with. If the cameras weren't there Walt probably wouldn't have even made an offer on the doll.

It also could be a setup like I've heard about Storage Wars doing, where they get people to bring collectibles on the show and have an expert make an inflated estimate on the value of the item.

Shannon Nutt

After all the bashing in this thread, the actual show turned out to be VERY entertaining. My only question is do those other three guys actually work in that store day-to-day, or are they friends of Walt who have been brought in for the show?

I did like the last line of the episode where the bearded dude asked Walt, "Does anyone ever BUY anything here?" It did seem like the only customers they got were people trying to sell stuff.

wmansir

Walt and Mike work day to day.

Bryan, with the beard, is a childhood friend of Walts. He use to work in the store, and actually ran a west coast Secret Stash for a while.

Ming is Kevin's IT guy, runs Kevin's website and podcast tech. He's been working for Kevin for 15 years, but lives in Jersey and is friends with the all the guys on the show. He works in the store in as much as they record podcasts there, but I don't think he works the retail side.

Ming has a podcast with Mike called "I Sell Comics" where I presume they talk about comics. It's relatively new and I haven't listened.

Walt and Bryan also have a podcast, along with Bryan "Q" Quinn from Impractical Jokers on TruTV, called "Tell'em Steve Dave" which they have been doing for a couple of years.

treszoks

Bryan ran the west coast store and he has "worked" at this one a few times. Ming doesn't work there either. It was just like a TV version of the Tell 'em Steve-Dave podcast. I was smiling during it. The people selling stuff are obviously casted to come in but the banter and comments are just like them in the podcast.

starseed1981

One and done for me. I'm wasn't sure what to expect, but wow....what a bunch of stereotypical comic store d-bags.