 Hello folks this is Keith and this is you're listening to Talk to the Hand. I have with me this evening Brian Jennings who is going to be talking with me while I do some drawing. This is going to be a special video episode of Talk to the Hand and it will be recorded live. And while I do my little interview with Brian, he's going to be watching me draw a portrait of him. For those of you who don't know Brian Jennings, and he has a dog evidently. Brian is the son of, make sure I get your father's name right. He is William Brian Jennings as credit to the movie. Okay who was the sheriff in the original Manos the Hand of Fate and Brian here was cast as a sheriff in a sequel, an unfinished sequel that was filmed in 2011. We're going to be talking with Brian about about Manos and his father's experience with Manos and with his own experience with Manos. Jackie Ray Naiman is with us in the chat box and if you have any questions or if you have any comments type them in and we'll see them and we'll try to answer any questions you may have. Okay so I'm going to open up Photoshop here with a photo of Brian that I'm going to get started working on while we talk. I'm going to do my best to conduct the same kind of interview that I've done in previous episodes. I imagine there will be times when I'm somewhat distracted. I'm going to do my best. Thank you Brian for being here. You're welcome. Thank you for sending the photos. And take a couple of minutes to talk about your basic biography when and where you were born all that sort of good stuff. Okay I was born in Fort Worth Texas and my family moved to El Paso when I was two so I grew up in El Paso went to El Paso high school and in 1964 I graduated from there and went off to Texas Tech in Lubbock so I was gone in 66 when they were doing their thing out in the desert making Manos and I didn't see the movie until 1993 when Mystery Science Theater. So you weren't at the premiere at all. No no the rest of my family was but I was in college at the time. I noticed the the pictures you had of the premiere it didn't look like I saw you in it anywhere of course you would have been what 20 21 at the time. Yeah I was 20. So yeah I didn't think I saw you I mean the pictures you sent there was your dad there and and your sister and your mom. Yeah my long crock. Those pictures from the premiere by the way are amazing. They're so they're so what's the word for it the clothes and everything that everyone's wearing there's yeah they're so 1960s I guess. Yeah. Everyone dressed up like they're going to the prom it's amazing. Yeah it was a big deal. Yeah they rented a search light and rented a limousine and all kinds of stuff. Well tell me what did you hear much about it while the production was going on or did you even know what was going on? Yeah my parents kept me kind of informed on it. I had met Hal Warren previously and he and my father told me that they were going to make a movie and they were trying to get up money to do it and so I thought that was interesting. My father told me a little bit about the movie and I thought okay even more interesting but then I didn't hear a whole lot. Well my mother was the one who told me about the premiere and the aftermath of that. Oh boy what did she have to say? Oh she was she had invited all her friends and she dressed up and it was a big deal and she she said that she wished that she could just slink down under her seat and disappear. Oh that's sad. My father just didn't really say much after that. He didn't talk about it much. I can imagine. I mean as much as we love those of us who who are fans and were not involved as much as we love talking about it hearing about it I can imagine at the time the people who are involved it wasn't funny at all. No because they most of them thought that they were well-making as it as serious as you can make a cheap beam monster movie out in the desert but they didn't think it was going to be a comedy at that point. I imagine people who saw it at the premiere didn't think of it as a comedy either. I mean they might have been laughing but I doubt that they were. Yeah there were there were a lot of laughs and it got panned in the old puzzle paper the next day. Yeah. I don't know though I understand that Hal Hal said afterwards he said well you know maybe we could re-cut the movie and re-dumb it and and make it into a comedy but you never got the chance to do that. Yeah I've read that before and that was uh you have to wonder how serious he was at the time but who knows yeah this what I'm doing here by the way this is how I usually start with one of these portraits I start to finding the the essential lines that I want to work with and do I start out with basically just a trace job yeah and then and then I'll take that that trace sketch and use that as a starting point for a drawing and I'll put a lot more lines in here than are necessary the first pass. Yeah okay. I'm scratching all over it okay yeah so you didn't see the movie until Mr. Science Theater. No it disappeared pretty quickly. Yeah. Nobody knew where to find it we all thought that it was dead and gone. What how did you hear about it did you happen to see it on on television or did someone show it to you? Well that's that's the interesting thing it's just pure synchronicity. I checked into a motel room in Bandon, Oregon that afternoon January 30th of 93 and I turned on the TV and the TV was set on the the cable channel that played the Mystery Science Theater and there was something that they were showing something that was just really bad low quality and I was I was about to change channels. Oh boy. And then then a sheriff's car drove up and my father stepped out. Oh boy. And I knew immediately what it was. That's amazing. Yes I don't know how that happened. The monos the hands of fate works in strange ways. The hands reached across the years. Yes. And apparently they found they found the master that same afternoon. Yeah that's amazing isn't it? Yeah he was watching it from his home in Oregon that same day. That's a great story. Yes. What tell me a little bit about your first impression there when you I'm sure you dropped everything at that point. Yeah I just I just sat on the edge of the bed and watched it. It's kind of like watching the train wreck. I couldn't put myself away but yeah I well my impression was boy this is even worse than they told me. Yeah. But but still it had there was something kind of charming to it. Oh yes yes. But I at that point I mean that was Saturday afternoon cable TV. I didn't really think much of it. I didn't think it was going to go anywhere so I was even more amazed when the VHS tapes and DVDs and stuff started popping up and I started reading about it in magazines and all of that and and it our whole family has just been amazed at the whole process. Yeah well it's like he said there's there's a charm to the movie there really is. Yeah. As I said before on my little talk show here it's it's obvious that everyone in the movie was doing the best they could. Yeah. They were doing the best they knew how to do and there was sincerity in their performances and and that's what makes the difference. You see you see movies where the people who are making it obviously just didn't care and the movies are just unwatchable. Yeah. And as unwatchable as Manos can be sometimes when you sit and watch it and you think about these people in the El Paso Desert in 1966 working hard on making an independent film you can't you can't take your eyes off it. Yeah. Yeah. It has kind of a personal feel to it. You get to those people and you feel for them as they're out there doing. You do. And with with Tom Naiman just going whole hog and just really believing his part is the screaming murderer of lunatic. Yeah. He obviously determined to make it work. Yeah. And believe it while doing it. Yes. Well I guess maybe Jackie has told you that that he studied to be a minister and so he was just applying his ministerial skills to being the priest of Manos I guess. I did not know that. Is that true Jackie. We'll see if Jackie is going to respond to that. Speaking of which I had I had said in a earlier episode of talk to the hand that there was going to be an interview with the master and I think there will be. He is for those who don't know he is recovering from surgery and it's been a slow process but Jackie tells us that he has come along. Yeah. And so I think it will happen. He did a lengthy video interview with Ben Salove for material that is going to be on the Yeah. On the Blu-ray restoration of the film. So I was very pleased to hear that that's that that's been done and and as Jackie told us it was it was apparently a really amazing interview. Really looking forward to that. As Jackie says her dad went to Texas Christian University become a minister early 60s. Wow. Yeah. And he's he's quite a guy. I was at the interview when Ben did his taping. Oh really. Yeah that that was the first time I've met Tom. Really. Yeah and the interview was quite amazing and he's just an amazing guy all around. So I hope you're able to get something from him. But yeah he just opened up and talked about the whole thing and and I learned a lot of little details that I didn't know until then. Yeah. Well he's uh he's the guy to go to. He was right in the middle of all of it. Yeah. Tom and his his whole family really made manos what it is. I don't know what it would have been like if it had just been howl and his own ideas. Because Tom created so much of the stuff the hands and right the other things and his wife made costumes and of course of course Jackie was a little Debbie and I guess she has said plenty about her feelings about having done that. Yeah. Yeah. Jackie's been she's been on Talk to the Hand twice. I guess she's the closest thing to a regular the show has. Yeah. And then she'll be on again I'm sure. This is this is coming along nice I've got a nice nice tracing here. Yeah that's looking good. I'll I'll do line work and then I'll do color work as well and we'll see that coming up in a few minutes. Well tell tell us more about your dad but his how he got involved with the the local theater there and how he got to be cast of the sheriff or as much as you know. Okay he was he and my mom both went to TCU also a lot of a lot of coincidences between Jackie's family and mine. We were both born in Fort Worth we both ended up in El Paso went to El Paso high she didn't go as long as I did but my father my father went to TCU then he went off in the Navy in World War II then he came back and went to law school and became a lawyer and moved to El Paso so he was making his living as a lawyer though I think he would really have enjoyed being a professional singer and actor if he did that but he's just did a lot of amateur theater work and singing and and he got involved with the festival theater in El Paso just a little tiny cracker box theater that put on all kinds of plays and he and Tom and John Reynolds and how we're all involved in that so where they met and and that's how they all got involved in this this movie the movie was Hal's idea as I understand which which according to legend he got from a meeting with Sterling Sullivan who was in El Paso a few years earlier probably shooting an episode of Route 66 at the time and as I understand it they were having coffee together and and and Hal said something like it couldn't be that hard to make a movie and Sullivan said oh you'd be surprised and Hal said I bet I I bet I could make a movie and and Sullivan of course thought that he has taken on way too much but as it turned out Hal did make a movie and and Hal didn't live long enough to see it come back with a vengeance in the 90s right Sterling Sullivan did oh he did yeah Sterling Sullivan lived well long enough to see to see Manos the hands of fate do you know do you know if do you know if Sullivan had anything to say about it I've I've never heard that he said anything it would be interesting to know if he did yeah it would be I wonder who would who would know I imagine it would have been very possible that he would have been aware of Mystery Science Theater and Manos without knowing what it was yeah that's really interesting I don't so there after after it came back and became popular on Mystery Science Theater the the legend got around so much about Sterling Sullivan's bet with Hal and a lot of the other legendary stuff that I feel like he must have heard about somewhere along the way yeah those those maybe questions we'll never we'll never have answers to when did Hal pass away it was like 1985 86 something like that maybe Jackie could refresh my memory yeah he he died I think he died of lung cancer um but yeah I don't believe I knew what he died of I knew he died in I thought for the longest time he died in 1980 I thought I'd read that somewhere but it was but no it was the mid 80s I remember so he missed uh the rediscovery of Manos by almost a decade yeah so it wasn't exactly a close miss but yeah I don't know we we all wish he could have seen it yeah did you have any involvement with the the theater um had you uh done any work with the little theater with your dad or with company no no I've I've been in I've been in two scripted performances in my whole life one of them was a performance at at our church and the other one was the sequel to Manos well um when uh uh when did your father pass away what year was that in the uh December of uh well it was 2005 oh oh that uh yeah that wasn't uh that long ago oh I I had no idea so he he saw the revival of Manos then wow he was well aware what did he have to say about it he mostly just shook his head and disbelieved he didn't talk much about it my mother thought it was pretty funny uh to the point to the point that one year at Christmas uh I was down there in Texas missing with him and uh uh I had a videotape of Manos uh with me and and she invited a bunch of her friends and and we had a Manos showing them and they were all quite amazed oh that's wonderful I I had uh I had no idea um uh Ben Salovey I believe uh mentioned to me that uh and you said earlier that uh uh your father did some singing but Ben thought that he uh was an amateur opera singer he was um I I don't know if he actually did any real opera well well yes he he did amateur opera he did some with uh in El Paso they had the college community opera which was uh uh UTEP and members of the community would put on performances and he did sing some with them but but mostly he preferred to uh uh sing in the Broadway musical type shows or religious songs with the church choir okay well that's um uh when Ben uh said that to me that made me pay attention to Ben because my father was an amateur opera singer and uh when I was uh very young I have uh dim memories of him participating in uh Gilbert and Sullivan uh productions you know the gondoliers and yeah and uh things like that so okay I'm gonna have to um think of more to talk about while I'm trying to draw at the same time what else can you what other stories do you have well talk about your experience with uh working in the new movie okay just tell whatever story you like while I yeah yeah and uh in I guess early 2011 uh the guy who's making who's trying to make the sequel to Manos got in touch with me he had uh he had met my nephew who is a commercial filmmaker does commercials and promotional films and such in Austin Texas and he had met my nephew and had found out that that he was the grandson of the sheriff in Manos and and found out that I existed and uh and he was trying to get together people to do the sequel so so he got in contact with me he called me and asked if I would like to be the sheriff uh and I said sure sounds like fun so so so he hired me on right there and he got together a really talented group of people in El Paso in December of 2011 and uh spent a week there shooting just a lot of scenes probably about a third of the movie uh but uh he didn't have the money or the technical stuff at that point to finish it a lot of us thought that uh we we were wishing that we could just go ahead and shoot it all right there go out in the desert and do it like Hal did but he had some ideas about doing green screen and uh generate and stuff and and fight scenes and whatever that we're gonna take studio work and he didn't have the money for those at that point so uh so we had a lot of fun in El Paso I met Jackie and uh I met Diane who played Margaret in the movie and she's still alive and doing quite well uh and we we had some fun but uh I I don't know he's still trying to get it together trying to overcome financial and copyright issues and so I don't know what's going to come up but I I'd really like to see to see it finished or to see a sequel finished even if somebody else wants to do some yeah yeah it's going this far yeah now the the sheriff that you played was this was this character the same sheriff that your father played or was this no this this would have been the son of the sheriff that my father uh like Jackie had aged the whatever 46 years uh and and so they were using the today Jackie to play the grown-up Jackie and Diane uh also uh well Diane uh they they put some some rather hideous uh monster scar makeup on her so so even though she looks pretty good in real life in the movie scene if you ever saw that it's uh she's pretty gruesome but they they were playing themselves uh 46 years later and and I was playing the son of the sheriff from the previous movie okay yeah that was uh that was something I had I had wondered for some time I knew that uh Jackie and Diane had to be playing their original characters but I just I didn't know what uh yeah which role you're in but that's that's very interesting um the uh one point that I uh wanted to make when you mentioned Diane and I've mentioned it on the show before is that she is very much alive and the uh uh the rumors that uh that she was not alive no idea how or where they got started but they're wrong uh and uh and um I had seen um pictures of her at these uh various man of events like the uh like the rift tracks event and yeah and uh I had seen pictures of her on people's uh Facebook pages like yours and others without knowing who I was looking at yeah and uh you know it took me some time before I realized oh that's Diane so yeah yeah she she still still looks pretty good she's close to my age she would have had to be 14 years old when Jackie when Debbie was born to be Debbie's mother uh yes I I do think it's amazing that uh she was she was 21 years old and uh um I and all the times I've seen the movie I never once questioned that that she that she was mature enough to be the mother of that little girl yeah um I think uh I think Hal was right uh to realize when you met her that she was uh that she was a star material and didn't belong in the ranks with the the nameless wives yeah yeah I she I didn't realize how young she was for some time after I'd seen the movie uh um because she I guess she uh just acted more mature in the movie she did though I I did realize that Hal was was pushing it to be her husband see he was about 25 years older than she was like he he made the right call though she was yeah she was the right girl for the job um yeah I think without her um um it would be a much more uh difficult movie to watch she's the only uh I think she played the only stable character in the movie and she did it she did it so believably let's see how this is looking doing the um doing the line work like this it always looks kind of like a kind of haunting for a while and zombie like yeah people without eyeballs and yeah uh this is how it works well uh brian I see um every time I see uh an event on uh the official manos fan club that jackie runs there at uh at facebook um it seems like uh your picture always shows up in the bunch you're you're everywhere yeah so um you're uh you're up for I think you said in one of our emails you're up for anything manos oh yeah pretty much I'm I'm I'm semi-retired at this point and uh and I have time to do silly things like this and and this is kind of this is kind of the legacy my father left me he didn't leave me else so uh so I've been having fun going to manos events and yeah yeah that's nice um I'm going to try to uh race through these uh these parts of the drawing here with the hat and the clothes and everything that require less detail mm-hmm so we can get on with it and get some color on here before uh before the full hours up I wanted to get get it done in an hour yeah um this is uh this is usually about how fast I work um even when I'm working without an audience but I am uh I am rushing here a bit of course when I'm not uh when I'm not doing a performance I'll I'll stop and leave things and uh sometimes for days or weeks at a time but um it's interesting how uh I started off as a as a caricaturist at uh at an amusement park in Houston and it's interesting how turning art into a performance affects your your art yeah um it uh I'm not sure how to describe it it makes you it makes you more efficient I guess it keeps you on edge uh I guess like any other kind of performance you hear anyone who's in any kind of performing or acting or singing or sports or whatever so when they're uh when they're in front of an audience when people are watching their performances tend to be uh tend to be uh some of their best work and it's true for artists as well mm-hmm it it uh for the most part it improves my art I think yeah um so anyway I um uh I do these uh I do these portraits let me look at what color your hair actually is here so your hair is light yeah kind of a graying sandy yeah I do these uh these portraits I I sell these portraits and part of the um part of the package is doing a a live recording like this if people want and uh giving them a not only do they get to uh see it live but they get a recording that they can uh that they can put on YouTube or is keep for themselves or whatever um it makes it more interesting yeah um what color are your eyes actually a blue kind of a steely blue okay okay I noticed Jackie Jackie tells me to uh talk about events I've been to for monos El Paso LA Seattle uh yeah I my wife and I went to the the rift tracks live show in Nashville as special guests we got free seats all we had to do was pay for the trip to get there but but that was a lot of fun there were several of us there were some of the original monos people and some of the uh monos the sequel people in the and and that was a lot of fun and really a big cake um and then uh okay in December of last year uh Jackie and I both went to the uh to Ben's showing of his restoration at the Hollywood International Film Festival and did a Q&A afterward and and so that was fun and it kind of amazed us uh how much better the the worst movie ever made looks like with restoration it is astonishing isn't it yeah in fact uh I told him not to make it look too good or it might lose its ranking as the worst movie ever made and he said oh he didn't think we had to worry about that but it really is amazing how how blue that little blue room was and yeah and you had no idea and how red uh Diane's hair was and you can't tell when you saw it on tv yeah yeah the the print they found was ahead doled with age quite a bit but yeah it's just amazing how how good the photography was how good the yeah the pictures actually came out but anyway this this year april of this year brian cook in portland restaged his uh stage play of monos which he had done a few years ago and he wrote it and added things to it and so i was there and i guess you know jackie was doing voice for jackie the puppet yeah debbie the puppet debbie was the puppet a a very large doll in the play in portland and jackie was in the sound room doing the voice for little debbie which was a switch on the original movie where somebody else a grown woman was doing the voice yeah for jackie that must have been strange that must have been because i did uh i talked with brian about that and i've talked with jackie as well but of course i haven't seen it uh and i'm having trouble picturing what that must have been like that's all kind of crazy yeah yeah and he's uh i guess he's going to have a dvd of it that's yeah that's what he's planning and and then in uh august and we all went to seattle ben was there jackie was there and i was there uh for uh uh racial jackson's uh monos the hands of pelt puppet play which was just just it was hilarious just uh they just had a lot of fun with monos i did get to see uh a video recording she had made of her previous production of that so uh so i do sort of know what what that was like but yeah you have been everywhere haven't you yeah i just all of monos around the country okay i'm gonna do i'm gonna try to slap on color here real fast okay it's um it's amazing how these um these uh these drawings will snap into three dimensions when you start putting the color on them i think you can start to see it happening already with the eyes yeah i'm gonna put a some gray blue eyes here steely blue eyes yeah put it yes piercing steely blue eyes for the the sheriff of alpasev county yeah well what's uh what's coming up do you have any plans to travel to any manless events or anything else for that matter i'm not at present time i'm just waiting to see what else comes but who's gonna do something else there were some people in chicago who did uh musical of monos and uh i think jackie's tried to get in touch with them and uh i i have from what i from what little i've read or heard about that it uh it it wasn't very well received uh as one can imagine uh which makes it fit the whole pattern i guess yeah i uh you mentioned it i do recall hearing about that uh they made it uh it was the one with had a poster with um all sorts of other uh all sorts of other retro movie restable references like ghostbusters and and stuff like is that the one you were thinking of i i don't recall seeing that i i don't know yeah i have i have a few pictures from it that i found on a website somewhere um so i've seen some pictures from the production thing that's about all i've seen and there have also been at least a couple of video games made of monos the um the guy who made the the um uh the 8-bit retro game the nintendo style game he was one of my interviews and uh he just completed when when i interviewed him he said that his next his next dream was to do a video game based on the angry video game nerd and uh the the nerd and his people saw his manos game and contacted him and actually asked him uh if he wanted to make a game and he said well i just happened to have this he'd already been working on it and uh it just um just this weekend became fully available and it is um right up there at the top of purchases for for the week on on steam who uh where it was officially released and right behind some of the biggest name uh biggest video game names and uh yeah it's just real pleasing to see he yeah it's pretty cool manos uh the hand of manos is far reaching yeah i notice uh jackie comments that she's talking with the creator of monos rock opera a fate on tuesday so maybe we'll hear more after that oh is that the rock opera fate is that what we were talking about yeah yeah yeah i think that's the one yeah yeah if they decide to restage that one i might have to make a trip to chicago or wherever they wherever they put it on what is this uh my delinium of yours look like that's gold yeah the little texas star which that belonged to my father so that's that so i could have something of his when i was uh shooting the scenes in the movie that's nice okay this is uh this is coming along nicely for uh as quick as it's been done yeah it's looking good what uh okay we're just about at the uh at the end of the hour i'll do a little bit more then we'll wrap things up okay this has been uh this has been nice i hope i get to uh opportunities to do more uh live art streams like this in the future yeah uh and this was a this was an easier an easier job than it often is because of the quality of the photo yeah i didn't have uh you know it was nice a large clear uh photo it's um it can be difficult when um you're limited on the photos that you can work with i'll show you what i mean in a minute um excuse me let's put a little bit of uh shading here let myself to uh a little bit of uh just a quick shading work mm-hmm it'll make uh it'll make quite a bit of difference just uh steven i hope um i hope it actually shows up on the on the on the live picture jackie says it does yeah looks good to me doing it this quickly doing it this quickly i always run the risk of overdoing it yeah so if if i do overdo it just keep in mind i'll correct plenty of time to correct it later okay let's take a look at the photo and see how the the shadow of the hat yeah you were saying earlier that you're feeling a bit congested yeah just had a cold and bronchitis for the last few days i think i'm getting over it now i have to go go to work at seven in the morning so you're going to work yeah that's right you said you're semi-retired yeah what is it you do well right now i'm driving to school bus about 32 hours a week i'm getting my social security so i i quit my other job my second job which was driving the bookmobile also long and saturdays during the school year oh bookmobile that's awesome yeah yeah it was a lot of fun but i decided after 14 summers spent doing that i'd like to have a little more free time to go to monos puppet plays things like that and that's that's great that's awesome this um putting in this shading here makes you look very serious yes well i'm the toughest sheriff in america nobody no matter what joe joe arpaio in phoenix says i like the hair a little bit darker i'm working a little bit too redheaded there a little bit of a bit of shading in the hair just these little bits just a few hints of of shade just one or two little hints of it can make make a huge difference yeah um this is pretty good this is coming up to that's looking really good i'll uh i'll do some finishing up work on the uh and it's going to need some more darker shadow up around the cap there and i'll even do a little bit of uh see how i can drop in a little bit of highlights here mm-hmm uh wanda says it's a very handsome sheriff yeah this is um uh this has been a real pleasure uh i want to thank you again for for uh participating that's uh uh interview was very uh informative and enjoyable this particular instance given me an opportunity to uh to show more of uh um to show more of what i do yeah you know i talk about my art quite a bit and i talk about my ideas about a graphic novel and everything but for people to actually see what i'm doing it's uh well it's it's enjoyable for me and uh i think it gives people a better idea what of uh what i'm doing what i had in mind was um putting the uh the two of you together and uh on a poster like this yeah and uh i can 11 by 17 size uh print okay yeah i'll uh i'll send that to you boy that that'll be really cool i really appreciate that yeah it's my pleasure it's been a great deal of fun but i'm noticing is how much younger he looks than i do because he was about 20 years younger when he made the movie and right that's amazing isn't it we are uh done i believe uh just the same i hope people enjoy watching what i was doing here and i certainly enjoyed uh hearing what you had to say this has been great fun i hope we can talk again i'm sure i'm certain that we'll run into each other at some point i think it's unavoidable yes we're in the hands of fate now yes we are okay all right um i'm going to uh i'm going to stop the uh the video feed here in just a second those of you who are who are watching on the chat thank you for coming it was nice seeing you all here and i hope you enjoyed it i'm going to be turning off the uh video stream here in a second and uh brian and i will talk on uh on skype uh okay good night everybody good night well listeners that's it for this special video episode of talk to the hand at almost a full hour it is our longest here's a look at the completed drawing with some finishing work and some touch-ups on the color my thanks again to brian jennings this was a great fun be sure to look for the next episode of talk to the hand i'm not sure when that will be you can follow me for news at recastingmanos.com or at talktomanos.tumblr.com talk to the hand also has a page on facebook all guests have talked to the hand understand that the conversation has been reported that it will be edited for time and content and that it will be made available to the public through the internet with a creative commons license thank you see you next time