“YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP. DAMN YOU. GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!”
-Captain George Taylor
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MAD: Hunter, it’s great to speak with you again today and thanks for agreeing to this short discussion! There’s a lot to talk about, but first off, I’d like to start out with your love of classic Sci-Fi, and in particular, the unforgettable and iconic PLANET OF THE APES franchise. You’ve hosted a website devoted to POTA for many years, as well as social media pages. With KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES coming out next month, I have to ask: When did your love for this monumental series first come about?
HUNTER: Thanks for inviting me!
My first exposure to Planet of the Apes was seeing Conquest of the Planet of the Apes at the drive-in. We didn’t go to see a lot of movies when I was a kid, but my mom took us to the drive-in at least a couple of times. Why we went to see Conquest (with the opening film Frogs!), I’ll never know, but I’m glad we did! This was probably 1973, when I was nine. I’m pretty sure it was a second run of the film. Soon after that, I saw the other films when they aired on CBS. By the time the series came around in 1974, I was a complete Apes nut.
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MAD: For nearly 60 years now POTA has been an enduring and beloved franchise. From several excellent films and reboots, to television and comic books, countless toys and miles and miles of merchandising and marketing. It’s a multi-billion dollar “Ape-Mania” empire, yet it’s also something with a certain kind of special effects magic, as well as hefty social commentary. In your opinion, what are some of the reasons for the continued social relevancy and longevity behind PLANET OF THE APES?
HUNTER: I think it’s a combination of those very things you listed: the prosthetic makeup was extremely convincing---rather, the actors under the amazing prosthetics made you believe that these were evolved apes. There was the whole idea of the first film---the Sci-Fi concept of landing on a distant planet, the horror of seeing humans being hunted for the sport, the mystery surrounding where they were and what was going to happen. It was a very effective hook to get audiences involved in the story, and then, of course, the amazing ending.
But with all of that, the social commentary has helped keep the films relevant. Most people seem to see the racial commentary of the first film, but there’s a lot more than that. The series touches on war, class, government overreach, and so much more.
There’s a lot of there there. There’s a lot more to the films than just great effects and a twist ending.
MAD: Many people might not be aware, but PLANET OF THE APES was originally released as a novel by French author Pierre Boulle in 1963, which was known as MONKEY PLANET in the UK. I’ve never read the book, but was wondering how that version holds up against the film version(s)?
HUNTER: I recommend that you read it. I love the book, but it’s not the film. There are lots of reasons the film ended up being so different from the book, but I think this is an example of the rare case where a film is better than the book, as with Jaws. Although it’s kind of hard to say the Planet of the Apes film is better than Boulle’s novel. Instead, I think that a film true to the book would not have had the impact that the finished film had. I don’t want to spoil the book, but Boulle’s novel is not set on Earth, the ape culture is much more advanced, with cars and planes, and the social commentary comes across differently. But it’s a very good read, as long as you aren’t expecting it to be the movies.
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MAD: As stated, there have been a wide variety of toys dedicated to POTA (both licensed and unlicensed), as well as comic books and various other forms of media. Are you a collector, and if so, do you have any “prized possessions” from POTA (or prized Sci-Fi possessions in general)?
HUNTER: I love how much merchandise, both licensed and unlicensed, was created for Planet of the Apes. A lot of people talk about Star Wars kicking all of that off, but Planet of the Apes did it years before.
I had very little Apes stuff as a kid, but I treasured my Mego figures, my Village playet, my trading cards, the Marvel magazines, and the Cornelius and Zaius models I had. I knew about some of the other merchandise at the time, but ten-year-olds don’t have disposable income, so what I knew about was out of reach. By the time I was an adult with disposable income, I’d moved on to other things, so I never felt the urge to try to collect everything. But I do love certain items, and when I discovered eBay in its early days, I discovered just how much stuff there’d been.
I didn’t go nuts, but I did use eBay to replace my Mego figures that hadn’t survived childhood, and I also bought the lunchbox and trash cans, which I never had but always wanted. Those are now among my “prized possessions,” along with an actual chunk of Ape City that a friend sent to me from a visit to what used to be the Fox Ranch.
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MAD: What’s your favorite film from the original series? I’d have to go with BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES from 1970. I still own the original series of films on VHS, haha.
HUNTER: That’s an example of my non-collecting. I’ve owned the movies on most every media: VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-ray, but I got rid of the previous formats each time I upgraded. Who had space for all of that? But fortunately, other people did and do, so thanks to fans like Tim Parati, my Apes website has scans of all of those different home video releases.
As for my favorite film, the first one is my favorite. It works beautifully as a standalone film, which it was originally, of course. But I enjoy all of the sequels, too, and if pressed to pick one, it would be Conquest on most days, Escape on the others.
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MAD: What are your thoughts on the Tim Burton reboot from 2001? Likewise, are you a fan of the current film series? Are you a fan of the CGI, or are you more of an old school practical effects guy?
HUNTER: What is this “Tim Burton reboot” you refer to? No, I’m not a fan of that abomination. I don’t like what little bit of story it has, I don’t like the attempts at humor. Rick Baker’s makeup effects were pretty amazing, despite being very rushed, but I hated the Burton-dictated makeups for the female apes. The biggest problem, I think, is that it wasn’t a Tim Burton movie. It was a Fox movie made to meet a deadline, and Burton was the first director they could find who would say yes to meeting the deadline they’d set. (I know this from conversations I had with Frank Darabont, who was also approached by Fox. He agreed to direct if he could write his own script, but Fox had already announced the release date and weren’t interested in a better script.)
I like the current film series. They’re not Planet of the Apes, but I like them for what they are. The CGI is amazing, and War, in particular, was spectacular. But as impressive as the CGI is, I find the original prosthetic makeups---and Rick Baker’s from the film-that-doesn’t-exist---to be much more engaging. You can tell they’re real. No matter how good the CGI is, you know while you’re watching it that it’s CGI, and that detracts from the movie-going experience, IMO.
I look forward to the new film, but I’m not eagerly waiting for it, if you know what I mean.
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MAD: Shifting gears a little bit, but let’s talk for a second about Rod Serling, who is usually credited with writing that iconic twist ending with the Statue of Liberty in the original film, as well coming up with countless drafts for the screenplay. There is some debate as to how the original ending came about. What credit would you give to Rod Serling for bringing this franchise to life? Likewise, what’s your favorite TWILIGHT ZONE episode?
HUNTER: From everything I’ve read, Serling definitely deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the ending, which definitely has a Twilight Zone feel. In fact, the same ending was used in a Twilight Zone episode. But I think Michael Wilson was responsible for how the ending actually played out.
But in my opinion, the real hero of the franchise writers is Paul Dehn. People can nitpick all day about the sequels, but Paul did the impossible three times. How can you make a sequel when you’ve destroyed the earth? Go back in time. How do you make a sequel after the bleak events of Escape. He figured out a way. And while the timelines and events don’t make a lot of realistic sense, they do provide explanations for everything, even if there’s a lot of hand-waving over details.
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MAD: On the subject of the TWILIGHT ZONE, you’re a friend of the master horror author Robert R. McCammon, who worked on TZ in the 80’s. McCammon is also how you and I first “met” over a decade ago, through his website forum. You handle a big chunk of Mr. McCammon’s fan correspondence through social media, as well as news of upcoming releases. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you first come in contact with Robert R. McCammon, and when did you become his “liaison”, so to speak?
HUNTER: You’re going to regret asking that.
I read my first Robert McCammon novel when I discovered They Thirst on a spinner rack in a Hallmark store. I was a huge Stephen King fan at the time, but was starting to branch out to other authors, and that original, lurid Avon cover caught my attention. I was blown away by They Thirst, and to date, it remains the only book I’ve read that sparked a nightmare (one of those everyone’s-a-vampire-but-me dreams).
For whatever reason, I didn’t find any more of McCammon’s work (I hadn’t learned how to scour used bookstores for older titles), but when I spotted the paperback edition of Mystery Walk on my college bookstore shelf, I remembered the name and couldn’t buy it fast enough. As much as I liked They Thirst, I thought Mystery Walk was even better. That’s when I started looking for McCammon’s earlier three novels, and I loved them all. So much so that after finding his address in an issue of Publishers Weekly, I wrote to him to tell him, and I received a nice reply telling me about the upcoming release of Usher’s Passing.
Fast forward a few more years, and I had read Swan Song and Stinger, and I had a new favorite author. I was collecting the few short fiction pieces I could find, and at that time, McCammon was showing up in a bunch of different places. Taking my cue from Castle Rock, the Stephen King newsletter, I thought that there should be a McCammon newsletter to help people find his work. I discussed the idea with Dave Hinchberger, who knew McCammon, and he mentioned it to McCammon, and I got word back that he was open to the idea. Even though I knew nothing about writing and publishing a newsletter, I wrote a letter directly to McCammon pitching my idea, and a couple of weeks later, in October 1988, he called me to discuss it and gave his approval. I then spent a few weeks learning how to use TeX and writing macros to help me typeset a newsletter.
A business trip in January 1989 gave me an opportunity to layover in Birmingham, and I got to spend part of the day and evening with McCammon and his wife. I interviewed him for what was to be the first issue of Lights Out! which I published in July 1989. In all, I published six issues of Lights Out! over a two-year period (and across two moves and three different cities). During that time, McCammon and I became good friends.
When the World Wide Web was created, I was already on the internet, and I set up a website devoted to McCammon and other authors whose work I admired. During that time, McCammon retired from publishing for ten years, but when Speaks the Nightbird was published in 2001, he asked if I would be interested in building and running RobertMcCammon.com, and I’ve done so for the past 23 years. When MySpace started, I created a McCammon page there, then Facebook, then Twitter, then Instagram. McCammon doesn’t do social media, so I became his social media presence, with his permission.
If you had told 17-year-old me buying They Thirst off that rack that I would become friends with the author and help with promoting his work, I’d have never believed you. But it happened, we’re still good friends, and I still voluntarily do what I can to keep the fans informed.
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MAD: Wow! I had no idea you had been with McCammon since, basically, the beginning! There are so many excellent and classic works by Robert McCammon. What are your personal favorites? I feel like THE FIVE and THE BORDER are extremely underrated. I also really hope we get another follow-up to Michael Gallatin’s story some day.
HUNTER: I agree that both The Five and The Border are very underrated. My personal favorites are Boy’s Life and Speaks the Nightbird. I got to read Boy’s Life in manuscript form, and it blew me away. It also hit me at the right time in my life to make a huge emotional impact, and it remains my favorite novel by any author. The same can be said for Speaks the Nightbird, and if I didn’t have the emotional connection to Boy’s Life, it would be my favorite book. I think both books are masterpieces.
People might think I’m biased, but I’m a big fan of all of McCammon’s work. The first three books are the least of his work---he has said that he learned to write in public---but those books are still better than most of the horror fiction being published in the late 1970s. From They Thirst on, I think there is no one better.
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MAD: Can you give us a little insight into what’s coming up next in the McCammon-verse? There’s been some exciting news of TV adaptations recently!
HUNTER: I just found out yesterday that Robert McCammon has finished writing Leviathan, the last Matthew Corbett book, and I’m eagerly looking forward to reading it.
Filming is taking place now for Teacup, a Peacock series inspired by Stinger. From everything I’ve seen and read, those words “inspired by” are critical, because I don’t think it’s going to be very recognizable to fans of Stinger. But I hope it’s a good series, and it’s already leading to more interest in McCammon’s work.
The other recent announcement concerns a TV adaptation of Swan Song, produced by Greg Nicotero and others. It’s very early days for that project, but my fingers are crossed that it’s a faithful adaptation. I know that all of the producers behind love the book, so we’ll see.
There are a couple of other adaptations of short stories in the works, including an announced feature film He’ll Come Knocking, based on “He’ll Come Knocking at Your Door.” I don’t know that the status of that is.
And while Matthew Corbett’s story will end with the publication of Leviathan, I know of at least three other books that McCammon plans to write in the coming years, and I really look forward to those.
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MAD: Hunter, thanks so much again for taking some time with us. It is always a pleasure speaking with you. In close, are there any parting words you would like to leave the readers with today?
HUNTER: Thanks for your interest in what I have to say, and I hope my McCammon history wasn’t too long or boring. I run several websites, and I encourage fans of any of these to visit them.
Planet of the Apes – https://pota.goatley.com/
King Kong 1976 -- https://kong.goatley.com/
Robert McCammon – https://www.robertmccammon.com/
George C. Chesbro – https://www.dangerousdwarf.com/
Rick Hautala – https://www.rickhautala.com/
Ray Garton (RIP) – https://www.raygartononline.com/
Enjoy!
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Michael A. Dyer is the host of the HORROR TO CULTURE podcast and website.
Hunter Goatley runs several websites and forums dedicated to classic science fiction, and is the go-to resource for anything involving the novelist Robert R. McCammon.
