Hey, all, happy carnaval! I'm even more excited to get all your lovely cards than I am to cover myself in glitter and go dance in the streets! Without further ado:
u/slavkan12 I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis - I have it too and it can be horrible! Wearing a night guard every day does help so so much, so I hope you see some improvement soon. I forgot to take mine to my getaway at mum's and by the time I left I was incredibly creaky and pained! Since I'm back home, it's subsided. Hopefully by now you're already wearing yours? Hope you're feeling well!
u/PinkPengin Your card made me tear up and giggle! You know when you're at a museum and almost bored, trying to be interested, but then something captures your eye and you stand there, enraptured and overwhelmed? And it's especially nice when there's this non cynical humor to it you just get? That's what it feels like to be your friend! Awesome, awe-inspiring, moving! I thought it was so so so sweet how you remembered quoted my silly title. I'm honoured you are my friend as well. Very much so.
u/AppleCritter723 (x3) THREE? Three cards already?! You are on fire! So, first: The stylish cappy! It makes me think of those Victorian romances where people faint all the time and need smelling salts and I giggled so much! I actually read "dressing gowns" as "depressing gowns", at first, and laughed even more! I'm still sorry Legends & Lattes didn't quite hit the spot for you, tho.
I chortled at the cat card because J. once made the misguided gesture of sending me something paced in sandy wood chips and I spent three months cursing him and cleaning compulsively because you just know who immediately jumped into it and spread it around!
You also did not need to send me a thank you card at all (and how is it here already?!) , but I love it and Snoopy (a beagle, like Nice!) and the aurora borealis! Such a nice shade of teal, it's very goldilocks! Not too dark, not too light, not too green, not too blue... Just right! Everything you wrote was perfect and thoughtful and moving and aaah! I can't even thank your thanks properly.
A broad stroke: I love how smug mullet hedgie came out, I'm super stoked for Ten (and NPH?!) to make an appearance and need to catch up as well, goiabada is candied guava (you basically cook them down with sugar), I love that you can make carrot cakes more often now... Both you and E. were wrong, by the way, and I'm disappointed in both. It's not a charizard, it's a dragonite! XD And hey, I sniff paper too. Better than glue! Curious who got the narsil and who got the stormtroooper! But really, thank you. You are the best.
u/PeonyNote My days start early too - isn't it lovely when it's quiet, but starting to get light and warm out and you can hear the birds? Give your gran a hug from me and I hope the house stuff is settled. I also always love seeing your posts and they brighten my days considerably!
u/mumbagoespainting I loved your crafty lighthouse card and even more that you had a connection to it! Was your trip to the beach enjoyable and restful? My aunt has akways said that salt water washes away bad energies and recharges our emotional batteries! Thanks!
u/sasar-a (x2) I'm very intrigued by Acts of Violet and House of Hollow! I actually use my "complete works of Edgar Allan Poe" as a "desk" whenever I feel like writing from the couch instead of my desk! haha Now I have a better idea of your tastes, I might recommend you a couple others. Thank you so much for the pineapple (my favourite fruit!) card as well! And the book review (?) page you used as an envelope was super lovely!
u/thecaledonianrose Thank you for sending love, I hope you get it back threefold! I'm also always happy when I see your replies on the channel. You've won my eternal loyalty by sending tea, as well!
u/Quiet_Girl7982 Thank you for the Helen Keller card! My grandma (who also lost her eyesight later in life) was a huge fan and I've always had a soft spot for her, such a fascinating and undercelebrated figure! I also enjoyed the valentines trivia.

Our group just started playing Delta Green, so I thought I'd do a play report of the first session and how it went. The campaign begins on Saturday, April 2, 2005.
(My players are new to Delta Green and will likely read this, so please avoid spoilers in the comments when possible.)
​
The cast:
Professor Cyrius R. MacDougel: Cyrius grew up in England and immigrated to the US as a child after the mysterious death of his mother. In addition to working at the IOSS (the Investigations & Operations Support Section of the FBI), he also teaches as a professor at Georgetown University in DC. Syrius is a largely unlikeable person with underdeveloped social skills whose only real friends are his drinking buddies and the bartender at his favorite haunt.
Dr. Bethany Grey: After gaining her medical degree, Dr. Grey followed a research path, eventually landing at the IOSS as a medical examiner. She's a relatively unkempt woman who spends her free time either at the gym or at home with her two cats.
Miriharu Asuka: Miriharu joined the IOSS after her promising career in the Air Force was cut short after an encounter with an unidentified flying object. The incident claimed the lives of three of her fellow pilots, including her fiancé, and saw Miriharu grounded for the remainder of her tour. Short and all business, she works as a case handler, managing informants for the continually unfolding war on terror.
Earl J. Meghouse: Despite being Miriharu's partner at the IOSS, Earl is just about her opposite in every way. Hailing from the deep south, his love of explosives and 'rough around the edges' mannerisms (and mullet) saw him wash out of the CIA, only to earn him a spot at the FBI (most likely due to people at the CIA pulling some strings). He gets along with just about everyone, including his ex-wife.
Lt. James Carver: Carver is, surprisingly, not employed with the IOSS, instead serving as a liaison between the FBI and the Army in the war on terror. An orphan who got into bad situations in his youth, Carver eventually turned his life around by pouring his energy into working out and frequent gym visits, which has resulted in a heavily muscled physique. His military career has taken him all the way to the heights of SOCOM, a prestigious appointment that accurately reflects his talents and skills.
​
Operational Report: Everyone arrived to work on the morning of April 2nd, 2005, to find the J. Edgar Hoover building surrounded by paramedics and firefighters. After finally being allowed to enter, McDougal, Grey, Asuka, and Meghouse were called to the office of Assistant Director Charles Hatchett, a stern man who is best described as "a ugly fish wearing glasses and a tailored suit."
Hatchett told the agents that one of their employees - Clyde Baughman, an agent assigned to the archives - set fire to those same archives that morning, just before killing himself. The whole situation was spiraling out of control, and Hatchett wanted his own people handling the investigation. To that end, he assigned the four agents to the case, asking them to determine why Baughman killed himself, and why he started the fire.
Dr. Grey asked or access to some additional files on Baughman to help with the investigation but was quickly denied by Hatchett, claiming that they weren't relevant. Fortunately, Meghouse spoke up and convinced Hatchett to give him access to the files. Leaving his office, the group decided to split up, with Dr. Grey and Prof. MacDougel heading to the archives while Asuka and Meghouse went back to their cubicles to look through the records.
Grey and MacDougel moved past the police with their ID badges, they caught the attention of Lt. Carver, whose office had been temporarily commandeered for use during the crisis. Seeing the agents getting past security, he nonchalantly fell in behind them, gaining access to the archives.
Baughman's body was still seated in his chair, gun in his lap and brains decorating the back wall. The scent of smoke hung in the air, and the back part of the archives was covered in flame-retardant foam. Dr. Grey examined the body and determined that it was, in fact, a suicide, and a fairly textbook one at that.
MacDougel, seemingly more interested in the fire (or perhaps not wanting to spend any time around the body), examined the area that had been lit on fire. The fire was started with lighter fluid in a wastebasket and seemed to have destroyed a few boxes of files, but strangely, one of the file boxes that should have been there was missing. Stranger still, the box's contents were only listed as "miscellaneous," though there was a steady log of Baughman and some other agents checking it out.
Lt. Carver watched the investigation unobtrusively from a distance, arms crossed over his chest as he took in the scene and made his own private assumptions about what was going on.
Meghouse and Asuka, meanwhile, looked into Baughman's file on Meghouse's computer. Baughman had been assigned to the archives alongside three Special Agents - Noah Rathborn, Arthur Donnelley, and Makayla Croston - but all three of them had recently passed away. Rathborn and Croston had been killed in a fire in San Franciso on February 24th, though the report had been flagged by the FBI due to there being no justification for why the two agents were actually in San Francisco.
Agent Donnelley, meanwhile, had killed himself a week later in Meadowbrook, Maryland. His cause of death was listed as suicide, and it was assumed that he was grieving for his former coworkers, but some of the facts about the case were odd. Most notably, he had killed himself in an abandoned house that was apparently part of an investigation, and the justification for that investigation was incredibly thin. The real red flag came when Meghouse noticed that the house's former owner had killed herself in the exact same way a year and a half earlier, in the same room.
On a hunch, Meghouse decided that he wanted to check out Baughman's search history, so he and Asuka made their way to the archives. After the dead agent's corpse had been removed, Meghouse grabbed a different chair and set in to crack the agent's password... which was conveniently written on a yellow sticky note attached to the bottom of the monitor. Everyone (including Lt. Carver) gathered around him as he searched through the computer. Amidst all the various data, what stood out the most were searches for a septic tank, along with an e-receipt, dated a few years prior. Baughman's home address was in the city, which made everyone wonder just why he might have needed a septic tank. The delivery address on the receipt suggested that it had been delivered to a cabin in Virginia, so the group decided to investigate further.
Asuka and MacDougel both requisitioned cars and standard protective gear, with the plan that Asuka and Dr. Grey would take the first car to the cabin, with Meghouse and MacDougel waiting in DC in case the team needed something looked up online or, more likely, in case they needed to rent a backhoe to excavate the septic tank. Upon overhearing the discussion about how much weaponry they should bring - Asuka only requisitioned a single shotgun - Lt. Carver volunteered his assistance, since his office was filled with file boxes saved from the fire, thus ensuring that he wouldn't be doing any work today anyways.
Asuka, Grey, and Carver set out for the cabin, arriving a few hours later. There was some concern that taking the car off-road up on the gravel path toward the cabin would be too difficult, but Asuka was able to make in work. The cabin in question was seemingly normal, only a single story. Lt. Carver scouted the area and determined that nobody had been there in a few days, and upon finding the door locked, he decided to shoulder-rush it to bust it open.
This proved to be a disastrously bad idea, as the door had apparently been reinforced. The attempt only succeeded in dislocating Carver's shoulder, and Dr. Grey's attempts to "pop it back in" only served to exacerbate the situation and cause more pain. Asuka fired two rounds into the door lock, hoping to destroy it, but with little success. Realizing that she was aiming incorrectly, Carver waved her off, used the door to roughly reset his shoulder, and then used the shotgun to blow the lock away.
The interior of the cabin was fairly normal and boring, save for a military tote box which, upon inspection, held the missing file box from the FBI archives! Its contents were strange, to say the least: files on the house in which Special Agent Donnelley had killed himself, a copy of a research paper with a handwritten note reading "possible hypergeometric markers" that none of those present could make heads or tails of, a can of Deep Woods Off, a file containing numerous newspaper clippings regarding an escalation of arsons in San Francisco and strange burn patterns in the file that killed Special Agents Rathborn and Croston, a file filled with printouts from "morethanmemories.net," a message board about people with amnesia discussing shared dreams about cone-shaped beings, and a paperback book about coping with anxiety.
Asuka sent some text messages to MacDougel, informing him that they had found the missing box and letting them know about its contents. Surprisingly, MacDougel knew about the house where SA Donnelley had killed himself; it was something of a curiosity in occult circles, as it was tied to a long line of murders going back to the early 1900s and was largely considered to be haunted. Meghouse was interested in the "morethanmemories.net" files and found the website online, along with the posts specified in the screenshots. He wasn't about to find much more information about the website or its users, but his curiosity had definitely been piqued.
As Carver and Grey looked through the files at the cabin, Asuka checked the back yard and noticed a shed and outhouse. She and Lt. Carver went to investigate, and on the way, caught sight of the septic tank, which was sitting exposed in a large pit. There were two hatches leading into the septic tank, one on the top and one at "ground level,' and both were padlocked. Asuka called for Dr. Grey and borrowed one of her hairpins, then climbed to the top of the septic tank with Lt. Carver. While Carver provided cover with his carbine, she opened the hatch and peered down inside as best she could.
There were sloshing sounds, and then a naked, middle-aged woman with discolored skin shuffled into view. Her hair was falling out in clumps, and Asuka could see that her fingers were bloodied and that the flesh on her legs had sloughed away from the bone. The woman called up for help, claiming that her name was Mary Baughman, and that her husband had locked her down there for "a long time."
Asuka immediately dialed 911 and was informed that an ambulance would be there in 20 minutes. She called Dr. Grey up to the top of the tank, as the woman clearly needed first aid, and then looked back down at her. Something about the way the woman was moving seemed strange to Asuka, and she sent a text message to McDougal (with 911 still on the line) asking him to confirm whether or not Baughman had been married. In her moment of distraction, the woman somehow leapt fifteen feet straight up, grabbing onto the hatch of the septic tank. Asuka panicked and tried to bash her hands with the butt of her shotgun but missed and only hit the steel rim.
Mary pulled herself up out of the tank, her flesh sloughing away from her back to expose discolored muscles and bone. Lt. Carver put a bullet in her arm, jerking her back a bit, and Dr. Grey drew her pistol and fired at the woman, but the shot went wild and nearly hit Asuka. Mary, for her part, threw herself at Carver, her bone-fingers carving deep gouges into the flesh of his left arm.
Realizing that the top of the septic tank had become extremely dangerous, Asuka turned and leapt to the ground but landed roughly, collapsing into a heap. Dr. Grey followed after her and fortunately landed on her feet. Asuka shouted directions at Dr. Grey, telling her to get to the car as she scrambled to her feet and beeped the doors open with her key fob.
Lt. Carver struggled with Mary atop the septic tank and managed to shove her off the side opposite the two FBI agents. She regained her feet with alarming speed and took after the two fleeing agents, quickly gaining on them. He put two bullets into her legs, slowing her down long enough for Asuka and Grey to get into the car. Asuka quickly started the car and wheeled it around, driving right into Mary and hitting her with the left front side. Much to her surprise, she heard the sound of screeching metal as Mary grabbed onto the bumper of the car and ripped it off before stumbling back to her feet.
Carver put another bullet in Mary's chest, and Asuka shifted into reverse, slamming the car back into Mary as she staggered from the gunshot. Somehow, the horribly injured woman was still able to stand, and grinning widely, she charged toward the retreating car, her fingers puncturing the metal of the hood and tearing deep furrows in its surface. The horror finally ended as Carver put a bullet in the back of Mary's head, splattering the car's windshield with bone and brain matter.
In the aftermath, Dr. Grey attempted to treat Lt. Carver's injured arm, the wounds were just too deep and severe for her to do much beyond preventing infection. Exhausted and in a great deal of pain as the adrenaline started to wear off, he slumped against the side of the cabin to wait for the ambulance to arrive.
Asuka's phone beeped at her, and she checked her messages to find one sent by MacDougel: apparently, Baughman had indeed been married, but his wife Mary had died of cancer in 2002. Asuka replied, letting him know that they had found her, and that she had attacked them and was now dead. Feeling shaken about about the whole encounter, she decided to check the shed, which was locked. Fearing another ambush, she called Dr. Grey over and both peeked into the dusty window, confirming that the only thing in the shed seemed to be a makeshift office.
Asuka picked the lock, and they went inside to find eight containers of gasoline and a desk with a typewriter. The paper in the machine was ostensibly written by Baughman himself, warning anyone reading it to dump the gasoline into the septic tank and burn whatever is inside without investigating further. Both agents sighed at having found a crucial piece of information a few minutes too late.
As they waited for the ambulance, Dr. Grey inspected Mary's corpse and confirmed that she had been dead for at least a few hours. She took some samples for future testing. The ambulance then arrived and took Lt. Carver to a nearby hospital. Asuka and Dr. Grey waited for the local police to arrive and take possession of Mary's corpse. They then returned to DC, arriving just as the work day was coming to a close. Dr. Grey went to her lap to run some initial tests of the samples she took from Mary, but only succeeded in confirming that she had been dead for years. She sent some additional samples away for further FBI testing in case they were infected with a contagion or other hazardous substance.
Everyone took some time to compare notes and discuss what happened. Eventually, it was decided that they just didn't know enough to make a final report, and that what happened to Baughman seemed to be tied to the recent deaths of his partners. The choice thus came down to San Francisco or Maryland, and with one of those options being on the other side of the country, they decided that looking into the death of Special Agent Donnelley was the most prudent avenue.
As they waited for the paperwork to be approved, everyone took a few days to catch up on paperwork and make preparations. Dr. Grey felt that she had failed the team with her poor marksmanship and decided to skip her regular gym time in order to log some more hours at the firing range. Lt. Carver was also absent at the gym, as he chose to focus on revisiting his reconnaissance training, pouring over training manuals to ensure that he wouldn't be caught off guard again.
Asuka chose to cancel her weekend visit the parents of her deceased fiancé in favor of taking her car out to empty parking lots to practice her driving skills: tight turns at high speed, screeching tires and the smell of burning rubber. Meghouse, meanwhile, chose to blow off some steam by heading out into the woods with a case of cordite to blow of some old trees... much to the displeasure of his ex-wife.
Professor MacDougel, however, was fascinated by the stories told to him by the 'field team' and decided to research Mary and her condition further. He pulled the laboratory results and looked into all manner of "zombie" stories, from folk stories to suspicious police reports in the Maryland/Virginia area. This newfound interest affected his teaching career when he changed a planned lecture from the Peloponnesian War to the burial practices of the Greek colony of Kamarina and how they pinned corpses down with heavy rocks during burial to keep them from rising from the dead. His students were amused at the possibility of ancient zombies in togas; the administration, less so.

I went through all of Scru's ERB reactions to list every "Don Demarco" he gave, which indicates a dirty diss or clever rhyme. I also included variations or lines that can count since some are less clear.
Bolded rappers are Scru's winners for the battle if he said it
Italics indicate Don Demarco wasn't explicit but possible (notes in parentheses)
*asterisk for lines highlighted in the video's preview, italicized if they weren't a Don Demarco or crossed out if meant as the opposite of one
*double asterisk means the DD is from the revisit, **triple asterisk means it was in both videos
John Lennon vs Bill O'Reilly:
Well, you can't buy me love, but I'll kick your ass for free.* (far from a Don Demarco, just shown in intro)
I'll take Maxwell's silver hammer and give you a lobotomy!* (laughed at how bad it was)
Ten-thousand-dollar shoes I used to stomp out a Beatle! (only line near a DD, but he didn't have enough for it to count)
Darth Vader vs Hitler: (winner uncertain)
Only said "So many dudes been with your mom, who even knows if I'm your father?" was a meaty gut punch, but the craziest line was "You need to wash up, dawg; here, step in my shower!" (no intro since he did the whole trilogy, and Hitler vs Vader 3 was the preview)
Abe Lincoln vs Chuck Norris:
My raps will blow your mind like a verbal John Wilkes Booth.
Possible Don Demarcos: (video skipped some of Chuck's last verse)
I've spread more blood and gore than 40 score of your puny Civil Wars, bitch!* (Scru said it was a great rhyme pattern, but it cut out before he finished so it may count)
You may have freed the slaves, but Chuck is everyone's master! (just speculation since it's the only line left to potentially get it)
Sarah Palin vs Lady Gaga:
A transvestite with a keyboard trying to be freak of the year!*
I've seen those outfits you've been wearing: that takes big balls!
Governor of Alaska? That's like the principal of a home school.
With the most dysfunctional family since the Jackson fucking Five!
Go back to your igloo. Spend some time with your kids before they're pregnant.
Hulk Hogan and Macho Man vs Kim Jong-il:
The Macho Man, there is no equal, so spend less time rapping and start feeding your people!*
Justin Bieber vs Beethoven:
Bieber is the only rapper to get a "Non Demarco" with:
Look what the cat dragged back from the dead!*
Man, it looks like Chewbacca wiped his ass on your head!*
You wanna be a little white Usher? Here, show them to their seats!
Albert Einstein vs Stephen Hawking:
So take a seat, Steve. Oop! I see you brought your own.
You sound like WALL-E having sex with a Speak & Spell!
I'm as dope as two rappers! You better be scared!*
'Cause that means Albert E equals MC squared!* (Scru screamed "Ahhh!" to the mic)
I'm the giant whose shoulders you'd have stood on, if you could stand! (first time only the first line of a rhyme got it)
Your mama took the ugly ones and put them into one nerd!
Genghis Khan vs Easter Bunny:
You're not in the bible!*
You're a fluffy bitch mascot for Hallmark in denial!*
Napoleon Bonaparte vs Napoleon Dynamite:
I'll rip your bones apart, Bonaparte! Turn your horse into glue!
You're not even tall enough to ride!*
Ugh! I don't even care how many, like, stupid Prussians you've killed,*
'Cause to me, you're just the emperor of the lollipop guild!*
You're the only type of dynamite that's never going to bang!
Billy Mays vs Ben Franklin:
Call me Arthur Miller, son, 'cause it's death of a salesman! (borderline Demarco until Scru realized it referenced his irl death after it was recreated in the battle)
'Cause I'm mint; I'm money! I'm an educated gentleman,*
So join or die, Bill, 'cause it's all about the Benjamin!* (would be a DD if it had a diss)
Gandalf vs Dumbledore:
Your ass is like Gringotts: everyone makes a deposit!*
We all know you've more than a boggart in your closet!*
Mines of Moria? Ha! More like Mind of Mencia!
I'll expecto my patronum on your face, you little snitch!
Dr. Seuss vs Shakespeare:
I'll put a slug between your shoulder blades,*
Then ask what light through yonder poser breaks?*
(Scru admits he slept on a few Don Demarcos, but he initially didn't think one stood out so he retroactively gave it to the verse since it deserves 1 or 2, but not 3)
Mr. T vs Mr. Rogers:
I like you just the way you are, one in a million,*
But it looks like the barber gave your head a Brazilian.*
And your Mr. McFeely delivers a lot more than letters! (only got a "Don" in case Mr. McFeely actually did this to tie into the diss, but it wouldn't count since it was just a gay joke)
How 'bout I call up CPS about them kids on your lap, fool!
Christopher Columbus vs Captain Kirk:
I…hear you call yourself an explorer, but I'm just not having it.*
You…discovered a new world that was already inhabited!*
First round could've had Don Demarcos after his opening line, but Scru said the impression was so heavy it made the flow wonky, and the finishing line could've had it too
Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD:
Then leak to YouTube your middle name is Alexis!
I can tell you're scared just from the body language I'm reading.*
You should start leaving. Look, your hairline's already retreating!*
You've got as much music talent as Chuck fucking Norris!
You were nothing before you rode up on KassemG's jock! (possibly went harder than a Demarco since Scru didn't count them by that point because it was more like a mudfight)
Season 1 Total: 27 (12 possible), 1.8 (or 2.6) average over 15 battles
Most Don Demarcos: Albert Einstein vs Stephen Hawking; Einstein had the most with 4
Hitler vs Vader 2: (winner uncertain, only mentioned Hitler had more passion in his bars to make them hit harder)
Brain-toss your ass in the air: Yahtzee!
Now you're 6' 6" and black, but can't get a date!
Master Chief vs Leonidas:
Jerking off to games, giving themselves first person shooters!
You got a bad case of no shirt there, Fabio Flintstone.*
Your whole plan got messed up by a hunchback with Down syndrome!*
Mario Bros vs Wright Bros:
Before us, people only used to fly in balloons!*
You think we're scared of two idiots addicted to shrooms?
Why don't you's get back in your biplane and make out with each other?
Michael Jackson vs Elvis Presley:
Here's a tip: don't swallow a bucket of drugs,*
So you won't die on the toilet dropping hunks of Burning Love!*
Call me Ed Sullivan, shoot you from the waist up! (so good that he stuttered the Don Demarco)
'Cause all you wanna do is teach kids the birds and the bees!
I stole from black culture. Why are you offended?
How you gonna talk about the birds and the bees when you met your own wife when she was only fourteen? (also punched pillow)
Cleopatra vs Marilyn Monroe: (seems confirmed to be Monroe in Top 10 ERB Performances for being 9th while Cleopatra was 10th)
Even Joe DiMaggio took a swing in your batter's box!
I had some ugly boys, but you're forgetting the others:*
Marlon Brando and the Kennedys, while you fucked your own brothers!* (just screamed into mic and said it wasn't super crazy but was disrespectful so likely counted as DD, maybe approved after seeing the next rhyme)
Gettin' Lo on Mark Antony, tossing Caesar's salad.
You lost so many babies, we should call you Miss Carriage!
Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates:
I'm an innovator, baby; change the world!*
Fortune 500 'fore you kissed a girl!*
Why'd you name your company after your dick?
(Seems to almost give this to "Hippie, you got given up at birth! I give away your net worth to AIDS research!" and "Did your fat beard Wozniak write these raps for you, too?")
Frank Sinatra vs Freddie Mercury:
With those teeth, when you're through, there'll be no dust left to bite!
That's what's wrong with you people; you'll do anything to get famous!*
You changed your name to Mercury. You should've been Freddie Uranus!*
You had a hit song called "My Way," but someone else wrote it.
I'm more powerful than you when I'm wearing women's pants!
You played butthole roulette, and you lost the draw! (Scru was broken from how vicious the battle was and couldn't even give it a DD, so he just said "wow" instead)
Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney:
Been no change, and we're all still hoping that you'll shut your mouth, but like Guantanamo Bay, they're both open!
And your rhymes are as weak as this economy that you've done nothing about! (clarified that despite your beliefs on this, it's a good punch)
Republicans need a puppet, and you fit!*
Got their hands so far up your rear, call you Mitt!*
What, did it remind you how many decent parents you had? (DD in question since Scru wasn't sure how 40% relates to his parents and thought 50% made more sense)
If the White House has a First, Second, and a Third Lady!
You got hitched to the female version of Patrick Ewing! (least enthusiastic DD of all time due to the disrespect, but felt conflicted about targeting Michelle though he found it funny)
Doc Brown vs Doctor Who:
I'm a mystical medical doc at the pinnacle, shifting my physical form!*
You're a possibly pedophilic individual who should have never been born!* (made him break the mic and punch a pillow)
You're not a cat with nine lives. You're a pussy with thirteen!
Bruce Lee vs Clint Eastwood: (confirmed in Top 10 ERB Performances video)
Here's my two finger push up: Kung F-U! (close but didn't get there from being more of a performance bar)
You can't be too tough; you got killed by an aspirin.
I'd beat you in round two, but that'd be unbelievable.*
No one in your family ever lives to see a sequel.*
Batman vs Sherlock Holmes:
I heard he has a British butler! Good! Then he'll be used to getting served by Englishmen!*
You'll die alone with no friends except that needle in your arm! (almost a DD, but he said it wasn't as lyrically capable enough as it was disrespectful)
Moses vs Santa Claus: (winner uncertain/possible tie, Scru agreed with comment saying Santa felt like he won the battle but Snoop won as a rapper on other aspects)
Don't you Ho-Ho me!*
I'll split your ass in half like I did the Red Sea!*
Strangely, Scru himself rapped a bit after the elves helped Santa, then he gave himself a Don Demarco
Adam vs Eve:
When things are good, they're great, and it's like I'm dreaming,*
Until your junk starts bleeding and you turn to a demon!*
Gandhi vs Martin Luther King Jr: (though as a cypher, MLK won)
I admire the way you broke the British power,*
But I have a dream that one day you'll take a shower!* (Scru said he would've reached for the mic, but he wasn't quite sure and said King was reaching that territory)
With protests and women, the same advice goes: always stay away from the ho's!
Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison:
You're a geek; plagued by OCD!*
You never had sex, but you sure got screwed by me!*
No lights, no camera, no sound. See? (though Scru called "battle over" too early with this one)
They would curse the con Edison with every utility! (not a true DD, but instead something a bit more crucial since he realized Tesla's lines led to a finishing blow about Edison's cheating tactics, giving him the win in his opinion)
Babe Ruth vs Lance Armstrong:
So swing, batter, batter! Show me what a fatter rapper can do!
I beat cancer! I can sure as hell crack you! (the lines are a debatable DD, but Scru wasn't sure if he'd give it to them since he knew they'd have a rebuttal, but they were very close)
Now I'll drop your ass faster than your own foundation!
With all that blood and attitude, you're like a menstrual cyclist!
That's like having a pasta contest without Italy! (a comeback so good it got another DD when he ran it back)
While you dip your stick in prostitutes and call it foul tippin'; are you trippin'? (got a special "Big Smoke" on the mic instead)
Filled with more artificial ingredients than a Baby Ruth! (made the noise into the mic when he replayed it to split it with the next one)
And I'm not talking about those Italian syringes you brought!
Yerrr out, with three strikes, and just one ball.* (not a complete DD but rather a "battle over")
Mozart vs Skrillex:
You're a weirdo, Wolfie! You're into powdered wigs and poop,*
And your cousin blew notes on your little Magic Flute!*
Live version:
Was that a verse, or did you just get the hiccups?*
I'm a prodigy, Sonny, and I'm about to smack a bitch up!*
In two more months, the world will forget about your Skrill-excrement!
Rasputin vs Stalin (or Gorbachev):
If you're the man of steel, I spit kryptonite!*
Big dick mystic, known to hypnotize!*
I could end you with a whisper to your wife.*
My own son got locked up in prison, and I didn't save his life! (Scru said this was from Stalin making a major rebuttal to Rasputin's devastating finisher)
And Joseph, you were supposed to be my right-hand man, but your loyalty shriveled up like your right hand, man!
Season 2 Total: 48 (12 possible), 2.67 (or 3.33) average over 18 battles
Most Don Demarcos: Babe Ruth vs Lance Armstrong; Ruth had the most with 4 and a possible 1
Hitler vs Vader 3: (assumption but likely confirmed from the fired up reaction)
You wrote a little book, got 'em fired up,
Had a Beer Hall Putsch, got 'em fired up,
And when your bunker started getting fired up,*
You put a gun in your mouth and fired up!* (Scru abused a pillow and considered it to be 3 Don Demarcos)
Blackbeard vs Al Capone:
'Cause I'm a criminal legend with a bad ass name!*
You're a fat thug with an STD in his brain!* (Scru said it may be the longest time to get to a Demarco, but he said it gave him the win)
Miley Cyrus vs Joan of Arc: (close to a draw, went with Joan last second)
I'm getting lifted on that molly, get that party turned up!*
You're getting lifted on a stake, get that body burned up!*
But I only get down on my knees when it's time to pray!
Sweet burn, no pun intended.
If God's in your corner, girl, you need better management!
Bob Ross vs Pablo Picasso:
You're a moody little genius, always so serious.*
I know: you must be on your Blue Period!* (punched a pillow and said it had triple meaning)
Michael Jordan vs Muhammad Ali:
Now you double dribble balls that nobody can see!*
Now your daddy got killed, and I feel for your family,
But your baseball career: now that was a tragedy!
You fight like the little girls who make your Nike shoes.
You stay at the Ritz 'cause you sold out to crackers!
Donald Trump vs Ebenezer Scrooge: (if counting Kanye and GoCYtC as their own rounds, they won for each, but Scrooge won against Trump and Morgan and lasted better)
Keep your TB from Tiny Timmy away from me; don't even touch me!
How dare you disturb me when I'm napping in my chair!*
You're a crappy rap-spitting apparition! I ain't scared*
Of this random phantom! Haunt all you want; I don't care!*
I do not believe in ghosts, and I don't believe that hair!* (later gave 3 more Don Demarcos in the revisit and a Donathan Demarco)
Rick Grimes vs Walter White:
Ask Gus: you don't wanna face off against me! (very close DD but not direct enough to be a diss)
I've seen Walter Jr. handle walkers better than you!
I'll bury you faster than your partner stole your whole life!*
No one saw Shane coming, except for your wife!*
Goku vs Superman: (assumption since he seems to prefer him both rounds)
There's only one way that this battle's gonna end:*
One more Superman who's never gonna walk again!*
Stephen King vs Edgar Allan Poe: (assumption from how he talked about it at the end)
I'll forever be better; you'll never be near me!*
Your books are as eerie as Beverly Cleary!* (surprisingly didn't make it since Scru replayed it to put it to the test and said "almost" despite praising the flow, energy, delivery, rhyme scheme, and the punch)
Perving on your first cousin when she's thirteen years old? Now, that's disturbing!
Sir Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye:
You're no match for me! You got a bach degree!*
I got a unit of force named after me!* (also punched a pillow)
While I create the science you explain to kids!
You freaked out, started counting coins for the bank, and you sure didn't have no wife! (just a quick noise to the mic)
You wrote the book on gravity, but you couldn't attract no body! (once again a noise without audible Don Demarco)
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction except for when we both start rapping!
George Washington vs William Wallace:
I watch the blood flow; now who's got that red coat?
Looking like a stiffer white dick than your monument!
You died owning slaves! I died setting men free! Scot free!*
That's the Highland way! This powdered prick couldn't beat me in a foot race!*
Crossed the Delaware, but your soldiers can't swim!
You whipped all of those out of slave black folks!
Artists vs TMNT:
Yo, go ahead and hate. We'll just skate on by!*
You guys draw more dicks than New York Pride!*
Season 3 Total: 34 (3 possible), 2.83 (or 3.08) average over 12 battles
Most Don Demarcos: Sir Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye; Newton and Ali tied for the most with 4
Ghostbusters vs Mythbusters:
It's Stay Puft; I stay fluff!*
Blaze chumps and flip Kari butter-side up!* (despite that, he thought Mythbusters won)
Besides arguably Tesla, Mythbusters are the only winners in his opinion to not get a Don Demarco while only their opponent did
Romeo and Juliet vs Bonnie and Clyde:
Spit sick like a plague on both your houses! (DD was so high he had to switch the battery)
And you there, wench with the neck of a chicken,*
You'll get an ass-rippin' worse than your boyfriend's in prison!*
You're not a true romance. You're just a conjugal visit.
Oh, but that's not even your real husband now, is it? (didn't get a DD, but Scru's face during this said it all, and he said Juliet was smoking and compared these punches to 1997 Mike Tyson)
Zeus vs Thor: (winner uncertain)
Maybe Odin could beg me for a truce 'cause when Zeus lets loose,*
I'll put your cross-dressing neck in a noose!*
Jack the Ripper vs Hannibal Lecter: (Jack still made his Top 10 ERB Performances list while Hannibal didn't, but he said Hannibal won easy)
You haven't mentioned me once in your entire battle rap!*
Quit jacking off on the track and put the lotion in the basket!***
Rhymes finer than the chianti I would pair with your liver!**
Like the Penny Dreadful version of OJ Simpson!**
I'm still wanted; you're forgotten! People these days are watching Dexter!**
'Cause this dirty little lamb has just been silenced!**
Oprah Winfrey vs Ellen DeGeneres:
Girl, your show's a petting zoo. You do a week on kittens,*
And you dance like a chicken who snuck into Drunk Kitchen!*
Your mouth is writing checks your mullet can't cash, lady! (almost DD territory once he saw the mullet joke and expected more of a setup)
Worth noting that "I also feature puppies, talented children and mittens!" made history for Scru being the first rebuttal to damage themselves even worse
Steven Spielberg vs Alfred Hitchcock (Quentin Tarantino won the whole thing):
And I've seen more blood in the shower when I stubbed my toe in one!*
Lewis and Clark vs Bill and Ted:
These two dickweeds right here are severely endangered!
So step off! But tell Bill's stepmom: "Don't be a stranger!"
A teen mom carried you and your troops?*
They should have let the baby lead and put you in the papoose!*
They woulda stopped you in Dakota! They should totally Sioux!
I'll take Neo. I'll take the one that no one knows at all! (debatable Demarco, just gave a "Don" to save the rest in question)
Scru admits there may be a Don Demarco or 2 in Bill & Ted's last verse but was too enthralled from a refreshing well-made battle and sided with them after the last lines, so it may be from "You rode a river one direction; we travel four dimensions, rescue bodacious babes, and get back for detention!" since he considers this brag to be a potent punch and certainly "I've seen your future, Mr. Lewis, and I don't want to be rude, but spoiler alert: You totally kill yourself, dude!" from his reaction
David Copperfield vs Harry Houdini:
Now, you're like a Chinese wall to me. Bitch, I'll walk right through you.
You failed at making movies, and you failed at making kids.*
You should stick to what you're good at and lock them lips!* (both lines get a "Don" after his verse ends)
Terminator vs Robocop:
They should have made a time-traveling morning-after pill! (not quite Don Demarco, but still considered fire)
I got the mic control like alt, delete.
That movie failed Detroit worse than the automotive industry!
My rapping attack is a massive dispatch of bazookas and gats and grenades that rapidly bashes your brains and dismantles that puny pea shooter that fits in your leg!*
What can go wrong for you will, creep: Murphy's Law!
Eastern Philosophers vs Western Philosophers: (winner uncertain)
We've got the wisdom and the wit that even I couldn't question!*
Dropping Western medicine on these East infections!*
It's evident you've never been our type of mental brethren!*
We're better thinkers, better speakers, better lovers, better men!*
These white boys getting burned 'cause guess what? Now, the Sun's out!
Shaka Zulu vs Julius Caesar:
If you cross that equator, you'll head straight into a massacre,*
And get fucked by more than just Cleopatra in Africa!*
If I wanted to shake spears, I'd waggle my biography!
Jim Henson vs Stan Lee (but Walt Disney won overall):
And I'm clenching all your strings like you're a puppet in suspension.*
Call your superhero friends in. Yeah, 'cause you're gonna need Avenging.*
Then you taught your own kids how to drop your wife harder than you flopped on SNL!
Deadpool vs Boba Fett: (Deadpool had it until Boba's final line)
And lose to the dude a huge toothy cootchie chewed up?!
Mad 'cause Sam Jackson killed your clone daddy!
Bitch, who you calling clone? You're a Deathstroke ripoff!
I'll beat your ass with one eye closed: Boba Fetty Wap!
Everybody knows you got that power of regeneration.*
Now run home and heal from this disintegration.*
Season 4 Total: 26 + 5 with bonus battle (8 possible), 2.38 (or 3) average over 13 battles
Most Don Demarcos: Jack the Ripper vs Hannibal Lecter after two videos, but possibly Lewis and Clark vs Bill and Ted too; Lecter had the most with 6 after the revisit
J. R. R. Tolkien vs George R. R. Martin:
You're a pirate! You even stole my "R. R."!*
Lift up my gut and tea-Baggins my nuts! (not quite a DD, but Scru gave it D-D-D to imply it was almost there)
Gordon Ramsay vs Julia Child: (he gave it to Gordon for the style and short-term win, but considered Julia to have it in the long-term for the psychological disses)
I'm a seasoned skillet; you're a PAM-sprayed pan!*
I got Michelin stars; you're like the Michelin Man!*
Here's a nice amuse-bouche: take a poor abused youth, set a thirty-year timer, voila! Huge douche!
One part Big Bird, two parts Miss Piggy!
You scream at women, but the fits that you're pitching make you the pissiest bitch in the kitchen!
Frederick Douglass vs Thomas Jefferson:
You finished? …Okay.*
Straight outta bondage! ("a revolutionary Don Demarco, a power to the people Don Demarco")
After the battle, Scru admits he deserved way more Don Demarcos but was so caught up in what he said that he couldn't pull himself away to give them
Possible ones based on reactions:
Heads for racist, tails for slave plantation!
You're a soft white Monticello Marshmallow watching my people sweat while you sat playing cello! Hello!
I'd never work for your ass, but I'll kick it for free!
No compromise; you couldn't whip a 5th of me, man!
You let freedom ring, but never picked up the phone!
So no, we ain't cool, you founding absentee father!
Man, you had six babies with your slave mama and never even bothered to free her when you died on the 4th of July!
It's a very important holiday, but what the fuck does it mean to this guy?
'Cause I celebrate December 6th, 1865: The day the 13th damn amendment was ratified!
And we the people stopped meaning we the people who are white!
James Bond vs Austin Powers: (between the two Bonds, he may go with Connery's but said Craig's won overall)
Your third movie died; guess You Only Live Twice!
I'm bespoke from my head to my toe, and after this flow, I'm done!*
I only need one round: Golden gun!*
I don't need a Q to break your balls!
Bruce Banner vs Bruce Jenner:
Especially in the 100 meter ditch-your-wife dash!
You turned one gold medal to a lifetime of green!*
The most overrated athlete anyone's ever seen!*
You need to carry fatherhood across that finish line!*
Kept up with the Kardashians, but left some kids behind!*
If it wasn't for your cousin, you'd never have sex!
Too bad you can't go back and protect your mom from your dad!
You'll get the medal without the decathlon! (wondered if it was a Demarco but said it was too generic and could be used for any opponent, but he did punch his "That's a bar" pillow)
No gender issue; this Jenner issue! Just you being you is enough to diss you!
Alexander the Great vs Ivan the Terrible: (declared winner from inclusion in Top 10 ERB Performances video)
And I'll soar to the top like the eagle whose feather I would sport in the helmet that I wore*
As I swatted my many enemies; shattered 'em like a porcelain pot, and they'd be praying for the torture to stop!*
Couldn't spin in my chamber if this were Russian roulette!
Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton:
You're a man of the people who don't like turbans! (close DD)
You got skin like Russian dressing from too much Russian investing!
That's your daughter. "Well, grab her by the pussy!"
Let me just say I respect all females, but your rhymes are trash; put 'em next to your emails.*
He left a mess on that dress like you left in Benghazi!
Ash Ketchum vs Charles Darwin:
Scru said Ash's first verse felt like there were a few close to Don Demarcos and could count them if he went back to it again, but these lines got a reaction from him:
But this should be fun! I've yet to catch the Ghost type!
I don't care how many beetles and butterflies you squoosh!
Your shit-talking mouth is the origin of feces!
But when I need a weak verse, I choose you!
The real Ash packs a much bigger BOOMSTICK!
This dude spent eight years studying barnacle dick!
Look, Mighty Morphin' Michael Vick,* (gave a "battle over" until he heard Ash's last line)
TB and scarlet fever; gotta catch 'em all! (might be the most disrespectful bar he heard)
Wonder Woman vs Stevie Wonder:
I just called to say that you need to ditch the hair beads!*
Lookin' like the Predator after some chemotherapy!*
But your first story is you, running off with a guy! (may have given a DD for it, but considered a debatable one)
Your ignorant questions could never cause as much pain as never knowing how stupid you look in your airplane!
Nine different kids with five different mothers!
Tony Hawk vs Wayne Gretzky:
And my hot wife, the only woman in the world for Wayne!*
You're on your fourth wife; talk about the X Games!*
Put more souls into skating than some Vans shoes! (would be a Demarco if directed as a diss)
184! That's plenty of 'em, and I've set 183 of 'em! (could count as one as Scru commented a couple times that it was a crazy bar)
Theodore Roosevelt vs Winston Churchill: (assumption since he appeared to appreciate Teddy's lines more in the first two rounds)
My parents died when they were young, and it was morbid,*
But at least they didn't ditch me while they were alive like yours did!* (though it didn't get a Demarco, it made Scru dive to the floor)
Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD 2: (winner uncertain)
We'd have more subs than PewDiePie if you didn't fight me every time
I'm trying to make art, mother fucker; you're trying to find a rhyme for erection!
I'm sorry, man. No, I'm fucking not! Fuck you!*
You're second class! That's why I let you run ERB2!*
Erection jokes, dude? Your whole name means dick!
Let me guess: right now you're on two beers and a pill and a half of Adderall!
Season 5 Total: 34 (20 possible), 2.83 (or 4.5) average over 12 battles
Most Don Demarcos: Bruce Banner vs Bruce Jenner and Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD 2; Bruce BanneThe Hulk and Nice Peter tied for the most with 3 (if he clarified which ones he gave to Frederick Douglass, he would've tied and likely had the most)
Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg: (winner uncertain)
Couldn't clean your daddy's laundry with Apar-Tide-pods! (not a complete DD, but he karate chopped a pillow and said the line was fire)
Dope smoking with Joe Rogan don't slow-motion my pace, man!* (didn't get a DD, but he called it a fire rebuttal and admired the rhyme scheme)
Freddy Krueger vs Wolverine:
Better hang on to your whack hat 'cause your worst nightmare ain't Hugh Jack shit compared to the least of my Weapon X flashbacks!* (didn't directly give it, but he ran it back twice to compliment the flow and rhyme pattern)
You're a pedophile from the Midwest. At least R. Kelly could sing! (punched a pillow with his elbow)
Guy Fawkes vs Che Guevara:
Sucks? Guy, you died for the Catholics:*
A group with a bad "touching little boys" habit!* (first vocal Don Demarco of the reactions, also knocked out a pillow)
Ronald McDonald vs The Burger King:
Your style's like your ice cream machines: broken!*
You look like you just ate someone's brother in a storm drain! (punched pillow)
George Carlin vs Richard Pryor (Joan Rivers for the whole thing):
Non-stopping brain droppings like my wit's got the shits!
You'll be down for the count when this counter-culture counterman serves you with a stand-uppercut you can't counter, damn!
Even the shit that I spit off the top: flames! (he threw the "That's a bar" pillow, but he said he needed to diss Carlin)
Oh, shut up, you stupid son of a bitch, you know you blew it!* (may count this as well since he was impressed she got them all at once)
I'd have attacked you two first, but your hearts beat me to it!*
So let me end you real quick like I was Hannibal Buress!
The men that I slept with only wished they were unconscious! (Joan was so good that…)
My sex jokes offend; you're on the sex offender registry! (…she was getting casual Don Demarcos for these lines)
Oh, who are you wearing now? Is that State Penitentiary? (Scru said she already took him out before, but this one got 3 Don Demarcos)
I haven't thrashed celebrities this bad since The Apprentice! (he took a bit to reach for this one, but it was a casual and quiet Demarco)
The only place I'm in the middle is on Hollywood Squares! (also a casual, quiet Demarco)
Mork aged backwards, and Joan, you must too!
80 years old but that nose looks brand new! Nanu!
Honorable mention:
My delivery is rupturing the tummies!
You tell a joke and people go, "Hmm, that's funny." (since it's a comedian battle, this line made Scru laugh the hardest)
Jacques Cousteau vs Steve Irwin:
You're the only manatee I don't want to conserve! (he said the verdict was still out for it since he gave it a "Don" but a Demarco wasn't quite there yet)
And just to be clear, 'cause I'm no veterinarian,*
Were you killed by a fish kids pet at the aquarium?* (Scru left the room to get what I assume is a machete for the line)
Your mistress was as young as your first-born son!
Now embrace your French nature and quietly surrender!
You almost turned yours into Outback Mistake House!
Don't go throwing C-4 on the seafloor!
Mother Teresa vs Sigmund Freud:
Your legacy is people who are mad at their parents complaining on the couch for 200 bucks an hour!
Your chastity vow: redundant. (Scru misinterpreted it as meaning Teresa did have sex and Freud called her a freak, but the DD was meant for that and it may or may not be kept if he knew it meant Teresa is so ugly she didn't need a vow to abstain from sex)
I got mouth cancer, wasn't feeling so hot.*
Had the Doc put me down with a morphine shot.*
Thank imaginary God I wasn't in one of your beds.*
You'd have just sprinkled magic water on my forehead!*
You're the fakest sister act since Whoopi Goldberg!
To you, Calcutta meant Cal-cutta check! (Scru screamed "Oh my God!" at this line, kicked a "Talk to me nice" pillow and said Teresa was dying from that)
All you built was a mad tolerance for cocaine!
Since you hide your true feelings like they were other people's money. (so far ahead that this was a Don De-freaking-marco)
Vlad the Impaler vs Count Dracula: (said Dracula was too late to fight back and agreed with comment saying Vlad won by a mile)
Get beat by Count Dracula? You're smoking crack-ula!*
I dunk on your whack-ula raps like I'm Shaq-ula!*
The Joker vs Pennywise:
The first video and the revisit had no preview in the intro. Though Joker initially won for being ahead each round and was honorably mentioned in Top 10 ERB Performances, he voted Pennywise in the revisit.
You lost to a herd of nerds who call themselves the Loser's Club!**
You're a John Doe in my headlights, and you're about to fall from a new height!**
This battle's like poker: the Joker is useless!**
Jared Leto came out trying to look like Tekashi 6ix9ine!**
But no one's dying to play with Joker, except for maybe Heath Ledger!**
Pudding, you're an embarassment. I'll beat you like you beat Harley Quinn!**
That purple suit is something you should only see Steve Harvey in!** (though he seemed to give 1 DD to both lines in the rhyme, this would count since he complimented it during Joker's verse)
How about a little more PG and a lot less 13?**
Thanos vs J. Robert Oppenheimer:
Then got another married girl pregnant. You should've gone for the head.* (speechlessness implied a DD, but it wasn't given since it was his second reaction)
Where's your rhythm? I thought you had the Time Stone.
Your punchlines sound like they came from RhymeZone. (both these lines got a major compliment before Don Demarco was established)
I will Loki choke you out like my name was throat cancer! (reaction to this was hiding his face in his hoodie and saying the battle was his favorite one yet, until Harry vs Luke came out)
Donald Trump vs Joe Biden:
We'll see how tough you are against the 45!
I've got all the best cognition, with all the top grammar.*
I'm not a little girl's shoulders, so you can't touch this, MC Stammer!*
So I know how you must have felt when they killed Jeffrey Epstein!
You pulled out of Paris, should've pulled out of Stormy Daniels!
Meh! They impeached me. I still walked out of DC looking peachy!
When we go high, you go down on Putin!
Harry Potter vs Luke Skywalker:
In the first video he gave it to Luke, but in the revisit he said "Harry" when it asked "Who won?"
You're Lukewarm like some Tauntaun remains!**
You're gettin' smoked like your Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru!* ***
It makes sense your father's Vader; all you do is choke!***
You might be Potter, but Harry, I planted your seed!***
You fly a broom like some kind of magical janitor!**
All you did was use your mom like a bulletproof vest!***
Your mum died of heartache when she saw your face!***
At least when I Slytherin a sister, she isn't mine!***
Because your own skills Wingardium Levio-suck!
On one hand, the rebellion, on the other hand…oh wait!***
Season 6 Total: 51 (13 possible), 4.25 (or 5.33) average over 12 battles
Most Don Demarcos: George Carlin vs Richard Pryor; Joan Rivers had the most with 8
Ragnar Lodbrok vs Richard the Lionheart:
I'm the Lion King, man, but that's a messed up circle of life!
Threatening to conquer Ragnar is bold*
For a king who got whacked by a ten year old!*
I'll sacrifice you to Odin while drinking horns of mead!*
Good thing you hold a Red Cross 'cause that's who you're going to need!*
Your old lady can't feel the love on any night!
But I think the king of England should probably speak English!
You're as soft as Monty Python knights! (here Scru said "battle over")
Jeff Bezos vs Mansa Musa:
Wallah, by the holy Quran I lay my hand upon,
I blaze Bezos, inflict inflammatory damage on
Amazon, burn it down like when they put the cattle on
The hottest on the map since the Atlas of Catalan! (the entire 4 opening lines got their own collective Don Demarco)
Lyrically, I pack heat! You pack a tape gun!
I left footprints in the Sahara; I know hot tracks!
Nah, you can't spit! You got that Al Gore rhythm! (not a vocal Demarco, but he hit his "Talk to me nice" pillow and held the mic to his mouth to imply it)
So go dig some more gold there, Kanye West Africa!
He…woo! Fix your face! No wonder you bought Twitch!
But daddy loved unicycles more than him, so he rolled out! Now that's a Blue Origin!
I went from Hobbit dork to slick orc physique! Now I'm Lord of the Rings… Take a peek!
'Cause you ain't Fire, can't hold a Kindle to me!
Alexa, what do we have that he lacks? Skills.
John Wick vs John Rambo vs John McClane:
'Cause you'll never take the W without the P and O!
I'm like this prick's ring finger: only need one clip!
And like your late pup, I'll leave you pushing up daisies!\*
Less is more, boys; that's my advice!*
You, less survival knife; you, more survival wife!* (and a pillow hit)
So I'm not vexed by vets flexing 'roid-injected pecs!
The last tight thing you slid in was an air vent! (only got him to Don Demarco territory, but he didn't give it since it took him a while to get to it)
All your kids still have "decent dad" on their wishlist!
Lara Croft vs Indiana Jones:
You used to be the queen of booby trappin'. What happened?
When even Angelina gave you up for adoption!
Guess you couldn't tap that X in time.
You'd shit those Dickies at a garter snake!
Marion was 15 when you raided her bones!
There's a Big Bang you can't hide in the fridge from!
Stuffing your knapsack with innocent casualties! (Scru screamed into the mic from the flow)
Now you're just in Uncharted's territory!
Overshadowed by Drake like Lil Wayne! (this line following the one above it made it the first time he gave a double Don Demarco for 1 line)
At best the affection you got was sloppy seconds!
Season 7 Total: 29 (3 possible), 7.25 (or 8) average over 4 battles so far
Most Don Demarcos: Jeff Bezos vs Mansa Musa; his very own Mansa Musa had the most with 6, but Indiana Jones may also count as being tied with 6
King Henry VIII vs Hillary Clinton:
I am Henry the Eighth, king of England, Ireland, and Wales!*
You are a presidential candidate in a pantsuit who fails!*
You should stay at home and wash the stains out of another lady's dress! (first time it took him a while to realize what it meant to give the DD)
The only thing getting blown is Bill's saxophone!
Honorable mention to "And more handsome than Ellen!" for making him say "Jesus!" since Henry dissed when it wasn't his turn and Ellen is one of his least favorite rappers
Series overall: 246 (72 possible), 2.86 (or 3.7) average over 86 battles
Most Don Demarcos: George Carlin vs Richard Pryor; Joan Rivers had the most with 8, but Season 7 is currently the best performing season

Welcome to the Graboid hole, Valentine.
Now you've probably heard of the underground movie Tremors. In case you haven't, here's what you need to know: Tremors is a scifi film series that came out in 1990 that was the perfect blend of horror movie monster, humor, and camp that went on to become a much beloved cult classic that has spawned 7 sequels, 2 TV shows, and adoration from fans world wide. Created by Steve S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Ron Underwood and Nancy Roberts of Stampede Entertainment, the copyright for Tremors was taken by Universal studios in a series of backdoor dealings. This is the story of how Perfection was created then stolen from its makers after over 35 years of work.
Warning, "Here be Dirt Dragons".

CHAPTER 1: THERE'S SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

It all started with a man named Steve Wilson, out on a rock in the middle of the desert. Sound familiar?

“One day I was sitting out there on one of those boulders and thought how interesting it would be to have something that moved through the sand like a fish, and I couldn’t get off the rock,” - Steve S.S. Wilson

He'd go on to meet Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood at UCLA film school and a legendary partnership was formed. Known as special effects wizards, they made their way into the film game until writing "Short Circuit" and getting the help of one Nancy Roberts, the true behind the scenes figurehead of the Tremors series. With the success of "Short Circuit", Nancy turned to them and asked if they had anything original in their back pocket they wanted to do on their own. To which Steve pulled out.... Land Sharks.
And it took a lot of work to turn that into what we know. Which is why Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Jacks jumped in to help. Firstly, Universal didn't know how to market horror-rom-coms because Tremors was the first of its kind. Then there's Universal itself wanting to make the movie but also thinking Tremors will fail. Making things non-union and changing the name from "Beneath Perfection" to "Dead Silence" to hide things.

“The studio wanted to keep the film hidden due to it being a non-union production, although they were involved at an arms-length distance with the picture being a negative pickup as opposed to a studio picture. They wanted it to be under the radar.” - Ron Underwood

Though the day-to-day filming was challenging due to the nature of creating a low-budget monster movie, production went surprisingly smooth thanks to the abilities of Brent, Nancy, Ron and Steve. Well actually, everyone involved. You already know the actors but there are some incredibly talented people involved behind the scenes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis as the main creature designers of the series. Turning their penis shaped designs into the Graboids we know and love today. That's just two of hundreds who painstakingly created Perfection. Steve Wilson's dad, Bob Wilson, also joined in the production of his son directing/writing/producing his first movie. He loved it so much he brought a home camera and filmed the greatest behind the scenes series ever with it. The whole team did what they could with they had, trimming what they could and fighting for what they couldn't. The scene where the car is sucked under was originally longer and about to be cut before Nancy and Jim stepped in. There was even two aborted openings, one with Old Fred and Edgar, and another with a rabbit and coyote being eaten by Graboids after landing from space. As well as a different ending.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's first child was born during the filming of the scene where Walter Chang is eaten by a Graboid. That's how committed everyone was. Also why Kevin had nightmares and regretted Tremors until recently.
But despite all that, on a budget of $11 million dollars, Tremors made $16 millon dollars in the theatre and was considered a failure at the box-office.
Or so it would seem....

"We got a backhanded compliment from them when they said, ‘We could sell an empty video box called Tremors, we have to have it.’” - Steve S.S. Wilson

CHAPTER 2: THE WORMS CHANGED SOMEHOW

With the advent of VHS and home video rentals, Tremors found its true home. And so came the call for Tremors 2: Aftershocks.
Originally, it was a much different movie than what we know today. Written in 1993, the first script for it had Reba returning as Heather Gummer with Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee. There was a plethora of new characters fed to the Graboids and Shriekers, an opening with gangsters attacking a family, and ending that was so good it was re-used for the TV episode "Shriek and Destroy". This is also where the TV show first started with the idea of Tremors 2: Aftershocks - The Lost Monsters!, a series about Val, Earl, and Burt traveling around fighting bigfoot ghosts, Grumpy old men vampires, toasters, and Graboids. As well as the impetus and repetition of the phrase "Doing what you can with what you got." passed between Heather, Burt and Val. And the best callback ever. But because Kevin Bacon didn't want to return since sequels were seen as faux-pas and Reba wanted to come back but couldn't due to her touring schedule, the budget was slashed and things were changed. Val became Grady, Heather divorced Burt and a legend was born.

“When my son was eight, I let him see Tremors, because at that age he could appreciate it. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked, ‘Travis, did you see Tremors?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Dad, have you seen Tremors 2? It’s really great.’ I said, ‘Son, I’m not in Tremors 2.’ And he said, ‘No, but it’s cool.’” - Kevin Bacon

Fun fact: The unused designs of the Shriekers from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were repurposed for Starship Troopers as Arachnids instead. There was even Phil Tippett joining in to help create the CGI Shriekers.
That's when things really started to change.

“I could see where they were really excited because you’d be able to move those videos so quickly just on the word “Tremors”.” - Cristin Carr Strubbe

CHAPTER 3: TREMORS IS PERFECTION

And Tremors came Back to Perfection.
A movie that gets an unfair rap because people don't like the name AssBlasters (AB is what they were called behind the scenes and how Burt refers to them, I like the African word "Impundulu"), it's the strangest of the original bunch. It has the largest set of returning cast for any Tremors entry with Burt, Nancy, Melvin, Mindy, and Miguel. It's the only film in the series that's rated PG despite coining and frequently using the term AssBlaster. AND it's Michael Gross' favourite Tremors movie. You're probably wondering why there's a smaller amount of information compared to the first two movies. So did the creators.

“We got to a point with Tremors 3 when there was no promotion at all. I remember saying to Universal, ‘There’s not even a poster to put up in a video store.’ What some stores were doing was putting up their own posters to notify customers there was a thing called Tremors 3 available. That was part of Universal’s austerity; they wanted to spend as little money as possible on these films. I’m not sure saving money on promotion is the smartest way. Rabid fans would find out about it, but as far as the general public knowing there’s another one of these movies available, that wasn’t the case.” - Brent Maddock
“Universal made a lot of money off that product, it always sold well, especially in the Asian world. I was the unit production manager on Tremors 3 and the TV series and I still get residuals off them. Ron Underwood told me a story about the premiere of his second film, City Slickers, in Japan. They sat in the theatre and nobody laughed the whole time. He was really depressed and when he came out the publicity people came up and they said, ‘There’s a lot of people that want to talk to you’. There was a line around the block and all they wanted to talk about was Tremors.” - Tom Keniston
“The video department begged the studio proper to make ‘Tremors 2’ and then it was a while before we made ‘Tremors 3’. That was designed to be the last one - the thinking being that surely we couldn’t milk this for more than those two sequels. But by that time, it was rolling forward on its own momentum, and they ordered ‘Tremors 4’ almost immediately. We explained that we’d structured three to be the end of the sequels, that we’d ended the life cycle of the monster and brought it full circle. The studio wasn’t bothered and basically said, ‘Well, what can you do?’ We asked if they’d mind if we made it a Western and start over. Their response was, ‘We don’t care, as long as it’s called ‘Tremors’ - so that’s why ‘Tremors 4’ is a Western.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Notice too how you can find little Behind the Scenes for 5-7 despite a smorgasbord of material for 1-4 and both TV shows.
Then there's the constant poster "fuck ups". How can Universal get it so wrong when it comes to Stampede's Tremors'... ...only to be perfectly on for the Graboids in their 5-7? Not to mention that it's not a complete collection if it's missing the TV show. There is more of the Tremors TV show than there is Tremors movies! Also, there are more instances of the OG Graboid design so why choose the one that has only shown up in 3 movies out of 8? And then go so far as to use the post-Stampede version to represent itself to fans who love the originals the most. Fishiness is afoot.
Which is when Tremors landed on the small screen in the best piece of the puzzle yet. Seriously, I'm trying my hardest not to editorialize yet the TV show and 4th movie are my absolute favourites. That's why I've been able to track the irregularities with it. The worst is that the order of episodes is constantly distorted, leading to many viewer's confusion as characters are talked about before introduced and events referenced that haven't happened yet. It's so bad that even Google has the wrong order. See for yourself.a Not to mention how Universal has pulled it from every streaming app ever since I started this #StampedeTremors campaign so they make more more money off of the incomplete DVD sets.
The second is how once the TV show was greenlit, Universal immediately wanted Stampede to make Tremors 4. To the disregard of both productions.

“If Universal had been willing to delay the start of Tremors 4 by two weeks, or if Sci-Fi had been willing to wait until the end of T-4’s shoot to start the series production, Michael Gross could have been in all 13 episodes. Both sides absolutely refused to compromise, even though they’re both owned by the same parent company. After all that, Universal Home Video then delayed the release of the finished T-4 several months. Go figure.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Thirdly, and what I have found as the most important, is Mixmaster. A compound created as a plot device for the TV show which allowed the DNA of any animals to be combined to create a new monster every week.

"But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it. There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations. Grasshoppers with scorpion tails, Gila monsters with bat wings." - Cletus Poffenberger

THIS is why Universal stole Tremors from Stampede Entertainment.

CHAPTER 4: MORE MONEY

Do you know what the highest grossing series of all time is?
Poke'Mon. I know, right?
Because when you can crank out thousands of new monsters, you can print money from every single one of those creatures as new merchandise. So when the folks at Stampede Tremors came up with something that can do that, make those monsters both cute/scary so as to get the kids AND adults to buy the toys.... Well it's easy to see why Universal would pull some Hollywood accounting with the series. If Tremors can make $500 million dollars without ANY official merchandise, imagine how much it would make if you could buy Graboid plushies, AssBlaster lighters or a different Mixmaster monster whenever they rolled out? And this series has been made with lower than minimal budget. What would happen if Universal actually gave the production the money it needed?

"We get a lot of fans asking why they can’t buy rubber Graboids and Val and Earl action figures or video games. Some of you have even offered to help design or even manufacture them. Others have helpfully suggested lower-budget ways they could be produced. Still another asked if we just had a small leftover graboid in “hardened clay” he could buy. (Sorry, the graboids were constructed full size; the clay versions are gone, and the casting molds are huge. Even the ¼ scale graboids are pretty big.) In answer: we wish we could get Universal to think like our fans! You have to believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are. We don’t control the Tremors “franchise.” Universal Pictures has the final say over all marketing and merchandising. I hear from sources inside Universal that the various marketing departments are expressing increased interest in our “franchise.” In English, that means they’re recognizing that there are a lot of Tremors fans out there. Nothing is definite, but here are some of the things that are being considered at Universal: Toys, action figures, collectibles and video games. The Tremors series is being considered for promotion in these areas, and deals may be discussed with toy companies, game designers, etc." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And Universal knows how to grab monsters and keep them for later. Though the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man are in the public domain, you'll be sued if the image gets too close to what Universal first created. Not just those creatures. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. Pretty much every monster you can think of that's not Godzilla. If Graboids, Shriekers, AssbBlasters and Mixmaster were added to that list, it would almost be a monopoly on monsters. In a world where the multi-verse is common, a MonsterVerse is easier to make than it seems (though they tried and fucked it up already, they WILL try again). Tremors is basically adult Poke'Mon. This is why Universal completely redesigned the Graboids, Shriekers, and Assblasters. The more they can make that associates Tremors with their version, the more they can take from Stampede before the end.

CHAPTER 5: A BUMMER DOWN UNDER

Now the sadness comes. Time to Bummer Down Under.
With the release and cancellation of Tremors the Series, and creation and late release of Tremors 4, came Universal's desire for Tremors 5.

"It was written while we were doing ‘Tremors 4’. Everybody was excited by the idea and, for a while there was talk of an even bigger budget and the potential for it to be a theatrical feature. So we were looking to how we could be really different." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And from 2004 to 2015, Brent and Steve would write and rewrite Tremors 5 Thunder Down Under 7-8 times. But it seemed that while Universal wanted it, they also didn't.

“There was never-ending interest from the fans, I became something of a de-facto frequently asked question answerer. I lost track of the number of times I had to write ‘I’m sorry, but there’ll never be a ‘Tremors 5’.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

That's when Universal stole Tremors. And you should start asking yourself why a studio who thinks there is no money to be had in a series has made 7 movies and 2 TV shows from it...

”We were on the way back from Chicago, and got a call on the road from Nancy (Roberts), who was still heading up Stampede (the production company established by Maddock, Wilson, Roberts and Underwood). She said ‘You won’t believe it! ‘Tremors 5’ is happening! They want to make it!’ We got very excited, Nancy was going to get the information so we could hit the ground running. Nancy asked whether they wanted Brent or I to direct, and they told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored - it didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low-budget movies. The sequels we made were all low-budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what that real reason was. We did have a ‘right of first refusal’ clause built into our contacts that had just lapsed - a clause which meant they would have had to offer the sequel to us, and, if we said no, they could then take it to someone else. But we never got any real information about what really happened that led to that.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

For a time, Stampede Entertainment chose to forget about Tremors since it was all they could do. Even though Universal cannibalized their script and took over half of it to make Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Nothing.
Until Kevin Bacon came calling.

"Nancy called us out of the blue again and said ‘You’re not going to believe this. Kevin’s finally thinking about returning to the character of Val! They want you to come in and talk about this new series idea that he has!’ Then, when we called back to set up a time, they said ‘Oh, we’re sorry. There appears to have been some sort of mistake. No-one here wants to talk to you in any way, shape or form and never will.’ It was classic Hollywood - classic, bad Hollywood. There’s a lot of good Hollywood too, and Brent and I have experienced a lot of that. But this was not fun.” ' Steve S.S. Wilson

Universal/SyFy would go on to make that Tremors series anyway. Or at least a pilot of it. To the point where it had finished VFX and was able to be shown in full at festivals. But they cancelled it before it could go anywhere. Then they buried it. And no one really knows why.

"I looked at that character [Valentine McKee] and thought to myself, 'You know, this is probably the only character I have ever played that I want to really go back and see what’s happened to him.' He was such a fascinating character to me because he’s such an ordinary man; not that smart, not that special, and yet he had this extraordinary circumstance that he had to sort of step up to the plate for. I thought to myself, 'If you take that away, if they just went away, those worms, what does a guy like that do? The rest of his life has now really become uninteresting,' so exploring that I thought would be fun. We made an excellent pilot outside of Albuquerque, recreated the town, had a really great cast, director, and writer and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t want to move forward with it. It’s a real head-scratcher for me. If I honestly thought the pilot was shit then I’d say we just didn’t crack it but it was cool, and that’s a really hard balance to get, between funny and scary, as you know, that’s the sweet spot. Tremors was good at that." - Kevin Bacon

Read the script for yourself. It already had Mindy and Melvin in it with the return of Burt and Earl on the horizon. And if you watch the trailer, just know that it's completely misleading. The redesigned Graboid lives alongside the old one and Val IS wrong when he says "They don't plan. They don't strategize.". Him being ignorant is part of the plot.

CHAPTER 6: MICHAEL GETS GROSSED

At this point, Universal was already in full swing creating their new Tremors movies. In the same time it took for Tremors 2 to come out after Tremors, Universal has made 3 new movies, Bloodlines, A Cold Day in Hell and Shrieker Island, and a TV show. That doesn't make much sense considering how 4 movies and a TV show were created over 25 years. For Universal to crank out 3 movies and a TV show in less than a quarter of that time is a feat in and of itself. Movies that are a shadow of what Stampede Entertainment was doing with the over-fetishisation of piss/shit humour, overt sexism/racism, and a disregard for the way the creatures behaved before. There's a part in Shrieker Island where a man is killed by a Graboid while on the toilet. And that's not the worst part. The worst is how it happens in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm while the man is making zero noise. Not even a grunt of constipation. Think on that. A monster that hunts entirely by sound, seeking out and finding someone in the middle of a rainstorm that would drown out its sound sensors. It hurts, doesn't it?
Dumb fun fact: Tremors 6 was filmed in South Africa despite taking place in Canada and is the only movie to try turning sand into snow. No, there was no real reason to do it. Not to mention Kevin Bacon's daughter explaining to Burt Gummer how Graboids work. Also, they found millenia old hominid bones in cave in Africa because the Tremors 5 crew vandalised a wall. No, that's not a plot for the next movie.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable as I tried to protect the franchise. Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree with, and I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without somebody like [the original writers] Steve or Brent there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’... Long story short, Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again." - Michael Gross

Bringing us to the semi-present day and the part where #SPOILERS# happen.
#SPOILERS#
The release of Tremors 7 Shrieker Island. And the supposed death of Burt Gummer. But not in the good-story way. This was something that was merely an afterthought.

"They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea. Universal and the director came to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' "What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." - Michael Gross

Which would be fine if that's what Universal actually did. Instead, they tacked on a cheap montage of clips at the end and make it seem like Michael Gross himself is dead. They even show clips of Hiram Gummer but nothing of Burt from the TV show despite it having more hours than the movies combined. That's how you treat the one person who has been with this franchise for the last 35 years? I smell a reboot.
And the Graboid hole deepens with the end credits.

CHAPTER 7: BURT GUMMER DAY AND YOU

Ever heard of Burt Gummer Day? No, it's not something Universal made up for Tremors. It's a holiday created by @BabyFarkMcGeeZax of Imgur. And he's been doing it for the last five years through love, effort and 4K Intergalactic Quality Gifs alone. But has Universal credited him? Nope. Michael Gross would love to know who started it but no one besides me will tell him. And here Universal is using his holiday as lines of dialogue and a marketing campaign to get people watching Tremors every April 14th. It's pretty messed up.
This is where people like you and I come in to play. Do you have any idea of the width and breadth of Tremors fandom?
Remember what I said about merchandising money? Video games tie into that too.

"Just to be clear, a wildly successful video game (an idea we've always wanted to work on) would make Universal a fortune. Not us." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And since Universal won't make them, Tremors fans have done what they can with what they have. And there are a lot of them. All across the spectrum.
Not just games either, if you want a T-shirt that's Straight Outta Perfection, you'll have to ask around and search but you'll find plenty when you do.
That's not even getting into the fan-art or fan-fiction or fan-film communities, all of which are quite wholesome even when they are being crazily sexual. Ever seen a sexy Graboid? It's.... something. And there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than there should be. It's like the #1 sidekink of furries. I know, I don't understand it either, but I can sure as hell appreciate the craft. And there's hundreds of thousands of them! And millions more that are simply hiding their love of Tremors because they think it's too weird and they'll be made fun of for liking it. Someone made a not terrible remix-song of Melvin singing "Way to go, dudes!". A 9 year old kid entered a mullet competition because he was inspired by Kevin Bacon as Val. I haven't even gotten into the 22,000 people in the Burt Gummer Subterranean Meme Stash.
This one's weird but there's a phenomenon where whenever a earthquake or tremors happens, it makes half the people effected by it watch Tremors. Same with experiencing or seeing neurological body tremors. When people talk about "tremors" in any aspect, it gets people watching the movies. I see it because I look up the word "Tremors" everyday on Twitter and that's the big three I see. And the first two cause and effect the later. It's strange. But free advertising!
There's a freaking subreddit for it! Tremors
Then the podcasts!! Practically everyone and their mother has done a 2 hour podcast on why Tremors is the greatest horror-rom-com movie series ever. SO many that I won't even attempt to list them. Just search Tremors and podcasts. There's thousands. The same goes for video reviews, reaction watches and reconstructions on Youtube. Too many to list. It's the go-to movie when people want to point out underrated horror, a feel-good time, or tight screenplays. So much so that they use Tremors as study material in film schools across the world.
James Gunn loves the movie so much he made sure to reference it in Slither by naming the school after THE Earl Bassett. Jon LaJoie loves it so much he wrote an album and song around it called "Wolfie's Just Fine". And Rick and Morty referenced it twice last season.

CHAPTER 8: OUROBOROS

I've dived into the creative Graboid hole a few times as well. Four years ago, I discovered how Earl and his sleeping bag look like Stumpy at the end falling to its death. The only reason you can read the scripts for the Tremors pilot, original Tremors 2, and Tremors 5 is because I've used every social media channel I can to talk and ask about it and people in the these threads and on Twitter noticed. Half of the quotes you read are because the folks at Hollywood Unseen saw what I was doing, asked Steve a bunch of questions and wrote the answers down.
Hell, most of this information comes from "Seeking Perfection", the Tremors biography by Jonathan Melville. He literally wrote a 300 page book because there wan't one and he thought there should be. Because when you need it, and don't have it, ya sing a different tune.
Steve S.S. Wilson is such a fan of the series that even after he and Stampede were kicked out, he has spent the last 6 years answering questions on the Tremors FAQ page section of the Stampede Entertainment website. Ask yourself or send some love, they can sure use it. The only reason I was able to get the famous copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to take the Stampede Tremors case was because I sent so many people there that someone happened to ask about the copyright expiration clause. Because after 35 years, the original creators can take their creation back.
The time is running out though cause I can tell Universal plans a remake/reboot so they can run the clock til the Stampede Tremors team dies of old age. It's another one of those things I would looooooove to be wrong about. But if people can get mad enough to #RestoretheSnyderVerse when Zac Snyder didn't even create the characters of DC then we can #StampedeTremors until the series goes back to Perfection. These people spent over 35 years of their lives making monster movies for our entertainment. The least we can do is let them finish what they started. They're owed that. We all are.
Because when someone's creation can be taken away that easily after so much time, love, and effort than how could any of us feel safe creating anything ever again?
"We must do what we can with what we have."

Welcome to the Graboid hole, Valentine.
Now you've probably heard of the underground movie Tremors. This is the story of how Perfection was created then stolen from its makers after over 35 years of work.
Warning, "Here be Dirt Dragons".
It all started with a man named Steve Wilson, out on a rock in the middle of the desert. Sound familiar?

“One day I was sitting out there on one of those boulders and thought how interesting it would be to have something that moved through the sand like a fish, and I couldn’t get off the rock,” - Steve S.S. Wilson

He'd go on to meet Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood at UCLA film school and a legendary partnership was formed. Known as special effects wizards, they made their way into the film game until writing "Short Circuit" and getting the help of one Nancy Roberts, the true behind the scenes figurehead of the Tremors series. With the success of "Short Circuit", Nancy turned to them and asked if they had anything original in their back pocket they wanted to do on their own. To which Steve pulled out.... Land Sharks.
And it took a lot of work to turn that into what we know. Which is why Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Jacks jumped in to help. Firstly, Universal didn't know how to market horror-rom-coms because Tremors was the first of its kind. Then there's Universal itself wanting to make the movie but also thinking Tremors will fail. Making things non-union and changing the name from "Beneath Perfection" to "Dead Silence" to hide things.

“The studio wanted to keep the film hidden due to it being a non-union production, although they were involved at an arms-length distance with the picture being a negative pickup as opposed to a studio picture. They wanted it to be under the radar.” - Ron Underwood

Though the day-to-day filming was challenging due to the nature of creating a low-budget monster movie, production went surprisingly smooth thanks to the abilities of Brent, Nancy, Ron and Steve. Well actually, everyone involved. You already know the actors but there are some incredibly talented people involved behind the scenes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis as the main creature designers of the series. Turning their penis shaped designs into the Graboids we know and love today. That's just two of hundreds who painstakingly created Perfection. Steve Wilson's dad, Bob Wilson, also joined in the production of his son directing/writing/producing his first movie. He loved it so much he brought a home camera and filmed the greatest behind the scenes series ever with it. The whole team did what they could with they had, trimming what they could and fighting for what they couldn't. The scene where the car is sucked under was originally longer and about to be cut before Nancy and Jim stepped in. There was even two aborted openings, one with Old Fred and Edgar, and another with a rabbit and coyote being eaten by Graboids after landing from space. As well as a different ending.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's first child was born during the filming of the scene where Walter Chang is eaten by a Graboid. That's how committed everyone was. Also why Kevin had nightmares and regretted Tremors until recently.
But despite all that, on a budget of $11 million dollars, Tremors made $16 millon dollars in the theatre and was considered a failure at the box-office.
Or so it would seem....

"We got a backhanded compliment from them when they said, ‘We could sell an empty video box called Tremors, we have to have it.’” - Steve S.S. Wilson

With the advent of VHS and home video rentals, Tremors found its true home. And so came the call for Tremors 2: Aftershocks.
Originally, it was a much different movie than what we know today. Written in 1993, the first script for it had Reba returning as Heather Gummer with Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee. There was a plethora of new characters fed to the Graboids and Shriekers, an opening with gangsters attacking a family, and ending that was so good it was re-used for the TV episode "Shriek and Destroy". This is also where the TV show first started with the idea of Tremors 2: Aftershocks - The Lost Monsters!, a series about Val, Earl, and Burt traveling around fighting bigfoot ghosts, Grumpy old men vampires, toasters, and Graboids. As well as the impetus and repetition of the phrase "Doing what you can with what you got." passed between Heather, Burt and Val. And the best callback ever. But because Kevin Bacon didn't want to return since sequels were seen as faux-pas and Reba wanted to come back but couldn't due to her touring schedule, the budget was slashed and things were changed. Val became Grady, Heather divorced Burt and a legend was born.

“When my son was eight, I let him see Tremors, because at that age he could appreciate it. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked, ‘Travis, did you see Tremors?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Dad, have you seen Tremors 2? It’s really great.’ I said, ‘Son, I’m not in Tremors 2.’ And he said, ‘No, but it’s cool.’” - Kevin Bacon

Fun fact: The unused designs of the Shriekers from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were repurposed for Starship Troopers as Arachnids instead. There was even Phil Tippett joining in to help create the CGI Shriekers.
That's when things really started to change.

“I could see where they were really excited because you’d be able to move those videos so quickly just on the word “Tremors”.” - Cristin Carr Strubbe

And Tremors came Back to Perfection.
A movie that gets an unfair rap because people don't like the name AssBlasters (AB is what they were called behind the scenes and how Burt refers to them, I like the African word "Impundulu"), it's the strangest of the original bunch. It has the largest set of returning cast for any Tremors entry with Burt, Nancy, Melvin, Mindy, and Miguel. It's the only film in the series that's rated PG despite coining and frequently using the term AssBlaster. AND it's Michael Gross' favourite Tremors movie. You're probably wondering why there's a smaller amount of information compared to the first two movies. So did the creators.

“We got to a point with Tremors 3 when there was no promotion at all. I remember saying to Universal, ‘There’s not even a poster to put up in a video store.’ What some stores were doing was putting up their own posters to notify customers there was a thing called Tremors 3 available. That was part of Universal’s austerity; they wanted to spend as little money as possible on these films. I’m not sure saving money on promotion is the smartest way. Rabid fans would find out about it, but as far as the general public knowing there’s another one of these movies available, that wasn’t the case.” - Brent Maddock
“Universal made a lot of money off that product, it always sold well, especially in the Asian world. I was the unit production manager on Tremors 3 and the TV series and I still get residuals off them. Ron Underwood told me a story about the premiere of his second film, City Slickers, in Japan. They sat in the theatre and nobody laughed the whole time. He was really depressed and when he came out the publicity people came up and they said, ‘There’s a lot of people that want to talk to you’. There was a line around the block and all they wanted to talk about was Tremors.” - Tom Keniston
“The video department begged the studio proper to make ‘Tremors 2’ and then it was a while before we made ‘Tremors 3’. That was designed to be the last one - the thinking being that surely we couldn’t milk this for more than those two sequels. But by that time, it was rolling forward on its own momentum, and they ordered ‘Tremors 4’ almost immediately. We explained that we’d structured three to be the end of the sequels, that we’d ended the life cycle of the monster and brought it full circle. The studio wasn’t bothered and basically said, ‘Well, what can you do?’ We asked if they’d mind if we made it a Western and start over. Their response was, ‘We don’t care, as long as it’s called ‘Tremors’ - so that’s why ‘Tremors 4’ is a Western.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Notice too how you can find little Behind the Scenes for 5-7 despite a smorgasbord of material for 1-4 and both TV shows.
Then there's the constant poster "fuck ups". How can Universal get it so wrong when it comes to Stampede's Tremors'... ...only to be perfectly on for the Graboids in their 5-7? Not to mention that it's not a complete collection if it's missing the TV show. There is more of the Tremors TV show than there is Tremors movies! Also, there are more instances of the OG Graboid design so why choose the one that has only shown up in 3 movies out of 8? And then go so far as to use the post-Stampede version to represent itself to fans who love the originals the most. Fishiness is afoot.
Which is when Tremors landed on the small screen in the best piece of the puzzle yet. Seriously, I'm trying my hardest not to editorialize yet the TV show and 4th movie are my absolute favourites. That's why I've been able to track the irregularities with it. The worst is that the order of episodes is constantly distorted, leading to many viewer's confusion as characters are talked about before introduced and events referenced that haven't happened yet. It's so bad that even Google has the wrong order. See for yourself.a Not to mention how Universal has pulled it from every streaming app ever since I started this #StampedeTremors campaign so they make more more money off of the incomplete DVD sets.
The second is how once the TV show was greenlit, Universal immediately wanted Stampede to make Tremors 4. To the disregard of both productions.

“If Universal had been willing to delay the start of Tremors 4 by two weeks, or if Sci-Fi had been willing to wait until the end of T-4’s shoot to start the series production, Michael Gross could have been in all 13 episodes. Both sides absolutely refused to compromise, even though they’re both owned by the same parent company. After all that, Universal Home Video then delayed the release of the finished T-4 several months. Go figure.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Thirdly, and what I have found as the most important, is Mixmaster. A compound created as a plot device for the TV show which allowed the DNA of any animals to be combined to create a new monster every week.

"But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it. There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations. Grasshoppers with scorpion tails, Gila monsters with bat wings." - Cletus Poffenberger

THIS is why Universal stole Tremors from Stampede Entertainment.
Do you know what the highest grossing series of all time is?
Poke'Mon. I know, right?
Because when you can crank out thousands of new monsters, you can print money from every single one of those creatures as new merchandise. So when the folks at Stampede Tremors came up with something that can do that, make those monsters both cute/scary so as to get the kids AND adults to buy the toys.... Well it's easy to see why Universal would pull some Hollywood accounting with the series. If Tremors can make $500 million dollars without ANY official merchandise, imagine how much it would make if you could buy Graboid plushies, AssBlaster lighters or a different Mixmaster monster whenever they rolled out? And this series has been made with lower than minimal budget. What would happen if Universal actually gave the production the money it needed?

"We get a lot of fans asking why they can’t buy rubber Graboids and Val and Earl action figures or video games. Some of you have even offered to help design or even manufacture them. Others have helpfully suggested lower-budget ways they could be produced. Still another asked if we just had a small leftover graboid in “hardened clay” he could buy. (Sorry, the graboids were constructed full size; the clay versions are gone, and the casting molds are huge. Even the ¼ scale graboids are pretty big.) In answer: we wish we could get Universal to think like our fans! You have to believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are. We don’t control the Tremors “franchise.” Universal Pictures has the final say over all marketing and merchandising. I hear from sources inside Universal that the various marketing departments are expressing increased interest in our “franchise.” In English, that means they’re recognizing that there are a lot of Tremors fans out there. Nothing is definite, but here are some of the things that are being considered at Universal: Toys, action figures, collectibles and video games. The Tremors series is being considered for promotion in these areas, and deals may be discussed with toy companies, game designers, etc." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And Universal knows how to grab monsters and keep them for later. Though the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man are in the public domain, you'll be sued if the image gets too close to what Universal first created. Not just those creatures. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. Pretty much every monster you can think of that's not Godzilla. If Graboids, Shriekers, AssbBlasters and Mixmaster were added to that list, it would almost be a monopoly on monsters. In a world where the multi-verse is common, a MonsterVerse is easier to make than it seems (though they tried and fucked it up already, they WILL try again). Tremors is basically adult Poke'Mon. This is why Universal completely redesigned the Graboids, Shriekers, and Assblasters. The more they can make that associates Tremors with their version, the more they can take from Stampede before the end.
Now the sadness comes. Time to Bummer Down Under.
With the release and cancellation of Tremors the Series, and creation and late release of Tremors 4, came Universal's desire for Tremors 5.

"It was written while we were doing ‘Tremors 4’. Everybody was excited by the idea and, for a while there was talk of an even bigger budget and the potential for it to be a theatrical feature. So we were looking to how we could be really different." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And from 2004 to 2015, Brent and Steve would write and rewrite Tremors 5 Thunder Down Under 7-8 times. But it seemed that while Universal wanted it, they also didn't.

“There was never-ending interest from the fans, I became something of a de-facto frequently asked question answerer. I lost track of the number of times I had to write ‘I’m sorry, but there’ll never be a ‘Tremors 5’.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

That's when Universal stole Tremors. And you should start asking yourself why a studio who thinks there is no money to be had in a series has made 7 movies and 2 TV shows from it...

”We were on the way back from Chicago, and got a call on the road from Nancy (Roberts), who was still heading up Stampede (the production company established by Maddock, Wilson, Roberts and Underwood). She said ‘You won’t believe it! ‘Tremors 5’ is happening! They want to make it!’ We got very excited, Nancy was going to get the information so we could hit the ground running. Nancy asked whether they wanted Brent or I to direct, and they told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored - it didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low-budget movies. The sequels we made were all low-budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what that real reason was. We did have a ‘right of first refusal’ clause built into our contacts that had just lapsed - a clause which meant they would have had to offer the sequel to us, and, if we said no, they could then take it to someone else. But we never got any real information about what really happened that led to that.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

For a time, Stampede Entertainment chose to forget about Tremors since it was all they could do. Even though Universal cannibalized their script and took over half of it to make Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Nothing.
Until Kevin Bacon came calling.

"Nancy called us out of the blue again and said ‘You’re not going to believe this. Kevin’s finally thinking about returning to the character of Val! They want you to come in and talk about this new series idea that he has!’ Then, when we called back to set up a time, they said ‘Oh, we’re sorry. There appears to have been some sort of mistake. No-one here wants to talk to you in any way, shape or form and never will.’ It was classic Hollywood - classic, bad Hollywood. There’s a lot of good Hollywood too, and Brent and I have experienced a lot of that. But this was not fun.” ' Steve S.S. Wilson

Universal/SyFy would go on to make that Tremors series anyway. Or at least a pilot of it. To the point where it had finished VFX and was able to be shown in full at festivals. But they cancelled it before it could go anywhere. Then they buried it. And no one really knows why.

"I looked at that character [Valentine McKee] and thought to myself, 'You know, this is probably the only character I have ever played that I want to really go back and see what’s happened to him.' He was such a fascinating character to me because he’s such an ordinary man; not that smart, not that special, and yet he had this extraordinary circumstance that he had to sort of step up to the plate for. I thought to myself, 'If you take that away, if they just went away, those worms, what does a guy like that do? The rest of his life has now really become uninteresting,' so exploring that I thought would be fun. We made an excellent pilot outside of Albuquerque, recreated the town, had a really great cast, director, and writer and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t want to move forward with it. It’s a real head-scratcher for me. If I honestly thought the pilot was shit then I’d say we just didn’t crack it but it was cool, and that’s a really hard balance to get, between funny and scary, as you know, that’s the sweet spot. Tremors was good at that." - Kevin Bacon

Read the script for yourself. It already had Mindy and Melvin in it with the return of Burt and Earl on the horizon. And if you watch the trailer, just know that it's completely misleading. The redesigned Graboid lives alongside the old one and Val IS wrong when he says "They don't plan. They don't strategize.". Him being ignorant is part of the plot.
At this point, Universal was already in full swing creating their new Tremors movies. In the same time it took for Tremors 2 to come out after Tremors, Universal has made 3 new movies, Bloodlines, A Cold Day in Hell and Shrieker Island, and a TV show. That doesn't make much sense considering how 4 movies and a TV show were created over 25 years. For Universal to crank out 3 movies and a TV show in less than a quarter of that time is a feat in and of itself. Movies that are a shadow of what Stampede Entertainment was doing with the over-fetishisation of piss/shit humour, overt sexism/racism, and a disregard for the way the creatures behaved before. There's a part in Shrieker Island where a man is killed by a Graboid while on the toilet. And that's not the worst part. The worst is how it happens in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm while the man is making zero noise. Not even a grunt of constipation. Think on that. A monster that hunts entirely by sound, seeking out and finding someone in the middle of a rainstorm that would drown out its sound sensors. It hurts, doesn't it?
Dumb fun fact: Tremors 6 was filmed in South Africa despite taking place in Canada and is the only movie to try turning sand into snow. No, there was no real reason to do it. Not to mention Kevin Bacon's daughter explaining to Burt Gummer how Graboids work. Also, they found millenia old hominid bones in cave in Africa because the Tremors 5 crew vandalised a wall. No, that's not a plot for the next movie.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable as I tried to protect the franchise. Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree with, and I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without somebody like [the original writers] Steve or Brent there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’... Long story short, Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again." - Michael Gross

Bringing us to the semi-present day and the part where #SPOILERS# happen.
#SPOILERS#
The release of Tremors 7 Shrieker Island. And the supposed death of Burt Gummer. But not in the good-story way. This was something that was merely an afterthought.

"They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea. Universal and the director came to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' "What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." - Michael Gross

Which would be fine if that's what Universal actually did. Instead, they tacked on a cheap montage of clips at the end and make it seem like Michael Gross himself is dead. They even show clips of Hiram Gummer but nothing of Burt from the TV show despite it having more hours than the movies combined. That's how you treat the one person who has been with this franchise for the last 35 years? I smell a reboot.
And the Graboid hole deepens with the end credits.
Ever heard of Burt Gummer Day? No, it's not something Universal made up for Tremors. It's a holiday created by @BabyFarkMcGeeZax of Imgur. And he's been doing it for the last five years through love, effort and 4K Intergalactic Quality Gifs alone. But has Universal credited him? Nope. Michael Gross would love to know who started it but no one besides me will tell him. And here Universal is using his holiday as lines of dialogue and a marketing campaign to get people watching Tremors every April 14th. It's pretty messed up.
This is where people like you and I come in to play. Do you have any idea of the width and breadth of Tremors fandom?
Remember what I said about merchandising money? Video games tie into that too.

"Just to be clear, a wildly successful video game (an idea we've always wanted to work on) would make Universal a fortune. Not us." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And since Universal won't make them, Tremors fans have done what they can with what they have. And there are a lot of them. All across the spectrum.
Not just games either, if you want a T-shirt that's Straight Outta Perfection, you'll have to ask around and search but you'll find plenty when you do.
That's not even getting into the fan-art or fan-fiction or fan-film communities, all of which are quite wholesome even when they are being crazily sexual. Ever seen a sexy Graboid? It's.... something. And there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than there should be. It's like the #1 sidekink of furries. I know, I don't understand it either, but I can sure as hell appreciate the craft. And there's hundreds of thousands of them! And millions more that are simply hiding their love of Tremors because they think it's too weird and they'll be made fun of for liking it. Someone made a not terrible remix-song of Melvin singing "Way to go, dudes!". A 9 year old kid entered a mullet competition because he was inspired by Kevin Bacon as Val. I haven't even gotten into the 22,000 people in the Burt Gummer Subterranean Meme Stash.
This one's weird but there's a phenomenon where whenever a earthquake or tremors happens, it makes half the people effected by it watch Tremors. Same with experiencing or seeing neurological body tremors. When people talk about "tremors" in any aspect, it gets people watching the movies. I see it because I look up the word "Tremors" everyday on Twitter and that's the big three I see. And the first two cause and effect the later. It's strange. But free advertising!
There's a freaking subreddit for it! Tremors
Then the podcasts!! Practically everyone and their mother has done a 2 hour podcast on why Tremors is the greatest horror-rom-com movie series ever. SO many that I won't even attempt to list them. Just search Tremors and podcasts. There's thousands. The same goes for video reviews, reaction watches and reconstructions on Youtube. Too many to list. It's the go-to movie when people want to point out underrated horror, a feel-good time, or tight screenplays. So much so that they use Tremors as study material in film schools across the world.
James Gunn loves the movie so much he made sure to reference it in Slither by naming the school after THE Earl Bassett. Jon LaJoie loves it so much he wrote an album and song around it called "Wolfie's Just Fine". And Rick and Morty referenced it twice last season.
I've dived into the creative Graboid hole a few times as well. Four years ago, I discovered how Earl and his sleeping bag look like Stumpy at the end falling to its death. The only reason you can read the scripts for the Tremors pilot, original Tremors 2, and Tremors 5 is because I've used every social media channel I can to talk and ask about it and people in the these threads and on Twitter noticed. Half of the quotes you read are because the folks at Hollywood Unseen saw what I was doing, asked Steve a bunch of questions and wrote the answers down.
Hell, most of this information comes from "Seeking Perfection", the Tremors biography by Jonathan Melville. He literally wrote a 300 page book because there wan't one and he thought there should be. Because when you need it, and don't have it, ya sing a different tune.
Steve S.S. Wilson is such a fan of the series that even after he and Stampede were kicked out, he has spent the last 6 years answering questions on the Tremors FAQ page section of the Stampede Entertainment website. Ask yourself or send some love, they can sure use it. The only reason I was able to get the famous copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to take the Stampede Tremors case was because I sent so many people there that someone happened to ask about the copyright expiration clause. Because after 35 years, the original creators can take their creation back.
The time is running out though cause I can tell Universal plans a remake/reboot so they can run the clock til the Stampede Tremors team dies of old age. It's another one of those things I would looooooove to be wrong about. But if people can get mad enough to #RestoretheSnyderVerse when Zac Snyder didn't even create the characters of DC then we can #StampedeTremors until the series goes back to Perfection. These people spent over 35 years of their lives making monster movies for our entertainment. The least we can do is let them finish what they started. They're owed that. We all are.
Because when someone's creation can be taken away that easily after so much time, love, and effort than how could any of us feel safe creating anything ever again?
"We must do what we can with what we have."

Welcome to the Graboid hole, Valentine.
Now you've probably heard of the underground movie Tremors. This is the story of how Perfection was created then stolen from its makers after over 35 years of work.
Warning, "Here be Dirt Dragons".
It all started with a man named Steve Wilson, out on a rock in the middle of the desert. Sound familiar?

“One day I was sitting out there on one of those boulders and thought how interesting it would be to have something that moved through the sand like a fish, and I couldn’t get off the rock,” - Steve S.S. Wilson

He'd go on to meet Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood at UCLA film school and a legendary partnership was formed. Known as special effects wizards, they made their way into the film game until writing "Short Circuit" and getting the help of one Nancy Roberts, the true behind the scenes figurehead of the Tremors series. With the success of "Short Circuit", Nancy turned to them and asked if they had anything original in their back pocket they wanted to do on their own. To which Steve pulled out.... Land Sharks.
And it took a lot of work to turn that into what we know. Which is why Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Jacks jumped in to help. Firstly, Universal didn't know how to market horror-rom-coms because Tremors was the first of its kind. Then there's Universal itself wanting to make the movie but also thinking Tremors will fail. Making things non-union and changing the name from "Beneath Perfection" to "Dead Silence" to hide things.

“The studio wanted to keep the film hidden due to it being a non-union production, although they were involved at an arms-length distance with the picture being a negative pickup as opposed to a studio picture. They wanted it to be under the radar.” - Ron Underwood

Though the day-to-day filming was challenging due to the nature of creating a low-budget monster movie, production went surprisingly smooth thanks to the abilities of Brent, Nancy, Ron and Steve. Well actually, everyone involved. You already know the actors but there are some incredibly talented people involved behind the scenes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis as the main creature designers of the series. Turning their penis shaped designs into the Graboids we know and love today. That's just two of hundreds who painstakingly created Perfection. Steve Wilson's dad, Bob Wilson, also joined in the production of his son directing/writing/producing his first movie. He loved it so much he brought a home camera and filmed the greatest behind the scenes series ever with it. The whole team did what they could with they had, trimming what they could and fighting for what they couldn't. The scene where the car is sucked under was originally longer and about to be cut before Nancy and Jim stepped in. There was even two aborted openings, one with Old Fred and Edgar, and another with a rabbit and coyote being eaten by Graboids after landing from space. As well as a different ending.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's first child was born during the filming of the scene where Walter Chang is eaten by a Graboid. That's how committed everyone was. Also why Kevin had nightmares and regretted Tremors until recently.
But despite all that, on a budget of $11 million dollars, Tremors made $16 millon dollars in the theatre and was considered a failure at the box-office.
Or so it would seem....

"We got a backhanded compliment from them when they said, ‘We could sell an empty video box called Tremors, we have to have it.’” - Steve S.S. Wilson

With the advent of VHS and home video rentals, Tremors found its true home. And so came the call for Tremors 2: Aftershocks.
Originally, it was a much different movie than what we know today. Written in 1993, the first script for it had Reba returning as Heather Gummer with Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee. There was a plethora of new characters fed to the Graboids and Shriekers, an opening with gangsters attacking a family, and ending that was so good it was re-used for the TV episode "Shriek and Destroy". As well as the impetus and repetition of the phrase "Doing what you can with what you got." passed between Heather, Burt and Val. And the best callback ever. But because Kevin Bacon didn't want to return since sequels were seen as faux-pas and Reba wanted to come back but couldn't due to her touring schedule, the budget was slashed and things were changed. Val became Grady, Heather divorced Burt and a legend was born.

“When my son was eight, I let him see Tremors, because at that age he could appreciate it. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked, ‘Travis, did you see Tremors?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Dad, have you seen Tremors 2? It’s really great.’ I said, ‘Son, I’m not in Tremors 2.’ And he said, ‘No, but it’s cool.’” - Kevin Bacon

Fun fact: The unused designs of the Shriekers from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were repurposed for Starship Troopers as Arachnids instead. There was even Phil Tippett joining in to help create the CGI Shriekers.
That's when things really started to change.

“I could see where they were really excited because you’d be able to move those videos so quickly just on the word “Tremors”.” - Cristin Carr Strubbe

And Tremors came Back to Perfection.
A movie that gets an unfair rap because people don't like the name AssBlasters (AB is what they were called behind the scenes and how Burt refers to them, I like the African word "Impundulu"), it's the strangest of the original bunch. It has the largest set of returning cast for any Tremors entry with Burt, Nancy, Melvin, Mindy, and Miguel. It's the only film in the series that's rated PG despite coining and frequently using the term AssBlaster. AND it's Michael Gross' favourite Tremors movie. You're probably wondering why there's a smaller amount of information compared to the first two movies. So did the creators.

“We got to a point with Tremors 3 when there was no promotion at all. I remember saying to Universal, ‘There’s not even a poster to put up in a video store.’ What some stores were doing was putting up their own posters to notify customers there was a thing called Tremors 3 available. That was part of Universal’s austerity; they wanted to spend as little money as possible on these films. I’m not sure saving money on promotion is the smartest way. Rabid fans would find out about it, but as far as the general public knowing there’s another one of these movies available, that wasn’t the case.” - Brent Maddock
“Universal made a lot of money off that product, it always sold well, especially in the Asian world. I was the unit production manager on Tremors 3 and the TV series and I still get residuals off them. Ron Underwood told me a story about the premiere of his second film, City Slickers, in Japan. They sat in the theatre and nobody laughed the whole time. He was really depressed and when he came out the publicity people came up and they said, ‘There’s a lot of people that want to talk to you’. There was a line around the block and all they wanted to talk about was Tremors.” - Tom Keniston
“The video department begged the studio proper to make ‘Tremors 2’ and then it was a while before we made ‘Tremors 3’. That was designed to be the last one - the thinking being that surely we couldn’t milk this for more than those two sequels. But by that time, it was rolling forward on its own momentum, and they ordered ‘Tremors 4’ almost immediately. We explained that we’d structured three to be the end of the sequels, that we’d ended the life cycle of the monster and brought it full circle. The studio wasn’t bothered and basically said, ‘Well, what can you do?’ We asked if they’d mind if we made it a Western and start over. Their response was, ‘We don’t care, as long as it’s called ‘Tremors’ - so that’s why ‘Tremors 4’ is a Western.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Which is when Tremors landed on the small screen in the best piece of the puzzle yet. Seriously, I'm trying my hardest not to editorialize yet the TV show and 4th movie are my absolute favourites. That's why I've been able to track the irregularities with it. The worst is that the order of episodes is constantly distorted, leading to many viewer's confusion as characters are talked about before introduced and events referenced that haven't happened yet. It's so bad that even Google has the wrong order. See for yourself.a Not to mention how Universal has pulled it from every streaming app ever since I started this #StampedeTremors campaign so they make more more money off of the incomplete DVD sets.
The second is how once the TV show was greenlit, Universal immediately wanted Stampede to make Tremors 4. To the disregard of both productions.

“If Universal had been willing to delay the start of Tremors 4 by two weeks, or if Sci-Fi had been willing to wait until the end of T-4’s shoot to start the series production, Michael Gross could have been in all 13 episodes. Both sides absolutely refused to compromise, even though they’re both owned by the same parent company. After all that, Universal Home Video then delayed the release of the finished T-4 several months. Go figure.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Thirdly, and what I have found as the most important, is Mixmaster. A compound created as a plot device for the TV show which allowed the DNA of any animals to be combined to create a new monster every week.

"But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it. There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations. Grasshoppers with scorpion tails, Gila monsters with bat wings." - Cletus Poffenberger

THIS is why Universal stole Tremors from Stampede Entertainment.
Do you know what the highest grossing series of all time is?
Poke'Mon. I know, right?
Because when you can crank out thousands of new monsters, you can print money from every single one of those creatures as new merchandise. So when the folks at Stampede Tremors came up with something that can do that, make those monsters both cute/scary so as to get the kids AND adults to buy the toys.... Well it's easy to see why Universal would pull some Hollywood accounting with the series. If Tremors can make $500 million dollars without ANY official merchandise, imagine how much it would make if you could buy Graboid plushies, AssBlaster lighters or a different Mixmaster monster whenever they rolled out? And this series has been made with lower than minimal budget. What would happen if Universal actually gave the production the money it needed?

"We get a lot of fans asking why they can’t buy rubber Graboids and Val and Earl action figures or video games. Some of you have even offered to help design or even manufacture them. Others have helpfully suggested lower-budget ways they could be produced. Still another asked if we just had a small leftover graboid in “hardened clay” he could buy. (Sorry, the graboids were constructed full size; the clay versions are gone, and the casting molds are huge. Even the ¼ scale graboids are pretty big.) In answer: we wish we could get Universal to think like our fans! You have to believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are. We don’t control the Tremors “franchise.” Universal Pictures has the final say over all marketing and merchandising. I hear from sources inside Universal that the various marketing departments are expressing increased interest in our “franchise.” In English, that means they’re recognizing that there are a lot of Tremors fans out there. Nothing is definite, but here are some of the things that are being considered at Universal: Toys, action figures, collectibles and video games. The Tremors series is being considered for promotion in these areas, and deals may be discussed with toy companies, game designers, etc." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And Universal knows how to grab monsters and keep them for later. Though the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man are in the public domain, you'll be sued if the image gets too close to what Universal first created. Not just those creatures. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. Pretty much every monster you can think of that's not Godzilla. If Graboids, Shriekers, AssbBlasters and Mixmaster were added to that list, it would almost be a monopoly on monsters. In a world where the multi-verse is common, a MonsterVerse is easier to make than it seems (though they tried and fucked it up already, they WILL try again). Tremors is basically adult Poke'Mon. This is why Universal completely redesigned the Graboids, Shriekers, and Assblasters. The more they can make that associates Tremors with their version, the more they can take from Stampede before the end.
Now the sadness comes. Time to Bummer Down Under.
With the release and cancellation of Tremors the Series, and creation and late release of Tremors 4, came Universal's desire for Tremors 5.

"It was written while we were doing ‘Tremors 4’. Everybody was excited by the idea and, for a while there was talk of an even bigger budget and the potential for it to be a theatrical feature. So we were looking to how we could be really different." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And from 2004 to 2015, Brent and Steve would write and rewrite Tremors 5 Thunder Down Under 7-8 times. But it seemed that while Universal wanted it, they also didn't.

“There was never-ending interest from the fans, I became something of a de-facto frequently asked question answerer. I lost track of the number of times I had to write ‘I’m sorry, but there’ll never be a ‘Tremors 5’.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

That's when Universal stole Tremors. And you should start asking yourself why a studio who thinks there is no money to be had in a series has made 7 movies and 2 TV shows from it...

”We were on the way back from Chicago, and got a call on the road from Nancy (Roberts), who was still heading up Stampede (the production company established by Maddock, Wilson, Roberts and Underwood). She said ‘You won’t believe it! ‘Tremors 5’ is happening! They want to make it!’ We got very excited, Nancy was going to get the information so we could hit the ground running. Nancy asked whether they wanted Brent or I to direct, and they told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored - it didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low-budget movies. The sequels we made were all low-budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what that real reason was. We did have a ‘right of first refusal’ clause built into our contacts that had just lapsed - a clause which meant they would have had to offer the sequel to us, and, if we said no, they could then take it to someone else. But we never got any real information about what really happened that led to that.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

For a time, Stampede Entertainment chose to forget about Tremors since it was all they could do. Even though Universal cannibalized their script and took over half of it to make Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Nothing.
Until Kevin Bacon came calling.

"Nancy called us out of the blue again and said ‘You’re not going to believe this. Kevin’s finally thinking about returning to the character of Val! They want you to come in and talk about this new series idea that he has!’ Then, when we called back to set up a time, they said ‘Oh, we’re sorry. There appears to have been some sort of mistake. No-one here wants to talk to you in any way, shape or form and never will.’ It was classic Hollywood - classic, bad Hollywood. There’s a lot of good Hollywood too, and Brent and I have experienced a lot of that. But this was not fun.” ' Steve S.S. Wilson

Universal/SyFy would go on to make that Tremors series anyway. Or at least a pilot of it. To the point where it had finished VFX and was able to be shown in full at festivals. But they cancelled it before it could go anywhere. Then they buried it. And no one really knows why.

"I looked at that character [Valentine McKee] and thought to myself, 'You know, this is probably the only character I have ever played that I want to really go back and see what’s happened to him.' He was such a fascinating character to me because he’s such an ordinary man; not that smart, not that special, and yet he had this extraordinary circumstance that he had to sort of step up to the plate for. I thought to myself, 'If you take that away, if they just went away, those worms, what does a guy like that do? The rest of his life has now really become uninteresting,' so exploring that I thought would be fun. We made an excellent pilot outside of Albuquerque, recreated the town, had a really great cast, director, and writer and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t want to move forward with it. It’s a real head-scratcher for me. If I honestly thought the pilot was shit then I’d say we just didn’t crack it but it was cool, and that’s a really hard balance to get, between funny and scary, as you know, that’s the sweet spot. Tremors was good at that." - Kevin Bacon

Read the script for yourself. It already had Mindy and Melvin in it with the return of Burt and Earl on the horizon. And if you watch the trailer, just know that it's completely misleading. The redesigned Graboid lives alongside the old one and Val IS wrong when he says "They don't plan. They don't strategize.". Him being ignorant is part of the plot.
At this point, Universal was already in full swing creating their new Tremors movies. In the same time it took for Tremors 2 to come out after Tremors, Universal has made 3 new movies, Bloodlines, A Cold Day in Hell and Shrieker Island, and a TV show. That doesn't make much sense considering how 4 movies and a TV show were created over 25 years. For Universal to crank out 3 movies and a TV show in less than a quarter of that time is a feat in and of itself. Movies that are a shadow of what Stampede Entertainment was doing with the over-fetishisation of piss/shit humour, overt sexism/racism, and a disregard for the way the creatures behaved before. There's a part in Shrieker Island where a man is killed by a Graboid while on the toilet. And that's not the worst part. The worst is how it happens in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm while the man is making zero noise. Not even a grunt of constipation. Think on that. A monster that hunts entirely by sound, seeking out and finding someone in the middle of a rainstorm that would drown out its sound sensors. It hurts, doesn't it?
Dumb fun fact: Tremors 6 was filmed in South Africa despite taking place in Canada and is the only movie to try turning sand into snow. No, there was no real reason to do it. Not to mention Kevin Bacon's daughter explaining to Burt Gummer how Graboids work.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable as I tried to protect the franchise. Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree with, and I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without somebody like [the original writers] Steve or Brent there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’... Long story short, Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again." - Michael Gross

Bringing us to the semi-present day and the part where #SPOILERS# happen.
#SPOILERS#
The release of Tremors 7 Shrieker Island. And the supposed death of Burt Gummer. But not in the good-story way. This was something that was merely an afterthought.

"They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea. Universal and the director came to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' "What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." - Michael Gross

Which would be fine if that's what Universal actually did. Instead, they tacked on a cheap montage of clips at the end and make it seem like Michael Gross himself is dead. They even show clips of Hiram Gummer but nothing of Burt from the TV show despite it having more hours than the movies combined. That's how you treat the one person who has been with this franchise for the last 35 years? I smell a reboot.
And the Graboid hole deepens with the end credits.
Ever heard of Burt Gummer Day? No, it's not something Universal made up for Tremors. It's a holiday created by @BabyFarkMcGeeZax of Imgur. And he's been doing it for the last five years through love, effort and 4K Intergalactic Quality Gifs alone. But has Universal credited him? Nope. Michael Gross would love to know who started it but no one besides me will tell him. And here Universal is using his holiday as lines of dialogue and a marketing campaign to get people watching Tremors every April 14th. It's pretty messed up.
This is where people like you and I come in to play. Do you have any idea of the width and breadth of Tremors fandom?
Remember what I said about merchandising money? Video games tie into that too.

"Just to be clear, a wildly successful video game (an idea we've always wanted to work on) would make Universal a fortune. Not us." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And since Universal won't make them, Tremors fans have done what they can with what they have. And there are a lot of them. All across the spectrum.
Not just games either, if you want a T-shirt that's Straight Outta Perfection, you'll have to ask around and search but you'll find plenty when you do.
That's not even getting into the fan-art or fan-fiction or fan-film communities, all of which are quite wholesome even when they are being crazily sexual. Ever seen a sexy Graboid? It's.... something. And there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than there should be. It's like the #1 sidekink of furries. I know, I don't understand it either, but I can sure as hell appreciate the craft. And there's hundreds of thousands of them! And millions more that are simply hiding their love of Tremors because they think it's too weird and they'll be made fun of for liking it. Someone made a not terrible remix-song of Melvin singing "Way to go, dudes!". A 9 year old kid entered a mullet competition because he was inspired by Kevin Bacon as Val. I haven't even mentioned the 22,000 people in the Burt Gummer Subterranean Meme Stash.
This one's weird but there's a phenomenon where whenever a earthquake or tremors happens, it makes half the people effected by it watch Tremors. Same with experiencing or seeing neurological body tremors. When people talk about "tremors" in any aspect, it gets people watching the movies. I see it because I look up the word "Tremors" everyday on Twitter and that's the big three I see. And the first two cause and effect the later. It's strange. But free advertising!
There's a freaking subreddit for it! Tremors
Then the podcasts!! Practically everyone and their mother has done a 2 hour podcast on why Tremors is the greatest horror-rom-com movie series ever. SO many that I won't even attempt to list them. Just search Tremors and podcasts. There's thousands. The same goes for video reviews, reaction watches and reconstructions on Youtube. Too many to list. It's the go-to movie when people want to point out underrated horror, a feel-good time, or tight screenplays. So much so that they use Tremors as study material in film schools across the world.
James Gunn loves the movie so much he made sure to reference it in Slither by naming the school after THE Earl Bassett. Jon LaJoie loves it so much he wrote an album and song around it called "Wolfie's Just Fine". And Rick and Morty referenced it twice last season.
I've dived into the creative Graboid hole a few times as well. Four years ago, I discovered how Earl and his sleeping bag look like Stumpy at the end falling to its death. The only reason you can read the scripts for the Tremors pilot, original Tremors 2, and Tremors 5 is because I've used every social media channel I can to talk and ask about it and people in the these threads and on Twitter noticed. Half of the quotes you read are because the folks at Hollywood Unseen saw what I was doing, asked Steve a bunch of questions and wrote the answers down.
Hell, most of this information comes from "Seeking Perfection", the Tremors biography by Jonathan Melville. He literally wrote a 300 page book because there wan't one and he thought there should be. Because when you need it, and don't have it, ya sing a different tune.
Steve S.S. Wilson is such a fan of the series that even after he and Stampede were kicked out, he has spent the last 6 years answering questions on the Tremors FAQ page section of the Stampede Entertainment website. Ask yourself or send some love, they can sure use it. The only reason I was able to get the famous copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to take the Stampede Tremors case was because I sent so many people there that someone happened to ask about the copyright expiration clause. Because after 35 years, the original creators can take their creation back.
The time is running out though cause I can tell Universal plans a remake/reboot so they can run the clock til the Stampede Tremors team dies of old age. It's another one of those things I would looooooove to be wrong about. But if people can get mad enough to #RestoretheSnyderVerse when Zac Snyder didn't even create the characters of DC then we can #StampedeTremors until the series goes back to Perfection. These people spent over 35 years of their lives making monster movies for our entertainment. The least we can do is let them finish what they started. They're owed that. We all are.
Because when someone's creation can be taken away that easily after so much time, love, and effort than how could any of us feel safe creating anything ever again?
"We must do what we can with what we have."

Welcome to the Graboid hole, Valentine.
Now you've probably heard of the underground movie Tremors. This is the story of how Perfection was created then stolen from its makers after over 35 years of work.
Warning, "Here be Dirt Dragons".
It all started with a man named Steve Wilson, out on a rock in the middle of the desert. Sound familiar?

“One day I was sitting out there on one of those boulders and thought how interesting it would be to have something that moved through the sand like a fish, and I couldn’t get off the rock,” - Steve S.S. Wilson

He'd go on to meet Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood at UCLA film school and a legendary partnership was formed. Known as special effects wizards, they made their way into the film game until writing "Short Circuit" and getting the help of one Nancy Roberts, the true behind the scenes figurehead of the Tremors series. With the success of "Short Circuit", Nancy turned to them and asked if they had anything original in their back pocket they wanted to do on their own. To which Steve pulled out.... Land Sharks.
And it took a lot of work to turn that into what we know. Which is why Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Jacks jumped in to help. Firstly, Universal didn't know how to market horror-rom-coms because Tremors was the first of its kind. Then there's Universal itself wanting to make the movie but also thinking Tremors will fail. Making things non-union and changing the name from "Beneath Perfection" to "Dead Silence" to hide things.

“The studio wanted to keep the film hidden due to it being a non-union production, although they were involved at an arms-length distance with the picture being a negative pickup as opposed to a studio picture. They wanted it to be under the radar.” - Ron Underwood

Though the day-to-day filming was challenging due to the nature of creating a low-budget monster movie, production went surprisingly smooth thanks to the abilities of Brent, Nancy, Ron and Steve. Well actually, everyone involved. You already know the actors but there are some incredibly talented people involved behind the scenes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis as the main creature designers of the series. Turning their penis shaped designs into the Graboids we know and love today. That's just two of hundreds who painstakingly created Perfection. Steve Wilson's dad, Bob Wilson, also joined in the production of his son directing/writing/producing his first movie. He loved it so much he brought a home camera and filmed the greatest behind the scenes series ever with it. The whole team did what they could with they had, trimming what they could and fighting for what they couldn't. The scene where the car is sucked under was originally longer and about to be cut before Nancy and Jim stepped in. There was even two aborted openings, one with Old Fred and Edgar, and another with a rabbit and coyote being eaten by Graboids after landing from space. As well as a different ending.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's first child was born during the filming of the scene where Walter Chang is eaten by a Graboid. That's how committed everyone was. Also why Kevin had nightmares and regretted Tremors until recently.
But despite all that, on a budget of $11 million dollars, Tremors made $16 millon dollars in the theatre and was considered a failure at the box-office.
Or so it would seem....

"We got a backhanded compliment from them when they said, ‘We could sell an empty video box called Tremors, we have to have it.’” - Steve S.S. Wilson

With the advent of VHS and home video rentals, Tremors found its true home. And so came the call for Tremors 2: Aftershocks.
Originally, it was a much different movie than what we know today. Written in 1993, the first script for it had Reba returning as Heather Gummer with Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee. There was a plethora of new characters fed to the Graboids and Shriekers, an opening with gangsters attacking a family, and ending that was so good it was re-used for the TV episode "Shriek and Destroy". As well as the impetus and repetition of the phrase "Doing what you can with what you got." passed between Heather, Burt and Val. And the best callback ever. But because Kevin Bacon didn't want to return since sequels were seen as faux-pas and Reba wanted to come back but couldn't due to her touring schedule, the budget was slashed and things were changed. Val became Grady, Heather divorced Burt and a legend was born.

“When my son was eight, I let him see Tremors, because at that age he could appreciate it. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked, ‘Travis, did you see Tremors?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Dad, have you seen Tremors 2? It’s really great.’ I said, ‘Son, I’m not in Tremors 2.’ And he said, ‘No, but it’s cool.’” - Kevin Bacon

Fun fact: The unused designs of the Shriekers from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were repurposed for Starship Troopers as Arachnids instead. There was even Phil Tippett joining in to help create the CGI Shriekers.
That's when things really started to change.

“I could see where they were really excited because you’d be able to move those videos so quickly just on the word “Tremors”.” - Cristin Carr Strubbe

And Tremors came Back to Perfection.
A movie that gets an unfair rap because people don't like the name AssBlasters (AB is what they were called behind the scenes and how Burt refers to them, I like the African word "Impundulu"), it's the strangest of the original bunch. It has the largest set of returning cast for any Tremors entry with Burt, Nancy, Melvin, Mindy, and Miguel. It's the only film in the series that's rated PG despite coining and frequently using the term AssBlaster. AND it's Michael Gross' favourite Tremors movie. You're probably wondering why there's a smaller amount of information compared to the first two movies. So did the creators.

“We got to a point with Tremors 3 when there was no promotion at all. I remember saying to Universal, ‘There’s not even a poster to put up in a video store.’ What some stores were doing was putting up their own posters to notify customers there was a thing called Tremors 3 available. That was part of Universal’s austerity; they wanted to spend as little money as possible on these films. I’m not sure saving money on promotion is the smartest way. Rabid fans would find out about it, but as far as the general public knowing there’s another one of these movies available, that wasn’t the case.” - Brent Maddock
“Universal made a lot of money off that product, it always sold well, especially in the Asian world. I was the unit production manager on Tremors 3 and the TV series and I still get residuals off them. Ron Underwood told me a story about the premiere of his second film, City Slickers, in Japan. They sat in the theatre and nobody laughed the whole time. He was really depressed and when he came out the publicity people came up and they said, ‘There’s a lot of people that want to talk to you’. There was a line around the block and all they wanted to talk about was Tremors.” - Tom Keniston
“The video department begged the studio proper to make ‘Tremors 2’ and then it was a while before we made ‘Tremors 3’. That was designed to be the last one - the thinking being that surely we couldn’t milk this for more than those two sequels. But by that time, it was rolling forward on its own momentum, and they ordered ‘Tremors 4’ almost immediately. We explained that we’d structured three to be the end of the sequels, that we’d ended the life cycle of the monster and brought it full circle. The studio wasn’t bothered and basically said, ‘Well, what can you do?’ We asked if they’d mind if we made it a Western and start over. Their response was, ‘We don’t care, as long as it’s called ‘Tremors’ - so that’s why ‘Tremors 4’ is a Western.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Which is when Tremors landed on the small screen in the best piece of the puzzle yet. Seriously, I'm trying my hardest not to editorialize yet the TV show and 4th movie are my absolute favourites. That's why I've been able to track the irregularities with it. The worst is that the order of episodes is constantly distorted, leading to many viewer's confusion as characters are talked about before introduced and events referenced that haven't happened yet. It's so bad that even Google has the wrong order. See for yourself.a Not to mention how Universal has pulled it from every streaming app ever since I started this #StampedeTremors campaign so they make more more money off of the incomplete DVD sets.
The second is how once the TV show was greenlit, Universal immediately wanted Stampede to make Tremors 4. To the disregard of both productions.

“If Universal had been willing to delay the start of Tremors 4 by two weeks, or if Sci-Fi had been willing to wait until the end of T-4’s shoot to start the series production, Michael Gross could have been in all 13 episodes. Both sides absolutely refused to compromise, even though they’re both owned by the same parent company. After all that, Universal Home Video then delayed the release of the finished T-4 several months. Go figure.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Thirdly, and what I have found as the most important, is Mixmaster. A compound created as a plot device for the TV show which allowed the DNA of any animals to be combined to create a new monster every week.

"But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it. There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations. Grasshoppers with scorpion tails, Gila monsters with bat wings." - Cletus Poffenberger

THIS is why Universal stole Tremors from Stampede Entertainment.
Do you know what the highest grossing series of all time is?
Poke'Mon. I know, right?
Because when you can crank out thousands of new monsters, you can print money from every single one of those creatures as new merchandise. So when the folks at Stampede Tremors came up with something that can do that, make those monsters both cute/scary so as to get the kids AND adults to buy the toys.... Well it's easy to see why Universal would pull some Hollywood accounting with the series. If Tremors can make $500 million dollars without ANY official merchandise, imagine how much it would make if you could buy Graboid plushies, AssBlaster lighters or a different Mixmaster monster whenever they rolled out? And this series has been made with lower than minimal budget. What would happen if Universal actually gave the production the money it needed?

"We get a lot of fans asking why they can’t buy rubber Graboids and Val and Earl action figures or video games. Some of you have even offered to help design or even manufacture them. Others have helpfully suggested lower-budget ways they could be produced. Still another asked if we just had a small leftover graboid in “hardened clay” he could buy. (Sorry, the graboids were constructed full size; the clay versions are gone, and the casting molds are huge. Even the ¼ scale graboids are pretty big.) In answer: we wish we could get Universal to think like our fans! You have to believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are. We don’t control the Tremors “franchise.” Universal Pictures has the final say over all marketing and merchandising. I hear from sources inside Universal that the various marketing departments are expressing increased interest in our “franchise.” In English, that means they’re recognizing that there are a lot of Tremors fans out there. Nothing is definite, but here are some of the things that are being considered at Universal: Toys, action figures, collectibles and video games. The Tremors series is being considered for promotion in these areas, and deals may be discussed with toy companies, game designers, etc." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And Universal knows how to grab monsters and keep them for later. Though the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man are in the public domain, you'll be sued if the image gets too close to what Universal first created. Not just those creatures. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. Pretty much every monster you can think of that's not Godzilla. If Graboids, Shriekers, AssbBlasters and Mixmaster were added to that list, it would almost be a monopoly on monsters. In a world where the multi-verse is common, a MonsterVerse is easier to make than it seems (though they tried and fucked it up already, they WILL try again). Tremors is basically adult Poke'Mon. This is why Universal completely redesigned the Graboids, Shriekers, and Assblasters. The more they can make that associates Tremors with their version, the more they can take from Stampede before the end.
Now the sadness comes. Time to Bummer Down Under.
With the release and cancellation of Tremors the Series, and creation and late release of Tremors 4, came Universal's desire for Tremors 5.

"It was written while we were doing ‘Tremors 4’. Everybody was excited by the idea and, for a while there was talk of an even bigger budget and the potential for it to be a theatrical feature. So we were looking to how we could be really different." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And from 2004 to 2015, Brent and Steve would write and rewrite Tremors 5 Thunder Down Under 7-8 times. But it seemed that while Universal wanted it, they also didn't.

“There was never-ending interest from the fans, I became something of a de-facto frequently asked question answerer. I lost track of the number of times I had to write ‘I’m sorry, but there’ll never be a ‘Tremors 5’.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

That's when Universal stole Tremors. And you should start asking yourself why a studio who thinks there is no money to be had in a series has made 7 movies and 2 TV shows from it...

”We were on the way back from Chicago, and got a call on the road from Nancy (Roberts), who was still heading up Stampede (the production company established by Maddock, Wilson, Roberts and Underwood). She said ‘You won’t believe it! ‘Tremors 5’ is happening! They want to make it!’ We got very excited, Nancy was going to get the information so we could hit the ground running. Nancy asked whether they wanted Brent or I to direct, and they told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored - it didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low-budget movies. The sequels we made were all low-budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what that real reason was. We did have a ‘right of first refusal’ clause built into our contacts that had just lapsed - a clause which meant they would have had to offer the sequel to us, and, if we said no, they could then take it to someone else. But we never got any real information about what really happened that led to that.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

For a time, Stampede Entertainment chose to forget about Tremors since it was all they could do. Even though Universal cannibalized their script and took over half of it to make Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Nothing.
Until Kevin Bacon came calling.

"Nancy called us out of the blue again and said ‘You’re not going to believe this. Kevin’s finally thinking about returning to the character of Val! They want you to come in and talk about this new series idea that he has!’ Then, when we called back to set up a time, they said ‘Oh, we’re sorry. There appears to have been some sort of mistake. No-one here wants to talk to you in any way, shape or form and never will.’ It was classic Hollywood - classic, bad Hollywood. There’s a lot of good Hollywood too, and Brent and I have experienced a lot of that. But this was not fun.” ' Steve S.S. Wilson

Universal/SyFy would go on to make that Tremors series anyway. Or at least a pilot of it. To the point where it had finished VFX and was able to be shown in full at festivals. But they cancelled it before it could go anywhere. Then they buried it. And no one really knows why.

"I looked at that character [Valentine McKee] and thought to myself, 'You know, this is probably the only character I have ever played that I want to really go back and see what’s happened to him.' He was such a fascinating character to me because he’s such an ordinary man; not that smart, not that special, and yet he had this extraordinary circumstance that he had to sort of step up to the plate for. I thought to myself, 'If you take that away, if they just went away, those worms, what does a guy like that do? The rest of his life has now really become uninteresting,' so exploring that I thought would be fun. We made an excellent pilot outside of Albuquerque, recreated the town, had a really great cast, director, and writer and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t want to move forward with it. It’s a real head-scratcher for me. If I honestly thought the pilot was shit then I’d say we just didn’t crack it but it was cool, and that’s a really hard balance to get, between funny and scary, as you know, that’s the sweet spot. Tremors was good at that." - Kevin Bacon

Read the script for yourself. It already had Mindy and Melvin in it with the return of Burt and Earl on the horizon. And if you watch the trailer, just know that it's completely misleading. The redesigned Graboid lives alongside the old one and Val IS wrong when he says "They don't plan. They don't strategize.". Him being ignorant is part of the plot.
At this point, Universal was already in full swing creating their new Tremors movies. In the same time it took for Tremors 2 to come out after Tremors, Universal has made 3 new movies, Bloodlines, A Cold Day in Hell and Shrieker Island, and a TV show. That doesn't make much sense considering how 4 movies and a TV show were created over 25 years. For Universal to crank out 3 movies and a TV show in less than a quarter of that time is a feat in and of itself. Movies that are a shadow of what Stampede Entertainment was doing with the over-fetishisation of piss/shit humour, overt sexism/racism, and a disregard for the way the creatures behaved before. There's a part in Shrieker Island where a man is killed by a Graboid while on the toilet. And that's not the worst part. The worst is how it happens in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm while the man is making zero noise. Not even a grunt of constipation. Think on that. A monster that hunts entirely by sound, seeking out and finding someone in the middle of a rainstorm that would drown out its sound sensors. It hurts, doesn't it?
Dumb fun fact: Tremors 6 was filmed in South Africa despite taking place in Canada and is the only movie to try turning sand into snow. No, there was no real reason to do it. Not to mention Kevin Bacon's daughter explaining to Burt Gummer how Graboids work.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable as I tried to protect the franchise. Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree with, and I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without somebody like [the original writers] Steve or Brent there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’... Long story short, Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again." - Michael Gross

Bringing us to the semi-present day and the part where #SPOILERS# happen.
#SPOILERS#
The release of Tremors 7 Shrieker Island. And the supposed death of Burt Gummer. But not in the good-story way. This was something that was merely an afterthought.

"They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea. Universal and the director came to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' "What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." - Michael Gross

Which would be fine if that's what Universal actually did. Instead, they tacked on a cheap montage of clips at the end and make it seem like Michael Gross himself is dead. They even show clips of Hiram Gummer but nothing of Burt from the TV show despite it having more hours than the movies combined. That's how you treat the one person who has been with this franchise for the last 35 years? I smell a reboot.
And the Graboid hole deepens with the end credits.
Ever heard of Burt Gummer Day? No, it's not something Universal made up for Tremors. It's a holiday created by @BabyFarkMcGeeZax of Imgur. And he's been doing it for the last five years through love, effort and 4K Intergalactic Quality Gifs alone. But has Universal credited him? Nope. Michael Gross would love to know who started it but no one besides me will tell him. And here Universal is using his holiday as lines of dialogue and a marketing campaign to get people watching Tremors every April 14th. It's pretty messed up.
This is where people like you and I come in to play. Do you have any idea of the width and breadth of Tremors fandom?
Remember what I said about merchandising money? Video games tie into that too.

"Just to be clear, a wildly successful video game (an idea we've always wanted to work on) would make Universal a fortune. Not us." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And since Universal won't make them, Tremors fans have done what they can with what they have. And there are a lot of them. All across the spectrum.
Not just games either, if you want a T-shirt that's Straight Outta Perfection, you'll have to ask around and search but you'll find plenty when you do.
That's not even getting into the fan-art or fan-fiction or fan-film communities, all of which are quite wholesome even when they are being crazily sexual. Ever seen a sexy Graboid? It's.... something. And there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than there should be. It's like the #1 sidekink of furries. I know, I don't understand it either, but I can sure as hell appreciate the craft. And there's hundreds of thousands of them! And millions more that are simply hiding their love of Tremors because they think it's too weird and they'll be made fun of for liking it. Someone made a not terrible remix-song of Melvin singing "Way to go, dudes!". A 9 year old kid entered a mullet competition because he was inspired by Kevin Bacon as Val. I haven't even mentioned the 22,000 people in the Burt Gummer Subterranean Meme Stash.
This one's weird but there's a phenomenon where whenever a earthquake or tremors happens, it makes half the people effected by it watch Tremors. Same with experiencing or seeing neurological body tremors. When people talk about "tremors" in any aspect, it gets people watching the movies. I see it because I look up the word "Tremors" everyday on Twitter and that's the big three I see. And the first two cause and effect the later. It's strange. But free advertising!
There's a freaking subreddit for it! Tremors
Then the podcasts!! Practically everyone and their mother has done a 2 hour podcast on why Tremors is the greatest horror-rom-com movie series ever. SO many that I won't even attempt to list them. Just search Tremors and podcasts. There's thousands. The same goes for video reviews, reaction watches and reconstructions on Youtube. Too many to list. It's the go-to movie when people want to point out underrated horror, a feel-good time, or tight screenplays. So much so that they use Tremors as study material in film schools across the world.
James Gunn loves the movie so much he made sure to reference it in Slither by naming the school after THE Earl Bassett. Jon LaJoie loves it so much he wrote an album and song around it called "Wolfie's Just Fine". And Rick and Morty referenced it twice last season.
I've dived into the creative Graboid hole a few times as well. Four years ago, I discovered how Earl and his sleeping bag look like Stumpy at the end falling to its death. The only reason you can read the scripts for the Tremors pilot, original Tremors 2, and Tremors 5 is because I've used every social media channel I can to talk and ask about it and people in the these threads and on Twitter noticed. Half of the quotes you read are because the folks at Hollywood Unseen saw what I was doing, asked Steve a bunch of questions and wrote the answers down.
Hell, most of this information comes from "Seeking Perfection", the Tremors biography by Jonathan Melville. He literally wrote a 300 page book because there wan't one and he thought there should be. Because when you need it, and don't have it, ya sing a different tune.
Steve S.S. Wilson is such a fan of the series that even after he and Stampede were kicked out, he has spent the last 6 years answering questions on the Tremors FAQ page section of the Stampede Entertainment website. Ask yourself or send some love, they can sure use it. The only reason I was able to get the famous copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to take the Stampede Tremors case was because I sent so many people there that someone happened to ask about the copyright expiration clause. Because after 35 years, the original creators can take their creation back.
The time is running out though cause I can tell Universal plans a remake/reboot so they can run the clock til the Stampede Tremors team dies of old age. It's another one of those things I would looooooove to be wrong about. But if people can get mad enough to #RestoretheSnyderVerse when Zac Snyder didn't even create the characters of DC then we can #StampedeTremors until the series goes back to Perfection. These people spent over 35 years of their lives making monster movies for our entertainment. The least we can do is let them finish what they started. They're owed that. We all are.
Because when someone's creation can be taken away that easily after so much time, love, and effort than how could any of us feel safe creating anything ever again?
"We must do what we can with what we have."

Welcome to the Graboid hole, Valentine.
Now you've probably heard of the underground movie Tremors. This is the story of how Perfection was created then stolen from its makers after over 35 years of work.
Warning, "Here be Dirt Dragons".
It all started with a man named Steve Wilson, out on a rock in the middle of the desert. Sound familiar?

“One day I was sitting out there on one of those boulders and thought how interesting it would be to have something that moved through the sand like a fish, and I couldn’t get off the rock,” - Steve S.S. Wilson

He'd go on to meet Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood at UCLA film school and a legendary partnership was formed. Known as special effects wizards, they made their way into the film game until writing "Short Circuit" and getting the help of one Nancy Roberts, the true behind the scenes figurehead of the Tremors series. With the success of "Short Circuit", Nancy turned to them and asked if they had anything original in their back pocket they wanted to do on their own. To which Steve pulled out.... Land Sharks.
And it took a lot of work to turn that into what we know. Which is why Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Jacks jumped in to help. Firstly, Universal didn't know how to market horror-rom-coms because Tremors was the first of its kind. Then there's Universal itself wanting to make the movie but also thinking Tremors will fail. Making things non-union and changing the name from "Beneath Perfection" to "Dead Silence" to hide things.

“The studio wanted to keep the film hidden due to it being a non-union production, although they were involved at an arms-length distance with the picture being a negative pickup as opposed to a studio picture. They wanted it to be under the radar.” - Ron Underwood

Though the day-to-day filming was challenging due to the nature of creating a low-budget monster movie, production went surprisingly smooth thanks to the abilities of Brent, Nancy, Ron and Steve. Well actually, everyone involved. You already know the actors but there are some incredibly talented people involved behind the scenes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis as the main creature designers of the series. Turning their penis shaped designs into the Graboids we know and love today. That's just two of hundreds who painstakingly created Perfection. Steve Wilson's dad, Bob Wilson, also joined in the production of his son directing/writing/producing his first movie. He loved it so much he brought a home camera and filmed the greatest behind the scenes series ever with it. The whole team did what they could with they had, trimming what they could and fighting for what they couldn't. The scene where the car is sucked under was originally longer and about to be cut before Nancy and Jim stepped in. There was even two aborted openings, one with Old Fred and Edgar, and another with a rabbit and coyote being eaten by Graboids after landing from space. As well as a different ending.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's first child was born during the filming of the scene where Walter Chang is eaten by a Graboid. That's how committed everyone was. Also why Kevin had nightmares and regretted Tremors until recently.
But despite all that, on a budget of $11 million dollars, Tremors made $16 millon dollars in the theatre and was considered a failure at the box-office.
Or so it would seem....

"We got a backhanded compliment from them when they said, ‘We could sell an empty video box called Tremors, we have to have it.’” - Steve S.S. Wilson

With the advent of VHS and home video rentals, Tremors found its true home. And so came the call for Tremors 2: Aftershocks.
Originally, it was a much different movie than what we know today. Written in 1993, the first script for it had Reba returning as Heather Gummer with Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee. There was a plethora of new characters fed to the Graboids and Shriekers, an opening with gangsters attacking a family, and ending that was so good it was re-used for the TV episode "Shriek and Destroy". As well as the impetus and repetition of the phrase "Doing what you can with what you got." passed between Heather, Burt and Val. And the best callback ever. But because Kevin Bacon didn't want to return since sequels were seen as faux-pas and Reba wanted to come back but couldn't due to her touring schedule, the budget was slashed and things were changed. Val became Grady, Heather divorced Burt and a legend was born.

“When my son was eight, I let him see Tremors, because at that age he could appreciate it. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked, ‘Travis, did you see Tremors?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Dad, have you seen Tremors 2? It’s really great.’ I said, ‘Son, I’m not in Tremors 2.’ And he said, ‘No, but it’s cool.’” - Kevin Bacon

Fun fact: The unused designs of the Shriekers from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were repurposed for Starship Troopers as Arachnids instead. There was even Phil Tippett joining in to help create the CGI Shriekers.
That's when things really started to change.

“I could see where they were really excited because you’d be able to move those videos so quickly just on the word “Tremors”.” - Cristin Carr Strubbe

And Tremors came Back to Perfection.
A movie that gets an unfair rap because people don't like the name AssBlasters (AB is what they were called behind the scenes and how Burt refers to them, I like the African word "Impundulu"), it's the strangest of the original bunch. It has the largest set of returning cast for any Tremors entry with Burt, Nancy, Melvin, Mindy, and Miguel. It's the only film in the series that's rated PG despite coining and frequently using the term AssBlaster. AND it's Michael Gross' favourite Tremors movie. You're probably wondering why there's a smaller amount of information compared to the first two movies. So did the creators.

“We got to a point with Tremors 3 when there was no promotion at all. I remember saying to Universal, ‘There’s not even a poster to put up in a video store.’ What some stores were doing was putting up their own posters to notify customers there was a thing called Tremors 3 available. That was part of Universal’s austerity; they wanted to spend as little money as possible on these films. I’m not sure saving money on promotion is the smartest way. Rabid fans would find out about it, but as far as the general public knowing there’s another one of these movies available, that wasn’t the case.” - Brent Maddock
“Universal made a lot of money off that product, it always sold well, especially in the Asian world. I was the unit production manager on Tremors 3 and the TV series and I still get residuals off them. Ron Underwood told me a story about the premiere of his second film, City Slickers, in Japan. They sat in the theatre and nobody laughed the whole time. He was really depressed and when he came out the publicity people came up and they said, ‘There’s a lot of people that want to talk to you’. There was a line around the block and all they wanted to talk about was Tremors.” - Tom Keniston
“The video department begged the studio proper to make ‘Tremors 2’ and then it was a while before we made ‘Tremors 3’. That was designed to be the last one - the thinking being that surely we couldn’t milk this for more than those two sequels. But by that time, it was rolling forward on its own momentum, and they ordered ‘Tremors 4’ almost immediately. We explained that we’d structured three to be the end of the sequels, that we’d ended the life cycle of the monster and brought it full circle. The studio wasn’t bothered and basically said, ‘Well, what can you do?’ We asked if they’d mind if we made it a Western and start over. Their response was, ‘We don’t care, as long as it’s called ‘Tremors’ - so that’s why ‘Tremors 4’ is a Western.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Which is when Tremors landed on the small screen in the best piece of the puzzle yet. Seriously, I'm trying my hardest not to editorialize yet the TV show and 4th movie are my absolute favourites. That's why I've been able to track the irregularities with it. The worst is that the order of episodes is constantly distorted, leading to many viewer's confusion as characters are talked about before introduced and events referenced that haven't happened yet. It's so bad that even Google has the wrong order. See for yourself.a Not to mention how Universal has pulled it from every streaming app ever since I started this #StampedeTremors campaign so they make more more money off of the incomplete DVD sets.
The second is how once the TV show was greenlit, Universal immediately wanted Stampede to make Tremors 4. To the disregard of both productions.

“If Universal had been willing to delay the start of Tremors 4 by two weeks, or if Sci-Fi had been willing to wait until the end of T-4’s shoot to start the series production, Michael Gross could have been in all 13 episodes. Both sides absolutely refused to compromise, even though they’re both owned by the same parent company. After all that, Universal Home Video then delayed the release of the finished T-4 several months. Go figure.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Thirdly, and what I have found as the most important, is Mixmaster. A compound created as a plot device for the TV show which allowed the DNA of any animals to be combined to create a new monster every week.

"But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it. There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations. Grasshoppers with scorpion tails, Gila monsters with bat wings." - Cletus Poffenberger

THIS is why Universal stole Tremors from Stampede Entertainment.
Do you know what the highest grossing series of all time is?
Poke'Mon. I know, right?
Because when you can crank out thousands of new monsters, you can print money from every single one of those creatures as new merchandise. So when the folks at Stampede Tremors came up with something that can do that, make those monsters both cute/scary so as to get the kids AND adults to buy the toys.... Well it's easy to see why Universal would pull some Hollywood accounting with the series. If Tremors can make $500 million dollars without ANY official merchandise, imagine how much it would make if you could buy Graboid plushies, AssBlaster lighters or a different Mixmaster monster whenever they rolled out? And this series has been made with lower than minimal budget. What would happen if Universal actually gave the production the money it needed?

"We get a lot of fans asking why they can’t buy rubber Graboids and Val and Earl action figures or video games. Some of you have even offered to help design or even manufacture them. Others have helpfully suggested lower-budget ways they could be produced. Still another asked if we just had a small leftover graboid in “hardened clay” he could buy. (Sorry, the graboids were constructed full size; the clay versions are gone, and the casting molds are huge. Even the ¼ scale graboids are pretty big.) In answer: we wish we could get Universal to think like our fans! You have to believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are. We don’t control the Tremors “franchise.” Universal Pictures has the final say over all marketing and merchandising. I hear from sources inside Universal that the various marketing departments are expressing increased interest in our “franchise.” In English, that means they’re recognizing that there are a lot of Tremors fans out there. Nothing is definite, but here are some of the things that are being considered at Universal: Toys, action figures, collectibles and video games. The Tremors series is being considered for promotion in these areas, and deals may be discussed with toy companies, game designers, etc." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And Universal knows how to grab monsters and keep them for later. Though the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man are in the public domain, you'll be sued if the image gets too close to what Universal first created. Not just those creatures. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. Pretty much every monster you can think of that's not Godzilla. If Graboids, Shriekers, AssbBlasters and Mixmaster were added to that list, it would almost be a monopoly on monsters. In a world where the multi-verse is common, a MonsterVerse is easier to make than it seems (though they tried and fucked it up already, they WILL try again). Tremors is basically adult Poke'Mon. This is why Universal completely redesigned the Graboids, Shriekers, and Assblasters. The more they can make that associates Tremors with their version, the more they can take from Stampede before the end.
Now the sadness comes. Time to Bummer Down Under.
With the release and cancellation of Tremors the Series, and creation and late release of Tremors 4, came Universal's desire for Tremors 5.

"It was written while we were doing ‘Tremors 4’. Everybody was excited by the idea and, for a while there was talk of an even bigger budget and the potential for it to be a theatrical feature. So we were looking to how we could be really different." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And from 2004 to 2015, Brent and Steve would write and rewrite Tremors 5 Thunder Down Under 7-8 times. But it seemed that while Universal wanted it, they also didn't.

“There was never-ending interest from the fans, I became something of a de-facto frequently asked question answerer. I lost track of the number of times I had to write ‘I’m sorry, but there’ll never be a ‘Tremors 5’.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

That's when Universal stole Tremors. And you should start asking yourself why a studio who thinks there is no money to be had in a series has made 7 movies and 2 TV shows from it...

”We were on the way back from Chicago, and got a call on the road from Nancy (Roberts), who was still heading up Stampede (the production company established by Maddock, Wilson, Roberts and Underwood). She said ‘You won’t believe it! ‘Tremors 5’ is happening! They want to make it!’ We got very excited, Nancy was going to get the information so we could hit the ground running. Nancy asked whether they wanted Brent or I to direct, and they told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored - it didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low-budget movies. The sequels we made were all low-budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what that real reason was. We did have a ‘right of first refusal’ clause built into our contacts that had just lapsed - a clause which meant they would have had to offer the sequel to us, and, if we said no, they could then take it to someone else. But we never got any real information about what really happened that led to that.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

For a time, Stampede Entertainment chose to forget about Tremors since it was all they could do. Even though Universal cannibalized their script and took over half of it to make Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Nothing.
Until Kevin Bacon came calling.

"Nancy called us out of the blue again and said ‘You’re not going to believe this. Kevin’s finally thinking about returning to the character of Val! They want you to come in and talk about this new series idea that he has!’ Then, when we called back to set up a time, they said ‘Oh, we’re sorry. There appears to have been some sort of mistake. No-one here wants to talk to you in any way, shape or form and never will.’ It was classic Hollywood - classic, bad Hollywood. There’s a lot of good Hollywood too, and Brent and I have experienced a lot of that. But this was not fun.” ' Steve S.S. Wilson

Universal/SyFy would go on to make that Tremors series anyway. Or at least a pilot of it. To the point where it had finished VFX and was able to be shown in full at festivals. But they cancelled it before it could go anywhere. Then they buried it. And no one really knows why.

"I looked at that character [Valentine McKee] and thought to myself, 'You know, this is probably the only character I have ever played that I want to really go back and see what’s happened to him.' He was such a fascinating character to me because he’s such an ordinary man; not that smart, not that special, and yet he had this extraordinary circumstance that he had to sort of step up to the plate for. I thought to myself, 'If you take that away, if they just went away, those worms, what does a guy like that do? The rest of his life has now really become uninteresting,' so exploring that I thought would be fun. We made an excellent pilot outside of Albuquerque, recreated the town, had a really great cast, director, and writer and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t want to move forward with it. It’s a real head-scratcher for me. If I honestly thought the pilot was shit then I’d say we just didn’t crack it but it was cool, and that’s a really hard balance to get, between funny and scary, as you know, that’s the sweet spot. Tremors was good at that." - Kevin Bacon

Read the script for yourself. It already had Mindy and Melvin in it with the return of Burt and Earl on the horizon. And if you watch the trailer, just know that it's completely misleading. The redesigned Graboid lives alongside the old one and Val IS wrong when he says "They don't plan. They don't strategize.". Him being ignorant is part of the plot.
At this point, Universal was already in full swing creating their new Tremors movies. In the same time it took for Tremors 2 to come out after Tremors, Universal has made 3 new movies, Bloodlines, A Cold Day in Hell and Shrieker Island, and a TV show. That doesn't make much sense considering how 4 movies and a TV show were created over 25 years. For Universal to crank out 3 movies and a TV show in less than a quarter of that time is a feat in and of itself. Movies that are a shadow of what Stampede Entertainment was doing with the over-fetishisation of piss/shit humour, overt sexism/racism, and a disregard for the way the creatures behaved before. There's a part in Shrieker Island where a man is killed by a Graboid while on the toilet. And that's not the worst part. The worst is how it happens in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm while the man is making zero noise. Not even a grunt of constipation. Think on that. A monster that hunts entirely by sound, seeking out and finding someone in the middle of a rainstorm that would drown out its sound sensors. It hurts, doesn't it?
Dumb fun fact: Tremors 6 was filmed in South Africa despite taking place in Canada and is the only movie to try turning sand into snow. No, there was no real reason to do it. Not to mention Kevin Bacon's daughter explaining to Burt Gummer how Graboids work.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable as I tried to protect the franchise. Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree with, and I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without somebody like [the original writers] Steve or Brent there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’... Long story short, Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again." - Michael Gross

Bringing us to the semi-present day and the part where #SPOILERS# happen.
#SPOILERS#
The release of Tremors 7 Shrieker Island. And the supposed death of Burt Gummer. But not in the good-story way. This was something that was merely an afterthought.

"They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea. Universal and the director came to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' "What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." - Michael Gross

Which would be fine if that's what Universal actually did. Instead, they tacked on a cheap montage of clips at the end and make it seem like Michael Gross himself is dead. They even show clips of Hiram Gummer but nothing of Burt from the TV show despite it having more hours than the movies combined. That's how you treat the one person who has been with this franchise for the last 35 years? I smell a reboot.
And the Graboid hole deepens with the end credits.
Ever heard of Burt Gummer Day? No, it's not something Universal made up for Tremors. It's a holiday created by @BabyFarkMcGeeZax of Imgur. And he's been doing it for the last five years through love, effort and 4K Intergalactic Quality Gifs alone. But has Universal credited him? Nope. Michael Gross would love to know who started it but no one besides me will tell him. And here Universal is using his holiday as lines of dialogue and a marketing campaign to get people watching Tremors every April 14th. It's pretty messed up.
This is where people like you and I come in to play. Do you have any idea of the width and breadth of Tremors fandom?
Remember what I said about merchandising money? Video games tie into that too.

"Just to be clear, a wildly successful video game (an idea we've always wanted to work on) would make Universal a fortune. Not us." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And since Universal won't make them, Tremors fans have done what they can with what they have. And there are a lot of them. All across the spectrum.
Not just games either, if you want a T-shirt that's Straight Outta Perfection, you'll have to ask around and search but you'll find plenty when you do.
That's not even getting into the fan-art or fan-fiction or fan-film communities, all of which are quite wholesome even when they are being crazily sexual. Ever seen a sexy Graboid? It's.... something. And there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than there should be. It's like the #1 sidekink of furries. I know, I don't understand it either, but I can sure as hell appreciate the craft. And there's hundreds of thousands of them! And millions more that are simply hiding their love of Tremors because they think it's too weird and they'll be made fun of for liking it. Someone made a not terrible remix-song of Melvin singing "Way to go, dudes!". A 9 year old kid entered a mullet competition because he was inspired by Kevin Bacon as Val. I haven't even mentioned the 22,000 people in Burt Gummer's Subterranean Meme Stash.
There's a freaking subreddit for it! Tremors
Then the podcasts!! Practically everyone and their mother has done a 2 hour podcast on why Tremors is the greatest horror-rom-com movie series ever. SO many that I won't even attempt to list them. Just search Tremors and podcasts. There's thousands. The same goes for video reviews, reaction watches and reconstructions on Youtube. Too many to list. It's the go-to movie when people want to point out underrated horror, a feel-good time, or tight screenplays. So much so that they use Tremors as study material in film schools across the world.
James Gunn loves the movie so much he made sure to reference it in Slither by naming the school after THE Earl Bassett. Jon LaJoie loves it so much he wrote an album and song around it called "Wolfie's Just Fine". And Rick and Morty referenced it twice last season.
I've dived into the creative Graboid hole a few times as well. Four years ago, I discovered how Earl and his sleeping bag look like Stumpy at the end falling to its death. The only reason you can read the scripts for the Tremors pilot, original Tremors 2, and Tremors 5 is because I've used every social media channel I can to talk and ask about it and people in the these threads and on Twitter noticed. Half of the quotes you read are because the folks at Hollywood Unseen saw what I was doing, asked Steve a bunch of questions and wrote the answers down.
Hell, most of this information comes from "Seeking Perfection", the Tremors biography by Jonathan Melville. He literally wrote a 300 page book because there wan't one and he thought there should be. Because when you need it, and don't have it, ya sing a different tune.
Steve S.S. Wilson is such a fan of the series that even after he and Stampede were kicked out, he has spent the last 6 years answering questions on the Tremors FAQ page section of the Stampede Entertainment website. Ask yourself or send some love, they can sure use it. The only reason I was able to get the famous copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to take the Stampede Tremors case was because I sent so many people there that someone happened to ask about the copyright expiration clause. Because after 35 years, the original creators can take their creation back.
The time is running out though cause I can tell Universal plans a remake/reboot so they can run the clock til the Stampede Tremors team dies of old age. It's another one of those things I would looooooove to be wrong about. But if people can get mad enough to #RestoretheSnyderVerse when Zac Snyder didn't even create the characters of DC then we can #StampedeTremors until the series goes back to Perfection. These people spent over 35 years of their lives making monster movies for our entertainment. The least we can do is let them finish what they started. They're owed that. We all are.
Because when someone's creation can be taken away that easily after so much time, love, and effort than how could any of us feel safe creating anything ever again?
"We must do what we can with what we have."

Welcome to the Graboid hole, Valentine.
Now you've probably heard of the underground movie Tremors. This is the story of how Perfection was created then stolen from its makers after over 35 years of work.
Warning, "Here be Dirt Dragons".
It all started with a man named Steve Wilson, out on a rock in the middle of the desert. Sound familiar?

“One day I was sitting out there on one of those boulders and thought how interesting it would be to have something that moved through the sand like a fish, and I couldn’t get off the rock,” - Steve S.S. Wilson

He'd go on to meet Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood at UCLA film school and a legendary partnership was formed. Known as special effects wizards, they made their way into the film game until writing "Short Circuit" and getting the help of one Nancy Roberts, the true behind the scenes figurehead of the Tremors series. With the success of "Short Circuit", Nancy turned to them and asked if they had anything original in their back pocket they wanted to do on their own. To which Steve pulled out.... Land Sharks.
And it took a lot of work to turn that into what we know. Which is why Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Jacks jumped in to help. Firstly, Universal didn't know how to market horror-rom-coms because Tremors was the first of its kind. Then there's Universal itself wanting to make the movie but also thinking Tremors will fail. Making things non-union and changing the name from "Beneath Perfection" to "Dead Silence" to hide things.

“The studio wanted to keep the film hidden due to it being a non-union production, although they were involved at an arms-length distance with the picture being a negative pickup as opposed to a studio picture. They wanted it to be under the radar.” - Ron Underwood

Though the day-to-day filming was challenging due to the nature of creating a low-budget monster movie, production went surprisingly smooth thanks to the abilities of Brent, Nancy, Ron and Steve. Well actually, everyone involved. You already know the actors but there are some incredibly talented people involved behind the scenes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis as the main creature designers of the series. Turning their penis shaped designs into the Graboids we know and love today. That's just two of hundreds who painstakingly created Perfection. Steve Wilson's dad, Bob Wilson, also joined in the production of his son directing/writing/producing his first movie. He loved it so much he brought a home camera and filmed the greatest behind the scenes series ever with it. The whole team did what they could with they had, trimming what they could and fighting for what they couldn't. The scene where the car is sucked under was originally longer and about to be cut before Nancy and Jim stepped in. There was even two aborted openings, one with Old Fred and Edgar, and another with a rabbit and coyote being eaten by Graboids after landing from space. As well as a different ending.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's first child was born during the filming of the scene where Walter Chang is eaten by a Graboid. That's how committed everyone was. Also why Kevin had nightmares and regretted Tremors until recently.
But despite all that, on a budget of $11 million dollars, Tremors made $16 millon dollars in the theatre and was considered a failure at the box-office.
Or so it would seem....

"We got a backhanded compliment from them when they said, ‘We could sell an empty video box called Tremors, we have to have it.’” - Steve S.S. Wilson

With the advent of VHS and home video rentals, Tremors found its true home. And so came the call for Tremors 2: Aftershocks.
Originally, it was a much different movie than what we know today. Written in 1993, the first script for it had Reba returning as Heather Gummer with Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee. There was a plethora of new characters fed to the Graboids and Shriekers, an opening with gangsters attacking a family, and ending that was so good it was re-used for the TV episode "Shriek and Destroy". As well as the impetus and repetition of the phrase "Doing what you can with what you got." passed between Heather, Burt and Val. And the best callback ever. But because Kevin Bacon didn't want to return since sequels were seen as faux-pas and Reba wanted to come back but couldn't due to her touring schedule, the budget was slashed and things were changed. Val became Grady, Heather divorced Burt and a legend was born.

“When my son was eight, I let him see Tremors, because at that age he could appreciate it. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked, ‘Travis, did you see Tremors?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Dad, have you seen Tremors 2? It’s really great.’ I said, ‘Son, I’m not in Tremors 2.’ And he said, ‘No, but it’s cool.’” - Kevin Bacon

Fun fact: The unused designs of the Shriekers from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were repurposed for Starship Troopers as Arachnids instead. There was even Phil Tippett joining in to help create the CGI Shriekers.
That's when things really started to change.

“I could see where they were really excited because you’d be able to move those videos so quickly just on the word “Tremors”.” - Cristin Carr Strubbe

And Tremors came Back to Perfection.
A movie that gets an unfair rap because people don't like the name AssBlasters (AB is what they were called behind the scenes and how Burt refers to them, I like the African word "Impundulu"), it's the strangest of the original bunch. It has the largest set of returning cast for any Tremors entry with Burt, Nancy, Melvin, Mindy, and Miguel. It's the only film in the series that's rated PG despite coining and frequently using the term AssBlaster. AND it's Michael Gross' favourite Tremors movie. You're probably wondering why there's a smaller amount of information compared to the first two movies. So did the creators.

“We got to a point with Tremors 3 when there was no promotion at all. I remember saying to Universal, ‘There’s not even a poster to put up in a video store.’ What some stores were doing was putting up their own posters to notify customers there was a thing called Tremors 3 available. That was part of Universal’s austerity; they wanted to spend as little money as possible on these films. I’m not sure saving money on promotion is the smartest way. Rabid fans would find out about it, but as far as the general public knowing there’s another one of these movies available, that wasn’t the case.” - Brent Maddock
“Universal made a lot of money off that product, it always sold well, especially in the Asian world. I was the unit production manager on Tremors 3 and the TV series and I still get residuals off them. Ron Underwood told me a story about the premiere of his second film, City Slickers, in Japan. They sat in the theatre and nobody laughed the whole time. He was really depressed and when he came out the publicity people came up and they said, ‘There’s a lot of people that want to talk to you’. There was a line around the block and all they wanted to talk about was Tremors.” - Tom Keniston
“The video department begged the studio proper to make ‘Tremors 2’ and then it was a while before we made ‘Tremors 3’. That was designed to be the last one - the thinking being that surely we couldn’t milk this for more than those two sequels. But by that time, it was rolling forward on its own momentum, and they ordered ‘Tremors 4’ almost immediately. We explained that we’d structured three to be the end of the sequels, that we’d ended the life cycle of the monster and brought it full circle. The studio wasn’t bothered and basically said, ‘Well, what can you do?’ We asked if they’d mind if we made it a Western and start over. Their response was, ‘We don’t care, as long as it’s called ‘Tremors’ - so that’s why ‘Tremors 4’ is a Western.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Which is when Tremors landed on the small screen in the best piece of the puzzle yet. Seriously, I'm trying my hardest not to editorialize yet the TV show and 4th movie are my absolute favourites. That's why I've been able to track the irregularities with it. The worst is that the order of episodes is constantly distorted, leading to many viewer's confusion as characters are talked about before introduced and events referenced that haven't happened yet. It's so bad that even Google has the wrong order. See for yourself.a Not to mention how Universal has pulled it from every streaming app ever since I started this #StampedeTremors campaign so they make more more money off of the incomplete DVD sets.
The second is how once the TV show was greenlit, Universal immediately wanted Stampede to make Tremors 4. To the disregard of both productions.

“If Universal had been willing to delay the start of Tremors 4 by two weeks, or if Sci-Fi had been willing to wait until the end of T-4’s shoot to start the series production, Michael Gross could have been in all 13 episodes. Both sides absolutely refused to compromise, even though they’re both owned by the same parent company. After all that, Universal Home Video then delayed the release of the finished T-4 several months. Go figure.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Thirdly, and what I have found as the most important, is Mixmaster. A compound created as a plot device for the TV show which allowed the DNA of any animals to be combined to create a new monster every week.

"But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it. There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations. Grasshoppers with scorpion tails, Gila monsters with bat wings." - Cletus Poffenberger

THIS is why Universal stole Tremors from Stampede Entertainment.
Do you know what the highest grossing series of all time is?
Poke'Mon. I know, right?
Because when you can crank out thousands of new monsters, you can print money from every single one of those creatures as new merchandise. So when the folks at Stampede Tremors came up with something that can do that, make those monsters both cute/scary so as to get the kids AND adults to buy the toys.... Well it's easy to see why Universal would pull some Hollywood accounting with the series. If Tremors can make $500 million dollars without ANY official merchandise, imagine how much it would make if you could buy Graboid plushies, AssBlaster lighters or a different Mixmaster monster whenever they rolled out? And this series has been made with lower than minimal budget. What would happen if Universal actually gave the production the money it needed?

"We get a lot of fans asking why they can’t buy rubber Graboids and Val and Earl action figures or video games. Some of you have even offered to help design or even manufacture them. Others have helpfully suggested lower-budget ways they could be produced. Still another asked if we just had a small leftover graboid in “hardened clay” he could buy. (Sorry, the graboids were constructed full size; the clay versions are gone, and the casting molds are huge. Even the ¼ scale graboids are pretty big.) In answer: we wish we could get Universal to think like our fans! You have to believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are. We don’t control the Tremors “franchise.” Universal Pictures has the final say over all marketing and merchandising. I hear from sources inside Universal that the various marketing departments are expressing increased interest in our “franchise.” In English, that means they’re recognizing that there are a lot of Tremors fans out there. Nothing is definite, but here are some of the things that are being considered at Universal: Toys, action figures, collectibles and video games. The Tremors series is being considered for promotion in these areas, and deals may be discussed with toy companies, game designers, etc." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And Universal knows how to grab monsters and keep them for later. Though the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man are in the public domain, you'll be sued if the image gets too close to what Universal first created. Not just those creatures. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. Pretty much every monster you can think of that's not Godzilla. If Graboids, Shriekers, AssbBlasters and Mixmaster were added to that list, it would almost be a monopoly on monsters. In a world where the multi-verse is common, a MonsterVerse is easier to make than it seems (though they tried and fucked it up already, they WILL try again). Tremors is basically adult Poke'Mon. This is why Universal completely redesigned the Graboids, Shriekers, and Assblasters. The more they can make that associates Tremors with their version, the more they can take from Stampede before the end.
Now the sadness comes. Time to Bummer Down Under.
With the release and cancellation of Tremors the Series, and creation and late release of Tremors 4, came Universal's desire for Tremors 5.

"It was written while we were doing ‘Tremors 4’. Everybody was excited by the idea and, for a while there was talk of an even bigger budget and the potential for it to be a theatrical feature. So we were looking to how we could be really different." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And from 2004 to 2015, Brent and Steve would write and rewrite Tremors 5 Thunder Down Under 7-8 times. But it seemed that while Universal wanted it, they also didn't.

“There was never-ending interest from the fans, I became something of a de-facto frequently asked question answerer. I lost track of the number of times I had to write ‘I’m sorry, but there’ll never be a ‘Tremors 5’.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

That's when Universal stole Tremors. And you should start asking yourself why a studio who thinks there is no money to be had in a series has made 7 movies and 2 TV shows from it...

”We were on the way back from Chicago, and got a call on the road from Nancy (Roberts), who was still heading up Stampede (the production company established by Maddock, Wilson, Roberts and Underwood). She said ‘You won’t believe it! ‘Tremors 5’ is happening! They want to make it!’ We got very excited, Nancy was going to get the information so we could hit the ground running. Nancy asked whether they wanted Brent or I to direct, and they told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored - it didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low-budget movies. The sequels we made were all low-budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what that real reason was. We did have a ‘right of first refusal’ clause built into our contacts that had just lapsed - a clause which meant they would have had to offer the sequel to us, and, if we said no, they could then take it to someone else. But we never got any real information about what really happened that led to that.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

For a time, Stampede Entertainment chose to forget about Tremors since it was all they could do. Even though Universal cannibalized their script and took over half of it to make Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Nothing.
Until Kevin Bacon came calling.

"Nancy called us out of the blue again and said ‘You’re not going to believe this. Kevin’s finally thinking about returning to the character of Val! They want you to come in and talk about this new series idea that he has!’ Then, when we called back to set up a time, they said ‘Oh, we’re sorry. There appears to have been some sort of mistake. No-one here wants to talk to you in any way, shape or form and never will.’ It was classic Hollywood - classic, bad Hollywood. There’s a lot of good Hollywood too, and Brent and I have experienced a lot of that. But this was not fun.” ' Steve S.S. Wilson

Universal/SyFy would go on to make that Tremors series anyway. Or at least a pilot of it. To the point where it had finished VFX and was able to be shown in full at festivals. But they cancelled it before it could go anywhere. Then they buried it. And no one really knows why.

"I looked at that character [Valentine McKee] and thought to myself, 'You know, this is probably the only character I have ever played that I want to really go back and see what’s happened to him.' He was such a fascinating character to me because he’s such an ordinary man; not that smart, not that special, and yet he had this extraordinary circumstance that he had to sort of step up to the plate for. I thought to myself, 'If you take that away, if they just went away, those worms, what does a guy like that do? The rest of his life has now really become uninteresting,' so exploring that I thought would be fun. We made an excellent pilot outside of Albuquerque, recreated the town, had a really great cast, director, and writer and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t want to move forward with it. It’s a real head-scratcher for me. If I honestly thought the pilot was shit then I’d say we just didn’t crack it but it was cool, and that’s a really hard balance to get, between funny and scary, as you know, that’s the sweet spot. Tremors was good at that." - Kevin Bacon

Read the script for yourself. It already had Mindy and Melvin in it with the return of Burt and Earl on the horizon. And if you watch the trailer, just know that it's completely misleading. The redesigned Graboid lives alongside the old one and Val IS wrong when he says "They don't plan. They don't strategize.". Him being ignorant is part of the plot.
At this point, Universal was already in full swing creating their new Tremors movies. In the same time it took for Tremors 2 to come out after Tremors, Universal has made 3 new movies, Bloodlines, A Cold Day in Hell and Shrieker Island, and a TV show. That doesn't make much sense considering how 4 movies and a TV show were created over 25 years. For Universal to crank out 3 movies and a TV show in less than a quarter of that time is a feat in and of itself. Movies that are a shadow of what Stampede Entertainment was doing with the over-fetishisation of piss/shit humour, overt sexism/racism, and a disregard for the way the creatures behaved before. There's a part in Shrieker Island where a man is killed by a Graboid while on the toilet. And that's not the worst part. The worst is how it happens in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm while the man is making zero noise. Not even a grunt of constipation. Think on that. A monster that hunts entirely by sound, seeking out and finding someone in the middle of a rainstorm that would drown out its sound sensors. It hurts, doesn't it?
Dumb fun fact: Tremors 6 was filmed in South Africa despite taking place in Canada and is the only movie to try turning sand into snow. No, there was no real reason to do it. Not to mention Kevin Bacon's daughter explaining to Burt Gummer how Graboids work.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable as I tried to protect the franchise. Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree with, and I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without somebody like [the original writers] Steve or Brent there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’... Long story short, Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again." - Michael Gross

Bringing us to the semi-present day and the part where #SPOILERS# happen.
#SPOILERS#
The release of Tremors 7 Shrieker Island. And the supposed death of Burt Gummer. But not in the good-story way. This was something that was merely an afterthought.

"They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea. Universal and the director came to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' "What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." - Michael Gross

Which would be fine if that's what Universal actually did. Instead, they tacked on a cheap montage of clips at the end and make it seem like Michael Gross himself is dead. They even show clips of Hiram Gummer but nothing of Burt from the TV show despite it having more hours than the movies combined. That's how you treat the one person who has been with this franchise for the last 35 years? I smell a reboot.
And the Graboid hole deepens with the end credits.
Ever heard of Burt Gummer Day? No, it's not something Universal made up for Tremors. It's a holiday created by @BabyFarkMcGeeZax of Imgur. And he's been doing it for the last five years through love, effort and 4K Intergalactic Quality Gifs alone. But has Universal credited him? Nope. Michael Gross would love to know who started it but no one besides me will tell him. And here Universal is using his holiday as lines of dialogue and a marketing campaign to get people watching Tremors every April 14th. It's pretty messed up.
This is where people like you and I come in to play. Do you have any idea of the width and breadth of Tremors fandom?
Remember what I said about merchandising money? Video games tie into that too.

"Just to be clear, a wildly successful video game (an idea we've always wanted to work on) would make Universal a fortune. Not us." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And since Universal won't make them, Tremors fans have done what they can with what they have. And there are a lot of them. All across the spectrum.
Not just games either, if you want a T-shirt that's Straight Outta Perfection, you'll have to ask around and search but you'll find plenty when you do.
That's not even getting into the fan-art or fan-fiction or fan-film communities, all of which are quite wholesome even when they are being crazily sexual. Ever seen a sexy Graboid? It's.... something. And there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than there should be. It's like the #1 sidekink of furries. I know, I don't understand it either, but I can sure as hell appreciate the craft. And there's hundreds of thousands of them! And millions more that are simply hiding their love of Tremors because they think it's too weird and they'll be made fun of for liking it. Someone made a not terrible remix-song of Melvin singing "Way to go, dudes!". A 9 year old kid entered a mullet competition because he was inspired by Kevin Bacon as Val. I haven't even mentioned the 22,000 people in Burt Gummer's Subterranean Meme Stash.
There's a freaking subreddit for it! Tremors
Then the podcasts!! Practically everyone and their mother has done a 2 hour podcast on why Tremors is the greatest horror-rom-com movie series ever. SO many that I won't even attempt to list them. Just search Tremors and podcasts. There's thousands. The same goes for video reviews, reaction watches and reconstructions on Youtube. Too many to list. It's the go-to movie when people want to point out underrated horror, a feel-good time, or tight screenplays. So much so that they use Tremors as study material in film schools across the world.
James Gunn loves the movie so much he made sure to reference it in Slither by naming the school after THE Earl Bassett. Jon LaJoie loves it so much he wrote an album and song around it called "Wolfie's Just Fine". And Rick and Morty referenced it twice last season.
I've dived into the creative Graboid hole a few times as well. Four years ago, I discovered how Earl and his sleeping bag look like Stumpy at the end falling to its death. The only reason you can read the scripts for the Tremors pilot, original Tremors 2, and Tremors 5 is because I've used every social media channel I can to talk and ask about it and people in the these threads and on Twitter noticed. Half of the quotes you read are because the folks at Hollywood Unseen saw what I was doing, asked Steve a bunch of questions and wrote the answers down.
Hell, most of this information comes from "Seeking Perfection", the Tremors biography by Jonathan Melville. He literally wrote a 300 page book because there wan't one and he thought there should be. Because when you need it, and don't have it, ya sing a different tune.
Steve S.S. Wilson is such a fan of the series that even after he and Stampede were kicked out, he has spent the last 6 years answering questions on the Tremors FAQ page section of the Stampede Entertainment website. Ask yourself or send some love, they can sure use it. The only reason I was able to get the famous copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to take the Stampede Tremors case was because I sent so many people there that someone happened to ask about the copyright expiration clause. Because after 35 years, the original creators can take their creation back.
The time is running out though cause I can tell Universal plans a remake/reboot so they can run the clock til the Stampede Tremors team dies of old age. It's another one of those things I would looooooove to be wrong about. But if people can get mad enough to #RestoretheSnyderVerse when Zac Snyder didn't even create the characters of DC then we can #StampedeTremors until the series goes back to Perfection. These people spent over 35 years of their lives making monster movies for our entertainment. The least we can do is let them finish what they started. They're owed that. We all are.
Because when someone's creation can be taken away that easily after so much time, love, and effort than how could any of us feel safe creating anything ever again?
"We must do what we can with what we have."

Welcome to the Graboid hole, Valentine.
Now you've probably heard of the underground movie Tremors. This is the story of how Perfection was created then stolen from its makers after over 35 years of work.
Warning, "Here be Dirt Dragons".
It all started with a man named Steve Wilson, out on a rock in the middle of the desert. Sound familiar?

“One day I was sitting out there on one of those boulders and thought how interesting it would be to have something that moved through the sand like a fish, and I couldn’t get off the rock,” - Steve S.S. Wilson

He'd go on to meet Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood at UCLA film school and a legendary partnership was formed. Known as special effects wizards, they made their way into the film game until writing "Short Circuit" and getting the help of one Nancy Roberts, the true behind the scenes figurehead of the Tremors series. With the success of "Short Circuit", Nancy turned to them and asked if they had anything original in their back pocket they wanted to do on their own. To which Steve pulled out.... Land Sharks.
And it took a lot of work to turn that into what we know. Which is why Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Jacks jumped in to help. Firstly, Universal didn't know how to market horror-rom-coms because Tremors was the first of its kind. Then there's Universal itself wanting to make the movie but also thinking Tremors will fail. Making things non-union and changing the name from "Beneath Perfection" to "Dead Silence" to hide things.

“The studio wanted to keep the film hidden due to it being a non-union production, although they were involved at an arms-length distance with the picture being a negative pickup as opposed to a studio picture. They wanted it to be under the radar.” - Ron Underwood

Though the day-to-day filming was challenging due to the nature of creating a low-budget monster movie, production went surprisingly smooth thanks to the abilities of Brent, Nancy, Ron and Steve. Well actually, everyone involved. You already know the actors but there are some incredibly talented people involved behind the scenes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis as the main creature designers of the series. Turning their penis shaped designs into the Graboids we know and love today. That's just two of hundreds who painstakingly created Perfection. Steve Wilson's dad, Bob Wilson, also joined in the production of his son directing/writing/producing his first movie. He loved it so much he brought a home camera and filmed the greatest behind the scenes series ever with it. The whole team did what they could with they had, trimming what they could and fighting for what they couldn't. The scene where the car is sucked under was originally longer and about to be cut before Nancy and Jim stepped in. There was even two aborted openings, one with Old Fred and Edgar, and another with a rabbit and coyote being eaten by Graboids after landing from space. As well as a different ending.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's first child was born during the filming of the scene where Walter Chang is eaten by a Graboid. That's how committed everyone was. Also why Kevin had nightmares and regretted Tremors until recently.
But despite all that, on a budget of $11 million dollars, Tremors made $16 millon dollars in the theatre and was considered a failure at the box-office.
Or so it would seem....

"We got a backhanded compliment from them when they said, ‘We could sell an empty video box called Tremors, we have to have it.’” - Steve S.S. Wilson

With the advent of VHS and home video rentals, Tremors found its true home. And so came the call for Tremors 2: Aftershocks.
Originally, it was a much different movie than what we know today. Written in 1993, the first script for it had Reba returning as Heather Gummer with Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee. There was a plethora of new characters fed to the Graboids and Shriekers, an opening with gangsters attacking a family, and ending that was so good it was re-used for the TV episode "Shriek and Destroy". As well as the impetus and repetition of the phrase "Doing what you can with what you got." passed between Heather, Burt and Val. And the best callback ever. But because Kevin Bacon didn't want to return since sequels were seen as faux-pas and Reba wanted to come back but couldn't due to her touring schedule, the budget was slashed and things were changed. Val became Grady, Heather divorced Burt and a legend was born.

“When my son was eight, I let him see Tremors, because at that age he could appreciate it. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked, ‘Travis, did you see Tremors?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Dad, have you seen Tremors 2? It’s really great.’ I said, ‘Son, I’m not in Tremors 2.’ And he said, ‘No, but it’s cool.’” - Kevin Bacon

Fun fact: The unused designs of the Shriekers from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were repurposed for Starship Troopers as Arachnids instead. There was even Phil Tippett joining in to help create the CGI Shriekers.
That's when things really started to change.

“I could see where they were really excited because you’d be able to move those videos so quickly just on the word “Tremors”.” - Cristin Carr Strubbe

And Tremors came Back to Perfection.
A movie that gets an unfair rap because people don't like the name AssBlasters (AB is what they were called behind the scenes and how Burt refers to them, I like the African word "Impundulu"), it's the strangest of the original bunch. It has the largest set of returning cast for any Tremors entry with Burt, Nancy, Melvin, Mindy, and Miguel. It's the only film in the series that's rated PG despite coining and frequently using the term AssBlaster. AND it's Michael Gross' favourite Tremors movie. You're probably wondering why there's a smaller amount of information compared to the first two movies. So did the creators.

“We got to a point with Tremors 3 when there was no promotion at all. I remember saying to Universal, ‘There’s not even a poster to put up in a video store.’ What some stores were doing was putting up their own posters to notify customers there was a thing called Tremors 3 available. That was part of Universal’s austerity; they wanted to spend as little money as possible on these films. I’m not sure saving money on promotion is the smartest way. Rabid fans would find out about it, but as far as the general public knowing there’s another one of these movies available, that wasn’t the case.” - Brent Maddock
“Universal made a lot of money off that product, it always sold well, especially in the Asian world. I was the unit production manager on Tremors 3 and the TV series and I still get residuals off them. Ron Underwood told me a story about the premiere of his second film, City Slickers, in Japan. They sat in the theatre and nobody laughed the whole time. He was really depressed and when he came out the publicity people came up and they said, ‘There’s a lot of people that want to talk to you’. There was a line around the block and all they wanted to talk about was Tremors.” - Tom Keniston
“The video department begged the studio proper to make ‘Tremors 2’ and then it was a while before we made ‘Tremors 3’. That was designed to be the last one - the thinking being that surely we couldn’t milk this for more than those two sequels. But by that time, it was rolling forward on its own momentum, and they ordered ‘Tremors 4’ almost immediately. We explained that we’d structured three to be the end of the sequels, that we’d ended the life cycle of the monster and brought it full circle. The studio wasn’t bothered and basically said, ‘Well, what can you do?’ We asked if they’d mind if we made it a Western and start over. Their response was, ‘We don’t care, as long as it’s called ‘Tremors’ - so that’s why ‘Tremors 4’ is a Western.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Which is when Tremors landed on the small screen in the best piece of the puzzle yet. Seriously, I'm trying my hardest not to editorialize yet the TV show and 4th movie are my absolute favourites. That's why I've been able to track the irregularities with it. The worst is that the order of episodes is constantly distorted, leading to many viewer's confusion as characters are talked about before introduced and events referenced that haven't happened yet. It's so bad that even Google has the wrong order. See for yourself.a Not to mention how Universal has pulled it from every streaming app ever since I started this #StampedeTremors campaign so they make more more money off of the incomplete DVD sets.
The second is how once the TV show was greenlit, Universal immediately wanted Stampede to make Tremors 4. To the disregard of both productions.

“If Universal had been willing to delay the start of Tremors 4 by two weeks, or if Sci-Fi had been willing to wait until the end of T-4’s shoot to start the series production, Michael Gross could have been in all 13 episodes. Both sides absolutely refused to compromise, even though they’re both owned by the same parent company. After all that, Universal Home Video then delayed the release of the finished T-4 several months. Go figure.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Thirdly, and what I have found as the most important, is Mixmaster. A compound created as a plot device for the TV show which allowed the DNA of any animals to be combined to create a new monster every week.

"But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it. There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations. Grasshoppers with scorpion tails, Gila monsters with bat wings." - Cletus Poffenberger

THIS is why Universal stole Tremors from Stampede Entertainment.
Do you know what the highest grossing series of all time is?
Poke'Mon. I know, right?
Because when you can crank out thousands of new monsters, you can print money from every single one of those creatures as new merchandise. So when the folks at Stampede Tremors came up with something that can do that, make those monsters both cute/scary so as to get the kids AND adults to buy the toys.... Well it's easy to see why Universal would pull some Hollywood accounting with the series. If Tremors can make $500 million dollars without ANY official merchandise, imagine how much it would make if you could buy Graboid plushies, AssBlaster lighters or a different Mixmaster monster whenever they rolled out? And this series has been made with lower than minimal budget. What would happen if Universal actually gave the production the money it needed?

"We get a lot of fans asking why they can’t buy rubber Graboids and Val and Earl action figures or video games. Some of you have even offered to help design or even manufacture them. Others have helpfully suggested lower-budget ways they could be produced. Still another asked if we just had a small leftover graboid in “hardened clay” he could buy. (Sorry, the graboids were constructed full size; the clay versions are gone, and the casting molds are huge. Even the ¼ scale graboids are pretty big.) In answer: we wish we could get Universal to think like our fans! You have to believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are. We don’t control the Tremors “franchise.” Universal Pictures has the final say over all marketing and merchandising. I hear from sources inside Universal that the various marketing departments are expressing increased interest in our “franchise.” In English, that means they’re recognizing that there are a lot of Tremors fans out there. Nothing is definite, but here are some of the things that are being considered at Universal: Toys, action figures, collectibles and video games. The Tremors series is being considered for promotion in these areas, and deals may be discussed with toy companies, game designers, etc." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And Universal knows how to grab monsters and keep them for later. Though the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man are in the public domain, you'll be sued if the image gets too close to what Universal first created. Not just those creatures. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. Pretty much every monster you can think of that's not Godzilla. If Graboids, Shriekers, AssbBlasters and Mixmaster were added to that list, it would almost be a monopoly on monsters. In a world where the multi-verse is common, a MonsterVerse is easier to make than it seems (though they tried and fucked it up already, they WILL try again). Tremors is basically adult Poke'Mon. This is why Universal completely redesigned the Graboids, Shriekers, and Assblasters. The more they can make that associates Tremors with their version, the more they can take from Stampede before the end.
Now the sadness comes. Time to Bummer Down Under.
With the release and cancellation of Tremors the Series, and creation and late release of Tremors 4, came Universal's desire for Tremors 5.

"It was written while we were doing ‘Tremors 4’. Everybody was excited by the idea and, for a while there was talk of an even bigger budget and the potential for it to be a theatrical feature. So we were looking to how we could be really different." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And from 2004 to 2015, Brent and Steve would write and rewrite Tremors 5 Thunder Down Under 7-8 times. But it seemed that while Universal wanted it, they also didn't.

“There was never-ending interest from the fans, I became something of a de-facto frequently asked question answerer. I lost track of the number of times I had to write ‘I’m sorry, but there’ll never be a ‘Tremors 5’.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

That's when Universal stole Tremors. And you should start asking yourself why a studio who thinks there is no money to be had in a series has made 7 movies and 2 TV shows from it...

”We were on the way back from Chicago, and got a call on the road from Nancy (Roberts), who was still heading up Stampede (the production company established by Maddock, Wilson, Roberts and Underwood). She said ‘You won’t believe it! ‘Tremors 5’ is happening! They want to make it!’ We got very excited, Nancy was going to get the information so we could hit the ground running. Nancy asked whether they wanted Brent or I to direct, and they told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored - it didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low-budget movies. The sequels we made were all low-budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what that real reason was. We did have a ‘right of first refusal’ clause built into our contacts that had just lapsed - a clause which meant they would have had to offer the sequel to us, and, if we said no, they could then take it to someone else. But we never got any real information about what really happened that led to that.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

For a time, Stampede Entertainment chose to forget about Tremors since it was all they could do. Even though Universal cannibalized their script and took over half of it to make Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Nothing.
Until Kevin Bacon came calling.

"Nancy called us out of the blue again and said ‘You’re not going to believe this. Kevin’s finally thinking about returning to the character of Val! They want you to come in and talk about this new series idea that he has!’ Then, when we called back to set up a time, they said ‘Oh, we’re sorry. There appears to have been some sort of mistake. No-one here wants to talk to you in any way, shape or form and never will.’ It was classic Hollywood - classic, bad Hollywood. There’s a lot of good Hollywood too, and Brent and I have experienced a lot of that. But this was not fun.” ' Steve S.S. Wilson

Universal/SyFy would go on to make that Tremors series anyway. Or at least a pilot of it. To the point where it had finished VFX and was able to be shown in full at festivals. But they cancelled it before it could go anywhere. Then they buried it. And no one really knows why.

"I looked at that character [Valentine McKee] and thought to myself, 'You know, this is probably the only character I have ever played that I want to really go back and see what’s happened to him.' He was such a fascinating character to me because he’s such an ordinary man; not that smart, not that special, and yet he had this extraordinary circumstance that he had to sort of step up to the plate for. I thought to myself, 'If you take that away, if they just went away, those worms, what does a guy like that do? The rest of his life has now really become uninteresting,' so exploring that I thought would be fun. We made an excellent pilot outside of Albuquerque, recreated the town, had a really great cast, director, and writer and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t want to move forward with it. It’s a real head-scratcher for me. If I honestly thought the pilot was shit then I’d say we just didn’t crack it but it was cool, and that’s a really hard balance to get, between funny and scary, as you know, that’s the sweet spot. Tremors was good at that." - Kevin Bacon

Read the script for yourself. It already had Mindy and Melvin in it with the return of Burt and Earl on the horizon. And if you watch the trailer, just know that it's completely misleading. The redesigned Graboid lives alongside the old one and Val IS wrong when he says "They don't plan. They don't strategize.". Him being ignorant is part of the plot.
At this point, Universal was already in full swing creating their new Tremors movies. In the same time it took for Tremors 2 to come out after Tremors, Universal has made 3 new movies, Bloodlines, A Cold Day in Hell and Shrieker Island, and a TV show. That doesn't make much sense considering how 4 movies and a TV show were created over 25 years. For Universal to crank out 3 movies and a TV show in less than a quarter of that time is a feat in and of itself. Movies that are a shadow of what Stampede Entertainment was doing with the over-fetishisation of piss/shit humour, overt sexism/racism, and a disregard for the way the creatures behaved before. There's a part in Shrieker Island where a man is killed by a Graboid while on the toilet. And that's not the worst part. The worst is how it happens in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm while the man is making zero noise. Not even a grunt of constipation. Think on that. A monster that hunts entirely by sound, seeking out and finding someone in the middle of a rainstorm that would drown out its sound sensors. It hurts, doesn't it?
Dumb fun fact: Tremors 6 was filmed in South Africa despite taking place in Canada and is the only movie to try turning sand into snow. No, there was no real reason to do it. Not to mention Kevin Bacon's daughter explaining to Burt Gummer how Graboids work.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable as I tried to protect the franchise. Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree with, and I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without somebody like [the original writers] Steve or Brent there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’... Long story short, Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again." - Michael Gross

Bringing us to the semi-present day and the part where #SPOILERS# happen.
#SPOILERS#
The release of Tremors 7 Shrieker Island. And the supposed death of Burt Gummer. But not in the good-story way. This was something that was merely an afterthought.

"They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea. Universal and the director came to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' "What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." - Michael Gross

Which would be fine if that's what Universal actually did. Instead, they tacked on a cheap montage of clips at the end and make it seem like Michael Gross himself is dead. They even show clips of Hiram Gummer but nothing of Burt from the TV show despite it having more hours than the movies combined. That's how you treat the one person who has been with this franchise for the last 35 years? I smell a reboot.
And the Graboid hole deepens with the end credits.
Ever heard of Burt Gummer Day? No, it's not something Universal made up for Tremors. It's a holiday created by @BabyFarkMcGeeZax of Imgur. And he's been doing it for the last five years through love, effort and 4K Intergalactic Quality Gifs alone. But has Universal credited him? Nope. Michael Gross would love to know who started it but no one besides me will tell him. And here Universal is using his holiday as lines of dialogue and a marketing campaign to get people watching Tremors every April 14th. It's pretty messed up.
This is where people like you and I come in to play. Do you have any idea of the width and breadth of Tremors fandom?
Remember what I said about merchandising money? Video games tie into that too.

"Just to be clear, a wildly successful video game (an idea we've always wanted to work on) would make Universal a fortune. Not us." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And since Universal won't make them, Tremors fans have done what they can with what they have. And there are a lot of them. All across the spectrum.
Not just games either, if you want a T-shirt that's Straight Outta Perfection, you'll have to ask around and search but you'll find plenty when you do.
That's not even getting into the fan-art or fan-fiction or fan-film communities, all of which are quite wholesome even when they are being crazily sexual. Ever seen a sexy Graboid? It's.... something. And there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than there should be. It's like the #1 sidekink of furries. I know, I don't understand it either, but I can sure as hell appreciate the craft. And there's hundreds of thousands of them! And millions more that are simply hiding their love of Tremors because they think it's too weird and they'll be made fun of for liking it. Someone made a not terrible remix-song of Melvin singing "Way to go, dudes!". A 9 year old kid entered a mullet competition because he was inspired by Kevin Bacon as Val. I haven't even mentioned the 22,000 people in Burt Gummer's Subterranean Meme Stash.
There's a freaking subreddit for it! Tremors
Then the podcasts!! Practically everyone and their mother has done a 2 hour podcast on why Tremors is the greatest horror-rom-com movie series ever. SO many that I won't even attempt to list them. Just search Tremors and podcasts. There's thousands. The same goes for video reviews, reaction watches and reconstructions on Youtube. Too many to list. It's the go-to movie when people want to point out underrated horror, a feel-good time, or tight screenplays. So much so that they use Tremors as study material in film schools across the world.
James Gunn loves the movie so much he made sure to reference it in Slither by naming the school after THE Earl Bassett. Jon LaJoie loves it so much he wrote an album and song around it called "Wolfie's Just Fine". And Rick and Morty referenced it twice last season.
I've dived into the creative Graboid hole a few times as well. Four years ago, I discovered how Earl and his sleeping bag look like Stumpy at the end falling to its death. The only reason you can read the scripts for the Tremors pilot, original Tremors 2, and Tremors 5 is because I've used every social media channel I can to talk and ask about it and people in the these threads and on Twitter noticed. Half of the quotes you read are because the folks at Hollywood Unseen saw what I was doing, asked Steve a bunch of questions and wrote the answers down.
Hell, most of this information comes from "Seeking Perfection", the Tremors biography by Jonathan Melville. He literally wrote a 300 page book because there wan't one and he thought there should be. Because when you need it, and don't have it, ya sing a different tune.
Steve S.S. Wilson is such a fan of the series that even after he and Stampede were kicked out, he has spent the last 6 years answering questions on the Tremors FAQ page section of the Stampede Entertainment website. Ask yourself or send some love, they can sure use it. The only reason I was able to get the famous copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to take the Stampede Tremors case was because I sent so many people there that someone happened to ask about the copyright expiration clause. Because after 35 years, the original creators can take their creation back.
The time is running out though cause I can tell Universal plans a remake/reboot so they can run the clock til the Stampede Tremors team dies of old age. It's another one of those things I would looooooove to be wrong about. But if people can get mad enough to #RestoretheSnyderVerse when Zac Snyder didn't even create the characters of DC then we can #StampedeTremors until the series goes back to Perfection. These people spent over 35 years of their lives making monster movies for our entertainment. The least we can do is let them finish what they started. They're owed that. We all are.
Because when someone's creation can be taken away that easily after so much time, love, and effort than how could any of us feel safe creating anything ever again?
"We must do what we can with what we have."

EDIT: I HAVE BEEN PERMA-BANNED FROM REDDIT FOR TALKING TREMORS. After 10 years on this site, everything is gone because I stood up for a cause. Dear, Universal, in the immortal words of Kevin Bacon.
Welcome to the Graboid hole, Valentine.
Now you've probably heard of the underground movie Tremors. In case you haven't, here's what you need to know: Tremors is a scifi film series that came out in 1990 that was the perfect blend of horror movie monster, humor, and camp that went on to become a much beloved cult classic that has spawned 7 sequels, 2 TV shows, and adoration from fans world wide. Created by Steve S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Ron Underwood and Nancy Roberts of Stampede Entertainment, the copyright for Tremors was taken by Universal studios in a series of backdoor dealings. This is the story of how Perfection was created then stolen from its makers after over 35 years of work.
Warning, "Here be Dirt Dragons".

CHAPTER 1: THERE'S SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

It all started with a man named Steve Wilson, out on a rock in the middle of the desert. Sound familiar?

“One day I was sitting out there on one of those boulders and thought how interesting it would be to have something that moved through the sand like a fish, and I couldn’t get off the rock,” - Steve S.S. Wilson

He'd go on to meet Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood at UCLA film school and a legendary partnership was formed. Known as special effects wizards, they made their way into the film game until writing "Short Circuit" and getting the help of one Nancy Roberts, the true behind the scenes figurehead of the Tremors series. With the success of "Short Circuit", Nancy turned to them and asked if they had anything original in their back pocket they wanted to do on their own. To which Steve pulled out.... Land Sharks.
And it took a lot of work to turn that into what we know. Which is why Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Jacks jumped in to help. Firstly, Universal didn't know how to market horror-rom-coms because Tremors was the first of its kind. Then there's Universal itself wanting to make the movie but also thinking Tremors will fail. Making things non-union and changing the name from "Beneath Perfection" to "Dead Silence" to hide things.

“The studio wanted to keep the film hidden due to it being a non-union production, although they were involved at an arms-length distance with the picture being a negative pickup as opposed to a studio picture. They wanted it to be under the radar.” - Ron Underwood

Though the day-to-day filming was challenging due to the nature of creating a low-budget monster movie, production went surprisingly smooth thanks to the abilities of Brent, Nancy, Ron and Steve. Well actually, everyone involved. You already know the actors but there are some incredibly talented people involved behind the scenes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis as the main creature designers of the series. Turning their penis shaped designs into the Graboids we know and love today. That's just two of hundreds who painstakingly created Perfection. Steve Wilson's dad, Bob Wilson, also joined in the production of his son directing/writing/producing his first movie. He loved it so much he brought a home camera and filmed the greatest behind the scenes series ever with it. The whole team did what they could with they had, trimming what they could and fighting for what they couldn't. The scene where the car is sucked under was originally longer and about to be cut before Nancy and Jim stepped in. There was even two aborted openings, one with Old Fred and Edgar, and another with a rabbit and coyote being eaten by Graboids after landing from space. As well as a different ending.
Fun fact: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's first child was born during the filming of the scene where Walter Chang is eaten by a Graboid. That's how committed everyone was. Also why Kevin had nightmares and regretted Tremors until recently.
But despite all that, on a budget of $11 million dollars, Tremors made $16 millon dollars in the theatre and was considered a failure at the box-office.
Or so it would seem....

"We got a backhanded compliment from them when they said, ‘We could sell an empty video box called Tremors, we have to have it.’” - Steve S.S. Wilson

CHAPTER 2: THE WORMS TURN

With the advent of VHS and home video rentals, Tremors found its true home. And so came the call for Tremors 2: Aftershocks.
Originally, it was a much different movie than what we know today. Written in 1993, the first script for it had Reba returning as Heather Gummer with Kevin Bacon as Valentine McKee. There was a plethora of new characters fed to the Graboids and Shriekers, an opening with gangsters attacking a family, and ending that was so good it was re-used for the TV episode "Shriek and Destroy". This is also where the TV show first started with the idea of Tremors 2: Aftershocks - The Lost Monsters!, a series about Val, Earl, and Burt traveling around fighting bigfoot ghosts, Grumpy old men vampires, toasters, and Graboids. As well as the impetus and repetition of the phrase "Doing what you can with what you got." passed between Heather, Burt and Val. And the best callback ever. But because Kevin Bacon didn't want to return since sequels were seen as faux-pas and Reba wanted to come back but couldn't due to her touring schedule, the budget was slashed and things were changed. Val became Grady, Heather divorced Burt and a legend was born.

“When my son was eight, I let him see Tremors, because at that age he could appreciate it. When I spoke to him on the phone, I asked, ‘Travis, did you see Tremors?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I saw it. Dad, have you seen Tremors 2? It’s really great.’ I said, ‘Son, I’m not in Tremors 2.’ And he said, ‘No, but it’s cool.’” - Kevin Bacon

Fun fact: The unused designs of the Shriekers from Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were repurposed for Starship Troopers as Arachnids instead. There was even Phil Tippett joining in to help create the CGI Shriekers.
That's when things really started to change.

“I could see where they were really excited because you’d be able to move those videos so quickly just on the word “Tremors”.” - Cristin Carr Strubbe

CHAPTER 3: TREMORS IS PERFECTION

And Tremors came Back to Perfection.
A movie that gets an unfair rap because people don't like the name AssBlasters (AB is what they were called behind the scenes and how Burt refers to them, I like the African word "Impundulu"), it's the strangest of the original bunch. It has the largest set of returning cast for any Tremors entry with Burt, Nancy, Melvin, Mindy, and Miguel. It's the only film in the series that's rated PG despite coining and frequently using the term AssBlaster. AND it's Michael Gross' favourite Tremors movie. You're probably wondering why there's a smaller amount of information compared to the first two movies. So did the creators.

“We got to a point with Tremors 3 when there was no promotion at all. I remember saying to Universal, ‘There’s not even a poster to put up in a video store.’ What some stores were doing was putting up their own posters to notify customers there was a thing called Tremors 3 available. That was part of Universal’s austerity; they wanted to spend as little money as possible on these films. I’m not sure saving money on promotion is the smartest way. Rabid fans would find out about it, but as far as the general public knowing there’s another one of these movies available, that wasn’t the case.” - Brent Maddock
“Universal made a lot of money off that product, it always sold well, especially in the Asian world. I was the unit production manager on Tremors 3 and the TV series and I still get residuals off them. Ron Underwood told me a story about the premiere of his second film, City Slickers, in Japan. They sat in the theatre and nobody laughed the whole time. He was really depressed and when he came out the publicity people came up and they said, ‘There’s a lot of people that want to talk to you’. There was a line around the block and all they wanted to talk about was Tremors.” - Tom Keniston
“The video department begged the studio proper to make ‘Tremors 2’ and then it was a while before we made ‘Tremors 3’. That was designed to be the last one - the thinking being that surely we couldn’t milk this for more than those two sequels. But by that time, it was rolling forward on its own momentum, and they ordered ‘Tremors 4’ almost immediately. We explained that we’d structured three to be the end of the sequels, that we’d ended the life cycle of the monster and brought it full circle. The studio wasn’t bothered and basically said, ‘Well, what can you do?’ We asked if they’d mind if we made it a Western and start over. Their response was, ‘We don’t care, as long as it’s called ‘Tremors’ - so that’s why ‘Tremors 4’ is a Western.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Notice too how you can find little Behind the Scenes for 5-7 despite a smorgasbord of material for 1-4 and both TV shows.
Then there's the constant poster "fuck ups". How can Universal get it so wrong when it comes to Stampede's Tremors'... ...only to be perfectly on for the Graboids in their 5-7? Not to mention that it's not a complete collection if it's missing the TV show. There is more of the Tremors TV show than there is Tremors movies! Also, there are more instances of the OG Graboid design so why choose the one that has only shown up in 3 movies out of 8? And then go so far as to use the post-Stampede version to represent itself to fans who love the originals the most. Fishiness is afoot.
Which is when Tremors landed on the small screen in the best piece of the puzzle yet. Seriously, I'm trying my hardest not to editorialize yet the TV show and 4th movie are my absolute favourites. That's why I've been able to track the irregularities with it. The worst is that the order of episodes is constantly distorted, leading to many viewer's confusion as characters are talked about before introduced and events referenced that haven't happened yet. It's so bad that even Google has the wrong order. See for yourself.a Not to mention how Universal has pulled it from every streaming app ever since I started this #StampedeTremors campaign so they make more more money off of the incomplete DVD sets.
The second is how once the TV show was greenlit, Universal immediately wanted Stampede to make Tremors 4. To the disregard of both productions.

“If Universal had been willing to delay the start of Tremors 4 by two weeks, or if Sci-Fi had been willing to wait until the end of T-4’s shoot to start the series production, Michael Gross could have been in all 13 episodes. Both sides absolutely refused to compromise, even though they’re both owned by the same parent company. After all that, Universal Home Video then delayed the release of the finished T-4 several months. Go figure.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

Thirdly, and what I have found as the most important, is Mixmaster. A compound created as a plot device for the TV show which allowed the DNA of any animals to be combined to create a new monster every week.

"But it will keep spreading, mixing willy-nilly the DNA of every plant and animal that ingests it. There'll be countless, unimaginable mutations. Grasshoppers with scorpion tails, Gila monsters with bat wings." - Cletus Poffenberger

THIS is why Universal stole Tremors from Stampede Entertainment.

CHAPTER 4: MORE MONEY

Do you know what the highest grossing series of all time is?
Poke'Mon. I know, right?
Because when you can crank out thousands of new monsters, you can print money from every single one of those creatures as new merchandise. So when the folks at Stampede Tremors came up with something that can do that, make those monsters both cute/scary so as to get the kids AND adults to buy the toys.... Well it's easy to see why Universal would pull some Hollywood accounting with the series. If Tremors can make $500 million dollars without ANY official merchandise, imagine how much it would make if you could buy Graboid plushies, AssBlaster lighters or a different Mixmaster monster whenever they rolled out? And this series has been made with lower than minimal budget. What would happen if Universal actually gave the production the money it needed?

"We get a lot of fans asking why they can’t buy rubber Graboids and Val and Earl action figures or video games. Some of you have even offered to help design or even manufacture them. Others have helpfully suggested lower-budget ways they could be produced. Still another asked if we just had a small leftover graboid in “hardened clay” he could buy. (Sorry, the graboids were constructed full size; the clay versions are gone, and the casting molds are huge. Even the ¼ scale graboids are pretty big.) In answer: we wish we could get Universal to think like our fans! You have to believe us when we say we’re just as frustrated as you are. We don’t control the Tremors “franchise.” Universal Pictures has the final say over all marketing and merchandising. I hear from sources inside Universal that the various marketing departments are expressing increased interest in our “franchise.” In English, that means they’re recognizing that there are a lot of Tremors fans out there. Nothing is definite, but here are some of the things that are being considered at Universal: Toys, action figures, collectibles and video games. The Tremors series is being considered for promotion in these areas, and deals may be discussed with toy companies, game designers, etc." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And Universal knows how to grab monsters and keep them for later. Though the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man are in the public domain, you'll be sued if the image gets too close to what Universal first created. Not just those creatures. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. Pretty much every monster you can think of that's not Godzilla. If Graboids, Shriekers, AssbBlasters and Mixmaster were added to that list, it would almost be a monopoly on monsters. In a world where the multi-verse is common, a MonsterVerse is easier to make than it seems (though they tried and fucked it up already, they WILL try again). Tremors is basically adult Poke'Mon. This is why Universal completely redesigned the Graboids, Shriekers, and Assblasters. The more they can make that associates Tremors with their version, the more they can take from Stampede before the end.

CHAPTER 5: A BUMMER DOWN UNDER

Now the sadness comes. Time to Bummer Down Under.
With the release and cancellation of Tremors the Series, and creation and late release of Tremors 4, came Universal's desire for Tremors 5.

"It was written while we were doing ‘Tremors 4’. Everybody was excited by the idea and, for a while there was talk of an even bigger budget and the potential for it to be a theatrical feature. So we were looking to how we could be really different." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And from 2004 to 2015, Brent and Steve would write and rewrite Tremors 5 Thunder Down Under 7-8 times. But it seemed that while Universal wanted it, they also didn't.

“There was never-ending interest from the fans, I became something of a de-facto frequently asked question answerer. I lost track of the number of times I had to write ‘I’m sorry, but there’ll never be a ‘Tremors 5’.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

That's when Universal stole Tremors. And you should start asking yourself why a studio who thinks there is no money to be had in a series has made 7 movies and 2 TV shows from it...

”We were on the way back from Chicago, and got a call on the road from Nancy (Roberts), who was still heading up Stampede (the production company established by Maddock, Wilson, Roberts and Underwood). She said ‘You won’t believe it! ‘Tremors 5’ is happening! They want to make it!’ We got very excited, Nancy was going to get the information so we could hit the ground running. Nancy asked whether they wanted Brent or I to direct, and they told her neither of us were going to direct or even be remotely involved in the film. We were floored - it didn’t make creative sense, and it didn’t make financial sense. The story they gave us at the time was that they needed a team that did low-budget movies. The sequels we made were all low-budget films. That clearly wasn’t the real reason, and we never were able to find out what that real reason was. We did have a ‘right of first refusal’ clause built into our contacts that had just lapsed - a clause which meant they would have had to offer the sequel to us, and, if we said no, they could then take it to someone else. But we never got any real information about what really happened that led to that.” - Steve S.S. Wilson

For a time, Stampede Entertainment chose to forget about Tremors since it was all they could do. Even though Universal cannibalized their script and took over half of it to make Tremors 5: Bloodlines. Nothing.
Until Kevin Bacon came calling.

"Nancy called us out of the blue again and said ‘You’re not going to believe this. Kevin’s finally thinking about returning to the character of Val! They want you to come in and talk about this new series idea that he has!’ Then, when we called back to set up a time, they said ‘Oh, we’re sorry. There appears to have been some sort of mistake. No-one here wants to talk to you in any way, shape or form and never will.’ It was classic Hollywood - classic, bad Hollywood. There’s a lot of good Hollywood too, and Brent and I have experienced a lot of that. But this was not fun.” ' Steve S.S. Wilson

Universal/SyFy would go on to make that Tremors series anyway. Or at least a pilot of it. To the point where it had finished VFX and was able to be shown in full at festivals. But they cancelled it before it could go anywhere. Then they buried it. And no one really knows why.

"I looked at that character [Valentine McKee] and thought to myself, 'You know, this is probably the only character I have ever played that I want to really go back and see what’s happened to him.' He was such a fascinating character to me because he’s such an ordinary man; not that smart, not that special, and yet he had this extraordinary circumstance that he had to sort of step up to the plate for. I thought to myself, 'If you take that away, if they just went away, those worms, what does a guy like that do? The rest of his life has now really become uninteresting,' so exploring that I thought would be fun. We made an excellent pilot outside of Albuquerque, recreated the town, had a really great cast, director, and writer and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t want to move forward with it. It’s a real head-scratcher for me. If I honestly thought the pilot was shit then I’d say we just didn’t crack it but it was cool, and that’s a really hard balance to get, between funny and scary, as you know, that’s the sweet spot. Tremors was good at that." - Kevin Bacon

Read the script for yourself. It already had Mindy and Melvin in it with the return of Burt and Earl on the horizon. And if you watch the trailer, just know that it's completely misleading. The redesigned Graboid lives alongside the old one and Val IS wrong when he says "They don't plan. They don't strategize.". Him being ignorant is part of the plot.

CHAPTER 6: MICHAEL GETS GROSSED

At this point, Universal was already in full swing creating their new Tremors movies. In the same time it took for Tremors 2 to come out after Tremors, Universal has made 3 new movies, Bloodlines, A Cold Day in Hell and Shrieker Island, and a TV show. That doesn't make much sense considering how 4 movies and a TV show were created over 25 years. For Universal to crank out 3 movies and a TV show in less than a quarter of that time is a feat in and of itself. Movies that are a shadow of what Stampede Entertainment was doing with the over-fetishisation of piss/shit humour, overt sexism/racism, and a disregard for the way the creatures behaved before. There's a part in Shrieker Island where a man is killed by a Graboid while on the toilet. And that's not the worst part. The worst is how it happens in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm while the man is making zero noise. Not even a grunt of constipation. Think on that. A monster that hunts entirely by sound, seeking out and finding someone in the middle of a rainstorm that would drown out its sound sensors. It hurts, doesn't it?
Dumb fun fact: Tremors 6 was filmed in South Africa despite taking place in Canada and is the only movie to try turning sand into snow. No, there was no real reason to do it. Not to mention Kevin Bacon's daughter explaining to Burt Gummer how Graboids work. Also, they found millenia old hominid bones in cave in Africa because the Tremors 5 crew vandalised a wall. No, that's not a plot for the next movie.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable as I tried to protect the franchise. Because we had a different director who hadn’t done this before, there were certain things we would disagree with, and I’d say, ‘Burt can’t say that, because it’s not factually true.’ So there’s a real balancing act without somebody like [the original writers] Steve or Brent there to ultimately say, ‘No, that can’t be done.’... Long story short, Stampede had the will and the passion, but they did not own the property. So it was either sit out this dance and they’ll reinvent the franchise without Burt, or here’s a chance to do Burt again." - Michael Gross

Bringing us to the semi-present day and the part where #SPOILERS# happen.
#SPOILERS#
The release of Tremors 7 Shrieker Island. And the supposed death of Burt Gummer. But not in the good-story way. This was something that was merely an afterthought.

"They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself — I didn’t express it to them, but I thought to myself — ‘Maybe Universal’s getting a little tired of this franchise.’ Because this wasn’t my idea. Universal and the director came to me with this idea, and they said, 'This could be emotionally very powerful, if we have to say goodbye to this man after 30 years. And I hemmed and hawed, and I thought about it a little bit. And I said, 'You're absolutely right about the emotional gut punch this can be.' And I said, 'You're going to hurt a lot of people's feelings.' "What we negotiated -- well, it wasn't really a negotiation, we all agreed on this -- is that we kind of left the door open. Because although Burt is gone, we never see a corpse. We never see his remains. I said, 'I can live with this,'" Gross said. "Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." - Michael Gross

Which would be fine if that's what Universal actually did. Instead, they tacked on a cheap montage of clips at the end and make it seem like Michael Gross himself is dead. They even show clips of Hiram Gummer but nothing of Burt from the TV show despite it having more hours than the movies combined. That's how you treat the one person who has been with this franchise for the last 35 years? I smell a reboot.
And the Graboid hole deepens with the end credits.

CHAPTER 7: BURT GUMMER DAY AND YOU

Ever heard of Burt Gummer Day? No, it's not something Universal made up for Tremors. It's a holiday created by @BabyFarkMcGeeZax of Imgur. And he's been doing it for the last five years through love, effort and 4K Intergalactic Quality Gifs alone. But has Universal credited him? Nope. Michael Gross would love to know who started it but no one besides me will tell him. And here Universal is using his holiday as lines of dialogue and a marketing campaign to get people watching Tremors every April 14th. It's pretty messed up.
This is where people like you and I come in to play. Do you have any idea of the width and breadth of Tremors fandom?

"Not only did they make their money back, but I remember that when it aired on network TV, I think it was NBC, it got incredibly high ratings and it would be repeated year-after-year. A lot of films weren’t back then, but every time it aired on TV it turns out there were more fans than anyone expected.” - Gale Anne Hurd

Remember what I said about merchandising money? Video games tie into that too.

"Just to be clear, a wildly successful video game (an idea we've always wanted to work on) would make Universal a fortune. Not us." - Steve S.S. Wilson

And since Universal won't make them, Tremors fans have done what they can with what they have. And there are a lot of them. All across the spectrum.
Not just games either, if you want a T-shirt that's Straight Outta Perfection, you'll have to ask around and search but you'll find plenty when you do.
That's not even getting into the fan-art or fan-fiction or fan-film communities, all of which are quite wholesome even when they are being crazily sexual. Ever seen a sexy Graboid? It's.... something. And there's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than there should be. It's like the #1 sidekink of furries. I know, I don't understand it either, but I can sure as hell appreciate the craft. And there's hundreds of thousands of them! And millions more that are simply hiding their love of Tremors because they think it's too weird and they'll be made fun of for liking it. Someone made a not terrible remix-song of Melvin singing "Way to go, dudes!". A 9 year old kid entered a mullet competition because he was inspired by Kevin Bacon as Val. I haven't even gotten into the 22,000 people in the Burt Gummer Subterranean Meme Stash.
This one's weird but there's a phenomenon where whenever a earthquake or tremors happens, it makes half the people effected by it watch Tremors. Same with experiencing or seeing neurological body tremors. When people talk about "tremors" in any aspect, it gets people watching the movies. I see it because I look up the word "Tremors" everyday on Twitter and that's the big three I see. And the first two cause and effect the later. It's strange. But free advertising!
There's a freaking subreddit for it! Tremors
Then the podcasts!! Practically everyone and their mother has done a 2 hour podcast on why Tremors is the greatest horror-rom-com movie series ever. SO many that I won't even attempt to list them. Just search Tremors and podcasts. There's thousands. The same goes for video reviews, reaction watches and reconstructions on Youtube. Too many to list. It's the go-to movie when people want to point out underrated horror, a feel-good time, or tight screenplays. So much so that they use Tremors as study material in film schools across the world.
James Gunn loves the movie so much he made sure to reference it in Slither by naming the school after THE Earl Bassett. Jon LaJoie loves it so much he wrote an album and song around it called "Wolfie's Just Fine". And Rick and Morty referenced it twice last season.

“We had this big audience that came to the film later, after the film was initially released. I hear from people all the time who are introducing their kids to it because they want them to have the experience they had when they were young. It’s kind of weird that it’s lived on so long but I just feel lucky that it’s still hanging in there.” - Ron Underwood

CHAPTER 8: OUROBOROS

Tremors is all about looking into the past to make the future. Four years ago, I discovered how Earl and his sleeping bag look like Stumpy at the end falling to its death. The only reason you can read the scripts for the Tremors pilot, original Tremors 2, and Tremors 5 is because I've used every social media channel I can to talk and ask about it and people in these threads and elsewhere noticed. Half of the quotes you read are because the folks at Hollywood Unseen saw what I was doing, asked Steve a bunch of questions and wrote the answers down.
Hell, most of this information comes from "Seeking Perfection", the Tremors biography by Jonathan Melville. He literally wrote a 300 page book because there wan't one and he thought there should be. Because when you need it, and don't have it, ya sing a different tune.
Steve S.S. Wilson is such a fan of the series that even after he and Stampede were kicked out, he has spent the last 6 years answering questions on the Tremors FAQ page section of the Stampede Entertainment website. Ask yourself or send some love, they can sure use it. The only reason I was able to get the famous copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to take the Stampede Tremors case was because I sent so many people there that someone happened to ask about the copyright expiration clause. Because after 35 years, the original creators can take their creation back.
The time is running out though cause I can tell Universal plans a remake/reboot so they can run the clock til the Stampede Tremors team dies of old age. It's another one of those things I would looooooove to be wrong about. But if people can get mad enough to #RestoretheSnyderVerse when Zac Snyder didn't even create the characters of DC then we can #StampedeTremors until the series goes back to Perfection. These people spent over 35 years of their lives making monster movies for our entertainment. The least we can do is let them finish what they started. They're owed that. We all are.
Because when someone's creation can be taken away that easily after so much time, love, and effort than how could any of us feel safe creating anything ever again?
"We must do what we can with what we have."

IG/Snap name: (jose/ramon/sergio/edgar)thalowk or (jose/ramon/sergio/edgar)2loko
IG Bio: No Face No Case 🎭/R.I.P. Smiley/Smokey/Sleepy/Joker, 🔵🇲🇽
House: Crosses all throughout, old family pictures from the 60s or sometimes the 20s-30s, his mom or sister cleaning everything
Hair: Shaved bald, slicked back or ive seen niggas rockin mullets
Fashion: Either truey jeans, nike cortezes with laces tied tight, a white pro club and long ass white socks orrr a bumblebee shirt, locs sunglasses, 501 levis, nike cortez's
Taste in women: Underage lol
"Favorite" TV Shows and Movies: American Me, Blood In Blood Out, On My Block
Hobbies: Hitting up walls, tucking a janky ass old ass revolver, arguing with his hyna, changing his 3 babies diapers, pressing people way younger than him to act tough, giving his youngins dogshit tats and shaving heads in the house, posting oldies claiming they have an old soul, posting their tio that bangs on snap to seem hard, nozzin it, saying fuck norte but never coming close to a real norte, posting weed on their story with "😻😻", calling any girl theyve ever met their prima
Music: South Park Mexican, Lil Rob, Cali Life Style, Ying Yang Twinz, Lil Jon, Too Short
Car of choice: SUV with faded paint job and a bong in the backseat
Always seen with: the pipas, 12 pack of modelos
Vocabulary includes: Nigga (every other word), Ese/Guey/Foo, mah boy, thas right perro, seriooo, we gonna be on a sick one, la raza/la familia, "yhu" instead of you,
​
if i missed sum lmk

Who is the face of your franchise, to the extent you would anoint him "Mr. [Yourteamhere]"? It's not always just the guy with the most VORP, or the lifer, or the guy with all the hardware. Sometimes it's just a guy who embodies the spirit of the franchise in some intangible way. In my opinion, each team's Mister is..........

1. Mr. Padre - Tony Gwynn. What can I say? Tony was so obviously Mr. Padre I don't even have to explain, so I won't. Competition: Literally none.
   
2. Mr. Royal - George Brett. Just an eyelash below Gwynn for most obvious, Mr. Royal's case is only marginally more interesting discussion because there were actually a few other decent Royals. But he's the man, and it's not even close. Competition: Frank White......maybe? But not even really.
   
3. Mr. Brewer - Robin Yount. The Brewer lifer, Hall of Famer, MVP at both shortstop and centerfield, 3,000 hits, it could barely be more obvious - Robin is Mr. Brewer. Paul Molitor is a very distant second, but spending a long time on other teams and just not being as good as Yount makes him a nonentity in the discussion. Competition: Molitor
   
4. Mr. Philly - Mike Schmidt. Sure, there have been many other great Phillies in their 120+ year history. But nobody even approached Mr. Philly's dominance at his position, longevity, liferhood or pornstache game. Competition: Steve Carlton
   
5. Mr. Angel - Mike Trout. This has been pretty obviously coming for at least 3-4 years, but we're now in "duh" territory: it's Fishboi. Salmon and Finley are a distant 2nd and 3rd, but they've been in the rear view for a while. (does anyone on this team not evoke fishy imagery? Even GARret Anderson is getting in on it.) Competition: Salmon, Finley
   
6. Mr. Yankee - Babe Ruth. No doubt about it - the Bambino is Mr. Baseball, so he has to be Mr. Yankee, and not even a couple seasons in Boston or 3-4 positional GOATs' competition could possibly change anybody's mind. He's the once and future king on his team and in all the sport, the inner ring among the inner ring. Competition: Gehrig, Mantle, DiMaggio
   
7. Mr. Indian - Bob Feller. There have been plenty of beloved greats in Cleveland through the years, but ask 100 Tribe fans who's the man, and 95 of them will say "Bob Feller" without even thinking about it. Rapid Robert spent his entire career in Cleveland, was a WW2 hero, had the best fastball, and he's in the HOF. Not much more you could ask of your team's GOAT. Competition: Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie, Kenny Lofton
   
8. Mr. Mariner - Ken Griffey Jr.. There have been other HOFs and other lifers, but nobody will ever make you think of the Mariners more than Griffey. One of the most popular, beloved players ever, he's your guy. Competition: Edgar, Ichiro, R.Johnson
   
9. Mr. Red Sox - Ted Williams. There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived. On a team with guys like Yaz, Boggs, Clemens and Cy Young, Ted rises above. Competition: Yaz, Boggs, Clemens, Cy Young
   
10. Mr. Tiger - Ty Cobb. The longtime Hit King spent 22 seasons in Detroit, winning 12 batting titles, and has an unbreakable record .367 career BA. The racism rumors? Just a smear campaign. Among many other Kitty greats, he's your guy. Competition: Whitaker, Trammell, Kaline
    
11. Mr. White Sox - Frank Thomas. The team has spent its entire existence playing second fiddle to the Cubs in their own town, but Frank is clearly the tank. He was a superstar, multiple MVP winner in the 90s, and while he spent some time playing elsewhere, nobody wore the black and white better. Competition: Appling, Walsh, E.Collins
    
12. Mr. A - Rickey Henderson. He might not have spent his whole career in Oakland, but who did? The franchise is surprisingly bereft of serious lifer candidates. Rickey was clearly the man in green, associated with the A's way more than any team and repping them with unparalleled speed and swagger. Competition: Lefty Grove, Foxx, Eck, McGwire, Canseco
    
13. Mr. Giant - Willie Mays. One of the handful of most unanimously beloved, most exciting players ever, nobody represents the orange and black like Willie did. Competition: Mathewson, Bonds, McCovey, Ott
    
14. Mr. Dodger - Jackie Robinson. Take what he did for the game, add what he did on the field and his great character, and there is nobody you should be prouder to call Mr. Dodger. Competition: Koufax, Kershaw
    
15. Mr. Oriole - Cal Ripken Jr.. There were 4-5 other longtime and lifer Orioles in the Hall, but Ripken's the only one in the conversation for greatest at his position. The dude's even from Maryland, what more do you want? Honorable mention to "Mr. Brown": George Sisler. Competition: B. Robinson, F. Robinson, Palmer, Murray
    
16. Mr. Marlin - Jeff Conine. I mean, it's his nickname and everyone bolts as soon as they possibly can, so this is kind of dubious, but, here you go, buddy. Competition: Stanton, Dontrelle Willis
    
17. Mr. Rocky - Todd Helton. The Colorado lifer might have a "rocky" road to the Hall, but with Arenado now out of the picture, he's clearly your man. Competition: Tulo, Walker, Arenado
    
18. Mr. Astro - Jeff Bagwell. Well, it's obviously either Bagwell or Biggio, but Bagwell has pretty much every edge you could think of, so he wins out by an eyelash. Competition: Biggio
    
19. Mr. Cub - Ernie Banks. OK, it's literally his nickname, but there is some stiff competition on a team with this kind of history. But nobody spent more time on the North Side, hit more homers or was more beloved than Ernie Banks, so he gets to keep the nickname. Competition: Santo, Sandberg, Anson
    
20. Mr. Ranger - Ivan Rodriguez. The Hall of Fame catcher and 1999 MVP is clearly the Rangeriest Ranger who ever ranged. Disagree? Fight me. Competition: Juan Gonzalez, Palmeiro, Nolan Ryan
    
21. Mr. Twin - Harmon Killebrew. A bit of a tricky call with so many lifers, HOFers and local guys, but the longtime Twin with 500 homers, a humble personality and just one weird, pointless season with the Royals is the guy who deserves it. Tip of the cap to unquestioned Mr. Senator Walter Johnson. Competition: Puckett, Mauer, Carew, Hrbek, Blyleven
    
22. Mr. Ray - Evan Longoria. Like everyone else, he hottailed it outta town as soon as he could, but he stuck around long enough to put up some seriously impressive career totals. Until further notice, it's probably him, though nobody really deserves or even seems to want it. Competition: Crawford, Zobrist, Shields
    
23. Mr. Met - Dwight Gooden. He might not have spent his whole career in Queens, he won't ever make the Hall of Fame, and other guys had more WAR with the team, but nobody was riches-to-rags Metsier than Doctor K, for better or worse. He's your Fractured Prince in orange and blue. Competition: Seaver, Wright, Strawberry, Kranepool.
    
24. Mr. Blue Jay - Carlos Delgado. I can't explain why it's not Dave Stieb - he's the team WARlord, he spent all but 4 games of his career in Toronto, and he's a borderline HOFer by modern metrics, but he just doesn't feel right. It could be Halladay, but he's not even wearing a Jays cap on his HOF plaque. Delgado was the longtime face of the team, and even though he left, he had so many great seasons north of the border I think he's your guy. Competition: Stieb, Halladay, Tony Fernandez
    
25. Mr. Diamondback - Randy Johnson. This might seem obvious, and maybe it just is, but I found this to be a pretty tough call. Yes, the Big Unit won four Cy Youngs in Phoenix, was the face of their only championship, and is by far the team's WAR leader. But he also spent so long in Seattle, longer than in Arizona in fact, he's equally associated with both teams, and was arguably already a HOFer before he even put on the purple and teal. Plus guys like Goldschmidt and Luis Gonzalez also spent a long time making their case. But at the end of the day, four Cy Youngs and a ring is four Cy Youngs and a ring. Plus that mullet was pretty sweet. Competition: Goldy, LuGo
    
26. Mr. Brave - Henry Aaron. The Braves have some seriously tough competition. Greg Maddux! Warren Spahn! Chipper! Eddie Mathews! But Hammerin' Hank is your guy, all 755 home runs of him. Man was Maddux good though. Competition: Maddux, Spahn, Chipper, Mathews
    
27. Mr. National - Bryce Harper. We're getting into extremely difficult decision territory here. Washington (NC) native Ryan Zimmerman could just as easily be your guy here, having been in DC literally their entire existence. But love him or hate him, nobody has been more the face of the team's successful years than Bamm Bamm. Honorable mention to Mr. Expo Andre Dawson. Competition: Zimmerman, Strasburg, Scherzer
    
28. Mr. Cardinal - Stan Musial. So many lifer greats on this team - Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, plus guys like Rogers Hornsby and Albert Pujols. But Stan is the Man. He's also the greatest left-handed hitter born in Donora, PA on November 21 on this list. And that means he's Mr. Birds on Bat. Competition: Gibson, Ozzie, Pujols, Hornsby
    
29. Mr. Pirate - Honus Wagner. An extremely tough call between Honus and Roberto Clemente, and you can't really go wrong either way, but Honus's T-206 baseball card arguably makes him literally the face of baseball, plus he was a pretty good hitter and shortstop, and the deadball era isn't very well represented. Competition: Clemente, Stargell
    
30. Mr. Red - Pete Rose. Love him or hate him, Cincinnati native Pete Rose is the grimacing visage of the oldest franchise, all 4,256 hits of him. His last name is even a shade of Red. Probably the hardest call of any team, especially up against the GOAT catcher Johnny Bench, but nobody makes you think of the Reds more, for better or worse, than the Hit King. Competition: Bench, Morgan, Larkin
    

(original inspiration post https://www.reddit.com/badMovies/comments/kt58lj/i_wanna_play_a_game_subject_me_to_your_worst/)
Close call this week because RNG came up with 43 which would be Night of Horror submitted by u/ThePutridDepartment however when I searched that originally what I found was Night of Horror: The Nightmare Radio which looked like hot trash however I thought that was a little too much of a mismatch. So I searched again and found 1981’s Night of Horror which looks like a way bigger pile of hot trash which means we are going with that one! I have never heard of this, I know nothing about it, and it’s the only thing Putrid submitted so one must assume it’s the worst thing they’ve ever seen. Hooray! I’ve watched about 5 really great movies this week so I guess this is my penance. The description says something about Civil War ghosts and being from 1981 it has me…a little nervous.
*1 hour 17 minutes later*
So that’s not a movie, I mean it says it’s a movie but it’s a not a movie, in fact in my grand tradition of making grandiose statements after saying I don’t do that: that’s the most not movie I’ve ever seen. For my money that’s worse than Manos: The Hands of Fate, Manos is incompetent and awful but at least something happens and the performances have some level of “wow that’s awful and entertaining”, this is just nothing start to finish. The opening is nothing, it sets up nothing, nothing happens in the middle then there is no rising tension no climax and then nothing happens and it ends. The only driving force of the plot is that it really wants you to feel bad for Confederate soldiers and the mean old Union troops who shot them even though they “were just fighting for what they believed in”. Horrific. It is 50 minutes of 4 people having awkward jilted conversations with each other that have nothing to do with anything and then 20 minutes in the middle where you watch a Civil War reenactment while a guy learns how to speak English into a vocoder. It’s the kind of bad that requires to be seen because it has no charm whatsoever, its just truly bad. So of course I am recommending you all see it immediately.
*Real time thoughts*
Hitchcockin like opening here…
Okay right so I am watching a ri….legally acquired copy that has the trailers in it too but they spelled previews prevues so am I getting a French copy? I wonder what France thinks of our Civil War, not anyone to judge over there as they’ve had like a billion themselves.
I do like a hard open to grainy film stock and crackling audio though, sets the stage nicely for what is to come.
First up “The Oasis of the Living Dead” and like honestly I don’t know if these are real movies or not or fake trailers made for this movie, it straight up could go either way.
So far its just women in short shorts running, screaming and falling down but everyone is clearly dubbed and looks French so I’m thinking this is a French horror movie about the American Civil War?
With all these closeups of dirty women’s feet screaming I bet Tarantino is a big fan.
Guy died of a severe case of overacting.
Why would there be zombies in the desert? At least why enough to have a whole army.
Lol at this guy solving the zombie problem with Molotov cocktails, no looking around scared for him just start hucking bombs.
Well that looked like some utter horseshit, finding a copy right now.
Next up “Axe”, I like it, about 15 seconds long gives a year, a location, a pretty girl, and tells me there shall be suspense unlike anything I’ve seen before. And why would it lie?
Our feature presentation! And it’s rated R.
Holy fuck it opens with a flat wall of text that is grainy and tiny and this must have been unreadable on a drive in screen in 1981. Just do a text crawl, Star Wars existed by now, or at least have voiceover.
Alright gotta pause this and take it all in so I’m not lost. Yadda yadda “depiction of an actual event” yadda yadda “characters based on real people” yadda yadda “names changed to protect the innocent” yadda yadda “warning to any who find themselves in the Virginia mountains”. That last one I believe, you find yourself in the Virginia mountains even without racist ghosts and you’re in trouble because you know…just full of regular living racists which are almost worst.
I bet as this goes on we are stretching the definition of “actual event”.
Oh boy…this is bad. We cold open on people who are backlit with no actual lighting so they’re just black objects on black background with some fog and a lady is yelling “HATRED” in a Dr. Claw voice(Welker version).
Also all the audio sounds like an MP3 you downloaded off kazaa in 1998 that only plays in winamp and is bitcrushed to hell. Or like I’m underwater hearing a boat motor 2 miles away.
Something about Hatred and maybe Love? I honestly can’t make it out.
Hey you know what, opening titles are kinda nice, great font choice, actually sorta Stranger Thing like, kudos movie.
Holy shit Tony Stark is in this movie, and he did the story treatment for it too. And not RDJ in a joking way, this dudes name is Tony Stark.
Man that kid won the lottery on names, bet his parents didn’t even know the level of giant nerds they were being.
If this piano score goes away and never comes back it’ll be too soon.
Pause, okay we talk about it all the time but these filmmakers in the 80s aren’t listening to me writing about them in 2021 so once again let me beg you: if you’re shooting on a…probably too old to be a VHS camera so honestly this might be super-8, either way you’re recording your sound live with the mic on the camera and no boom so I’m sorry if it hurts your artistic vision but you cannot do wide shots, you just can’t. That camera can be at the absolute max 5 feet away otherwise you get this which is garbled static nonsense
Seriously haven’t gotten 1 word of this conversation in this bar which has no patrons or bartenders which is a great sign
Dear god is this man in a 1 foot permed mullet with a fu man chu mustache the protagonist of the movie? He is shockingly unattractive.
So this drunk doesn’t want to be in your band but you’re here to beg him anyways? Was literally no other sentient creature available?
You guys…this movie is going to try and convince me that drunk Captain Caveman(Boomer ass reference) and this other guy who I would charitably describe as ‘a more offensively nerdy bill gates’ are the dynamic front men for a rock and roll band that is currently burning up the charts? Okay movie, sure.
“Look I haven’t been doing any hard drugs, what’s the big deal?” what is the big deal, honestly, the drinking? Because there are like 3 empty bottles of Modelo in front of him and that stuff is so close to water my 5 month old could drink that much and be fine.
“We accept that you have your ways, that you come and go mysteriously when you want, that sometimes you’re on and sometimes you’re not but we need you to come with right now” that doesn’t sound like accepting to me.
Dude is literally begging them to kick him out of the band and they really should, he sounds like a terrible bandmate.
“We play for tips and drinks” *later on* “why would you want to give this up?” Geez I don’t know.
Its amazing we’ve been watching two characters, the only two characters in the movie, converse for 6 minutes now and so far we’ve not actually seen either of their faces or know their names or honestly what they’re talking about. That’s FILMMAKING!
Oh sure now we have voiceover but not at the start when I had to read 4 fucking paragraphs.
I think, and this just a guess, but I think this is a flashback and Captain Caveman with his girlfriend(?) is picking up his brother and his wife for some sort of road trip in a camper?
“Colleen, you look beautiful” *Thor face* does she?
Terrible facial hair: the movie!
“Tell me you’re not wearing that to the deep woods?” that being a hat and a…top? Also what the fuck deep woods are you going to via an Excalibur RV? That thing would be as good at offroading as a Bugatti.
Okay maybe I have the relationships wrong because otherwise Captain Caveman is actively hitting on his brothers wife in front of his girlfriend and they’re all okay with it. Orrrrrrrr Caveman’s girlfriend is his sister maybe?
One male lead has a fu man chu and the other as just a chin goatee, they could combine their faces into one complete beard.
The 70s were weird, Caveman is physically repulsive, and I know he smells like unwashed denim and cheap cigarettes but that’s sexy back then.
The score is back! Someone having a jam sesh with a piano they don’t know how to play.
I hope we get another few minutes of footage of bridges and barges….
So like travel montage yeah? Not a bad idea, but here is what it needs: information on where they’re going and the passage of time, Indiana Jones shows a map for instance, or you flash a road sign, name of a town, some night and day footage so you understand its been a day. Things that give you the viewer context of the journey so it means something and contributes to the narrative. What they’ve done here is opted to show footage of nothing of consequence to waste a few minutes and desperately get this movie to be an hour long. I SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU MOVIE.
Remember when the lead was excited not to be driving so he could grossly hit on Colleen some more? Where is that footage? Use this travel time to show me some interior conversations and get to know people instead of just 5 minutes of what an RV looks like on a highway.
Oh hey cool, they listened to me and I immediately regret asking for it.
“What are you reading?” “A poem by Edgar Allen Poe” “I hope it isn’t one of his Ghoulish ones” “No he wrote a lot of very romantic poems too”. Which is true and good for you for knowing that but you know what this Horror movie could use instead of romantic poetry?....GHOULISH OMINOUS POETRY
We’re just reading the whole poem aren’t we?
Yeeeeppp, whole goddamn thing start to finish.
Honestly this romantic poem is probably about heroine/morphine or something.
“I knew then her naïve act wasn’t an act, she was for real, she’d seen it all and experienced it so I went back up front before I really got into her” you got all that from her reading an Edgar Allen Poe poem about being sad you didn’t get married?
What is that? What is that on the filmstock? Its like a leaf maybe?
I figured it out, Captain Caveman sounds EXACTLY like Eric Roberts and maybe looks a little bit like him? Its hard to tell given that this filmstock was submerged in human diarrhea
This other guy looks like a fat Theon Greyjoy
Ahhh they’re here to sell a cottage and some land in Virginia after their father died, okay starting to come together.
Oh shit Colleen has ghost stories?! Why didn’t we talk about that in the car instead of mediocre romantic poetry?
I’m struggling so hard, seriously, this movie is watching paint dry and not even an exciting shade or purple, like eggshell white paint dry.
“I hate my job and I need this vacation so badly, its been months since I’ve had a trip” Oh wow months since you took a vacation, poor you, my heart bleeds.
“We drove on, all having sandwiches and some beer” drinking and driving is not cool
“So in Marin County you just drive around and see celebrities all day?” “Yeah, I suppose you don’t do that here?” “No, not really” In rural Virginia no you probably don’t see a lot of celebrities. Way to make her feel good Caveman.
Just to keep everyone up on things, Colleen is Caveman’s brother’s wife so Caveman is trying to nail his brothers wife.
WHAT? They ran a dude over, got out of the car, no body on the ground “Well better keep going”. No, at least spend 90 seconds looking around to figure anything out about what just happened.
Intercut Civil War footage looks so much better than the movie stock, wonder where its from.
Watching Colleen badly sketch faces that could be men, monkeys, werewolves or X-Men’s Wolverine in real time while this piano plays is the mouth of madness.
Lol, can’t afford shooting at night and unaware of how day for night shooting works? Just show the car stopping at night and then have everyone walk around in broad daylight and pretend its night. Problem solved.
“I’ll make a fire, I’ll start by getting some….wood” you forgot the word for wood didn’t you?
I love when in movies like this and they’re stranded somewhere with a broken car the guy says “we’re not going anywhere for a while”. You’re not going anywhere period, if they car is broken and you can’t immediately fix it then you’re screwed. Are you waiting for it to grow a new muffler? Thinking you can fashion one from leaves?
This husband seems to really have no time or patience or understanding of his wife’s issues, not that Captain Caveman would be better for her but maybe he’d at least react to her having a mental breakdown with more than just “Eh…its not real”
This poor actress playing Suzanne was either given a script of nonsense and no time to memorize it or told to just makeup some vaguely spiritual sounding nonsense in the moment. Either way its floating like a lead balloon.
“I thought her spirituality was just a way of getting attention, especially since she’s so weak and pathetic” great friends you have here Colleen, really pumping you up.
It’s like they’re talking about her like she’s a child and they’re her parents, not her husband and his other female friend.
Man 37 minutes into this 1 hour movie, I wonder if anything horrifying will happen at any point.
“She’s hearing voices again, not real for sure, and just her way of getting attention but she’s hearing them none the less” Man…mental health awareness has come a long way since 30 years ago.
I was curious how they’d handle the issue of not having a budget to get extras or costumes for the entire confederate army, the solution seems to be just have Colleen talk to thin air and pretend its ghosts.
Your eyes tell you its daytime but the movie isn’t so sure.
Captain Caveman running around terrified of what he sees, if only we knew what it is ourselves.
If you could get the truck fixed in an hour why didn’t you just fix it before?
I’m sorry, 10 seconds ago you were talking about how your wife was full of shit and now she’s like “well I am going to stay in the woods and help these ghosts” “okay well if that’s what you have to do we can help!” No, you take her and you leave. This is dumb.
Is Captain Caveman not the hero of this story? He’s just staying with the truck while everyone else goes out to find racist ghosts, sorry proud heritage ghosts.
“Try to stop all thoughts of evil, hate, fear” and of the Stay Puft Marshmallow man.
You know you can just pickup at the end of the seance when the ghosts show up, I’ll believe you that you did the whole thing. I don’t need to see it start to finish.
Welp apparently Caveman is just here anyways even though he’s SUPPOSED TO BE FIXING THE TRUCK AND ENDING OUR NEED TO BE HERE ANYWAYS
I was promised evil Civil War Ghosts and horror, so far it seems like this lady is just going to help the ghosts go to heaven or something and they’re ethereal ghosts that we can’t see. Your brain has a higher vfx budget than this movie.
Come on, give me something to look at, just put someone in a white robe so they’re spooky like a ghost, stand in front of a burning cross and have them go “wooooo” in a Southern Accent.
….on second thought do not do that.
GHOSTSSSSSS! WE HAVE GHOSTS! ACTUAL PHYSICAL GHOSTS
Do I really got to sit here and listen to a sob story from ghosts who proudly owned slaves?
“We joined because we believed” that doesn’t make it better! What the fuck is this?
Frankly lady you should let them stay in limbo here forever, these dudes shouldn’t get to go to heaven.
“Our commander never lied to us, at the end of the war when we asked him if we could still win he said ‘the answer is inside you’” That’s a cop out answer Ghost Leader and you know it, also the ghosts speak with the cadence of someone who doesn’t speak English trying to sound out each word at a time so I am cutting out A LOT of pauses.
“How could anything bad happen to anyone so honest and brave” I don’t know, maybe because he’s a soldier in a brutal war on the losing side, and don’t give me that brave honest crap, dude was literally fighting for slavery. It’s like saying this SS Kommendant was so brave and honest in his fight against Jews, like I guess technically but he’s still a monster.
God this is so weird, its like sad music playing over footage of Union soldiers firing a cannon at a Confederate marching line while the Ghost talks about hiding in the woods waiting to mount a counter attack. You guys understand that it’s a good thing the Union won…right?....you have to understand that.
So no one asked for 6 minutes of Civil War reenactment footage with awful folk music playing over top of it but its so much better footage, and more exciting than anything that happens in the real movie I’m kinda hoping we stay here.
What I am saying is if this turned into a Ken Burns documentary I’d be pretty happy.
8 minutes of civil war footage now, no dialogue, just folk music
10 minutes of civil war footage now, no dialogue, just folk music.
Hey our characters are back! And they’re speaking….bring back the folk music and stock footage.
“After several attempts we took back the position but our loses were higher” well hate to break it to you rando solider but that is the Confederacy’s entire issue in the war. Better at fighting but lacking in poor immigrants to absorb all your enemies’ bullets.
Man they’re describing a pitched battle, then a train assault, a robbery, a slaughter by Union troops, that sounds like such a better movie, you should have made that instead of 15 minutes of dudes standing around in a fog machine talking about all this cool shit that happened that we’re never going to get to see.
Unless this movie really pulls something out in the last 10 minutes like…horror or violence or action or suspense or characters or really anything at all that would explain why its even a movie I’m going to go ahead and say this is sub Manos: The Hands of Fate.
“And then the Union troops killed us all” *cut to shot of sad faces* I mean…yeah? I seriously don’t actually know if this movie is asking me to feel bad for these guys or not.
I’ve gone numb…this ghost soldier just keeps talking about heads, and wives and the long night and mountains and some old shite like that, it’s fucking endless with this awful voice modulation and word, pause, word, pause cadence to the speaking. And I couldn’t possibly care about anything he’s saying at this point because it’s been going on for 20 goddamn minutes.
This isn’t a movie, it’s a powerpoint presentation of pictures of nighttime with voiceover telling you the plot outline for a Clint Eastwood movie. And not even a good one like Pale Rider but some kind of sequel to Joe Kidd staring Scott Eastwood *Shudder*
Oh my god Caveman is talking and its such a breath of fresh air, apparently what I missed is the ghosts think Colleen is their dead commander’s(aren’t they all dead?) wife reincarnated. And want her to come with them.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I wanted to grab Colleen and run but I remained rooted to hear the rest of their story” *Ghost begins talking* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
*Slams head into desk until I lose the ability to hear ghost speak anymore*
“Then the ghosts were gone and so were Dave, Suzanne and Colleen but all I could do was fix the truck” Dude, what are you saying?
“So I followed Colleen in the darkness” He says over this shot of them walking around in broad daylight.
Hey wait a minute I thought Colleen was gone with the ghosts?!
FIX THE GODDAMN TRUCK CAPTAIN CAVEMAN, STICK TO YOUR GUNS ON THIS
“I hated that solider, he had Colleen and then he died and now he wants her back, its not fair, I want her now” our heroes statement about the sacrifice this woman, who is married to his brother, is making to save them, big round of applause.
But also this is a sacrifice she is making so a slave owning war criminal can find peace in death so that’s pretty fucked up.
I like that they’re supposedly showing shots of this ruined church and architecture but I can’t see any of it because this camera is a sin against God.
6 minutes of people slowly walking through the woods with a skull…
I think they’re burying it, its not a gag or a joke, legitimately I’m just looking at black nothing where I think the actors are standing.
“We can move on now, thank you” thank god the Confederate soldiers are happy, what an ending.
Seriously Captain Caveman isn’t even there for the ending, we’re watching the other 3 do all this. I guess Colleen and Dave(Jeff?) stayed together or something, who even was Suzanne…I’ll never know.
“What about Coleen?” “Well she realizes she has this gift and is going to do something with it I guess” *Muah* screenwriting. Oh did one of my friends find out ghosts are real and she can talk to them which is the most earth shattering notion imaginable? Yeah she probably did something with that maybe.
That’s it, that’s your ending? A sad alcoholic man shattered by the revelation of the existence of ghosts and his love rejecting him sits alone in a bar trying to process the experience. Christ for a dumb 60 minute drive in horror movie this is incredibly depressing and devoid of horror. Did David Lynch Direct this?
Stunts Directed By: Don Johnson. First off, stunts? Second off, Don Johnson?
“The events depicted in this film and the characters so portrayed are fictitious. Any similarity to any persons living or dead are purely coincidental” Hang on your opening title said this was based on a true story!
Bullshit.

Hello and welcome to Post Pull Depression, the only thread that lets you do chargebacks!
It’s finally time for Aerith and FF7! Wait, this says FFVI? I’m not good at roman numerals (I went to public school) but is that 7? Help me out here Bart. Final Fantasy SIX!? That’s not how this goes! I’m not prepared to make train suplex jokes! I’ve been writing Masamune chest equip jokes for the past week!
At least there’s only two new units so this should go quick. I must have done a writeup before for Celes and Setzer, right? Oh...I have not. I gotta put in a full week’s worth of work now. Sorry “real” job!
Let’s take a look at ALL the units!

CelesOpera Floozy Celes

Celes’ Theme
Character: Main
Yes, I’m going to start this shit. Celes is the main character of FF6. There are only three required characters to beat the game: Celes, Sabin and Setzer. If you aren’t even required for half the game, then you can’t be a main character. Setzer is only there for his airship (and to kidnap women) and Sabin is a dunce who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. Who does that leave left: Celes. Fite me.
Edit: It's Edgar who's the third required character, not Sabin. Because I can't keep them straight, he loses main character status.
Hair: 80s
I never really noticed until now, but if you just look at her sprite head, she kinda looks like dude with an 80s mullet. Don’t worry, it’s not really a mullet. Just take a look at her excellent attack animation.
TMR: SEXIST

Minerva Bustier - DEF+47, SPR+45 Resistance: Fire/Ice/Lightning/Wind (+30%) Additional effect: Females only

Ever read the description for this?

Once upon a time, the goddess of wisdom descended upon the earth and began bathing herself in a spring. A young man who saw her while passing by was captivated by her beauty, and hid the armor she had previously taken off. The tearful goddess then became the young man's wife, and was forced to spend the rest of her days living under the heavens.

Does that really work? Can I just hang out in front of a girl’s shower, take her clothes and then she has to marry me? Goodbye single life!

Depression: SLIGHT

I really wanted to give Celes the highly sought after NONE rating, because even when you pull her at least it’s still Celes. But now each time there’s that tinge of depression that there is no 5* base Celes. If I were Celes, I’d throw myself off a cliff if I were treated like this! Give us Opera Celes or Dissidia Pants Wearing Celes. Ok, maybe just the Opera one. As long as there’s no pants!

SetzerSeltzer

Setzer’s Theme
Cheese: King

Double Dice - Randomly use: (20%) Double Dice: Fixed physical damage (11) to all enemies (20%) Double Dice: Fixed physical damage (111) to all enemies (20%) Double Dice: Fixed physical damage (5555) to all enemies (20%) Double Dice: Fixed physical damage (55555) to all enemies (20%) Double Dice: Fixed physical damage (77777) to all enemies

The ultimate cheese move! Also, the best move to explain the damage mechanics in the game. This is a physical TYPE move that deals fixed DAMAGE. Being physical type you can DW it, and it takes on elements and killers and can be mitigated by both general and physical mitigation. This is completely the opposite of a move like Xon’s Waylay which is fixed TYPE that deals physical DAMAGE. That does not take on elements, but the damage is influenced by your ATK and the enemies DEF and can only be mitigated by general mitigation. Not confusing at all!
TMR: NERF PLZ

Fixed Dice - Throwing Weapon ATK +1, Damage range 120% - 650%

Yet another great example to explain the game mechanics! We really need a tutorial series starting Setzer. Fixed Dice has an ATK of 1, so it must be garbage, right? Well, that variance there is between 120% and 650% so that means on average your attacks do 3 times more damage! But that is on average as sometimes you can do the full 650% and sometimes you can whiff and do only 120%. This variance is why 2H weapons are preferred as while they don’t share the huge range that FD has, most do on average 30% more damage and with axes and bows being even higher!

Depression: RAPIST

I would just like to remind you all of this.

He had planned to kidnap the famous opera star Maria to make her his bride

Yeah, Setzer’s a rapist. It sounds all cute and fun, “oh ha ha here he comes for the opera singer!” This is probably why Daril flew off in the Falcon and killed herself. She was trying to escape from this sicko.

Fighter SabinMonk Sabin of Kolts 45

Edgar and Sabin’s Theme
Train: Suplex
I guess we should just start with this, the infamous train suplex scene. Which has spawned countless jokes and artworks. However, I never suplex the train, since it’s the PHANTOM train, and thus undead, a simple phoenix down will kill it err unkill it? Anyways, that’s what I love most about the earlier FFs is all the different ways to cheese fights. Bahamut about to Megaflare you? Just cast reflect! Leviathan going to Tsunami you? Just equip coral rings and absorb water attacks! This is different though then taking advantage of bugs like the Vanish+Doom trick. That’s just cheating, unless it’s against Doomgaze, fuck Doomgaze.
Name: Full

Sabin Rene Figaro - Increase HP/MP (20%), ATK (40%) and SPR (20%) Recover MP (5%) per turn

Ha! His middle name is Rene, that’s a girl’s name! What a sissy. Unless it’s french, which makes him even more of a sissy! Take that Frenchies! I was holding back out of respect for u/-Niddhogg-, but now that he’s gone there is nothing left to save you from my wrath! When you say “yes” it sounds like you’re saying wee-wee. Ha! Got ‘em!
TMR: FREEDOM

Long Training Pays Off - Increase ATK (60%) when fisting Auto-heal (1800 HP, 1x) per turn

It seems odd that Sabin got his “freedom” and then just decided to go train in the mountain for years. Meanwhile Edgar spends his time being King and surrounding himself with women. Now that I think about both sound pretty exhausting...
STMR: HEADS!

Coin of Fate - Sabin - ATK +55, HP +30%, ATK +60% when fisting

Here is an example of good trivia from the wiki:

Edgar and Sabin's shared STMR, Coin of Fate resembles the two-headed coin with both of their heads on it. It is considered as their prized treasure. It is used when the twins want to determine their fate by a toss of a coin. It is later used by Celes in order to convince Setzer to join their cause against the Gestahlian empire.

That’s helpful! Despite two grammar errors and three consecutive sentences that start with “It is”.
Here is an example of bad trivia from the wiki:

Sabin is recruited in Final Fantasy VI at Mt. Kolts.

Uh thanks? Maybe it’s an attempt to explain why he’s called Monk Sabin of Kolts (which is a terrible fucking name). And of course when you summon Sabin he says:

I'm Sabin of Figaro! Now, who's ready to crush some skulls?

Well which fucking is it!?
And now this just added:

Sabin also can Suplex the Phantom Train.

That doesn’t even distinguish which game they are talking about, nor does it even allude to its meme like status. Do I just need to take over wiki trivia duties?
Edit: it's gone now. Good job wiki people!

Depression: INCORRECT BLITZ INPUT

Sabin is only good about 25% of the time in FF6, because that’s about how often the blitz input isn’t being a piece of shit. At least when you fuck up chaining in FFBE, you get about 5% of your damage as a consolation prize, but in FF6 when you fuck up the Street Fighter-esque commands you lose your turn. FUN! Guess I’ll just stick with Pummel the whole game, good ol’ Left, Right, Left. INCORRECT BLITZ INPUT Fuck...

King EdgarEdgar Rice-a-Roni Figaro

Skills: FFVI

Chainsaw (FFVI) - Instant KO (60%) or deal physical damage (4.8x) to one enemy Chaining Stardust Ray

Are you telling me that Chainsaw does not have Chainsaw frames? This is an insult to the very first chaining family! Back when only those weirdos did it. Seriously, who uses dupes of a 4* max unit in your party? THIS IS THE 5* META WE’RE IN! Then along comes 6* Chizuru and suddenly this “chaining” thing is cool now.
Btw, how does Chainsaw (FFVI), Bio Blaster (FFVI) and Auto Crossbow (FFVI) differentiate themselves from normal Chainsaw, Bio Blaster and Auto Crossbow since Edgar who is from FFVI learns them as well? Might I recommend Shin Chainsaw, Shin Bio Blaster and Shin Auto Crossbow?

Double Tool - Use King Edgar of Figaro's skills twice in one turn, except Bravo Figaro!

Calm down there description, no need to be so excited that Bravo Figaro is excluded. Geez…
And am I the only one (the answer is always no) that thinks Double Tool sounds like an insult? It’s the middle ground between someone being a tool, a complete tool or a tool bag. “Bob? That guy’s a double tool…”
TMR: MoM

Master of Machinery - Increase MP (20%) and ATK (40%) Increase physical damage against mechanical monsters (50%)

So I noticed in SIFT that u/TestMonkeyAlpha wrote that this increases physical and hybrid damage. I thought that was a nice addition they finally added to the descriptions. But no. He added it. Makes me wonder, what else is he adding? How can we trust him, do we even know him? You should really rely on PPD for your only source of truth! I’d never lie to you, promise!
STMR: HEADS! Again!?

Coin of Fate - Edgar: ATK+50, Prevent all ailments, LB fill 50%

Why does this give different effects than Sabin’s? It’s the same coin, just a different side of it! The wiki also has the same trivia for it as Sabin’s which makes sense. But what about Edgar unique trivia?

Gerad is the alias that he used in the World of Ruin when he allies himself with the Crimson Robbers in order to salvage and restore the submerged Figaro Castle. It is an anagram of his name.

Good. But we lack a really dumb one. Here’s some suggestions:

King Edgar of Figaro is the king of Figaro.
Edgar was likely not named after Edgar Allan Poe.

Time to learn how to edit a wiki! Can’t be too hard after some of the “contributions” I’ve seen...

Depression: HOCKEY MASK

Can someone explain this to me? Why does Edgar not put on his hockey mask when he does Chainsaw?
FFBE
FF6
Now, I need someone to explain to me why hockey mask and chainsaw is even a combo. The hockey mask is from Jason who never really used chainsaws, but they are widely used in Texas Chainsaw Massacre but that starred Leatherface, not Hockeyface.

Post Pull Depression

Hmm… I’m slightly torn on these MK changes. On one hand, there is zero reason to pull for MK units now since there is a fixed minimum number of runs regardless for the ticket. But this now takes all the fun out of hitting bonus mobs and finding the one 200% bonus unit on your friend list. Now I have to farm for 6 whole days? I can’t just go get everything I want in 3 days and then go back to TMR farming? (It’s like stress relief for me). I’ll guess I’ll let it all play out and then decide my feelings on it… oh wait, this is reddit. THIS SUCKS THE GAME IS DEAD GUNGNIR BEAST MEAT!!!!
See ya next banner!

BONUS

GLEX Wars 2

Previously on GLEX Wars Z: Part 1 During Akstar’s funeral, GLEX units Sylvie and Esther attack but are repelled by mysterious GLEX(?) unit Zeno!
CG Sakura: “I can’t believe we are still alive and it’s all thanks to this mysterious masked man whose identity is a complete mystery.”
Zeno of the Beta Star: “That is correct, Loli Granny, my identity must remain a secret at all costs.”
CG Lid: “Hey Akstar, long time no see! Really digging the new armor.”
Zeno of the Beta Star: “...”
CG Sakura: “...”
CG Lasswell: “You told me that Master was murdered by a rampaging bunny girl!”
CG Sakura: “When his head was ripped off he ceased to be Akstar and became Zeno. So what I have told you was true... from a certain point of view. He is more machine now than man, twisted and-- Are we really doing Star Wars memes here too!? Doesn’t the main story have enough!?”
CG Lasswell: “Why did you hide this from me!?”
CG Sakura: “It was going to be a dramatic plot twist at the end, but Lid ruined it!”
CG Lid: “Sorry… geez. I thought it was pretty obvious. You’d have to be idiot like Lasswell to not know… oh…”
CG Nichol: “It looks like we just received some sort of letter of challenge.”
CG Jake: “Yes! Tournament Arc time! Every man’s dream!”
CG Lid: “Is this just to pad the episode count for syndication?”
CG Nichol: “Ahem! If you will allow me to actually read it…”
Sylvie: “Feeble non-GLEX units your time of destruction is nigh. We have already defeated your realm in 9 consecutive Mortal Kombats… sorry, wrong game, we have already destroyed your META all that is left is for you to suffer defeat at the hands of the GLEX units once and for all. If you win we shall return your META to you, but when you lose we shall be the main characters.”
CG Nichol: “PS…”
Esther: “DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!”
CG Sakura: “Laswell… this is your chance to take revenge for the ‘death’ of your master… sigh what is even the friggin’ point now? Let’s just get this over with…”

TO BE CONTINUED

Aatrox- Optimus Prime
Ahri- Kitty Gurl
Akali- Knifey Gurl
Alistar- Bull Boi
Amumu- my name
Aniva- Ice Chunk
Annie- Ariana Grande’s #1 Stan
Ashe- Sexy Katniss
Aurelion Sol- My 2012 Galaxy Phase
Azir- Essence of Asgard
Bard- Jack O’ Lantern
Blitzcrank- Spongebob’s TV
Brand- That Guy from Suicide Squad
Braum- Moustache Man
Caitlyn- Tim Burton
Camille- Chop Chop
Cassiopeia- Lil Snakey Snake
Cho’Gath- Demon
Corki- Kamakize Pilot
Darius- Anger Issues
Diana- Water Bender
Dr. Mundo- Purple Hulk
Draven- Mullet
Ekko- Edgelord
Elise- Spiderwoman
Evelyn- Porn
Ezreal- Reese Witherspoon
Fiddlesticks- Grasshopper
Fiora- Colette from Ratatouille
Fizz- Squirtle
Galio- Biiiiiiig Boi
Gangplank- Surtur
Garen- My Head is too Small for my Body
Gnar- Pussy
Gragas- Beer Belly
Graves- Doctor Strange
Hecarim- Horse Man
Heimerdinger- Sir Crazy Pussy
Illaoi- Manspread
Irelia- Stripper Bitch
Ivern- Groot with a pimple
Janna- Icescapades
Jarvan IV- World of Warcraft
Jax- See the Light
Jayce- Daddy Kink
Jhin- The Tin Man
Jinx- Harley Quinn II: Electric Boogaloo
Kai’Sa- Purple Death Darkness no Parents
Kalista- Skinny Legend
Karma- Infinity Stone Bitch
Karthus- Dangerous Blue Finger
Kassadin- Davy Jones
Katarina- Ariel Gone Wild (after the legs)
Kayle-Thigh Highs
Kayn- Zayn
Kennen- Purple Pussy
Kha’Zix- Kill It
Kindred- Question Mark
Kled- Scar from the Lion King
Kog’Ma- Metal Bug
LeBlanc- Matt LeBlanc
Lee Sin- Fashion is Blind
Leona- Sunny Side Up Bitch
Lissandra- Elsa
Lucian- Willow Smith
Lulu- Butterfly Bitch
Lux- What I Wish I Looked Like
Malphite- The Rock
Malzahar- Genie
Maokai- Angry Groot
Master Yi- Binocular Boi
Miss Fortune- How do Your Boobs Not Fall Out of That Top
Mordekaiser- Medieval Times
Morgana- Purple
Nami- Fish Queen
Nasus-Beastility
Nautilus- Sucuba Dover
Neeko- Lilo
Nidalee- Sexy Pussy
Nocturne- Night Time
Nunu & Willump- Aang & Appa
Olaf- Clash of Clans
Orianna- Wind-up Sex Doll
Ornn- Fire Troll
Pantheon- Gladiator
Poppy- Smurfette
Pyke- Titanic Survivor
Quinn- Loki’s Sister
Rakan- Flappy Bird
Rammus- Koopa Troopa
Rek’Sai- Disgusting
Renekton- Crikey Mate
Rengar- David Bowie
Riven- Sword Bearer
Rumble- Rocket Raccoon
Ryze- Thanos
Sejuani- Elsa ft. Pet
Shaco- The Joker
Shen- Taekwondo
Shyvana- Dragon Tails
Singed- Fart
Sion- Cauldron Belly
Sivir- The Wasp
Skarner- Stingy Boi
Sona- Princess but Blue
Soraka- Purple Gamora
Swain- Edgar Allen Poe
Sylas- Always Needs to Shit
Syndra- Thique Thighs
Tahm Kench- Fancy Lizard
Taliyah- Earth Bender
Talon- Assassins Creed
Taric- Locks of Love <3
Teemo- Furry
Thresh- Key Penis
Tristana- Rocket Racoon’s gf
Trundle- Ice Mountain Clown Boi
Tryndamere- Winter Clash of Clans
Twisted Fate- Shadow Man From Princess and the Frog
Twitch- Streamer
Udyr- Utter
Urgot- Vomit Straw
Varus- Washboard Abs With Cape
Vayne- Lady Doctor Strange
Veigar- Angry Munchkin From Hell
Vel’Koz- Pinkeye
Vi- Infinity Gauntlet
Viktor- Third Hand Lazer Boi
Vladimir- Period Orb
Volibear- Doggy
Warwick- Juicy Green Dog
Wukong- Hugh Jackman
Xayah- Daddy Issues
Xerath- Apocalypse
Xin Zhao- Power Ranger
Yasuo- Snake Belt
Yorick- Sully from Monsters Inc
Zac- Mike Wazowski
Zed- Medieval Assassin Knight Boi
Ziggs- Bomb Pussy
Zilean- Dumbledore
Zoe- Good Luck Charlie
Zyra- Poison Ivy

INTRO: I'm a budding MMA fan who's going through the history of the UFC to get a better understanding and appreciation for the sport and hopefully learn some by sharing my thoughts on these events. After each match there will be a TL;DR and at the bottom will be a quick rundown on my thoughts on the events and questions I had, so you can skip the PBP and in-fight thoughts and hit the SparkNotes easily.
UFC 117 Silva v Sonnen
When: August 7, 2010
Where: Oracle Arena, Oakland, California (att 12,971)
Card
Roy Nelson v Junior dos Santos
Matt Hughes v Ricardo Almeida
Clay Guida v Rafael dos Anjos
Jon Fitch v Thiago Alves
Anderson “The Spider” Silva © v “The American Gangster” Chael Sonnen (UFC Middleweight Championship)
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Headlined by Anderson Silva taking on the man with the biggest arms, the greatest charm, and who does the most harm in the “American Gangster” Chael Sonnen for the Middleweight championship. Sonnen has talked the talk for him and did the talking for Anderson too, so now it’s time to see if he will be able to get it done. Co-main is Fitch/Alves which is a solid match both are trying to get back to title contention so need this win. Hughes/Almeida is interesting, Almeida is solid on the ground and Hughes is excellent at taking down guys and finishing them but he’s getting up there in age so can he hang with the new guys coming in. Guida/RDA should be a really good fight, RDA is precise in his battles and Guida is just a wild man in there so I’m hyped for it. JDS/Big Country is another exciting match-up, heavy hands from JDS and a chin from Nelson could lead to a great fight. Undercard most likely has Hazelett, Hendricks, Boetsch, Struve, and Hallmann/Saunders as the bigger names, so a pretty solid card.
This is the first fight after Dana threatened to cut Silva if he had another fight like he did against Maia, so an exciting main event could be in the works. Nedkov and Thiago Silva both pulled out due to injury. The winner of the Fitch/Alves fight is apparently going to get a title fight. Alves missed weight by 1/2 a pound.
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Roy Nelson v Junior dos Santos
JDS has killed some people with his hands but so has Nelson. Nelson may have won TUF but he wasn’t some inexperienced kid in there he was an IFL champion and has been around the block. So this should be a good fight even if it is a quick one. Nelson still hasn’t grown out the mullet completely and has a trimmed face instead of the giant tangly beard.
Rd 1. Nelson lands a glancing jab and dos Santos hits a couple shots to the arms. Nelson hits a straight shot and goes for a single and clinches to the fence and presses his body on him. They move to the opposite cage and dos Santos lands a good knee on the break. They trade jabs and dos Santos hits a hook and an uppercut that stuns Nelson. Dos Santos tries to finish and hits a bunch of shots but Nelson pushes him off tries to clinch is pushed away and Dos Santos comes for some more and lands a few more as Nelson covers up. Dos Santos slows down to not tire himself out and backs away and they trade jabs and dos Santos lands a couple shots to the body. Another uppercut and Nelson backs away and falls and tries to shoot but it’s not there dos Santos is throwing knees but they’re blocked and Nelson lands a right and they back off. Dos Santos lands a but more and they trade jabs. Dos Santos lands a jab and an uppercut and a knee and Nelson lands a right. Nelson lands the right and walks into the jab and then dos Santos throws to the body. They trade jabs and Nelson hits a right and dos Santos lands a right and the round ends. Woah 10-9 dos Santos almost a 10-8, I think Nelson did just enough to save the 10-9.
Rd 2. Dos Santos lands a jumping knee and a front kick to the leg and then a hook and Nelson lands a big right and clinches to the fence but dos Santos pushes him off. Dos Santos throws a few good shots before backing off and Nelson hits a jab and a good right. Dos Santos lands an uppercut and a hook and then goes to the body and Nelson hits a hook and dos Santos counters. Dos Santos throws a hook and a jab and they trade lefts. Dos Santos hits a couple of body shots and they trade left hooks and Nelson comes inside but misses. They trade jabs and Nelson shoots and slams him into the cage but dos Santos is able to keep his balance so they’re clinched against the cage and Nelson hits a right and they break. Dos Santos shoots and is stuffed and he lands a hook to the arm pit and a body shot. Nelson lands a hook and dos Santos hits a couple shots and a good hook. They trade jabs and dos Santos lands a hook and an uppercut. Dos Santos lands a little more and Nelson shoots but is tossed off and dos Santos lands a nice jab to end the round. 10-9 dos Santos.
Rd 3. Nelson lands a jab and dos Santos hits a leg kick. Nelson just grazes a haymaker but then hits a combo and dos Santos throws and they trade jabs. Dos Santos lands a front kick to the face and then a good uppercut and a body shot. Dos Santos throws to the body again and a right and an elbow and dos Santos shoots for the single and gets it. He lets him up but hits Nelson on the way up and they trade shots. Dos Santos lands a hook and an uppercut and a jab and a body shot and Nelson is taking it and trying to move forward. Nelson lands a shot and misses a couple haymakers. Dos Santos lands a jab and a shot to the body and Nelson is tired throwing slow arching punches. Dos Santos lands an elbow and Nelson hits a leg kick. Dos Santos hits a jab and Nelson lands an overhand right. Dos Santos hits an uppercut and Nelson lands a jab and dos Santos responds with a jab and an uppercut. Dos Santos lands a knee and a hook and another shot and another shot. Nelson lands an uppercut and a hook and then dos Santos lands to the body. Nelson lands a jab and dos Santos lands a jab. Dos Santos lands a good knee and a right and Nelson lands a hook. Nelson lands an uppercut and a jab and dos Santos lands a shot and Nelson lands a hook as the round ends. Wow, that’s some chin on Nelson. 10-9 dos Santos.
Decision 30-27 dos Santos. But jeez that chin on Roy and Rogan’s comments on his body made for a very entertaining fight. Judges go 30-26, 30-27, 30-27 for dos Santos.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TL;DR JdS hits hard and often but somehow Nelson survives and keeps coming forward and throwing back. I don't know how JdS didn't finish it but he really tried to but Nelson just wouldn't go down. Dos Santos gets the decision.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Matt Hughes v Ricardo Almeida
The now Hall of Famer Hughes is back after getting back on track with his victories over Serra and Renzo Gracie. Renzo Gracie just happened to train Almeida and Serra is his teammate so he’s looking for revenge.
Rd 1. They trade shots and Almeida hits a right to the body and a leg kick. Hughes throws a body kick and Almeida throws a high kick. Hughes lands a jab and Almeida lands a shot. Hughes lands a leg kick and Almeida lands a right in the clinch. Almeida lands another right and a leg kick and a straight right to the body and Hughes lands a shot. Hughes lands a right and Almeida responds and then he lands to the body. Almeida lands a couple shots to the body and Hughes lands a hook that knocks Almeida down and he runs to him and gets a front choke in and has the arm trapped and sleeps him. Wow he really put him to sleep. I did not expect this, I thought Hughes was heading to the end of his career and the younger guys would beat him as he couldn’t rely on his wrestling but his hands looked a lot better. He hugs Renzo and gets the hand raised.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TL;DR Hughes shows some power in his hands as he knocks down Almeida and then gets the choke in and puts Almeida to sleep in a quick fight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clay Guida v Rafael dos Anjos
Both are coming of submission wins, RDA is still young in his UFC career whereas Guida is now a vet of the game but still one of the wildest dudes in there.
Rd 1. They trade some good shots and then Guida pushes forward but doesn’t hit anything then does hit a leg kick and a head kick. Guida lands an overhand right and RDA lands a good shot and a leg kick. RDA hits a straight right and then they trade shots with Guida hits a good one so RDA backs of. RDA lands a good inside leg kick and another one that’s checked before he shoots but it’s stuffed and Guida tries to turn it around dropping down for a double. Guida throws a couple of knees to the legs and goes for the single but RDA is defending it well but Guida is relentless and still going for it but RDA shows good balance. RDA hits him in the thigh as Guida holds on to it and presses him into the cage. They push off the cage and Guida lands a knee and RDA responds. They break and RDA hits a nice shot and a straight left. RDA shoots but is stuffed and he throws a head kick and Guida lands a shot to the body and a leg kick. RDA throws a leg kick and a nice uppercut and he shoots and gets the takedown against the cage. Guida wall walks but eats a shot and a knee to do it and the round ends. 10-9 RDA.
Rd 2. I think Guida just spit on someone when he spit out of the cage as he apologizes. Guida pushes forward and hits a hook. Guida throwing a lot more feints and moving around. RDA throws a leg kick that’s checked and Guida throws a body kick. Guida lands a combo and a right and a hook and RDA lands to the body and shoots but is stuffed this time and they clinch against the fence. RDA lands a shot to the body and they break. Guida lands a left and they trade shots. RDA lands a straight left and a leg kick and Guida throws to the body and an overhand right. Guida hits a shot and then shoots and gets the takedown, RDA attempts an omoplata but Guida gets out and throws an elbow as does RDA. Guida gets to half-guard but RDA gets it back to guard and Guida hits a couple shots and gets to half-guard. Guida throws to the body and the elbow RDA threw when they first went down cut him as he’s bleeding onto RDA. Guida is trying to pass and doesn’t but hits an elbow and RDA gets it back to guard. Guida postures and lands a good shot to end the round. 10-9 Guida
Rd 3. Guida lands a one two and RDA hits a left. Guida rushes and lands some decent shots and RDA lands a body kick and Guida shoots and presses him to the cage. Guida picks him up and slams him into half-guard. Guida pushes the arm into his face and then throws a couple of knees and some shots to the body and head. RDA just tapped. Rogan says it’s something with his jaw and he’s holding onto it. Rogan said that after the first round he was asked about it and if he could bite down. It was just his shoulder pressed down on him and RDA says it’s a broken jaw to his corner.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TL;DR Guida is really active with feints and level changes and coming in at weird angles to throw RdA off. The first is back and forth but RdA ends it with a takedown and some good shots as the round ends. In the second Guida starts taking control as he's able to get a takedown and deliver some GnP. In the third Guida gets RdA against the cage and lands some stuff and then is kind of jamming his shoulder into him and RdA taps. His jaw is broken and it happened earlier in the fight but we don't find out until later as it was a really weird place to tap. Guida gets the win.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jon Fitch v Thiago Alves
A rematch between two previous contenders at welterweight and Fitch won the first fight so Alves is looking to even the score. Alves missed weight by ½ a pound and declined the extra hour or two to lose that last little bit and gave up 20% of his purse. That’s surprising and Rogan says that that means he was close to not being able to make the fight if that’s the case he’s missed weight albeit on short notice against Hughes by iirc 5 pounds and popped for illegal diuretics so maybe 170 isn’t the weight for him.
Rd 1. They trade shots to start and the Alves lands a leg kick and Fitch does as well but Alves counters. Fitch throws a head kick and Alves throws a combo. Fitch throws a combo and Alves lands a leg kick. Fitch shoots and eventually gets the takedown and is close to taking his back and he gets a hook in but its out. Alves tries to stand but Fitch has control of the body. Fitch hits a couple knees and Alves turns to him goes back down but can now wall walk but Fitch brings him right back down and into side control. Fitch hits an elbow and Alves sweeps him and ends up on top and throws a shot and gets to half-guard. Fitch is able to defend but throws a shot and stands. Fitch hits a couple knees and they trade jabs and then Alves lands a shot. Fitch hits a jab but Alves lands a good right. Fitch lands to the body and again and Alves lands a leg kick and stuffs a takedown and hits a knee as Fitch comes back up. Alves lands a shot and they clinch against the cage. Fitch gets the takedown and the back to end the round. 10-9 Fitch.
Rd 2. Fitch ducks a punch and gets a takedown, Alves has his neck but not tight and he lets it go. Fitch hits a couple of shots and jumps on him when Alves tries to scramble. Fitch pulls his legs out so he can’t wall walk and throws a shot. Alves tries to push him off but Fitch is right back on him. Alves tries to push him off again and Fitch goes to the back and throws some knees to the legs and drags him back down. Fitch is in half-guard and throws a couple of shots and Alves tries to kick him off again but Fitch rushes him and drags him back down. Alves is able to stand but Fitch drags him down and has his back but Alves throws an elbow and turns it and stands. Alves lands a leg kick and a good combo and Fitch throws a head kick and they clinch against the fence with Alves throwing a couple knees to the legs as the round ends. 10-9 Fitch.
Rd 3. Alves lands a right and Fitch hits a leg kick. Alves lands a leg kick and they trade punches. Alves lands a leg kick and a couple jabs. They clinch and Fitch throws a knee and breaks and then hits a left. Alves throws a leg kick and a jab and Fitch lands a right. Alves lands a head kick and a right and Fitch shoots but Alves stuffs it. Alves throws a leg kick and misses a punch and Fitch clinches him from behind and tries to drag him down and does and has his back. Alves tries to turn eats a couple shots and Fitch drags him back and Fitch throws a couple shots. Fitch gets the arm triangle but Alves is able to turn but Alves still has the body triangle. Alves gets free and throws but the round ends. 10-9 Fitch.
Decision I got it 30-27 Fitch. Fitch controlled the fight and while he didn’t do a ton of damage he did what he needed to do. Fitch does the belt sign but I don’t know if you want GSP again. Judges go 30-27 for Fitch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TL;DR Fitch does what Fitch does and gets Alves down and controls him. He doesn't do a ton of damage but he is constantly looking for passes and stays somewhat active even when he's not throwing. Alves looks awful but last the whole fight. Fitch gets the decision
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anderson “The Spider” Silva © v “The American Gangster” Chael Sonnen (UFC Middleweight Championship)
Widely considered the best fighter of his generation if not all time Chael Sonnen faces his biggest test in Anderson Silva. Rogan for about the 5th Silva fight in a row says that the guy facing him is the guy you’d build to beat him. Sonnen is the world champion, haha so apparently Sonnen said some things about Lance Armstrong and Jim Rome played him the tape back and Sonnen said “maybe I have a bad connection, but that guy sounds Hispanic” I think that may be better then the Le Batard “I never said that” because Dan was one word off what he actually said. Now Silva really hasn’t spent a ton of time on the ground in a defensive position outside of the Lutter fight where he avoided all of his shots so this will be interesting if it goes there. Silva hugs Steven Seagal before entering the cage, what has that man taught Silva for this fight? Sonnen is telling Silva to get in the cage.
Rd 1. Sonnen comes out with a leg kick and a jumping knee. Sonnen throws a leg kick shoots but gives it up mid way. Silva lands a jab and Sonnen lands a leg kick and Silva catches it and Sonnen barrel rolls. Sonnen lands a shot that stuns Silva and he hits some more and another good shot. Sonnen lands a jab and Silva gets him down and they scramble and stand back up. Sonnen lands another shot and a couple more and Sonnen shoots and gets him down and hits a shot and gets to half-guard and throws a couple more shots. Sonnen stands up and hits some more, Silva gets to a sitting position but Sonnen drags his legs out to prevent the wall walk. Sonnen lands some more and takes the back but Silva rolls and Sonnen is still on top and lands a good elbow. Silva gets to guard and Sonnen lands some more and posture and drops a big right and another shot and he gets to half-guard and another good shot. Sonnen lands again and Silva is able to get to guard but Sonnen postures up and lands some more, some good GnP and another big shot and to side control. Silva gets it back to guard and Sonnen lands a couple more smaller shots. Sonnen postures and hits some more and then drops into him as the round ends. 10-9 Sonnen right at a 10-8 but the Silva takedown stops it. Wow, just wow what a round.
Rd 2. Silva comes out throwing they trade and Silva hits a nice leg kick but Sonnen takes him down again. Silva throws elbows from the bottom and Sonnen gets to half-guard. Silva is controlling the body so Sonnen can’t posture so Sonnen boxes his ears and hits a couple rabbit punches and then drops his should into his jaw. Silva gets it back to guard and hits an elbow and Sonnen lands a bit more and hits a nice left. Sonnen postures and lands a shot and then hits a couple of shots and some more rabbit punches and then bigger shots and Silva hits an elbow and Sonnen goes to smother him. Sonnen lands again and hits an elbow and Silva hits a punch. Sonnen postures but has to drop back to avoid an armbar but lands a big shot. Silva goes for an armbar and a triangle and Sonnen avoids it and lands a good shot then an elbow. Silva is looking for a sub but Sonnen is avoiding them and lands another elbow. Silva gets his back to the cage and Sonnen takes his back and throws a rabbit shot and Silva goes for a kimura but loses it and goes for a leg lock and loses it and Sonnen drops a shot to end the round. 10-9 Sonnen. Silva did better from the bottom but still Sonnen looks great.
Rd 3. Sonnen comes in and eats a right and then hits a spinning back kick. Sonnen shoots and gets the takedown. Silva is looking for a kimura but Silva gets to his back and rides him and hits a couple knees to the thigh and ass. Silva is holding on to the arm but Sonnen gets it out and Sonnen throws a bunch of rabbit punches. Silva rolls and Sonnen stays on top. Sonnen goes to the body and then the head. Sonnen throws a little more and Silva tries to push of the cage with his feet but Sonnen stays on top and Sonnen just continuously throws little shots as Silva has the body triangle to prevent big shots. Sonnen throws some more and starts going to the body and the head just constantly and the body triangle is off. Silva tries to gets out and tries a triangle but Sonnen avoids it and throws some more. Sonnen lands an elbow and another shot and Sonnen puts the forearm into his throat and then postures and hits some more and Silva throws an elbow. Silva throws an elbow and Sonnen hits a shot and the round ends. 10-9 Sonnen. Wow, survive 2 more rounds and Sonnen does it.
Rd 4. Silva throws a left they trade kicks and Silva lands a shot that buckles him. Sonnen tries to grab him but Silva throws him off. They’re throwing hard and Sonnen shoots but is stuffed and he rolls and Silva is on top. Silva is warned for a 12-6 elbow and Sonnen reverses it and is on top. “that’s wrestling baby” says Rogan and we’re back to these baby hammerfists and elbows and constant pressure. Sonnen throws some chops and then some big rights. Sonnen hits an elbow and Silva hits one. Sonnen goes to the body as Silva tries to hold him and then Silva throws an elbow. Sonnen throws some more shots and an elbow and Silva throws a shot. Sonnen goes back to the body and Silva closes the guard and Sonnen sits up throws some shots and Silva throws an elbow and Silva throws some long shots and then pounds him with the right and hammerfists. The elbow Silva threw cut Sonnen but he’s continuing what he’s been doing with constant punches and slaps and hits and just whatever he can hit. Silva hits an elbow and Sonnen throws some more as the round ends. 10-9 Sonnen. One more round, unbelievable.
Rd 5. That cut on Sonnen’s eyebrow is nasty. They trade kicks and Sonnen shoots but is stuffed he thinks about pulling guard but stands. Sonnen hits a shot and knocks Silva down and he drops into his guard hits a shot goes to side control the side control has a choke. Silva gets out and back to guard. Sonnen throws to the body and postures and then comes back down hits a shot. Sonnen tries to pass and gets to side control. Rogan says he slipped and it wasn’t a punch that sent him down. Sonnen moves back to guard and hits some more and Silva throws a couple of shots from the bottom. Sonnen continues with the punches and Silva lands an elbow. Sonnen throws some more and continues. Sonnen postures up and throws to the body and Silva lands a good punch from the bottom and Sonnen comes in and Silva gets a triangle. Sonnen tries to get out and gets his legs across. Sonnen does a Brazilian tap and Rosenthal sees it and Sonnen tries to keep going. Sonnen is protesting but it’s ok 4-1 Sonnen is gonna take it. Wait, they’re saying a submission gives you the fight! Who knew? So Silva takes it. What a fight though, some guys come over to Sonnen on the bench and are just going crazy gushing on him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TL;DR In the first Sonnen lands and hurts Silva who gets a takedown to recover but they're right back up and Sonnen gets him down and GnPs. In the second it's Sonnen getting Silva down and going to work though Silva does a little better from the bottom compared to the first. In the third it's much the same as Sonnen is really active on top and throwing, he gets hit with an elbow that cuts him. In the fourth Silva stuns Sonnen but Sonnen is able to get back to wrestling and GnP. In the fifth it's the same as Sonnen is on top GnP and then he postures eats a shot and comes back down only to get caught in a triangle. He taps but tries to keep going but the ref saw it. Silva wins by submission, what a fight
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RECAP
4/5 Bookended by two awesome fights in JDS/Nelson and Sonnen/Silva while the rest of the card was solid. I’m just buzzing right now that’s how exciting this show was. (FOTN JDS/Nelson and Sonnen/Anderson Silva)
JdS/Nelson, JdS has some power and Nelson has some chin as they constantly swing and bang with Nelson somehow surviving. Hughes/Almeida, Hughes shows some power with a knockdown and a chokeout. Guida/RdA, Guida is flying around awkwardly changing levels and angles to throw RdA off. He breaks RdA's jaw at some point and eventually RdA taps due to it. Fitch/Alves, Fitch gets Alves down and smothers him for three rounds. Sonnen/Silva, Sonnen GnP's four 4 1/2 rounds is dominating the fight and is extremely active throwing and then he gets caught in a triangle and has to tap as Silva retains.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
QUESTIONS
How well was Nelson respected when he came in? Was the IFL considered on the level of WEC or Strikeforce or below that? Did he have high expectations being a champion there?
Was the UFC trying to position Hughes as a Gracie/Gracie student killer or did it just seem to work out that way in this little run?
What does Guida do wrong that keeps him from reaching heights of some of the guys he beats early in their careers?
What kind of chance was Sonnen given before the fight? What was the reaction afterward? Has Anderson ever given an analysis of what happened?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EVENT RANKINGS (since UFC 78 so out of 40 events)
2) UFC 100 4/5 (FOTN Alan Belcher V Yoshihiro Akiyama)
3) UFC 117 4/5 (FOTN JDS/Nelson and Sonnen/Anderson Silva)
4) UFC 80 4/5 (FOTN Paul Kelly V Paul Taylor)
NEXT Monday, Mar 4 UFC 118 Edgar v Penn II

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2^nd Half Colorado 3-2 Minnesota United

Game Summary:
Colorado: Edgar Castillo: 50' Joe Mason 75' Tommy Smith 90'+7
Minnesota: Miguel Ibarra: 21' Christian Ramirez: 65'
Venue: Dick's Sporting Goods Park - Commerce City, CO
Referee: Hilario "Chico" Grajeda

COLORADO RAPIDS 3-5-2

Starting XI	Position	Number	Name	Activity	Bench	Position	Number	Name	Activity
	GK	1	Tim Howard			GK	18	Zach MacMath
	D	27	Deklan Wynne			D	44	Axel Sjoberg
	D	5	Tommy Smith	90'+7		M	11	Shkelzen Gashi	69'
	D	4	Danny Wilson			M	22	Micheal Azira
	M	2	Edgar Castillo	50'		M	90	Enzo Martinez	33'
	M	19	Jack Price	76'		M	21	Bismark Adjei-Boateng
	M	8	Johan Blomberg	69'		F	10	Joe Mason
	M	28	Sam Nicholson
	M	94	Marlon Hairston 33'
	F	32	Jack McBean
	F	14	Dominique Badji

MINNESOTA UNITED 4-3-3

Starting XI	Position	Number	Name	Activity	Bench	Position	Number	Name	Activity
	GK	33	Bobby Shuttleworth 75'			GK	24	Alex Kapp
	D	32	Alexi Gomez			D	2	Carter Manley
	D	14	Brent Kallman			D	22	Wyatt Omsberg	84'
	D	15	Michael Boxall			M	7	Ibson	64'
	D	4	Tyrone Mears			M	16	Harrison Heath
	M	17	Collin Martin			M	19	Frantz Pangop
	M	20	Rasmus Schuller	64'		F	23	Mason Toye	81'
	M	28	Collen Warner
	W	10	Miguel Ibarra 20' 65' 76'
	F	21	Christian Ramirez	65' 81'
	W	25	Darwin Quintero	84'

MATCH EVENTS

-10' For your viewing pleasure
0' kicks us off and soccer is underway at the Dick!
3' Mears sends in an early cross that is near nobody and harmlessly rolls out for a Colorado goal kick
5' Marlon Hairston is down after a crucial stop on the abck post to deny Ramirez the chance. Appears to be a head injury as he is gesturing at his cheek/eye socket
7' Hairston comes back on right as Minnesota earns a free kick in a dangerous spot.
8' Quintero's service hits the wall and is eventually gathered by Howard.
9' Great save by Howard! Uses his legs to deny the Collin Martin.
10'14 on 14 crime as Badji fouls Kallman near the middle of the pitch
11' Ibarra sends a curling shot in, but it goes wide
12' CHANCE. as Badji intercepts a bad pass by Boxall, but Kallman blocks it out for a corner, which results in Wynne blasting it about 1248202' over the bar from ~30 yards out.
12' CHANCE. Tricky footwork as Quintero dirrbles through 4 Rapids, but he loses the ball in the box and Ibarra is unable to recover before it goes out for a Colorado goal kick.
14 Hairston sends in a good cross, but Blomberg, McBean and Badji are all unable to reach it. Goal kick Minnesota.
16' SAVE. Shuttleworth grabs Edgar Castillo's cross out of the air before Badji can get to the end of it.
17' CHANCE. Blomberg receives the ball at the side of the box, but Gomez slides in to knock it out for a corner. Danny Wilson, heads it high.
20' CHANCE. Nicholson sends in a cross but it's cleaned up by the Loons, Castillo recovers and it's recovered and sent back on the counter
20' GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLL Minnesota! Howard muffs the save on Quintero and Ibarra slams it home on the doorstep before Wynne can clear it out

1-0 MINNESOTA

24' Rapids with most of the ball after the goal, but not much luck getting far up the field until a corner is conceded by Gomez
25' Boxall clears the corner, which is put back into the mixer before Quintero is sprung on the counter! His switch to Ibarra is too powerful however and results in a throw deep in their own territory.
27' CHANCE. Some nice linkup play in the box for the Loons, but Ramirez accidentally gets in Quintero's path before he can get a shot off.
28' CHANCE. The Rapids immediately counter from the previous play, but Shuttleworth comfortable saves it.
30' NO GOAL. Badji slots the ball in the back of the net, but it's called back due to Badji's shoving Warner to the turf in the buildup.
33' 1^st change of the night for Hudson. The injured Hairston finally comes off, and is replaced by Enzo Martinez. Nicholson slides out to the wing and Martinez slots into the middle.
34' CHANCE! Cross headed away by Boxall as Badji hits the turf, Rapids players are shouting for a penalty, but Grajeda waves them away.
36' Badji receives his final warning from Grajeda as he fouls Brent Kallman.
39' Badji is now down and seeking treatment in the box as Price and Gashi begin warming up.
40' Badji is back on
41' CHANCE!. Howard slips as the Loons send a corner in, but Ibarra's shot is straight at his chest.
43' Price sends in the corner, but Blomberg's shot is.....interesting, going more up than forward, and dropping down in bounds.
44' Free kick as a foul occurs just past midfield. Smith gets a head to it, but it is well over the crossbar.
45' SAVE! Sam Nicholson, sends a curling shot in at his former keeper, but Shuttleworth is there to gather.
45'+ 2 minutes of added time
45+2' SAVE!. Quintero is left with space and lets loose a dribbler of a shot, but Howard is there to parry it away.

HALFTIME in Commerce City as the Loons lead 1-0 through Miguel Ibarra's opportunistic pounce in the 20^th minute.

46' Minnesota kicks it off and we are back underway!
46' CHANCE! Quintero wins a turnover in the attacking third and springs Schuller, who has his shot blocked by Danny Wilson, with Howard catching it on the way down.
47' SAVE! Howard comfortably catches Martin's effort from distance.
48' CHANCE! Badji's shot is blocked out for a corner, taken short, and Nicholson dribbles all around the Loons before sending in a shot nowhere near the goal.
50' GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL*!. Edgar Castillo sends in a beauty of a curler in and manages to get it in the top corner. Shuttleworth never stood a chance

1-1

53' CHANCE! Good look for the Rapids, but Gomez clears it out before a shot can be taken.
55' CHANCE! Boxall fouls McBean, and the free kick is barely saved by Shuttleworth!
57' CHANCE! The ball is sent in from a corner and falls to the feet of McBean, but his shot pings out off of the post!
61' Chance here as Kallman fouls McBean about 35 yards out.
61' SAVE! Shuttleworth palms away the driven shot out for a corner!
63' As Ibson comes on for Collin Martin
65' GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!! The Loons retake the lead as Ibarra and Ramirez connect on the counter!

2-1 MINNESOTA

67' As Ibson goes down with a leg injury, Mears' knee catches his head. Uffda.
69' Nice
69' As Shkelzen Gashi comes on to replace Johan Blomberg. He takes a free kick, which is punched out by Shuttleworth.
73' Shuttleworth booked for time-wasting
73' Final change of the night for the Rapids, as Jack McBean makes way for Joe Mason
75' GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL Joe Mason, with his first touch of the match chips it over Shuttleworth to draw it even!
76' Ibarra is sent off after a scuffle with Danny Wilson once it goes to VAR. Price should also have walked for punching Ibarra, but only sees yellow.
80' Badji is free in on goal, but is whistled off.
81' Christian Ramirez's night is done, as he comes off for Mason Toye.
83' SAVE! Scramble in front of goal that ends with Shuttleworth smothering it.
84' Wyatt Omsberg is the last change for either team, making his second appearance of the year. Darwin Quintero coming off.
89' SAVE! Free kick comes in and kept alove by Nicholson, but Shuttleworth, who needs to bring his mullet back, is able to smother it before any danger comes.
90' Six minutes of stoppage time
90 + 2' SAVE! Enzo Martinez sends in an absolute scorcher, but Shuttleworth is able to block it out for a corner!
90 + 5' Shuttleworth toeing the line for some timewasting and nearly lets it go out for a corner.
90 + 6 Colorado gets one last corner
90 + 7 TOMMY SMITH WINS IT AT THE DEATH! A corner finally connects as the Rapids take their first lead of the game.

3-2 COLORADO

90 + 9' Goal is going to VAR, possibly for a foul by Colorado
90 + 10 Goal confirmed, and the final whistle is blown!

FULL TIME, AS COLORADO SNAP THEIR WINLESS STREAK.

Adrian Heath heads over to have some very strong words with the officials after the game