Bonus: Interview with Supernatural writer/director/executive producer, Ben Edlund

In this special bonus episode recorded before their Season 8 finale discussion, Berly and LA score the ultimate get: Ben Edlund himself, the genius writer-producer who literally gave their podcast its name with that iconic "denim-wrapped nightmares" line from Season 6.

Ben takes the hosts on a wild ride through his Supernatural journey, from joining the show in Season 2 (after binge-watching all of Season 1 on VHS tapes like some kind of monster) to navigating what he describes as the show's "muscle car, bro-y" culture while being the guy who brought whimsy and chaos to the series. He reveals the origin stories behind fan-favorite episodes like "Monster Movie" (spoiler: it involved solving the "good will hunting on the board" problem of classic Hollywood monsters), "The French Mistake" (originally pitched as more Broadway Danny Rose, Kripke made it meta perfection), and the Ghost Facers theme song (yes, that's Ben singing in falsetto).

The conversation gets emotional discussing "Abandon All Hope" and the heartbreaking deaths of Ellen and Jo—a decision Ben clarifies wasn't solely his but one he committed to making as devastating as possible. He also defends killing too many characters (sort of), explains why Andy and Bobby should've stuck around for story leverage, and admits he probably wouldn't kill a dog in "Repo Man" if he wrote it today.

Fair warning: Ben's a delightfully rambling genius who goes on tangents about everything from Bat Boy to Steely Dan production modes, and the hosts are living for every minute of it.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Edlund

Footnote: Since the recording of this interview, Berly and LA have, in fact, cried during another one of their episodes.

Transcript

Berly: 0:01

Welcome to Denim Wrapped Nightmares, Tipsy Exchange podcast, where we explore the supernatural series episode by episode.

LA: 0:10

Over drinks, we'll discuss the lore, the gore, and what we adore about the Winchesters and their adventures. I'm Burley, and I'm a new fan of the series. I'm Ellie, and I'm here along for the ride. Now let's get it.

Berly: 0:26

Hello, LA. Hey Burley. We're switching it up this season. We're doing our bonus interview episode before our season finale. Because we haven't recorded our season finale yet. No. We still need to do that. Uh-oh. Uh, but we will. That will be coming out this week uh because we are catching up for being so behind over the summer and everything, guys. But I think you're going to be very happy with our interview today. I know LA and I were happy to score him. Yes. Why don't you tell our listeners who we got to have a conversation with?

LA: 1:07

Uh, we got Ben Edland. Mr. Edlin was born September 20th, 1968. He is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, television producer, and director, best known for creating the satirical superhero character, The Tick. Born and raised in Pembroke, Massachusetts, Edlin developed the Tick while still in high school after frequenting New England comics. When the character became the store's newsletter mascot, the tick evolved into a successful comic book series, an animated fox series from 1994 to 1996, and later a live action show. In the early 2000s, it's about to say 200s for a second. Whoops. Edlin transitioned to television writing, joining Joss Whedon's Mutant Enemy production company. He worked on Firefly and Angela, where he wrote and directed the Hugo-nominated episode, Smile Time. He also contributed characters to Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog. From 2006 to 2013, Edlin served as executive producer, writer, and occasional director on Supernatural seasons two through eight, writing 24 episodes and directing two. Lee's show honored him by naming the character a Carver Edund, combining his surname with fellow writer Jeremy Carvers. After leaving Supernatural, he worked on Revolution, Gotham, and Powers before returning to the Tick franchise with a 2016 reboot series.

Berly: 2:39

He's a genius.

LA: 2:41

He's awesome. He's so funny. Oh my gosh. His little giggle.

Berly: 2:46

Here is our interview with the legend himself, Mr. Ben Edmund. First of all, in season six, you came up with the line, the denim wrapped nightmares line. So I did do that. You did. So we thank you.

Ben Edlund : 3:03

Oh yeah.

Berly: 3:04

So talk to us about your journey of getting involved with Supernatural. You came in in season two.

Ben Edlund : 3:10

Yeah, I knew I knew Kripke. We had talked before when he was on Tarzan, and he had uh uh uh I don't think he minds my telling he was a tick fan, he likes stuff like that, he's got good taste. So uh he we had talked about maybe I was gonna do work on Tarzan, and um I was on Angel at that point, and I had uh secured a promise to let me start directing, so I was like, I need to stay here. This is where I'm gonna get stuff for me, and that was cool. And I think I was asked to join in on the first season, but I was still doing shit. So second season, I was around, it it came back, and uh, I think Eric asked me again, and uh I was happy to give that a try. So I got at that time you'd get a big case full of VHS tapes, you get like a big you know, file box all 22 episodes on VHS, and then you you have a watch party. Uh and I was like, Yeah, this is all the things I like to play with. It had not yet bloomed into it, had a Eric's funny, so it was funny, but like it had it was not yet its full expression of a number of things, so I but I felt like I could help with that maybe. I could certainly try anyway, and so I would you know went in for the second season. That was that was cool. Took me a little while to get used to it. It's a it's like a muscle car show, you know. And back then it was especially like it was classic rock, muscle car kind of uh it was broy. And and all of that was like uh you know, stuff that uh I in general had grown up being at times involuntary, but at a lot of times voluntary distance from all of that, from like the uh anything that was sort of I wasn't an anti-masculine or anything, but I didn't understand masculinity very well or my own version of it. It was an exploration. I was not I was I was not so that was like it was just a different sort of uh the whole culture of it was that to start with, but then you know, like everyone has discovered, it's uh that's just its first level of of kind of formatting, and that's it's it's uh and it's also very American, you know, it's like stridently American, um, and sort of uh a lot of things that uh I've come to more and more appreciate. Like I, you know, I I think I have a better grasp of and a more personal, I have a love of like a lot of that music that for me was I had not really paid much attention to. It was like wallpaper for me growing up, 70s music. It did for me what I think it's done for a lot of people, which is awakened this appreciation for the Steely Dan production mode. You know, all of this tremendous work from that period that's really worth looking at and and and re-revisiting the music. It was a great playing field to take part in, and it was nice and early because it had gotten its first season across. Eric clearly had pretty wild like he he was speaking of a five-year plan, and he had you know he was not sharing the the the finer points of that with me at that point, but like it was pretty clear that he had a good amount of it in his head, and I really appreciated that. Personally, I had been in um situations where not always, but in a lot of in some cases where it was just one thing pulled out of the air to the next and trying to build theme or trying to build a real intent, you know, uh like a holistic purpose for the story. It was more like there was a lot of jazz soloing going on, narratively speaking, um, because that's like when there were a lot of kind of hybrid, serialized sort of intentions for like these seasonal arcs, but it was still rigidly episodic in terms of the demands. Like now, binging is a different animal, and you'll see a kind of a structural breakdown in some stories where they just become slices of bread, and without the loaf, you don't really have much individually, and that's a different. I mean, I write like that now because that's part of what's being done now. I still like there to be a little bit more of a sense of structure, which is something we practiced on Supernatural. Those are tidy little numbers, five act bits of fun, if I'm not mistaken. Is it five acts? It's five acts and a teaser, right? Yeah.

Berly: 8:19

I will say your first episode was supernatural with Simon says or Simon, is it Simon says or Simon said? And uh you introduced characters like Andy, and it just gave I loved season one of Supernatural. I loved the Urban Legends and the road trip and all of that. But you brought in another dimension to the world that had that not come in, I don't think the show would have lasted as long as it did.

Ben Edlund : 8:44

Oh um, is that like just stoner humor?

Berly: 8:47

Is that well, more more humor, but more whimsy episodes that stand out to people as being different, like monster movie, French mistake, uh wishful thinking, just you just brought whimsy in a different dimension to it. If it was just all horror all the time, I don't know that it would have had the longevity that it did.

Ben Edlund : 9:09

Yeah, I I think that that's there's a few things that needed to fall into place, maybe. And I'll say that like Eric wanted more whimsy, and he wanted like Tall Tales was like the first expression, right? Yeah, and he and that was well formed in his mind. I wasn't very involved in the breaking of that because he was really like, This is where I want to go with the show, and I was like, Yeah, it was I think he admits, he admits it like he should listen to me, but like because we later found out the weekly world news was kind of supernatural, fans, but like in that I I I demanded of him that instead of the chainsaw guy, it would be Bat Boy. I don't know if you remember Bat Boy, but I said we could have Bat Boy if we put Bat Boy in, we can have Bat Boy for every season. Bat Boy can be riding in the back like Joe Pesse and fucking lethal weapon, and and and he was like, Oh, maybe, but then like it was just it, we it was too anyway. We should have had Bat Boy, is my feeling.

Berly: 10:13

Okay, I want to make sure I'm thinking of the right character. Wasn't Bat Boy like the interdimensional little thing that dressed like Batman, but wasn't it?

Ben Edlund : 10:21

No, no, no. Batboy on the Weekly World News was a child vampire that had this crazy image of him like on the on the cover of Weekly World News, and he became sort of an ongoing mascot because people loved this Bat Boy uh sort of full-on creation of the weekly world news, which was like a paranormal and strange happenings rag at the time. And and uh anyway, you know, you can't win them all, you can't win them all. So I was thinking of still a great experience.

Berly: 10:55

Oh, I love Tall Tales. Love Tall Tales.

Ben Edlund : 10:57

And that that starts whimsy, and I was in keeping with where Eric, I think, wanted us to be able to go, obviously, because he would never have accepted any of my nonsense had he not wanted that, and he wouldn't have probably brought me in because like I I was known for nonsense by that point. Nonsense was my one of my one of my big calling cards. So uh he obviously wanted some. There's a sort of uh a reflex to test the icons already present in that episode where like getting Dean to give away the car after he rebuilt it after his dad died and stuff again we go, okay, was like like getting the whole show premise to just go like, yeah, I don't care, whatever. Um, so that was fun, and then you know, like the idea of being forced to tell the truth. Like in that first episode, I will say that like both Sam and Dean, uh Jared and Jensen, you know, like uh they they really showed me comedic chops that and also in Tall Tales, but like at that point, you know, Tall Tales hadn't been edited completely, you know, like we were looking at different pieces and parts of the show, like if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, they really can handle comedy, and they really are a well-oiled comedy team. So it was uh it was really fun to find out that all of those things you start you join a show, you don't know if you're gonna take sort of too much license with tone, or if you push in a direction or your natural sort of predisposition of choice, is that within the realm of the show, or do you have to travel some distance or stretch, or do you have to rediscipline yourself? Um, this was great. Uh like working with uh uh Eric was uh very cool, like very actually it got to be a problem because by the time he left, which was basically season five, but with uh you know regular visits in season six, I had really started to depend on him translating what I was saying without me saying it fully, right? Like it had gotten to that point, so I was almost idiotic in the room, like like speaking to the next person who came through, speaking to Sarah as the person in charge, and also just trying to put myself over and explain things that were no longer aided by this almost telepathy that was like had formed, or shorthand, tremendous shorthand that had come from a body of uh reference, you know. Uh yeah, so it put me at a disability, frankly. I'm just now getting over it. No, I'm fine. Um, anyway.

Berly: 13:57

I understand what you mean. I'm I'm fortunate enough that my direct manager, I call him my neurotypical translator.

Ben Edlund : 14:03

Yeah, right. You have an interface.

Berly: 14:05

Yes, I need help. I need help. All right, so now into the specific questions that I've pre-prepared for today's call. So get ready. This is gonna be something.

Ben Edlund : 14:14

I should probably try and journalist brief. I'll I'll try not to extrapolate too far because we could I I might need only one question. But let's go. I'll answer all your questions.

Berly: 14:23

Okay, so I've heard you say more than once that the series kill count is too high. What characters would you have liked to see stick around and why?

Ben Edlund : 14:33

Uh Andy. Andy would have been great. Andy was a very real human being with a tremendous power, a potentially underestimable power. He was introduced at a point where demons were still really scary as hell, and I imagine he would never not be scared as hell of demons. So he wouldn't be around very much because those guys are awful. It's like they're haunted, those boys are haunted. Everything about them is the worst thing he's ever seen. So he doesn't want to see that every time he they come back into his life, he's going, No. But like he could walk into Fort Knox and just say, guys, this is what we're gonna do, right? Like, and and so it would be such a really dramatic and cool, and he was such a um uh Gabriel Tigerman was such a good vessel for it. So I I miss that. I uh ultimately Bobby shouldn't have died. I just don't think it was worth it, you know. Um, that doesn't mean that it's the story isn't worth it in a sense. I don't mean to speak against like I killed him. You did, I killed his hit, right? Like, I was like, okay, if this is what we're doing, let's do it and let's do it and make it epic and cool, and that's what we did. Sarah did an amazing, you know, like Bob Beyond Death's door and revisited things, and it became part of canon and it was thematically sound. I'm not speaking against it in terms of story, but like later on when you're trying to rub two nickels together in season 11, right?

Berly: 16:17

We aren't there yet. We just uh we're in season eight.

Ben Edlund : 16:19

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's season eight, even right.

Berly: 16:22

His his his presence is missed for sure. Yeah, for sure.

Ben Edlund : 16:26

And and just thinking in terms of what story we're how are we gonna pull a string again that makes everyone go, oh my gosh, you know, it's just like we cut that string. So getting tension out of it. I'm so glad I didn't. I'm so glad you got past season seven.

Berly: 16:43

I I loved season seven. I loved that.

Ben Edlund : 16:46

No, but if I spoiled Bobby's death for you, I think that would have been a bad so yeah. Let me make sure I don't spoil no.

Berly: 16:53

We've seen everything that you've done with Supernatural. We haven't finished season eight yet, but we've seen everything that you've done with Supernatural.

Ben Edlund : 17:00

Okay, so uh yeah, uh Bobby is, I think, certainly one. Um Charlie is someone that like the characters that could have really just been it's from the storyteller point of view of like how do I manipulate the emotion of the audience yet again, you know, and those are levers of tremendous power, and we had just a practice, and it's it gives the show a power because it will cap somebody, right? Like you watch out, stay on your toes because we're not fucking around. They might come back, but we'll cap them. Uh uh, so you know, it's uh it has edge, it has tooth, and that's good. It could be that it's perfect, it could be the body count is perfect, but when I say that, I'm just thinking from the point of view of strategy and like a sort of a fertile ground of uh uh entities to manipulate for the for the amusement of the audience. It's like the more history you have with someone, the more drama you trigger just by them stepping back into the story, right? So if you have someone that's been around as long as those characters have been around, when you take them out, it's like old growth forest, right? You can only get new growth. You that's what you've got then, right? I guess, in a sense, it's like every one of those characters. I think Ronald is good dead.

Berly: 18:27

I was gonna bring up Ronald. I was going to say, we still haven't forgiven you for Ronald and Night Shifter.

Ben Edlund : 18:32

That's why I think that one's good. That one's good. I would say I mean, he would also be a great character to fool around with and have alive, but just uh like, and that's a good example of the fact that killing makes sense and it's dramatically sound, like uh, like it's a heartbeat stop when that takes place, and then it allows for uh just tonally speaking, quite a uh somersault that seems to work because there's a lot of fun going into it. We know there's death and murder and stuff, but there's a lot of fun between the boys and Ronald, and they're just kind of having a pretty good time for them, you know, as as it happens. And then it just does a somersault into the highest stakes that we had at that point, which is that you know, Henrickson knows their name, yeah, knows their past, and how are they gonna get out of this shit? They pulled their last rabbit out of their hat, and now they're truly on the run. I don't argue any one killer another exactly, but I guess I I mourn them all from a uh storyteller's advantage viewpoint. Um, and that was that's probably what I was moaning about.

Berly: 19:47

Yeah. LA and I are big fans of a lot of the pop-up characters, the guest characters uh in the series. And I Ronald was one that I think that that one and Andy that we both like screamed at the television.

Ben Edlund : 20:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's um and and but then that's like also an argument for that kind of thing.

Berly: 20:08

Right.

Ben Edlund : 20:09

We want to live forever. It's good to have screams. Can we get some screams? Can excuse me, laughs and tears. Um that's uh engaging. If we can be engaging, that was the whole plan. Um, so those things are I mean, this has been supernatural, is like has been an experience of ultimate engagement with audience that we're talking about it now, that there's an audience for what you guys are doing. I'm very gratified to be a part of that because it's uh you know, for a generation it has that Star Trek uh community thing, meaning like the way that Star Trek kind of configured fandom early on, and that this is another version of it, but it's good to be a part of it. Um, yeah, we killed too many people, maybe. I don't know, maybe not.

Berly: 21:05

I I I agree with you. Like, I would have liked to have seen Andy pop up again. I would have liked to have seen Henrickson be a hunter for a little bit. I would have liked, you know, there's a that would have been cool. We actually have uh created a reboot idea that we want it to be the stories that didn't get told.

Ben Edlund : 21:21

Yes.

Berly: 21:21

And like maybe do a season of that before Jared and Jensen if they decide they want to come back, you know, if they came back. Like, go show us the stories that we didn't get to see.

Ben Edlund : 21:30

There's lots. Go on.

Berly: 21:32

I can't imagine. I know that we one of the stories that we had come up with that we were like, okay, we want to know what happened to in French Mistake, what happened to the Jared and Jensen of that dimension. And I actually think a lot about that. Yeah.

Ben Edlund : 21:43

Yes. That could be its own show. You would watch you would only watch a couple of episodes, but it could be its own show. Um, yes. I I had pitches for that. Just another episode, but like it had to be. It was it was that when we were interacting with Crowley at some point, that we he would open a door and reveal that he had captured the two actors that were transposed into this dimension and they've been in hell. Like uh maybe they don't know they're in hell, maybe they think they're just on a movie shoot that won't end or something, but like they're he has he has Jared and Jensen. But um, yeah, they must have had quite an experience. I don't think they winked out of existence, and I think that everything's gonna be very different when they get back to the production. They were already losing their minds, and it's not gonna stop when the real actors get back.

Berly: 22:42

Yeah, we have we have a list of like 70 ideas for episodes of stories that didn't get told. I'll send it to you.

Ben Edlund : 22:50

That's crazy. That's cool.

Berly: 22:51

So one of them. There's so many. There's so many. One of them that's a segue to our next question uh that we said we wanted to see is we wanted to see Bella Talbot become a crossroads demon.

Ben Edlund : 23:01

Awesome. Yeah.

Berly: 23:02

And you created her. Yeah, she did. She got drawn away to hell. So talk to us about Bella Talbot. Like, how did you create that character? What was your inspiration?

Ben Edlund : 23:11

I mean, that's sort of uh like uh she was an inversion of the nobility of hunters, which was kind of getting on my nerves, I guess. Like uh they were they were just so uniform, like I mean, they were maybe mentally stressed and messed up and stuff, but they were they were these selfless, you know, blue-collar just river of denim, um, you know, like that was sacrificing itself as this guardrail, and I was like, okay, that I dig it, and it I like it's nights and stuff, but what about someone who learns all this shit and is like, okay, but what's in it for me? Right, right? Like, what's in it for me? How do I get the big buck out of this? And then it's like it was just an awareness that everything, because I played DD when I was for a long time when I was young, and it's like everything they touch is a magic item, they're constantly the the demon-killing knife, any of the hex bags, any of these things are actual functioning magic items. So, like the idea that those things have value and could be sold on a kind of a worldwide market of you know, that same cabal that on Tuesday shops in uh Eli Roth's hostel series, and then on Wednesday they buy cursed objects at the cursed object. They're horrible. They eat live panda on Friday. It's it's a terrible the cabal, you know, the Illuminati, right? And so someone who is like a fetcher for them and knows is could have been a witch, could have been a hunter, could have been um uh maybe a medium, has a couple of things up her sleeve and decides to be the world's best thief, you know? And so that to me was cool.

Berly: 25:06

We loved her character for that reason. We we said in our episode, some if this world really exists, there would 100% be people like her in it.

Ben Edlund : 25:15

Yeah, I like that she was she started by being away in Iraq because there was so much like uh artifact plunder during the golf uh like uh tribulations, uh, that uh yeah, she was really racking up treasure over there. That'd be a cool moment to see.

Berly: 25:32

Yeah, she's she's one that I keep going, like, she could technically come back, she could be a demon and somehow get to keep her body like bring her back.

Ben Edlund : 25:40

I mean, she could totally, I mean, yeah, she I guess we've done that. I mean, she could find a way to have her own body. Yeah, y'all could definitely it's just one of those pills that lets you smoke on a spaceship.

Berly: 25:52

It's okay, so back to monster movie. I thought it was cinematic art. I loved that episode. Robert Singer did wonderful with it, but you, of course, were the madman behind the idea. So, what was the inspiration for that? What what lightning bolt struck you that I was like, oh my god, monster movie?

Ben Edlund : 26:13

Well, that was like um a sort of goodwill hunting on the board was a problem. You know, I think even when I came in, it was already being kind of discussed, but it was like, is there any way to solve this problem? Which is the, you know, can we do something with the the great monsters of Hollywood? Can we do something that incorporates, you know, the werewolf, the the mummy, Dracula, right? How could that be done and not be stupid? That's a lot of what I've done with my uh time here in culture is like, how close to stupid can we get? So, like, how can we do that and for it not to be stupid? And so it like that one was really uh preying on my brain a lot, and I was trying to think of how it could work, and then shapeshifters being in our you know, vestiary, it started to form because part of it was wanting it to be a black and white thing, part of it was wanting it to be how can that be justified in any way? Finding a character for whom the mental environment was they wanted to recreate these movies. The whole theme of the monster was in their head, they were living in that movie, so it was, and then black and white is just a cheap take the color away, you can do that, but like having it be on uh during Oktoberfest, so that you can have people in later hosen and a sort of a like you a credibly production-designed situation that meets halfway the monster who's trying to you know. I used to do this when I was a kid. You want to live in your playground, and then someone spoils the illusion. The pizza guy always shows up at the wrong time and spoils your illusion. So we were just trying to figure out the environment that would spoil the illusion the least. This is a thing that we weren't the only people to touch on, but shapeshifters, when you think about it, it's a terrifying life. There's a really good book, which is called The Synthetic Man or The Dreaming Crystals, depending on which copy you get by Theodore Sturgeon, who's a great in science fiction of the 21st century, uh, 20th century. At the core of it is an entity that can change their shape, right? And can regrow fingers and do stuff like that, but they're judged as a monster early on and are forced to kind of run away, and they run away literally to the circus. But like there's a loneliness, there's a lack of belonging, there's a there's a disenfranchisement to everything about it, and then this idea that this character, you know, certain people, if they're forced into roles, they'll take it and they'll run with it. If you're gonna make me a monster, I'll be the best monster. I'll be like the best monsters that ever were. It works for a 45-minute long story. But there was a grandeur to it, and man, it was well, talk about like Todd Stashwick. It's like he did it, you know. That's what was required at the end of that was someone to join us on this little merry adventure and take it 100% seriously and be like, 'Twas beauty killed the beast. But he meant it, he meant it, you know, and uh like it worked out, but that was a very challenging thing where at every moment it had to be executed properly. Uh Bob doing a great directorial, I mean, he's I think you know, as a kid absorbed that. Stuff and had a real like uh minute grasp on the cinema language of that period and even the limitations that created the cinema language of that period and stuff like it. So that worked out great. That's part of what supernatural we didn't know until we tried it, but like it can it was very flexible, it could do a lot. That like Ghost Facers was another one that really twisted the pretzel of reality on on the situation. That's an issue with the uh notion of the uh all the stories that don't have Salmon Dean in them. You'll find the fan base really wants Salmon and Dean in those stories.

Berly: 30:46

They could they could live without them. Come on. I loved Ghost Spacers. Were you involved in the web series? Austin Basis sent us those before we saw them.

Ben Edlund : 30:57

Yeah, those are fun. Uh, I was not directly involved in it because we were just on the show at the same time, but the web series, their office was our storage room. I'd be like, hey guys, how's it going? Um, they were and uh that was really mostly Phil Segretia and and the boys, the ghost facers and uh um well and uh Margaret. So it was fun. That was like their independent production under the aegis of Supernatural as it proceeded. So that was pretty cool.

Berly: 31:29

They were ahead of their time. I think that that series would have taken off like on TikTok right now, or something like that.

Ben Edlund : 31:34

Oh, yeah, that had legs as a thing that could have spun off, um, but it would have, you know, really needed the gravitas that Sam and Dean bring to it somehow. Uh or it would have to be a half hour or like a short, like like just a continuation of shorts, which it could have sustained, but in terms of a tone that you might watch, that's always the balance is like how much gravitas, how much real humanity is in there. Um which they had, they certainly had.

Berly: 32:09

LA loved those ghost facers.

Ben Edlund : 32:11

I did. Yeah, you know, I I I'm on the uh I wrote the the theme song, and I'm on the like you can hear me singing, because I we uh were me and Chris were in his studio doing that music, and uh that's a that's to me a personal triumph that I have vocals on supernatural.

Berly: 32:35

I told her how you said you pitched it to Eric Kripke.

Ben Edlund : 32:39

Yes, oh right, indeed. Um uh yeah, I mean, uh I had the song in tandem with the concept itself, and the idea that ghost facers, you know, we face the ghosts when others will not, and we'll stay in the kitchen when the kitchen gets hot, you know. Like it had I was already like uh doing a falsetto during the pitch. So I guess uh I guess that's confidence.

Berly: 33:07

Yeah, they were like, that's art, that's art, put that on tape. We need that. Talk to me about the French mistake. How did you think up? We've touched on it a little bit. How did you think up that masterpiece?

Ben Edlund : 33:20

That was definitely a uh a good example of working with Kripke. So initially for me, the pitch was a little bit more like Broadway Danny Rose. I don't know if you know that story. It's a movie, it's a lesser-known Woody Allen movie that's essentially a fantasy about Mia Farrell is a depression-era housewife who escapes into movies and watches has a certain person that she loves on screen, and then he just steps out of the screen at one point, and it's this absurdist thing of like, what do you do when this guy steps out of the movie and he's in this shitty town in New Jersey, but he's like an African explorer guy or something, you know, like and it just had this notion of fiction and reality and the proscinium, and it was sort of like having Sam and Dean kind of gets drawn into some kind of exchange with characters in a story, so that they are challenged by the the movie that they're in. It was a it was in some ways a derivation of changing channels, and then the characters, the fictional characters that were in that movie are let loose out in the world, so there would be a sort of a transom between the two, you know, and it was a viable idea, but then like uh Eric was just like, no, what it should be is um they go, they they get to they become Jared and Jensen. I go like I'll be back. And like uh that was very inspiring, and then we like worked out you know the finer points of it over time because it was a very complex for me. The needs were it needs to somehow, even if only a little bit, move the plot forward. It can't just be it's so screwed up, it's so nutty that if it's self-indulgent to the expense of the flow of the narrative, we don't move some piece forward and and still have the other thing going. You know, if they were just to find uh a magic genie bottle that explodes in their face, and then they are in the world of Jared and Jensen, that's a filler episode. People will maybe dig it for a while, but it like in my mind it would ultimately fail. Like the concept would give out because the tension would give out, and then it would just be uh fan service, basically, which it is, but it's not just fan service, you know. Those engineering challenges of like, okay, for a reason this happens for some kind of reason that makes even the remotest sort of semblance of sense, they are thrust into that, and it comes from it's a derivation of the plot that we've been running in up to this point, the war in heaven. And so those sort of challenges, those were the tough ones. The pleasure was all the fun, you know, them being forced to be them realizing us realizing how bad Sam and Dean are at acting, you know, like how terrible.

Berly: 36:38

Which considering how often they pretend to be federal agents and other things, you would think they would have been a little better.

Ben Edlund : 36:44

Well, no, it's like the camera, they're like normal people. There you go, right? It's like, what the what is that? Right? What is that? Why is it looking at me? What is that, right? And Dan Dean is like so obsessed with where you're supposed to put your eyes and put your feet and like it's just a mess, right? They are they're fluid liars. There you go. Terrible actors. So that was fun.

Berly: 37:12

I loved that one. And I love that that angel that was sent there to kill them was just left there in that world. That's another episode idea. What happened to him?

Ben Edlund : 37:20

He's in prison. He's a he's a shooter, man. He's a um that guy. He is a a madman. He maybe if he's lucky, he's got a little cult growing around him in whatever uh prison he's in. And they go, like, this guy really speaks the truth. This is a magicless place with no true God.

Berly: 37:43

We've spoken about whimsy and kill count and all of that, and so we have we have another uh plot point to which we want you to own up to. Uh to this day, there's only one episode of our podcast where LA and I cried, and it was because of one of your episodes, Mr. Edland. Abandon all hope. The decision to kill off Ellen and Joe.

Ben Edlund : 38:06

Yes.

Berly: 38:06

Talk to us about that.

Ben Edlund : 38:07

Which was, I mean, as you might imagine, was not my decision. Oh, okay. Um, I mean, that none of those decisions are uh ever anything but proposed by the writers. That decision is essentially it can all is sometimes it's a decision that's made by the president of Warner Brothers or something, like like Misha returned as as Castel because the president of the company was like, Oh, I like that angel guy, where is he? Because there was a point where he had gotten sort of dropped down from regular casts for whatever reason later on, later on, and it's like so there's a variety of factors that go into those sort of decisions. This was like especially in keeping with the idea that Eric was very sincere about that this was gonna end at that time, right? Like this, we're doing a five-year mission. Harry Potter gets raw at the end, right? Like, people die, shit goes down, and and and it has lasting impact because it didn't let up, it didn't wasn't like oh, we don't mean it. Death stalkers or whatever don't really, they don't care actually, they're not that invested or whatever they are, like you know. Um we wanted stakes. Personally, in general, like taking two of our best female characters out, especially if I had known that for sure we were moving forward, I would have been very keenly lobbying against that. And I'm not trying to just win backdated anything, like it's just for the length, for the for the longevity of it, the power of it was that was their sister and their mom for real, and they got iced. This is called abandon all hope. We need to pluck a bass string. It's episode 10, halfway through, pluck a bass string where everyone goes, We're not safe. Be scared, be afraid of what's gonna happen. And that was Eric's intent. So he's very good at like season structure, story structure, where like it lasted for 15 years because of the feels that arrived at the end of five years, right? Because of the way those were engineered. It was like people can't get enough and they want more of whatever that feeling is, and the story had depth enough to continue. That was the thinking that went into it, and then that was the assignment, which is if they if they're dying, I want people crying. If they're dying, they must die so nobly, with such they must take stage and tell the boys what to do and be like, this is how this goes, because we know what we're doing, you don't. You're not strong enough, we are, right? So that it really is this force, and and then abandon all hope. It was seemingly for nothing. When in fact, the survival of the boys, as it happens to be, the denim rap nightmares, the survival of those boys is key to everything in existence, and they understood they're going to they're gonna bring the devil down, we're gonna help. I actually was uh I teary while writing it. So like I was really in that state of like, you know, when the daughter dies before the mother, when I was like, oh, that's that's wicked. And then you get into the emotional space of the mom who never expected to be, but that's what she always feared. Always feared having even a second of life absent her daughter. What could be more powerfully heroic than to endure that and push forward the story, you know. These are all characters, but like I felt that, and and it was beautifully directed and cut, and it was uh still not I don't know exactly, like it it did damage to the audience, you know, like it it which is an interesting exchange to hurt the people that you're engaging with, like it you don't recover immediately from it as you're viewing, right? And and it's like you mourn them and then like mourn them again at one point or another, and it's like it's a scar. So it's like a very interesting area of entertainment, and supernatural is very much. I mean, it's been called the bad boyfriend. Like it's it's like this, it will kind of cut you a little bit, and then it's it's not altogether balanced in terms of that, it's got danger to it, and it's uh it's unstable in that way, which makes part of its uh allure, I have to assume.

Berly: 43:31

I've seen some debate as to why Bobby throws the picture of all of them in the fire at the end of that episode. The picture of Ellen, Joe, Cass, Sam, Dean, Bobby.

Ben Edlund : 43:42

Yeah, I I think it's a debatable subject.

Berly: 43:45

Why did you have him do that though, Mr. Ryder?

Ben Edlund : 43:48

Uh it's a question lost to history. No, um uh because I'm not a hundred percent sure if that was my pitch or Eric's pitch.

Berly: 44:01

Ah, okay.

Ben Edlund : 44:02

Because I think I'm more of a sentimentalist than I think Kripki's almost like a rabid anti-sentimentalist. As much as he's able, he's so much better able to motivate people's emotions. And I'm over here the sentimental one. How did that happen? Um, but anyway, like uh, because I'm always like, oh, you threw it in the fire. Um but I justify it in a kind of a weird way, which is like part of it is like don't leave pictures of yourself lying around when you're in the hunter game.

Berly: 44:38

Oh, okay, yeah.

Ben Edlund : 44:39

Right? Don't it's just like, you know, I mean, in a way, they took it and it's supposed to be a document or what have you. I think it's supposed to be it's like utter devastation, you know. It's like uh and and it's it isn't very rational, it's actually irrational, you know. I don't have like because there's a world where you could kind of justify it from the point of view of like essentially a layer of witchcraft, which is its functions as a form of remains or whatever, it's a vulnerability, but they have other pictures. It's not like they are obsessively burning all pictures. In that case, don't take pictures, right? But then the idea that whatever they were doing before abandon all hope was like riding on the river, and now they're going down the waterfall, and it's like who needs pictures, right? We're not gonna be here. Where we're gonna be is dead, and we're gonna have the devil's throat in our teeth, and that's where we're going. That's what it I think functions as. But as far as like what they're thinking in that moment, it's I'm a little arrested by it too.

Berly: 45:50

We we just kind of concluded that oh well, it was Bobby's version of the hunter's funeral for them.

Ben Edlund : 45:55

He didn't have their bodies to give them that, so that makes great sense, short of I guess okay. If that is the reason you took the picture, right? In in absence of bodies, we will burn this photo um as a hunter's funeral, then that works, you know. Um, it's just the implication of taking the photo is such a like, oh, we're gonna put this in the album because the people who die were gonna remember, right? But then it functions as a funerary object, is uh I guess the debate exists because it's counterintuitive uh counterintuitive in some ways, but like cool, people talking about it right on.

Berly: 46:37

Well, yeah, that episode devastated us. I remember LA, she didn't cry while we were watching it. I was sobbing. And then when we got up here and recorded talking about talking about the episode, and she started crying because she just started processing all of it. Like it took her a second. Okay, so moving on, season seven, the season seven episode that I would like to pick your noodle about, repo man.

Ben Edlund : 47:03

Oh yeah.

Berly: 47:04

How did you come up? That one after we watched it, I was like, oh no. And then it was like three days later, I was like, I think I really liked that episode. It made me think. It really made me think. Like I it I had to take a couple of days to kind of process the whole thing, but I ended up really loving that episode once all was said and done. So I wanted to hear your thoughts about right coming up with that, writing that script and whatnot.

Ben Edlund : 47:28

Yeah, I mean, that was at a point where you know, in season seven, we had done a lot at that, like we had been around the block a couple of times, been to hell and back a few times. I remember that felt like it was sort of a short story that came to me that played with all of the assumptions that we had set up about demons and exorcism and all those things. It would it really was like a short story with uh with a kicker, you know, like an O. Henry aha. It took into its diet this um awareness of collateral damage, like this awareness of like that whole opening, and they beat the hell out of this poor guy. And he's like, thanks. That's Sam and Dean. That's them going through the world. They're helping and beating the hell out of people, and it's like, thanks. Um, so it had that as its sort of A-side, and then there's an appeal to the puzzle box nature of it, which allows for the reveals that fall into place as it proceeds, reminding us about human evil. Because there's a lot of like, even though demonic evil is technically sort of coming from humanity, it's like the ultimate most hurt hurtness ever. So the idea that its output is hurt is elementary, but human evil, it was it wasn't a bad thing to take a peek at, you know, after all this time. Fellow who played Jeffree did a great job.

Berly: 49:10

Oh man, yeah, he nailed it. He nailed it. I I appreciate those stories that Supernatural does on occasion to remind us that humans can be evil too. But until this episode, I feel like they've been kind of extreme examples, like the benders and the girl that was living in the wall, and you know, for this guy to just be, I really liked killing people, and I don't feel like I can do it unless I'm possessed, so come possess me so we can go murder some more. It was just oh, hot damn. So and then you made him really evil because he murdered a dog.

Ben Edlund : 49:43

I know, I know. Um, and there's a part of me, I don't know, like, I don't think I would do that now.

Berly: 49:51

You had him go around the corner and do it off camera. So thankfully.

Ben Edlund : 49:54

Yeah, there's that. But I mean, like, I don't know that I would construct it such that I don't know how you do it and save the dog, but like I think it's good for the story, but uh I I it's just like uh I don't know. I think I've mellowed a bit. So maybe it's just like the decision to do that is the decision of a of a younger me, a more brash. I could like if I was in the same place of story math, I would do the same thing again, which is like it proves everything about Jeffrey. Yeah, it's just like okay, as bad as a demon, he can kill a couple of ladies. That's like the weird TV math, is like, okay, but wait a minute, did he kill that dog?

Berly: 50:39

Yeah, that's that's why you knew he was evil. Yeah, like not the dog, not the cat, not the no, and that's how. Well, sir, the last question that I have for you is pretty is a pretty open question of just season eight. It's your last season. Did you know that going into the season? And what was it like?

Ben Edlund : 50:58

I I don't think I knew that. I think I was feeling at that point that the my number of tricks was probably diminishing um in terms of what I could offer. I I was still, you know, totally converted to the show, etc. But um that's a long period. So I don't think I I did not know that I would uh this would be my last season, but I also am not surprised in retrospect, if that makes sense. And actually, like some point part way through the season, I actually ended up taking a cup at least a week off to help Eric with Revolution, like kind of formatting the pilot and stuff. Just some of the things. I mean, he wrote it, but like the the kind of world building of that. Like when that went, it was kind of like, oh, I've already got kind of like uh one foot in that boat, uh, and it's a new show where we haven't done that already. We you know, The Simpsons did it, was really hitting us hard in season eight, you know, like uh we had done it, we had done it, right? Uh, it's amazing that it had the jet fuel to get to season 15. That was part of where my head was at, actually, for that season, and it arrived. So I was aware that our underlying exposition was running out of uh permutations. Meaning, like we had the demons, we had the yellow-eyed man, we had yellow Lilith, we had a sort of building of the sort of layout of hell, and then the addition of angels, of the cosmic battle and the order, and then we had Leviathan, which comes from Purgatory and is a sort of prior to that arrangement, you know, failed experiment. You go, all right, all right, this is the kind of stuff we're playing with, but then what else is there to talk about in this wildly trafficked world that has been quite defined? So that's when I started to I happen to just be a cult obsessionist, so I'm always doing that. So I would always come in with something, and I'd be like, okay, it a lot of it came from the notion of the Kabbalah and the idea of the sacred word or the sacred writing or language translating into the matrix of the universe, and that there was a language inscribed on stones, and that those could be a series of secrets and reveals and power that could be part of a new layer of uh gameplay, and and that's what became Kevin Tran. And that's what became you know just the the the tablets and the idea that you could learn more. Crowley becomes obsessed with like learning the underpinnings of the universe, and that moves into season nine and forward, and the angels get all anyway. So all of that is like gives us more runway and and and more stuff to play with. And I was fascinated with the idea, and I love the name Metatron. I always have like the to me, that's the best name ever. I don't know why. And it might have to do with the fact that he's the only Transformer in the Bible. That could be the you know, that might be why I'm all into it. Maybe Murgatroyd is also one, I'm not sure.

Berly: 54:32

But um anyway, so you just you just made me think of one more question with Metatron.

Ben Edlund : 54:38

Sure.

Berly: 54:38

When you wrote him, I love I love Curtis Armstrong, by the way. Adore him.

Ben Edlund : 54:43

Yeah, he's great.

Berly: 54:44

But when you wrote him, did you originally picture a Native American being cast in that role?

Ben Edlund : 54:49

No, okay, no, I didn't. Uh I pictured him as an imposition on the Native American people.

Berly: 54:56

Well, then you cast the right race.

Ben Edlund : 54:58

Yeah, I mean, he was this thing that was just like, oh Jesus, what's in that cave? Are more stories? Like uh um because he wasn't doing his job, he was like, you know, an ingrown hare in all of this. And like he was messing with people's lives and creating lengthy lifespans that shouldn't have been, and just messing with all kinds of he had nothing to do with whatever cosmology they were paying attention to. He was just this carpet bagging interloper who likes stories. So to me, that w made sense to me. I I that doesn't mean that another version wouldn't have made better sense, but I didn't know it.

Berly: 55:40

No, now that you've said that, it it makes perfect sense. Now that perfect sense, um, and then just another sidebar. I I loved uh uh Adam and the or Aaron and the Gollum. I want an Aaron and the Gollum spinoff.

Ben Edlund : 55:55

Everybody hates Hitler. Yeah, um, I did too. We talked about that actually. I really like um Adam Rose. He's a really cool guy who played Aaron.

Berly: 56:06

The chemistry between the two of them was just perfection.

Ben Edlund : 56:09

Oh, yeah, they're both are great, and actually um we talked about that with uh Phil um Screecha. Uh, because we felt like, yeah, that could be really cool, but it sort of never arrived as uh I think at that time it was just like other things because I was already separate from this was like in season 10 or something or 11 we were talking about it, and it was like there were discussions already of different like like uh in-house pilots and things, so it was just not um uh helpful to be throwing more stuff in at that point because they already were sort of pushing things down the line. Um, but I felt like that had uh actual like really interesting legs.

Berly: 57:01

I loved it.

Ben Edlund : 57:02

The uh the gambler and the golem would be fun, you know.

Berly: 57:07

I thought so. LA was making fun of me when we recorded our podcast episode because at the end of every paragraph I would go, I loved this. I loved this.

Ben Edlund : 57:16

Nothing wrong with that.

Berly: 57:17

So she was like, Did you love it? Did you love this episode? I don't know. Well, do you have any final thoughts to share about your tenure at Supernatural or words of wisdom to just share with our audience?

Ben Edlund : 57:31

Oh, good heavens. I mean, I uh that was a it's it it's been great. I only work in genre, I only really care about genre. I mean, I like other forms of art. I'm very actually wide uh widely interested in a lot of things, but in terms of what I do and care to do, it's it's this stuff, and my fascination has been lifelong, and I was a fan, and then to go and become part of to me one of the more robust and powerful uh fandoms by helping create the thing and also being a fan of the thing, and just like that to me is really gratifying from the point of view of someone who was outside looking in. You know, the thing that always made me excited was I was I'd be a young person watching, and some weird, very specific idea would fire through whatever I was watching like a laser beam, and it would hit me directly in the center of my brain and go like, that's nuts. And I would be like the most excited about that. I was just really set up to be to register it and be uh excited by it, inspired by it, and then felt uh uh uh uh compelled to make because of it. So, and then I've only ever wanted to make beams like those that hit brains like the ones, the one I had, not any particulars other brains that go, yeah, is exciting to me. And supernatural did that for so many people globally, that it's like that's it's just one of the most interesting parts of my uh professional life that it went like it did, and it has as much staying power, dimension. So uh it's been a great experience, which keeps happening, it keeps going on. It just proven by this conversation.

Berly: 59:47

This delightful conversation. Oh, and again, I was I was thanking you before we took a little break. Thank you for coining the title of our podcast. That just became an earworm for me, and I was like, that's what we're gonna call ourselves.

Ben Edlund : 1:00:00

Right on. I noticed that a while back. I was like, oh yeah, there's an ear for what I have an ear for. Like, and that's the kind of thing, is like that's dialogue that many people don't even hear. It's just like, I'm angry at the boys, is what they hear.

Berly: 1:00:18

I love that line. I loved that line.

Ben Edlund : 1:00:22

I'm uh gratified. Uh yeah. I uh yes, I that was part of a rant on Crowley's part that I felt very uh strongly about. Crowley to me was the smartest player. There was no intellect greater than Crowley's. He was the one who was the scrappiest strategist, and I just wanted him to be smart enough to actually see that he was in a TV show. And they were main characters. Guys, we're dealing with main characters. That's the problem. Don't am I the only person who understands their main character? They have plot armor and their main characters. Does nobody else get this? Like, um, so I'm glad you like it.

Berly: 1:01:09

Yes, and I mean, I just was looking through all of the episodes that you wrote for this series, and like, dude, you batted a thousand. It's just it's insane. Like trying to pick out, because I obviously can't ask you about every single episode, but fuck, I wanted to because they're all so good. Just uh phenomenal. That was the show.

Ben Edlund : 1:01:31

Phenomenal show, it had fertile ground. All we want is a show with fertile ground, and you know, people that are interested in exploring that ground, and that happened to be supernatural. It was remain dedicated to finding interesting places to go, you know. Like uh, we always talked about it, but they did the cartoon one after I left, if I'm not mistaken.

Berly: 1:01:56

We I I know which episode you're talking about, but we haven't seen it yet. So yeah, it's it's after, yeah.

Ben Edlund : 1:02:01

Yep, and it's like, I mean, so uh they they kept doing crazy cool shit, you know, yeah, like uh, which I respect. So it gave it a lot of moments where it did something that hadn't been really done, you know, like in especially in terms of meta. That is an area that we kind of inhabited and specialized in, like, in a way that not too many other shows took those chances with like introducing the actual cast.

Berly: 1:02:36

Yeah, the meta stuff for sure, but you just you just also created even quiet dialogue moments. I mean, like we said with Ellen and Joe right there at the end, and to have them die and then Sam and Dean not accomplish the task they sacrificed themselves to do. Just that episode rattles around in my head. Christopher Heierdahl as Alistair just being tortured. That dialogue just you created some phenomenal moments, and just I'm I'm not blowing smoke. Like you you batted a thousand. It's amazing work.

Ben Edlund : 1:03:08

I appreciate that. I was uh it was fun, it was good, it was hard, but it was worth it.

LA: 1:03:14

I'm kind of worried going forward because I think you wrote what like my most favorite episodes. So now I'm like, oh I don't know, I don't know how it's gonna be now.

Ben Edlund : 1:03:25

It's gonna be just fine. Um I mean that you know, part of what's great about a show is that it's like no one episode. It's this world, it's those guys, it's like their experience and this like what became quite epic. Uh once you get God on the call list, on the call sheet. Uh, if you got God on the call sheet, then you've truly you've gone epic. Um, but I appreciate that. I take writing stuff pretty seriously. Like I get very obsessive and so I'm happy that there are other people out there equally caught up in made up shit.

Berly: 1:04:15

So, what did you think about that conversation, LA?

LA: 1:04:18

I love him. And I wish everybody could see all his stuff behind him, too.

Berly: 1:04:24

I might do a little promo video with it.

LA: 1:04:26

Yeah. I told him I might. He's definitely an interesting character.

Berly: 1:04:30

Unique. Yeah. I understand why he's called the secret weapon. And Mr. Edland will be returning to speak with us in our supernatural music extravaganza series that we did with Sadie Wikowski from In Defense of Fandom, where we're celebrating the music of Supernatural as part of their 20th anniversary. So you'll get to hear from Ben Edland some more whenever that series comes out. The first episode will publish on November 11th. I think that's a Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. Well, as always on our bonus episodes, we want to give a shout out to our Bobby members over on Patreon. Thank you all so much for supporting the show. You help cover our out-of-pocket expenses for everything, and we really appreciate your support. So, shout out to Puppy Mom06, Michelle Lynn, Yellow Fever Scream, Kara Styler, Jordan, Jasmine Armadillo, Kat, Alicia Wooten, Shannon Seldon, Emily Williams, Basket of Daisies, Ellen McCarthy, Theresa Hampton, Patricia Holland, and James Defrange. Cheers. Cheers.

LA: 1:05:56

Thank you for listening to Denim Wrapped Nightmares. Follow us on Twitter or Instagram, leave a review, and let us know how we can get involved in the fandom. This was fun, jerks. It always is.