Bedknobs & Broomflicks: “Simon, King of the Witches”

Brandishing knives and rocking neckerchiefs- Hercules (Gerald York) sits watching Simon (Andrew Prine) in 1971's cult film "Simon, King of the Witches."

Your ol’ buddy Chris was honored to be a guest on the marvelously irreverent & fun podcast Bedknobs & Broomflicks, hosted by the wisecracking & fun-loving Linda & Jane. They discuss witches, man-witches, sorcerers, wizards, and other magic-practitioners in movies, television shows, history, comics, games, and novels. In the occasional minisode, they discuss a heroic and/or just-plain-awesome animal in their “Favorite Familiar” segment. In short…they are fantastic…although they do have questionable judgement in having me on.

This week we got to sit down and chit chat about the bizarre 1971 cult horror offering Simon, King of the Witches – Directed by Bruce Kessler and starring Andrew Prine, Brenda Scott, George Paulsin, Norman Burton, Gerald York, Richmond Shepard, & Ultra Violet.  It’s just a typical, run-of-the-mill story about a haughty warlock who lives in a storm drain and decides that he is going to impress his young hustler friend by getting vengeance on a man who stiffed him with a bad check. Oh, that…and when he has the spare time, he is trying to turn himself into a living god…that old chestnut.

Yes, It’s real…and I love it.

The talk gets a little raunchy, Chris tips his hat at knowing more about anatomy than you may have initially guessed, and there is much talk about “effluvium” in an “Alister Crowley” sense. Come for the laughs and stay for some weird cult film talk…and when you are done, check out their other episodes, and listen to Linda’s other two shows with her genre loving brother Donny & their acerbic friend Adrian- covering the wide ranging oeuvre of Nicolas Cage on their show Cage’s Kiss– as well as their new show Videorama, where our same three intrepid hosts work at a gigantic video store and attempt to curate a specific film recommendation based on the requests they receive. It’s boisterous, it’s rude, and underneath the sophomoric caprice – there is a deep and abiding knowledge of film coyly being put on display.

Please, do yourselves the favor- give them a spin, drop them a favorable review, subscribe & support our fellow indie podcasting friends.

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Bedknobs and Broomflicks

Check out their website: https://www.cageskiss.com/

*Post Episode Correction (on my part):

Hi all- a quick apology, I was trying to think on my feet when we were recording and in going back and listening to the episode, I realize that I ended up incorrectly saying that Alan Parsons was deeply into the occult,- hanging out with L. Ron Hubbard and dicking around with the teachings of Alister Crowley – when I meant (and should have said) it was scientist Jack Parsons who was actually doing just that. Perhaps I was just listening to “Games People Play” too much from my 70’s playlist? Either way- the amazing book Sex & Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons by John Carter and Robert Anton Wilson is a fascinating read, and one that I can’t recommend enough for you buffs of history, the occult, or rocket science. Check it out today.

~CR