Eric Fogel, the man behind Celebrity Deathmatch, talks about reactions from Marilyn Manson, Howard Stern and Lucy Lawless.
Question: What were some of the positive responses from celebrities who got skewered on Celebrity Deathmatch?
Marilyn Manson was our stop-motion guinea pig of sorts, battling Charles Manson in the very first Deathmatch we ever animated.
Clearly a fan of the darkly comedic tone of the show, he was delighted when we presented him with his very own animation puppet.
Manson became a fan favorite, appearing in three separate episodes, as well as a Deathmatch-inspired stop motion music video for his single, “Astonishing Panorama of the End Times.”
Manson even went on record after he defeated the boy band Hanson and was quoted as saying “…they (Hanson) were really upset that I murdered them, so I thought it was great that I could make those kids cry.”
Howard Stern, who at the time was in a real life feud with morning talk show host Kathie Lee Gifford, was tickled by our clay-animated version. He described the battle blow by blow on his national radio show as it played in the background: “So I defeat Kathie Lee Gifford by farting…and there’s green noxious fumes coming out of my ass, and she melts down. So it was pretty good.”
Occasionally, when a celebrity came forward who was clearly enthusiastic about the show, we would invite them to come back and do their own voices (rather than the sound-alikes we’d normally use). This was the case with Xena, Warrior Princess star Lucy Lawless.
During her match, uber skinny Calista Flockhart gets rammed up Lucy’s butt. I thought for sure we were going to get hate mail from Miss Lawless but the opposite happened. Here’s what she told E Online: “Let me just say that I wasn’t offended at all. I was floored. Of all the merchandising knock-offs and things that have featured Xena or just my face, this one really hit home for me. It was like, oh my god, I’m part of popular culture!”
To be continued…
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