Episode 1015 - WMAC Masters
In this episode Andrew sits down and chats with author and writer Kristopher Landis all about WMAC Masters (World Martial Arts Council), a mid 90’s martial arts TV show.
WMAC Masters - Episode 1015
SUMMARY
In this engaging conversation, Kristopher Landis discusses his experiences with WMAC Masters, a 90s kids TV show that combined martial arts with storytelling. He shares his journey from being a fan of the show to becoming a writer, exploring the impact of the show on his life and the martial arts community. The discussion also touches on the behind-the-scenes aspects of WMAC Masters, its legacy, and the future of martial arts in media.
Kristopher Landis shares his journey of rediscovering the beloved 90s martial arts show WMAC Masters and his mission to preserve its legacy through his book, 'Quest for the Dragon Star.' He discusses the challenges and triumphs of interviewing cast and crew members, the dedication of those involved in the show, and the impact it had on martial arts culture. Kristopher also reveals exciting developments about reviving the show for a new generation, emphasizing the responsibility he feels to honor its history while creating fresh content.
TAKEAWAYS
He had nine months of taekwondo experience as a child.
WMAC Masters was a kids TV show that aired in 1995-96.
The show featured real-life world-class martial artists and aimed to teach life lessons through martial arts.
The show ended on a cliffhanger, leaving fans wanting more.
Kristopher's journey as a writer began after a bad publishing experience.
WMAC Masters was ahead of its time in martial arts representation.
He initially had no plan but realized he was writing a book.
The mission became about preserving the spirit of the show.
Many cast members were eager to share their stories and help.
The book is a compilation of interviews with the cast and crew.
Kristopher feels a responsibility to honor the legacy of WMAC Masters.
He is now the head writer for a potential revival of the show.
The revival aims to connect with a new generation of martial arts fans.
The book includes previously unseen drawings of what a season three could have looked like.
Kristopher emphasizes the importance of storytelling in preserving history.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
3:08 The Legacy of WMAC Masters
13:22 Rediscovering WMAC Masters
16:25 The Journey to Writing a Book
17:12 Unveiling the Martial Arts Legacy
21:40 Behind the Scenes of WMAC Masters
22:54 A New Chapter: Reviving WMAC Masters
26:16 The Responsibility of Storytelling
29:22 Connecting with the Audience
31:06 The Oral History of WMAC Masters
This episode references these past guests:
Episode 26: Shihan Christine Bannon-Rodrigues — whistlekick Martial Arts Radio
Episode 28 - Mr. Mike Chat — whistlekick Martial Arts Radio
Episode 80 - Mr. Taimak Guarriello — whistlekick Martial Arts Radio
Episode 216 - Shihan Chris Casamassa — whistlekick Martial Arts Radio
Episode 386 - Miss Shannon Lee — whistlekick Martial Arts Radio
Episode 636 - Professor Willie “The Bam” Johnson — whistlekick Martial Arts Radio
To purchase The Quest for the Dragon Star: An Oral History of WMAC Masters:
Purchase here through Amazon
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Andrew (09:35.716)
Welcome. You're listening and we're watching to the next episode of Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. And today we've got a special episode to talk all about WMAC Masters with a new friend of the show, Christopher Landis. Christopher, how are you today?
Kristopher Landis (09:50.626)
I'm doing great, thanks so much for having me.
Andrew (09:52.964)
Excellent. I'm excited to get into this topic and talk all about what it was, what it is and what it's going to be. But before we get there, let's quickly talk about, I want to make sure that you, the audience know all the stuff that Whistlekick does. We obviously released this podcast twice a week, over 1000 episodes at this point, which by the way, every single one of those episodes completely free. Keep that in mind when I talk about Patreon at the end of the show, just saying.
but this podcast is only one small bit of what whistlekick does. We have a book division that releases books. We have sparring gear that you can purchase through our store. Whistlekick.com is where you can go to find everything that we do. have events throughout the country that you can come and attend. we've got training programs there that you can purchase to get faster or smoother or get better flexibility.
All of those things are at whistlekick.com. If you want to learn more about the show, though, that you would find at whistlekickmarshallartsradio.com. You'll find show notes on every episode, transcripts, photos. And also there you will find a new tab at the top for subscribe, where you can join our newsletter, where you do get a free book right off the bat for joining our newsletter and you will get announcements of episodes as they come out. So you don't miss anything.
And so Christopher, we're here to talk about WMAC masters, but before we get there, let's learn a little bit about you. We are a martial arts show. So I think it's only fair we start with martial arts. let's, know, quickly let's chat about what your martial arts experience is like.
Kristopher Landis (11:31.384)
Yes.
Kristopher Landis (11:41.006)
I'm glad we're talking about WMAC Masters because it's literally the only thing I'm qualified to talk about when it comes to martial arts. For those of you who don't know, WMAC Masters was a TV show that was on in 1995, 96. So I was seven, eight years old at the time. Of course, I was a fan of 90s pro wrestling and Power Rangers. So I was the target demographic for this show. I saw it after wrestling came on one Saturday morning and immediately fell in love. And of course,
Andrew (11:47.334)
You
Kristopher Landis (12:08.288)
inspired by this show that so captivated my little seven year old brain, I immediately wanted to start doing martial arts. And so I convinced my parents to let me do taekwondo because Olympus was my favorite on the show, Her Perez, taekwondo gold medalist. And I got to take approximately nine months of taekwondo before I got pulled out because my little type one diabetic body had an incident and my parents were like, no mas. So I had
I had about nine months of taekwondo experience in Columbus, Ohio, where I'm from. I later found out that the guy who ran the school actually helped train her perez for the Olympics. Much later on, I found that out, which was fantastic. But yeah, so my actual martial arts experience functional? Absolutely none. But I know a lot about it now from doing the book and generally being adjacent to that world.
Andrew (13:00.72)
Sure, sure. And we'll get to the book, but let's go to WMAC Masters first. I remember the show as well. In 95 when it came out, I was just out of college, just out of high school a couple of years. I was in college, but I trained, I started training myself in martial arts in 91. So I had been involved for a number of years, so I was familiar with the show, but I...
Kristopher Landis (13:05.964)
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew (13:27.78)
all but guarantee we will have listeners and people watching that don't know what WMAC Masters is. exactly. So I'm going to throw it to you because you have a knowledge of the show that I don't. But what was WMAC Masters as it was released in 95 or 96?
Kristopher Landis (13:33.486)
who weren't born yet. Yeah. Okay.
Kristopher Landis (13:48.618)
WMAC Masters was a kids TV show, so it was aimed at children. It starred real life, world class martial artists, most of them taken from the NASCA sport karate circuit. And it also had a few stunt people who were martial artists. Also involved a lot of the original stunt crew from the first iteration of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. There was some crossover there, some of those guys and gals were in the sport karate circuit too, know, wasn't this and this.
But basically those were the cast and they all played kind of over the top WWF sized versions of themselves. know, Herb Perez became Olympus, Mike Bernardo became Turbo, the bad, the killer biker guy, you know. So, so they were playing versions of themselves and they were doing choreographed fights at Universal Studios Florida on the rides in the off hour. So you had fights being choreographed.
at the King Kong ride down where all the cars were and they had a couple other locations they shot to and it had world-class fight choreographers, Pat Johnson, Isaac Florentine, Eugene Oguchi, these guys were all top choreographers. The martial artists were legit world-class martial artists and it was a kids show. designed to kind of, initially designed to kind of teach life lessons through martial arts and kind of preserve the...
kind of like the Bruce Lee Foundation does a lot now to kind of preserve his vision and legacy. Shannon Lee was the host of season one. So they kind of played into that. It was all about kind of teaching kids a good version of martial arts, essentially how martial arts can be beneficial to their life, how it's not just kicking your friend in the teeth, like so many kids would probably take it if they were just watching Power Rangers, myself included. So the show ran for two seasons in 95 and 96.
and one episode we don't talk about in 97 because it was just a clip show. There was a lot of changeover between season one and season two, budget concerns, know, blah, blah, blah. They shifted to a more storyline soap opera vision for season two. Different people came in and out and eventually they weren't able to continue because they just ran out of funding. Their main funding was Bandai, the toy company, and they had a really fractious relationship. A bunch of toys came out, they didn't sell well, but Bandai was like...
Andrew (16:02.181)
Yep.
Kristopher Landis (16:07.776)
shady about it, like it's all in the book. basically, Masters was way ahead of its time as far as the quality of martial arts on TV. I had one of the cast tell me they wouldn't, people wouldn't be doing this type of martial arts on TV or in movies until Jet Li broke big in America five, seven years later. So, you know, I'm not qualified to make that judgment call, but somebody who's in the industry told me that. you know, that was the show. It was way ahead of its time. It was great. And
Andrew (16:26.008)
Mm. Yep.
Andrew (16:32.326)
Sure, sure.
Kristopher Landis (16:37.582)
I loved it as a kid.
Andrew (16:39.172)
Yeah. So WMAC Masters World Martial Art Council was what it officially stood for. We did have the pleasure of having Shannon Lee on the show years ago. She was episode 386, as you mentioned, was the host of season one. You know, we have had the pleasure of having a fair number of guests on the show. If anybody listening or watching wants to go back, Christine Benn and Rodriguez was episode
26, she was Lady Lightning. Mike Chat was, we had episode two, two episodes later, episode 28. So almost back to back episodes with cast members who played Wizard. Tymac was episode 80, who played Striking Eagle. Yeah, Chris Casamassa, who's been a strong supporter of the show was episode 216. He played Red Dragon.
Kristopher Landis (17:18.094)
Yeah!
Kristopher Landis (17:25.548)
Well...
Andrew (17:34.118)
And then the most recent one, although it was years ago, we had Willie Johnson, Willie the BAM on for episode 386. So that's actually that number.
Kristopher Landis (17:46.304)
That's a great crew. Chris Casamassa was my first interview that I did when the project that became the book started. He was the first person to say yes, and to this day, I am convinced that if he doesn't say yes to me, the book doesn't happen because I have no background in martial arts and someone the caliber of him saying yes to me without anybody vouching for me, that raised me in the eyes of some of the other people who then went on to introduce me to others.
Andrew (18:14.768)
That's great. Yeah.
Kristopher Landis (18:15.086)
I owe a lot to Chris. I owe a lot to all the cast, really, but.
Andrew (18:19.174)
And I wanna correct myself, I was wrong. It was episode 686 for Willie Johnson. I know if I didn't correct that, I would start to get emails. Hey, it was 686, not 386.
Kristopher Landis (18:29.454)
One person in the comments. Yeah
You have dedicated fans and that's good.
Andrew (18:36.606)
Absolutely, absolutely. Now, I remember the show because like the martial arts were really good. Like I have gone back and watched a few episodes recently within the last year. And you know, it definitely comes off as a little hokey, but I remember these life lessons, right? And I remember it being a bit of a story line. I seem to remember season two more than season one.
Kristopher Landis (19:04.62)
Yeah, a lot of people did.
Andrew (19:05.092)
Right? Having a storyline and the quest for the Dragon Star, right? You know, it was this big thing and it was a big tournament. But I remember very well the fights being very well done. And it doesn't surprise me when you had a actual martial artists doing the material and being choreographed by someone like Pat Johnson and others, you know.
people that may not know, Pat Johnson also choreographed a lot of the fights in the Karate Kid movies as well. So like all of that stuff combined made this show that in my mind was probably a little ahead of its time.
Kristopher Landis (19:46.912)
Absolutely, yeah, if that show comes on in like the early 2000s when maybe there's a little more internet presence aimed at kids and teens, am a little more cable, you know.
Cable creeped into more people's homes, I was trying to say, sorry. I think it really probably does latch on a little more, because at the time, there was Power Rangers and its offshoots, VR troopers, beetle boards, whatever, and then this, and then kind of adjacent to this, the Mortal Kombat movies happened, and Street Fighter, it kind of, the movies and the entertainment side.
things were making the jump, but I think it really did just hit three, five years too early. And, you know, it really could have been a bigger, bigger thing if they had had a better partner than Bandai for sure.
Andrew (20:39.494)
Yeah. Now let's fast forward a little bit. So it came out in 95. You were a fan of the show. You were seven years old and fast forward. You know, you, you're not seven years old now, obviously years have gone by, but it held something for you.
Kristopher Landis (20:47.811)
Yes.
Kristopher Landis (20:57.474)
Yeah. Yeah. So it ended on a cliffhanger. I won't give away too much of the plot or the cliffhanger, but it ends on this big like, my God moment because they're trying to get a third season and then it just ends. And that never sat right with me. You know, I became a writer and a storyteller and that always just really unsettled me as a writer, you know, it stuck in my craw so to speak.
And every few years I would Google CEO, maybe somebody said something, maybe they're doing something with it because everything's getting remade, you know, in the 2000s, 2010s, you know, surely somebody's got to do something with this. Power Rangers is still going. So somebody's got to do something, right? And it never did. And so in 2021, I had a mystery novel come out because I'm a writer, I'm a stay at home dad. have a son who's just about a year old. I have a mystery novel come out. I'm really excited about it.
And the publisher ends up being a scam artist. I never get paid, lose a lot of money trying to get the rights back. So I'm like devastated, feeling like I'm at a career low, obviously lockdown era of the pandemic still going on. And I'm like, I need something to occupy my mind. I can't do another novel right now because I'm not ready to go through that experience again. If you don't know doing a novel, have to write the thing, then you have to actually sell the thing. It's a lot. And so...
I was just kind of randomly browsing YouTube on Apple TV, because we're cord cutters, and I got a recommended video for WMAC Masters, probably, because of the algorithm, know, years of search history. And I was like, oh, yeah. And so I binged the whole show, because I got a nine month old or whatever sitting in my lap just laughing when the ninjas get hit. And it gets to the cliffhanger. I'm like, son of a B, this still bothers me. I'm like, okay, I've put out a novel. I got a good looking website. My wife's a graphic designer. She makes me look official. I used to be a journalist covering soccer, so.
I've got just enough name legitimacy or booking legitimacy, not real legitimacy, that somebody might say yes to me. So I'm like, a lot of these guys and gals still have schools. I'm gonna email the karate schools. And like I said, Chris Casamassa said yes. And shortly thereafter that, Herb Perez said yes, Christine Bannon. And like each person would introduce me to the next person down the line. I started getting introduced to some of the cast, or I'm sorry, some of the crew.
Kristopher Landis (23:19.854)
Eventually I interviewed the creators and I had no idea at the time what I was gonna do with any of this. I was like, maybe I'll start a medium page and I could do a little series and get some clicks and raise my profile that way, you know. I had no real plan and about four or five weeks in, having coffee downstairs with my wife at the house at the time and I go, I think I'm doing a book. I think this is gonna be a book. And she just looks at me and she goes.
Duh, like she's been under the assumption for the last five weeks I was doing a book and I was the last one to know. So at that point, I really made it my kind of mission to find out and preserve as much as I could because I realized that nobody else was going to do that, first of all. And second of all, people involved with the show were passing away already. Richard Brandon, one of the best, perhaps the most well-loved
member of that cast. Everybody loved Richard Brandon, fantastic martial artist. He's already passed away. He passed away before I even got to talk to him. And so everybody's telling me these stories about Richard Brandon. I'm like, okay, that's when I knew like, I'm preserving something that's bigger than just a book about a kids TV show became about preserving the spirit of the show and preserving the kind of heart of what they were trying to do more than the actual episodes themselves and
it became kind of a mission to do that. And I'm very lucky I got a lot of help along the way. Everybody, pretty much everybody in the cast and crew, very few people said no to talking to me. And everybody really went out of their way to find old photos. Jamie Webster, who played Great Wolf, he went into his garage, he kept everything. He dug out all of his original scripts, photocopied his scripts and sent them to me so I had scripts.
He didn't want a dime in money to do any of that. He just did it and sent it all to me. And that's really kind of why I felt so strongly about it because these people who made the show still, almost 30 years later, cared that much to help me, and nobody to them, make it happen.
Andrew (25:25.572)
Yeah, that's pretty and the name of the book is
Kristopher Landis (25:29.24)
Quest for the Dragon Star, an oral history of WMAC Masters. It is available on Amazon, is available on barnsandnoble.com, it's available directly from me if you send me a DM on any of the social media pages. We're trying to get it into more places, but that's a hard proposition with the world the way it is right now. So, you know, it was an entirely self-funded, self-written, self-designed operation, self-published. My wife is a...
art director for a major children's magazine. So she did the layout, made it look all official and pretty. It was all done in house. There was no outside leverage. So we were a small team.
Andrew (26:12.816)
Were there, I don't know, I know there were stories, but were there things that you found out in doing the book that made the show even more for you?
Kristopher Landis (26:24.948)
Yes, first was just understanding how amazing these men and women were at martial arts because as a kid, you can watch a TV show or a movie and you can think I was a great martial artist if it's shot correctly and if it's choreographed well. As a kid, you don't go, that was legitimately the best karate fighter in the world for three years. that guy won a Taekwondo gold medal. You don't understand like the impact.
how much that actually means. And then kind of understanding just how much went into the show. You know, they were all holed up in a hotel in Orlando for months at a time. They didn't live there. They were there to shoot the show. They were working overnights. They were, you know, doing all of this insane schedule to make this show that really was a cheesy 90s kids show.
but so much heart went into it that it really just kind of made me appreciate, it made me appreciate all of it more, but it almost made me appreciate the cheesiness of it more because there was so much genuine intention behind so many other aspects of it.
Andrew (27:37.127)
And is there, obviously we're not going to have you recite the entire book right now, but is there one thing that audience members listening would hear and be like, wow, that was really cool. Like one cool little story that you learned from doing the book that could be a bit of a teaser maybe for our audience.
Kristopher Landis (27:43.192)
We don't have time.
Kristopher Landis (28:03.438)
I'm trying to think. Your audience is more of the martial arts side than the entertainment side. So I'm trying to think of what would appeal to the martial artists in the room. Well, the stories of how the cast were scouted and selected for the show. Basically, the executive producers who Alfred Kahn, Carlin West, Norman Grossfeld, Kathy Pilon at the time, Borland.
Pat Johnson, They basically tapped Pat Johnson to like help us cast this thing. So Pat was going around to all the major NASKA tournaments and obviously he's a fixture there. Everybody knows Mr. J is what they call them, know, Mrs. J and they were there and basically they'd watched the tournaments. Then after the shows were done, I don't know if they're called shows, sorry, after the competitions were done, my ignorance coming through.
Andrew (28:44.4)
Yep. Yep.
Kristopher Landis (28:57.262)
After the competitions were done, they would go up to the people they were interested in and they would say, hey, we're doing this thing. And several different cast members told me it was After the Battle of Atlanta in 1994. They go into this room and there's different people told me different numbers. I'm gonna go with the conservative side, 15 to 20 of the best martial artists you can name. Chris Casamassa, Christine Bannon Rodriguez, Hakeem Austin.
Mike Bernardo, know, Willie Bam Johnson, they were all in a room together, Richie Brandon, Larry Lamb was there, and they're all kind of looking at each other, like, what's going on here? Like, there's a palpable tension, and then Pat Johnson walks in and he goes, we would like you guys to be on the show. And everybody just like, was like, oh, this is real. Because several of them are like, we've been talked to about doing shows before.
we don't get our hopes up, you know? So I think martial arts fans would be really interested to see just how the process of making a show aimed at children work for world-class martial artists, because they talked a lot about the cast members who weren't in the actual fights were up playing the ninjas. And so, know, Christine Bannon Rodriguez told me a story. She was a ninja for a fight between Hakeem and someone else, and Hakeem...
laid one in and she was like, Hakeem, it's me. And he was like, no. So, you know, just the actual nuts and bolts of what it's like making a TV show when you're a real world-class martial artist and you're not used to pulling your punches, you know, because not all of these guys and gals were trained in fight choreography yet.
Andrew (30:34.31)
Yeah.
Andrew (30:40.56)
Yeah, and we've had a number of guests on the show that are stunt choreographers and you know doing martial arts and doing stunt choreography are different, right? It's a skill that people have to learn. Now the book is not the end of your journey.
Kristopher Landis (30:50.85)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kristopher Landis (30:57.038)
As of very recently, it's not. So I'm gonna give the shortest version of this story that I can, because it's a long, weird... I would prefer to keep it short because there's a lot of weird bumps in the road and things I can't talk about. But basically, shortly after the book came out, somebody who was on the show at the time, not a cast member, but someone who was in the crew, contacted me and said, hey, I'm trying to get a team together. Your book has really inspired us. We wanna see if we can bring this back.
Andrew (31:05.009)
doesn't have to be short, whatever.
Kristopher Landis (31:26.51)
had a couple meetings with them, a couple Zoom calls. It didn't work out. For reasons, things like that don't work out. People are working on other projects. Not everybody understood the show. People didn't understand it. Whatever. It was a couple meetings, but it kind of lit that thing inside me that was like, I had already put together a little vision of what I thought it would look like. And so was like, you know what? I'm just gonna work on this for me. It became kind of the thing I worked on when I...
was writers blocked on something else, just for me. And I ended up doing page after page of lore and what a reboot continuation would look like and what happened after the original show. And I never thought it would be seen by anyone but me. I'm like, maybe one day I'll post it on my social media. Like, this is what I would have done, but that's never gonna happen. And last year, I get a message from someone, Scott was...
martial artist, he was a little bit younger than the guys and gals on the show, but he trained under Larry Lamb, Richard Brandon. He's part of the scene, knows everyone. He messaged me, he's like, hey, I'm trying to do some WMAC merch, who owns the trademarks? I'm like, I don't know. And all my digging, I couldn't find who owned what. It's one of the big mysteries, because the company that made the show got split up and their assets sold off and everything's to the wind. He's like, I'm gonna look into it. I'm like, keep me posted. And months go by, I hear from him every once in a while, he's like, I've applied for the trademark.
I'm like, cool, awesome. And he's like, don't know if it'll happen or not. I'm like, okay. Towards the end of last year, he's like, I think it's gonna happen. I was like, okay. So we've been talking for almost a year now. When you get the trademarks, are you gonna try to do just merch or he's like, I don't know yet. I'm like, before you start listening to pitches for everything going on, you know, I have a vision that I've kind of developed here.
Can I pitch my vision to you before you make any decisions? He's absolutely, man. And I sent him a little write-up of what I thought things would look like. And he was like, that's it, we're doing it. That's what we're gonna do. Because he already filed a rapport with me. He said my book is what kind of jump-started his process of wanting to do it. Carmichael Simon and his good friends with Scott, Carmichael came on board. They were working together to secure the trademarks and they're handling all the business side. And basically,
Kristopher Landis (33:45.838)
A ago yesterday, I think it was, I was officially announced as, can't believe this is real words I'm gonna say, but head writer of WMAC Masters. So whatever we're doing next, I am apparently helming the ship for. So seven year old kid inside me, really happy about that.
Andrew (34:04.134)
Well, first off, congratulations. That's really cool. You know, it's it's great to hear that this show that had such an impact on you. For lack of better words, you were not able to give back into it and and create the next version of the show that meant so much to you.
Kristopher Landis (34:06.862)
Thank you.
Kristopher Landis (34:19.694)
Absolutely.
Kristopher Landis (34:27.34)
Yeah, it's an amazing opportunity, obviously, as a stay-at-home dad who's a writer on the side, getting the chance to be head writer of an entertainment property. Huge opportunity professionally, whatever. That's obviously true, but I almost feel like it's more of a responsibility than that because it did mean so much to me and through the book I did, I've met so many people that it meant a lot to. I've met so many people who say they got into martial arts because of WMAC Masters. They are
working in the stunt industry now. They're teaching martial arts schools. I feel like with the book, I felt like it was my responsibility to kind of memorialize the show, because I figured it was done. I wanted to preserve the memory and the stories. And now I'm looking at this like I have a chance to
to show it to a new generation. I have a five-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. If things go the way we all want them to go, I'll have a chance to write a show that they and their friends could watch and fall in love with martial arts. So it's an amazing opportunity. I'm really excited about it. But it's also, I don't want to say burden, because that has a negative connotation. But it's definitely a responsibility, because so many people gave so much of themselves to make the first show.
I want to make sure we're being really true to that.
Andrew (35:50.299)
Yeah. And that makes sense. Do you have, mean, I know that this is super duper recent, but do you have an expected timeline of when this is going to happen?
Kristopher Landis (35:57.783)
Yeah.
Kristopher Landis (36:04.8)
No, I am very much staying in my lane as the writer story guy. The business side of things, which is Scott and Carmichael, and they have teams working in different, you know, they want to open WMAC masters affiliated schools and have schools that already exist be affiliated with the new WMAC. I'm like, there are so many things they want to do. I am, I'll listen to the conversation, but I have nothing to add.
Andrew (36:31.27)
Sure.
Kristopher Landis (36:33.73)
Doing a TV show or a movie or whatever is so expensive. Doing a TV show of a essentially dead brand is a non-starter. So a lot of what's gotta happen first is basically bringing the brand back to life, doing things that will raise people's awareness, remind people what it is, getting the original show back out there.
and creating new content around the original show. We've talked a lot about, obviously there's nothing official, so I can't announce anything, but it's not gonna be just TV. We wanna do books, wanna do audio dramas is a thing I've pitched. So the odds are really good that WMAC fans are going to get something that's not a TV show on the path to there being a new TV show.
really excited about a lot of the possibilities there because you I've done a book scratch about this stuff. If I have actual people, you know, pushing things along, I'm pretty confident I could do something pretty dang cool. timeline wise, you're not going to have it by Christmas. Let's put it that way, you know. But I'm really hopeful that in the in the months to come, we'll have some really exciting, you know,
developments to announce and it's just a matter of finding the right partners to make it a possibility.
Andrew (38:05.83)
Well, we certainly look forward to hearing what's coming and when it's coming. And I know our listeners will be interested in that as well. If any of our listeners want to reach out to you for any questions or whatever, are you open to that and how would they do that?
Kristopher Landis (38:22.594)
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Debating whether or not to give out an email address in a public forum. It's probably easiest to reach out over various social media channels. There's a Facebook page for the book. It's facebook.com slash quest for the dragon star. I'm also on X under WMAC master's book or I'm on blue sky as just slash Chris Landis. I think it's Chris Landis, not Christopher Landis. You know what? To hell with it.
WMACmastersbook at gmail.com is another place. I will say, know lots of people are really excited. A lot of people have ideas they want to share. We are asking that people, if you want to create fan works and art and stuff, cool, post that, tag us. But if you're trying to pitch things, pitch ideas, we're asking everyone to please hold off on that while we're laying groundwork for things. We don't want anyone to feel like they're.
has been usurped or anything if we end up doing something similar down the road if and when there's a time we are looking for for ideas and input feedback we definitely will make that publicly known but just out of respect for everybody's integrity we want to make sure we're letting people know we're not looking for pitches at this time. Yeah it's not even about that it's just I I know that you know if I was a writer and I sent somebody an idea and I saw a pop-up on TV three years later
Andrew (39:39.43)
You got it covered for now, for sure.
Kristopher Landis (39:50.331)
So, you know, we just want to make sure everybody's protected.
Andrew (39:52.817)
Sure, and that makes sense. makes sense. What, before we finish up, what have we not talked about that we should make sure to get out there about the show or your inclusion in it or anything?
Kristopher Landis (40:05.998)
I do want people who are fans of the original show to know in the book I did though the history of the show. One, it's not me talking about, you know, just I love Masters. It's actual interviews with the cast and crew. It's an oral history. So it's them telling the story in their own words. I was just kind of a scribe compiling it. And also, you know, little, little hook, little teaser. If you ever wondered what was supposed to happen with that big cliffhanger, I did find out. I did. I even got some previously.
never before seen drawings of what a season three could have looked like. you know, they had little reason to buy the book, you know, just putting it out there.
Andrew (40:45.062)
Awesome. Excellent. Well, I'm sure that there are a lot of audience members listening and watching that are now they've been teased enough. you know, feel free to go check it out. Quest for the Dragon Star on Amazon or, you know, Barnes and Noble, as you mentioned, or contacting you. So, thank you so much, Christopher, for joining us. This was a lot of fun and I'm really excited for seeing what is going to be coming and, you know, keep us posted and
Kristopher Landis (40:53.132)
Yes.
Kristopher Landis (41:01.218)
Yes. Yes.
Andrew (41:13.574)
then we'll all be along for the ride.
Kristopher Landis (41:16.334)
Well, I'm very honored to be here. Like I said earlier, I have no place being in any sort of martial arts thing, and yet here we are. So thank you so much for having me and for your support of the cast and the show over the years.
Andrew (41:27.084)
Awesome. And audience listening, I teased it at the beginning of the show, our Patreon. know, keep in mind that this episode you got to listen to and find out the ins and outs of the book and everything coming out for the new show, the potential new show and all the other stuff. All of that stuff you got to listen to for free. Over 1000 episodes that cost you, the listener, nothing. But I can guarantee you.
Believe me when I say this show is not free to produce. It definitely costs money and anything that you can do to help support us will be hugely appreciated. Patreon.com forward slash whistle kick even for as little as five dollars a month, which is less than a cup of coffee these days. So please help make this show happen. Help support the show whistlekick.com for everything else that we do.
Kristopher Landis (42:09.634)
That's right.
Andrew (42:18.468)
whistlekick martial arts radio.com sign up for a new newsletter through our subscribe button and until next time train hard smile and have a great day.