8h ago

Army of Darkness (1992) — "Time... Evil... Gas" (with Neal Vaadeland)

"Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas." Nine words. Two enormous cosmic problems... and then an errand. That's the joke. That's the whole movie: a man facing the end of the world who is mostly annoyed by the inconvenience of it. Voice actor Neal Vaadeland (Fargo, North Dakota, don't you know) joins Nate to break down Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness (1992). It's the third Evil Dead film, except Universal wanted it to stand on its own, so nobody got to call it that. It bombed in theaters, found its people on home video, and became the gateway into the franchise for a whole lot of us... Nate and Neal included. The tagline is a textbook rule of three with a deflating last beat (the fancy name is a "bathos triple"). It hands you the stakes AND the joke in one breath, and it sounds exactly like Ash. True to this show's running heartbreak, no copywriter was ever credited for it. ALSO ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK: - The OTHER poster, which sells a completely different movie: "How can you destroy an army that's already dead?" - A deep bench of runner-up taglines, from "1 man, 1 million dead. The odds are just about even." to "They're looking for a few dead men." - Why it isn't called Medieval Dead - The ratings board slapping an NC-17 on a movie full of talking skeletons (Bruce Campbell has THOUGHTS) - The original bummer ending, the happy reshoot nobody wanted, and a Little Shop of Horrors parallel - Why Evil Dead 2 feels like a remake: Sam Raimi couldn't get the rights to his own movie - The Mini-Ashes: real performers in prosthetic Bruce Campbell chins and noses, with Bruce acting to a metronome - Bruce Campbell, "the greatest reverse actor ever" - Danny Elfman's one-song cameo, Bill Pope's all-night shoot, and Embeth Davidtz shooting this BEFORE Schindler's List... then watching it come out after - Tangents, as promised: sneaking into Starship Troopers, Peter Jackson's Meet the Feebles, and Nate's dad's favorite joke in the whole movie 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: https://www.natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord. 🎙️ NEAL VAADELAND Neal Vaadeland is a voice actor based in Fargo, North Dakota... who started recording his voice the day he got his hands on a cassette recorder in small-town Northern Minnesota, with credits spanning commercials, corporate narration, radio spots, video games, animation, and children's books. 🔗 nealvaadeland.com | @nealvaadeland on Instagram | @nealvaadeland on YouTube | @nealvaadeland on TikTok 👻 Catch Neal as Louis "Hoots" in Ghost Clown University: ghostclownu.com I coach voice actors 1:1. If you want to work on your craft, the door's here → calendly.com/begleboothstudios/vo-coaching 🎧 LISTEN: On ALL the platforms and of course at natebegle.com/podcast The Poster Says... The movie tagline podcast. Because somebody had to.

Oct 15

The Fly (1986) — "Be afraid. Be very afraid." (with Stacy Berro)

"Be afraid. Be very afraid." Five words. A direct command, repeated and intensified. No plot. No character. No genre signal. Just escalating dread aimed straight at the audience before they've seen a single frame. Every episode of The Poster Says... ends the same way: another anonymous genius, another slow clap into the void, another name that history forgot. This episode is different. We know who wrote it. And when Nate tells you — you are not going to see it coming. Nate is joined by bilingual voice actor Stacy Berro — whose warm, bright, and versatile performances span commercial, character, narration, dubbing, imaging, animation, and English/Spanish bilingual content — to break down David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986). The film that transformed a 1958 B-movie premise into one of the most emotionally devastating body-horror films ever made. The film where the tagline started as dialogue — delivered with a sardonic edge, almost as a joke — and became pure existential dread the moment it hit a poster. And the film that won its only Oscar for Best Makeup, for effects so viscerally disturbing the Academy had no choice but to acknowledge them. Also: five other documented taglines, a UK teaser poster most people have never seen, and one entry that almost certainly isn't a real tagline at all. Nate did the homework. It gets interesting. Be afraid. Stay for the reveal. 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord Stacy Berro is a bilingual voice actor delivering warm, bright, and versatile performances across commercial, character, narration, dubbing, imaging, animation, and English/Spanish bilingual content — including singing vocals for animation and character-based projects. 🔗 voiceoversbystacy.com | @voiceoversbystacy on Instagram | @voiceoversbystacy on YouTube

Oct 8

Ghostbusters (1984) — "Who ya gonna call?" (with Mary Morgan)

"Who ya gonna call?" The tagline nobody wrote. The song lyric that accidentally became the greatest marketing campaign in blockbuster history. Here's the thing. It wasn't the original theatrical tagline. It wasn't on the poster. It wasn't even in the script. Ray Parker Jr. wrote it as a song lyric. The audience made it iconic. And the studio just had the good sense to catch up. So who wrote "Who ya gonna call?" Ray Parker Jr. did, for a number one Billboard hit. But somebody at Columbia looked at that lyric, retired the actual poster taglines ("They're Here To Save The World" and "We're Ready To Believe You"), and decided to make a song hook the permanent face of a $370 million franchise. That person has never been named. Which makes this the first episode of The Poster Says... where the mystery isn't who WROTE the tagline. It's who PROMOTED it. Nate is joined by fellow voice actor and longtime colleague Mary Morgan, whose credits run from One Piece and Fairy Tail to Diablo IV and Hearthstone, to break down Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters (1984). The first comedy ever to spend real money on special effects. The movie Columbia had almost no faith in. The highest-grossing film of its year. Along the way: the 60-plus rejected theme song submissions before Ray Parker Jr. walked in. The Huey Lewis plagiarism lawsuit that's still sealed to this day. Why "We're Ready To Believe You" might be the most underrated alternate tagline in franchise history. And why "Who ya gonna call?" is the only major movie tagline that doesn't work unless the audience finishes it for you. Two voice actors. One perfect question. You already know the answer. 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord Mary Morgan is a voice actor whose credits span animation, anime, video games and beyond, including One Piece, Fairy Tail, Diablo IV and Hearthstone.🔗 marymorganvo.com | @marymorganactorvoice on YouTube The Poster Says… theme by:Dr. Ariel Alexander

Oct 1

The Fifth Element (1997) — "It Mu5t Be Found." (with Carley Jo Cave)

"It Mu5t Be Found." Look at it again. The "5" replacing the S isn't just a design flourish — it's a smuggling operation. Months before audiences knew the title, before any cast had been announced, before a single frame had been shown, the marketing team hid the number FIVE inside the word "Must" on a teaser poster. The tagline is doing two jobs at once: the words promise urgency around an unnamed "it," while the typography has already told you what "it" is. That is sophisticated, layered, graphic-driven copywriting — and the person who thought of it has never been named. Which is appropriate. Because the "it" the tagline is asking you to find turns out not to be an object at all. It's Leeloo. And even more specifically, by the film's extraordinary ending, it's LOVE — an abstract emotional force that the entire plot has been building toward without ever announcing itself. A teaser that seemed to be about a missing macguffin was actually about a missing truth. Five words that work completely differently once you've seen the film than they did before you bought the ticket. Joining Nate for this one is his friend of over twenty years — admin professional, cook, and by her own unambiguous declaration, the biggest Fifth Element nerd on the planet — Carley Jo Cave. Her Instagram handle is @shiny_multipass. If you know, you know. If you don't, you will by the end of this episode. Along the way: Jean-Paul Gaultier designing nearly every costume in the film, including Leeloo's iconic bandage outfit. Comic book legends Moebius and Jean-Claude Mézières bringing their entire visual universe to Pinewood Studios. Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod — reportedly turned down by Prince and Will Smith before Tucker said yes. The film that opened the 50th Cannes Film Festival and became the highest-grossing French film in history at that time. And the five other documented taglines — including "Is it love or live?" which quietly spoils the entire ending if you know where to look. Multipass. 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord Carley Jo Cave is an admin professional, cook, and by her own unambiguous declaration, the biggest Fifth Element nerd on the planet. Her Instagram handle is @shiny_multipass. If you know, you know. 🔗 @shiny_multipass on InstagramThe Poster Says… theme by:Dr. Ariel Alexander

Sep 24

Wayne's World (1992) — "You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurl." (with Mitch Leschinski)

"You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurl." Six words. Three beats. The most structurally precise comedy tagline ever written. "You'll laugh" and "you'll cry" are the oldest formula in Hollywood marketing — the prestige-drama promise, the awards-season cliché, the language of films that take themselves very seriously. The anonymous Paramount copywriter played those first two beats completely straight, mimicking the rhythm with perfect precision. And then — "you'll hurl." One word. Tonally incompatible with everything that came before it. Wayne's World vocabulary dropped into the middle of a prestige marketing template, detonating on contact. Here's what makes it even richer: the word "hurl" specifically — not "vomit," not "be sick," not "throw up" — is Wayne's own word. The tagline doesn't just describe an experience; it speaks in the film's own voice. And the film's central theme is authenticity versus selling out. The tagline's refusal to use a committee-approved, sanitized word for nausea is, in retrospect, the same argument the film makes for two hours. The most anti-corporate film of 1992 got the most authentic tagline. The anonymous copywriter either understood the irony completely or accidentally proved the film's point. Joining Nate is voice actor and co-host of Mitch & Mike's VO Journey Podcast — Mitch Leschinski. Michigan native, Livonia-Westland theater kid who found his people the day his friend abandoned him at an audition and the theater kids took him in anyway, and a voice actor whose warm, sarcastic, genuinely Midwestern energy is about as Wayne Campbell-adjacent as a guest gets. (His podcast co-host, Mike Pelletier, has already appeared on The Poster Says... for My Cousin Vinny — so both halves of Mitch & Mike's VO Journey have now officially made an appearance on this show. Party on.) Along the way: Mike Myers' 25 drafts, the Bohemian Rhapsody fight that almost cost us the most iconic scene in the film, the sequel tagline with escalating exclamation points that is itself a joke about sequel marketing, and why "Party on." as a two-word alternate tagline might be the most distilled piece of marketing copy for any film ever made. Excellent. 🎧 LISTEN: On ALL the platforms and of course at natebegle.com/podcast 📺 WATCH: Full video episodes on YouTube! 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on DiscordMitch Leschinski is a voice actor and co-host of Mitch & Mike's VO Journey Podcast — a Michigan native with a warm, sarcastic, genuinely Midwestern sound spanning commercial, narration, eLearning, characters, video games, and audio drama, with credits including Kellogg's, Quaker, Shell, and Shoestring TV. 🔗 mitchleschinski.com | @MitchLeschinski on X | Mitch & Mike's VO Journey on YouTube The Poster Says… theme by:Dr. Ariel Alexander

Sep 17

Superman (1978) — "You'll believe a man can fly." (with Noel MacNeal)

"You'll believe a man can fly." Six words. No plot. No stars named. No genre signals. Just a promise so bold it should have been laughable — and instead became the most consequential tagline in superhero movie history. Nate is joined by his longtime friend and colleague, puppeteer and performer Noel MacNeal — best known as the performer behind Bear in Bear in the Big Blue House, resident puppeteer on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and most recently making his Broadway debut alongside the Muppets — to dig into Richard Donner's Superman (1978). The film that told Hollywood that a comic book character could be taken seriously. The film that invented VERISIMILITUDE as a production mandate. The film that bet $55 million on the idea that audiences would believe a man in a cape could actually fly — and then delivered. Along the way: the one-word creative directive Donner plastered across every department. The $3.7 million Brando was paid to read lines off a baby's diaper. The 100+ actors who wanted the role before Christopher Reeve walked in and made it his own. The marketing team we know led the campaign — and the one copywriter nobody ever named. And whether "You'll believe a man can fly, again" — the single-word update for the 45th anniversary re-release — honors the original or quietly changes what it meant. Plus Noel on the art of making an audience believe something impossible. Which, when you think about it, is the only job either of them has ever had. 🎧 LISTEN: On ALL the platforms and of course at natebegle.com/podcast 📺 WATCH: Full video episodes on YouTube! 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: https://www.natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord. Noel MacNeal is a puppeteer, performer, and creator best known as the performer behind Bear in Bear in the Big Blue House, resident puppeteer on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and most recently making his Broadway debut alongside the Muppets. 🔗 @nmacneal on Instagram | @noelmacneal on TikTok | CameoThe Poster Says… theme by:Dr. Ariel Alexander

Sep 10

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) — "They're young... they're in love... and they kill people." (with Christian Titus)

"They're young... they're in love... and they kill people." Nine words. Two ellipses. One period that does more work than most entire sentences. The structure is a masterpiece of weaponized grammar. "They're young" — in 1967, that single word carried the entire cultural weight of a generation. An ellipsis. Then "they're in love" — now you're in romance territory, Bogart and Bacall, screwball comedy, boy meets girl. Another ellipsis. The audience is comfortable. And then: "and they kill people." Full stop. Not an ellipsis. Not an exclamation mark. A period. Matter-of-fact. Unhurried. Unashamed. As if killing people naturally follows from being young and in love, as if this is simply the third item on the list. The anonymous Warner Bros. copywriter who wrote this made one other crucial call: choosing "kill people" over "rob banks." A documented alternate version of this tagline exists — softer, more romantic, bank robbers as folk heroes. The "kill people" version is morally harder, funnier, more confrontational, and infinitely more honest about what the film actually is. Whoever chose that word over the safer option made the right call. We don't know who they were. Here's the other thing worth knowing before you press play: Warner Bros. hated this film. Studio head Jack Warner called it a "four-piss picture." The studio tried to dump it in Texas drive-ins. This tagline was written by a marketing department working on a film their own studio had given up on — and the nine words they produced are now one of the most studied pieces of marketing copy in cinema history. Joining Nate for this one is voice actor, audio producer, voice line producer, and VO coach Christian Titus — twenty-plus years as an actor, ten-plus in voiceover, based in New York, with credits spanning commercials, corporate narration, animation, video games, podcasts, and audio drama, and voice line production credits including Grand Prix of Europe and Kayara. Christian is a fellow NAVA member and exactly the kind of performer who has thought seriously about every craft dimension of what it means to put words into a character's mouth. There is one more thing. Christian chose Bonnie and Clyde from the guest submission form thinking it was a different film. He watched the actual 1967 Arthur Penn film for the first time specifically to prepare for this episode. That first-time experience — unfiltered, no nostalgia, no childhood memory to protect — turns out to be one of the most valuable things a guest can bring to this show. The film hit him fresh. You'll hear it. 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord Christian Titus is a New York-based voice actor, audio producer, voice line producer, and VO coach with over 20 years as a performer and 10+ in voiceover — whose credits span commercials, corporate narration, animation, video games, audio drama, and voice line production on Grand Prix of Europe and Kayara. 🔗 christiantitus.com | christiantitusvo.com | IMDbThe Poster Says… theme by:Dr. Ariel Alexander

Sep 3

Sharknado (2013) — "Enough Said!" (with Kelsey Painter)

Some taglines add mystery. Some add stakes. "Enough Said!" adds nothing — on purpose — and that's exactly why it works. This episode, voice actor Kelsey Painter joins Nate to unpack Sharknado (2013), the $2 million Syfy movie that turned a joke pitch ("Sharknado" — said once, in a room, as a bit) into a genuine cultural phenomenon. The tagline "Enough Said." is the rare anti-tagline: it points at the title, steps back, and lets SHARKNADO do all the work. Nate and Kelsey debate whether that's the laziest piece of copywriting ever produced, or the most confident. Along the way: the screenwriter named Thunder Levin (yes, really) who got paid $6,000 for the script that launched a six-film franchise. The 100+ actors who passed on the lead role before Ian Ziering said yes — for the health insurance. The poster that went viral at the Cannes Film Market months before a single frame aired. And the chainsaw. Kelsey also picked Sharknado alongside Jaws and Jurassic Park on her list of favorites — so they get into whether a $2M B-movie about flying sharks earns a seat at the table with the genre's giants. As per usual: nobody knows who wrote "Enough Said!" No credited copywriter, no agency, no name in any trade publication. Just two words that started a phenomenon, and the marketer who will probably never get the credit. 🎧 LISTEN: On ALL the platforms and of course at natebegle.com/podcast 📺 WATCH: Full video episodes on YouTube! 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: https://www.natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord. Kelsey Painter — also known as The VO Opossum — is a voice actor specializing in animation, interactive/gaming, and character work, with a portfolio spanning commercials, e-learning, video games, and animated series. Represented by MCVO and Bigmouth Voices. 🔗 kelseypainter.com | @kelseypainter_voice | YouTube | IMDbThe Poster Says… theme by:Dr. Ariel Alexander

Aug 27

True Lies (1994) — "When he said I do, he never said what he did." (with Rob Sogomonian)

Welcome to the very first episode of The Poster Says... — and we're starting with a big one. True Lies (1994) was the first film in history to cross a $100 million production budget, and the third collaboration between James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger, following The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It's also got one of the cleanest, sharpest taglines we've ever broken down: "When he said I do, he never said what he did" — eleven words turning a wedding vow into a punchline, a thriller setup, and a romance hook, all at once.Nate is joined by fellow voice actor Rob Sogomonian (one of his two all-time favorite movies, alongside Predator!) to talk through: — Why nobody knows who wrote one of the cleanest taglines in '90s blockbuster history — How Schwarzenegger personally found the French film this was based on — The risk Cameron took betting an unprecedented budget on a spy-comedy — Why 1994 — the year of Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, and The Lion King — was one of the greatest years in movie history, and how True Lies held its own anyway — What still holds up, and what's genuinely complicated to watch with 30+ years of hindsightNew episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one. 🎧 LISTEN: On ALL the platforms and of course at natebegle.com/podcast 📺 WATCH: Full video episodes on YouTube!🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: https://www.natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord. Rob Sogomonian is a voice actor, narrator, singer, producer, director, and co-founder of Articul8 Studios — an eight-person voice acting collective currently producing the audio drama Static Shift. 🔗 robsogovo.com | @robsogovo on Instagram | @RobSogoVO on YouTube | Articul8 StudiosThe Poster Says… theme by:Dr. Ariel Alexander

Aug 9

The Poster Says... — Official Trailer | The Movie Tagline Podcast

THE POSTER SAYS... — OFFICIAL TRAILER You know that line on the movie poster. The one that sold you the ticket before you knew anything else about the film. Five words. Sometimes ten. Written by someone nobody remembers — and somehow, decades later, you can still recite it word for word. The Poster Says... is the movie tagline podcast. Every week, host Nate Begle sits down with a fellow industry pro — voice actors, puppeteers, writers, producers, and yes, Emmy winners — to break down one film and the tagline that had to sell it. Why it worked. Why it didn't. Who wrote it. And why the answer to that last one is, more often than not, a shrug. We're not stuck in one decade. We're not stuck in one genre. We're not doing "the films of" anybody. Horror to comedy. Blockbuster to cult classic. Nineteen-fifties to right now. Because those few words on a poster are the only thing every movie we cover has in common. 🎬 FIRST EPISODE: Thursday, August 27th at 7PM ET 🏆 THE CONTEST This trailer opens with one giant run-on sentence built entirely out of real movie taglines. The first person to correctly identify every title referenced wins a prize — some sort, some how, some way, TBD. Send your list through the contact form at the bottom of natebegle.com/podcast. 🎧 LISTEN: On ALL the platforms and of course at natebegle.com/podcast 📺 WATCH: Full video episodes on YouTube! 🎙️ Follow Nate Begle: https://www.natebegle.com | @natebegle on YouTube and @natebeglevo on Discord. The Poster Says... The movie tagline podcast. Because somebody had to.The Poster Says… theme song by:Dr. Ariel Alexander

The Poster Says...

Episodes

Army of Darkness (1992) — "Time... Evil... Gas" (with Neal Vaadeland)

The Fly (1986) — "Be afraid. Be very afraid." (with Stacy Berro)

Ghostbusters (1984) — "Who ya gonna call?" (with Mary Morgan)

The Fifth Element (1997) — "It Mu5t Be Found." (with Carley Jo Cave)

Wayne's World (1992) — "You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurl." (with Mitch Leschinski)

Superman (1978) — "You'll believe a man can fly." (with Noel MacNeal)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) — "They're young... they're in love... and they kill people." (with Christian Titus)

Sharknado (2013) — "Enough Said!" (with Kelsey Painter)

True Lies (1994) — "When he said I do, he never said what he did." (with Rob Sogomonian)

The Poster Says... — Official Trailer | The Movie Tagline Podcast

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