Episode Details

Supernatural production designer Jerry Wanek interview 🔭 The man who built the Men of Letters bunker (and one very beloved telescope) gives a tour of Supernatural’s visual world on Denim-wrapped Nightmares, a Supernatural rewatch podcast.

For the Season 9 midseason bonus, Berly and LA sit down “in” the bunker with Jerry Wanek, who served as production designer, director, and executive producer across all 15 seasons and 327 episodes. He has four Art Directors Guild nominations and an Emmy nomination, and he’s the creator of the Supernatural crew coffee table book. The conversation ran long, and the hosts are still mad they had to cut it down.

Episode Highlights:

• Cleaning up after a fire for $35 a day, then getting Ronald McDonald a chilled case of Heineken by noon
• Madonna videos with David Fincher, and a decade of Westerns with Kenny Rogers and Larry McMurtry
• Dark Angel with James Cameron, where Jensen Ackles stole every scene, and why Jerry signed on to Supernatural sight unseen
• Kim Manners’s initials hidden on canoe paddles in a motel room
• 173 motel rooms: the mud flap girls, the disco motel reveal, and the Motel 6 deal he refused
• Easter eggs: Eric Kripke’s grandfather’s scrap metal business, and a beer label starring Jerry’s mom
• The great telescope fight with Phil Sgriccia, plus the bunker’s secrets: bookcases on wheels, styrofoam columns, and hidden sigils in the floor
• Why the first victim’s art in The Slice Girls was all feet, and how Jerry survived his first time directing
• Why Jared Padalecki eventually wasn’t allowed to drive
• How a canceled finale party became the crew coffee table book, now in its third printing

Guy Norman Bee told the hosts Jerry worked magic on Frontierland, and Jerry confirms it. Afterward, LA and Berly can’t stop talking about the art gallery on Jerry’s walls. Plus, a thank-you to the Bobby-tier patrons.

Your turn, hunters: Which Supernatural motel room is your all-time favorite? And what should Berly and LA ask their next guest? Tell us in the Spotify comments, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts (it’s how new hunters find us), or send us fan mail. Bonus points for fandom fun facts we missed.

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Support the show

Denim-wrapped Nightmares is a Supernatural rewatch podcast hosted by Berly and LA, breaking down every episode of the Winchester saga with lore deep-dives plus cast and crew interviews. Special thanks to David Fesliyan and Fesliyan Studios.

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