In Honor of Bigfoot: The Legend of Boggy Creek

I dunno if you heard, but they found Bigfoot. (He was cruising in Elvis's UFO). Apparently some dudes down in Georgia found a body of a large hairy beast in the swamps known to harbor Skunk Ape, the stinky sasquatch of the South. Unfortunately when they thawed out the freezer with the body, it turned out to be a rubber suit. Big surprise there. Despite finding possum and human DNA in the samples they gave for testing. It looks like someone decided to stuff roadkill in a suit and pull a hoax, but they made a big splash, and who doesn't love a good hoax? I sure do.

Frozen rubber suit and some roadkill = media bonanza

Growing up in the '70s, there was a huge Sasquatch vibe. Bigfoot captured the perfect combination of budding environmentalism and mystery needed to soothe the malaise borne of enormous collars and paisley prints, and the creeping realization that our country was becoming a garbage-covered shithole. The idea of an angry ape in the woods, pissed off at us throwing Chunky bar wrappers and empty cans of Tab on his turf, was a tempting one. Maybe he would beat up Richard Nixon, stomp a Japanese car, and throttle an oil sheik, and we'd be number one again.

Six Million Dollar Man and his lover

There were a lot of Pissed Off Nature movies in the '70s- grizzlies, piranhas, sharks, ants, spiders, whales, frogs, worms, snakes, alligators, and even killer bunny rabbits were all out to get us. Why not sasquatch? In 1973 a quasi-documentary called The Legend of Boggy Creek was made as a low-budget labor of love by Charles Pierce and Earle Smith, who also gave us the eerie docudrama The Town That Dreaded Sundown, about a Zodiac-esque killer who haunted Texarkana in the '40s. This came first, and was perfect drive-in fare; it became a huge hit, making $20 million when movies cost 50 cents. The Godfather only made $134 million! It even inspired The Blair Witch Project with its shaky camera style.
The story told by the narrator is of when he was a child in the '40s, of the Fouke Monster- an apelike creature sighted in "the Bottoms" swampland where Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas meet. It's a haunting area, memorably depicted in Joe R. Lansdale's novel The Bottoms, which isn't about Skunk Ape but you can imagine the beast of Boggy Creek lurking in this area. The movie is more of a nostalgic documentary on rural swamp town life with occasional appearances by a huge hairy beast in the woods that's probably a bear. While it never approaches the documentarian mastery of Louisiana Story or the like, it has a down home charm to it, because many of the people who claim to have seen the creature play themselves re-enacting the sighting, or daily life.

A simpler time, when Indians didn't cry by the river.

Folk songs written for the film, such as "The Ballad of Travis Crabtree," about a young swamp hunter who'll remind you of Huckleberry Finn, give it a "Grizzly Adams" vibe. My favorite is "Where the Creature Goes," where we hear the singer pine for the creature's "lonely cries ringing out over his watery domain."

How I miss his lonesome cry.

The Boss-Man and I watched it one night, and it is definitely a window back to the early '70s. Nowadays the closest you'll get to this is stuff like "Ghost Hunters" on television, where someone recounts a spooky tale while the camera creeps around with night-vision on, and some low-budget effect recreates what they claim they saw right before they pooped their pants. The beast may be a guy in a suit, but they keep him shrouded in the dark woods where only his silhouette can be seen, and the first-time actors do a fine job of being themselves and then shitting bricks. One fellow says he took aim but wasn't sure if it was an animal or a man, and didn't want it on his conscience.

I don't have any beef jerky, dude!

So why are there still bigfoot hunters out there, even though the hoaxer who created the famous "walking ape" footage admitted it on his deathbed? It's something we'd like to believe in. I know I wish we had wild man-apes cavorting in the woods. Or something undiscovered. Cryptozoologists like to remind us that the okapi was "undiscovered" until 1902, despite natives insisting that it was out there, but that was in Africa, a much wilder place.

The sequels to The Legend of Boggy Creek were Mystery Science Theatre 3000 material, but the original has a sort of hokey, low-budget charm to it. Can you imagine an era when something like this would gross 25% as much as something like The Godfather? Well, I guess it still works; The Blair Witch Project made a bundle, was shot on a shoestring and based on vague folktales. I only saw it years later because the Discovery channel ad campaign rubbed me the wrong way. But nowadays when you hike in the woods, you'll joke more about the witch than the sasquatch. Or maybe manbearpig.

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Island of Terror - Skeleton-Slurping Snorkelupagusses

Ubiquipus strikes!!!

After seeing Deep Rising, about a giant squid that sucks the meat off your bones, I remembered its polar opposite- Island of Terror, a 60's horror movie about critters called "silicates" that feast on human bones! Preferably by sucking them out of your body. It was a Sunday morning movie staple on '70s TV, and the delightful noise the creatures made as they feasted upon their victims, sort of like slurping Jell-O while crunching on a mouthful of corn nuts, is unforgettable in a disturbingly hilarious way that sets the tone for the whole film.

Our intrepid heroes, two-fisted scientists

On a remote British isle, the government runs a lab where scientists use radiation to search for a cure for cancer. They unwittingly create fearsome monsters that reproduce by division, and soon threaten to take over the whole island. Peter Cushing stars as a scientist new to the island, where people and cows have begun disappearing. All that remains are mushy corpses missing their bones! And the mystery begins. Playing on our radioactive fears and attachment to our skeletons, Island of Terror may not be a Hammer film but surely plays as one of the better ones.

If an armadillo got drunk and humped a vacuum cleaner...

A good, classically trained actor can say anything and make it believable; Peter Cushing is one of those men. Imagine Morgan Freeman saying, "My testicles are made of an indestructible substance obtained from the center of the Earth." You'd believe it. I know I would. Peter Cushing doesn't talk about his invulnerable boy-berries, but when he tells us that these creatures are silicon-based, and require calcium to live, we damn well believe it. It helps that he has a floppy rubber corpse to illustrate his theories.

One of our spineless victims

When the monsters are finally revealed, they are armored slugs full of spaghetti with vacuum hose snorkels for mouths, and move so slowly that you wonder how they managed to kill anybody. You have to go to great lengths to get in the way of their snoots, which resemble a cartoon elephant's trunk searching for peanuts. My sister and I used to throw a ragged Afghan blanket over our heads and get one of the vacuum attachments from my grandmother's ancient Hoover to mimic the creatures. All things considered, it was a reasonable facsimile. My favorite death is when a guy attacks one with a fireman's axe, which bounces off their silicate armor plating. it of course grabs his leg, and Cushing stops anyone from getting closer to help him. Apparently the leg bone is connected to the (beat) thigh bone, and once they get you, you're finished.

Thanks for letting me die in agony, Cushing!

Nowadays, where do kids get to see their bad movies? The Sci-Fi Channel? A sad replacement for delights such as Chiller Theater. It's not really the same, since their movies never want to be more than crap. Island of Terror may have silly Snuffelupagus monsters, but they try to keep their origin rooted in science. Silly science, but science nonetheless. They even reproduce via mitosis, splitting in two like amoebas full of spaghetti. It was a fine distraction when years later, I learned the stages of mitosis.

Uh-oh, spaghettios.

In the middle of the movie, when they try killing them with shotguns, dynamite, and fire, the filmmakers seem to realize that sluglike creatures aren't a real threat. So they put one up in a tree. How it got there nobody knows, but it drops on one poor bastard who forgets to look up. They finally decide to starve the things to death, by herding all the cows away from them and of course, having everyone hole up in one building. The scene I remembered most was when they got on the roof and skylights, and their snorkels were poking through the windows... remember, when you're under attack from Spaghetti Snorkel Slugs, or anything else, stay away from the windows and watch those corners.

When your monster is this slow, you need skylights for suspense...

For silly horror fare, this movie should be a minor classic. It has a ridiculous yet unique monster, and very good effects for its time. It succeeds at scientific suspense with a few good gross-outs for the time, and even manages to be a bit scary during the final battle. There are better horror movies from the time- The Night of the Demon being particularly memorable- but this one is scientific instead of supernatural. The sound effects really must be heard to be believed (thanks to Bad Movies for recording it). And if you're bored one day, since it is not available on DVD, the entire thing is up on youtube.

pre-Barbarella we settled for gams instead of boobies

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Sweet 70's Cinema: Over the Edge

No, not Over the Hedge with the talking squirrel. This is a serious movie about juvenile delinquency in the 70's, a warning cry like other fine films such as Foxes, River's Edge, and Bad Boys (the Sean Penn one). It's a cautionary tale that leans toward exploitation film, but since it was directed by Jonathan Kaplan, a student of Marty Scorsese, the film has a very realistic feel, almost verité. It's still good viewing today, has Matt Dillon's first screen role, and would make a good double feature with any 70's nostalgia film such as Dazed and Confused.

Young Matt Dillon

The film itself has a sordid story of its own. Supposedly based on true events that occurred in the planned community of Foster City California, it leads in with a lurid disclaimer about how it is based on true events, and how many acts of criminal vandalism by juveniles occur in the U.S. each year. Still, the movie was so controversial that it never got a theatrical release, and instead played on HBO in 1980. The action was moved to the fictional city of New Granada, a planned community that has been demolishing its few youth centers to make way for more profitable businesses, in the wake of 70's stagflation. The script was written by Tim Hunter, who'd later go on to pen the bleaker and better-known River's Edge, and Charles Haas, a journalist who wrote about the original events in an article called "Mouse Packs: Kids on a Crime Spree."

The Mouse Pack

Our first introduction to the town's kids is at the Youth Center, a hangar-like building where they hang around. It's painfully obvious that there isn't much to do in this town, and everything seems spread out so you have to drive or bike everywhere. Two kids are on an overpass with a BB gun and they shoot the windshield of a passing police car, who nearly crashes, then gives chase. As the cruiser flies toward the Rec center, two other kids, Carl and Ritchie, hide in the bushes. The cop arrests them on suspicion, and finds a switchblade in Richie's pocket. Matt Dillon plays Richie as the standard rebellious youth; what he lacks in depth he fills with anarchic energy. I didn't even recognize him in this early role, and it shows the promise he'd later realize. Carl is the smaller kid who's always getting dumped on- reminiscent of Ratner from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He's played well by Michael Eric Kramer, who never saw stardom after this. It's unfortunate, he plays this part naturally, and we follow him throughout the film.

Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright

Later on their parents pick them up and they get the usual lectures, even though technically they did nothing wrong. The parents are more concerned with the weekend of visit of some Texas millionaires who might invest in the town and solve their financial problems. Carl heads to his room and puts on his headphones, blaring Cheap Trick's classic teen lament, "Surrender." The film's soundtrack is excellent, mostly peppered with lesser known late 70's classics from Cheap Trick and The Cars, with a few others like "Teenage Lobotomy" by The Ramones and "You Really Got Me" covered by Van Halen. Anthems of the era, which really puts you back in the time. It's unfortunate when teen films like this use older songs or covers of them; years later, they'll lose any possible nostalgic value.

Note the leaf on the blackboard

Back at school they are forced to watch an educational film about vandalism, but the principal just yells at their implacable wall of adolescent apathy, and announced a 9:30pm curfew. Later that night the kids go to a party, make out, drink beer, smoke pot, and pass around other drugs; at first it's shocking, especially when you see the tow-headed youngster Tip smoking and dealing. They culled some of the actors and extras from the local town, and this gives the film a documentary feel. As Ebert stated in his 1980 review, it almost feels like we're eavesdropping, or a kid is lugging around a camcorder. (We had them back then, but they weighed 50 pounds). Sometimes there's a gritty, small-time mood like in Scorsese's Mean Streets, and you can see the mentor's touch here. At the party, Carl meets his girlfriend Cory, and they smoke a joint; as he leaves, he gets ambushed by Mark the BB gun kid, who thinks he snitched on him. He and some friends beat Carl up and take his money.

The 70's classic, Destruction: Fun or Dumb?

Carl just can't get a break; back at home his parents are more upset that he got in more trouble than why he's getting beaten up. The parents are clueless but aren't played as idiots; they are just too caught up in their own lives and dealings, and seem to think that kids raise themselves. The next day, Carl lashes out at his Dad by setting firecrackers off underneath the Texans' car, setting the engine on fire, and of course, torpedoing the business deal. The parents then announce that the Youth center will be shutting down a while, since a kid was caught with drugs there. This gives the kids even fewer options to stay out of trouble, and after an argument with his Dad, Carl runs out to hole up in one of the unfinished condos with his girlfriend.

Aimed right at you

One of the girls in their pack stole a gun from her parents bedroom, and they practice shooting cans out in "the fields." They use all the bullets, but later decide to play a prank on Tip, who ratted out Carl to Mark the other night. Richie echoes Dillon's later role in The Outsiders by running around pointing an empty gun at people; this leads where you expect it will, and forces the parents to confront the problems of the town at a big meeting at the school. Who's watching the children during the meeting, you might ask?

Echoes of a Nuremburg rally

From here the film follows a more predictable track, but thankfully we are spared any tearful or overly insightful monologues by Carl or any of the other kids. Kaplan is smart enough to let us draw our own conclusions from the performances, and realize that these kids are facing a profound emptiness from both their parents and the community; we don't need a rehash of James Dean's emotional outburst in Rebel Without a Cause; this film follows that classic's arc closely enough, with Dillon channeling Sal Mineo sans the not-so-latent homosexuality.

Burn it down

Of course with the parents all in one location, the kids decide to lock them in. I was hoping that the film would veer towards the surreal ending of Lindsay Anderson's If... with them burning the building down, but it never gets that bad. The kids do go all "Lord of the Flies" in a matter of minutes, blowing up police cars with stolen guns and fireworks, stealing cars and wreaking havoc. It seems out of place, and spirals far out of control, with a finale that seems more at home in something like Vanishing Point or Crazy Larry Dirty Mary.

Lord of the Flies

What detracts from an otherwise excellent 70's mood film is the ending, and expository dialogue such as the Texan stating, "Seems like you were in such a hopped-up hurry to get out of the city that you turned your kids into exactly what you wanted to get away from." It's deserving of its cult status and succeeds when we're hanging with the kids; it brought me back to my early youth in the 70's, when we often had nothing to do except romp in our "fields," smash up abandoned cars, and cut down trees with tools we lifted from unminded basements. But our little "mixed use" community was tightly knit; we had legions of old ladies sitting on porches to keep us from climbing on the rooftops of disused factories, or other shenanigans. This was a neighborhood so dull that everyone would come out and look when the old greenhorn found a garter snake in his garden and cut its head off with a shovel; the only one of us who went wrong was a kid named Travis whose parents were never around, leaving him to cruise the area on his Huffy, and steal from backyard gardens to eat some meals. One day he decided to throw a cinder block at another kid's head, probably because that kid didn't have to eat raw tomatoes for lunch that day. New Granada in Over the Edge was a whole comunity of little Travises, so perhaps the ending isn't too unreal.

If you want more detail on the film, it has an extensive fan site.

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Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

It's nice to see that stoner movies have made a comeback. If you watch a Cheech & Chong movie with people who didn't grow up in the 70's, it's impossible to explain why they were allowed to make so many damn movies. The answer is simple: marijuana.

I didn't even know what marijuana was the first time I saw Cheech & Chong, which was on HBO when I was 8 or something. But they were still funny. And the same thing goes for the new doobie duo, Harold & Kumar. Their first movie, about a munchies-fueled trip to White Castle that turns into a harrowing adventure, was a surprise hit on DVD. It's completely retarded, but I suggest you rent it. Harold & Kumar aren't just stoner types. Like their forebears, they are likeable and recognizable characters that play off racial stereotypes, but are unique and real people.

That's what makes the comedy work; that and a crazed sense of the absurd where Doogie Howser can show up anywhere, and you can ride a cheetah in the Pine Barrens. The movie begins right where the first one left off- they've had their sack of sliders, dealt with their parents, and now it's another day. They want to go to Amsterdam to chase the love of Harold's life, the girl he sees in the elevator.

Before they get on the plane, they meet Kumar's ex-girlfriend, who's engaged to an uptight politician-in-training, and the stoner feels a twinge of regret at their break-up. All's forgotten as they get on the plane. Through a bizarre set of circumstances Kumar gets mistaken for a terrorist, in one of the funniest sequences of the movie, and they are shipped off to Guantanamo to be served cockmeat sandwiches.

From there they stumble from one adventure to the next, like the first film. A bottomless party in Miami gives us a solid 5 minutes of Brazilian-cut bush, which a great bonus now that the Gratuitous Boob has become an endangered species, replaced by Judd Apatow's desire to put a Superfluous Schlong in all his comedies. I don't begrudge the ladies their unwarranted wangs, but there's been a Boobie Drought since the 80's that needs quenching. H&K give us a plethora of punani in this film to make up for it.

They stumble through backwoods trailers and KKK rallies, and of course run into their hero Neil Patrick Harris again, who is funnier than ever. The weakest point is when they meet Dubya, who is played by a bad impersonator. It's still funny and eventually you don't care how bad his make-up is.

The movie follows the same formula as the first, giving us bizarre comedy followed by a sentimental ending that is true to the characters. If you like the first film, you won't be disappointed here. It doesn't top it, but it's enjoyable in the same manner as its predecessor. It's probably a lot funnier ... on weed but it's still great sober, or after a Sam Adams Summer Ale or two.

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Indiana Jones and the Broken Joystick

With the 4th and most likely final installment in the Indiana Jones series opening next week, I reminisced about just how popular this series was even before it was a series. Back in '82, when the Atari 2600 was king of the console games, they released a Raiders of the Lost Ark video game for the system, but not for arcades. Otherwise I'd have been begging my mom to go to The Great Escape on Route 17, next to a Tex-Mex place imaginatively named The Mexican Place. Tacos and videogames are a dangerous mix... but they made me the man I am today.

Instead of whining to her about that, I probably asked for the Raiders game for Christmas or my birthday, I can't remember which. I still remember when I solved it, after many days of frustration. Back in the ancient days before the internets, we would call each other up for hints. The phone cord would be tangled with our joystick cables on the shaggy rust-colored rug, as we cradled it against our shoulder and tried to talk and play at the same time. Bluetooth headsets? Wireless controllers? Those were as unknown as walkie-talkies in the E.T. movie, or Greedo shooting first. And we liked it.

Who needs a Wii when you can have this?

It was an adventure game, sort of like that even more infamous pixel puzzle Adventure, in which you killed dragons shaped like ampersands in search of a gold dot. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy at least looked like a little guy in a fedora somewhat. You began in the desert, avoiding snakes (why did it have to be snakes) and grabbing your whip. No interlude in the jungle here, it won't fit on the cartridge.

Alright which is the snake and which is the whip?

Then there was the marketplace, where you could hide in the baskets from the snakes, as you patiently waited for the headpiece to the Staff of Ra to appear. It sort of looked like a God's Eye you made in catechism or Catholic Youth Group.

The headpiece is the second item in the inventory.

Once you had that, there was a desert full of tse-tse flies that would paralyze you so the Thief could steal all your shit. Then you'd have to get it again. You had a gun and sometimes a grenade, but the Thief was immune, the fucker. You could blow up the snakes, though. The grenade was necessary, so have fun shooting and whipping the snakes instead.

Look at those sneaky thieves with their sneaky hats.

Then you had to go to the Map Room and re-enact the famous scene where the sun burns a spot in the replica of the city, represented by a blinking dot. As retarded as it sounds, I believe we whooped with joy the first time that lone pixel beamed our way.

The scintillating colors of the map room

My favorite part was jumping off the cliff, hopefully with the parachute. If you remembered to deploy it, and then swung over avoiding the branch, you could end up in the treasure room where the Ark resides. Actually it was a lump of dirt you had to dig with a shovel. Oh, God help you if you forgot the shovel. An archaeologist can't possibly dig it up with his hands! And you only have one parachute. I don't even think you could walk out and plummet to your shameful death. You had to turn the machine off and start over.

Okay, now click the parachute open and swing under that branch...

I still remember the first time I solved the game, and the surge of endorphins that rushed through me as the famous Indiana Jones theme played... and the opening screen repeated itself. What the FUCK, Atari? At least it gave you a time ranking, judged by how high Indy was on the ladder or whatever that was. But most of the time we just goofed around shooting snakes and trying to get the parachute hooked on the tree branch so he'd fall to his death. I recently learned that you could use both joysticks to make things easier. Motherfucker.

The glory of finishing the game.

Then we'd move on to the Indiana Jones action figures with his whip action. I wish I still had those. It's rare you get a toy set with a whip, and a guy with a brand on his palm. Next week I'll be re-watching the trilogy and defending Temple of Doom against naysayers. Watch something like Gunga Din and Lost Horizon, and you'll enjoy it more.



How to solve the game in 10 minutes.

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The Emperor of the North Pole - stabbin' people with my hobo knife

Two of the manliest men in cinema were Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. Both of them looked like you could clobber them with a two-by-four to no effect. But what if they each had a two-by-four, or better yet, a fireman's axe and chains, and battled it out? That's the premise of this movie, where Marvin plays a tough hobo and Borgnine is a brutal conductor infamous for kicking freeloaders off his train. Sure, the director said that they symbolized the Establishment and Anti-Establishment, but I think they symbolized Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine locked in a locomotive thunderdome, battling it out on a flatbed rail car, and that's deep enough for me.

Cool Lee Marvin, A #1.

Who didn't want to become a hobo when they were a kid? Nowadays they probably have NinHobo for the Wii, and you have to swing the controllers around to cut open a can of beans, hop trains, and stab people with your hobo knife. But back in the 70's when this film was made, our "controllers" were called "sticks," and we made everything out of them: Rifles. Hobo knives. Lightsabers. It was the Swiss Army Knife of toys, and yep, you could even pretend it was a Swiss Army knife. To be a hobo, all you needed was a stick and a bandanna or a handkerchief, or a washcloth snatched from the sink, tied up around your "bindle" of necessities for life on the road, like a bologna sandwich and a few Hot Wheels cars, for bartering. You could rub some dirt on your face for stubble, or burn a piece of cork if you were feeling audacious.

That's about all that's needed for this movie, too. Except for the trains of course. There's a lot of train porn in this movie. I call it that because train fanatics, or "railfans" seem to be the only people who remember this film, down to the specifics of what kind of train was used, and so on. In Britain they are called "trainspotters" and their activities were revealed in the documentary Trainspotting.

Let's just say the song "Love Shack" is not about him.

The movie starts out by introducing us to Ernest Borgnine, known as "Shack" in the movie. His train is leaving the station and he finds a hobo on it, so he beats him with a club until he falls between two cars, gets jumbled up like a sack of sausages in the laundry, and cut in half by the train. In full detail. This is to let you know that the movie is all about two men beating the shit out of each other, and to go sneak in to The Aristocats one theater over, before you're sick to your stomach, you pansy.


Ernest Borgnine cuts a man in half.

Shack is one mean sonofabitch, but he gets outsmarted by two other 'Bos on the train. One is Lee Marvin, known only as "A #1" because he's Lee Marvin, goddammit, and King of the Hobos. The other one is Keith Carradine, who plays a brash kid so annoying that you wish the two tough guys would stop fighting for a moment and nail his tongue to a tree with a railroad spike. According to the director, he's supposed to represent The Youth of Today. He and #1 tussle over a train car they both hop into, and Shack locks them in. It's a cow car, so when they herd the steers in, they'll be trampled to death. A#1 outsmarts them by ... setting the car on fire, and forcing them to stop the train.

Putting axle grease on a burn, like a real man.

They both brag about riding Shack's train- A#1 to his fellow hobos, and the Kid, called "Cigaret," to the rail men who caught him- raising Shack's fury. He practically strangles the kid. When the hobos find out about the Kid's boast, it shakes A#1's reputation... so he has to win it back. He says he'll ride Shack's train all the way to Portland, and Cigaret claims he'll do it too. The rail men hear about it, bets are made, and the battle is on. The film's title comes from the hobo jargon of calling the greatest of hobos "the Emperor of the North Pole," or king of nothing, aka King Shit.

Probably the best "train porn" in the movie is when Shack hot-rods it out of the station so no one can hop on and freeload. Now trains have schedules for good reasons, because sometimes they share track. And by jumping ahead of schedule he screws things up. Another train is take a side track and they just barely miss its caboose as the brakes screech. It's actually pretty exciting, but there are no big train crashes in the movie.


America runs on Dunkin' Deacons

There's a few funny scenes where they steal clothes from a bunch of evangelicals praying in the river; when he gets unexpectedly dunked, A#1 shouts "Jesus Christ!" and the preacher thinks he's praying. Later they steal a turkey, and a cop chases them into a hobo camp, only to get pranks played on him. Overall the movie is bit on the long side, and the most memorable parts involve Hobo vs. Conductor and the cruel ways they try to defeat each other. Shack's favorite trick for hobos riding underneath a rail car is to tie a lead weight to a rope, and feed it under the train, so it bludgeons them as it flails around. This makes A#1 find a way to lock the brakes, which sends the fireman into the coal oven, and bashes another worker's head in.

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer on some hobos...

This goads him into the final battle, and he stalks along the top of the train with a mini sledgehammer to do them in. Eventually they end up on a flat car, duking it out with slabs of lumber, chains, fireman's axes, and their formidable brawn. It's brutal and ugly, despite the bright red paint blood they used in the 70's. It's definitely worth slogging through the rather slow movie to see two Hollywood tough guys fight it out.

Don't bring a chain to an axe fight.

Ernest Borgnine just has an evil look to him when he wants to- whether he's trying to beat up Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity, or as a murderous member of The Wild Bunch, or even when he played alongside Marvin in The Dirty Dozen. Marvin needs no bad-ass introduction. He got shot in the ass in WW2 and played tough guys ever since he was a motorcycle thug in The Wild One opposite Brando. He may have been awarded the Purple Heart, but the most bad-ass thing I ever heard about Lee Marvin was from a rehearsal with John Vernon (aka Dean Wormer from Animal House) when he hit Vernon so hard that the man began to cry.
He and Borgnine were in a few other movies together, like the classic Bad Day at Black Rock, and a Dirty Dozen sequel. He didn't make it to the third sequel, Dirty Baker's Dozen, where they are all in a nursing home and plot to escape and go to Dunkin' Donuts. Instead, it is recalled that his character choked fatally on a cruller from the cafeteria, and it will not go unavenged.


The Final Battle

The film's theme song, "A Man and a Train," is a marvel of 70's country-folk insipidity, and I urge you to listen to it for a time capsule of the early 70's, if you can stand it. Marty Robbins, I salute you for writing and singing this amazing song. Whenever I run out of steam, I will try to keep running on a dream.

A man and a train, a train and a man
They both tried to run as far
And as fast as they can
But a man's not a train and a train's not a man
A man can do things that a train never can

Goin' up a mountain even half way to the top
The minute that a train runs out of steam it's gotta stop
But it's a different story when a man runs out of steam
He still can go a long, long way
On nothin' but a dream

Goin' cross the country when a train runs out of track
It has to stop and turn around and then start headin' back
But many miles from nowhere out where all the tracks are gone
A man who's got himself a dream
Can still keep goin' on

So don't try to stop me
Don't try to stop me cause nobody can
I've got a dream, a beautiful dream and that makes me a man
No don't try to stop me
Don't try to stop me cause nobody can
I've got a dream, a beautiful dream and that makes me
Makes me a man

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Chiller Theatre (The TV show, not the convention)

Watching Night of the Lepus reminded me of one of my favorite TV shows as a child, the horror anthology on WPIX called Chiller Theatre. Nowadays it's easy to laugh at old horror movies, but when you're seven years old, the Wolfman is a terrifying creature, Dracula is a creepy old pedo and Frankenstein reminds you of your uncle Fiore stomping around in the cellar as he has his morning stogie. It is the stuff of nightmares.

Speaking of nightmares, I had one recently where me and some friends were hiking in a swamp, when a Giant Fucking Hand came out of the bog and grabbed somebody. Now where would imagery like that come from? Chiller Theatre, that's where. The show opened with a creepy claymation hand coming out of a well near a house, and as a kid it obviously burned its way into my brain:


Admit it, that is one creepy friggin' hand.
They mostly played movies with effects by Ray Harryhausen, the king of stop-motion animation. Classics such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, which is about a dinosaur attacking New York City. It gleefully tromps down Broadway stomping people flat and eating them. We reenacted this numerous times with a plastic dinosaur and Star Wars figures. Lando never got a break. Everyone knows in the movies the Brother Always Dies First. One of my recurring nightmares as a child was of a T. Rex chasing me down East Centre Street, into a neighbor's yard where I cleverly jumped over a picket fence and hid.
Based on a Ray Bradbury story, the beast was released by an atomic bomb test, and predates Godzilla (even the awesome original Japanese version without Raymond Burr). Thus began a love for Harryhausen's work, especially Mighty Joe Young, which was usually shown on Sunday mornings because a helpful giant ape doesn't belong on Chiller Theatre.

They Hoover out your humerus in Island of Terror.

My all-time favorite stupid movie is 1966's Island of Terror, starring Peter Cushing. This one had a scientist on a remote Irish island trying to cure cancer. He inadvertently creates monsters called "silicates" that look like armored blobs full of spaghetti, with a vacuum hose trunk that sucks your skeleton out. It's actually better in many ways than your typical drive-in horror, as not all the characters are stupid. Except this guy, who tries to off one with an axe and gets too close.


I love how his friends don't even try to help.

The monsters make a delightful noise as they suck out your bones, with accompanying screams. We had loads of childhood fun chasing each other with the vacuum attachments with a sock on the end. Which in another kind of blog, might be a teenage masturbation aid. There's a full review of the movie over at Stomp Tokyo. It's not on DVD, so I'll spare you my musings on it. For now!

Another great favorite was Curse of the Mushroom People. The movie is actually quite good and has deeper meanings about survival, but as kids, who cares about that? We were scared shitless that our face was going to mutate like the poor bastards in this film. A group of Japanese tourists are shipwrecked on an island, on which there is very little to eat. Except mushrooms, which are everywhere. Soon those who eat them begin to show startling changes...

Aggh! Mushroom man!!

The story is told by a man in a mental institution, one of the survivors of the wreck, and of course when he's done with his tale that no one believes, he turns around and has a portobello-like growth coming out of his face. I wish I had a screenshot of that. His nose was all distorted up like a pig snout and me and my sister made that face at each other a lot. Thankfully our grandmother was lying when she said our face would get stuck that way. This seems to be on DVD, so you'll suffer through a full review sometime soon.

There's also a Chiller Theatre horror convention every year in NJ, and I think I'll join Darth Milk this year when he goes. Lou Ferrigno and Ernest Borgnine are going to be there. I need to get my photo taken with the Hulk, and well, Ernest Borgnine. Maybe I'll dress up like Marty.

Look out, ladies.

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This... is... Serious!

We could make you delirious
You should have a healthy fear of us
Too much of us is dangerous!

We're not candy!
Even though we look so fine and dandy,
When you're sick we come in handy,
But! We're not candy!
Ohhhhhh no!



When I Was Your Age, We didn't have no Anti-Drugs. This was long before your brain on drugs was sunny side up with a side of bacon, and even before Nancy told us to just say No. They didn't even bother trying to keep us away from illegal drugs! They knew we'd be making supercollider megabongs in metal shop as soon as we hit high school, so they didn't even bother. Go ahead and play with your parents' funny-smelling pipe and the oregano hidden in the water clock, just stay away from the colorful little pills. They're not a natural high. I think that silly commercial even made us more interested in finding Grandma's magical talking pills.

That commercial even got referenced in a Busta Rhymes song.

The 70's and early 80's were a magical time. Sex was like a video game; if like Pac-Man, you got hit by one of the four ghosts of VD, the Clap, Space Herpes, or the Syph, you put in another quarter and got a shot at the doctor's, to start a new game. Then in 1985 the CIA invented AIDS and ruined it for all of us. Those were the days.

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There's a Ruckus in the Chuckle Patch

Hearkening back to my Sid & Marty Krofft tribute, I began to wax nostalgic about some other strange children's shows that helped warp me into the man I am today. The Kroffts had their own style, and their work is as instantly recognizable as a Rankin-Bass cartoon or puppet stop-motion movie, but they didn't have a monopoly on dementing our little brains.

The Magic Garden
Where the wacky tobaccie and mushrooms grow.

This was two hippie chicks on an acid trip where the flowers and squirrels and inchworms talked to them when they weren't plucking their acoustic guitars. It was actually quite well done for its time, with nicely built sets, and the gals actually played the music. IMDb tells me that the women were named Carole and Paula, and the squirrel was named Sherlock. I remember he was a little pain in the ass. Probably needed some "special" nut brownies. The chuckle patch was a quivering flowerbed they pulled corny jokes from, straight out of a psychedelic nightmare. Then there were the sunflowers, which nodded, and looked ready to take a bite out of you as soon as you turned around. I liked the inchworm, which despite being obviously operated by someone behind the tree, looked real to me.


Warning: Do not watch without toking.

The New Zoo Revue
Hot nostrils.

This show was about three merry animal stereotypes gallivanting about. Charlie the Owl was a know-it-all, and Henrietta Hippo was a snobby Southern belle who flirted with the Yankee carpetbaggers and drove them mad with lust. Freddy the Frog and the Owl would eventually experiment in college, and if you think I'm joking watch the clip. It is definitely not work safe, but then again what gay porn is? Right after this ends, Freddy took the elevator up into Charlie's treehouse and they released their pent-up feelings, and Henrietta is now on The View.

An infamous outtake. NOT work safe.

The Great Space Coaster

Love that headband.

The News with Gary Gnu! And Goriddle Gorilla, who is orange like the "gorilla" of The Banana Splits. And this was after Clint Eastwood made the orangutan movies. So there's no excuse. Nowadays this stuff is about as funny as finding a lump on your breast and/or testicle, but back in the 80's it was a laugh riot. I remember Richard Kiel, yes "Jaws" from the campy Roger Moore James Bond movies, being interviewed by Gary Gnu. Joan Collins also made an appearance at one point. We thought Gary Gnu was the funniest thing ever, you can get away with a lot when you're a puppet.

Gary Gnu is as funny as cancer.

Gigglesnort Hotel
Teaching kids the evils of The Klan.

A hotel full of puppets telling charming tales. With titles like WHERE SPLENDOR DIES. I emailed the show's creator at his website, trying to track down the show because I remembered that title and never got to see the end. This was actually somewhat gripping and scary for a child. I also remember a blind mouse named Timothy, but that may be from another show. This was pretty innocent and I think children need scary and dramatic tales at an early age. Nightmares are brain fuel! And the puppets from this show are guaranteed to supercharge a kid's brain.


The appropriately named Blob is a talking lump of clay.

The guy's other show was called B.J. and the Dirty Dragon, which is when you're doing her, and then you... never mind, those jokes are played out. This era of children's TV was much better than the Toy Commercial Shows that dominated the mid-80's, if you ask me. They inspired the imagination. I might mock Gary Gnu now, but I'm pretty sure my sister and I did our own talk shows based on his using a beat-up old tape recorder and a monkey puppet. Once my sister made the monkey strangle me, and she got hurt as we rough-housed. All caught on tape, humorously sped up for our enjoyment. I wish I still had that tape. We thought it was the funniest thing ever.

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My Black Family

1. The Lord loves a workin' man.

2. Don't trust whitey.
3. If you get it, see a doctor and get rid of it.

I'll say it