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Common Household Deities of North America, Mid to Late Twentieth Century

No. 3, The Mermaid aka chicken of the sea:

Musica Moonday

"One More Round, Friend" performed by Bea Arthur:

Salute Your Shorts: Hardware Wars

Salute Your Shorts #2: Hardware Wars

Here's one I remember first seeing at Vacation Bible School(!) back in the day.  Us kids loved it so much they played it twice.

Legendary voice actor Paul Frees narrates this sprawling space saga of romance, rebellion and household appliances.  Without further ado, I give you Ernie Fosselius' Hardware Wars:

It's 10 PM...

Do you know where your children are?:

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Lowenbrau commercial:

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Dunkin' Donuts commercial featuring Mason Reese:

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Mount Airy Lodge commercial:

Autumnal Equinox

First day of fall!

Musica Moonday

"Magic Feeling" by Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution:

Phantom of the Paradise

First time viewing of Brian De Palma's 1974 cult classic Phantom of the Paradise.  Would make a great double, triple or quadruple feature with the Lon Chaney The Phantom of the Opera (1925), F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926) or The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

Loved Paul Williams as Swan, the Satanic pop Svengali.

The opening narration was spoken by an uncredited Rod Serling.

Here's the trailer:

Salute Your Shorts: The Collector

Salute Your Shorts #1: In which your humble host introduces a short film that has temporarily caught his Mayfly-like fancy...

In this inaugural edition of Channel 73 WODS-TV's newest weekend feature--which we've deigned to christen as "Salute Your Shorts"--herein lies a personal favorite that I thought was one of the most magical and mind bending things I had ever seen back in 1978:  The Collector, the incomparable Mike Jittlov's stop motion animated tribute to Mickey Mouse mania on the occasion of the ubiquitous rodent's fiftieth birthday celebration.

Enjoy!

Don't change that channel!

Channel 29 WTAF-TV station ID:

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Dispatches from McDonaldland #1

In which six armed Evil Grimace masterminds a daring beverage container heist:

Public Service Announcement

Hanna-Barbera animated anti-drug PSA:

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Common Household Deities of North America, Mid to Late Twentieth Century

No. 2, The Ty-D-Bol Man:

Musica Moonday

"Rocket Man" as interpreted by Bill Shatner:

Duel

Another one of the great made for TV movies of the '70s that I had never seen before.

Don't have much more to say about Duel (1971) that hasn't been said before or better about this (David) Mann versus machine corker other than it's a lean, mean machine; a nearly perfect action film. The young director will go on to direct The Sugarland Express in 1974--he's one to watch!

Duel theatrical trailer:

Coming up next...

ABC Movie of the Weekend promo for Duel:

Room 237

Just watched Room 237 (2012) on Netflix; an exploration of some truly bugnuts crazy theories on the meaning behind Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining (1980).  I loved it--it definitely made me want to watch The Shining again...and again...and again...

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Bubblicious bubblegum animated commercial:

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Keep America Beautiful PSA:

Don't touch that dial!

Channel 48 WKBS Station ID:

High School U.S.A.

Two years before they starred as McFly and son in Back to the Future (1985), Crispin Glover and Michael J. Fox (billed here as Michael Fox) appeared together as respectively, a similar uber nerd and too-cool-for-school wiseacre in High School U.S.A. (1983).

Being a made for TV movie and thus not able to resort to the standard titillating scenes of T&A to liven up its fairly typical snobs versus slobs plot like its theatrical brethren would have, the creators of High School U.S.A. instead have their characters chastely trot out an adorable dancing robot...which they later proceed to cruelly euthanize then cannibalize for engine parts due to the ill fated automaton's heat shielding properties just in time for the film's exciting nail biter of a car race finale, so that's a pretty fair trade off.

Best quote is from Anthony Edwards, playing the main douche bag who is 180 degrees opposite in character from the lovable nerd with a heart of gold he played a year later in Revenge of the Nerds (1984): "Nobody breaks up with Beau Middleton; Beau Middleton calls the shots, Beau Middleton'll do the breakin' up."
Beau Middleton: what a douche bag!

The late Dana Plato from Return to Boggy Creek (1977) and the late Tom Villard from Popcorn (1991) also appear in small roles; I also noticed one of the minor douche bags in the movie was played by David Packer, who starred as the young alien collaborationist douche bag in V (1983) the same year.

A cheesy flick to be sure, but I actually really liked High School U.S.A. a lot, which probably makes me the douche bag for liking it.  Oh well; who's got two thumbs up Fonzi style for High School U.S.A. and cried like a little baby when Willis Drummond deactivated his dancing robot?  Ayyyyyy--this douche bag, that's who!

Here's the theme song:

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Trapper Keeper commercial:

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Common Household Deities of North America, Mid to Late Twentieth Century

No. 1, The Jolly Green Giant:

Musica Moonday

"Wait Til Tomorrow" by The Banana Splits:

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Art Instruction Schools commercial:

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DeVry Institute of Technology commercial:

The Night Stalker

I'm embarrassed to admit that up until last week I had never seen The Night Stalker (1972), its sequel or the short lived series featuring Carl Kolchak before--I was always a Trilogy of Terror, Gargoyles, and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark guy myself--but Kolchak really is right up my alley (1970s, Dan Curtis, made for TV, supernatural).  I had first heard of Kolchak back in the 90s when The X-Files creator Chris Carter admitted Kolchak was the inspiration for and spiritual godfather of Fox Mulder.

Since The Night Stalker is considered one of the great made for television movies of the 1970s, I probably don't have anything new or interesting to say about it that hasn't been said before or better by others, so with that caveat out of the way I will simply say I enjoyed his first outing immensely and look forward to seeing more of Kolchak.

A few things I noticed and/or liked about this movie:

• Darren McGavin was perfect as rumpled newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak.  I had really only known him before as the dad in A Christmas Story but loved him here as Kolchak.
• Kolchak drinks beer out of cans with pull off tabs!  His apartment is small and dingy and there's nothing in his fridge except a few beers.
• Along with his shabby apartment, Kolchak's car is also really beat up and rusted.  He's a real working class schlub which I can totally relate to.
• Hey it's Sheriff Lobo! (Claude Akins).
• I love the neo-noir jazz score that plays while Kolchak is running red lights trying to get to the vampire's latest crime scene.
• Best quote from Kolchak: "I've seen a lot of weird things in my life...I have never, EVER seen anything like this".  I wonder if George Lucas had watched this film right before writing Han Solo's eerily similar statement aboard the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars?

Anyway I'm looking forward to watching the sequel The Night Strangler and the series (which I just picked up on sale for around $25 at Barnes & Noble).

Here're the first ten minutes to whet your appetite:

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The CBS Late Movie commercial bumper for The Night Stalker (not UHF but what evs...):

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Woodsy Owl PSA:

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Crazy Eddie commercial:

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K-tel record selector commercial:

The Amazing Transparent Man

Next up on WODS-TV Channel 73 is The Amazing Transparent Man (1960, though it's so creaky it seems about twenty years older).  This film actually appears on two of my Mill Creek collections: Pure Terror and Sci-Fi Classics, though I would not exactly call it terror inducing or a classic.

The blurb in the booklet reads:

The Amazing Transparent Man
Starring Douglas Kennedy, Marguerite Chapman, James Griffith
(1960) B&W Unrated

Crazed ex-military officer Paul Krenner has dreams of world  domination when he forces unwilling scientist Peter Ulof to do his bidding.  Ulof must develop a process to induce invisibility through atomic radiation.  With this in his armory, Krenner plans to create an invisible military force and sell it to the highest bidder.  They break safecracker Joey Faust out of jail and make him invisible so that he can steal more radium.  Their events take an unexpected turn.

This was another movie I had never seen or heard of and had no idea what to expect other than it sounded like a low budget Invisible Man knock off.  I was surprised to see Jack Pierce, the legendary creator of the classic Universal monsters, credited as makeup artist for this film; the invisibility effect, although not anything groundbreaking, was still a pretty decent effect as a poor guinea pig's skin gradually melts away to reveal its skeleton before it is reduced to full invisibility.

Best quote, by the femme fatale of the flick to the con: "better lay off the giggle water".

Not much more to say about this one, other than the fact that con man Joey Faust reminded me of an unhinged Richard Nixon and the scientist Dr. Ulof looked a lot like Jerry "Frank Costanza" Stiller:


"Serenity Now!"

Here's the trailer: