"Nestled deep in the heart of
America's Midwest, lies the pleasant,
peaceful town of Limekirk. Time was when
the good people of Limekirk would flock
to the downtown majestic Ritz Theater.
They would watch anything. Then, slowly,
the audience began to dwindle and the
Ritz Theater teetered on the brink of
oblivion. But Laraine, who ran the
Theater with her mom, had an idea.
If the people of Limekirk were bored
with normal entertainment, why not give
them something out of the ordinary? She
put washers and dryers in the
lobby...but that didn't work. So she
gathered together a collection of the
strangest, the silliest, most unusual
movies ever made, stocked every
refreshment imaginable, and called it
The
Canned Film Festival!"
The
Canned Film Festival
was a syndicated show that popped up
around 1986, but much to my dismay, just
as quickly blinked out of existence. It
cropped up on my local CBS affiliate that
they sacrificed to the late night time
slot opposite the monster that was Saturday
Night Live
(circa
Billy Crystal and Martin Short.)
Dr.
Pepper championed B-Movies in the mid-80s.
Their products were prominently featured in Godzilla
1985,
and appeared to be the sole sponsor of The
Canned Film Festival
(and
man, Dr. Pepper had some bizarre
post-apocalyptic commercials in the
mid-80s). Producer John Gilroy,
director Jonathan Heap, writers Len Smith
and Mike Wilkins, and star Laraine Newman,
made the most of that sponsorship for a
short-lived, but rabidly championed, B-film
showcase.
Well,
rabidly championed by me anyways.
The
premise was simple enough: In a desperate attempt to
keep the doors open, a small town
movie palace gets a little creative
with their promotions and films, featuring
grade-Z flicks that have to be seen to be
believed, to try and bring the crowds back.
The
originator of that hair-brained scheme was
Laraine (Laraine Newman),
the daughter of the theater owner. We
never do get to see the reclusive
"mom" -- who spends all her time
in the projection booth, but we hear her
constant presence as she bangs away on her
calliope, providing mood music during the
bumpers before the commercial breaks. To
try and increase the foot-traffic, she
converts part of the lobby into a
laundromat, so if a person chooses, they
can do their laundry while watching the
film. And I don't know if it's a cost
cutting measure or another gimmick, but
all the refreshments at the concession
stand are -- well, unique and the only
thing that's guaranteed is that they won't
kill you (but will probably repeat
on you like a howitzer.)
Despite
these efforts, the only ones who
consistently show up are a handful of
diehard regulars; the collective heads of
knuckle known better as 'Fitz' Fitzgerald (Patrick
Garner), the lost Caulkin; Chan (Phil
Nee), who doesn't understand or
speak any English; Jack (F.
Richards Ford), the local cub
reporter who must review the films; Becky (Laura
Galusha), Jack's girlfriend who
always tags along; and Doris (Kathryn
Rossetter) the sage of the
laundromat (mostly
to the naive Becky on the dangerous wiles
of men).
The
show relied pretty heavily on the running
gags: Chan's language barrier, Jack and
Becky's relationship problems, the
oddities offered at the snack bar, and Laraine's
insistence that everyone sits in their
assigned seats, spreading everyone around
the theater, to make the crowd look bigger (usually
meaning Jack and Becky can't make out).
It was all pretty paper thin, premise
wise, but the characters were charming,
fun, and endearing, and did what they were
supposed to do: set up the film and then
let it run amok and trample us over as we
celebrated the cheesy-awfulness together
until the final credits rolled.
Like
the week they featured Ed Wood's almost
coherent Bride
of the Monster.
Before
each film started, Laraine welcomed each
patron and gave them the lowdown on the
week's feature; an opportunity to share
some obscure or odd facts about the film
they're about to see -- in this case, Ed
Wood's proclivities, the missing octopus
motor, Lugosi's last speaking role etc.
She
also has a surprise for everyone in
celebration of the movie: Authentic Tor
Johnson masks. (Didn't he used to
break a lot of Ed Wood's toilet seats?
Fitz asks.) Laraine had planned on
giving them away to the first ten
customers, but she has no idea what to do
with the other six masks. Fitz and
Chan are excited to see Lugosi's last
speaking role and want to memorialize his
last words spoken on screen. Jack
is absent, covering an all-night calliope
music festival, so Becky is alone. She
talks to Doris and reveals that she and Jack
have been dating for over two years with
no real talk of marriage. Doris then
relates to her the old story about 'why
buy the cow when the milk's free.' With that
nugget, coupled with a disastrous talk
with Fitz, and a one-sided chat with Chan,
Becky, inspired by the plucky reporter in
the movie, realizes she has to become
more than just Jack's girl.
As
the brain-bending film progresses, and
several characters become rubber-octopus
chum, word comes that the lead calliope
player at the music festival has collapsed
and they desperately need a replacement.
Laraine convinces her mom to finally come
out of the projection booth and take over.
(She never speaks, she only answers
with organ stings or music cues -- and I
guess "Ode
to Joy"
means "Yes, I'll do it".)
After
the movie gets done "tampering in
God's domain", the theater empties.
Fitz and Chan argue over whether Lugosi's
last line was either "uuurghh!"
or "aaarrrgghh!"; Jack shows up,
and Becky asserts herself by admitting she
did miss him -- but not enough to go to
the skinny-dipping hole.
They
all see Doris watching the balcony steps,
and spy Laraine leading a hooded figure
down. Doris tells them who it is and they
all realize they've never seen Laraine's
mom, and like us, don't even know her
name. Fitz calls out to her; the hooded
figure turns, and yes, we finally get to
see Larraine's mom -- who's wearing a Tor
Johnson mask. (I think.)
With the movie over and nothing else to
do, they all don their Tor masks and head
to the festival to be her personal
cheering section.
Of
all the B-Movie showcase programs, Mystery
Science Theater 3000 was the best and
my favorite; no ifs, ands, or -- well, one
little but. That "but" being
that this show came to me first, and
that's why it will always hold a special
place in this crap-movie fanatic's heart.
I
bring this up because, unlike Joel, Mike
and the 'bots, The
Canned Film Festival players
only showed up at the beginning, during
the commercial breaks, and the conclusion;
the films had to stand up on their own;
there was no running commentary, and they
only talked about the films during the
breaks (and
I recall several editing gaffes where they
talked about scenes that hadn't happened
yet. Whoops.) The featured films
were also compressed, to fill in the
syndicated show's hour and half time frame,
so some scenes are absent altogether.
Regardless
of these minor technical glitches, I will
be forever indebted to this show for it
was here that I saw Robot
Monster for the first time. It also
popped my B-Cherry on the likes of Bride
of the Monster,
Eegah,
and Hillbillies
in Las Vegas.
I tuned in for more, but alas, the show
vanished from it's timeslot and replaced
with M*A*S*H
reruns.
Now
you're probably saying, Why didn't you just
go and buy or rent these movies to watch?
And once again, at the ripe old age of 34,
I've got to shake my fist around and go on
an old man rant, reminding everyone, that
not really all that long ago, there was a
time when things like DVDs didn't exist,
VCR's were a new magic piece of equipment
-- that cost about the same amount as a
used Buick, and not all of us had cable,
and if you were damn lucky, shows like
this would pop-up out of nowhere to feed
your B-movie appetite for a while.
Oh,
sure. My family had one of those new
fangled VCRs.
We
had a Betamax.
Yeah,
yeah. Laugh. Go ahead. I can wait.
(Did I mention it had a non-wireless
remote control?)
In
my fuzzy recollection, I had at least two
episodes of this taped in that format,
maybe more. Then not long after this show
disappeared, Santa finally brought me that
coveted VHS VCR (the whole sad and
sorted affair is gone into greater detail
in my It
Came From Hollywood
review.) I had every intention of
dubbing those over, but being the
procrastinator that I am, never got it
done. The
old Beta player eventually died and headed
for the landfill, but with these old shows
saved for posterity, I guarded the tapes
like a grizzly protecting her cubs
whenever mom asked if she could toss those
old things out. Someday, I said, I'll find
another Beta player and revisit the show.
And
then things got a little complicated.
The
video market boomed, these types of films
became readily available, and MST3k
came to the forefront. Almost a full
decade passed before this show cropped up
in a conversation with Naked Bill, circa
'96, over several beers, during a screening
of whatever the hell we were watching that
night (It
might have been the remake of Invaders
from Mars.
Newman was in that, right?). I was
really drunk and really sold the show,
because for my birthday, Naked Bill came
through and found an ancient, second-hand (and
I sh*t you not) wood-paneled Beta
player.
And
you think once I got the player, do you
think I could find those blank Beta tapes?
Heck, no. They were back at the old
homestead; and even though ma denied
throwing them away, I figured they were
gone for good and I'd never see the show
again.
So
for the longest time, I thought this show
and my beloved, eccentric denizens of
Limekirk would forever remain just a
memory for me. Every once and a while I'd
do a search on the web, to see if any sites
dedicated to it had cropped up. Alas, my
searches came up mostly empty, and the only
people, aside from myself, who seemed to
remember this show were the fine folks
over at Jabootu's
Bad Movie Dimension. And I seemed to
be in the extreme minority as someone who
remembers the show fondly as
opposed to lame.
Now
let's flash-forward to a couple of days
ago.
Ma
Beerman -- a widow for almost thirty
years, had recently gotten re-married to a
real swell guy and moved in with him.
Meaning my brother and his wife took over
the old homestead. I thought I had
everything out that was mine a long time
ago but I got a
message, saying they had found several
boxes that looked like my stuff.
You
guessed it; hidden back in the cave, under
the canning jars, was a box of blank Beta
tapes. (There was also a shop-class
produced spice rack that brother Brad
claimed I made. I said it was too
structurally sound to be made by these
inept hands but he insisted.) To
make a longer story shorter, I hitched up
the behemoth Beta player, flipped the
switches and diodes, to tune it in properly
(and you should of heard that thing
humming when it fired up. Wow.) I
punch the rehashed 8-Track buttons on the
front, the canopy popped open, and I
shoved in a tape that had Scooby-Doo,
Duck
Tales and
The
Canned Film Festival
scribbled on the label.
Now
I wish this had a completely happy ending,
but *sigh* it doesn't (at
least not yet). No, I didn't tape
over anything but the ancient player
wasn't quite up to snuff. The tape would
barely track, and the audio was all fouled
up. Basically, the player wasn't playing
the tapes at the right speed -- everything
was slightly sped up, making everyone
sound like they were on helium. (But
honestly, you haven't heard Lugosi's
superman speech until you've heard it on
helium.) Undaunted, despite this
excited state, I watched the whole episode
anyway.
I've
been through about half the other tapes --
a slow and tedious process (you
can't do a visual search on these old
machines), but unfortunately, I
can't find any traces of any other
episodes. I've at least got one, though,
in its entirety. And I wish I could
tell you more about this show -- how it
came about, how many episodes there were
-- but all I have is what I can remember
and gleaned from the closing credits. If
anyone else out there knows anything
they'd like to share, please e-mail me. Maybe
we can do a full blown tribute page.
So
until I find a more reliable Betamax, I'll
just have to go back to this show via
memory lane. That's right, baby. I'm
headed back to Limekirk and my usual seat
at the Ritz. I'll throw some popcorn at
Fitz, eat a box of chocolate covered Lug
Nuts, do a load of laundry, and survive
another feature with some old friends.
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