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Not Responsible For Any Side-Effects!
     

CultTV:

Opiates for the B-Masses
 
     
 

B-Film Showcases:
 
     

A small town movie palace, in a desperate attempt to keep the doors open and the business afloat, gets a little creative with their promotions and film selection to try and bring the crowds back. Featuring grade-Z flicks that have to be seen to be believed, this obscure syndicated showcase for wonky movies was rabidly championed by it's multitude of fans -- well, rabidly championed by me anyways.
 
     

God I hate to admit this, but I had a disastrous first encounter with this show: My cousin had one of those new fangled satellite dishes, and while perusing the latest program guide I saw that some show was airing War of the Colossal Beasts. Talking him into tuning away from the Playboy Channel for a while, we checked it out. And when the film started -- frankly, I was a little annoyed by the silhouetted figures down in the corner who refused to shut up. Yes. I'm an idiot.
 
     
 

Cartoon Memories:
 
     

Every Saturday morning I sat glued to the tube, watching Flash and his buddies battle Ming and his evil minions in some new and exotic locale of Mongo. And just as adverse as the locales, were the locals: Hawk Men, Lizard Men, Beast Men, Mole Men, Mer-Men, Metal Men and Thun the Lion Man. And not just Men-men -- this cartoon boasted some of thee most exotic and sexiest cartoon babes ever committed to an animation cell.
 
     

The dawn of the '80s brought this wonderful cartoon that quickly became a Saturday morning staple at the Beerman's household. What I truly enjoyed was that it totally immersed itself in the Marvel Universe with tons of cameos and guest appearances: Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk all managed to pop up, and it ran the gambit with the rogues gallery as they fought everyone from The Kingpin to Dr. Doom.
 
     

There had been rumors and rumblings of an X-Men cartoon as early as 1984. It was set to feature Cyclops, Sprite, Storm, Wolverine, Thunderbird, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Video Man. Yes, Video Man -- a character that made his debut on Spider-man's cartoon. I can't explain it, either; people just had Space Invaders and Pac Man on the brain back then. That was eventually scrapped -- thank God, and they went back to drawing board.
 
     

In 1966, Marvel Comics teamed up with Gantry/Lawrence Animation Studios to bring their new and immensely popular superheroes to the small screen: The Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America and The Sub-Mariner all had their own serialized adventures on the tube. But what we all really remember about these old cartoons are the loopy theme songs and the minimal animation involved.
 
     
 

Imports:
 
     

An argument can be made that The Young Ones were the originators of modern toilet humor. And it really is hard to do the series justice with the written word: anarchic, violent and destructive, but on the same note it was ironic, satirical and very drool. The show wore many hats, and wore them well: spoof, slapstick and satire mixed deftly with a lot of fart, poop and booger jokes.
 
     
 

Tube Faves:
 
     

I don’t have to overtax the old brain synapses much when recalling one of my favorite TV shows from my misspent youth: Decked out in a powder-blue seersucker suit, sneakers and ratty straw hat, an acerbic and cynical reporter does battle against the supernatural forces of darkness. Why? Because no one else understands or believes the true danger.
 
     

The premise of the show was simple: a fictional UHF station in the fictional town of Melonville and the gonzo programming it put on the air. This provided the players with plenty of cannon fodder as they sent-up television as we knew it at the time: celebrity variety specials, afternoon talk shows, locally produced commercials, cooking shows, game shows and movies of the week.
 
     
 

Movies of the Week:
 
     

This film holds a very special significance for me. Finally allowed to stay up and watch the late-late show, this was the first (quote) monster movie (unquote) that I ever remember seeing. Well, some of it. Okay, the only thing I really remember was a scene where the Killdozer rocked its blade back and forth after killing somebody, and I could have sworn that it had some kind of menacing-motorized laugh. So, of course, I just had to track it down...
 
     

What this film lacks in real suspense is more than made up for in outright bizarreness. I don’t think I’ve ever consumed enough booze to concoct a plot as wild as this one -- not even in my most fevered delirium would it have crossed my mind to try and substitute a Cabbage Patch Kid as a virginal sacrifice to an ancient druid god by super-gluing some fingernails and hair to it and then top it off with a kabuki make up job. Are you kidding me?
 
     

Before they really got into the TV series swing, the co-producing tandem of Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg made several made for the Tube exploitation pieces like this little number. No different than their '70s TV shows, this film hides the moral of the story with a lot of jiggling and wiggling, while warning all the impressionable young ladies out there against the dangers of falling blindly for the minions of evil. Or something.
 
     

After seeing the video clip of Leonard Nimoy wailing out "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" to his heart’s content about 30 times, it finally tripped a brain synapse, triggering a latent memory in my head of a movie I once saw: I vaguely remembered Nimoy playing a psychic race car driver who used his mental powers to help solve mysteries. Crossing my fingers, I headed to the video store, hoping beyond hope that it hadn't disappeared in the great VHS purge of '02.
 
     

Sgt. Joe Friday is so anti-hip -- almost an idiot savant with his disturbing knowledge of rules and police regulations that he can regurgitate verbatim at a moments notice, making him one of America's oddest folk heroes. The rest of us squares wish we were that cool. He was one of the last of the truly good guys. No tortured past. No axe to grind. No psycho loner who bucks his superiors to do it his way. He is what he is. And I love the guy. Yassir. Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.
 
     

On Monday, August 6th, 1966, America -- still recovering from the despicable, murderous acts of Richard Speck in Chicago the week prior, was walloped again on this fateful day. For on that day, a little before noon, Charles Whitman started shooting from the observation deck of the University Tower in Austin, Texas. Coming eleven years after the rampage, this film reflects on the carnage and the chaos of the day that changed America forever.
 
     
 

Tube Oddities:
 
     

With an upcoming feature film for the Man of Steel and the mod television series for their Amazing Amazon, DC Comics hadn't had this good since the Caped Crusader ruled the airwaves back in the '60s, but then along came this thing. I'll admit if this tube-oddity didn’t have Hanna-Barbera listed in the credits, I’d swear the whole thing was just another Sid & Marty Kroft pipe dream. Only in the '70s, man. Only in the '70s.
 
     

To celebrate my recent pilgrimage down Highway 375 -- a/k/a the Extraterrestrial Highway, to Rachel, Nevada -- home of the Little A'Le'Inn and Area 51, I decided to tackle this TV documentary about the McPherson clans' harrowing alien abduction that was caught on video tape. The program alleges that it really did happen and the McPhersons are still missing to this day. Aired by the UPN network in 1998, it had the Nation buzzing wondering if it was real or a hoax.
 
     

I honestly believe that this little show will cut at least ten years off of Will Vinton’s purgatory sentence for poisoning the world with the singing California Raisons. Meet Wiltshire Pig, a pig with a porcine plan for world domination once he finds Frankenswine's Monster. But to do so he must first infiltrate Frankenswine's Castle, where an all out drunken Monster Convention is just getting into full swing.
 
     

Wiltshire Pig appears to have fully recovered from his last adventure. Positive that he is brilliant but cursed to failure, our porcine protagonist's latest get-rich-quick plot finds him kidnapping the Easter Bunny to replace him and cash in on several lucrative endorsement deals -- but only if he survives the rabbitorial combat in the Arena and is crowned the new Easter Bunny.