Chicken's Lunch Thoughts
Last year, I kept track of every film that I watched, including the venue (theater, TV, VHS or DVD) and date. I was appalled to announce that I sat through 436 films in 2003. I'm even more appalled and embarrassed to admit that 2004's total will far exceed that of last year. And I thought I had more of a "life". Maybe not. I'll write more about the 2004 list in January, and I'm sure there'll be some startling stats to pass along.

I added Chicken's blog to my list of links over there on the right. Chicken's Lunch Thoughts is, um, a list of things Chicken thinks about at lunch every day. These started as daily emails and have now progressed to Web status. So make sure you add Chicken to your Daily Bookmarks along with Tolemite and Cheeseburger. And, uh, me, I hope.

BTW, his name isn't really Chicken Del Gosso, although I wish it was. His last name is DeRosa, but for some reason, when his landlord penned a nasty complaint letter about his roommate (whose last name was Hehn), it was about those rascally boys "Del Gosso and Helms". Sounds like a shortlived '70s cop show--"Burnin' rubber and breakin' rules! Poundin' the streets and mountin' the ladies! Del Gosso and Helms! This fall on ABC!"

Stay Home and Eat All the Freakin' Chips, Kip.
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: NAPPY D
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE arrived from Netflix today. Unfortunately, the disc seems to suffer from a pressing error that causes my DVD player to not read its audio track right away. While bouncing around the extras, I was having trouble getting any audio to play, and only by turning my receiver off and back on a couple of times was the audio able to "register". Perhaps it's just a compatibility issue with my player; I'll test it with my computer's DVD player later.

Anyway, I checked out a few of the extras, including PELUCA, the original 9-minute short film that inspired NAPOLEON. It's interesting, but so much of it was directly recycled into the feature that it works as a novelty at best. Some of the NAPOLEON deleted scenes have some real laughs, including Napoleon's pathetic attempt to buy a Lotto ticket and a funny dialogue exchange during a kickball game. I'm really looking forward to listening to the commentary track with director Jared Hess, star Jon Heder and producer Jeremy Coon.

Pedro: "Do you think people will vote for me?"
Napoleon: "Heck yes! I'd vote for you."
Pedro: "Like what are my skills?"
Napoleon: "Well, you have a sweet bike. And you're really good at hooking up with chicks. Plus you're like the only guy at school who has a mustache."

Who Loves Ya, Baby?
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Kojak and Sipowicz
Finally sat down with THE BELARUS FILE tonight, a tape I picked up over a year ago at the grocery store for $4.95. It's a KOJAK reunion TV-movie from the mid-1980s that presents a new case for that suave baldie Theo Kojak, played so smoothly by silky Telly Savalas, and features a few old series regulars in small supporting roles (sans Kevin Dobson, who was doing KNOTS LANDING at the time). It's a solid mystery shot in New York and features the great Max von Sydow (THE SEVENTH SEAL) as a Russian survivor of a Nazi death camp who may or may not be murdering his fellow inmates 40 years later in New York City. It isn't action-packed or sensational or glossy or rat-a-tat-tat, merely an engrossing police procedural with clues and conversations and not a single Crime Scene Investigator in sight. THE BELARUS FILE isn't particularly memorable, but it's well-written and performed, the kind of quiet mystery network television appears to have forgotten about.

I'm also sadly anticipating the final episode of NYPD BLUE, which is scheduled for March 1. In typical get-no-respect-from-ABC form, tonight's episode ended in a cliffhanger (unusual for this series), which isn't so bad in and of itself, but the fact that ABC isn't airing the second part for another three weeks is infuriating. It looks like the show is already setting the groundwork for its finale, with stammering cop Medavoy (the underrated Gordon Clapp) hooking up with a hot new girlfriend (remember Mary Page Keller from '90s sitcoms like BABY TALK and OPEN HOUSE? I didn't think so.) and a new gig selling real estate.

I had an unexpected visit from an old friend tonight, who dropped by with his girlfriend. He and I used to be close, but we had a severe falling-out several years ago. And it was about, of all things, a woman. There's a lot to the story, but suffice to say that I was brutally victimized and rightfully took it personally for a long time, not so much because of the woman, but because of the underhanded way in which my friend screwed me over and continued to do so for years afterward, even after his relationship with this woman had ended. Every once in awhile, he pops up to get back into my good graces. He's never made a serious attempt to explain or apologize for his actions, but in his own clumsy way, he has attempted to slowly make amends. I was pretty surprised to see him drop by unannounced tonight. It was a little uncomfortable for me, as it always is whenever we're thrust together (because we have mutual friends), but I became more relaxed. He was here about an hour, and even though the conversation never really moved past small talk and "have you seen so-and-so lately" and stuff like that, I have to admit that it wasn't so bad. I don't think I'm ready to hang out with the guy all the time...maybe I never will be...but I don't think I'll feel so awkward the next time I run into him.

My VHS collection numbers about 700 or more. While I won't inflict the whole list upon you, every once in awhile I'll lay a few titles on you.
1000 Convicts and a Woman (not nearly as sleazy as it sounds)
1990 World Series (Go, Reds!)
1990: The Bronx Warriors
2019: After the Fall of New York
2020 Texas Gladiators
25x5: The Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones
36th Chamber of Shaolin, The
Abby (a hilarious blaxploitation EXORCIST ripoff)
Abductors, The (foxy Cheri Caffaro IS Ginger)
Abominable Dr. Phibes, The (Vinnie Price is a genius)
Accidental Spy, The (original HK cut)
Adam-12 (TV series)
Adios, Sabata
Adventures of Captain Marvel, The (serial)
Adventures of El Frenetico and Go-Girl, The
Adventures of Fu Manchu, The (TV series)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The (TV series)
Adventures of Superman, The (TV series)
Agency
Agent of Death
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV series)
Alice in Wonderland (1976) (X-rated cut)
Alien Terminator (with Maria Ford)
Alone in the Dark (Palance, Landau, Pleasence and Howling Mad Murdock!)
Amazons and Supermen (crazy Italian acrobat superheroes rule)
America 3000
American Dragons
Angie (TV series)
Annihilators, The
Arousers, The
Assault, The
Astounding She-Monster, The
A-Team, The (TV series)
Atom Man vs. Superman (serial)
Atomic Brain, The
Attack of the 50 Foot Monstermania
Avenger, The
Avengers, The (TV series)
Avenging Force (Michael Dudikoff's best film--this needs to be on DVD--get off your ass, MGM!)

Wanna See My DVD Collection?
Mood:  mischievious
I've got 453 titles lining my shelves. How many of these have you seen? And which ones would you like to see?

10 to Midnight
1941
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Abbott & Costello Go to Mars
Abbott & Costello in the Foreign Legion
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man
Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer
Abyss, The
Across 110th Street
Active Stealth
Adventures of Robin Hood, The
Africa Screams
Air Marshal
Airport
Airport 1975
Airport '77
Alien
All Monsters Attack!
Allnighter, The
American Ninja 2: The Confrontation
American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt
Angel
Angel III: The Final Chapter
Arena, The
Arlington Road
Army of Darkness
Assassin
Assault on Precinct 13
Assignment: Outer Space
Asylum of Satan
Attack from Space
Avengers, The: '65, Set 1
Avenging Angel
Bail Out
Barbarella
Barbarians, The
Baretta: Season One
Basket Case
Bat Masterson
Batman
Battle Beyond the Stars
Battle of Blood Island
Beast of Blood
Beastmaster, The
Behind the Planet of the Apes
Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens
Best of Times, The
Beverly Hills Cop
Big Bosoms, Square Jaws
Big Trouble in Little China
Black Brigade
Black Caesar
Black Christmas
Black Cobra
Black Cobra II
Black Fist
Black Gestapo
Black Hole, The
Black Six, The
Black Sunday
Blackbelt
Blood and Black Lace
Bloodstained Shadow, The
Bloody Pit of Horror
Blue Sunshine
Blue Thunder
Bond Girls Are Forever
Boston Blackie
Braddock: Missing in Action III
Breakin'
Brides of Blood
Bronx Executioner
Bummer!
C.B. Hustlers
C.H.U.D.
Capricorn One
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter
Case of the Bloody Iris, The
Cheerleader Camp
China Syndrome, The
Choppers, The
Chopping Mall
CIA: Code Name Alexa
City of the Dead
Cleopatra Jones
Clerks: The Animated Series
Code of Silence
Coffy
Columbo: Season One
Comin' Round the Mountain
Conan the Barbarian
Concrete Cowboys
Cotton Comes to Harlem
Countess Dracula
Curse of the Voodoo
Dawn of the Dead
Dead & Buried
Dead Heat
Dead Men Walk
Death Curse of Tartu
Death Valley Days
Death Wish 3
Deathsport
Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans
Delta Force 2
Demons of the Mind
Deputy, The
Destroy All Monsters
Devil Bat, The
Die Another Day
Django
Django Kill
Dolemite
Doomed to Die
Double Nickels
Dracula vs. Frankenstein
Dragnet
Dreamscape
Drive
Drums of Fu Manchu
Educational Archives: Social Engineering 101
Empire of the Ants
Erotic Adventures of Zorro, The
Escape 2000
Escape from New York
Escape to Witch Mountain
Eurotrip
Evil Brain from Outer Space
Evil Dead II
Evil Dead, The
Executive Target
Exorcist: Special Edition, The
Extra Weird Sampler
Extreme Limits
Eye for an Eye, An
Fantastic Voyage
Fear in the Night
Fiend Without a Face
Firestorm
First Blood
First Nudie Musical, The
Fistful of Dollars, A
Flash Gordon
Fog, The
For a Few Dollars More
For Your Eyes Only
Foxy Brown
Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series
French Connection II
French Connection, The
Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan
From Dusk Till Dawn
Gauntlet, The
Godmonster of Indian Flats
GoldenEye
Goliath and the Dragon
Good Guys Wear Black
Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The
Grand Theft Auto
Great Escape, The
Great Texas Dynamite Chase, The
Greatest '70s Cop Shows, The
Gremlins
Guns of Navarone, The
H.O.T.S.
Halloween
Hammer
Hands of Steel
Hang 'Em High
Have Gun-Will Travel: The Complete First Season
Hawk of Powder River, The
Hercules Against the Moon Men
Highlander: 10th Anniversary Director's Cut
Highway Patrol
Hijack
Hitch Hike to Hell
Hollywood Boulevard
Horror Hospital
Horror of Hammer, The
House
House II: The Second Story
Howling, The
Hudson Hawk
Humanoids from the Deep
I Spit on Your Grave
I Spy #1
I Spy #10
I Spy #11
I Spy #12
I Spy #13
I Spy #14
I Spy #2
I Spy #20
I Spy #21
I Spy #3
I Spy #4
I Spy #5
I Spy #6
I Spy #7
I Spy #8
I Spy #9
Incident on a Dark Street
Incredible Hulk, The
Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, The
Incubus
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
In-Laws, The
Inseminoid
Intruder, The
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Invasion U.S.A.
Jaws
Jekyll & Hyde...Together Again
Johnny Firecloud
Jonny Quest: The Complete First Season
Judgment at Nuremberg
Jungle Girl
Kentucky Fried Movie
Kickboxer 3: The Art of War
Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor
Kidnapped Co-Ed
Killing Cars
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects
Komodo
Krull
L.A. Confidential
Land of the Free
Last American Virgin, The
Lawless Years, The
Legend of the Eight Samurai
Lethal Weapon 4
License to Kill
Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, The
Lifeforce
Living Daylights, The
Logan's Run
Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold, The
Lone Ranger, The
Lone Wolf McQuade
Lost in Alaska
Lost in Space
Macon County Line
Mad Doctor of Blood Island
Magnum Force
Man Behind the Badge, The
Man with the Golden Gun, The
Manchurian Candidate, The
Manhunter
Mannaja
Mechanic, The
Messenger of Death
Mexican Hayride
Mighty Gorga, The
Missing in Action 2: The Beginning
Monkees: Season One, The
Monkees: Season Two, The
Moonfire
Mr. Majestyk
Murder on Flight 502
Murphy's Law
Naked City: Button in the Haystack
Night of the Bloody Apes
Night Shift
Night Stalker, The
Night Strangler, The
Nightmare at Noon
No Escape
Office Space
Once Upon a Time in the West
One Million AC/DC
Operation Delta Force 2: Mayday
Operation Delta Force 3: Clear Target
Osterman Weekend, The
Outland
Phantasm
Phantom Empire, The
Phantom of the Paradise
Phantom, The
Phase IV
Pieces
Piranha
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Poseidon Adventure, The
Prisoner: Vol. 1, The
Prisoner: Vol. 2, The
Prisoner: Vol. 3, The
Prisoner: Vol. 4, The
Prowler, The
Quatermass 2
Quatermass and the Pit
Rage of Honor
Rage of the Master
Raiders of the Living Dead
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rambo III
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rangers
Raw Deal
Raw Meat
Return from Witch Mountain
Return of Swamp Thing, The
Return of the Streetfighter
Revenge of the Ninja
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
Rifleman, The
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire 2: Blood and Steel
Road Games
Road House
Robot Monster
Rock 'n' Roll High School
Rockshow
Rollerball
Rough Night in Jericho
Run Man Run
Santo y Blue Demon contra Dracula y el Hombre Lobo
Satanic Rites of Dracula, The
Satan's Children
Say Anything...
Scalps
Scanners
Scream 3
Scream in the Streets, A
Sender, The
Sex Killer, The
Shaft
Shaft in Africa
Shaft's Big Score!
Shaker Run
Shape of Things to Come, The
Shark Zone
Shatter
Shell Shock
Shock Waves
Short Night of Glass Dolls
Shotgun Slade
Silent Rage
Sister Streetfighter
Six Days, Seven Nights
Skyscraper
Sledge Hammer: Season One
Sleepaway Camp
Sneakers
Spartan
Special Forces
Species
Splash
Spy Who Loved Me, The
Stabilizer, The
Stage to Mesa City
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Original Series, Vol. 1
Star Trek: The Original Series, Vol. 2
Starsky & Hutch: The Complete First Season
Steel Frontier
Stepmom
Sting of Death
Stories of the Century
Strange Brew
Streetfighter, The
Stunt Man, The
Stunts
Substitute 3: Winner Takes All, The
Substitute, The
Sugarfoot
Super Troopers
Supergirl
Superman vs. Nature & War
Superman vs. the Monsters & Villains
Superman: The Movie
Supervixens
Swap, The
Swarm, The
Sweeney 2
Sweeney!
Sweeper, The
Sweepers
Switchblade Sisters
Sword and the Sorcerer, The
Terror, The
Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The
The Concorde: Airport '79
Thief
Thing with Two Heads, The
Thing, The
Thunderball
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbirds Are Go
Tingler, The
T-Men
To Live and Die in L.A.
Tomorrow Never Dies
Top Dog
Tourist Trap
Tower of Evil
Towering Inferno, The
Traffic
Treasure Hunt
Trespass
Trial and Error
Two-Minute Warning
Used Cars
V: The Original Miniseries
Vampire Lovers, The
Vampirella
Van, The
Vanishing Point
Venom
Venomous
Verdict, The
Victory
Vigilante
Violent City
Virtual Assassin
Vixen
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
Wagon Train
Walking Tall
Walking Tall, Part II
Walking Tall: The Final Chapter
WarGames
Warning from Space
Warriors of the Wasteland
Warriors, The
Whip and the Body, The
Who Saw Her Die
Wraith, The
You Only Live Twice
Zero In and Scream
Zero Woman Returns
Zodiac Killer, The
Zorro's Fighting Legion

4 for 4
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: SECRET AGENT
"We...are the champions, my friends..."

The Marketing department had its annual White Elephant party today. If you don't know what that is, everyone brings in one wrapped gift, either something decent or something crappy. Everyone chooses a gift one at a time and opens it. Each successive person has the option to either open a new gift or steal one that belongs to somebody else. In the second round, after everyone has an open gift, each person has the opportunity to steal from someone else or keep what he has. Each gift can be stolen a maximum of three times, so there is some skill involved.

Each of the past four years, I have walked away with a better gift than I walked in with. Of course, it helps when you like a lot of stupid shit that nobody else does. For instance, this year I made off with five cheapjack $1 DVDs of PD (?) titles like THE DEVIL BAT with Bela Lugosi, DEAD MEN WALK with George Zucco and BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA. Oh, yeah, there was a bag of puffed rice (!) in the box too.

It's also a good opportunity to clean out my VHS collection. I unloaded MARTIAL LAW II (Cynthia Rothrock), TERMINAL RUSH (Don "The Dragon" Wilson) and FORTRESS 2 (Christopher Lambert) on some poor soul today. I don't think they got a good home either, which actually makes me kinda sad for some stupid reason.

I finished the first SECRET AGENT disc tonight. Excellent series, sort of the anti-MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and closer to I SPY than to any other TV spy show. Patrick McGoohan is a gripping lead, and the directors used MGM's British backlot to great advantage in showcasing the scripts' foreign locales. McGoohan is unfortunately semi-retired in Los Angeles these days, but you might have recognized him as Billy Zane's father in THE PHANTOM, King Edward in BRAVEHEART or the judge in A TIME TO KILL.

A Fingerprint on the Window of a Skyscraper
Now Playing: SIDEWAYS
Caught SIDEWAYS tonight at the Savoy 16. Even though it was about 132 degrees in the theater, I was still quite taken with this bittersweet comedy that offers extraordinary performances by Paul Giamatti, whom you may know from AMERICAN SPLENDOR, and Virginia Madsen and very good performances by Sandra Oh, whom I never saw before, and--surprisingly--Thomas Haden Church, the dumb guy on a dumb '90s sitcom called WINGS. As much as I admired SIDEWAYS and adored listening to its characters talk, I found it very difficult at times for personal reasons. I identified a bit too strongly with the Giamatti character--his dwelling and wardrobe, his passion for an obscure hobby, the loneliness of his shattered dreams and failed ambitions. Still, he's a basically decent man who comes to realize that his innate goodness is a by-product of what he had previously believed to be shortcomings, and SIDEWAYS ends on a hopeful note. Maybe it's a message for me to hang in there.

To illustrate how ridiculous my life can be, Tolemite ("Tolemite is my name, and fuckin' up motha'fucka's is my game!") and I began the day by watching the complete opposite of SIDEWAYS: a pretty bad Italian horror picture called THE GREAT ALLIGATOR with major hottie Barbara Bach as an anthropologist/hotel manager who runs Mel Ferrer's new resort in Africa/South America/Peru (the film never deigns to say) and is kidnapped, stripped and trussed up by primitive natives to be served up a sacrifice to their god, a killer 'gator called Kuma that's chomping down on all the guests. Thanks for visiting, Toler (which is "Relot" spelled backwards).

In between, I hit the Apple Dumpling buffet, which left me bloated for the rest of the day (I haven't had a bite since). Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, beef and noodles, corn, bread...good grief, I just couldn't stop. That the Dumpling has perhaps the best food in town doesn't help curb my desire to pound it until I burst. Maybe I'll eat tomorrow; I should be ready to go by then. I think.

Deep Hurting
Mood:  crushed out
Now Playing: Pure, unadulterated crap
Whew! It has been one long crazy night of crappy movie watching. Tolemite dropped into town tonight, so we rounded up most of the gang and treated ourselves to a special Crappy Movie Night revolving around a holiday theme. Plenty of pizza, donuts, sausage, cheese, Miller High Life, wine, Red Can and little Reese's (thanks, Cheeseburger) were consumed in the process.

First off was the infamous STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL, which aired on CBS in 1979 and has not been seen publicly since; it isn't even on home video as a DVD extra. It's not hard to guess why, as it's extremely bad and George Lucas has presumably washed his hands of it. All of the major STAR WARS cast members contribute, including Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, who you can bet doesn't pull it out around his house on Xmas Day. The show revolves around "Life Day" on the Wookie planet, as Chewbacca's wife, father and son (!) wait around the treehouse for him and Han Solo to return, while Imperial guards invade. It's hard to guess who the intended audience for this was; it's too boring for kids, and too stupid for adults. At one point, Grandpa Wookie uses a virtual reality device for a sexual fantasy involving Diahann Carroll! Harvey Korman appears as three characters, including a transvestite robot chef, and Jefferson Starship performs a wretched song during a laser show. Bea Arthur and Art Carney are in it too. Truthfully, the highlight of the tape are the original commercials, which include promos for upcoming CBS specials like BOBBY VINTON'S ROCK 'N' ROLLERS (which include Erik Estrada and Fabian) and LUCY COMES TO NASHVILLE, in which Lucille Ball frolics at the Grand Ol' Opry with Mel Tillis and Lynn Anderson. Oh, man, do they look terrible.

Next was CHOPPING MALL, a Jim Wynorski film for Roger Corman about horny teenagers who are locked inside a mall overnight with three berserk security robots that use lasers, stun guns and sharp pincers to kill their victims. In addition to some boobs, lots of action and one of the best exploding heads I've ever seen (SCANNERS is still #1), CHOPPING MALL (originally titled KILLBOTS) provides some neat in-jokes, such as the casting of genre favorites Dick Miller (A BUCKET OF BLOOD), Mel Welles (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS), Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel reprising their EATING RAOUL characters, Barbara Crampton (RE-ANIMATOR) and Angus Scrimm (PHANTASM).

I wrote about SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT here at Mobius Home Video Forum. It's about as tasteless as you can imagine, featuring strong anti-woman and anti-Catholic biases. The highlight is Linnea Quigley's death scene, as she is impaled while topless on a pair of reindeer antlers mounted on a wall. I don't think anyone has copied that move.

Chuck Norris was one of America's biggest box-office stars at the time he made INVASION U.S.A. for Cannon. As retired Company agent Matt Hunter, Norris spends his free time wrestling alligators and trading quips with his grizzled Indian neighbor outside his ramshackle shack in the Everglades. He reluctantly returns to action when a large gang of godless Commie terrorists led by old foe Rostov (Richard Lynch) invades Florida and starts blowing up school buses, shooting up shopping malls, turning citizens against authority and generally making Christmas a big bummer. Although it makes sense to let the Army, Marines, National Guard, FBI, etc. in on the caper, Chuck's condition for stopping Rostov is "I work alone!" so, while hundreds of terrorists roam the Sunshine State mowing down innocent civilians, he cruises around town in his pickup truck looking for bad guys, blasting them with his twin-holstered Uzis, and moving on to the next target. Characterization is kept to a bare minimum, and the whole film is merely a series of setpieces in which Norris stumbles onto someone in danger and blows the bad guys away. There's no detective work involved in which he is able to deduce where Rostov's men will pop up next. No, he just drives around until he accidentally discovers the script's next action scene. A lot of bullets fly in this movie, and director Joseph Zito, who previously worked with Norris on MISSING IN ACTION, at least keeps things moving fairly quickly, tossing in a few smooth dolly shots and splashing enough blood on the screen to keep nondiscriminating audience members (like me) from getting bored. Working with a reported $10 million budget, Zito manages to get it all on the screen, photographing enough exploding houses, squibbed chests and burning men to keep Cannon's stunt crew plenty busy. INVASION U.S.A. may be stupid, crude and confusing, but it certainly isn't boring, and is pretty typical of the fun but empty-headed stuff Cannon was putting out in the mid-'80s.

By 1:00am, most of the crew was still hanging in there, and we finished the night with MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000's presentation of SANTA CLAUS, a Mexican fantasy in which Pitch, a Satanic minion with red skin, horns and a tail, tries to prevent Santa from making his rounds on Christmas Eve. Very strange, to say the least, and one of MST3K's better shows, even if it does feature Mike.

Time to get some rest before attacking the Apple Dumpling buffet tomorrow. I'll need all my strength for that raid.

TERROR IN TOYLAND
Mood:  cheeky
In the days leading up to Christmas, I'll do my part to help you and your loved ones enjoy this holiday season by recommending some appropriately themed films guaranteed to get you into the proper spirit. Sure, you can always sit down to IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE or A CHRISTMAS STORY for the 79th time. Or you can open your mind, man, to a fantastic new world filled with freaky frankincense and far-out myrrh.

TERROR IN TOYLAND (1980) may look like a slasher film, but falls more squarely into the realm of psychological drama. Also known as CHRISTMAS EVIL and YOU BETTER WATCH OUT, TERROR features a very good performance by Brandon Maggart (later on the Showtime sitcom BROTHERS) as Harry, a meek middle-management type who likes Christmas a little too much. Especially considering he's been emotionally scarred from sneaking downstairs one Christmas Eve as a child and seeing Mommy doing more than just kissing Santa Claus in the living room. Now a middle-aged man, Harry spends much of his time spying on the neighborhood children, keeping a list of their deeds, both naughty and nice (nosepicking goes on the "naughty" list). This finally sends him over the edge on Christmas Eve, when he goes on a (relatively tame) killing spree, cruising around New York City in his custom-painted Santa van and even being chased by good Samaritans with torches!

OK, it's pretty slow-going and bloodless, but well worth watching just for the WTF ending, which left me literally crying from laughter. No kidding, I laughed louder, longer and harder at this movie's final scene than at most actual comedies I've seen.

Want to know more? SPOILERS follow:

After Harry has been identified as the nutcase who's wandering around killing people, the citizens form a lynch mob and start chasing him around the streets. Harry jumps into his supervan and drives away. Just when you think he's going to get killed, the van simply...flies away! Keep in mind, up to the final 30 seconds, there have been no fantastic or supernatural elements whatsoever in the film. And just like that, Santa Harry's van glides into the air, flying over the New York streets with Harry's "Ho ho ho"'s echoing across the sky.

END SPOILERS

Truthfully, this movie didn't do much for me beyond Maggart's strong performance and an oddly sick atmosphere around it. But when that ending happened, I completely lost it. It goes far beyond Absurd into Unabashed WTF Territory. With a bullet. I'd like to watch the film again this Christmas, but no way could it have the same effect on me.

One more TERROR IN TOYLAND footnote: star Maggart fathered pop singer Fiona Apple.

Abe in Space
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: SECRET AGENT
Believe it or not, I have a set of friends who are obsessed with oddball Abraham Lincoln references. I've never quite understood it myself, but this post is in their honor.


The Unexpected #217, cover pencilled by Ernie Colon and inked by Dick Giordano. I believe the story is "Dear Senator", a 10-pager written and drawn by Sheldon Mayer. I've not had the pleasure of reading it, but I'm dying to know what this ridiculous cover is all about.

Tonight I watched this week's episodes of LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT (good), THE WEST WING (okay by this season's standards; can't wait for Jimmy Smits to become a regular) and LAW & ORDER (I like Farina, but it was good to see Orbach again in this repeat). I don't watch very much television at all these days, just a handful of network dramas. I haven't watched anything on cable in over a month; maybe it's time I stopped thinking about getting a dish and just did it.

I also dug into A&E's SECRET AGENT box set, watching the first episode. It seems like an odd one to start a series with, since the main character, agent John Drake (Patrick McGoohan), is undercover throughout the episode and acts, er, out of character, so to speak. A bit talky, but the cat-and-mouse games played among the spies were fun, and the British guest cast, including Niall McGinniss and the charming Dawn Addams, were good.

Off to climb into a bed a bit early. I certainly could use it after this week, especially after staying up late so many nights. I'll of course read a bit first. I'm currently spinning the pages of Marvel's ESSENTIAL IRON FIST, VOL. 1, which reprints the first several appearances of the green-and-gold superhero created to take advantage of the martial arts craze of the mid-1970s. I highly recommend the Marvel ESSENTIAL series, which are thick trade paperbacks (500-600 pages) reprinting classic Marvel comics. Early editions focused on A-list heroes like Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk and the Fantastic Four, but more recently Marvel has moved into the '70s and more obscure titles like MARVEL TEAM-UP, TOMB OF DRACULA, SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP and THE MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN. The downside is that they're reprinted in black-and-white, but with 500+ pages and 25-30 different issues presented for less than $15, I think they're marvelous bargains. As much as I love the Silver Age Marvel stories by Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby et al., I have a soft spot for the comics I grew up with during the '70s...and the sillier the better. And they don't get a whole lot sillier than Iron Fist, whose gaudy outfit, kung fu skills and iron-fist gimmick (by concentrating, he can draw all the power of his chi into his fist, giving it temporarily immense power) fit right into the freewheeling well-let's-see-if-this-idea-sticks Marvel spirit of the pre-Shooter '70s. So face front, fans!

Wastin' Away Again in Polynesiantown
Mood:  chillin'
I feel surprisingly good right now, considering the wildness of last night. I'm not a drinker, and I still often wake up the morning after a night at the Bullet with a hangover of sorts, because of the polluted air circulating around that joint, a mixture of smoke and sweat and juices and oils and I don't even want to know what else. I like Damron and all, but I'm almost glad he's finally gone, `cause another going-away celebration might have killed me. Tonight is for relaxing. I was out Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, and will be up very late tomorrow night. I expect I'll catch up on the network television that I recorded during the week.

So. Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot. When I was a kid, as many teenage boys are, especially one who are funny (hey, I wasn't voted Farmer City-Mansfield's Class of `84 Class Clown for nothin'...), I was very interested in comedy. I used to watch Carson's monologue and opening desk bit, and try to repeat the jokes at school the next day. Carnac and Art Fern were my favorite Carson bits. Of course, I watched all the great sitcoms of the period--THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, TAXI, WKRP IN CINCINNATI, M*A*S*H. There were still some good variety shows on the air that regularly featured greats like Carol Burnett and Tim Conway and Dick Van Dyke. Dean Martin roasts. SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE was at its creative peak during its first five years and has never recovered. And there was SCTV NETWORK 90 (soon retitled just SCTV).

I think most people who watched SCTV in the early '80s considered it their own personal secret. SCTV actually began on Canadian television in the late '70s, but was brought to NBC in 1981 to air after THE TONIGHT SHOW on Friday nights in a 90-minute format. The cast was brilliant, so much so that all are still active in showbiz today (at least as much as they want to be): Joe Flaherty, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis (Martin Short joined later in the season). At age 14 and 15, I don't recall any of my friends staying up to watch SCTV; I felt as though I was the only one I knew who was special enough to "get" it. SCTV was eventually discovered by the mass media (who eventually put them in LIFE and ROLLING STONE), but at the beginning, nobody knew about the show (and its ratings were never very big, as only a dedicated cult audience was watching).

One of many brilliant bits of that first season began in an early sketch called "Polynesiantown". It was a parody of CHINATOWN, and starred Candy's character Johnny LaRue as a bar owner. SCTV was a collection of TV, movie and commercial parodies, but it also featured regular characters who appeared in wraparound segments. LaRue was a wannabe matinee idol, a playboy failed-movie-star who was reduced to making TV-movies for the SCTV network, and "Polynesiantown" was one he wrote, directed, produced and starred in. Featuring a wild plot involving poisoned ribs and musical numbers by Dr. John, "Polynesiantown" is among Season One's crown jewels. But it's what happened later that led to its legacy as much as the sketch itself.

Candy, who also conceived the sketch, ended it with a complicated crane shot that took hours to film and left the cast and crew freezing at 3:00am on an Edmonton night. It also ran the episode over-budget, forcing an angry missive from NBC. So SCTV weaved the real-life incident into their show, with station owner Guy Caballero (Flaherty) chewing out LaRue on the next episode for going over budget and firing him. A blubbering sycophantic LaRue finally convinced Guy for another shot, which turned out to be "Street Beef", which allowed Johnny only one camera and one microphone. Johnny begged for a crane, but Guy refused to relent.

This series of gags ran through much of the first season, finally climaxing in the Christmas show, which found LaRue outside alone on Christmas Eve doing "Street Beef" all alone without even a cameraman. Drunk, freezing (it really was damn cold during that snowy Edmonton night shoot) and depressed, LaRue delivered an amazingly funny and poignant monologue directly into the lens (Candy really was a helluvan actor). At the end of it, he had a epiphany of sorts, and discovered that Santa Claus had gifted him with his very own crane, complete with red ribbon, reducing LaRue to tears.

SCTV fans remember LaRue and his crane shot with much fondness, and it's a reference that has crept into many realms of pop culture. Michael Moore thanked "Johnny LaRue" for his crane shot in the closing credits of his film CANADIAN BACON (with Candy). Jim Wynorski in his audio commentary on CHOPPING MALL and cast and crew members of FREAKS & GEEKS gush about the joke on their DVDs. Since I have recently rediscovered the genius of SCTV on Shout! Factory's recent DVD releases, I hereby dedicate this post to the cast, writers and crew of that show. And now you know the origin of Johnny LaRue's crane shot.

Aren't you glad you read all that?

Back later tonight.