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Showing results for tags 'obscure'.
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At Castle Bedlam, in the Iyanden Craftroom, where miniatures are painted, quilts made, and various projects undertaken, there is the Garage Sale TV, which has a built in VHS player. Being who we are in this house, there are still VHS cassettes hither, thither, and yon, and recently, I wanted some back ground noise while I painted, so I stuck a cassette in there. I hadn't actually LOOKED at this cassette since 1994 or so, but it still played fine... and gave me a surprise. Used to be a show on USA about bad movies. It was called "Reel Wild Cinema," and consisted of Sandra Bernhardt doing kind of a postmodern Elvira gig as they show really bad old movies, edited down to allow for the time constraints. She also conducted a short interview segment, once per episode, with a bad movie celebrity... some included Russ Meyer, Dave Friedman, and Mamie van Doren, among others. This particular segment was themed "Sword And Sandal," and the main movie treat was "Medusa Vs. The Son Of Hercules," an ancient Italian dog from the sixties, in which the Son of Hercules must scare up an army FAST before the evil invaders come, but for some reason, Thessaly's entire army went out, one at a time, to deal with the Medusa, and never came back. So now it's up to Junior to go out and kill Medusa, which will make all the stoned soldiers come back to life! If they did this today, it might be an entertaining piece of cheese... but when we finally see the Medusa, it's hilarious. Rather than do the whole "woman with snakes for hair," thing, they decided to dress someone up in a tree costume with a sort of face hung on the front, and a spotlight for the single eye. It doesn't look much like a tree... but it looks more like a tree than anything ELSE, including a Medusa. And if you look into its spotlight, you suddenly become frozen and painted gray! ...well, I hadn't seen this show in twenty years. I'd forgotten I recorded the episodes, back when it was on. And I wound up forgetting all about painting as I watched this gawdawful movie. And I had more fun than kittens doing just that. I went online looking for the show. I'd gladly buy the entire series on DVD, but it doesn't seem to have ever been compiled or released, and it barely appears as a footnote anywhere. And I mourn for this awful but gloriously entertaining show. It reminded me of another show I liked, once... "The Evil Touch." Ever heard of it? Didn't think so. I used to think I had imagined it, until I finally found it on the Internet. Australian TV show, kind of a Twilight Zone thing, anthology show with each episode being self contained and having a different cast. Anthony Quayle did the Rod Serling duties, and the first episode featured a monster in a lake. I ate this show up when I was a kid. But after its initial run, it vanished, and never went into reruns, and I never saw it again. Until there was IMDB, I seriously began to wonder if I'd just imagined the whole thing. Still wish I could see the episodes again, just to see if they're any good after 40 years... Anyone out there have a fondness for something obscure that most other people haven't heard of?