Fan Of The Obscure

[Dr.Bedlam]

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?

[ShadowRaven]

not obscure, but I have a certain fondness for bad martial arts movies, especially the 'action' scenes So I can totaly understand where you're coming from

[dsmiles]

not obscure, but I have a certain fondness for bad martial arts movies, especially the 'action' scenes So I can totaly understand where you're coming from

Growing up, we used to do a "Kung-Fu Theatre," where we would stay up late to watch the late-night Kung-Fu flicks, turn the volume all the way down, and make up our own lines.

[Dr.Bedlam]

The local variant was "Black Belt Theater." That was where I first discovered Jackie Chan.

Also used to have a great time when I was a teener, driving to Mexico (which was a 45 minute drive from where I lived) and going to the movies THERE... which were often Hong Kong kung fu films... in Chinese... subtitled in Spanish... or El Santo films.

Still love me some Santo films, but, again, trying to find them on DVD is hell!

[dwarvenranger]

Ok, I was young and perhaps that's why they stuck with me, but I liked Manimal and Tales of the Gold Monkey.

[Dr.Bedlam]

I'm not sure if this is good news for you or not:

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/07/22/will-ferrell-adam-mckay-manimal/  ...in short, "Manimal" is being reworked as a motion picture vehicle for Will Ferrell. As a comedy.

I did not care for what he did with "Land of the Lost."

[TGP]

Memory lane is filled with potholes.

 

(There are some things I only ever saw a portion of, and I don't even know their names.)

 

1) There was a movie about hobos, and maybe escaped convicts, and certainly about riding empty rail cars set back in the era when that was a thing. A scene from that movie made a big impression. Two guys in a rail car were looking for the signature of a famous hobo ( --famous to other hobos-- ) and they were checking to see if it was authentic ( --other hobos would fake it-- ) by noting whether the entire signature was a single unbroken, continuous line.

 

That made such an impression I worked out a way to sign my real name the same way: one swirling, cursive line, with no breaks. And I have done it that way ever since.

 

No idea what the name of that flick was.

 

 

2) I used to watch a ridiculous cartoon called Clutch Cargo. The same animation outfit that made it also made a Space Patrol / Solar System navy cartoon. Most ships had crews of 3-5 people. The protagonists had an all white ship with three fins. Regular Earth Navy rocket ships had four fins with red/white stripes.

 

The visuals made an impression ---- some seriously cool (for the day) hardware.

 

No idea what the name of that flick show was.

 

3) My favorite Charlton Heston movie is The Warlord.

[sumbloke]

2) I used to watch a ridiculous cartoon called Clutch Cargo. The same animation outfit that made it also made a Space Patrol / Solar System navy cartoon. Most ships had crews of 3-5 people. The protagonists had an all white ship with three fins. Regular Earth Navy rocket ships had four fins with red/white stripes.

 

The visuals made an impression ---- some seriously cool (for the day) hardware.

 

No idea what the name of that flick show was.

Space Angel?

[dwarvenranger]

I'm generally not a fan of Will Ferrell. I doubt he'll do it justice

[redambrosia]

When I was a very little girl I saw this strange movie on tv with aliens in a bar. I thought it was a dream, until I saw it again much later. It was Star Wars >.>

 

As for the obscure, my dad recently found Tales of the Gold Monkey on DVD. That was a fun show from the 80's. Also difficult to find (especially more than one season) is Darkwing Duck. Hubby loves that show so much.

[Loim]

Voyagers!

[Sanael]

Dinosaucers.

 

I always liked the Snorks better than the Smurfs, though I don't know why.

 

Movies: who has seen Ricky Oh? So good. Any movie with the line, "somebody paid me thirty pounds of rice to beat you up, turn you into mincemeat and put you in a pie," is OK by me.

 

Also, Wasabi. First time I saw that, it was on DVD, and for some reason it defaulted to running both the subtitles and dubbing...hilarious movie made even more hilarious by dissonant translations. And it stars Jean Reno!

[Erifnogard]

Werewolf show that aired on Fox. Great writing (ok, good world building, cheesy writing). Absolute bargain basement effects. The werewolves actually looked good...until you realized that the costume's mouths couldn't move.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Erifnogard

[Qwyksilver]

Werewolf show that aired on Fox. Great writing (ok, good world building, cheesy writing). Absolute bargain basement effects. The werewolves actually looked good...until you realized that the costume's mouths couldn't move.

That was actually just called Werewolf.

[Dr.Bedlam]

Qwyk: Was that "Emperor Of The North Pole?" That movie was amazing.