Gaaahhh

Sophia Loren made an appearance at the Academy Awards last night to present the Best Actress award. Afterward she gracefully excited the stage, wherein she was promptly beheaded by Harry Hamlin, who was hiding behind a pillar. Before anyone could react he tossed her head into a brown canvas sack and flew off on his winged horse and used Ms. Loren's head to turn the fearsome Kraken to stone, thus saving the land of Joppa.

Who you gonna call?

I was looking for an old issue of "Argosy" on ebay ("Argosy" was a mag that in the 60's & 70's reported on UFOs, Bigfoot and other out there stuff) because I remembered seeing one that had a sweet painted cover of Bigfoot fighting a bear, and I wanted to screen-grab the image, as I misplaced the one I grabbed years prior. On the glorious painting in question Mr. Bigfoot was brandishing a log like a baseball bat, ready to KO the bear. It was awesome.

Sadly, no one was selling that issue. But I did see this one.



Sharkbusters! There's a movie waiting to happen - guys swim around poking sharks with sticks. At the very least it could be a syndicated series starring Lorenzo Lamas shown on Saturday afternoons, right after "Acapulco H.E.A.T" and "Thunder in Paradise."

And yes, I do know what the "H.E.A.T" in "Acapulco H.E.A.T" stands for - "Hemisphere Emergency Action Team." Duh.

Pardon our dust

Please bear with us as we experiment with different blog layouts over the next several days. I was getting tired of reading that type reversed out of dark blue, and thus, am searching for the the layout that best brings my rich canon of work to life.

How to not get sued

Actually, I don't have any real, practical advice on how to avoid getting sued. But if you wanted such information, you could do worse than ask Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, stars of the 1952 gem "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla." Because how these guys managed to not have every asset of theirs seized by the lawyers of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis is well beyond my realm of understanding:

Blogfoot remembers: The Barbarian Brothers

If you haunted a lot of video stores in the 80's as I did, you were no doubt aware of the world's most muscular twin thespians, The Barbarian Brothers.

The Barbarian Brothers were twin bodybuilders named Peter Paul and Ron Paul that, like so many of us, had dreams of Hollywood stardom (Personally, I think it would be a much more interesting story if there were a set of twins, and one got real huge and muscular, and the other stayed scrawny, but that's just me). Generally they just lurked in the background of scenes in movies like 1985's "The Flamingo Kid" where they played, you guessed it, muscular twin lifeguards. Or they tore the doors off cars in classics like 1983's "D.C Cab", where they honed their craft alongside the likes of Mr. T and Gary Busey.

Then in 1987 the brothers got the chance to show the world their true mettle courtesy of the quality-merchants at the Cannon Group via a starring vehicle called, elegantly enough, "The Barbarians."


Made in Italy with a budget that was probably carried around in a brown paper bag, the film's plot summary on wikipedia is a thing of curt, albeit nonsensical beauty:

"Twin brothers attempt to save their people of entertainers against Kadar who lust for the ruby that ensures their talents."

I've read that about three times now and I think I sort of get it, but I'm not completely sure - it's not really English as I understand and wield it. So I instead went to the more-reliable imdb, where I found a much more richly woven tapestry:

"The young orphans Kutchek and Gore have been adopted by a tribe of clowns, jugglers, and entertainers. The tribe is led by the queen Canary and its wealth stems from her magical belly stone. The evil ruler Kadar desires Canary and her stone, and attacks her clan's caravan to gain possession of them. Before the clan's defeat one of the clansmen sneak away to hide the stone. Canary is locked up in Kadar's harem, Kutchek and Gore in his quarry to be trained as gladiators, and the rest of the clan is to live as outlaws in the woods. When Kutchek and Gore have grown up to VERY big gladiators, they run away and break into Kadar's harem with the aid of the young woman Lemone. Canary quests them to find "The Old King's Weapons" and with these kill the dragon that guards the hidden belly stone. Afterwards they should find a new queen and give her the stone, to restore the tribe to its former glory."

That's better. Anyway, I've never seen the movie, but now don't believe I can rest until I see the brothers "kill the dragon that guards the belly stone" with my own eyes.

Lest you think The Barbarian Brothers rested on their laurels, a little investigation from yours truly has divined that they kept busy in the 90's with a series of direct-to-VHS releases, seen below.

This is funny because there are not one, but two sets of twins (for clarity's sake - the Barbarian Brothers are the dudes who look like the offspring of Jose Caseco and Dolph Lundgren). I also like the subtle reference to "Home Alone" in the blurb.

The "Think Big" logo is awesome, is it not? But my keen eyes indicate that Richard Kiel is in this movie, so I want - nay need - to see it.

Mining territory already covered by Jean Claude Van Damme in "Double Impact", this version differs in that it features twins that are 2,000 feet tall. Which would explain why that sweatshirt doesn't quite fit.

You can watch the trailer for "Twin Sitters" here. The end credits indicate that George "I Played James Bond Once" Lazenby is in the hizzy, but I didn't spot him in the trailer. But maybe I was just struck blind.

And here's the trailer for "Double Trouble." It features yet another fight on a playground, and James "Scotty" Doohan as the hard-nosed Police Chief! I was also quite sad to see that Mr. Roddy McDowell appeared in this mess. Sorry about that, Roddy. You deserved better.

The boys managed to appear in a couple of other films in the aughts, but at this point appear to have kind of flamed out, sad to say. God willing, maybe they'll pop up someday on "Dancing with the Stars" or on some VH1 show like "Celebrity Fit Club" or 'The Surreal Life." Rest assured that in the event such a blessed thing occurs, I will be on the case and swiftly post any alerts.

The Nozzle

I don't know how many of you watch "The Venture Brothers" on Cartoon Network / Adult Swim, but it's a pretty funny show. It's basically a spoof of the old "Jonny Quest" cartoon mixed with a bunch of comic-book and spy genre gags, and concerns the adventures of two dopey teenage characters (Hank & Dean Venture), their scientist father (Dr Thaddeus Venture) and their bodyguard / Office of Secret Intelligence agent (Brock Samson) as they battle various foils such as members of The Guild of Calamitous Intent.

TOP: the cast of Venture Brothers
BELOW: the cast of Jonny Quest

Anyway, I finally got around to watching some season 3 episodes on the ol'd DVR recently, and I found the following sequence amusing, in which a former quiz show boy genius is brought to the Office of Secret Intelligence to be interrogated and then converted into a spy:



That's right: "The Nozzle." Keen viewers will also note that one of the agents in the clip is an obvious homage to Hunter S. Thompson.

Speaking of Adult Swim shows, you could also do worse than give Metalocalypse a peek.

Muzak files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Muzak Holdings says its total debt is between $100 million - $500 million with assets of less than $50,000. What - is the economy so bad that people don't ride elevators anymore? Are passengers fated to endure elevator rides in uncomfortable silence, with no dulcet tones wafting gently through the air? I blame the ipod, and those people who always insist on discussing the weather.

Yes, me worry

A recent article in the New York Times (I'd link to it, but can't because I'm not a subscriber, as I am cheap) reports that venerable humor publication Mad Magazine is going to a quarterly publishing schedule (that's 4 times a year to you.).

In publishing circles, this is akin to a young Al Pacino kissing you on both sides of your face. Which means that soon Mad magazine will not exist, at least not as a news stand presence. I find this prospect rather disturbing. Although I'm sure DC / Time Warner, who own the property, will slap up some lame website in order to maintain the copyright. Whoopee.

Have we truly come to this? I realize that Mad hasn't stayed at the editorial heights it did as a magazine in 60's & 70's, but still - it's just plain reassuring to see it for sale on magazine racks. Who hasn't read or owned an issue of Mad Magazine at some point in their life?

I ask you - who will the leaders of tomorrow learn from, if not from Al Jaffe, Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Jack Davis and Paul Coker? From whence will youngsters develop their much-needed sense of societal irreverence? Surely not from hours spent whacking hookers with a pipe in Grand Theft Auto XXVVI? I guess "South Park" sort-of fills the Mad satire void, and that's all well and good, but a kid can't roll up an issue of South Park and carry it around in his back pocket or pass it around the classroom to his buddies.

I'm going to go hug my Alfred E. Neuman statue now, and dream of a world cooler than this one.