#not to be painfully on brand but i need some cowboy vibes on in the background while i’m working on something | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shark-myths · 6 years

Text

Folie A Deux

I promised to write FAD meta like, forever ago. It took longer than I planned. Here it is, at last.

Folie is anthemic, artistic; it’s cynicism and heartbreak all layered up in failing hope. It’s Pete saying goodbye to his band and embarking on a new life as a husband and a father. It’s Patrick finding his confidence as a showman just in time for it to turn to ash on his tongue and prompt him to remake himself utterly. It’s Joe finally feeling like he has a role in FOB and creative ownership of his own band. It’s Andy, um, drumming. Super well. Without any particular emotional interpretation on my part because Andy’s, you know, pretty content to just play with his friends.

Without further blathering, allow me to present, at long last: a rambling, tear-filled, official Tryst Theory ™ interpretation of FOB’s fourth-and-almost-final studio album.

I am always struck most by the quality of obstruction in the albums produced during the Commercial Success/’Sell Out’ era. Pete begins obscuring himself for the first time during Infinity on High and especially Folie A Deux: the lyrics become increasingly senseless, more about cleverness and sound that saying things plainly. But he’s so honest during this era too. He tells us exactly what it feels like to be him, to be so pulled apart and scrutinized and sad, to be sick on his own hope. To be sick and fuzzy, made of stuffing, and far away on way-too-many anxiety meds. We get lines that don’t make much sense on the surface, like ‘I’m not a chance, put a heat wave in your pants,’ and we get the self-aware aggression of bops like I Don’t Care.

In the previous era, Pete didn’t really know what it meant, yet—being Pete Wentz. Being so public. Being the face of the band, being the bad guy and the heel. What it would cost. Now he understands that anything he touches, or looks at, or says at loud is going to change. Once he does it, says it, thinks it, feels it, it’s out of his control. It’s owned by someone else. Even his private body, his private phone. Even his decision to defend his friend from an aggressive bouncer onstage. The brand of phone he carries, the girls he texts, who he stands next to in photos, the cities where he plays shows and the cities he does not. Now he understands that his life is not his, but something the public will use to hurt him if we get bored. This is drugstore cowboy Pete. This is a Pete grown so heavy under the weight of his own misery and bullshit that he can barely go on. This is a Pete preparing to say goodbye.

Which is a long way of saying: Folie A Deux fucks me up.

A little history (sourced heavily from Wikipedia):

The album was recorded from July-September 2008, beginning two months after Pete and Ashlee were married, and released in December 2008, shortly after Bronx was born. They started recording ahead of schedule, without telling the label, and deliberately limited their studio time. They wanted to recapture what they had felt during Grave, when they were racing against their drained back accounts to get the album set down. They wanted that simplicity and rawness, the feeling of being mixed-up kids half living out of a van and making music that felt vibrant and essential. Patrick told AP, “There was something really interesting about that creative process when we were starting out. The more time you have, the more potential you have for excess.” (He thought he dominated Infinity and wanted to pare himself back, reign himself in, for Folir.) They tried to emulate the process and feeling of Grave as much as possible: “first-thought, best-thought.” Joe pushed to be included more in collaboration and felt like he “owned the songs a lot more. It made me really excited about contributing to Fall Out Boy and made me find my role in the band.” Pete made an effort (this is him making an effort, okay) to keep his personal life more sequestered from the writing and use more metaphor and the conceit characters speaking lines, more like a stage musical. And, perhaps true to the feeling of Grave, Pete and Patrick fought painfully and violently over the record. It was personal and artistic for everyone. They felt it was their best work.

Fans tore them apart, of course. Booing anytime they played anything off the new record. The album undersold and public reception did not match the glowing critical reviews. They tried to say something important, to talk about society and convey real messages in their music. They were publicly rebuffed. Joe told Rolling Stone, “Some of us were miserable on stage. Others were just drunk.” The reception, the struggle, cemented what Pete had already decided to do: leave the band.

(Let’s not talk about the last song of what he thought would be their last show ever during which, instead of playing Saturday with his best friends and his me-and-Pat, he had the man who named the band in the first place shave off his signature Pete Wentz hair in a symbolic ritual of fucking morning, let’s not let’s not)

(but in case you want to)

A little cover art:

I just want you to know that Pete Wentz has the original painting of that cover in his home. IN CASE YOU THINK THAT’S RELEVANT.

This image. With Pete’s furry history. With the costumes and feeling like a zoo animal and playing the role of the heel, with the way he said in the Folie Making Of video that being perceived in media is “like wearing a costume, you’re not who you are.” With his interest especially in bears, the talk of stitches and stuffing and seams, with the Lullabye track and ‘honey is for bees silly bear’ (and Black Cards’ ‘you’re my best friend, honeycomb head’) and the whole Winnie the Pooh vibe. With the devoted companionship and singular love exhibited by Winnie the Pooh and the way he turns back into inert, lifeless stuffing when you grow too old and you forget what he really is and see him as just a toy, empty and pliable, and the way only childhood wonder and innocence can return him to life. How the cover has not just one person on it, but a bear-boy plus one: a madness shared by two. A real bear, and someone who’s just pretending, or just trying to be. What a match, what a catch.

WHAT A PETERICK MASTERPIECE THIS FUCKING ALBUM IS

The liner notes are empty, by the way. For the physical CD. The liner notes are just pictures and names of band members, then production information and thanks to ‘fans, friends, and loves.’ Nothing else. No lyrics. No record. If that’s not foreshadowing—

And now said masterpiece itself:

1. Disloyal Order of the Water Buffaloes

Okay, so let’s take a step back and imagine for a second the decision-making process that went into writing a magnum fucking opus Peterick anthem to open the album with. Are we all on the same page here? WHAT THE FUCK, were they TRYING to kill me

This album is the fucking Holy Grail of the drug use = Patrick metaphor, and we dive right into it with this one. Boycott love. Detox just to retox. DRAW YOUR OWN HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T PARALLELS. #trysttheory

For all that Pete tried to move away from autobiographical lyrics on this album, his view of himself is plain in this song: ‘perfect boys with their perfect lives, no one wants to hear you sing about tragedy.’

The line ‘fell out of bed, butterfly bandage, but don’t worry’ brings up my theories about what dreams mean. Falling out of bed and getting hurt is a clear consequence of dreaming so hard you forgot it was just a dream (or trysting with your best friend and forgetting there could be consequences, real people you can hurt and yourself included). ‘You’ll never remember, your head is far too blurry’ ties into w.a.m.s as well as Cooperstown and the idea of being blurry-headed, impaired because you’re fucked up on love or some other drug, and making choices you’d regret, if you could remember them. Making mistakes you’ll have to live with whether you remember them or not.

(Romantically speaking, water buffaloes are disloyal: Google suggests a single male water buffalo can sire as many as 100 baby buffs in a single mating season. It seems pretty obvious throughout this album that issues of infidelity were large in Pete’s mind while writing these lyrics.)

2. I Don’t Care

This song makes me think of Wilson (Expensive Mistakes) so much. Starting over again in Mexico, friends who don’t care about you, the blues-pop bounce to it and repeating riff? Sonically, they have a lot in common.

Pete may be playing on his previous reference to Closer (‘he tastes like you only sweeter’) with the opening line here—‘say my name and his in the same breath, I dare you to say they taste the same’—which is the saddest and most painful movie about heterosexuals you will ever watch, but writing that line and putting it on Patrick’s tongue? That may be the gayest thing that happens to me all night, guys, and I’m a queer girl with a bottle of wine and a long, long Friday evening ahead of me.

This song is so much a conversation Pete is having with the world about his fame and notoriety, imo. He calls it a narcissist’s anthem but I don’t think that’s it, exactly. I think—and the music video backs me up on this—it’s a coy wink at their own reputation, all the shit people are slinging about them and Pete specifically. We get a drug reference here, too: ‘take a chance, let your body get a tolerance.’

Also, Patrick is a nun in the video. Pete put Patrick in a literal fucking habit. What more do you need to me to say to prove definitely that Pete is desperately in love with him? This. Kid. In. A. Nun’s. Habit.

3. She’s My Winona

IF THIS SONG ISN’T A DISCUSSION OF HOW PETE HAD TO REVISE HIS PETERICK AMBITIONS WHEN HE FOUND OUT ASHLEE WAS PREGNANT

(There are so many suicide references in this song I want to join Pete and the band’s manager in cheering and celebrating all over again that our boy lived to 28. You can physically feel him resigning himself to living a long life in these verses.)

‘Hell or glory, I don’t want anything in between.’ I take this line as pretty directly about him and Patrick: he doesn’t care if they go to hell and it ruins the band, he wants to take the risk, because he thinks together they could be—glory. He wants to roll the dice. (Take a chance—I’m not a chance.) And ‘then came a baby boy with long eyelashes, and daddy said “you gotta show the world the thunder.”’ In other words, he wanted hell or glory, ruination or Patrick, but then along came his son. And his priorities changed. Of course they did. True love is one thing; raising your child is another.

‘We had a good run, even I have to admit.’

(And—here’s the thing—people ask me sometimes, what I think about Pete marrying Ashlee. “Do you think he married her just because it was the right thing to do?” No. I think he believed in love and family and forever. I think Pete believed it would work. I think he wanted it to. I think that’s why the trysting, and eventually the band, stopped: because Pete tried his fucking best. I think he loved her and loved the idea of a future for himself—the first time he’s ever really imagined that. The idea of somewhere to belong, a real family, one that he felt part of. I think he wanted more than anything for it to work precisely because it was so different from what he, or anyone else, ever expected for him. He said ‘I want to marry this girl’ and he meant it. He really did intend to love her forever, as best he could, and not love anyone else if he could help it.

But those aren’t good reasons to build a whole relationship on, a marriage on. And he was a mess, and in love with Patrick too, and hated and famous and fucked. He had no privacy, limited emotional maturity, a burgeoning substance problem and no sense of himself that wasn’t dependent on what the culture and the media and his fans and his friends reflected back to him and said was true. There was no way they could be happy together under those circumstances, and he’d have stayed forever anyway, I think. His interviews about that time—when he stopped shaving, then stopped showering; when he was a drugstore cowboy stay-at-home dad, depressed and giving up—he doesn’t blame Ashlee for wanting to leave. He hated himself enough to be miserable forever, but she didn’t. So of course it fell apart.)

4. America’s Suitehearts

This commercial headfuck of a song. Jerry christ, guys, someone throw me an anchor so I can drown myself. This caricature, the monstrosity and performance of celebrity, the way the band is reduced to wrestling alter egos, painted and pretend. No one’s being subtle with this song, this video. They are showing us exactly what they mean.

‘I must confess, I’m in love with my own sins.’

DO YOU MEAN LIKE BEING IN GAY LOVE WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND

DO YOU MEAN THAT SIN?

And this verse, though ostensibly about the vagaries of fame, sounds so much like him falling in love with Patrick while Patrick is oblivious:

‘You can bow and pretend you don’t know you’re a legend. Time just hasn’t told anyone else yet. I’m sorry, I just let my love loose again.’

For so many years, Pete believed his love was something he had to apologize for. 😭 😭 😭 😭

5. Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet

Okay, fuck this, I’m done

This fucking

This

UGH

Remember the paternity rumors at the time of Ashlee’s pregnancy? Look at this whole complicated, tangled-up song about infidelity and paternity and the idea of Ashlee cheating while Pete’s cheating too. ‘Keep a calendar, this way you will always know’ [who impregnated you]. ‘I will never end up like him. behind my back, I already am.’ I literally cannot

‘Does he know the way I worship our love’

6. The (Shipped) Gold Standard

do I even need to keep writing this or is the album now, itself, independently writing the tryst theory

my notes for this song just say ‘come the fuck on’

This song is about: living in LA and missing Chicago (and what it felt like in Chicago, who you were and who you were with); taking accountability for your own actions even when it does not satisfy your hedonistic urges (e.g., marrying your pregnant girlfriend and breaking off your illicit love affair with Patrick Stump), trying to remake your identity and change yourself like those are the same thing and you can get a new heart as easily as a new name; losing your luck and breaking up (‘tell that boy I’ll leave you alone now, like a stove, I’ll turn my love down); horseshoe crabs; and of course, that good ol’ famous-in-the-closet feel:

‘I wanna scream I love you from the top of my lungs, but I’m afraid that someone else will hear me.’

7. Coffee’s For Closers

I’m just crying by now I can’t type anymore

He’s using this whole album to break up with Patrick, to explain, to say goodbye

‘I want everything to change and stay the same. Time doesn’t care about anyone or anything. Come together, come apart.’

‘We will never believe again’

And: ‘kick drum beating in my chest again’ and that feeling, the one we’ve all felt in the pit at any show, any good one with that golden-vibe in the air, the one that makes your heart feel connected to the hearts of everyone around you, like you could be lifted on light and floating around the room, like the love is pouring out of you and rising like heat and linking up to the network of love flowing into and out of everyone else, when you feel it and know they do too and your whole body vibrates with the impossible imperceptible hum of your very atoms, your constituent fucking molecules lit up and stitched together by this, this, this. The feeling like you don’t need lungs because singing in breath and bellows enough, the feeling like the only reason you ever had a heart was so the drummer could pump it with their sticks. ‘Preach electric to the microphone stand,’ Patrick the conductor, Patrick the evangelist, Patrick the gospel of his fucking love. Pete’s saying goodbye to that feeling. Pete knows, he knows already, what he is planning to do.

Pete’s lying. Pete’s saying ‘I love the mayhem more than the love’ like all he’s really been out to do is make a mess, break hearts, take names. Like he is no more and no less than what all the tabloids say about him. (Never watch the Fresh Only Bakery videos on youtube. They are boring, for one, and also the saddest fucking Pete you will ever see.) Pete’s saying ‘I will never believe in anything again’ and he’s making Patrick say it too, because true-blue love was supposed to last forever, and then Pete got married to someone else.

‘Oh, change will come.’

8. What A Catch, Donnie

NO. NO

how the fuck dare this song even exist

So this is it. This is the goodbye. Pete has talked about how he wrote this song from Patrick’s perspective, and he recruited some of Patrick’s favorite artists and friends of the band to sing different lines in a medley of the band’s hits up to this point. This is like, the FOB song equivalent of a suicide note. (To follow this with a greatest hits album—! G O D)

The reference to Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway—their collaboration, his ultimate suicide, and the way Miss Flack looked on all his destruction and said ‘I still want you back’ is absolutely a testament to the way Patrick, and the rest of the band, forgave him and took him back in after the notorious Best Buy Incident. The gratitude for the whole band and what the band has done for Pete is tied up in this song. ‘You’ll never catch us’ smacks of trysting, and there’s something to the line ‘I’m the one who charmed the one who gave up on you,’ as the speaker in the sentence in meant to be Patrick and the ‘you’ is presumed to be Pete.

‘They say the captain goes down with the ship, so when the world ends, will God go down with it?’ is both Pete’s intention to go down with the band (which he’s planning to sink, or sees unraveling already in the painful writing process—we don’t know at what point he made his decision to destroy yet another thing he loved in penance for some deep, unknowable conviction of sin) and his gesture of setting them free. The Video of Which We Will Not Speak shows this pretty clearly. Pete saves everyone and everything he’s ever loved at the bargain price of drowning himself. He does it without ever even appearing in the aired version of the video. *broken sobbing*

(The links for the full version are not currently on Youtube, but you can read about it here: http://www.mtv.com/news/1618609/fall-out-boy-release-wrong-version-of-what-a-catch-donnie-video/)

What a match, what a catch. If I say anything else about this song, and how basically everyone who heard it knew it meant the band was going to break up, I will absolutely fall apart

9. 27

OH GOOD A SONG I CAN MAKE IT THROUGH WITHOUT CHOKING ON MY OWN TEARS

NOT

So here’s a lovely little ditty about how Pete Wentz did not kill himself and die at age 27 as he always thought he would! Hahahahahaha I’m fine it’s fine I’m so glad this album exists I’m so glad I’m TALKING ABOUT IT

‘If home is where the heart is, then we’re all just fucked.’ All three of them: Pete, Patrick, and Ashlee. And every FOB fan out there. Ahahaha. GUYS I’M NOT OKAY

We’ve got Peterick drug metaphors to rival the punch of Hold Me Tight Or Don’t: ‘I want it so bad, I’d shoot the sunshine into my veins… Doing lines of dust and sweat off of last’s night stage just to feel like you. Milligrams in my head, burning tobacco in my wind, chasing the direction you went.’

We’ve got desperation about growing and changing and losing that which they so valued in their sound and collaboration on Grave: ‘I can’t remember the good old days. Are all the good times getting gone? They come and go and come and go.’

We’ve got the pressure of keeping your love affair with your lead singer a secret lest you risk your fame, label representation, and fortune: ‘My mind is a safe, and if I keep it in we all get rich’ right next to the dirty, hollow feeling of having images of your body stolen and used to drag your name and reputation like you had no more heart than any other empty doll and losing the value of yourself in that process: ‘My body is an orphanage, we take everyone in.’

We’ve got the romantic comparison to cosmic entities, just like in Real Ones: ‘you’re a bottled star, the planets align. You’re just like Mars, you shine in the sky.’ And that tinge of disparagement and lonesomeness: ‘I’ve got a lot of friends who are stars but some are just black holes.’

10. Tiffany Blews

This song plays with a lot of fun moth/flame metaphors that I really enjoy, while also really amplifying the isolation and quick-burning nature of fame. I think that Pete gets a sick satisfaction from having Patrick sing out the worst things he thinks about himself, that he thinks everyone else thinks about him. (Pete, I think, is the little black dress that will be faded soon.)

Interestingly, we have ‘a roman candle heart keeps us far apart,’ which is a pretty direct link to the later Fourth of July. A heart that flares, explodes, and then burns out quickly certainly would be an obstacle to building a lasting relationship, no matter how much you loved someone…

‘Hate me, baby. Maybe I’m a piece of art.’

‘Dear gravity, you held me down in this starless city’ makes me think of the Moonrise Kingdom quote in Wilson (Expensive Mistakes): ‘I hope the roof flies off and we all get sucked into space.’ It’s the opposite, basically. Hoping to fall in love and get thrown up among the glittering cosmos rather than anchored someplace dark and starless. (Aside: I love how susceptible Pete is to grand, cheesy quotes? Like when, a few days after the release of The Last Jedi, he tweeted the heavy-handed noir line ‘I want to put my fist through this whole lousy, beautiful town.’ Like, look for that in a FOB song someday.)

11. w.a.m.s.

For the curious, Andy confirmed on Twitter that the title stands for waitress/actress/model/singer, a reference to the stereotype of people who run away to Hollywood to make it big but end up washing out and struggling as the starving artist/waitstaff type. If this idea of our boys citing bankrupt ambition does not make you emotional, you may not have a heart.

This song is incredibly relevant to the dreams meta linked earlier—‘when all the others were just stirring awake, I’m trying to trick myself to fall asleep again’ is very evocative of being in denial over the jarring reality of the end of the tryst. I think this song is about one of the last times Pete and Patrick slept together before breaking up.

‘My head’s in heaven, my soles are in hell’ again highlights that Pete’s wildest Patrick dreams are very different than where he actually finds himself; ‘let’s meet in the purgatory of my hips and get well’ is a pretty transparent request, isn’t it? Especially since pre-hiatus Pete really loved to use ‘hips’ as a signifier for sexual desire/activity. Let’s just fuck and pretend it’s all okay. Let’s lose ourselves in each other and pretend we can have it. Tell me I’m the only one, even if it’s not true. Let me get high on this memory one last time.

‘Hurry, hurry. You put my head in such a flurry, flurry’ is the urgency and compromised judgment of the tryst. ‘Oh freckle freckle’ can be read as Patrick’s forehead mole. ‘What makes you so special? I’m gonna leave you’ tells us what makes the last time so good: Pete knows it’s the last time. Pete knows he has to end it. But he’s so addicted-sick, ((stray-dog sick,)) he can’t stop. ‘I’m gonna teach you how we’re all alone’ doesn’t really sound like something a newlywed and soon-to-be-dad should be saying, does it? But there it is. How can he let go when he knows ‘how heartwarming it is inside your skin’?

The final nail in my coffin: ‘I’m a sunshine machine. I want to get stuck and be golden in your memory.’

We’ve talked about how Patrick = sunshine = gold, right. r i g h t

12. 20 Dollar Nose Bleed

Fun fact: this song is basically erotica to me ever since I wrote that recording booth smut about it! I can’t even listen to it without blushing and becoming uncomfortable. So there’s something you didn’t need to know about me that you… now know about me.

‘Permanent jet lag, please take me back. I’m stray dog sick, please let me in. The mad key’s tripping, singing vows before we exchange smoke rings.’ It is OBVIOUSLY my prerogative to interpret this as slightly depraved sexual longing, but I especially like the bit about singing vows without ever exchanging anything lasting or visible that implies commitment—this can be heard as a comment on the fickleness of commitment, or it can be heard as a comment about how deeply he is/was committed to Patrick even though they never had anything to show for it. Anything they could show for it. Even to each other.

Benzedrine is, of course, the very first pharmaceutical amphetamine (read about it here!). Many great artists and thinkers were influenced by the impossible energy it gives you, which is obviously relatable to someone who experiences natural mania, peddling his own prescription like a ‘medicine man’ (Wilson lyrics). I think the verse about Benzedrine and not letting the doctor in not-so-obliquely references the issue with medication compliance that Pete experienced and many people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder also do: the meds for this disorder are really unpleasant. They dull you out, they give you tremors, they have really strong side effects, and they take away that amazing manic spark that so many artists credit with their success. Don’t let the doctor in. They’ll take away the only thing he really likes about being himself.

‘Have you ever wanted to disappear?’ is, I think, a glimpse of the unadorned real.

The spoken word bit at the end of this song really hammers together a lot of the themes of the whole album, the whole band, personal and political both. ‘You said you’re not listening and I said I’m wishing…’, only we don’t ever find out what’s really being said.

13. West Coast Smoker

I love the hell out of this song because there are few things in life that are hotter than Patrick singing the chorus. And fuck. Patrick saying curse words. I die every time. I think this is a kink I share with Pete Wentz. I think one day Pete Wentz and I will share a circle of hell. It will be called the ‘Underage Stump Mouth Rotunda,’ and we will all be very ashamed.

We’ve got a lot of the same themes: the ease of suicide and the conviction to live, the way shows feel and how it was when they were kids, drug use and overmedicated ennui. Pete was once the son, is becoming the father, is resolving not to become the holy ghost.

‘I’m the last of my kind’ and ‘when they made me they broke the mold’ and the finality of it all. (Contrasted with the modern era: ‘you’re the last of a dying breed.’ Pete has grown up and away from his recursive self-obsession, from his own myth. Pete learning to look inside others and stop dismissing himself, and everyone else, as fool’s gold.)

‘Your eyes are blocking my starlight’ to me really speaks to the person who is keeping him from Patrick, or the people—the fans, the Public, with their eyes on his every action.

14. Pavlove

I LOVE THIS SONG

Once again, we have a drug use metaphor: ‘she’s back to the bathroom for one more,’ ‘get addicted to this,’ and of course, the endless seeking for something to make ‘my chest stir/my head blur.’ And: ‘I’m not ready for a handshake with death, I’m just such a happy mess’ shows us, for once, what Pete has to live for—not just that he’s resigned to life, but the reason for it. This song is all tied up with the heady swell of live music and self-medication, and there’s no line more representative of my experience as a bisexual person than ‘I’m the invisible man who can’t stop staring at the mirror.’

‘I want to make you as lonely as me so you can get addicted to this’ seems very directed at Patrick, doesn’t it? Because this is a Pete who needs Patrick too much, thinks Patrick doesn’t need him back, is terrified. Doesn’t know how to solve his problems except to flee them. So: he flees them.

I MADE IT. I BARELY FUCKING MADE IT BUT I DID.

To sum up: Folie is an incredible, sweeping, beautiful album about the glory of Peterick and the band’s impending end, and it will break your heart. Hit me up with questions and requests, and as always, thank you for reading!

shark-myths out *mic drop*

#tryst theory #peterick #fall out boy #fob #pete wentz #patrick stump #pete wentz x patrick stump #lyrics meta #folie #america's suitehearts #prehiatus #small out boy #folie a deux #fad

101 notes · View notes

tube-thoughts-blog · 6 years

Text

Vol. 12

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

---------- Everything Is Terrible:

*Skittles Commercial 1989: A beach slob is out of luck at a not-so-sexy French beach in an animated skittles ad from France.* 2 stars

*The BAR-B-Q-GURU!: Basic grilling techniques (for example: use a whole bottle of lighter fluid) by a broke ass middle aged black dude.* 1 star

*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Behind the Music: From scarfing pizza to snorting ants with Ozzy. Not really. More like a pathetic attempt by corporate America to exploit dumb kids and dumb parents.* either zero stars or close to 2 1/2 stars (for proof of said b.s.)

*Cowabunga! can do great things: Say something stupid, and feel good.* 2 1/2 stars

*Call Me Fantasy: Unintentionally awkward hardcore-phone-sex commercial.* 3 stars

------------------------

Cartoon Network Summerfest: (2002)

*Longhair and Doubledome - Good Wheel Hunting: Pre-historic odd couple.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Utica Cartoon: A bear gets in over his head in a all you can eat without paying (as long as you can eat them) hot dog bargain.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Yee Haw & Doo Dah - Bronco Breakin Boots: Yosemite Sam-esque cowboy and his talking horse are squatters in Central Park.* 2 stars

--------------

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke Goes Ballooning *Over the rainbow and into the magical land of unicorns (not uniHorns) and Asian sluts.* close to 3 stars

----- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Barbarella

*Drive In Totals: 14 dead bodies - 1 vicious parakeet attack - 1 Roman orgy - 1 portable brainwave detector - Shag carpeted spaceship - 2 crash landings - 1 giant rubber stingray 1 vicious biting sharp toothed doll attack - demonic children - flower eating - sea through man - flying pod attack with fireballs - 1 burning outer space city - Snowball Fu - Green Laser Fu - and finally the Famous Lovemaking Tube

*TNT NFL Sunday Night Football commercial featuring New England Patriots' then quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Seems like ages ago before Tom Brady dominated the sports news media.

*Joe Bob talks about how the two sci blockbusters of 1968 were Barbarella and 2001. He says that critics wanted to call this one "2002: a Space Idiocy." HA!

*Jane Fonda is a terrible actress. Really terrible.

*Hippie / progressive logic is vomit enducing. "Free love" in this movie is made so confusing and non-fun.

*WCW "Rage in the Cage" FallBrawl commercial featuring Jim "The Anvil" (I believe)

*Joe Bob says this movie is like "Dante's Inferno meets Disney on Ice." Ha

*Hey, 90s business professional lady, don't be afraid of new technology. Get a Nokia cell phone with car lighter adapter for only $9.99. Offer good through 9/30/97

*Joe Bob's advice to the hopeless: talk of lesbos with the very sexy Reno the Mail Girl and Joe Bob helps deliver a viewer's baby (not literally, of course).

*Jane Fonda saves the galaxy by being as silly acting as possible and having softcore, no nudity no action, sex with every humanoid alien she meets.

1 star for the movie (It's more up Joel Schumacher's and Tim Burton's campy alley than mine.) between 1 1/2 and 2 stars for the commercials and 3 stars for Joe Bob's hosting

-----------------

The Greatest American Hero: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys *Poncho and Lefty.* 3 stars

Manimal: Scrimshaw *I am the walrus (literally).* either 1 star or between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

U.S.S. Alabama (Unaired FX network pilot) *Obviously this was gonna be Reno 911 meets Star Trek, and that's exactly what you get. Poking fun at the genre's tropes and adding the humorous element of inter-galactic govt. red tape getting in the way of space adventuring.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars (The hit or miss ad-libbing is probably why this series never got picked up.)

----- TV CARNAGE:

*The Unfriendliest Town In America: "Can you help me out, buddy?" BAM! Knee the person asking you that in the groin.* 3 stars

*Stripping Lessons From The Insecure: You need a book about striptease allure from a lady that doesn't even feel sexy herself.* 2 1/2 stars

*Sad Sex Sillys!: Uncomfortable advice and uncomfortable laughter.* 1 star

*No More Free Blow Chobs: RICK, she's not some kind of oral sex machine. Stop coming into her dorm room and getting completely naked, while she's in the other room getting erotic candles for the two of you, you horny frat boy you.* 2 1/2 stars

*You Call This Relaxing: Neo-Nazis crucifying another Neo-Nazi* 2 stars

----------------------------------------

---Commander USA's Groovie Movies: CHUD

*For those not familiar with Commander USA, he's a tv movie host from the 80s. He looks like The Comedian from The Watchmen (he predates him, I believe) but he's more like a street wise version of Mr. Rogers. He likes to paint his right hand up with a smiley face, using ashes from his cigar butt, call it "Lefty" and talk to it like a sidekick friend. It's weird and almost painfully unfunny at times, but this is an afternoon, if I'm correct, movie show and not something late night like Joe Bob. Though, Svengoolie uses a lot of cheesy humor on his near-late night monster movie show.*

*Carefree bubble gum commercial. "Now with more flavor than ever." Was it sort of bland before? Were they holding back on the flavor? In the ad, a lot of very active and olympic level folk were blowing bubbles while performing. I can't picture people of the 20 Tens fitness culture even chewing any kind of gum. It's probably not gluten free, anyway.*

*An awesome USA network preview commercial for "Night Flight" "Where would your weekend be without it?" 11 pm eastern 10 pm central. Cool music videos and shorts. Generation X laments for MTV's glory days, well these other cable channels' attempts at MTV style programming were just as good, if not better.*

*Christopher Lee and Joan Collins in "Dark Places" TONIGHT 8pm on USA's Saturday Nightmares I'm tearing up thinking about how good old school cable used to be. Now, they'd probably have a four hour block of a reality show or a forensic detective show or a douchebag movie featuring The Rock, and never in a million years program a horror / mystery movie block followed by late night music videos and animated short films and stand up comedy. You sat in your acid washed jeans and watched this with only your remote, a bowl of popcorn, and a Pepsi. You didn't have an iphone, snapchat, twitter, facebook, netflix, redbox new releases only (barf), hulu, game of thrones, orange is the new black, pandora, real housewives of the kardashians, kanye west butchering bohemian rhapsody. We lived in ye good ole days.*

*One of the "Wet Bandits" from Home Alone is here in the 1980s NYC running a soup kitchen for the homeless. What a difference a decade and meeting Goodfella Joe Pesci makes.*

*Kolchak the Nightstalker would be right at home in this movie's environment. In fact, they have a haggard looking, snooping reporter who's almost a version of him.*

*Commander USA is carving meats for his footlong sandwich right after the scene where the photographer / hero goes down into the underground, with his homeless pal, and checks up on the injured homeless guy's chewed up and festering leg. Ewww. Ha.*

*An 80s nerd is playing bomber pilot in the mirror as he treats his zits with Oxy 10. He's so obnoxious, he deserves leprosy. However, I do miss uncool 80s teenagers who weren't afraid to be uncool.*

*Nabisco Brands logo on a BabyRuth commercial featuring two good looking male and female models in BabyRuth logo letter jackets. One: the Nabisco logo of the 80s gave off some kind of hypnotic feel good illuminatti trance vibe. Must love this corporate brand. Two: Why do they always show chocolate being poured in its melty form? The candy bar is gonna be solid and only melted if it's in your ass pocket and you sit on it or leave it on the dash of your car. Hot, melty chocolate is so damn much better it's like crack was in the 80s. More subliminal, chocolatey, illuminatti shit.*

*A 1-800 number ad featuring feel good American craftsmanship, sportsmanship, patriotism... uh ship and other propaganda for joining the National Rifle Association of America. The 80s were conservative as fuck, motherfucker. Have your VISA or MasterCard ready for your $20 NRA member baseball cap and 10,000 dollars worth of "accidental death" insurance with the NRA. Because you will kill yourself or a loved one or a hunting buddy. It's your 2nd amendment right.*

*Commander USA parodies the scene where the little girl is traumatized after her dad gets jerked out of a phone both by a C.H.U.D. Commander USA uses a blow up doll in his own personal phonebooth to re-enact the scene. Kind of black humor on the part of the old Commander. This was a sort of family friendly afternoon movie show with a basic cable edit of the film, and here they still mix in some bleak humor. Gotta love the 80s. They would not even show this kind movie in the afternoon on basic cable anymore. Sure, SYFY shows monster movies on Saturday afternoons, but they don't show 80s monster movies. They show 2000s crapfests and Asylum mock monster horror shitfests.*

*A yuppie couple is playing their morning game of tennis. The husband is sluggish because he didn't have his Kellog's Branflakes, while the wife is running circles around him. Yes, he didn't have his morning dump, and she did. These ads were effectively satirized in the 90s when Saturday Night Live did their "Colon Blow" cereal commercials.*

*AT&T wants to help 80s, pre internet business communications, small businesses become more successful. Sure, a big corporation really just wanted money like they always would. Truth is they'd like to merge with other super corporations and make the six headed corporate dragon of the apocalypse and suck the souls out of every small business, small business owner, and slug citizen of the global economic slavepit like a high speed slurpee.

*Roger Clemens lip-syncs in a non-redneck voice and gets naked behind a towel (for 80s chicks who wanted to see that. Surprised that he was ever considered a hunk. But whatever) in a "Zestfully Clean" ad. Cheesy, and wouldn't have been my brand of soap in the 80s, but nowhere near as obnoxious and off putting as modern Old Spice soap or Axe body wash.*

*Chef Dom Deluise doesn't wanna say goodbye to his Summer vegetables, as he sings a song to them about saying goodbye, in a Ziploc freezer bag commercial. He really needed to spend less time in the kitchen singing to food. R.I.P. Dom Deluise. He's dead, right?*

*Capn Lou Albano has to be dragged off screen in his 1-800 talk wrestling phone ad. Rejects from The Village People bust into his living room and do this, for some reason. There had to be some moron to call this number and listen to Lou ramble incoherently about Luigi and Jimmy Superfly Snuka.*

*"Dream Away" overnight weight loss tablets. I'm guessing these 1980s biggest losers sweated to the oldies with Richard Simmons in their dreams and all those fat cells just drifted away down into their waterbeds. Every moron in the 80s had a waterbed.*

*In the 80s, it took a magician named "Blackstone" and a series of motivational cassette tapes to get people to stop smoking. No one ever smoked after this and those annoying TRUTH ads featuring dying smoking victims talking out of their neckholes, that you have to hurry and look away as you flip the channel during dinner, never took place. What a wonderful alternate reality we live in.*

*C.H.U.D. and They Live would and probably has made a great double feature. Both have themes of the govt not caring about the people on the bottom level of society.*

*Another reason why this is a great movie is they're taking their sweet time to build up the tension of really getting a good look at the monsters. Sure, we've had glimpses of them. But nothing really lingers on them. It's all quick edits. When they finally show themselves to the people of New York, and the movie viewer, it will be worth the payoff. If this were a SYFY Asylum mock-monster-mock-movie we'd already had seen the shitty CGI croco-cerebus-cheetah in the first five minutes when it devours Caitlyn Jenner.*

*This movie also meets Joe Bob Briggs' rule of any good horror movie which is "Anybody can die at anytime." And they do, there, in the sewers of NYC in C.H.U.D.*

*Get Dianetics at Waldenbooks. The pseudo-psychology pseudo-religion selfhelp zeitgeist of 80s yuppies.*

*One more inspid bit of 80s propaganda by conservative Ronald Reagan America and corporate America: They would have "By Mennen" ads featuring babies and new moms with the 1950s tv mom standing over her shoulder giving her instructions on every "how to" and all the mother know how life advice she'd need. Basically saying, "Don't think for yourself. Make the 80s just like the good ole 50s."*

*"FDS Woman." Yes, ladies of the 80s used a huge aerosol can of feminine deodorant spray to keep their smelly vaginas in check, and that, coupled with their big hair, that needed to also be aerosol sprayed, is the reason that we have a hole in the ozone layer and now everyone has smelly genitals from the swamp crotch caused by a greenhouse gas oven climate that we all endure for most of the year.*

*There's no irony being noticed by anyone, here, that this movie that came out in the 80s and featured a plot about radioactive waste coming back to bite everyone in the ass is being shown on television, in the 80s, sandwiched in between all kinds of products that we have to destroy our bodies with using and our environment in making. Nope, none. Ha.*

*"Go back to sleep America. Your government is in control." -Bill Hicks*

*Nice government citywide coverup of the night of horrors and incident.*

*And a great cameo by John Goodman as a NYC cop in a greasy spoon diner, when the CHUDs show back up for the gotcha horror ending.*

*Commander USA puts on his trench coat and heads out the door after the credits roll.*

*The USA network voice over guy tells us to tune in tomorrow at noon for All American Wrestling featuring the voice talents of Mean Gene Okerlund. Can't get much more 80s than that.*

3 stars for the movie (even being on basic cable and edited) 2 1/2 stars for the Commander and finally either 1 star or close to 3 stars for the cheesy, despicable ads

----------------------------------------

---- Marc Summers' Mystery Magical Tour:

*For some reason Marc Summers is out on a stormy night, on a desolate road, after watching a movie with a group of kids, when his convertible gets a flat tire and he has no spare. One: that's just not responsible adult behavior, but what would you expect from the host of Double Dare. Two: Why is the top down when it's gonna rain? And where is this movie theater out on a winding mountain road right out of a David Lynch movie?

*The Addams Family's John Astin makes a cameo as a disgruntled magician, breaking the 4th wall and airing grievances, before quitting his magician job at a spooky, old dark house in the middle of nowhere.

*Guess who happens to pull in front of the house seeking help. Marc and kids.

*Of course, per requirement for a creepy mansion, no one is there to open the door and it is a case of just letting one's self in.

*It's gonna be Marc's own personal "Hotel California" as a creepy, gloved hand slides Marc's picture into the frame on the Now Appearing Act sign outside the mansion.

*Marc is proving why more game show hosts aren't asked to act. This is a labor of magician love, so he gets to star in his own pet project on Nickelodeon.*

*There's the old googly eyes behind the painting following around Marc and kids. A staple of old dark house horror.*

*Secret passageways and locked doors, spooky setting, ominous David Copperfield esque magician playing an old phonograph record using telepathy, but Are You Afraid of the Dark this ain't.*

*"Connect Four" singing faces commercial from the 1980s. Another awesome board game that caused many a sibling argument.*

*Johnny is the coolest 10 year old. He wears his jean jacket over his shoulders like a matador would wear a cape. Every kid in town has gathered to watch him take on Milton Bradley's Simon electronic guessing slap game.*

*The kids are running around without Marc who got disappeared into a skeleton in a phone booth. Now, the kids are pulling the old 3 Stooges "Knock it off" things happening behind the others backs routine.*

*Now, a maid has shown up to do a Carol Burnett mime routine. Sad and beautiful.*

*Lance Burton starts having a swashbuckling sword duel with the killer ghost character from Wes Craven's Scream.*

*The silky voiced and animated bear from the Golden Crisp commercial. Whatever became of him?*

*A Converse "Conasaur" commercial featuring pre-historic lizards from King Kong's Skull Island and the old black and white Lost World movie. Nice.*

*Tyco Dino-Riders toy commercial. Dinosaurs ruled the earth once again in the late 80s and early 90s and kids back then had awesome toys, cartoons, and movies to show for it.*

close to 2 1/2 stars for Marc, and kids, inside Lance's lunatic magician's mansion. close to 3 stars for the kid friendly retro ads

------------------------------------------

Twitch City: Killed By Cat Food *Art imitating life without merit. Without Hope. So, Curtis finally leaves the apartment and finds Hope, again.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Clean Butt: Hands free shitting experience that's very dignified.* 2 1/2 stars

*Disney World, One Kid's Opinion: Although the lines are long, it's worth it.* 1 star or 5 Mickeys according to this kid

*Exercise Awareness Week: "The Wu Tang Clan of exercise shows" featuring an 80 year old govt hating bible thumper.* 2 strange stars

*Inline Skating Is Fun: Wear a helmet or have a sweet ponytail to protect your fragile egg shell of a head.* 2 1/2 stars

*Memorial Day 2000: For the land of the free and the home of the show us your fuckin' tits!* either zero stars or close to 3 stars

---------------------------------------

Spicy City: An Eye For An Eye *Cyberspace better than the shark tank. Tragic song and dance in a chat room lounge.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Robocop the series: What Money Can't Buy *A sick kid needs the "Sultan of Detroit Swat," Robocop, to hit a homerun off of a curveball thrown by an organ snatcher.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars (This show is at odds with itself. On one hand you have the clever Robocop style adult satire of society, and on the other it's a dumb, mainstream, early 90s, PG-action tv series with all the cliches and flaws of those kinds of series.)

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Roswell, New Mexico *"All Chinese look alike just like all aliens look alike." -Stanton Friedman, UFO expert.* close to 3 stars

Casey and Friends: Episode 10 "1989" *The setting is late in the 2000s decade. Some hipster-nerd teenagers find their dad's old VHS cam-corder and set out to parody 1980s era, "cool Christian" teens television shows that they still show on Saturday afternoons on the religious channels. Unfortunately, the "too kewl for Sunday school" teens come up short on the satire and humor.* either between zero and 1/2 a star or between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

----------- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: The Beast Within

*Joe Bob is all for mutant-insect sex with humans as long as it produces monster horror flicks.

*Drive In Totals: 16 dead bodies... 1 dead dog... Neck munching... Embalming needle through the chest... Electrocution... Disembowling... Head rolls.. Hand rolls..

*Joe Bob will be with the viewer all night for "all the insect sex info"

*Monster/murder/rape mystery and returning to a hicksploitation town where it happened

*Joe Bob knows about deep, dark southern mysteries involving can opener / electrical chord murders

*Yep, it's a strange one. Effeminite, elderly newspaper man patting out raw hamburger and flirting with the delivery boy who turns rabid and chomps on the raw flesh of the weirdo old man, killing him. Plus, Designing Women's man's man Meschach Taylor is one of the town's deputees. Ha.

*Joe Bob is making toy grasshoppers hump and questioning the strange, sexual tension of the movie. Like the romantic strolls, with a deranged redneck's daughter, by a swamp full of body parts.

*Joe Bob wants to know why adults can't watch innards, 'cause of censors, even after the midnite hour on Turner basic cable. I agree.

*Joe Bob threatens to go on Jerry Springer and air his complaints, because he loves the violence on that show.

*Being embalmed alive has to rank pretty high on the horror movie kill list hall of fame.

*The town drunk has figured out who the killer is, but the sheriff won't listen and tells him that he looks like "The high noon of a coon dog just leaving the swamp."

*The young lead/monster of this movie looks like John C. Reilly playing a teenage Dewey Cox / Lon Chaney Jr. Wolfman

*Joe Bob exclaims how Monstervision is better than Turner Classic movies, because instead of pointing out facts about Liz Taylor getting hickeys from lovers in 1957, he talks about dead Baptist ghosts in spooky Mississippi hospitals where they film horror flicks

*Joe Bob questions the logic of turning into a cicada monster that's never explained in the movie.*

close to 3 stars for the tv edit of the movie and 3 stars for Joe Bob

------------------------------------------------

---- John Candy in "Summer Rental" on AMC (American Movie Classics)

*National Lampoons Vacation comparisons, but Candy is more endearing than Chevy. His movie family, on the other hand, terrible... so far

*Stuck in a moving station wagon with a farting dog, yet this movie still is charming and nowhere near as bad as a 2000s era awful comedy with someone like Martin Lawrence or Adam Sandler taking their families on vacation.

*AMC is airing this Summer themed movie during the Christmas holidays, and showing a commercial for their upcoming Holiday hit movies. Bill Murray's Scrooged is gonna be ran for 24 hours straight. Who started this shit? I love Scrooged, I used to love a Christmas Story, Home Alone 1 & 2, and Christmas Vacation, but I'll be damn if they did not run these movies into the ground. 24 hours straight of the same movie is insane and enough to make fans start hating their favorite movies. They play Home Alone and Christmas Vacation every other day on cable starting around Thanksgiving up until Dec. 27. ENOUGH!

*Hallmark digital Holiday cards featuring the overused Charlie Brown song and more awful insurance ads guilting family's into life insurance. They're raking in the bucks off of sentimental feelings

*Shaq is sitting by a warm fireplace attempting to read a corporate Christmas story (buy our stuff!) to a bunch of multi-cultural tv commercial kids. How, sweet.... humbug

*Renters versus Owners. A Ronald Reagan type rich yuppie gets Haiwaiin shirt wearing John Candy's table at the fancy restaurant, after Candy waited forever in line, and his lobster dinner. Basically, the rich, who can live in the vacation town all year long, against the 40plus hour a week white collar worker who can only rent a condo for a couple of weeks in the nice vacation area.

*Rip Torn is a pirate in a rundown dive bar / Captain D's

*John Candy is one of those take all kinds of crap dads on a vacation from hell.

*J.G. Wentworth sure likes bad opera singing and people yelling out windows

*Run in with the evil Ron Reagan guy while sailing. After beach hiijinks and moving in to a crappy shack on the beach after getting kicked out of their nice condo by the real owners.

*Wife and kids go to a movie during a rainstorm, while Candy is laid up cripple after a sailing accident, and mom forgot her wallet leading to John Laroquette picking up the tickets for them and hitting on mom.

*John Candy's character should just kill himself now.

*Footloose Kevin Bacon poster on the lobby wall and teen daughter is listening to Wham! on her walkman headphones. Barf on both, but 80s nostalgia nonetheless.

*Flinstones gag where Candy gets locked outside, in the rainstorm, by his dog.

*Candy is nursing a hurt leg in a kids plastic pool while his wife is on a speedboat with a douchebag like Laroquette.

*AH, his luck might have changed for the better? The bikini beach bimbo shows up on his sandy lawn... with pity

*Corporate America has no shortage of insipid holiday commercials. They even try to be clever about being aware of this in some of the commercials. Bill Hicks would note that they're going for the "hating the holidays" dollar.

*There's a nude boob scene that Candy gets to be in (not his boobs, thankfully) and I wonder since this is an 80s flick, even though I'm sure PG13, if there were actual boobs shown. Since it was the 80s, and 80s PG13 was edgier, I'm thinking maybe they did show naked boobs. AMC doesn't, however, 'cause it's the Holidays and we still have Pilgrim and Puritan overlords and Santa watches everything.

*The 80s version of Larry the Cable guy has taken over Candy's bed, and taken up with his dog, while watching the Smurfs, during a beach bum party takeover of Candy's vacation house. It happens when Candy is next door checking out the neighbor's brand new boob job.

*Rip Torn and John Candy have a drunken debate. Who's tougher? Jimmy Cagney or Sylvester Stallone

*Ron Reagan voter is signing business papers on the coffin of Candy's condo's former owner. Uh, oh, 'cause Candy has shown up in beach shorts and a white sports coat at the funeral home. Candy's being evicted. Lesson: don't rub the rich the wrong way.

*Crooked rich guy's boat is called "The Incisor."

*As per requirement for all Summer fun movies, there's a challenge thrown down between the good guys of Candy's / Rip Torn's haggard pirate beach bums and the yuppie rich sailor who happens to be Candy's evil landlord. It's a sail off. Winner takes all.

*Candy's clan wins the battle of waves.

*Whatever happened to the Laroquette and Candy's wife subplot? Who cares....

*This movie just isn't as satisfying as Chevy's Summer vacation, though it had some decent moments. Sick of Chevy's Summer vacation, however, and never need to see it again. Ever. Cable has played it so much it feels like the other 9 months of the year and not a vacation at all.

2 1/2 stars for the movie 1 1/2 stars for the ads

-----------------------------------------

Northern Exposure: Sex, Lies, and Ed's Tape *A high concept man with his head on the bar.* close to 3 stars

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Alaska *Where one's pee turns instantly into a popsicle.* close to 3 stars

Cartoon Network Summerfest: (2002)

*Maktar: A group of kids are playing flashlight tag, on the lawn, one Summer night. The light somehow shoots through the cosmos and is received as an act of war by a planet of oddball as well as kaiju controlling aliens.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Test Drive: Some white trash teens find a Transformer type robot in a junkyard and rebuild it. A zero suit Samus chick, from the future, arrives to reclaim it, and they aid her in a smackdown to stop aliens from destroying earth.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

----------------------------

USA UP All Night with Rhonda Shear: Beach Fever & Nightmare Sisters (1992)

Host segments for Beach Fever:

*Ritzy, early 90s UP All Night has just as good an opening video as Saturday Night Live, of the same time period, had.

*Rhonda thinks Beach Fever has feminist vibes because it has bikini babes relaxing and enjoying themselves on the beach while also karate kicking dudes in the neck

*Viewer mail: A guy named Ralph wants to exchange footcream in order to see Rhonda wiggle her toes in cheesecake. Rhonda shows off her comedic chops (which would sound surprisingly good to some, and they are) when she impersonates a New Yawk advice columnist, looking like the receptionist of Ghostbusters, complete in red wig. Reading a letter from a lady whose son is wearing her panties. Ha.

*More viewer mail: Rhonda reads a letter, while stretched out in a red miniskirt on a white bed, from the president of the "foot fetish society of America."

*Rhonda writes her wishlist to Santa while the rockabilly classic "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" plays in the background

*A viewer writes in to tell Rhonda how he and his wife, inspired by Rhonda's succulent cheesecake covered toes, took a chocolate pie to bed. Kinky weirdos, but fun anyway

*More letters rolling in prove the value of old school late night movie hosts. People are not watching for the subpar flicks, they're watching for an entertaining host. If more networks still did this, they'd get more value out of their late night tv library & ads.

*Other viewers write in to USA network wanting them to put that "space mutant" Gilbert Gotfried off of the other late night hosting spot and send him to where he belongs, "SciFi" network, instead. Ha.

Beach Fever:

*Kato Kaelin and not Jackie Chan have beach high jinks against pimps/pushers, muscleheads, and sexual zombies.*

USA UP All Night Late Night Advertisements:

*A yuppie douchebag is tired of being alone at night and having horny air bubble thoughts pop up above his empty head. So, he spends a dollar a minute to call up "Singles Connection Hotline." next thing you know, he's dry humping bimbos on the dancefloor, just like his pal.

*Lonely gals and guys call "Phone Partners" for 99 cents a minute and find friends in the same town or across the country. Social networking difficult back then. More saxophone soothing, but expensive.

*Call the "Mind Maze" for 5 bucks a minute (wow, expensive!) and get X-Files esque phone sex, I guess, with a creepy guy back lit by what I'm guessing is an alien searchlight peeping through your closed blinds. Creepy.

*TeleFriend. For 4.99 a minute, you too can have a female "friend" to talk to.

Host Segments for Nightmare Sisters:

*A viewer is mad that "Macho Man" Randy Savage touched Rhonda, on a previous night's UP All Night, and the viewer crushed his beer can, spilling suds, in a rage. Ha.

"Nightmare Sisters" starring Linnea Quigley (1988):

*Sorority Babes in Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama meets Revenge of the Nerds. This time with succubus and a decapitated genie's head, named Dukey Flyswatter, in a crystal ball.*

3 stars for Rhonda close to 2 1/2 stars the advertisements close to 2 stars for Beach Fever and close to 3 stars for Nightmare Sisters

--------------------------------------

Erwin C. Dietrich's "High Test Girls" (1980) *In a picturesque European village nestled in the mountains, six scandalous Swedish sweeties service a softcore-sex-soaked gas station / grotto. Sex antics with plenty of tongue in cheek humor.* more than 2 1/2 stars

"High Kicks" (1993) *Jean Claude Van Damme meets Tommy Wiseau, without enough awkwardness to warrant a cult following or even viewing. A toothless & bloodless attempt at rape-revenge exploitation. Shot on video at Venice Beach. A mullet hairdo sporting Patrick Swayze type zen martial artist / drifter (private pleasure sailor) helps an aerobics chick learn basic self defense to fend off a haggard gang of goofy stereotypes. One villain sounds/looks like Artie from Howard Stern's Show, another acts all Carlos Mencia, there's even a Fat Albert body double, and the required Asian kung fu gangbanger.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

---- Red Letter Media.com presents Best of the Worst:

*Lady Terminator: Skanky Lara Croft has her vagina possessed by a snake goddess and becomes a Lady Terminator. Makes about as much sense as Terminator Genisys.* close to 2 stars

*Lost In Dinosaur World: A kid friendly, and painfully boring, 90s Jurassic Park cash in and half assed attempt at advertising for a theme park full of barely mobile animatronic dinosaurs.* 1/2 a star

*Low Blow: A kung fu Charles Bronson wannabe, who's inept and elderly, versus a could-not-care-any-less cult leader.* 2 stars barely

Red Letter gives a tie for best between Lady T. and Low. B. Lost in Dinosaur World gets melted by a hot iron.

--------------------------------

1201Beyond.com presents Riff You A New One: Raiders of Atlantis *"I downloaded a copy of a mustache." I don't know what that means, but I think it pretty much sums up watching this flick. It's an Italian exploitation mixture of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Miami Vice, A-Team, Road Warrior, Gilligan's Island, and Fulci's Zombie.* 2 1/2 stars with riffing and between 2 and 2 1/2 stars without riffing

"Asylum For Shut Ins: Video Psychotherapy" (2004) *A twisted, beatnik(?) ventriloquist dummy screws with the viewer's head for watching clips of screaming scream queens, acts of depravity, and horror gore. Often repetitive and headache inducing.* running from close to 2 stars down to 1 star down to zero

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Goes Noodling In Oklahoma *Savoring "gettin' some!"* 2 1/2 stars

Ripley's Believe It Or Not!: Episode 1 (1985) *Jack Palance pisses up a rope.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Obscurus Lupa presents: Gymkata *The Cold War had everyone olympics caliber athletics crazed. Beating Ivan Drago, having a Miracle on Ice, or scoring high in Tetris meant something. So much that Ronald Reagan's Star Wars nuclear program depended on the C.I.A. getting a gymnast into a Soviet neighbor backwoods inbred country's Ninja Warrior obstacles of death challenge in a Eastern European forest. The winner getting one wish. Ronald Reagan used that wish to launch a laser sky cannon and crumbled the Berlin Wall.* 2 stars for the flick and 2 stars for the fun review

Forever Knight: Dying To Know You *A psychic gets a little too close to the fire trying to fly with a vampire. I miss how 70s, 80s, and 90s action dramas would always end with lite humor, despite having a heavy story to the show. In this episode, a police psychic gets killed in the line of duty, after getting personal with our hero. He broods about it during a thunderstorm, and then the episode ends with the four lead cops having a laugh about protein shakes and tofu burgers on their lunch break. Game of Thrones and others should try this. *wink* 3 stars

Hill Street Blues: I Never Promised You A Rose Marvin *This town might be more corrupt than Gotham. There's a bully SWAT team with a tank for a toy. Corrupt politicians try to cover up their crimes using corrupt high ranking police. And kooky doctors think that dangerous mental patients are just misunderstood and shouldn't be behind bars. Lucky for everyone, there are more than a few James Gordon quality cops down at the Hill Street precinct.* 3 stars

Viper: The Face *Suffers from the flaw of many movies and tv shows of the time period. Too much emphasis is placed on the comic relief and it gets in the way of the plot. That being a noble ex-con stuck between a rock and a hard place.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

"Samurai Cop" (1989) *Set in a bizarre alternate universe where Tommy Wiseau makes Tony Scott style action movies. Three things that no one would have thought would go together so sweetly: buddy action comedy, softcore porn scenes, and Japanese warrior code.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Even More Proof - Swords and Blowguns: Tips on how to have unsafe fun with deadly weapons for sale from the same guy giving the tips.* 1 star

*Hair Again: A picture of someone, with hair, is worth a thousand words, but the same picture, with someone wearing a wig, is pretty much worthless.* 3 stars

*How To Be A Real Man: Banditos get loco for HeyZeus.* 3 stars

*Star Search Audition - Nick Gomez: Carlos Mencia would have gotten zero stars on Star Search.*

*Video Guide to Successful Seduction: "Plan something different." "In public." Do it in public...* 3 stars

----------------

Max Headroom: Lessons *They're censoring Sesame Street.* 2 1/2 stars

1201Beyond.com presents Channel 32 Bloopers (1989) *Hijinks from a local t.v. station in the Midwest. It's always the businessman, who's too inept to be his own commercial spokesman, that steals the show. See also: Punch Drunk Love's "Mattress Man" plus the internet legend "Winnebago Man."* between 2 & 2 1/2 stars

"Broadcast Babes" ---XXX--- (1985) *So, big haired (also boobed) lady, you wanna be be a glamorous news reporter mindlessly reading teleprompter info about family housefire deaths and funning it up with the weather guy? Well, first, you gotta lay it all out, on the casting couch, with Ron Jeremy's wiener cousin.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

Future Schlock Vol. 1 *"It literally takes you to Funky Town." "My dad lives in a downtown hotel." "Girls like guys who get high." A mixtape with just the right amount of attention deficit disorder.* 3 stars

Wizards & Warriors: The Caverns of Chaos *Trust sprouts from bitter roots.* 3 stars

Look Around You: Health *"Between you and me, I wish I had never gotten out of bed this morning." That was before meeting MediBot. A 1950s sci fi style robot & mobile surgeon.* 2 1/2 stars

---- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Soylent Green w/commentary from director Fleischer

*Talk about how this was an early environmental film in a dirty decade, the 1970s.

*New York has a population, here in 2020, of 40 million people. There's mass overcrowding and a huge divide between the the have(s) and those who have not.

*Romero would take this timeless, universal notion and apply it during the Bush Jr. years in Land of the Dead.

*Total dystopia happening here.

*When society is hanging on by a thread, women become property. It always happens.

*Joe Bob loves Chuck Heston in this flick. He thinks he's nasty and tough in a harsh setting. Joe Bob hates cutesy sci fi flicks. The ugliness of this one appeals to Joe Bob as he stands in front of kitschy, skull trailer decorations.

*You know it's a heavy film when Edward G. Robinson is crying over vegetables, because he hasn't seen any since his youth due to crop shortages and world starvation.

*A lot of social barriers have had to come down, due to circumstance, in this movie's world, but still armed men have to loom over like Hendrix's song "Watchtower."

*Joe Bob tells his audience to slow down and accept the slow pace of the film.

*Poetic dinner scene where Robinson gets to introduce Heston's character to a meal that he's never had before.

*Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, this flick... Heston was the king of thought provoking mainstream 70s sci fi

*150 bucks a jar strawberry jam on a spoon, from a suspect's kitchen, retrieved by the cop character of Heston. It's part of the plot and another scary, little aspect of the flick that really needs to be noted. In our real life, the prices of certain foods are always fluctuating depending on some issue. Right now eggs have gone up because of a bird epidemic, last year it was pork for similar reasons. This film is all too real.

*Heston's character is our hero, but, as noted by the director, he's lacking some of the more noble qualities of Robinson's older character who saw more earlier brighter days. This is saying that we're preparing a world for future generations, through our ignorance and arrogance and destructive deeds, where they'll have less and less humanity.

*Joe Bob, in character maybe, is getting bored with the film and thinks it needs a lesbo orgy. Maybe he thinks this will be above the heads of most of the drunk, late night TNT crowd.

*Chuck interrupts a lounge full of sexy ladies, and bums a drink and a smoke from one of them noting, "If I had money, I would smoke 2 or 3 of these everyday." In the seventies that would be a joke for different reasons than it is now. Back then, smokes were cheap, but now, he's right, you would be lucky to afford a pack a day, and soon it will probably be the way it is in this movie.

*Noting that the female character is nothing more than sexy dressing to the scenes and the lives of the men. Like sleak 70s furniture. Kind of like the whores in Game of Thrones.

*Joe Bob points out that Chuck is a feminist because he wanted the female lead to show angst about her situation in life, before taking her to bed. Ha. Touche.

*In this next scene, the governor of New York is taking his family to see the one tree in the state in a hothouse. In current, real news, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, took his family on the parade route of the Rose Parade through downtown Portland after a vicious homeless sweep to get the homeless off the streets so they wouldn't be an ugly reminder during the pretty parade.

*The director is commenting that there is no middle class in this movie. Only the very rich and the very poor. Again, it's where we're heading as a society.

*Joe Bob points out how the police, govt, and the rich would love to use bulldozer garbage trucks to scoop protesters off the street. Wouldn't they!

*One of the first movies to tell the truth of corporations being the new evil of society.

*Another scary dilemma of society in this movie, and possibly where we're heading with governments wanting to take internet freedoms and rights to share dissent away, the small group of humanitarian people are gathered in the one remaining library to read what information that they have left and maybe get down to finding out what the Soylent corporation is truly up to. Modern corporations would love to take our ability away and make us not be able to know what they're up to.

*The euthanization sequence with the sterile setting and the pretty music and pictures. I think it says something about 21st century people and our veal calf lives of pleasure.

*A classic gloom & doom tale about global warming and corporate greed.

*And remember, Chef Boyardee is Soylent Green.

*We end with Joe Bob talking about the next flick, on Monstervision, the Legend of Boggy Creek. And how the director was meticulous about detailing the true accounts of Bigfoot in a Texas/Arkansas swamp. This film was made around the same time as Soylent Green. Again, fast forward to modern day, we have real global issues happening in the world, and corporate channels like AnimalPlanet waste time and viewers' attention on shows like "Finding Bigfoot." History will repeat itself until the apocalypse.

3 stars for Soylent (the movie, not the product) close to 3 stars for the director and actress commentary and more than 2 1/2 stars for Joe Bob

---------------------------------------

TV CARNAGE:

*Keep on rocking forever baby boomers!: Roll on with that broken hip. You have medicare.* 2 1/2 stars

*Gullible as shit: Believe anything a trio of Asian gangbanging greasers have to tell you.* close to 2 stars

*Need my medicine: Benji, the dog, and Chuck Norris on a drug bust.* between 2 and 2 1/2

*Mighty Fine Man: You Pay TOO MUCH!* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Pay day: Don't be nervous, 'cause you're gettin' laid.* 1 1/2 stars

---------------------------

Six Feet Under: The Foot *And a heavy hand. I'm once again starting not to like any of these characters (except for the cop; as a person).* close to 2 1/2 stars (biased rating not reflecting quality)

Spicy City: Sex Drive *A Sin City Marv type butts heads with his cop partner. A real crooked dame.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*Milk is sweet, bro: The cream always rises to the top. So, chew your cud, bud.* 3 stars

*Vitamix - Catch the Vision!: It takes 3 seconds to grind meat and dust mite feces.* 3 stars

*Woman versus computer!: You've pushed the wrong button, bitch!* 3 stars

*BUBBLES!: "They're your friends." If you get high a lot and talk to puppets. It helps.* 2 1/2 stars

*It all ends soon!: Feral agony.* 2 1/2 stars

-------------------

"Blue Ice" ---xxx--- (1985) *Nazi exploitation mixed into a noir San Francisco setting. Spliced together with so much grit that one would believe they're back in the 70s at some 42nd St. New York grindhouse theater watching it.* close to 3 stars

---- Memory Hole:

*The power of the Dark Lord: to create zany mishaps at church.* close to 3 stars

*God bless America: that old soft shoe soul of a nation.* 2 1/2 stars

*Real men meow: it's okay to admit it and to be timid about it.* 2 1/2 stars

-----------------

Rescue 911 w/ William Shatner: EZ-Mart Hostages vs. Woman with Rifle *Shoppers, redneck cops, & even the gun wielding psycho lady are all saved by a vigilante, female impersonator.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Bad Movie Beatdown: Just Go With It *An angry British guy takes a very anal (no Adam Sandler potty humor pun intended) look at another awful Adam Sandler effort. Just go with it. Lazy, uninspired filmmaking. Just go with it. Awful, horrible people celebrated. Just go with it. Rampant product placement inside the film. Just go with it. The very opposite of funny in a comedy. Just go with it. Movie studios and ticket purchasers paying for millions of dollars exotic vacation for Adam Sandler and his friends in place of an actual movie. Just go with it. And they go.* zero stars for the movie & 2 1/2 stars for the review

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Horror of Party Beach *"The day the mudskippers fought back."* 3 stars with riffing & running from close to 2 stars to close to 2 1/2 stars without riffing

A Haunting: A Haunting In Florida *Home ownership is hair-raising anxiety. Especially on sacred swampland once belonging to Native Americans.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

--- Beach MTV w/ Antonio Sabato, Jr. & Daisy Fuentes (1995):

*I used to have a teenage crush on Daisy.

*Antonio is wearing overalls and a wife beater. Douchebag attire.

*Before social media, everyone loved giving shout outs, especially from the beach.

*Stupid human tricks... First is a back-hand-spring, which is stupid, according to MTV, even though gymnastics takes a lot of talent, dedication, & training.

*Promo for the 1995 MTV Movie Awards hosted by Courtney Cox & Jon Lovitz (Odd couple there) with guests - A Baldwin (not Alec), Cindy Crawford, still a druggie & not an Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., Ice T & Chris Isaak, still an A-list actor Val Kilmer, and america's sweetheart of the time Alicia Silverstone. Performances by Boyz 2 Men, Blues Traveller, TLC & More...

*MTV is sponsored by Sunkist soda, a soda to drink outside, so they claim. Plus there's Eagle Snacks "What You Feed Your Face." (That sounds like a corporate slogan from the world of Mike Judge's Idiocracy).

*A Gen-X couple are on a jungle safari with Jolly Ranchers juicy candy and end up in a jolly rancher candy controlled temple

*"Drink in the waves! Ay! Drink everyone! huh!" A Sunkist commercial with beach party animals pounding 3 liter soda in the surf and dancing around with cases of Sunkist soda. If it was that popular, why is it so obscure now, and rarely seen on store shelves or on tv ads?

*An awesomely surreal Eagle chips ad where a guy scares off his hot date, because he has a creepy, chip munching face in his kitchen cabinets.

*Nothing says "fun in the sun" like a MTV artsy station logo reminder featuring a skeletal, black bird poking blood out of a still beating x-ray of a heart with white background.

*Next week MTV becomes MJTV as Michael Jackson takes over leading up to the premier of he and Janet's Scream video. Scream sucked, but they're also gonna show Thriller. Young ones don't get how big a deal Thriller was. They only played it on special days. There was no Youtube to go watch it on like any video ever. You could maybe own a VHS copy of it, but if you were just casually interested in seeing it, you had to wait.

*"You think you've heard it all? Listen to this!" Blockbuster is holding a sale for all their cd's for $11.99 or less. Even hot & new band Hootie and the Blowfish

*"What do you want?" "BROWNIES!" Duncan Hines "Hot Stuff" Pot sold separately.

*Visa, it's everywhere you want to be. Including the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway

*Arthouse ad for Nike & supposedly the Boys & Girls Club featuring Penny Hardaway's hoop dreams and struggles.

*A year after Kurt Cobain's suicide. Gen X can't mourn forever. So, here we are in South Beach, Miami. Woooooooooo! No more rainy Seattle

*Couples challenge... where a buff Guido (the type who'd get their own MTV show a decade later) guesses that a timid beach-babe looks up to Madonna (no duh! amirite, my sistaz?!) and they are pronounced "hot" by hooting admirers and get to "hook up."

*99 cent Batman Forever collectible glasses with carved images of Jim Carey's Riddler and other characters from the Summer blockbuster are available at McDonalds

*Bass Bomb 1-3 mix cd's from THUMP Records

*MTV News break... someday MSNBC news lady, Alison Stewart, talks about Eddie Vedder having to cancel a concert. Now she's pimping Hillary instead of Eddie

*Antonio & Daisy name drop how cool Dennis Hopper is for some reason. I agree. Can't imagine modern MTV personalities namedropping a badass actor over 40 much less 50

*It's also strange to look back at the era of MTV video disc jockeys. They've gone the way of the dinosaur. Maybe some other music channels still have them, but they're gone from basic cable music channels (which I still have). If you can call them music channels.

*Now, MTV is reality tv and MTV2 (which was supposed to take over as an all music channel when MTV began running mostly shows)... MTV2 is the Wayans Bros. & Martin Lawrence sitcom marathon station. Why this channel programs like this, and is able to survive, is beyond me

*Odd juxtaposition by MTV creative as we go to break with Ice Cube & Dr. Dre's hit song Natural Born Killers booming over images of beach hotties swimming underwater

*Launch Media interactive CD-Rom ad featuring a rip off of the rambling Aussie roadie from Wayne's World

*McDonald's superhero burger. It's what vigilantes obssessed with their parents' deaths eat while crying in their car after breaking a mugger's arm in three places

*Punk show 95, in Long Beach, featuring Sublime, among others, and a lazer light show. I didn't know punks liked that sort of shit. Thought it was only hippies.

*Six Flags Hurricane Harbor water park. I wonder if guys with fake Jamaican accents ever get tired of promoting the fun of whitebread families in vacation commercials

*Someone must have flipped the channel on this tape, because there's an ad for Dr. Katz. Man, I miss Penn as the voice of Comedy Central.

*TIMM, the interactive multi-media monitor for a computer. It even comes with a remote for dummies. Seems silly, but now there's netflix, hulu, xbox live, Twitch, all these apps we pretty much use on our tv in a similar fashion. TIMM might not have caught on, but the idea eventually would.

*One of the Friends (the one with the monkey) signs up for AT&T long distance savings and flirts, nervously, with the tele-services lady. Lame.

*John Madden is a wizard ogre who can make jocks' feet catch on fire if they don't use his foot fungus healing potion.

*A male hotbody contest followed by a Bryan Adams music video. MTV, barf inducing.

*MTV News Break talking about the upcoming Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie interview with Diane Sawyer. Strange days, indeed.

2 1/2 stars for Daisy, 1 1/2 stars for Antonio, 1 star for MTV, zero stars for those beach goers, and close to 3 stars for the goofy commercials

-----------------------

Deadpit.com presents Retro Wrestling Night: WCW Beach Blast 1993 (a review) *Just two Kentucky guys talking about wrestling, while in a bedroom, just in their socks.* 2 stars or zero stars for the zero production values and shaky camcorder recording

Predator in Mortal Kombat X (2015) *Whoda thunk that a monster/alien from an 80s action movie would endure interest for two decades? While lesser creatures from the likes of Independence Day & Battlefield Earth reside in purgatory, this ugly son of a bitch creeps through the collective horror / sci fi fan subconscious. Collecting trophy skulls from popular video game characters, like Johnny Cage, and having horror fan dream-match battles versus Jason Vorhees.* 3 stars

"The Slayer" (1982) -uncut- *Edvard Munch paints a portrait of Freddy Krueger.* 3 stars

TV Carnage: Ouch Television My Brain Hurts *"3 weeks ago I was running for president. Now I'm on t.v. with a guy in a bug suit."* close to 3 stars

Red Letter Media presents Scientist Man Explains Terminator Genisys *Marky Mark escapes the ape planet and his tardis crashlands on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during President Biff Tanner's 2017 inaugural speech. Meanwhile, in the crowd, Travis Bickle bumps into Morpheus who hands him the remote from Adam Sandler's movie Click. He uses it to pause the actors, on the set of Pineapple Express, in 2007(?), while they're having an existential high moment. Therefore, Rise of the Planet of the Apes never happens. Or does it? Yet? Or it already has...? maybe in another timeline.* 3 stars

--- Phone Losers:

*Church calls - Fart Demon: It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival.* close to 2 stars

*Disabled Postman: Inconvenienced by the impaired.* 2 1/2 stars

*Church prank calls - sex offenders: I'm required, by law, to tell you that I'll be there, on Sunday, in your house of worship, with my parole officer.* close to 3 stars

*Food Stamp Tacos: "Thank you for not making me any."* 2 1/2 stars

*Google streetview - There goes the neighborhood: concerns of the rich.* 2 stars

--------------------

WWF Summerslam pre-show (1989) *"A one way trip to the sun" featuring Hulkster, Tiny Lister, Macho Man, Scary Sherri, Brutus the Barber, Ravishing Rick, Andre the Giant, Ultimate Warrior, Bobby the Brain, and Mean Gene. Okay, Gene looks like he'd be a better barber than Brutus would.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*God's muscle: Have you payed your protection money to the Lord or are you gonna sleep with the fishes?* close to 3 stars

*Join the military!: "I knew it was awesome, but not this awesome!"* 1 star

*Don't trust adults!: Especially the Zucchini Bros. Band.* 2 1/2 stars

*Let's get flairing!: Entertain drunks by juggling.* zero stars

*Bio-magnetic touch healing sensual rubdown: "When in doubt, just touch" the sensitive areas of naked men. "Aloha."* 3 stars

--------------------

"Super Mecha Kucha Happy Fun Monkey Bash DX Part 4" *If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, dip it in wasabi and put it back in skull.* close to 3 stars

"Summer of Tears in American Gladiators" *A sketch comedy group splice themselves into a "classic" & cheesy, reality competition.* 3 stars

"Snog Marry Avoid" season 6 episode 3 *The fashion-nightmare spawn of Boy George meet a fascist, ice-queen robot in a wardrobe.* 2 stars

--- USA Up All Night w/ Rhonda Shear (1992): Summer School Teachers (1974)

*Rhonda is dressed up like a sexy cowgirl at L.A. niteclub Denim & Diamonds

*This is a country/western line dancing bar around the time that "Achy Breaky Heart" (barf) was popular.

*It's nice to see Rhonda twist her hips, though

*Rhonda flirts with some big hunky urban cowboy yuppies

*Rhonda jokingly says that Ross Perot is in Summer School Teachers

*Rhonda recommends football strategy to prevent pregnancy

*Another strong women of the 1970s sex comedy from Corman's New World Pictures.

1 star for the honky tonk 2 1/2 stars for the flick and 3 stars for Rhonda

----------------------

"Summer Beach House" (1980) ---xxx--- *The thing that stands out most in this flick is the dingy yellow color scheme. It's on everything from the walls, furniture, floral bed sheet pattern, lamp shades. Nightmarishly probably still in the never redecorated homes of cat ladies, everywhere, on Dead End St. USA. In the malaise of their nicotine stained reclusive lives, they'd pull back their gown to reveal, to a stranger, a frighteningly wiry figurative pussycat. Also, I wanna comment on old school lady massagers. So white and antiseptic. Like a suppository. Now, dildos are mostly medieval looking & hot pink.* between 1 1/2 & 2 stars

--- Joe Bob's Drive-In (1991): Fred Olen Ray's Beverly Hills Vamp (1989)

*Joe Bob pontificates on what it would have been like if Wilfred Brimley & Regis Philbin, among others, had discovered America

*Drive In Totals... 9 dead bodies.. 11 breasts..

*Jerry Lewis wannabe Eddie Deezen is on the menu for fanged vixens. Highlights: dripping with love for kitschy Hollywood. Priest, producer, secretary, and butler steal the show. Deezen sucks. Bauer seduces as usual. Britt Ecklund underused. Some scenes like with the convenience store lady & motel cleaning lady felt more like the joke was our time watching was being wasted instead of the scene being funny, like it was an injoke on the set (don't do that, Fred). Tim Conway Jr., talented somewhat.

2 1/2 stars for Joe Bob (TMC didn't give him enough time to talk) & running from 1 1/2 to between 2 & 2 1/2 stars for the flick

-------------------

--- Phone Losers:

Dead Lawn Hippies: "My free speech is no to your free speech. I'm a loose cannon and into being organic." close to 3 stars

Convenience Store Confessions: Fine line between anarchy and being an asshole for no reason.* close to zero stars

FedEx Box of Ticks: "I know no one in New Mexico and I didn't order a box full of ticks." 2 stars

---------------

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Sante Fe, New Mexico and Colorado *Riding the sky snake while with dry sinuses.* 3 stars

0 notes