American Movie Classics’ Monsterfest Fearfest returns again! I’m actually quite pleased with what they’ll be offering in October. Take a look.
10/23
Alien
Aliens
10/24
The Return of the Living Dead
Jack the Ripper (1959)
The Brain Eaters
The Fly (1958)
Dracula (1979)
Exorcist: The Beginning
Alien
Aliens
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection
10/25
Wolf
The Beast Must Die
The Frighteners
Raising Cain
Wolf
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection
The Shining
Even a guy that may or may not be James Bond enjoys a good game of Lazer Tag.
Did any of you ever actually own one of these growing up? Do you know anyone who did? My answer to both questions is “I didn’t”. But, man oh man, I wanted one! Lazer Tag was cutting edge technology! Forget about playing good old fashioned “war”, Lazer Tags let you uprgade to “future war”!
Of course, along with the invention of Lazer Tag (and the similar Photon, both of which came out in ’86), there were all kinds of laser gun arenas popping up. I’ve been to a couple of those in my time and they’re always fun, even if I’ve always found the “refs” or whatever to be a bit high strung and have a low tolerance level for kids. There’s a laser arena here in Lansing, based out of an old AMC movie theater. Maybe I should go there some day.
Outside of the arena (literally), the closest I ever got to Lazer Tag was having a tin Lazer Tag waste bin. Now isn’t that just an extremely cruel thing for parents to do to their kid? “Oh, here’s that thing you really want… See, there’s a picture of it on this TRASH CAN.”
On one side of the bin, there was a really cool photograph of the gun shooting a laser out, and on the other side there was a cartoon scene of a battle taking place. I was mesmerized by a trash can!
After a Saturday morning cartoon (see video below) and three Choose Your Own Adventure books, Lazer Tag is still going strong today and it is now manufactured by Hasbro.
Hell Comes to Frogtown was released in 1988 by the Roger Corman-founded New World Pictures and it stars professional wrestler ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper (They Live, Body Slam) and Sandahl Bergman (Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja).
Piper is Sam Hell, one of the few fertile men around after the world nuked itself and most people went sterile. Sandahl Bergman is the doctor who escorts him across the wasteland to save and procreate with some fertile woman being held captive in Frogtown by the evil mutant frog Commander Toty (get it?). Also along with them on the trip is the ultra-hot soldier Centinella (played by Cec Verrell), who has a butch look going for her, but she’s so hot, she overcomes that hurdle. We get to see her boobies too. =D It’s too bad Verrell hasn’t done a whole lot of other movies, she carried herself well in this film looking so sexy and confident that she should’ve gone on to bigger roles & movies.
The movie is a purposefully goofy scifi/action B-movie tale, just like Piper’s best known and loved movie They Live and it’s a true guilty pleasure. Piper is able to lift the film a bit with his charisma, but I wish they would’ve given him even more dialogue.
The frog costumes are pretty good as well, with the full-blown mutated frog people (Commander Toty, Leroy, Bull) looking the best and not cheap at all.
Though the movie is a cult classic, it almost seems forgotten, which is a shame. This is a movie that knows what it is: a silly, stupid movie featuring sex and frogs. It doesn’t try to make any statements about nukes or anything, it’s just here for us to laugh at and have fun with. I don’t think this one is EVER shown anywhere on TV, but luckily, it is on DVD so if you’re into ’80s low-budget cheese, you should track down a copy and watch it.
Believe it or not, three sequels have followed: 1993′s Return to Frogtown (aka – Frogtown II), Toad Warrior (1996) and Max Hell Frog Warrior (2002). They look extremely bad.
Return to Frogtown stars Robert Z’dar as Sam Hell (SERIOUSLY? THAT guy as a stand-in for Piper ?!), Lou Ferrigno and Charles Napier (that jerk Murdock from Rambo: First Blood Part II)
I don’t even wanna know about the other two, the video covers are pure low-budget cheese and not in a good way and they look to feature who I’m guessing is Sam’s son, Max.
Enjoy this dance scene from the original:
Hattytown Tales was a stop-motion animated show that originally aired in the UK from 1969-1973. It was created, written and narrated by Keith Chatfield. but will be more fondly remembered by us American kids as one of the many shorts that Nickelodeon’s Pinwheel program would show throughout the ’80s.
I was kind iffy on Pinwheel, too many random cartoon shorts I had no interest in, but I always loved Hattytown Tales (even though I thought there was a bit of British weirdness to it). So what is Hattytown Tales? Well, it’s hats living in hats and everyone has a British accent, even Sancho the sombrero!
I liked Bobby the policeman a lot, because I aspired to be a cop when I was a kid. Sancho was always my absolute favorite though. I loved his look. He reminded me a lot of a superhero with the bright blue and yellow. You know what? It just hit me. He reminds me of Dr. Fate!
Other characters included Posty (mailman), Mr. Wimple (mayor), Milko (milkman) and Mr. Bun (baker).
I haven’t seen the show since it was a part of Pinwheel, but I’d love to sit down and view some of these episodes again. Unfortunately, the show has only been released on DVD in the UK.
Do you have any Hattytown memories you’d like to share?
Went to see KISS in Detroit last night. GREAT show, here’s my review.
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