Eighties Halloween Sitcom Television Night

and many more!

I just watched a Halloween episode of Kate and Allie.



It wasn't very good. It was very familiar though. Which means I probably watched it more than once in the 80s. So when I was ten I not only watched Kate and Allie (because, I don't know, a show about two divorced women living together spoke to me) but watched episodes multiple times. Looking at the TV schedule it looks like I wasn't watching MacGyver or ALF. Oh, we're watching ALF by the way.



I don't have any regrets. Watching so much TV then has really informed my TV watching now. Putting in all those hours has insured that I like good television instead of awful, derivative things like Big Bang Theory. Plus I went outside to play once and there was a bug and it was gross.



The episode of Punky Brewster called "The Perils of Punky" has inspired headlines like How Punky Brewster Traumatized a Nation and 5 Inexplicably Horrifying Episodes of Classic Comedies. I don't know if it's specifically Halloween-based but it did air on October 20, 1985. Of course that left room the following week for the episode "Just Say No". What's scarier than battling an evil spirit in a cave? Being offered drugs.

Speaking of Johnny Galecki sitcoms, Johnny Galecki is not in the episode of Roseanne we're watching. His character didn't appear until 1992. But John Goodman is back since we saw him in C.H.U.D.



What I discovered in researching 80s Halloween episodes is, generally, a show would do one late in their run. Around season six. Roseanne pioneered the yearly Halloween episode, predating even The Simpsons. Also, it took me two days to write this and in the meantime I watched a Mr. Belvedere. Jesus Fucking Christ. Good theme song though:



Here's what happened last week:

Elm Street Movie Night

Did you know the words "Elm Street" are never spoken in the first movie? In fact the real location of the house is 1428 North Genesee Avenue in LA. It's recently been rebooted. Freddy terrorized those teenagers less than a block from Sunset Boulevard. There's a Chipotle there.

Amanda Wyss is in Nightmare On Elm Street. I professed my love for her here when we watched the killer baboon LARP movie Shakma. Lin Shaye, perhaps best known as Magda in There's Something About Mary, appears in her fifth movie:


A Nightmare On Elm Street
Critters
Critters 2
The Hidden
Cellular

Although this is the second and third Elm Street movies at BMN it still only brings Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, up to four movies. The fourth being V, where he played the good alien Willie.



Can't beat good alien Willie.

Someone else who has reached 5 BMN movies is director Wes Craven. But he's still slightly behind the leaders John Carpenter and Godfrey Ho, who both have 7.

The third Elm Street movie was written, in part (there are four names on the screenplay), by Frank Darabont. Before he got legitimate with The Shawshank Redemption he was writing movies like The Fly II from two weeks ago. He also wrote The Blob remake which we watched a million years ago. I think of him as a kind of John Sayles (Piranha, Alligator, Eight Men Out) of writers that are not John Sayles.

Both movies star John Saxon. With his B-movie credentials you'd think he has at least 5 movies at BMN but you'd be wrong. Are you tired of always being wrong? He was merely in Black Christmas and The Final Alliance. It's because he suffers from Cirio Santiago-disease, making movies that are almost good enough for BMN. Hands of Steel? Maybe. Nightmare Beach? Sounds like something we'd watch. Frame-Up II: The Cover-Up? You have to cover up your frame ups! Why did it take until the sequel?

Here's what happened last week:



 
 

Today's Movies

Slasher Movie Night

Surprisingly I've never used "Slasher Movie Night". That's oversimplifying things, however. Both movies are about some young people set on a course of violence and revenge by a parent's death. Wait, that's Batman.



The Mutilator is about a group of friends whose limbs are surprisingly easy to remove from their bodies. While still intact they go up to a friend's beachfront condo to help close it down for the winter. They do this during their fall break so really this is the autumn The Shining.



In the end the killer gets lost in a corn maze and ends up dying of exposure to spectacular foliage while in a pile of leaves.

Tim Kincaid (Breeders, The Occultist, Mutant Hunt) must have been a fan of The Mutilator (or had some other connection). Both Matt Mitler (Breeders, The Occultist) and Frances Raines (Breeders, future Tim Kincaid BMN movies Bad Girls Dormitory and Riot on 42nd St.) are in it. If The Mutilator had any influence on Breeders 



it's the Seven Samurai of movies.

Tobe Hooper made the space vampire movie Lifeforce and the comedy The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 so The Texas Chain Saw Massacre should be lots of fun.

Here's what happened last week:

Today's Movies

Fly Movie Night

After nearly 5 years with no David Cronenberg movies at Bad Movie Night we finally had a dedicated night to him in April. Now he's already back, like a fly in your house you can't get rid of. Say, did someone say forced segue?

The Fly stars The 'Blum who we've been watching pop in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. Could Transylvania 6-5000 be very far behind?



Yes, it certainly can!

The Fly II stars Eric Stoltz from Anaconda and Daphne Zuniga from The Dorm That Dripped Blood. For the second movie they dropped the whole disease allegory from the first one and replaced it with lots of gooey latex monsters. And for that I commend them.

We're watching a good horror movie for a change in honor of Halloween month. Last year we watched Carrie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Exorcist and a collection of television horror anthology episodes. This year we'll watch even other things!

Here's what happened last week: