"Let's do those drive-in totals. We have: Nineteen dead bodies
(plus fragments). Ten breasts
(shame on you, TNT censors). Two zombie breasts. One-hundred twenty-five zombies. Mummy dogs. One-half zombie dog. Ten gallons blood. Brain-eating. Gratuitous embalming. Zombie fu. Nekkid punk-rocker fondue. Gratuitous midget zombie. Torso S&M. One motor vehicle chase
(totalled by zombies). Pool cue fu. No aardvarking. Heads roll. Brains roll. Arms roll. Hands roll.
Joe Bob says, Check It Out." Only on
MonsterVision.
On Saturday nights from 1993 to 2000, the TNT network aired
MonsterVision, a "drive-in movie" double feature of some of the best (and often the worst) cult and B-movies ever made. Originally
guest-hosted by Penn and Teller, the network soon turned the reins over to actor and professional drive-in movie reviewer
Joe Bob Briggs (whom some may remember from the Daily Show’s "
God Stuff with John Bloom." Briggs was once President of the
Trinity Foundation, a Dallas-based religious watchdog group that investigates fraud perpetrated by religious organisations against the public.)
Briggs had spent the previous eight years hosting "
Joe Bob Brigg's Drive-In Theater," a weekly movie show on The Movie Channel (TMC), which showed cult and B-movies rated using
Briggs' unique euphemisms and special system of things to watch for in each film (Drive-In Totals) -- developed during his time as a movie reviewer for the Dallas Times Herald. The show was
cancelled after a 490-episode run ("Aardvarking," mentioned above, is Briggs' euphemism for sex.) In grand late-night horror host tradition, Briggs incorporated those elements into his new TNT show: MonsterVision. However, TNT (unlike TMC -- a pay cable channel) censored all the movies they showed, as well as Briggs’ monologues, for television broadcast.
And, like “Mystery Science Theatre 3000″ it wasn’t the movies that drew you in but Briggs’ segments, where he’d use his educated, yet at the same time peckerwood humor to ease down the visual crap you were swallowing en mass.
Joe Bob’s Website has hundreds of
drive-in movie reviews, from
Killer Shrews to
Head Cheerleader, Dead Cheerleader, to
Piranha 3D and
Eight Legs to Love You.
"In other words, absolutely no plot to get in the way of the story. My kinda movie."
The Youtube playlists
linked above include the following full-length Monstervision movies:
*
The Fog /
Transcript
*
The Funhouse /
Transcript
*
Ice Cream Man
*
It's Alive
*
It Lives Again
*
Jaws 2
*
Maximum Overdrive /
Transcript
*
The People Who Live Under the Stairs
*
Poltergeist /
Transcript
*
Project Metalbeast /
Transcript
*
Return of the Living Dead /
Transcript
*
The Stepfather /
Transcript
*
Swamp Thing /
Transcript
*
They Live! (With guest “Rowdy” Roddy Piper)
All available MonsterVision show transcripts (Only 95 are listed.)
Also:
Pet Shop, in 13 parts:
("This movie is so lame I’m not even gonna embarrass the writers by saying their names on tv: Brent V. Friedman and Mark Goldstein.")
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13.
MonsterVision Intros
*
Original
*
A Christmas Nightmare
*
Godzilla New Year’s Eve Marathon
*
Interstitial Montage
*
MoonsterVision
*
Small Titles, Big Screams
* and... the
MonsterVision theme song. (So bad, it's good.)
Extras
*
The Joe Bob Briggs FAQ (Q. What the heck is all this "Fu" stuff? A: The original "kung fu" resulted in the all-purpose suffix, "Fu," meaning "an act of senseless or random violence, usually inflicted on the viewer.")
*
Onion A/V Club Interview
* A
list of movies containing commentary tracks by Joe Bob. (Youtube has a
clip from Samurai Cop with his commentary.)
* Joe Bob on
Twitter
*
Wikipedia
* YouTube user
hootyhaha has uploaded a number of Joe Bob’s commercial break segments.
Also of possible interest: Reason Magazine article by Joe Bob:
Kroger Babb’s Roadshow: "How a long-running movie walked the thin line between exploitation and education." It's a lengthy review of a movie from the 50’s:
Mom and Dad. (Wikipedia:
Kroger Babb)
posted by zarq at 10:01 PM on February 3, 2011 [1 favorite]