Heil Honey, I'm Home - A Sitcom About Adolph Hitler and His Jewish Neighbors

          How about sitting down one day and watching a sitcom about Adolf Hitler living in an apartment with Eva Braun who, while running Germany at the time, was having difficulty with his Jewish neighbors? Sound insane? Well in 1990 a pilot for this idea was shot in England and subsequently greenlit for an additional eight episodes.

          Information on this show is a little tricky as most people involved seemed to have forgotten nearly everything about it. Between eleven and sixteen episodes were planned and apparently eight of them were shot before the pilot debuted in 1990, after which the plug was quickly pulled. Screams from Jewish organizations and the “bad taste” patrol shit all over it. Hayim Pinner, secretary general of the Board of Deputies of British Jews stated, “We are against any trivialization of the Second World War, Hitler or the Holocaust, and this certainly trivializes those things. It's very distasteful and even offensive.”

The material here is odd, considering it’s supposed to be Hitler, you almost want to stop yourself from laughing at it. This isn’t like in The Producers where they know the material is terrible and are presenting it anyway, the humor is presented straight up. Not at all tongue in cheek, it is difficult to know how to take the material. The comedic elements and sense of pathos for the characters are wildly misplaced. The action revolves around Hitler entertaining Chamberlain in his apartment and trying to trick him into signing a nonviolence agreement (which sort-of happened in real life), but the Hitler’s Jewish neighbors crash the party and try to set up the British Prime Minister with their unattractive niece. Hilarity sort-of ensues.

It was defended by the producers by stating that various other comedies have been set during the Second World War. Allo Allo and Hogan’s Heroes being two such examples. While that is true, in both the Nazi’s were taken various seriously. The idea of being shot out of hand by them was present in nearly every episode of both series, even if individual Nazi characters were bumbling fools. In this it was like the entire war existed in an episode of Friends.

Granted there have been a few similar shows, depicting important people in situational comedies. That’s My Bush in 2001 for example, which showed former president George W. Bush (brought to us by the creators of South Park, apparently they had an alternative ready if Al Gore won, called Everybody Loves Al). That show, along with Heil Honey, is more of a mockery of the sitcom genre than making fun the target. But both were quickly canceled. At least That’s My Bush had its eight episodes aired before getting the axe.

The entire pilot episode is below for you to judge. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor!

For more weirdness try The Foot Doctor Letters: A Serial Killer Speaks Out by Rex Hurst. Available in paperback and on kindle. 

Common Law Wife: Exploitation on a Very Very Very Low Budget

          A great deal of this film was in fact intended to be part of another feature titled Swamp Rose but the funding dried up. Not a man to let anything go to waste producer, Larry Buchanan, “King of the Drive-In Flicks”, stripped it of its luscious color and built a z-grade plot around it. This is easily detected as the film quality switches drastically from scene to scene, sometimes from shot to shot.

          All of the characters are in effect played by two different people. The outdoor distance shots in which the characters are obscured to prevent detection, a similar device to what Ed Wood did in Plan Nine from Outer Space. The voice over is fairly obvious as well. Even when it's the same dialogue it never syncs up properly and when it’s not the scene comes across like a Godzilla dub.

          The plot revolves around pervy old Uncle Shub who decides to dump his long term live-in girlfriend and upgrade to a younger model, namely his stripper niece, Baby Doll. The niece, being a tramp (surprise, surprise), rekindles an old fling with her sister’s husband, the local Sheriff, and a moonshiner, who supplies Uncle Shug with his liquor. Well, the tossed-off girlfriend discovers that she is Shug’s common law wife as they were living as a man and wife for half a decade, which in the eyes of the law of that unnamed state is considered a valid marriage. Complications arise as both women try to out maneuver each other over the old man’s fortune, leading to a sexy, violent end.

          Baby Doll was played by real-life stripper Lacey Kelly, whom producer Larry Buccahnon (one of the most prolific grade Z film distributors for the straight-to-drive-in circuit) picked out of a run down joint in some mid-western dump and offered to make her a star. I must admit, she does have an alluring quality. You can’t help but notice her, something that would have made her a great favorite swinging on the stripper pole. It’s mostly in her eyes. They take you in and hypnotize you like a deer in headlights. Her “career” didn’t amount to much, most of it spurred from her willingness to take off her clothes. She played the snarling white trash tramp well enough (if she actually was acting), but this movie was the tail end of her film stint. Before she had starring in a number of nudie-cuties (films with naked people, but no actual penetration shown) such as Naked Sweethearts, Nude on the Moon, and Bunny Yeager’s Nude Camera.

Lacey Kelly

Common Law Wife does sport a kick ass deep jazz soundtrack that is rife with menace and sleazy action. It adds significantly to the atmosphere giving meaning to non-events such as two people walking down a driveway and it distracts from the badly put together footage.

The actual film is not as sleazy as its premise. Most of the sex and violence is implied and keeps strangely moral grounds. What makes the film great is the nasty attitudes in the main characters. Much of it doesn’t seem faked. This is no story of redemption. This is nasty low-bottom people being vicious to each other as they fight over an old man’s money to his delight.

The scorned woman

Common law marriages are still a thing in several states: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and the District of Columbia. Plus other countries such as the UK, Australia, Ireland, parts of Canada, and Israel. This collection of countries isn’t surprising as it is derived from English Common Law. While still on the books and technically allowed, it isn’t used much and nearly everyone has forgotten about it. But it still could be, so men in those areas beware!

The entire film is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

For more on this subject try my book A Fine Romance: Details on Dating a Hooker  for 3.99 in paperback or free on Audible Audiobook or 99 cents on kindle 

Shanty Tramp: An Exploitation Film at its Purest

This is your standard exploitation feature, filmed with zero budget and mainly with amateurs. Like all of its kind, the film proclaims to want to discuss some hard hitting question, in this case hypocrisy of power and interracial affairs, but its real purpose is to show some sleaze and violence, wrapped around a  paper-thin morality play.

Here we have a bit of trash from the late sixties. In a sleazier version of Too Kill a Mockingbird, this is the rigorous story of a young whore caught up in a backwards love triangle. As a tramp, she catches the eye of local colored boy (to use the parlance of the time) who saves from being raped and not-paid by a biker tough, who's supposed to be twenty, but looks fifty. He offers her his shirt and she offers him some lovin’, which he cannot resist. Unfortunately, right after he finishes his carnal exploration of some white meat, her alcoholic father, having recently found the Lord, stumbles in and sees his beloved tramp daughter nekkid with the black man.

What’s a poor whore to do? She cries rape and the father runs off to stir up the town. The black man runs off, steals a car full of bootleg whiskey, and gets into a fatal car accident. The father then figures out his daughter was lying, smacks her around, and tries to rape her. She stabs him to death with some bad acting. Then runs off with the preacher with the law on her heels.

As you can see Shanty Tramp has a weak story, filmed badly and cheaply, with lots of boring scenes of people drinking and dancing at bars, lousy action, and gratuitous (and not very attractive) breast shots. The music is always bought by the yard or local people doing generic rock (including the mid-west single “Shanty Tramp”). The people can’t dance and the scenes always go on for too long, but the whore is pretty hot. I’d bang her for five bucks, her going rate.

Very minor actor- Bill Rodgers

I feel a special shout-out is deserved for Bill Rodgers here who plays Preacher Fallows. He is the lone star of the production, taking on his role with verve and energy. I believed his role as the preacher. He spoke to me. Rodgers doesn’t have too many acting credits, mostly appearing in grade-z flicks like Flesh Feast, Santo vs. The Vampire Women, Adam Lost his Apple (A nudie cutie) and this masterpiece. This was the low end of his career. He began as an announcer in the 50s for the original $64,000 Question- probably one of the most influential game shows ever.

Actually a cop

An interesting little side note here. All of the bikers, the ones with unconvincing dialogue like “Crazy like man. Me and my chick wanna find a dark corner anyway, daddio,” were played by member of the Davie County Sheriff's Department in Florida, most of whom lost their jobs due to their participation in the film.

The film preview is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

For more sleazy fun try The Foot Doctor Letters: A Serial Killer Speaks Out by Rex Hurst. Available in paperback and on kindle. 

Coonskin: The Only Animated Blaxpolitation Film

Written and directed infamous animator Ralph Bakshi. Just coming off the heels of his two masterpieces Fritz the Cat (The first X-Rated cartoon) and the superior Heavy Traffic (Which wasn’t X-rated, even though it had more sex and violence than the previous one), he continued to break animation molds by securing funding for the first, and only, animated blaxploitation film. He apparently did this by claiming to producers that it would be a modern (70s modern) remake of Disney’s classic Song of the South. And in a sense it was, though more as an evil satire.  

It is set in the framing device of Scatman Crothers and Philip Michael Thomas (of original Miami Vice fame) breaking out of jail and waiting for Barry White and Charles Gordone to pick them up. To pass the time Scatman Crothers begins to tell the tale of three animated brothers, Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox.

After getting in trouble for pimping out a Southern sheriff's daughter, the trio flee to Harlem to make it big. There, they run across all sorts of scams, brothels, drug dens, and religious leaders- each ripping off the community. Eventually it is discovered that they are all run by the mafia and its Godfather, leading to a violent showdown between the two groups.

Interestingly enough all of the Godfather’s sons are homosexuals. This was a take on the gay bar scene in NYC at the time. Every gay bar then was run by the mafia, as they paid off the cops to look the other way. Which is why the old gay bars had such a bad reputation for drugs and prostitution (Hey the mob had to do something with their gay family members). My favorite one is the son who wears lipstick, a leather vest and pants, straps on a holster, and talks like John Wayne.

Interspersed in the main plot are a series of vignettes with the residents of Harlem talking about racial problems, or a blond, blue-eyed Ms. America (the personification of the country) who seduces a black man only to beat or kill him.

One of the reasons why you may never had heard about this film (apart from your general ignorance) is that there were heavy protests surrounding its opening in New York. The Congress for Racial Equality lead by Al Sharpton condemned the film, harassed people going to see it, and set off smoke bombs during performances to disrupt the showings. On the opening night at the Museum of Modern Art they crashed the question-and-answer session and it degenerated into a shouting match. The NAACP claimed it was a “difficult satire”- whatever the hell that means- and half-heartedly offered written support for the protest, but did not engage in any activities. Baksi responded to the criticism by stating, “I called Sharpton a black middle-class fucking sell-out, and I’ll say it to his face. Al Sharpton is one of those guys who abused the revolution to support whatever it was he wanted.”

Of course, anyone who sees the film will note two things: First, the stereotypes are spread around. No particular racial group is shown as paragons of virtue. Italians, Jews, and Irish are also equally skewered. Second, the characters are all a reverse of black stereotypical characters as shown in old Hollywood films. Each one is carefully selected and turned on its head.

While this film may lack something in polish, it certainly makes up for that in style. Bakshi was the anti-Disney of the 1970s, when different film experimentation was beginning to be embraced by the mainstream. It has a coolness, a freshness that many other blaxploitation films do not. Deftly mixing animation and live action, the director managed to overcome budget limitations and give the film a realistic feel, despite the bizarre characters. This was also aided by Bakshi’s research where he went to Harlem and recorded people talking about life there. Much of this was used in the vignettes.

Bakshi was ahead of his time. Nowadays, with The Simpsons, Archer, Family Guy and so on, we are used to the idea of cartoons for adults. When Bakshi’s films broke out, they were really something different. As Bakshi once said. “The art of cartooning is vulgarity. The only reason for cartooning to exist is to be on the edge. If you only take apart what they allow you to take apart, you’re Disney. Cartooning is a low-class, for-the-public art, just like graffiti art and rap music. Vulgar but believable, that’s the line I kept walking.”

The entire film is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

For more on this subject try my book A Fine Romance: Details on Dating a Hooker  for 3.99 in paperback or free on Audible Audiobook or 99 cents on kindle 

The Monty Python Video Game

Now here is an interesting little tidbit from back in the stone ages, 1990, that I missed completely. It came out during my reclusive nerd phase and I would’ve snatched it up in a blur had I known of its existence. The Monty Python Video Game (the first of several such games) was developed by Core Design, the same people who created Tomb Raider, and released by Virgin Games for the Commodore 64, Amiga, and ZX Spectrum systems.  

The game play is pretty straightforward. It is a basic side scroller done in the style of the cartoons from the show, yet despite the standard style it is different and Pythonesque. You play as the Gumby characters negotiating around various weird obstacles and throwing fish (or sometimes shooting) fish at the weird creatures trying to stamp on him, drop 16 ton weights on his head, or whatever. All of the scenery and villains are, of course, straight from the series.

Randomly the game will switch gears and a bizarre non-sequitur mini-game or a scene from the show, or will even fake tell you the game is over. The character will go through random alterations after each level- swapping bodies into a fish form, a bird body, or a giant hopping leg- then tossing you into a different style of level. It is fun and obnoxious at the same time, and has a mean difficulty curve.

Honestly, I’ve always hated these types of games and this one quickly reminded me why I stopped playing side scrollers the minute I discovered something else. I believe I was really obsessed with The Bard’s Tale when this game came out, which is probably how I missed it. The game is fun for about five to ten minutes, then becomes repetitive. I don’t know if there’s an end to it, or if it loops back on itself infinitely. It was a quick little diversion. But a fun one. 

A video of the game is below. And here is a link to an emulator on Archives.org if you want to play for yourself. 

For more fun try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst

Red Nightmare: Some Good Old Fashioned Bad Propaganda

    This was commissioned by the Department of Defense Directorate of Armed Forces Information and Education, whose primary duties were producing training films, but also moonlighted with propaganda shorts to inspire the nation. They began mass producing these during World War II. Once that conflict was over, they turned gears and churned them out, attacking communism and the Soviet Union. Not that the Ruskies didn’t have it coming, but some of this material is downright bad and trite.

    The difference for this short is that while commissioned for release as a short and educational film, it also premiered on TV in the GE True series. The program was a series of shorts, sometimes starring big names, which recreated articles that had appeared in True magazine. True, put out by Fawcett Publications (the same group that created the original Captain Marvel) advertised itself as a men’s magazine that specialized in articles about adventure, true war stories, sports profiles, and the like. 

The episodes falls into a “what if” scenario of the propaganda genre. It imagines an average slob from an average town suddenly placed in that same town if there had been a Communist takeover of the country. This is certainly a scare story, but not without merit. Various aspects of what happens in that town are based on true events in other countries. What makes it hysterical is the main character’s flabbergasted hysteria on finding himself in his altered town, and how everyone else’s acting talent suddenly evaporates upon becoming commies. Like Data from Next Generation, they cannot figure out how to use contractions. “Do not interfere,” instead of “Don’t interfere.”

    The feature is presented like an episode of The Twilight Zone with infamous commie despiser and law-and-order advocate Jack Webb taking the Rod Serling narrator role. Jack Webb, for those who don’t remember, is best known for his detective drama Dragnet where brutal moral lessons are rotely clipped out between gunshots and drug addled hippie vermin. This story isn’t much of an exception. 

    The protagonist, Jerry, takes his sweet life and hot wife for granted. He refuses to participate in the social structure that keeps America strong. He ditches the PTA meeting to go bowling and he intends to blow off his Army Reserve training because it's a pain- which it is. The narrator appears and explains how safe Jerry is in his world but when Jerry goes to sleep,  he will  have a Red Nightmare, here in the Twili...whoops not there. 

    Suddenly, he has no freedoms. Jerry is forced to address the PTA on the glories of communism. His children are turned against him by school teachers and other evil minions of the state (not much different from today). The local church has been converted to a museum dedicated to communist propaganda. His daughter has been brainwashed into volunteering to spend her life on a collective farm (and probably starve to death). And Jerry, poor Jerry, is eventually put on trial for speaking against the state. He is allowed no defense. After his wife testifies against him, his execution is ordered. Jerry makes a speech about the Soviet people awakening one day to overthrow communism, then gets a bullet in the head. Jerry emerges from this nightmare to appreciate America and all her glory, and promises to never, ever, take her for granted again.

    The entire episode is below. Caveat Emptor.  

For more fun try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst

Christmas Evil: Best of the Killer Santa Genre (Santa-spolitation?)

I’m not sure if santa-spolitation is recognized as an actual sub-genre of the horror film, but it should be. The tradition of having a sadistic killer dress up as Santa Claus has a long and storied one, dating back to the 1950s and EC comics Tales from the Crypt. Naturally this was one of the first stories adapted to film in the 1972 Tales from the Crypt film with Joan Collins as the killer Santa’s victim, and was adapted in the first season of the HBO show of the same name.

The tradition carried on with Silent Night, Deadly Night and its four sequels. Don’t Open Till Christmas, Yule Die, Satan Claus, To All a Goodnight. And it even continues on today with 2005’s Santa’s Slay (though this one is about the actual Santa killing people), 2010’s Rare Exports, and 2015’s A Christmas Horror Story.

But the best of the best of all these tales of yuletide slaughter has been, and will always be, Christmas Evil. Essentially it is the tale of a man who likes Christmas too much. Having had a shock as a child when he sees his mother being felt up by his father who is dressed as Santa, Harry grows up to be a disturbed individual. Well if he hadn’t, we wouldn’t have much of a film. Of course if such a little thing sets a guy off, he probably had some other issues as well. Eventually he morphs into a weirdo that spys on the local children, logging their activities into the “naughty” or “nice” book.  

The vent that triggered the murders.

Harry isn’t very well liked by anyone. His co-workers at a toy factory use and abuse him. Even his own brother doesn’t really want him around. After learning how few adults respect Christmas, he cracks. Again, if he didn’t, there would be no film. Unlike most of these slasher films, Harry alternates the slaughter by bringing presents to needy children and people deemed “nice”. Eventualy it culminates into a bloodbath between local police and Harry, and results in one of the best endings I have ever seen in a Christmas slasher film.

Strange as this may sound, what sets Christmas Evil apart is that the film has heart. Despite the murders, Harry is a likeable character that you cannot help but root for. He genuinely wants Christmas to be nice for everyone and wishes the whole world would get presents. He simply becomes irritated (a little too irritated) at those who are consistently “naughty”, thus the inevitable murders. If you have to see one film starring a maniac dressed like Santa Claus, make it Christmas Evil

The entire film is below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

For more fun try  Available on Kindle and paperback 

On an Earth rebuilding from an apocalypse, the star of the Spiff Blastandy show, the most popular drama of the day, must recover from a public scandal while simultaneously dealing with personal loss and tragedy. Even his popularity won’t save him from a beating. As the virtual world gathers to spit on everything in his life, the demons of his past rise and threaten to destroy his life. He must question everything in order to survive. Available on Kindle and paperback 

Spider Man on the Electric Company

Spider-Man, where are you coming from?

Spider-Man, nobody knows who you are!

Spider-Man, you've got that Spidey touch

Spider-Man, you are a web-slinging star!

Now this will probably only be remembered by those that grew up in the drug ridden 1970s, but yes Spiderman’s first jaunt out of the comic pages into live theater happened on a kids show called The Electric Company. The Children's Television Workshop, who produced the still famous Sesame Street, wanted a follow up to keep the kids educational market cornered and beat down those bastards at Zoom.

        At first this show was nothing new. Another kids educational show set up with sketch comedy style bits. Basicly it was like Sesame Street without the muppets- so you see the problem. It needed a hook to grab the kids in. And then it found it. SPIDER MAN.

        Hell yeah! When that happened the pre-pubescent me was all over that show. Tuning in every chance I got to catch up on the crime fighting action of our friendly neighborhood web slinger. Twenty nine segments were produced, along with another- presented here with The Blue Beetle. Each has the web slinger fighting against a unique foe and narrated by a cast member, the most famous one being Morgan Freeman, presented in the first two segments Spider Man Meets The Sack, and Spiderman Meets The Spoiler.

        Stay tuned true believers. The style of these sketches were amazing. And as demonstration of lack of budget spurring imagination. No special effects were used, instead comic book panels were peppered through each episode. Also, to encourage kids to actually read, Spider Man's dialogue was supplied as word balloons. These details gave the segments a truly unique look, that are decent even today. No one has ever done Spider Man like this.

        Permission for use of the character was apparently given free of charge, I assumed this allowed Marvel and it’s parent company to have a nice charitable tax write off, as Spider Man at the time was Marvel’s most popular figure and its licensure would have garnered triple digits at the time.

        I enjoy them even now, granted only for a hoaky, look at this weirdness, chuckle. But they were artistic, stylish, and definitely of their time. So enjoy and caveat emptor.

                                               Spider Man Meets the Sack

                                           Spider Man Meets the Spoiler

                                          Spidey Up Against the Wall

                                             Spider Man Meets The Prankster

                                                     Spider Man Vs. The Blue Beetle

For more fun try Across the Wounded Galaxy by Rex Hurst