About forty years ago I was introduced to something that would become a lifelong passion: bad movies and TV shows.  Back then I was teaching in a rural high school in central Illinois.  The teachers all banded together as their own little clan to seek out diversions and entertainment.  We had weekly poker nights, attitude readjustment parties, Atari parties (man that Atari Decathlon game use to wear me out) and we’d get together to watch TV or head to the movies.  At some point during all of this camaraderie we got talking about bad TV shows we’d watched or bad movies we’d seen.  One of my friends, Jay Messerschmidt (miss spending time with you buddy), was masterful in how he could weave the tale of an utterly terrible show.  Bottom line, once Jay was done you just had to see it for yourself.  This started a new form of entertainment for us and an endless conversation.  We would watch these shows and increase their entertainment value by cracking jokes along the way while drinking some fine beverages.  I would also like to point out that we were doing this in the early 1980’s, years before “Mystery Science Theater”, so we were trendsetters!

Now, forty years later, I have spent a good bit of time watching these B movies and television shows and have found them to be truly entertaining.  All you have to do is accept that they are going to be bad and, regardless of what it’s about, view them as comedies.  Oh, the TV classics I have seen!

• I’ve watched All-Star Wrestling to see the Iron Sheik, Sergeant Slaughter or the Russian Bear taken down by Rowdy Roddy Piper, The Ultimate Warrior, or Hacksaw Jim Duggan. How can you not cheer when the American flag gets waved, or Hacksaw starts swinging his two by four, or when Roddy’s bagpipes get going!
• I’ve watched tourists climb into muddy water and troll riverbanks while they were being taught “Hillybilly Handfishin’”. Let me tell you, there not much better than seeing a suburban housewife hug a huge catfish she just caught by reaching her arm down its throat.
• I’ve watched countless episodes of “Finding Bigfoot” and “Mountain Monsters”. They all have the exact same story line and sequence.  In every case the cast expresses that this is going to be the time that they see Bigfoot or catch the monster.  Ultimately, each episode ends the same way… “what amazing information we’ve collected, and we were so close!”  I mean any shows that include characters named “Bobo, Wild Bill, Huckleberry and Buck” must be good!

Yet, with all the great shows on the small screen, I always come back to those classics of the cinema that blazed the trail for them.  If you ever watch “Mystery Science Theater” or “Svengoolie” you can find some of the classics!  Like “Billy the Kid Versus Dracula”, where you can see the prop guy with a fishing pole dangling fake bats on a string from behind a stagecoach.  You can even identify some of the classics by just by reading their title, like “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama” or “I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle”.

Trying to identify the greatest bad movies ever is certainly a challenge.  I did countless Google searches to try and identify the definitive list.  What I realized is that everyone has an opinion and mine is as good as anyone’s elses, and so is yours.  As such, I’m going to open up this week’s blog for everyone’s participation.  I want all of you to think back to those bad movies you’ve seen.  The ones you laughed at and still tell others about.  Please add your suggestions as comments and we will compile our own list of the top bad movies.  To get started I am going to contribute three that I think must be on anyone’s list.  Here goes…

• My first contribution is that all-time cinema classic, “Robot Monster” (1953). This movie tells the story of an alien robot, “Ro-Man”, who is given the mission to destroy all of humanity.  Clearly, he’s been pretty successful with his “Calcinator death ray” as the earth is down to eight remaining survivors.  As expected, the survivors include a professor, his family (including his attractive daughter), his assistant (who has the hots for his daughter) and a couple of other characters that we don’t care about and are never even shown on screen.  However, while on the verge of total victory, Ro-Man also gets the hots for the same daughter and can’t kill her.  The Great One uses a calcinatory blast to kill Ro-Man for his disobedience and then proceeds to smash the planet earth.  But wait, there’s a twist!  For you see, this has all been a dream in the mind of the professor’s young son Johnny.  You see, he and his family were hiking in a canyon, and he fell causing a concussion-induced fever dream.  Everyone laughs and they head home for dinner.  But wait, there’s another plot twist!  As all the humans leave for dinner Ro-Man arrives on earth!!!  Aaahhhh!!

Now there are a multitude of reasons for suggesting this be on the list of best bad movies.  The filming is terrible, and the dialogue is awful.  One scene actually has the professor’s daughter get married to the professor’s assistant with the professor presiding over they ceremony.  They celebrate the wedding at a time when only six humans are left alive on earth and an alien robot monster is determined to kill them as well (happy day)!  Yet, for all the reasons I could suggest, the real reason this film makes the top of any bad movie list has to be “Ro-Man”.  You see, this film was done on a tiny budget and all filming was completed in four days.  They couldn’t afford a real robot monster costume, so they hired a guy who had his own gorilla costume.  Then they plopped a space helmet on his head and voila, we have Ro-Man.

There is one great piece of trivia that comes out of this film.  Who do you think wrote the film score?  The answer is… Elmer Bernstein, who was only getting offered minor films at the time due to his left-wing politics clashing with Senator McCarthy’s efforts to root out all the Commies.

• My second contribution is that classic, “The Giant Claw” (1957). The big reason that this film makes my list is the huge contrast between most of the film… and the special effects.  This film actually started off with a decent budget for a B-film (between $250K and $500K) and used some fairly well-known celebrities of the time.  Bottom line, they had a reputable cast and the film built up suspense as they tried to solve the mystery of what was causing planes to crash or vanish with no survivors.  Could it be a UFO, could it be the “La Carcagne” (a giant monstrous bird) reported by a French-Canadian farmer who rescues the hero and heroine after their plane is attacked and crashes?!  Aaahhhh, I can’t take the suspense!  Finally the big moment arrives when our courageous band come face to face with the gigantic, terrifying, flying monster…  Aaahhhh!!

Jeff Morrow describes it best, “We shot the film before we ever got a look at this monster that was supposed to be so terrifying.  The producers promised us that the special effects would be first rate.  The director just told us, ‘All right, now you see the bird up there, and you’re scared to death!  Use your imagination.’  But the first time we actually got to see it was the night of the premiere.  The audience couldn’t stop laughing.  We were up there on the screen looking like idiots, treating this silly buzzard like it was the scariest thing in the world.  We felt cheated, that’s for sure, but they told us afterwards that they just ran out of money.  They couldn’t afford anything but this stupid puppet.  But it was just terrible.  I was never so embarrassed in my whole life.”

Yep, they had originally planned to use Ray Harryhausen and his cutting edge stop motion effects… but ended up using a puppet made in Mexico City.

• My final contribution is in deference to my old buddy, Jay. Jay was adamant in his position that “Eating Raoul” (1982) was the worst movie in history, and I have to agree with him that it deservies to be on the list.  The plot tells you everything you need to know.  You’ve got the married couple (Paul and Mary) who have champaign dreams with a secondhand shop budget.  They really want to open up a restaurant but don’t know how they will ever be able to afford it.  As an aside, they are married but sleep in separate twin beds because they disapprove of sex.  The apartment building that they live in also housed a variety of swingers.  One night a drunken swinger staggers in and tries to have his way with Mary.  Paul is enraged and hits him on the head with an iron skillet, killing him.  After the initial shock they check his wallet and realize that they can make a lot of money ridding the world of these disgusting swingers.  They launch a plan where Mary lures in their target with promises of fulfilling their desires and Paul, wielding his trusty skillet, kills them, takes their valuables, and disposes of the bodies in the trash compactor.  All is going quite well until Raoul comes on the scene as he tries to rob them and discovers one of the bodies, yet to be disposed of.  All agree that it is in their mutual self-interest not to report any of this to the police, so they go into business together and split the proceeds.  More and more bodies pile up, including a major scene where Paul and Mary throw a toaster into a hot tub of naked swingers, electrocuting all of them (big money!).  Raoul accuses Paul and Mary of holding out on him as they didn’t share the money and goods from the swinger hot tub.  Ultimate a fight ensues, and Raoul becomes their latest victim.  It’s then that they remember that they are supposed to be making dinner for the real estate agent who’s helping them buy property for their restaurant.  They don’t have any time to go shopping.  What will they serve???  And with that I refer you back to the movie title and the wonderful “Spanish” dish they serve for dinner.  But hey, they did get to open “Paul and Mary’s Country Kitchen”!

OK folks, I’ve extolled the virtues of bad television and movies, and I’ve submitted three candidates for your consideration for our list of the worst movies in history.  Now it is up to you!  Please send in your comments with your own suggestions to add to our list.  Once completed I’ll share the “Everyman List of the Worst Movies in History”!