Thank God It's Friday the 13th

Here's a fun & funky Friday flashback!
My other half recently told me that in addition to chocolate bunnies, his parents gave actual Easter presents every year. In the late 70s, one of his gifts was the THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY soundtrack album - which he still has and sometimes forces me to listen to (today, for example, all THREE discs). In celebration of that odd holiday memory, we watched the movie version of the album as well.
I first saw THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY at a drive-in in New Jersey when I was about 14. Everyone was hoping for another SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. I remember thinking back then that the film was more like an episode of THE LOVE BOAT instead of an actual movie. Except THE LOVE BOAT usually had more plot and bigger name actors. I was a very wise 14 year old.

When a film starts with the Columbia logo lady disco dancing, you know you're in for a "good" time. While not as cool as the Wilma Flintstone version of the Columbia logo (from THE MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE) - this is pretty cool.As the credits roll, and the theme song blares, we see a montage of "getting ready scenes" that would make my friend Brett's head explodes (he LOVES movies with "getting ready scenes" - like ROLLER BOOGIE, for example). As all our characters are preparing for their night out we see that Jeff Goldblum and Debra Winger are among the cast...and Donna Summer (who gets special billing) as Nicole! Let's see if I can accurately report on what actually does happen in this film.

We see wacky dental assistant named Jackie who takes a deep inhale of nitrous oxide and puts on a pink wig - eventually dressing like a whorish clown for her drug-infused night out. It's interesting how the film is very non judgemental in her recreational use of drugs, but the poster makes her sound like she's a refugee from VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.

We see Donna (in her first "acting" role) as she begs a shopkeeper to stay open because she wants to buy a special dress - presumably to wear for her big night out at the disco.
We see two awkward high school girls (Frannie & Jeannie) stumbling off a bus in platform shoes - and we learn that they want to win the big dance contest so they can buy KISS tickets (the film was co-produced by Casablanca Records).  Jeannie is played by Terri Nunn, who later went on to greater fame as the lead singer of Berlin.

We see a married yuppie couple (Dave & Sue) celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary - only he's an uptight cpa and wants her to go home and play with his wooden pepper mill, but she wants to go to the disco and really let loose.

We see two JAPs - Maddy, who spills a cola all over her flat chest and Jennifer (Debra Winger) who sponges it up with a burger! (No photo available)

We see two kinda gay-ish nerds (Carl & Ken) smoking pot as they drive to the disco. Carl is played by songwriter Paul Jabara.  Ken is wearing a yellow sweater.

We see a young, dashing Jeff Goldblum as Tony DiMarco, the owner of The Zoo - a real ladies man with a snazzy sportscar. His Christmas colored suit looks like a Joker costume. Note: Because the club is named The Zoo, a guy in a gorilla suit runs the elevator! Zany!

There's all sorts of silly parking lot chaos outside the Zoo disco, resulting in Tony's precious car taking a few hits - while inside we meet DJ Bobby Speed - who's all psyched because tonight's show is being broadcast live on the radio. Donna sneaks in to see him, and begs him to play her record tonight. He tells her the Commodores (featuring Lionel Ritchie) are tonight's big attraction, not her.

Meanwhile, the high school girls keep getting denied entrance again & again while nerdy Carl declares that the Zoo is "like Disneyland with tits" and then he and Ken put on lip gloss to attract chicks. Huh? Then a guy is shown in drag shaving his chest in the mens' room, but he later gets rejected by dragaphobic Ken.

We soon meet a mismatched computer date couple: a fat trash-collecting asshole named Gus and a pathetic tall bookworm named Shirley. He wants nothing to do with her, but she can't stop clinging to him. At this point I realize that this is LA - but everyone has thick New Yawk accents!

Showing up next is Marv Gomez the Leatherman. Don't ask. The high school girls latch on to Marv and beg him to help them get into the club, so he sneaks them in through the men's room window. Only a Leatherman would think of that!

At some point Donna barges into the booth and starts singing "Love to Love Ya Baby" over the mike and pisses off DJ Bobby. Meanwhile, some roadie dude named Floyd is lost with the Commodores' instruments - and he eventually gets pulled over by the cops, twice - and is accused of stealing the instruments - so he has to demonstrate each one, twice. Racial profiling at its worst.

Some sleazy guy comes onto klutzy Jennifer, but she rejects him. Then Maddy keeps cockblocking her. (Does that word work here? I guess...) The married couple argue and decide go their own ways at the club: Sue gets romanced by Tony, who plans on fucking her, while Jackie the Hygienist Junkie gets Dave to pop pills with her.After striking out with some gals, Leatherman gives Carl & Ken a lesson in how to be gay with a ridiculous dance number in the parking lot.Something happens that makes Bobby the DJ says "the N word" and the he finally gets security to drag Donna away. Shocking!

Back to our blinddate mismatch couple: Shirley is following Gus around. Calls her an "old maid" - then she punches him - and he falls for her. Awww...just like THE LOVE BOAT!

Sue notices that her husband is having a good time and reacts by calling Jackie "a hippie!" Now she wants to go home and Dave doesn't! Tony wants her to stay too–so he can have his filthy way with her! Besides, he has a bet with DJ Bobby that he'll land her!

High school girl Frannie enters dance contest - and somehow suddenly Donna starts singing "Last Dance" over the music, noise & yelling. The DJ likes it - of course - and Donna brings down the house.

The Commodores finally perform when their instruments show up. After Carl gets locked in a stairwell, Debra Winger and Ken hook up. Everybody is doing poppers and dancing. Then the most unorganized dance contest begins. Who's judging? Who's hosting? Gays with tambourines (not Carl & Ken) get disqualified first. What's up with that?Dave (renamed "Babbakazoo" by Jackie) is now high as a kite and he swings across the club on a Tarzan vine - Frannie wins the dance competition and a giant trophy! She declares that "We're Disco Queens Now!" and then she and Jeannie join Marv at another disco for the 1AM dance contest.The married couple reunites, while out in the parking lot, Tony's sportscar self-destructs. As Jennifer and Ken share the last dance, Donna comes back to the booth to fuck the DJ. The end. Can I go home now???

Does any of this make sense? It's all just a silly excuse to have a three-LP soundtrack. I just wonder why no one ever turned it into a weekly TV series. Imagine the possibilities....

David L. Wolper, Producer 1922-2010

Patricia Neal 1926-2010

Lorene Yarnell 1944-2010

Man's Magazine

One has to wonder does this cover illustration goes with "the great search for sexual adjustment" or  perhaps "Poison in Your Pork?".Either way, it's clear what audience this magazine was marketed to–ME.

Bobby Finds a New Buddy

Bobby's new redhead friend wears sweater vests tucked into his slacks. He tempts Bobby with "Come over to my house and let me show you something. I have more fun than a circus," but what  he's really pushing is a book called Boy's Fun Book.
"Wow! I'm going to send for a copy today. It's just what I've been wishing for!"

Mitch Miller 1911-2010

The Song That Dare Not Speak Its Name

I dedicate this re-post to my friend Tom who continually taunts me with this goddam piece of shit song.

Have you ever hated a song? I mean REALLY hated one particular song?

There have been, in my lifetime, a lot of songs that I didn't like, say The Macarena or Toni Basil's Mickey, for example, but I more or less was able to avoid those because they usually went away after a short while.There is currently a "song" which I find to be the most irritating earworm that I've ever heard. This wretched recording, which was released exactly one year ago today, is a huge pop hit and despite the fact that I don't listen to commercial radio, don't watch MTV and never go to danceclubs - I somehow manage to hear it at least once a day.
The shitty song in question was in heavy rotation at my gym for months, playing twice, and sometimes three fucking times during a typical 90 minute workout. Luckily, now I only hear it every other day. Or maybe I'm just not working out as often as I used to? On Facebook, so-called friends are constantly posting YouTube clips featuring the song, or updating their status with a lyric from this dreadful ditty. This begs me to ask "Who the fuck are these people and what have they done to my friends?"The 'performer' of this musical atrocity is someone who I never really cared for in films and I do not know any other song that this one-named person sings. If their other songs are anything like this thing, please keep 'em far away from me. To make things worse, this musical turd has won awards from once-reputable magazines, proving how sad the state of music is today.

Recently, several trendy new TV shows have used this atrocious tune in episodes and even before that one older, once funny sketch show had done a painful parody of the "groundbreaking" music video that came attached to this malignant melody. I think a certain someone is rolling over in his jazzy grave.

These shows have all been promptly removed from my dvr. That's how much I hate it. I haven't hated anything this much since Sarah Palin, well maybe Glenn Beck.
What puzzles me is that people who I know and like actually find the song amusing, fun and cute (?) - when to me it's like listening to a thousand pieces of chalk being dragged across the world's largest blackboard. To top it all off, the "message" of the song is offensive as well - I only wish this was still the days of women's lib where Helen Reddy fans would take to the streets protesting this sexist, mindless dreck!

Yes, I know it's only "pop music" and I should chill out and not get so worked up about it and stop being such a "hater". But you know what, if something that I don't like is forced upon me aurally, I have a right to complain! As a person who suffers from migraines, a song like this is a danger to my health.
So, I will do my best to avoid this vile and vomitous anthem–I've already managed to walk out of bars and stores in protest when I've heard it playing, and I've left at least one party prematurely and I will continue to do so in protest and in defense of good taste. I will go on hating it, hoping that the hate will spread and people will rise up an destroy every known recording of it in existence.

My biggest fear is now that this thing is part of the lexicon, I will never be able to escape it. It will be played at weddings, bat mitzvahs and probably at my funeral - and then I will rise from my grave and yell...

"Oh, Mickey, you're so fine You're so fine you blow my mind Hey, Mickey Hey, Mickey!!!"

SCAVENGER HUNT

Here's another re-post of a popular movie "review" from last year.The other night my friend Dennis brought over a VHS copy of a 1979 film called SCAVENGER HUNT (directed by Michael Schultz). So we invited a few like-minded friends over and after we hooked up our only dusty VCR, we watched it. As a fan of the brilliantly funny IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD, I'm always disappointed when other films try to copy the 'all-star cast on a quest format'. 1981's CANNONBALL RUN was an attempt to recapture the spirit, so was 2001's RAT RACE. Here the stars are smaller and the quest is sillier, and the laughs are few and far between.

The whole she-bang starts when a kooky old game maker Mr. Parker (played by Vincent Price) dies during the opening credits, and his will states that his multitude of heirs must compete in an elaborate scavenger hunt in order to inherit his fortune. The hunt turns out to be a zany quest where the 15 potential beneficiaries must outsmart and outrace one another to inherit the big bucks!!! EIGHT IS ENOUGH star Willie Aames plays one of Vincent's nephews. He is seen here in a costume from perhaps CIRCUS OF THE STARS?

The huge cast includes a mix of 1970s character actors and TV favorites. In the spirit of competition, our viewing crew decided to call out who was still ALIVE : Richard Benjamin, Cloris Leachman, Dirk Benedict, Willie Aames, Stephanie Faracy, Richard Masur, Stuart Pankin, Stephen Furst, Arnold Schwarznegger, and Liz Torres. And who was DEAD: James Coco, Scatman Crothers, Cleavon Little, Roddy McDowall, Robert Morley , Richard Mulligan, Tony Randall, Avery Schreiber, Ruth Gordon, Pat McCormick and Carol Wayne. It looks like the DEAD team wins by one point - two if you count Vincent Price! Here's Willie again, probably from THE BATTLE OF THE NETWORK STARS...

I could go into details about who played who and who is on what team, but suffice to say it would be an exercise in futility – because you'll never want to watch this film for any reason other to see 19-year-old pre-Bibleman Willie Aames running around in tight Angles Flight disco slacks. (This is Dennis' fondest memory of the film). Post-BATTLESTAR GALATICA and pre A-TEAM Dirk Benedict also provides some moments of hunkiness that can be enjoyed.

But the rest of the film, with its repetitious scenes of fast food being used to entrap fat people, French maids,  toilets named 'Monclare" and its all-star ostrich wrangling is too dumb to be enjoyable. Our group did laugh a lot, but mostly at our own comments-which due to certain circumstances I can't recall right now. Our friend Danny actually had lines memorized from repeated viewings as a child. Maybe he can provide some more insight on why one should watch this movie.

The Happiest Millionaire

Here's a re-post from 2008. Enjoy. Or not.
So Big! So Romantic! So Full of Life! So What? THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE is famous for being the last film that Walt Disney oversaw before his death. It was intended to be the next MARY POPPINS, but was a huge critical and box office failure. For years I've wondered about it, so I finally decided to rent it and see what all the hate is about. The film opens in 1916 Philadelphia, as John Lawless (creepy-looking Tommy Steele), an optimistic lad, is seeking employment as the butler for the wealthy Drexel-Biddle family. He is supposed to be charming, but I find him annoying - especially when he's singing "Fortuosity" repeatedly and talking directly to the camera. He's like an obnoxious human cousin to Jiminy Cricket. Next we meet the long-suffering family maid, Mrs. Worth (played by the great Hermione Baddeley, better known as Mrs. Naugatuck from MAUDE).Finally we meet our star, the scowling patriotic patriarch Anthony Drexel-Biddle, (the usually likable Fred MacMurray), who runs a bible study class and fight club in his stately manor. He also raises pet alligators and is obsessed with the Marines Corps. He's loud, opinionated and supposedly a happy millionaire.His gay-ish sons (who only appear in one scene) are very protective of their tomboy sister  Cordy (the perky Lesley Ann Warren), who announces her unconventional plans to go away to school...much to her overbearing father's disappointment.
Once away, and living on campus, Cordy begs her sassy, rogue-wearing (i.e. slutty) roommate (future MATCH GAME star Joyce Bulifant) to teach her how to flirt. As a result, she meets a dashingly ambitious young man named Angier Duke (future HOLLYWOOD SQUARES host John Davidson), who's big dream is to move to Detroit and work in the auto industry. Wasn't this also a plotline from John Waters' FEMALE TROUBLE?When Cordy and Angie's plans to wed are announed, Mr. Drexel-Biddle loses his shit, but relents after Duke kicks his ass in jujitsu.Subplots about Anthony's frozen pet alligators......the revolving-door household staff, and Anthony's desire to join the Marine Corps(even though he is clearly over 50 years of age) do nothing to advance the plot.

Angie's snobby New York mother, Mrs. Duke (Geraldine Page) is not impressed by the Drexel-Biddles. I don't blame her.There's a whole Phillie vs. New York feud thing going on - and it becomes apparent when Cordy's Aunt Mary (Gladys Cooper) has a bitchfest with Mrs. Duke  (my favorite scene so far) - and things go from bad to worse when the Duke family's wedding invitations get misplaced! When it looks like the wedding is off, the butler takes Angie out drinking at a rowdy bar populated only by singing and dancing men. A brawl ensues and Angie is arrested. Mrs. Biddle (Agnes Moorhead, um, I mean Greer Garson) is not amused. Cordy declares the wedding is off and the whole gang shows up to bail out Angie - and then the happy couple decide to elope! It all ends with Mrs. Biddle explaining to her husband that "It Won't Be Long Till Christmas" while they lament growing old - and oh yeah, Anthony get accepted to join the Marines! Whatever.

THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE turns out to be a big, boisterous overblown un-magical musical about absolutely nothing! Unlike many Broadway and film musicals of this era (FUNNY GIRL or MAME, for instance), this one has barely anything in it to hold the viewers interest. Certainly children would not know to make of this - especially if they were fans of this:  I cannot imagine the average Disney fan to be enthralled by this humdrum outting. Even this comic book adaptation grasped at straws to find something entertaining about it:I think Disney wanted his own MY FAIR LADY or HELLO, DOLLY but ended up with HELLO, MY BORING LADY. Like MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, the story is based on a true story about a stubborn father and his brood - but unlike that MGM classic, this film lacks interesting characters, enjoyable musical numbers and a compelling reason to watch it. At almost 3 hours in length, you'd think we'd get to know and care about these characters - but I found myself loathing most of them. The songs, written by Disney legends the Sherman Brothers, are not their best work and are quite unmemorable. Overall, a pretty dreary experience, considering how "Happy" this was supposed to be. So there you have it . Once again, I've watched it, so you never have to. If you do decide to check it out, watch with caution and lots of caffeine!

Joya Sherrill 1924-2010

Harvey Pekar 1939-2010

Blogger's Guilt

I'm amazed at how some bloggers are able to post something every damn day. Sure, when I was unemployed it was pretty easy. But for the past 7 months I've had a full-time job, ran a production company, attended several film festivals and managed to have somewhat of a family and social life all while from suffering from a condition called Blogger's Guilt.

The main symptom of BG is the anxiety I feel when I'm sitting in a work meeting or on set of a show I'm working on or even when I'm at home, collapsed from exhaustion on my living room floor getting my face licked by my dogs. I feel like "I wish I had the time, energy or creative where-with-all to blog about something...anything right now. But sadly, I don't."

Of course there's a million things I want to blog about. There's the all great Warner Archive Collection dvds that I've been watching, all the fun new, overpriced comic books I've been reading, all the bizarre bad movies I've forced my friends to watch with me, etc. There's also all the rants about things like: how I've managed to ignore every big Hollywood summer this summer (except for the wonderful TOY STORY 3) and how much I loathe 90% of what's on TV these days.

There's also more DOUGLAS MICHAEL SHOW interviews I want to do, more DOUGSPLOITATION DIVAS that I want to sing the praises of and I'm sure there's more SONSEED craziness that I can report on. Plus, there will always be the ever-popular celebrity death notices. Who's next??? Anita Bryant...perhaps?

So, while I attempt to get on a more regular blogging schedule, there will be a mix of reruns, shorter posts, maybe two or three parters and possibly a few surprises here and there. I'd like to thank all my regular readers who have been patient with my infrequent posts and assure them that I'm thinking of them during all of my BG attacks.  Keep your cards and letters coming! In the meantime, you can find me on my living room floor...with the dogs.

Get Ready for RUBDOWN

RUBDOWN is my production company's third collaboration with the amazing writer/director Dennis Hensley. The first two, SCREENING PARTY and REUNION have been entertaining film festival audiences for the past few years, and it looks like RUBDOWN will continue in that tradition. Having premiered at San Francisco's Frameline festival last month, RUBDOWN has it's LA premiere at OUTFEST this coming Sunday night as part of the unfortunately titled program "FROM URANUS TO TITICACA".
Here's the brilliant trailer (edited by Nicole Opyr).
"
Hope to see some my Dougsploitation readers there!
Sunday, July 11th @ 9:45 p.m. DGA
(with pre-screening reception starting at 7:30 PM)
Thursday, July 15th @ 9:45 p.m. Sunset 5
$9 Outfest Members -- $13 Non-Members
Tickets: www.outfest.org -- 213-480-7065

Jacqueline Ruth "Ilene" Woods 1929–2010

Wonder Woman 1941-2010

I'm not gonna get all fanboy about bit, but the JMS story in WONDER WOMAN #600, introducing the "new" 18-year old Wonder Woman in her new costume was the most depressing comic book story I've ever read. Well, at least it's got people talking about the character. RIP, Diana.