FanFare

"hives of horror! Excited by the smell of fear they inflict their fatal stings!" A British singer collapses on television and is sent to the countryside to recuperate. I guess she shouldn't have used AirB&B. Also apparently the British take forever to investigate anything. This episode is infamously unavailable commercially by any means, not YouTube, DVD, Video on Demand or streaming; it's one of those final few episodes where the copyright owners seem almost affronted at the temerity of that Midwest puppet show at making fun of their movie and have refused to license it for release. In subplot news, the other Observers are back and try to take Brain Guy away. Pearl and Bobo's attempts at getting him to stay is as close to touching as this deeply ridiculous show ever gets. Premiered May 9, 1998. 21 episodes left. (guy with bowler hat appears mysteriously, nods, and walks off into distance) [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Dec 7, 2017 - 12 comments

"Born a man... turned into a living laser beam by science's most gruesome experiment!" "A Billion Volts of Death in Every Finger!" Another dang fool scientist is inventing a teleporter, and again he's impatient for results so he tests it on himself and becomes a monster. Isn't it weird when a movie's hubristic Tampering In God's Domain amounts to moving somewhere? Hey here's a thought, why not just walk a few steps across the room and maybe not turn into a deformed horror? Lembeck is staying! The movie's okay but the thing about this episode is that the "endless chase" subplot is finally over, although it takes a season for the opening theme to catch up with this fact. Pearl and henchies finally arrive at and settle into ancestral family home Castle Forrester, the show's site until the end of the classic era. Pearl discovers a family history in which she finds out her family has been forcing bad art on hapless subjects for ages. In this, we find out that the female half of her family basically have the same first-naming conventions as the Crystal Gems, which could make for some really odd fanfiction if anyone wants to write it. (Kinga breaks that trend though.) YouTube (1h32m) Premiered November 22, 1997. 25 episodes left. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Nov 2, 2017 - 7 comments

(1969, Color, Sci-Fi, Warner Bros., British, Western, Comedy, Sixties, Moonopoly) In the near future, mankind has a base on the moon. The pilot of a moon ferry based there is hired by crazy richguy "Hundred Percent" Hubbard to crash a satellite made of gemstone into the lunar surface. Meanwhile, go-go dancers flail about in a "Moon Bar." "The first moon 'western.'" "An Asteroid Worth Millions. A Robbery. A Murder." Moon Zero Two is a weird one. Parts of the movie seem to want to be comic, which is something the guys shied away from in later seasons, and there's animated titles as in Catalina Caper. This is also a very sixties movie, with sexy moon dancers and a blaring trumpet soundtrack. It's still the first season, but the riffing is improving, and I think the movie helps out a bit from sheer strangeness. YouTube (1h37m) First aired around January 20, 1990. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Dec 3, 2014 - 8 comments