Classic Themes of the Small Screen - Volume 1

This is the first volume (of potentially many) I've put together dedicated to classic, not-so-classic and occasionally completely unheard of themes from TV shows. I ripped one or two of these tracks myself, but most of them were in a huge pack I stumbled upon on Rapidshare, so thanks to all rippers who were involved.

Or

Even though some of these are not particularly classic (Fish, I'm mainly talking about you here) or old enough to be considered "classic", I chose the title Classic Themes of the Small Screen for several reasons, a) it almost rhymes, 2) it sounds like something someone might title a compilation album, and finally and foremost I couldn't think of anything better. I must've spent a good 9, 10 minutes trying to think of a better title. No avail. One problem, I think, there aren't a lot of good terms for TV that I could work with, we've got Small Screen, Idiot Box, Boob Tube, Goggle Box (that one doesn't even make sense) and that's about it. And let's face it, those aren't good. We need to come up with a new term.

Anyway, at first I was going to break them up into decades, a 60's collection, a 70's collection, 80's collection and so on. This proved to be much more difficult than you'd think. A LOT of shows started in one decade and ended in another. Something like Married w/ Children started in the Eighties, but most of the seasons of the show were in the Nineties. So I've always thought of it as a Nineties show despite knowing the decade it started in. It became too much of a hassle trying to decide which volume to put which show in so instead of wasting too much time worrying about it I decided a more random assortment would be best.

Here are the 37 Themes included in this volume:

Adventures of Pete and Pete (Polaris - Hey Sandy)

Alf

Bottom

Brothers Grunt

Charles in Charge

Chips

Count Duckula

Dragon's Den

Duckman

Family Matters

Father Ted

Fish

Flying Nun

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

Girl From U.N.C.L.E.

Godzilla Cartoon

Green Hornet

Hammer House of Horror

HBO 80's Feature Presentation Theme

Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Hong Kong Phooey

The Incredible Hulk

Liquid Television

Manimal

Mannix

Max Headroom

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

My Mother The Car

Night Gallery

Penelope Pitstop

Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)

Red Dwarf

Renta Ghost

Silver Spoons

Smother Brothers Comedy Hour

Too Close For COmfort

Unsolved Mysteries

She was like a candle in the wind... unreliable.

For me the highlight is the HBO Feature Presentation theme that played before every movie in the 80's. This thing sounds EPIC. Now they just have the intro with the noisy static that turns into the HBO logo. Which is kind of out of date, I haven't seen static on a TV in years, they should change it to an Invalid Input screen or something at least. Or just bring back this EPIC Feature Presentation theme.

Maybe the next volume will be a bit more organized, but I thought I'd test this out first and see how much interest there was. I ended up with about 1,200 themes from the forum I found them on so if there's one you'd like to see on Volume 2 let me know, there's a good chance I have it.

Jim Davis' The Thing

While looking through some old drawings I found my prototype for my currently still unfinished Jim Davis' The Thing piece. Sure it's sloppy and hastily draw, but then I'm not really much of an artist. I actually did a slightly better one with more detail, but I wasn't thinking when I drew it and put the head right side up, it looked more like Jim Davis' Hiruko The Goblin.

Morgue Inspection - George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead

I'm trying to branch out a bit and do some movie reviews here. I usually end up getting between 30 and 70 movies a month and I think I should try and review one occasionally. My goal, one DVD cover quotes.

I've always wanted to do reviews, and in fact I've done a few very long winded and sloppily written reviews on here before. My goal is to make my new reviews shorter and more to the point, I'd like to try and keep them concise, like 3 or 4 paragraphs long, but I'm not a strong enough writer to really convey what I'm trying to say without going overboard and writing a thousand word essay with little focus or coherence.

I'm a bit soft on movies. So much effort goes into even the worst, most godawful piece of shit movie you can think of (Terror Toons, you still hold that honor for me) that I really try and find positives in anything I watch. So I plan on trying a "like" and "hated" list at the end of the review, see how that works out.

Since I mostly post soundtracks, I will post "Review" or something in the title so nobody gets excited (negatively or positively) about downloading a soundtrack that just came out.

I was one of the very few people who didn't hate Diary of the Dead. It wasn't great, but I didn't get the intense, boiling hatred everyone seemed to have for it. So, that and a very positive review of Survival on CHUD had me excited as I popped this bastard on to see what Georgie had come up with for his sixth undead adventure. As sad as I am to have to say this about one of horrors greatest filmmakers, it turns out CHUD has one of the only positive reviews out there for a reason.

The movie opens on Plum Island, an island off the coast of Delaware, (where everyone has a thick Irish accent for some reason) during a worldwide zombie outbreak. There seems to be only two families on this island, the O'Flynns and the Muldoons. Patrick O'Flynn believes that every zombie should be killed immediately, even if they happen to be small children. His nemesis on the island Seamus Muldoon has apparently seen the movie Fido and feels zombies should be chained up and forced to do mundane housework, like cooking or cleaning gutters. Muldoon has had enough of O'Flynn's zombie killing ways and intends to kill him one night. But Pat's daughter makes a deal with Seamus - In lieu of shooting O'Flynn in the head, waiting a few minutes for him to zombify, then shooting him in the head again Seamus just forces O'Flynn (and a few others) off the island.

We cut to the United States a few weeks later where we meet a roving band of military cliches (hard ass leader Sarge, dopey idiot goofball, tough chick Tomboy, horny hispanic guy Cisco) who, along with a teenager they pick up on the way seek refuge at Plum Island, which they believe to be a safe, zombie-free haven. In order to get to this island they steal a ferry from...you guessed it, O'Flynn who has been tricking people into coming to his dock with false information about Plum Island so he and his partners can steal all their shit.

A big gun fight breaks out between O'Flynn and Co. and Sarge's crew . Zombies show up, a lot of shit blows up but thanks to Tomboy's kindness, O'Flynn ends up on the ferry on the way to Plum Island.

That's the basic set up, to say more would ruin the rest of the movie.

Things I liked:

The practical gore effects were mostly pretty good.

Zombie Horseback

The brief underwater zombie shots were very well done.

Kenneth Welsh answered the question "What if Sean Connery and Malcolm McDowell had a son?"

Fire Extiguisher zombie kill was really pretty awesome.

Alan Van Sprang looked kinda like Ron Livingston after a particularly harrowing bender.

Things I kind of hated:

Terrible Irish accents - and I think some of these guys were actually Irish

Some fairly poor acting from pretty much everyone

Repetitive human deaths, way too much neck "flesh peel" effect.

Shoddy CGI work. I'm still not sure why lower budget films even try CGI.

I wanted to like it, and for a good 40 minute stretch during the middle it was actually pretty engaging. But ultimately, the subpar acting, ridiculous accents (why were they Irish again?), slow start and mediocre ending kind of killed it for me. Romero fans, and zombie aficionados should give it a look, but be prepared to bitch about George losing it shortly after.

If you're wondering where I'd rank it with the rest of the Dead, I'd say:

Day of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead (a better movie than Day, but Day's zombie make-up is top notch, so it edges out Dawn for me a bit)

Night of the Living Dead

Diary of the Dead

Land of the Dead (this and Diary are both kinda so-so, I'm calling a tie between these two)

Survival of the Dead

Get Expended

For those of you who can't wait for August 13th to see Stallone, Statham and Li bust some evil-doer heads in The Expendables, a classic 8-bit style game has been created over on the official Expendables Facebook page. Click here, and click "Like" (man this click "Like" thing is getting out of hand) to be able to play the game. If you like the old NES Contra games, you'll get a kick out of this since it's just Jet Li, Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham in a Contra game. Your best bet, pick Jet Li - I'm sorry, Yin Yang (ye-ikes) run right and keep hitting A and S the entire time. That seems to do the trick.

Turkaor Soundtrack Series Vol. 2

So, the brilliant and mysterious Turkaor stopped by again with a link to a whole new volume of rare and long lost film music. We have some choice cuts from Garbage Pail Kids (the movie, not the cards), Howard The Duck, Teen Witch and even something called Ninja Kids Phantom Force which sounds totally awful and completely awesome all at once - just the way I like 'em.

Those plus about 20 others - one even performed by Johnathan Stamos of The Rippers. All in all, another tremendous effort by Turkaor. If you enjoy it, leave a comment and let Turk know so we can see future volumes soon.

Get it while it's hot.

Let The Hit Girl In - Let Me In International trailer

An unnecessary remake of course, but I think it looks pretty decent.

I'm sure most of you will disagree, but I'm done getting bent out of shape and bitching about my favorite movies getting redone. If it looks decent I'll check it out, regardless of it being a remake of a 2 year old movie or not. If it sucks, then it sucks, and I'll move onto something different.

Bruce Campbell - Soup Tycoon

To honor Bruce Campbell's 52nd Birthday (which was yesterday, ooops) Sci-Fi Wire has whipped up some batches of Bruce Campbell's Soup. Okay, so they've actually just whipped up some fake labels for you to print out and put on soup cans at your house. Or as a gag - and waste of ink and photo paper - swing by your local grocer and confuse some housewife who didn't realize the Campbell soup guy's first name was Bruce.

Of course, the Bruce Campbell's soup idea has been around since whenever they made that crazy ass Captain Supermarket poster, but they a pretty spectacular job so it's okay. Plus how can you not like the idea of soups called Gumbo Ho Tep and Bisque o' County Jr?

Honestly, as a total dork, a big BC fan (Bruce Campbell, not the comic strip), a practicing graphic designer, and a guy who saw the poster years ago I'm disappointed in myself for doing these already myself. What was I thinking?!

Turkaor Soundtrack Series Vol. 1

I recently received a comment from a visitor by the name of Turkaor and in this comment Turk left a link for something called Turkaor Soundtrack Series Vol. 1. I'm a pretty curious dude so I checked it out and it's similar to some of my comps, probably more like the soundtrack sharing posts over at Hard Rock/AOR Heaven. I've gotta say, this thing rules. For example:

1. Megadeth - Crush 'em [Universal Soldier The Return]
2. Scorpions - Hit Between the Eyes [Free Jack]
3. Jeff Scott Soto - Renegade [Bad Jim] - Yngwie called, he wants his singer back.
4. Starship - We Dream in Color [Baywatch]
5. Chris Thompson - The Runner [The Philadelphia Experiment]
6. Mike Rutherford - Making a Big Mistake [Against All Odds]
7. Gary Chapman - Brave Hearts [Ernest Goes to Camp]
8. Mark Boals - Restless Heart [White Water Summer]
9. Michael Been - World on Fire [Light Sleeper](Other Version)
10. Alice COoper - I Am The Future [Class of '84]
11. James House - Born to Race [Speed Zone]
12. Steve McClintock - Maybe Love [Jetsons The Movie]
13. Eric Serra - Guns and People [Subway]
14. Melissa Manchester - Thief of Hearts [Thieft of Hearts]
15. Craig Safan - Never Crossed My Mind [The Last Starfighter]
16. Dwight Twilley - Girls [Sexy Shorts]
17. Dreamers - Kids These Days [Spring Break]
18. The Replacements - Bastards of Young [Adventureland]
19. Raymond Lam - Insufficient Love [Moonlight Resonance]
20. Laura Branigan & Joe Esposito - Come Into My Life [Coming to America]
21. Chris Thompson - Blinded by the Light [Florida Lady]
22. Desmond Child & Rouge - The Night Was Not [Times Square]
23. Corey Hart - Sunglasses At Night [The Challengers]
24. Frank Carillo & Annie Golden - Waiting for Someone [Prelude to a Kiss]
25. Sara Hichman - Sensitive to Light [Arachnophobia]

See. Turk didn't say if he wanted me to share this or not, but I assume so since he sent me the link, so here is the link:

The Link

Thanks Turk, if you're out there. I - and I'm sure everyone else would love to see several more Soundtrack Series Volumes from you.

Chinese Newspaper - Master of the Flying Chop Suey Bowl or Chair-Fu

At my job, about once a week we receive a shipment of merchandise that comes wrapped in old, wrinkled up Chinese/Japanese/Indian newspapers. I am obsessed with unwrinkling these newspapers written in a language I can't read and thoroughly looking through them. Why? Because sometimes you find something like this:

Please, any Chinese (or Japanese, not quite sure, the characters look pretty similar to me) wang enlargening spam posters, for once I need you. Well, you or any actual legitimate visitors of my site who know the language. Please translate this for me. I need to know why this dude has beaned this lady in the cranium with a hot bowl of chow mein and then chased her downstairs while wielding both a knife and a chair.

The Big Tits Zombie in Pants Tightening 3-D!

Wow, this one is even more ridiculous, wacky and gory than the Robo-Geisha trailer. Well played, The Big Tits Zombie in 3-D. Well played.



The plot:
Rena Jodo (Sola Aoi) is a stripper who just got back from Mexico and she has been offered a gig at a hot spring resort. When she arrives, she finds a deserted country town. There's hardly anyone in the audience at the strip club and all the other strippers, including Ginko (Risa Kasumi), Maria (Mari Sakurai), Nene (Tamayo) and Dana (Io Aikawa) are all bored stiff. They don't know what to do with their time and they are on the verge of fighting each other.

When they decide to go down to the basement of the club to kill time, Maria finds a "Book of the Dead" near "the Well of the Spirit." But who could have imagined the horror and panic that find would bring? Maria's reading of the book out loud has somehow revived the dead and zombies start appearing all over the world attacking
mankind. It's Hell in the real world!

Dana and Nene are bitten by the zombies and they turn into living dead who attack Rena and Ginko. The poor big‐bosomed babes have no choice but to fight against Maria who now rules the zombies and tries to establish a kingdom of zombies. Rena and Ginko have to challenge Maria and the hordes of zombies! And how does the Blue Demon Devil (Minoru Torihada) fit in?

First Robocop, Then Robo Vampire...Now Robo-geisha!

From the makers of Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police! Fans of wacky, ridiculous, gory Japanese crap - and possibly people with a lactation fetish should take note. My copy should be here tomorrow. And If you're wondering, I'm a fan of wacky, ridiculous, gory Japanese crap, not the lactating thing. Geisha Chainsaw!

Available now at an Amazon.co.uk near you.

Macabre Movie Poster Madness - The Bloodening Part 2: Lost in New York

This is a bit of a sequel to a post I made on Space Bastard, back when I was still trying to run two blogs at once. A site that might hold a world record for Chinese wang enlargement/other non-wang enlargening medication spam comments. Seriously, this is just from one post.

Levres de Sang (Lips of Blood) - 1975. Directed by Jean Rollin

Blood Orgy of the She-Devils - 1972. Directed by Ted V. Mikels. Also known as Female Plasma Suckers. I didn't think you could top Blood Orgy of the She-Devils for a movie title, but I think Female Plasma Suckers might have done it.

Blood Beach - 1981. Directed by Jeffrey Bloom. This is a fairly awesome Italian poster that I had never seen until I was searching for posters for this post. The immature side of me would like to point out that this poster says both "tit" and "anus" on the upper left corner.

The Bloodeaters (Toxic Zombies) - 1980. Directed by Charles McCrann. I'm not exactly sure how one would eat blood. Drinking it, of course, but eating it? You'd have to make some ice cube blood popsicles, or use it like strawberry sauce on a sundae or something. But then blood isn't really a dessert, I guess it'd fall under the condiment category.

Taste The Blood of Dracula - 1970. Directed by Peter Sasdy. If anyone is interested, I'm considering cleaning this one up and bumper stickerizing it.

I hope you've enjoyed this installment of Macabre Movie Poster Madness. I'm planning on getting back into post more of the stuff I posted at Space Bastard, i.e. Posters, Trailers, Stupid old Ads featuring hockey legends hawking BB guns. You know, for kids.

I. Ron Maiden - Free El Dorado Single Download

I thought the fellow Maidenites that visit my site might be interested in this. The band is offering a free download of a new track called El Dorado from their forthcoming album The Final Frontier. Just head to their official site and click where it says to click. If you're in the US be sure to click the link that says US fans, I couldn't get the other page to load but the US page loaded right away. You'll have to sign up with your email address, but you don't actually have to opt to receive any newsletters or anything like that. I just used my standard junk mail/newletters I signed up for to receive something for free email address.

How To Destroy Angels - Free s/t EP

I thought some of you might want to check this out. How To Destroy Angels is a group formed by Trent Reznor and his wife Mariqueen Maandig and they've released their 1st EP today. You can download it for free from the How To Destroy Angels site.

If you're interested in Lossless files, you can get them, plus an HD video for The Space In Between for $2.

1. The Space in Between (3:34)

2. Parasite (5:04)

3. Fur-Lined (4:00)

4. BBB (3:31)

5. The Believers (5:36)

6. A Drowning (7:02)

The Hands That Threaten Doom - New Comp at Illogical Contraption

A little over a month ago (or 16 posts ago) I put together or "compiled" some music for a compilation called Warning, Murder In Progress for the excellent and prolific Illogical Contraption blog. I've been invited back and my follow up compilation entitled The Hands That Threaten Doom is up now for your downloading pleasure. This compilation consists of songs written about notorious murder committers, and I've put brief details of the evil-doers crimes with each track so everyone knows who everyone is.

Click here to witness - both visually and audibly - the madness.

Last American Virgin

Last American Virgin was director Boaz Davidson's remake of his own Eskimo Limon (aka Lemon Popsicle), a popular Israeli film which spawned 7 (!) sequels.

Last American Virgin is a bit of an oddity, it's a wacky comedy for the entire duration - complete with a fat kid boinking a middle aged hispanic prostitute while a comical song plays on the soundtrack - then in the last few minutes they hit our main character with a devastating emotional groin punch. And then... it just ends, no glimmer of hope for this guy or anything. Sure, it's a more realistic ending - sometimes in life, you're just gonna get screwed and there will be nothing you can do but stand there and take it. I admire the balls it took to end it like that. But, really, who watches a goofy comedy with fat kids nailing middle aged hispanic prostitutes and thinks "man, I hope I'm really bummed out and sad during the last couple of minutes of this thing."?

You want the main guy to start off cool and likable, turn into a jerk going for the hot, but incompatible friend of his equally hot, but more down to earth friend. Then you have him realize he's a jerk, redeem himself, end up with his equally hot, but more down to earth friend. Sorry, I've got Secret Admirer on my mind for some reason. Still, that's the basic formula, it's worked a thousand times without bumming everybody out.

That said, bummer ending or not, American Virgin is a pretty solid movie that I recommend checking out at least once

Rue Morgue Radio Presents Hymns From The House of Horror

"In honour of Rue Morgue's 100th issue, it gives us great pleasure to gift you, Dear Music Lovin' Reader and Web Fiend, this free, downloadable compilation album we've sacrilegiously christened Rue Morgue Radio Presents...Hymns from the House of Horror! Thousands of horror bands have graced the pages and airwaves that emanate from this unholy place over the course of thirteen years, more than 300 radio shows and 100 magazines. We put our misshapen heads together and enticed a handful of the many artists we believe best encapsulate Rue Morgue into giving us exclusive mixes, previously unreleased tracks, obscure rarities and classic cuts for this morbid mixtape, hosted by Rue Morgue Radio's proprietor of perpetual darkness, Tomb Dragomir."

Click here for a download link. Once you've secured the album, I urge you to check out Damn Laser Vampires, Cauldron, and Balzac. The band, not this thing or this John Lovitz looking fucker here.

My name is Lucio Fulci and Windows 7 was my idea?

Ronnie James Dio - July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010

Blabbermouth:

Roller Boogie - Roller Skate or Die

For my contribution to Blair Week, I've chosen to upload the soundtrack to the Roller Boogeying classic Roller Boogie from director Mark Lester (Class of 1984, Firestarter, Commando). I had never seen Roller Boogie before, but for the sake of Blair Week I sat down and checked it out so I'd have a little something to talk about here.

In Roller Boogie, Linda is Terry Barkley, a floutist turned competitive roller disco fanatic who, along with her retardedly hot friend Lana (Kimberly Beck aka Trish Jarvis from Friday the 13th IV) get sucked in the wacky, and kind of stupid world of dancing on roller skates.

Despite being a musical prodigy on her way to Juliard with supremely wealthy parents, all the semi-bi-polar Terry wants to do is skate at the boardwalk. During one of here boardwalk skates Terry catches the eye of Bobby, local Olympic roller skating hopeful (???). After a good deal of effort on Bobby's part the 2 develop a relationship while Bobby trains Terry to skate as his partner in an upcoming roller boogie competition.

Everything is fine for the new couple for about a 20-minute stretch of the movie. Of course, we need some kind of plot to make this an actual movie and that's where rink owner Jammer comes in. Seems Jammer (who would let their kids go to a place owned by a guy called Jammer?) owns the last establishment a group of mobsters need to purchase and demolish before they can build their mall. He refuses to sell, but Jammer, despite being a former roller derby champion, turns into a real pussy when a gun is pointed at his face, so he decides to sell. It's up to the kids to figure out a way to save Jammer's or else they'll have to skate at one of the 20 other roller skating places at Venice Beach in 1979.

Featuring a colorful cast of characters with names like Phones (head, not rotary or pay), J.D. The DJ, and Complete Control Conway Roller Boogie is every bit as corny as it's title would make it seem. However, if you can get through the absurd amount of roller skate themed padding, there's actually a fairly fun late 70's teen comedy here.

Of course, you'd expect a roller skate movie from the 70's to have a pretty bitchin' soundtrack, and this one delivers the bitchin-ness

Hell On Wheels - Cher

Good Girls - Johnnie Coolrock

All For One, One For All - Mavis Vegas Davis

Boogie Wonderland - Earth, Wind & Fire with The Emotions

We Got The Power - Ron Green

Top Jammer - Cheeks

Summer Love - Bob Esty

Takin' Life In My Own Hands - Ron Green

Elektronix (Roller Dancin') - Bob Esty & Cheeks

Cunga - Bob Esty (Instrumental)

Evil Man - Mavis Vegas Davis

Lord Is It Mine - Bob Esty

Rollin' Up A Storm (The Eye Of The Hurricane) - Bob Esty

The Roller Boogie - Bob Esty

Love Fire - Bob Esty & Michele Aller

Bonus Tracks

Git Down (Guitar Groupie) - Cher

Hell on Wheels (12 inch version) - Cher

Night Dancer - Jean Shy

Our colleagues are bringing fresh Linda related content all week long:

Monday May 10:

Lost Video Archive - Savage Streets
Satan's Hope Chest - Chained Heat and Savage Island

Tuesday:
Camp Movie Camp - Grotesque
The Horror Section - Hell Night
Full Moon Reviews - Bailout

Wednesday:
Illogical Contraption gets Repossessed
Lines That Makes Things drops original Linda inspired artwork
Breakfast In the Ruins - Exorcist II

Thursday:
B Movies and Beyond - Summer of Fear
Camp Movie Camp - Nightforce

Friday:
The Manchester Morgue - Roller Boogie
Happy Otter - The Chilling
Ninja Dixon - The Witchery

Saturday:
Lost Video Archive - Born Innocent
Unflinching Eye wraps it up with a look at Linda's fall from grace.