MONSTERS - "Mr. Swlabr" (1990)

This Saturday Night Special I have for you is season two, episode 15 of "Monsters."

This episode was titled "Mr Swlabr."

The only other reference to the word "Swlabr" that I ever knew was this great song by one of the best bands of all time, CREAM, so it really got me wondering what the heck the tie-in was here!

The word "SWLABR" is not really a word at all, but an acronym, and the letters stand for either "She Walks Like A Bearded Rainbow," or She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow," and was written by Pete Brown.

The inspiration for the song was Producer Felix Pappalardi, who was drawing beards and mustaches on pictures of an old girlfriend. Felix Pappalardi produced three Cream albums, his own Mountain albums, and records by The Youngbloods, The Flock, and The Dead Boys before getting shot and killed by his wife at the age of 43 with the derringer he had given her a couple of months earlier.

So what does any of that have to do with this TV show? Absolutely nothing!

 

 

The real "SWLABR."

Robert (Honey, I Shrunk The Kids) Oliveri has the role of Roy Barton. Roy's a normal kid who spends all his time in the basement with his train set and his handmade aluminum dinosaurs. His Mother and older sister are obsessive and obnoxious.

Roy his just found a special prize inside his box of "Wonder Pops."

Danielle (Jessica Jones) Ferland is Roy's dreadful sister Barbie.

The directions said to soak it in water. Swlabr's embryo looks like a little turd to me!

 

The transformation begins.........

.....And the little "Swlabr" is born!

As "Swlabr" grows and turns into basically a hand puppet, he becomes less and less interesting or convincing!

But the story becomes more interesting, because the voice of "Swlabr" was provided by a very interesting character named Michael Morra, aka Rockets Redglare.

Rockets Redglare was at one time, a bodyguard for The Sex Pistols, and later for Sid Vicious, and more than one person has stated they believe that Rockets was the one who stabbed Nancy Spungen, Sid Vicious's girl friend, and then supplied Sid with the pure heroin that did him in.

We'll never know, because Rockets died back in 2001 at the age of 52.

 

Kate (School Of Rock) McGregor-Stewart is Roy's hideous Mother.

 

 

In fact, both his Sister and his Mother are bigger monsters than "Mr. Swlabr."

And to put a punctuation mark on that stinky fart, here they are again because they have nothing better to do than make Roy's life miserable!

 

"Mr. Swlabr" is growing and Roy's Mother unintentionally makes things worse by dousing him with more water that just makes him grow that much faster and bigger!

 

Hubba, Hubba!!

 

And Roy's Mother gets a face full of what's good for her!

The writer of this story is named Steven L. Nelson, and this is his only credit. All I can figure is Steven probably had a copy of "Disraeli Gears" and thought the title "Swlabr" looked cool, decided to use it as a monster's name, and that makes about as much sense as anything else!