THE WEIRD AL SHOW - "Bad Influence" (1997)

This will be the last "Saturday Night Special" in The Dungeon this year, and after this, 2020 can go screw itself! So here's something plenty weird from 1997, a Saturday morning kids show called "The Weird Al Show," and from what I saw so far, it lives up to it's name!

I had to work Saturdays back in the 90's, and I guess that's why I never saw this show before.

If you need a reference point, then you need look no further than about ten years previous when "Pee-wee's Playhouse" was on the air.

All this craziness....................

......................And that was just the introduction!

"Today's Lesson" is the moral of the story!

Al wants to become a member of some kind of cool club, and is willing to do almost anything to make it happen!

The head of the club, a guy named Spike, pays Al a visit and tells him that if he wants to be cool, then there are certain requirements! Spike was played by Kevin (Alias) Weisman.

Al has a hamster buddy named Harvey, so I don't really know why he needs this Spike guy in his life.

Spike starts making up all kinds of things for Al to do that he says are requirements to be in the club!

Al is ready for any challenge!

The first thing is to tear off one pants leg!

The second thing is to stick your arms into a vat of hot chocolate, which Al also goes along with. After that, he has Al shave off one of his eyebrows, all in the name of being cool!

I don't know why Al wants to be in this guy's club, he's already got so much cool stuff himself, like this eyeball chair!

Of course there are puppets and songs like "Water Is Wet."

And crazy ads like this one for "Pizza Quick, a unique company that doesn't use delivery boxes!

Pizza Quick touts that they have the fastest Pizza delivery, because they don't waste time putting the pizzas in boxes!

The Super Avenger stops by, but Spike puts him down.

 

 

 Then, the super nerdy Seymour drops by and tells Al that there is no real club, and there are no initiation stunts like what Spike has been making him do, and that the club is composed of just him and Spike, and then him and Spike leave together. Seymour is played by comedian and voice over artist Patton Oswalt.

Al had to learn Today's Lesson the hard way, and because it's a kid's show, "The Barenaked Ladies" show up and play a song called "Shoe Box."

THE CAPTAIN AND THE KIDS In "The Captain's Christmas" - 1938

Like, here's our Xmas present for you... This cartoon from MGM is special in a few ways. It 's directed by Friz Freleng, Joseph Barbera and Rudolph Dirks were the writers, and had the voices of Mel Blanc as John Silver and Billy Bletcher as The Captain. As I was looking at their acting credits I noticed that Billy had 474 which is pretty good, then I looked at Mel's credits and almost fainted! He has an unbelievable 1,160 credits, AND, many of his credits were a TV series with multiple episodes like THE JETSONS. He is a Super-Duper Dungeon Hero!!

So, John Silver and his pals catch the Captain dressed up as Santa, ready to take a bag of toys down their chimney for the Kids. But, John decides that he would make a much better Santa than the Captain and trades places with him...

John comes down the chimney with a bang and is dazed from the drop.

The Kids are filled with happiness and start playing with their new toys!

With John though, well, he's just a little too happy! I mean, he has a flintlock that he keeps firing off on top of his wild antics.

And, he ends up destroying all the toys in his drunken-like portrayal of Santa.

Of all things, John's conscience appears and berates the Hell out of him. He wants to know what to do and the little guy whispers something in his ear. John responds, I'll do it!!

The plan is to go into town and cause a disturbance...

So, John and his crew start loudly singing silly songs and do a bunch of absurd acting to basically make all the people in town start throwing things at them so they'll SHUT UP! But, John and the crew just crank it up!

Looks like all the dads are dressed up as Santa for their kids too!

Anyway, the people run out of items to throw and start tossing out their kids' toys!! Once the sleigh is overflowing with presents, John heads back to the Captain's house.

He drops all the presents down the chimney and the Kids get a bonanza of toys to play with, OMG, what a glorious Christmas!

Now wait a minute! The plan was, not to pay them back for breaking their toys, but, to make such a disturbance that you get all those toys just for being total jerks?!

Anyway, Happy Holidays to ALL, from the Guys at The Dungeon!!..

TRAPPED IN PARADISE - "Ain't It The Truth" (1994)

My last Christmas feature of this terrific year has a title that I think we can all identify with, "Trapped In Paradise." I don't watch newer modern movies much, then I realized that this movie is 26 years old! So welcome to a Dungeon Warm Walnuts in Wonderland Wednesday!

 

Seriously, I don't know what to say about "Trapped In Paradise." I kind of liked it, sort of. It's not exactly great, and it's not really horrible, so I guess it's okay, and I can tell you one thing for sure, it is definitely a Christmas movie!

Christmas days and nights of futures past.

"Trapped In Paradise" stars Nicholas Cage as small time con man Bill Firpo who is seriously trying to go legit.

The problem is that Bill Firpo has two completely worthless idiot brothers who are just getting released from jail right before Christmas. The brothers are none other than Dana Carvey as Alvin Firpo, and Jon Lovitz as Dave Firpo.

Let's all share a pensive holiday moment together!

Tabonga used to have a copy of this issue of "Weekly World News," but I think he sold it on eBay.

Alvin Firpo has a serious problem with kleptomania, and he'll steal almost anything.

Now is this a festive scene or what?

Bill Firpo gets sucked into robbing a small town bank with his idiot brothers, and everything goes to Hell from there.

After a number of calamities, they try to get away by hitchhiking and are picked up and taken to Paradise.

They are taken in and given dry clothes and fed by a wonderful family, and the gracious Father of the family just happens to be the President of the bank they just robbed. Bill's starting to feel a lot of guilt! They had masks on, so he doesn't recognize them, but they sure recognize him!

I just love this shot of the "Tick Tock Diner."

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!"

Looks like a shot from an Agatha Christie Christmas novel.

Bill's love interest is Mädchen Amick who was Shelly Johnson and Shelly Briggs in both the "Twin Peaks series. I love her because although she was born in Nevada, she has an umlaut in her name which literally means Girl in German.

The rest of the movie is about the brothers trying to escape, and being treated oh so nice by all the people they stole from, and Bill finally decides they need to try and return the money.

 

The trio of misfits return the money, and even though everybody knows they are guilty as Hell, they don't have any real proof, and all is forgiven.

After all, it is Christmas time!

 

The moral of the story is that even if you're a complete jackass, if you turn your life around, and truly mean it, then "All Roads Are Open" to you!

Ho, Ho, Ho!!!