THE MOVIES OF PRODUCER JACK H. HARRIS

It's time to spend a little time with producer Jack H. Harris and his mixed bag of movies he was involved in creating.

First on the list is THE BLOB, by far his crowning achievement when it comes to horror. My dad took me to see it in 1958 when I was ten I was a basket case for years after that, something about blobs really got to me. 

In 1959 Jack produced his next horror classic, 4D MAN, about a scientist that discovers the secret of how to pass through solid objects. Unfortunately there are side effects!

Then in 1960, Jack produced DINOSAURUS!, where two dinosaurs and a caveman are freed from their underwater tombs to bring horror and laughter to a Caribbean island. This is one that Eegah!! and I saw together back in the day.

In 1965, Jack was executive producer for MASTER OF HORROR, an Argentinian movie redubbed in English for the US audience. A woman reads two of Edgar Allan Poe's classic tales, "The Facts In The Case Of  M. Valdemar" and "The Cask Of Amontillado."

And in 1966 Jack writes, directs and produces the super weird UNKISSED BRIDE aka MOTHER GOOSE A GO-GO, starring Tommy Kirk!! Get ready, the story goes like this!.. Ted and Margie are on their honeymoon but Margie's nervous about what comes next and reads Ted nursery rhymes from Mother Goose! Ted faints, so Dr. Marilyn, a psychiatrist, arrives and says that Ted has a "Mother Goose complex!" And, she treats him with an LSD spray!!, causing him to hallucinate and get reality and fairy tales mixed together!! Wow, are you kidding?!! Cool!!

EQUINOX from 1970 will always be one of my favorite strange movies, it's just out there man! The characters are great and the monsters are beyond wild. A David Hewitt collaboration.

In a cheap-o comedy version of the original, Jack brings us BEWARE! THE BLOB aka SON OF BLOB in 1972. Larry Hagman acts in and directs this bomb.

In 1973, Jack is back with this movie John Landis wrote, directed and starred in, SCHLOCK! The story's about the missing link terrorizing a small town but filmed in Chatsworth.

In 1974, Jack hooks up with John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon (writer of ALIEN) in the futuristic sci-fi comedy, DARK STAR, where the crew of the ship go around blowing up unstable planets!!

In 1978 Jack produced John Carpenter's EYES OF LAURA MARS, a tale about a photographer (Faye Dunaway) who develops the ability to see through the eyes of a killer.

In 1986, Jack hooks up with Fred Olen Ray with STAR SLAMMER, a sexy tale of two space chicks locked up on a prison planet, having to deal with lesbian guards, crazed wardens and big mutant rodents! Actors include Sandy Brooke, Ross Hagen, Aldo Ray and Bobbie Bresee.

In 1988, Jack brings back the scare with a horror remake of the original, THE BLOB. It's like 90 minutes of exhausting terror, still prefer the original.

And then there's this little 'What's Up, Tiger Lily?' style redub redo of the original, where Steve has to face off against a wise-cracking gob of goo, Vaccine. Hard to find one of these, reviewers say it pretty damn funny! Jack was born in 1918 and died in 2017 at age 98, a great guy with a sense of humor.

WORLD OF GIANTS - Episode # 13 - "Off Beat" (1959)

 

This week's Saturday Night Special is extra special because it's about a special special agent! Why was he more special that any other special agent? It's because he was only six inches tall. "World Of Giants" was a TV show that was on for thirteen consecutive weeks in 1959, and then it was gone pretty much forever!

 

 According to Wikipedia, an American spy named Mel Hunter was on a covert mission when he got shrunk down to six inches in an accident. After that they used him as a special special agent.

 

Mel Hunter was played by Marshall (It! The Terror From Beyond Space) Thompson.
 

 I found two fairly crappy looking episodes of "World Of Giants" on youTube, good luck finding the other eleven. This is the last episode that was ironically titled "Off Beat," which was the same name as our public access TV show.

Look real close and you can see little Mel in the bottom right hand corner sitting behind his drum kit! Besides being a special agent for the government, Mel is also a big fan of jazz music. 

On the left is Arthur (Atomic Submarine) Franz as agent Bill Winters, whose job it is to carry around the valise that little Mel is in. On the right is Marcia (Hypnotic Eye) Henderson as Miss Brown. There's not a lot of explaining about the characters, and Miss Brown seemed like she was a regular, but she was only in three of the thirteen episodes.

This November 27, 1954 issue of TV Guide magazine featured Marcia on the cover with Peter Lawford because they were in a popular television show together called "Dear Phoebe."

Same smile........

Johnny Silver plays jazz musician Chuck Crescent, or the guy who is pretending to be Chuck Crescent. Being a big jazz buff, Mel smells something wrong with Chuck's performance in this club. It's good, but it's just too stiff. Johnny Silver was under five feet tall, and was in scores of TV shows in the 50's and 60's.

In the "Take What You Can Get Department," this is as good as this show looks on youTube, but it's a fun enough watch, so I think it's worth it.

Mel is very concerned, and there was something so weird about Chuck that he wants to go talk to an old musician friend of his who was Chuck's mentor, but there's just one thing, his friend doesn't know that he is now only six inches tall.

 

Mel's friend is jazz pianist Daddy "You're The Greatest" Dean as played by Bill Walker. I'm sure you've seen Bill's face before, because he has been entertaining us on some kind of screen from 1946 to 1987. Bill was in "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?," and he was also in "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte." He's also the only one out this whole great cast to ever be in a "Twilight Zone" episode, that being "The Masks."

Nobody is supposed to know about Mel's secret, but they tell Daddy Dean, and he can't believe his eyes. He has to agree to never tell anyone, and I guess that was pretty easy since this was the last episode!

Daddy Dean goes with Mel, and Bill, and Miss Brown to the club, and it doesn't take him any time at all to realize this is not the real Chuck. Daddy calls him on it, and all Hell breaks out!

 

Mel pops out of the briefcase an into the piano!

The fake Chuck decides to do some impromptu stuff after all, and almost gives Mel a big headache!

The music is swingin' hard through this whole show, and yet I couldn't find any credits for the musicians or the composer.

This is the cool logo they used when they came back from cutting to a commercial. Man, I'd love to see all of the episodes of this cool show in high definition, but alas, as far as I can tell, they're not available at all in any quality! Some things in the world just ain't right!

When I got all done here, I decided to see if I could find any videos of "W.O.G." available anywhere, and although I didn't come up with anything, I did find somebody selling some production stills on eBay, and even though it wasn't from this episode, this picture of Mel in a slot machine was just to good to not include it here.

THE VENTURE BROS. / Dia De Los Dangerous - 2004

The Venture Bros. was my favorite show on Adult Swim, this is the first episode from this series. I personally like the earlier stories as it got too glossy and overly complicated near the end.

Our adventure starts with the gang down in Tijuana Mexico where Dr. Venture is giving a lecture at the university. He's accompanied by his sons Hank and Dean and their body guard, the baddest ass in the universe, Brock Samson.

Dr. Venture is lecturing the students on how there is no such thing as a chupacabra. The students are paying no attention to his ramblings...

After his WTF lecture, Dr. Venture would like to get paid for his services. The administrator hands him a check for 9,000..... Pesos!!

Then a Monarch butterfly lands on Dr. Venture's shoulder and he wants to know if it's poisonous.

Thing is, the butterfly is actually a mechanical tracking device sent out to spy on Doc. The Monarch there on the right is Dr. Venture's sworn rival, although, Doc seemingly has never even heard of The Monarch! He tells his henchmen to go out and keep an eye on the Ventures and watch out for that psycho Brock Samson!

In the meantime, Dr. Venture has gone to a Tijuana doctor and requests some uppers from him. The Tijuana doctor tells him that he has scruples, so Dr. Venture holds up a hundred dollar bill.

Doc gave Hank and Dean some spending money and Dean wants to spend it on their robot, Helper. 

Dean says, let's get him a new paint job!

While Helper is being redone, Monarch's henchmen decide to take Hank and Dean hostage and take them back to their palace, rather than just keep an eye on them.

The boys communicators tell Brock exactly where they are and he sprints to the scene!

Brock chokes the instigator of the kidnapping with an iron grip while the others look on in horror.

Brock has been hit with like a hundred tranquilizer darts with no effect!!

So, one of the henchmen guns the truck and rams Brock in reverse, finally knocking him out. The kidnappers go back to the palace.

When Dr. Venture wakes up, he's in a tub of ice with a note pinned to his dickey.

Doc calls Helper to come and get him.

Helper hones in on Brock's communicator and they find a gravesite where people have paid their respects to the fallen god.

But, Brock springs up, still holding on to the dead henchman. Doc asks him why he was being so brutal and Brock replies... Doc, they hit me with a truck! By the way, Brock is voiced by that awesome dude, Patrick Warburton!

Back in their private jet, the X-1, Brock has found the boys' location and puts a plan into action. But just before that, Dr. Venture is attacked by a chupacabra that was hiding in Brock's car. I hope you see the irony here.

Brock guns the car in reverse and backs it out of the X-1.

The car drops into the Monarch's lair where Brock demolishes all the henchmen and grabs Hank and Dean from the Monarch's clutches.

At the end we find out that Dr. Venture is just fine with two new kidneys! This series is just the best for twisted humor, my fave.