HOLD ON - Herman's Hermits - "She's A Must To Avoid" (1966)

 Saturday's the best night of the week to rock......SO let's go way, way, out tonight! Just tighten up the straps on your straitjacket a notch, and.................."HOLD ON!"

 "Hold On" was made in 1966, ah yes, I remember it well! There were major massive unforgettable classics that came out that year like ? Mark and the Mysterians - "96 Tears," The Rolling Stones - "Paint It Black," The Troggs - "Wild Thing," Donovan - "Sunshine Superman," The Beach Boys - "Good Vibrations," The Standells - "Dirty Water," The Four Tops - "Reach Out I'll Be There," The Surfaris - "Wipe Out," The Count Five - "Psychotic Reaction," and so much more, but what was THE # 1 song of the year, "The Ballad of the Green Barets, by Sgt. Barry Sadler!

 In 1965, Herman's Hermits had no more than five songs on Billboard's Top 100 Songs, at # 67 was "Wonderful World," # 46 was "I'm Henry VIII I Am," # 22 was "Silhouettes," a cover tune originally recorded by The Rays, The Crests, and The Diamonds, #19 was "Mrs. Brown You Have a Lovely Daughter, and # 8 was "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat!" In 1966 they charted only one tune at #91, "Dandy," and in 1967 they came back with the # 50 tune, "There's a Kind of Hush!" That's a pretty nice run!

 Herman's "Must To Avoid" is Shelley Fabares who was in 191 episodes of the Donna Reed Show from 1958 to 1965 as Mary Stone! In 1962, Shelley had a song in the #1 position for two weeks, "Johnny Angel!"

 "Hold On!" is definitely not missing out in the talent department, but in reality is pretty much just one long music video with Herman's Hermits performing no less than eight songs!

 The band is so popular, they have to put on nifty disguises like these bald wigs in order to slip out of the building!

 The action moves to P.O.P, or Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica! Los Angeles used to have fun places to go to like P.O.P. and The Pike in Long Beach! Amusement parks on the beach, it just doesn't get better than that!

 Pretty scary! Herman almost gets killed on the 25 cent roller coaster ride!

 For some reason, the United States government wants to put The Hermits name on the nosecone of this rocket, but it causes a big commotion because they are not Americans!

 Herman's Hermits music is so hot at this party that all the girls including Shelley, strip out of their formals and start dancing!

It's almost impossible for the modern mind to comprehend, but there was a time in the not so distant past that there were only three channels on TV, and no remote control!! Gasp!!

 It's pretty likely that rocket is full of money on a direct path to Peter Noone's bank account, no wonder Herman was smiling all the time!

"Hold On!"

THE FUNHOUSE / Mace Neufeld Productions - 1981

It's Freaky Funhouse Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Our feature was shot in Miami, Florida, due to the relaxed child labor laws, since most of the cast were young actors. Steven Spielberg asked Tobe Hooper to direct E.T. but he turned it down because he was working on this movie. He then worked with Speilberg on POLTERGEIST. Weird, Hooper and Speilberg look like they could be brothers! Dean Koontz wrote the novelization of the screenplay under the pseudonym, Owen West.

Eegah!! sent over this 'fun' little soundclip for our earjoyment, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to the funhouse freak, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's an earfull of... THE FUNHOUSE!

Elizabeth Berridge plays Amy, her shower's interrupted by her lil' brother who's wearing a mask and weilding a rubber butcher knife... A fun way to get a sneaky glimple of your hot sister in the nude! Welcome to the eighties.

Smoking pot was quickly becomming passe and considered a fairly normal activity in movies by now.

Cooper (SPACE COWBOYS) Huckabee plays high school jock, Buzz Dawson. Here he is getting ready to ring the bell and win a stuffed toy for Amy!

Some carnival art! Saw a cow with two heads at the Bakersfield Fairgrounds in the late sixties.

The gang checks out the hideous little dead baby freak in a jar.

Amy finds out some bad things when she gets her palm read.

Of course, it wouldn't be complete without the live show where the ladies can shake their stuff for the horny perverts like me!

Buzz and Amy blend right into the scenery. Nice gams!!

I can hear the narrator on the movie trailer... Have you ever made love, to a... Monster?!

The whole thing turns into a bloody mess, everyone except Amy gets mutilated one way or another, Buzz will be next.

The monster is the last one to get his, he's literally cut in half by two giant funhouse gears!!

KONGA - Gerard Schurmann - "I Was A Teenage Gorilla" (1961)

Welcome to redux Wednesday, and a movie I wrote about the first year I did this blog back in 2007!! I usually leave these up to Tabonga, but his "Konga" DVD wouldn't play, and since I had just recently scored one at Big Lots for $3.00, I volunteered for the job! Back in 2007 I wrote: "Michael Gough can be a devilish soul, &  in "Konga" he probably plays his best role of a really 'not nice' guy. His assistant Margaret loves him; she's so lowly, she doesn't even have a last name and he treats her like crap. Sandra Banks adores his intellect, but has no clue that he's just a dirty old pervert after her bod, not her mind. He has his big monkey kill anybody that pisses him off, and he's growing giant phallic-looking, meat-eating plants in his greenhouse." And that pretty much sums it up!

So where do you suppose they possibly derived that name from?

Michael Gough is Dr. Charles Decker!

First question, why is Konga such a goober? He looks like he could have been the fourth stooge!

The Doctor is completely mad, but his assistant loves him dearly! This ain't exactly a love story!

Michael Gough's character is such a two-face slime dog, I thought this transition shot captured him perfectly!

The Dean of the school that Dr. Decker works at should have kept some of those uncomplimentary remarks he made about Dr. Decker's research to himself!

This famed scientist wanted to collaborate with Dr. Decker, but finds out too late that Decker doesn't like any competition!

Now we get to the fun part! There's a guy here who is named Bob Kenton, and he is Sandra Banks' boy friend. Bob knows that there's something dishonorable how the professor is acting just a little too friendly with his girlfriend, and he doesn't like it!

Bob Kenton was played by a popular singer of the day, Jess Conrad! Although the

little bit of jazzy music written by Gerard Schurmann they have in "Konga" is very cool, it would have been a lot neater if they would have had Jess perform a tune or two! That would have catapulted this movie into the cult hall of fame!

As you can see, Jess was no slouch, sharing the bill with the ever popular Brenda Lee! Jess Conrad also has the distinction of having at least 7 songs like "This Pullover," "Why Am I Living," and "Cherry Pie" on The World's Worst Records list compiled by DJ Kenny Everett, but you can take that with a grain of salt, because also on that list is one of my personal favourite songs of all time, "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus!!

Not a very nice way to treat an innocent teenager back in 1961, Dr. Decker has Konga dispatch poor Bob! He never even saw it coming!

Dr. Decker can't seem to keep it together, it's no wonder his scientific experiments are going haywire, he obviously has his mind on something a little more primitive!

Sandra Banks tries to get through to the Doctor that she's not interested in him, but he doesn't get it, and the fact that you might say she's just a little dense doesn't help matters either!

Oh, My! This lobby card doesn't appear to be doctored up at all! That's exactly how the movie looks!

I don't know how much Herman Cohen spent on special effects, and I guess it was okay back in the 60's when you only saw a scene like this for a couple of seconds in a theatre, but these days when you can stop a DVD on any given frame, it's so bad, I think the movie would have been a lot better without this doll scene!

This effect didn't come across much better, and Konga actually looks dumbfounded by the whole thing!

In this shot, Konga does his best impersonation of Barney Google, the man with the goo-goo-googley eyes!

It's doubtful that anybody could do a better job than Michael Gough at pretending they were getting squished by a giant gorilla hand! I love this shot!

Talk about timing, it just so happens that this coming weekend is the Annual Fundraising Ball for The Grand Order Of Water Rats of which Jess Conrad is currently The King Rat! If you'd like to become a friend of The Rats, then head on over to HERE and join up! Good people, they raise money for everything from "The British Theatre For The Disabled" to The Multiple Sclerosis Society!!!