THE TRIPODS - Season One, Episode One - BBC (1984)

"The Tripods" was a series of books written by John Christopher in the 60's. In 1984, the BBC made it into a 30 minute TV series. Although available now on DVD, I don't think it ever aired on American TV, or if it did, I sure as Hell didn't know about it, but then there was a lot I didn't know, after all, it was 1984!
From the looks of it so far, it seems like George Orwell was off by about 33 years, but that's a different story!

Welcome to another Saturday Night Special in the The Dungeon! Our short feature tonight is Season one, Episode one of  "The Tripods!"

Something is definitely not right here! Instead of 100 years into the future, it looks like 100 years into the past! So this is what the future is going to look like, nice and serene!

"But now the time has come, and there's no place to run, time has come today!" - The Chambers Brothers.
 High noon is when the party starts in this village!

It's Jack's turn, he just turned 16, and he's more than happy to make the needed modifications!

Here they come!!!

"The Tripods" are the product of some very early CGI work, and are quite impressive!

Jack is hoisted up into the giant robot! I guess "The Tripods" weren't advanced enough to have beams!

And while "The Tripods" do their business on Jack, the rest of the village has a picnic until Jack is returned a new man!

Jack has been capped and will never be capable of free thinking again, because as "The Tripods," and we all know, thinking just causes problems and gets people in trouble! 

Life is much simpler and better this way!

Let the party begin!!
The music in "The Tripods" was written by Mr. Ken Freeman who has kept very busy over the last 31 years with just two popular British hospital TV dramas, working as composer, and in the music department of 450 episodes of "Casualty," and another 608 episodes of "Holby City!" Wow!!

I like this shot!

Cousins Henry and Will Parker are not too sure if they go along with this whole capping thing, especially since their time is coming up soon!  Henry on the left was played by Jim Baker who stopped acting after this show, and John Shackley as Will on the right who acted a bit more and eventually quit the biz and moved to Chile.

The outcasts of this society, the uncapped vagrants are always trying to cause problems! They don't understand that Tripod Lobotomies are a good thing!

In a nutshell, after much deliberation, the boys decide to run away from the village and find the White Mountains the vagrants have told them about, where people still think freely without fear of retort!

But it's not going to be an easy journey because The Tripods are always watching!

I'd love to have a copy of this 7" single by Ken Freeman, but they are a minimum of  20 bucks or more when you can find one.

The cover illustration of this German version of the book is really cool, which reminds me, once again, I'd like to say Danke to our buddy in Berlin, Lord Litter, who has been doing a lot of work in the background, helping me find material lately! If you've got some time, and you want to hear some different music, then do yourself a favor and head on over and check it out!

"The Tripods" was on for two seasons, but the story was a trilogy, so it never had a proper ending! Finishing the series would be a good project for somebody to take on. It would be a moneymaker no doubt for somebody with lots of money and no ideas!!! I'd like to see it anyway!

WILLIE WHOPPER in 'Hell's Fire' / A Famous Fairytale Cartoon - 1934

It's time for another Willie Whopper cartoon, in color! In this story, flames grab and take Willie and his dog down a volcano into the bowels of Hell! There, he meets many historical figures and fictional characters, including Napoleon, Nero, Rasputin, Cleopatra, Simon Legree, Dr. Jekyll and others. One denizen among the damned souls (a personification of Prohibition!) tries to escape. Willie, determined to help the Devil keep the guy where he belongs, gives chase. Then, he and the would-be escapee are racing through the hottest place in Hell, the boiler room!! HELL'S FIRE is an alternate title.

Willie and his little pal make their way to the top of a volcano and are thrilled at their accomplishment, until...

Hands of fire reach up, grab them and pull them down, down, down!

Now in Hell, Willie watches as the special guests make their entrance, including sexy Cleopatra and slimy Simon Legree!

Everyone seems to be having a great time hanging out with the Devil, I mean, it looks pretty fun, with cool looking characters and all.

The Drunk is confronted by the Hell Hound, so, he takes off running.

And, the Devil yells... "Stop him!"

The Drunk is slowed down for a moment by getting an electrified drill in the ass!!

Willie and his pooch chase the tipsy runner to the boiler room where one of the Devil's workers is stoking the giant furnace!

The furnace temperature goes all the way to 'WOW!' and things are getting ready to blow!

And, within a few seconds, the furnace does exactly that, it blows sky high!

Like I said, Willie, his dog and the Drunk are blown high into the air! Now what?!..

They all fall into an eagle's nest! Then, the eagle drops the Drunk dude back into the volcano where he belongs, I guess. Anyway, Eegah!! is back tomorrow with something special for us!!

GRADUATION DAY - Grant Loud - "Graduation Day Blues" (1981)

Well, we never intended to do so many movies from the 80's, but then I never really meant to do any movies from the 80's, and I think tonight's Wacky Wednesday offering is a pretty good example as to why, but since we're on a quest to document every Monster/Weird/Hot Rod//Horror/Sci-Fi/Giallo/Rock and Roll/Biker/Spy movie ever made, we really don't have much choice!

It was made in 1981, and it's called "Graduation Day!" Honestly, I didn't think I was going to be able to make it all the way through after the first 20 or 30 minutes, but like an over matched boxer in a three round fight, I hung in there, and I'm actually kind of glad I did for a couple of reasons!

I never was a big slasher movie fan, and I didn't really care for Giallo movies either when I was first introduced to them, but I learned to like Giallo because they are usually quite intelligent with an intriguing storyline, but American slasher movies are not quite as smart, being content with just lining up one victim after another trying to find a new and different way to get each dirty job done!

I was very surprised that something in this sign wasn't misspelled!!

Wow! Do you think the killer might live in this normal looking household?

Nice gams!!

Weird! The school looks like it's melting!

Christopher (Rat Patrol, The Immortal) George plays the bastard track coach who is just weird enough that you might think he was the killer, except for the fact that he doesn't live in that freaky house! Bummer! Christopher died of a heart attack at the age of 52!

Scream Queen Linnea Quigley is the slut trying to get the music teacher to give her a passing grade, and you can't really blame her, since she was 23 years old and still in high school!

Golden Gloves boxing champion Virgil (Queen Of Blood, Hells Angels On Wheel, Easy Rider, Nightmare In Wax) Frye is the rent a cop security guard getting high on the job at the school!

Whoever is killing all the members of the track team is timing them all!

I did a little bit of reading about this movie, and it seemed like a lot of people didn't like the music. Personally, it was the music that kept me awake and got me to the end, and is probably the best part of the movie! 

Grant (Shakespeare's Plan 12 From Outer Space) Loud performs "Graduation Day Blues!"
This is the kind of stuff that this blog was founded on, and raised my opinion of "Graduation Day" from an F- to an A+!

Then the pretty damn good L.A. new wave band Felony performs at the graduation party! Felony's hit song "Fanatic" was used in the movie "Valley Girl!"

The lead singer of Felony is wearing black gloves! Could he possibly be the killer?

You never know, because anything goes in this movie now!

Felony plays "Gangster Rock" for about 10 minutes and all the happy kids in the graduating class roller skate in circles around them! I thought it was a pretty cool party! Probably better than my graduation if I could remember it after that six pack of 16 oz Colt 45's!

E.J. (Hello Dolly) Peaker as Blondie, and Michael (Grave Of The Vampire, Dracula's Dog, Jailbait Babysitter) Pataki as Principal Guglione provide the much needed comic relief!

He doesn't want to be bothered and she just keeps giving him phone calls! It's really pretty funny!

Vanna (Wheel Of Fortune) White is the 24 year old high school girl Doris!

One of the more creative killings was that of the pole vaulter who after a successful jump lands on a bunch of spikes!

"Graduation Day" is not the best or the worst movie I've ever seen! As a historical document, and if you like slasher movies with cool 80's music, then it's awesome, but if you don't like those two things, then don't even bother!