Randy Clower and Richard Malmos of The Texas 27 Film Vault (both lower right) featured in a Movie Host article with Stella from Saturday Night Dead and Elvira.
Before MST3K we had The Texas 27 Film Vault, which debuted on Saturday February 9th, 1985. Balladeer’s Blog continues marking the cult show’s FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY YEAR with another episode where an original broadcast date can be narrowed down.
EPISODE ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday May 25th, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Special thanks to my fellow Texas 27 Film Vault fan Jana for the date of this episode and which serial preceded the movie.
SERIAL: The Phantom Empire (1935), in which Gene Autry played a singing cowboy who saves the world from an advanced underground civilization complete with killer robots who wear cowboy hats.
FILM VAULT LORE: Randy and Richard, both sons of military men, had come up with a very detailed back-story for their fictional Film Vault Corps. Back before the Corps members found themselves protecting old movies from gigantic rats, celluloid-eating cellumites and subterranean Drone species the FVC got its start during the Great Depression.
FDR’s Works Progress Administration engineered the first Film Vaults beneath America’s major cities. Each subterranean vault was as large as an aircraft carrier and they were originally used to store the monumental film collection of FDR friend Larry Alexander Finley of Frankfort, KY.
Eventually the vaults were used to house the superannuated Golden Turkeys and camp classics that local television stations across the country filled their late-night hours with. The vaults also housed other bits of cultural kitsch like old commercials and tv shows and such.
THE MOVIE: Horror of Party Beach is one of those flicks that is on EVERYBODY’S Worst Films of All Time list and has been for several decades. In the 1980s the Medved Brothers’ books on Golden Turkeys helped secure its reputation. Just about every Movie Host show presented this film at some point.
Radioactive waste dumped in the sea spawns a tribe of large, goofy-looking, carnivorous sea monsters who walk on two legs and have so many big tongues they seem to have bouquets of hot dogs in their mouths. Continue reading
IN THE MIDDLE 1980s/ WAY DOWN ON LEVEL 31 …
SERIAL: ATOM MAN VS SUPERMAN (1950) – Kirk Alyn starred as Superman with Lyle Talbot as his archenemy Lex Luthor. Especially laughable are the bits when Superman “flies” – an effect achieved by switching from live footage of Kirk Alyn to INSERTED CARTOON FOOTAGE of Superman flying. Think of the ‘Toons in Roger Rabbit interacting with the live characters & backgrounds and you have the idea. 
THE MOVIE: It! The Terror from Beyond Space is one of the consummate low budget schlockers of the 1950s. It embodies the “so bad it’s good” aesthetic that so many Movie Host shows have always reveled in. 
In the middle 1980s The Texas 27 Film Vault was the show to watch on Saturday nights to see “Film Vault Technicians First Class” Randy Clower and Richard Malmos show and mock bad and campy movies preceded by episodes of old serials. Machine-gun toting Randy and Richard would also have comedic sci-fi adventures before and after commercial breaks. 
BLACK RAIN, also released as THE LAST WAVE (1977) – This was Aussie director Peter Weir’s eerie follow-up to Picnic at Hanging Rock from 1975. If you found the excellent 1975 movie perplexing, Black Rain will redefine that word for you. 
Balladeer’s Blog continues celebrating the FORTIETH anniversary year of this neglected cult show which debuted Saturday night February 9th, 1985. As I often mention, before MST3K came The Texas 27 Film Vault. Before Joel and Mike came Randy and Richard. Before Devil Dogs, Pearl and Deep 13 came Cellumites, Laurie Savino and Level 31. 
MOVIE: The Food of the Gods (1976). 
SERIAL: IF the February or March of 1985 date is correct – and that’s still up in the air – then the serial episode would definitely have been from The Lost City (1935). That serial dealt with a mad scientist and his futuristic city hidden in the African jungle.
THE FOOD OF THE GODS – This was one of the many, MANY “size change” movies of Bert I Gordon, “Mister B.I.G.” himself. (Amazing Colossal Man, Attack of the Puppet People, Earth vs the Spider, Beginning of the End, War of the Colossal Beast, The Cyclops, Village of the Giants, Empire of the Ants, etc.) 
Before MST3K there was The Texas 27 Film Vault. Before Joel and Mike there was Randy and Richard! Before Deep 13 there was Level 31.
THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY YEAR OF THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT CONTINUES! In the middle 1980s/ Way down on Level 31 came this pre-MST3K show about bad and campy movies. Film Vault Technicians 1st Class Richard Malmos and Randy Clower hosted the show along with their friend and cocreator Ken Miller as Tex plus Laurie Savino as the Film Vault Corps’ Mystery Clip Technician. 
QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966) 
Even the show’s co-host and co-creator Randy Clower has been bled dry of information on the show by me. Over the years other fans of the show – and a special shout-out goes to “the Cap’n” – have provided info here and there that often led me to concrete source material. 
FIEND WITH-OUT A FACE (1958)
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