
Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault
Balladeer’s Blog’s fondness for the old Movie Host Shows of long ago has been well established. Today is the 33rd Anniversary of the very first episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault from Saturday, February 9th of 1985. My psychotically obsessive research on the show has yielded a lot of info over the years but I have now worn out every source I could find.
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.
Anyway, here are some movies that we have general, varied reason to believe were shown on The Texas 27 Film Vault but I need original broadcast dates, info on comedy sketches or movie ticket give-aways, etc. Episodes aired for 2 and a half hours Saturday nights from 10:30pm to 1:00am in Texas and Oklahoma.
FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (1958)
The Film: “Thought Monsters” leech into atomic energy, then extract human brains and spinal columns to use as their corporeal forms. This is a Bad Movie Classic remembered largely because of the scenes where the flying brains, sporting antennae, attack their prey, with their spinal cord “tails” streaming along behind them.
Serial Episode: No idea, for now.
Reason for believing it was shown: Some of the Flying Brain Creatures are on the 1987 Texas 27 Film Vault poster.
EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956)
The Film: The title says it all for this fun but weird black & white time-waster.
Serial Episode: Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe.
Reason for believing it was shown: Tex (Ken Miller) announced it was to be the movie “Next time on The Texas 27 Film Vault” on one of the surviving episodes that I have.
THEY SAVED HITLER’S BRAIN (1963/ 1968)
The Film: This movie is so infamous surely nobody needs any information from me at this late date.
Serial Episode: No idea, for now.
Reason for believing it was shown: It is mentioned by the hosts in some episodes AND appears on the 1987 T27FV poster.

THE MANIPULATORS (1970) – The words “gritty” and “streetwise” seem never to be used when describing vintage television programs from Canada but they certainly apply to The Manipulators (Originally the title was to be The Clients). 
It’s been just over two weeks since the finale of the 18 episode run of new Twin Peaks chapters on cable. Like many other fans I’m still digesting some of those new episodes in light of the gloriously dark and nightmarish conclusion, so this particular blog post applies ONLY to the original Twin Peaks television series, the 1992 film Fire Walk With Me and its deleted scenes from The Missing Pieces.
Most of the tales of supposedly bizarre events floating around the internet usually wind up being exaggerations or outright fabrications. Not so the strange story of the Eriksson Twins, Ursula and Sabine. Their brief spurt of wildly eerie behavior on a British motorway in 2008, the murder of a man who tried to help one of the twins and the many unanswered questions surrounding the case are eerily perplexing. (What WERE they doing with all those cell phones that didn’t belong to them?)
Say what you will about Mondays, I don’t know how anyone can feel anything but great today after last night’s developments in Twin Peaks: The Return.
I was one of the people who was actually okay last week with Philip Jeffries being reincarnated as a teapot-kinda-thingie because hey – David Bowie’s dead in real life. With that voice actor imitating Bowie pretty well maybe they’ll give us a brief scene of old Bowie footage with this guy dubbing in new dialogue for a Jeffries Tulpa. 


If you enjoyed Robert Shaw’s freebooting turn as the pirate Red Ned Lynch in the 1976 movie Swashbuckler you’ll love him as Captain Dan Tempest in this series from the 1950’s. Shaw was equal parts Errol Flynn and Jack Sparrow on the program, which featured him as the captain of the Sultana.