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.
This show was broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma on Saturday nights from 10:30PM to 1:00AM.
MOVIE: The Food of the Gods (1976).
ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Sometime in 1985, possibly February or March. Some info points to this being the first episode in which Randy and Richard used their machine guns and “prop-pack” mini-copters to fight giant rats from deep in the Earth. Given how central the giant rats would be going forward IF that can be verified it would make this a pretty pivotal episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault.
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.
COMEDY SKETCHES: The Film Vault Corps (“The few, the proud, the sarcastic”), led by Randy, Richard and Ken “Tex” Miller POSSIBLY taking on the first of many packs of giant rats. The effects, models and dolls of the human figures would – for humor’s sake – have been INTENTIONALLY as cheesy as the kind Bert I. Gordon used in The Food of the Gods and so many of his other “gigantic monster” films.
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.)
The Food of the Gods was very loosely based on part of H.G. Wells’ novel of the same name. Gordon’s Village of the Giants, about a gang of giant-sized teenagers, was likewise loosely based on an often-forgotten section of that novel. Continue reading
I WAS A TEENAGE TIME LORD – In the style of Tom Baker & Jon Pertwee Doctor Who episodes and vintage Golden Turkeys of the past with faint undertones of old movie host shows comes this self-indulgent blog post. 
My imaginary character wasn’t an alien from Gallifrey or anything, he was just from Earth of the future and wound up stranded in the past. His futuristic science kept him from aging, and he spent his time helping human beings battle weird menaces. 
FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (1965) – This black & white film is on many people’s lists of the worst movies ever made, so it was a dream come true for young me. Martian women have been rendered sterile from the radiation of the planet’s nuclear war. 
The Red Planet’s Princess Marcuzan, her chief scientist Nadir and some troops have come to Earth, where they abduct nubile women vacationing in Puerto Rico to use as breeding stock. The aliens are opposed by a heroic android astronaut called Frank, supposedly short for First Robot Astronaut Corps. 
The half-melted android (after crashing his craft) battles the aliens to save Earth ladies, ultimately fighting the space monster the Martians brought with them. For a couple minutes, anyway. 
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.
SERIAL: Before showing and mocking John Carradine’s Billy the Kid vs Dracula our members of the Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) showed and mocked an episode of the Mascot Serial The Phantom Empire (1935). 
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)
Balladeer’s Blog has covered many, many Movie Hosts over the years. Pioneers from the 1950s like 
Among the many others that I’ve examined were big names like Elvira, Joe Bob Briggs, and Joel Hodgson of MST3K. Balladeer’s Blog even covered YT figures who combined movie hosting schtick with online film reviewing like 
THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW (1981) 
THE MOVIE: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow was a hilariously melodramatic and irrational documentary playing along with the silly notion that the 16th Century “seer” Nostradamus’ vague and noncommital quatrains predicted major future events. Orson Welles, in his “anything for money” phase, narrated the film. 
FRIGHTMARE THEATER (2015-2022) – Over the years, Balladeer’s Blog has examined plenty of Movie Host Shows, old and new. Frightmare Theater is another hostess-themed film show created, written and directed by Joel Stephens, just like 
Frightmare Theater delivers an entire coven of hostesses, led by Mistress Scarlet (Scarlet Ryan), the red head who rises from her coffin to host the bad movie proceedings. Some of her assistants are Original Cyn (Cyn Renteria), Sister Jane (Jane Victoria Colley) and Sister Monalisa (Monalisa Davinci). Stephens himself appeared as Boris the Butler for a while. 
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