December 10, 2015 · 5:16 pm

SCROOGE LOOSE AND THE CINNAMON CINDER SHOW CHRISTMAS SPECIAL ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Cinammon Cinder ShowIn the middle 1980s/ Way down on Level 31 …

Before MST3K there was The Texas 27 Film Vault! Balladeer’s Blog continues its celebration of this neglected cult show’s THIRTIETH anniversary.

On the Saturday before Christmas in 1985 our machine-gun toting Film Vault Technicians First Class presented Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, but since that flick has been shown by every single Movie Host show in history I opted to feature this 1986 holiday item instead.

EPISODE ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday December 20th, 1986 from 10:30pm to 1:00am.

scrooge looseSERIAL: Since this was a Christmas episode our heroes from the fictional Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) took a break from their pre-movie serial of the moment and instead showed and mocked a pair of short items with a Yuletide air. FIRST: Scrooge Loose, an 8 minute Gumby stop-motion animation treat from 1957. Gumby and his equine pal Pokey spot Ebenezer Scrooge escaping from Continue reading →

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December 9, 2015 · 11:10 pm

EDISON’S CONQUEST OF MARS (1898): PART TWO

Edison's Conquest of Mars 3Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of Garrett P Serviss’ odd sequel to Fighters From Mars, his blatant imitation of War of the Worlds.

PART TWO

The word from astronomers around the globe indicated that the Martians were making preparations for another attack on the Earth. Panic spread rapidly and a rash of suicides made the news.

Meanwhile America’s Thomas Edison was leading an international team of scientists including Kelvin and Roentgen. The scientists succeeded in reverse-engineering the space-ships of the Martians and proved that the people of Earth could replicate them and form a space fleet of their own. In addition Edison created a disintegrator ray based on concepts from Martian technology. 

In a daring test flight Edison and a select crew flew their first spaceship to the moon, landed and returned to the Earth before informing the world that there was hope that humanity could fight the Martians on equal terms this time. Within days most of the world’s leaders decided on holding a summit with President McKinley in Washington, DC to lay out a strategy for constructing a space fleet armed with Edison’s disintegrating weapons.    Continue reading →

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December 9, 2015 · 5:12 pm

NONEXISTENT ISLAMOPHOBIA

OBAMA: THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WANTS THE MUSLIM VOTE, THEREFORE WE MUST CONVINCE THEM THAT OUR PARTY IS ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN THEM AND MOBS OF HATE-FILLED AMERICANS!

OBAMA: THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WANTS THE MUSLIM VOTE, THEREFORE WE MUST CONVINCE MUSLIMS THAT OUR PARTY IS ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN THEM AND MOBS OF HATE-FILLED AMERICANS!

In his speech the other night the weak, inept and crooked little man named Barack Obama spent more than twice as many words lecturing Americans about “Islamophobia” than he did actually talking about the Islamic State, the organization involved in recruiting the San Bernardino Muslim terrorists who recently killed 14 people and injured roughly 20 more.  

America is not Islamophobic nor is it an uninviting nation to Islam. Prior to the 9-11 attacks there were 1,209 mosques in the U.S. Today there are more than 3,000 with more being built all the time. Obama and his fellow pompous, condescending asses must be implying that Muslims are masochists since they obviously love migrating to America, a hotbed of Islamophobia according to them.

The Muslim immigrant population in the U.S has increased exponentially since the September 11th, 2001 attacks. Remarkably tolerant for a nation that Little Barry and company love to depict as hate-filled and bigoted.

Islamophobia posterObviously Muslims themselves have no problem realizing how inviting America really is. Lying demagogues like Barack Obama and other politicians are fighting a problem that doesn’t exist to distract attention away from their failed policies when it comes to dealing with the Islamic State that was spawned by Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq.      

When your loved ones are killed by a Muslim terrorist Obama and company will pretend that the dead mean nothing – to them the REAL danger is that somewhere, some paranoid Muslim might feel that they are being regarded with suspicion.  Continue reading →

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December 8, 2015 · 9:49 pm

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1947): LEYENDA DE NAVIDAD

Leyenda de NavidadWelcome to another installment of Balladeer’s Blog’s annual orgy of versions of A Christmas Carol. This version was produced in Spain in 1947 (and was remade for Spanish television in 1966 ) and the Spanish language title is Leyenda de Navidad ( Legend of Christmas, of course).

The film was written and directed by Manuel Tamayo (who wrote the screenplay for the 1955 feature Tarde de Toros) This is a wonderful version for several reasons, not the least of which would be its well-done (for the time period) sets of 1843 London.

We’ll take the differences and similarities to other versions in order – 1. Scrooge has several people working for him for some reason, not just Bob Cratchit and NONE of them get Christmas Day off from this Scrooge  …

2.  Marley’s Ghost steps out of a life-sized portrait of the man that adorns the wall above a fireplace, and returns to that portrait after his standard warning about the 3 Ghosts …

3. Transportation through time with Continue reading →

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December 8, 2015 · 5:52 pm

CAIR FIGURES CONVICTED OF MUSLIM TERROR-RELATED CRIMES

CAIRCAIR (Council on American- Islamic Relations) often tries to pass itself off as some sort of public service organization promoting friendly relations between Muslims and Non-Muslims (provided the Non-Muslims accept Muslims limiting their freedoms).

In reality a number of CAIR leaders have been CONVICTED (not just accused) of jihadist terror-related crimes. Here are just a few. Continue reading →

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December 8, 2015 · 12:56 am

PRECIOUS FIND (1996) AND ENIGMA (1982) – TWO MORE BAD MOVIES SET AT CHRISTMAS TIME

Precious Find goodPRECIOUS FIND (1996) – This is a hilariously bad attempt to do a science fiction version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. That description makes this movie sound much, MUCH better than it really is.

In the far future a lunar colony called Moon City is the jumping-off point for prospectors who travel to various asteroids trying to strike “precious finds” in the form of valuable metals and precious stones. The Christmas background adds to the fun in this UN-intentional comedy.

Rutger Hauer, whose performances run the quality gamut from Lawrence Olivier to Nicolas Cage, is very firmly in Cage territory in this bomb. Hauer plays Armond Crille, a former prospector who has given up hard work for the more lucrative trade of fleecing bored prospectors at the card-playing tables. Watching Rutger Hauer dance with the two hookers his character wins in the opening scene will have you rolling in the aisle with laughter.   

Brion James specializes in playing good-hearted simpletons and menacing simpletons. This time around he’s the good-hearted simpleton Sam Horton, whose eclectic musical tastes are his standout feature. 

Joan Chen portrays Camilla Jones, a spaceship captain with all the personality of the doorknob Chen’s character on Twin Peaks wound up getting her soul trapped in. Chen is around just because the filmmakers apparently decided they had to throw in a love interest, even though the film they’re imitating didn’t waste time with such nonsense. Continue reading →

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December 7, 2015 · 8:30 pm

OBAMA’S PEARL HARBOR SPEECH

Ever wonder how Obama's presidency might have been different if he was a man?

Ever wonder how Obama’s presidency might have been different if he was a man?

Balladeer’s Blog is still the only site on the web that criticizes both Liberals and Conservatives equally. When innocent people get killed by Muslim terrorists Barack Obama’s response is to lecture the nation whose diverse people elected him twice about what disgusting bigots he and his fellow pompous asses consider Americans to be. This weak and pathetic little man even says “ISIL” instead of “ISIS” just to grovel for Muslim fanatics who prefer the acronym “ISIL”.  

Obama’s creation of the Islamic State through his premature withdrawal from Iraq and his general “masochism as foreign policy” approach made me decide to run with a Balladeer’s Blog look at how this coward and fool might have handled the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. 

For starters Little Barry would have been too busy with golfing, fundraisers and tentative spin doctoring to even address the nation until sometime around January 24th, 1942. And that’s being optimistic. 

” My fellow Americans, I speak to you today as a special guest on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show. I am addressing you this evening about the Continue reading →

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December 7, 2015 · 3:06 pm

OBAMA: I’M SICK OF HAVING TO PRETEND I CARE ABOUT FIGHTING MUSLIM VIOLENCE

The Child In Chief and his selfie stick. There are teenagers with more gravitas than Obama.

The Child In Chief and his selfie stick. There are teenagers with more gravitas than Obama.

Barack Obama never looks more resentful and petulant than he does when political protocol demands that he pretend he actually cares about fighting Muslim fanatics who are at war with the civilized world. Last night’s speech was the latest example. To Little Barry and his fellow political robots the citizens of the United States are the REAL enemy of world peace and Obama grows more and more furious every time he has to half-heartedly act like he doesn’t think dead Americans deserved their fate.

An ass will be an ass, however, so Little Barry eventually drifted into his usual inane pretense that gun control laws would have stopped the illegally obtained guns and explosives that were used by the latest Muslim terrorists in San Bernardino. And no, I’ve never owned a gun so don’t bother implying that only “gun nuts” feel that way.  Continue reading →

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December 7, 2015 · 12:11 am

A CHRISTMAS CAROL: FRANK BAXTER VERSION

Frank BaxterBalladeer’s Blog’s Christmas Carol-A-Thon for 2015 continues! This time around I’m examining a 1965 production from California PBS station KCET. The title may not sound action-packed and appealing but Dr Frank Baxter was to the 1950s and 1960s what Carl Sagan and The Reduced Shakespeare Company were to later decades.

Just as The Reduced Shakespeare Company made the works of the Bard of Avon more accessible and therefore more popular among non-Shakespeare fans Dr Baxter’s Shakespeare on TV series inspired younger generations to take an interest in the works of the great Elizabethan playwright.

And like Carl Sagan’s series Cosmos made him a virtual rockstar of the scientific field Dr Baxter’s entertaining and educational Bell Laboratory  Science Series of film shorts made him enormously popular among teachers and students in every school that used those shorts as classroom aids. The Bell Laboratory Science Series educational shorts were so effective and beloved they were still being used in the 70s and 80s.

This black & white hour-long holiday special features Baxter at a Continue reading →

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December 6, 2015 · 1:16 am

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: LATEST PLAYOFF AND BOWL RESULTS

* NJCAA CHAMPIONSHIP *

Northwest Mississippi Rangers helmet NEWMISSISSIPPI BOWL – The number 1 NORTHWEST MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE RANGERS clashed with the 2nd ranked ROCHESTER TECH YELLOW JACKETS for the NJCAA title. The Rangers held the Yellow Jackets scoreless until the 4th Quarter while scoring at will themselves. At the Half Northwest Mississippi led 35-0 on their way to a 66-13 annihilation of Rochester Tech. * The Rangers are NJCAA Champions for 2015.* 

* NAIA *

Southern Oregon RaidersFIRST SEMIFINAL – The SOUTHERN OREGON UNIVERSITY RAIDERS – the defending champions of NAIA football – visited the MORNINGSIDE COLLEGE MUSTANGS yesterday. The Raiders led 6-0 in the 1st Quarter but trailed the Mustangs 7-6 at Halftime. The 3rd Quarter ended with SOU on top 23-21 and in the 4th the Raiders outscored the Mustangs 7-6 for a 30-27 victory and a return trip to the title game on December 19th. Continue reading →

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