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.
Back when I was 12 or 13 years old and was getting heavily into really old, bad movies I combined that interest with my fondness for schlocky original series Doctor Who episodes. The result was much younger me lazily picturing myself in the Big Bug, Cheap Monster and Goofy Alien films from the 1950s or 1960s and earlier.
I never pictured myself as a Teenage Time Lord exactly, I just used that title for this blog post to capture the feel of ridiculous 50s flicks like I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and others.
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.
In other words, whatever actions the hero of the movie was involved in, my imaginary counterpart was really the one doing them, dressed in sunglasses, an Indiana Jones hat and a baggy three-quarter length coat. No TARDIS of course, just the surviving segment of the crashed time machine in which he had traveled to the past, which served as my/ his mobile lab.
Some of the Psychotronic movies in which I used to half-insert my fictional alter ego long, long ago:
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.
Sounds like a comedy … stings like a bee! All that plus groovy rock songs, too, in this 79-minute schlocker. Continue reading
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)
Joe Namath started life as a Pennsylvania boy. Later in life he became the quarterback for the University of Alabama Crimson Tide under iconic football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. After college he was signed by the New York Jets for what was then the highest-ever contract for a quarterback. 
NORWOOD (1970) – The stunning sequel to True Grit. Okay, I’m kidding! I couldn’t resist since Norwood came out a year after True Grit, was based on another novel by the author of True Grit and starred Glen Campbell and Kim Darby, also from True Grit. Marguerite Roberts wrote the screenplay for both flicks, too. 
Joe William Namath plays Joe William Reese, a friend of Norwood who sees him become a singing sensation. Also in the strange circle of friends are dwarf actor Billy Curtis and runaway bride Rita (Darby). 
SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! (1956) – Rocksploitation at its campiest! In this hilariously bad movie Rock and Roll music is blamed for the Juvenile Delinquency epidemic of the 1950s. 
Balladeer’s Blog’s Forgotten Television feature wraps up its look at 
MOONSHINE MOUNTAIN (1964) – An example of Hicksploitation. H.G. Lewis of all people wrote and SANG for this movie. A country western singer, tired of the artificial feel of mainstream Nashville music, spends some time with his North Carolina relatives to soak up some authentic atmosphere. 
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