Tag Archives: Balladeer’s Blog

BALLADEER’S BLOG COLLEGE BASKETBALL: REMAINING TOURNAMENTS

NJCAA DIVISION TWO

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – The KIRKWOOD COLLEGE EAGLES and the PARKLAND COLLEGE COBRAS clashed for this title. The entire game was a defensive epic, with the Eagles on top 29-24 at Halftime before holding on tight against a Cobras rally from there. The final score was Kirkwood 55  Parkland 54. Germaine Benson led the victors with 12 points. 

NJCAA DIVISION THREE

FIRST SEMIFINAL – In this game the HERKIMER COLLEGE GENERALS took on the RICHLAND COLLEGE THUNDERDUCKS. The defenses dominated the opening Half as the Thunderducks led Herkimer College by a mere 22-19 at the break. The Generals came alive in the 2nd Half, winning the game 72-59. Jayson McGhee tossed in 25 points to lead HC and his teammate Oladele Oladitan logged a Double Double of 20 points and 15 rebounds. Continue reading

6 Comments

Filed under College Basketball

PSYCHOTRONIC BIKER FILMS

Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at some of the most Psychotronic biker movies of all time in all their weird glory. 

WEREWOLVES ON WHEELS (1971) – You just knew this was the movie I would start with. A biker gang hassles a group of Satanists in the usual biker way in films. The Satanists get revenge by cursing some of the bikers to start turning into werewolves and preying on the others. 

Werewolves on Wheels gets worse as it goes along and degenerates into a VERY weird acid trip of a horror movie before completely collapsing in its final minutes. Severn Darden plays the lead Satanist and the biker gang “boasts” Barry “Eve of Destruction” Maguire and Billy “Father Knows Best” Gray among its members.

WARNING: BIZARRE, TRANSGRESSIVE AND TASTELESS THEMES AWAIT BELOW. Continue reading

20 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies

MEMORABLE QUOTES

Mascot sword and pistolA change of pace blog post for Tuesday. 

“Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.” – Nicolas Chamfort 

“There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” – Albert Camus

“Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.” – Norman Douglas

“To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.” – George Santayana

“A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent.” – Logan Pearsall Smith

“Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.” – Honore de Balzac Continue reading

22 Comments

Filed under opinion

THE ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK SHOW (1969-1970) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

THE ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK SHOW (1969-1970) – No, it wasn’t a Meeting of Minds type of educational program depicting the long-ago German composer Engelbert Humperdinck interacting with other historical figures. Although I would have watched a show like that! (But I’m kind of weird.)

This project starred the Euro-Vegas crooner who also used the name Engelbert Humperdinck, presumably on a dare or something. (I’m kidding.) Picture the comedy series Viva Variety played straight – that’s the aesthetic of The Engelbert Humperdinck Show.

Each episode Engelbert welcomed equally non-threatening and bland entertainers for an hour of music and comedy the way grandma and grandpa used to love. I’m not seriously attacking the show, just pointing out how tastes change over the decades. 

THE EPISODES:

PILOT (Dec 2nd, 1969) – The Dinckster shared the stage with Barbara Eden, Jose Feliciano, Dionne Warwick and his entertainment doppelganger Tom Jones. The Mike Sammes Singers, the Jack Parnell Orchestra and the Paddy Stone Dancers were on hand as well. This episode was rebroadcast on December 26th. 

EPISODE ONE (Jan 21st, 1970) – E-Bert’s guests this time were Tony Bennett, Leslie Uggams, Donald O’Connor and Ed Bishop from UFO. The Irving Davies Dancers joined the Mike Sammes Singers and the Jack Parnell Orchestra as the figurative house entertainers.

Mr. Humperdinck sang Marry Me, The Best Things in Life are Free, When I Fall in Love and Winter World of Love. Bennett did MacArthur Park (I swear!), What the World Needs Now and For Once in My Life.

Uggams sang Come Together and Free Again, while O’Connor belted out The Joker is Me and Look at that Face plus did a World War One Flying Ace comedy sketch with laugh meister Engelbert. Continue reading

8 Comments

Filed under Forgotten Television

COLLEGE BASKETBALL: NJCAA and CCCAA TOURNAMENT RESULTS

NJCAA DIVISION ONE

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – The TRINITY VALLEY COLLEGE CARDINALS and the CONNORS STATE COWBOYS squared off against each other for this division’s crown. The teams went basket for basket in the opening Half, which ended in a 32-32 tie. After the break the Cardinals pulled away from the Cowboys for a 69-61 triumph. Zati Loubaki and Garrett Nuckolls led TVC with 17 points each.

NJCAA DIVISION TWO

FIRST SEMIFINAL – In this game the PARKLAND COLLEGE COBRAS faced the PIMA COLLEGE AZTECS. Come Halftime the Cobras were on top of Pima College 44-38. From there Parkland College left the Aztecs further and further behind to win the game 95-74. Adam Squire led the Cobras with 23 points while teammate Jaden Martin logged a Double Double of 13 points and 10 rebounds. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under College Basketball

HORROR OF PARTY BEACH (1964) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

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

12 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts

THE CLOCK III: MAY 1940-SEP 1941

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog is my 3rd look at the original run of the Clock, who debuted in 1936 – BEFORE Superman (1938) and Batman (1939). PART ONE: 1936-1939. PART TWO: 1939-1940.

CRACK COMICS #1 (May 1940)

Title: The Story of Pug Brady

Villain: The Big Shot

Synopsis: Brian O’Brien, the wealthy playboy who is really the superhero called the Clock, acquires his very first sidekick. Pat “Pug” Brady, a former boxer becomes O’Brien’s chauffer in this issue.

Our hero takes Pug into his confidence and tells him he is really the Clock and the former prizefighter becomes his aide in crimefighting. This adventure finds the Clock bringing down a masked villain called the Big Shot who is trying to take over New York City via his gang of criminals and corrupt police officers.

The Clock exposes the Big Shot as Mayor Kozer and shuts down his entire operation. Continue reading

8 Comments

Filed under Superheroes

ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL (1830)

Consolations in TravelCONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL or THE LAST DAYS OF A PHILOSOPHER (1830) – Written by THE Sir Humphrey Davy, this is largely a work of philosophical discourse but with one section devoted to a science fiction tale: The Vision.   

In that section of the book Sir Humphrey relates a first-person story in which he is taking in the Colosseum in Rome. An extra-terrestrial being calling itself a Genius and claiming to be from the Sun appears to him.

First this honey-voiced being fills him with a series of visions regarding humanity’s history, from prehistoric times to the recent past. After that the visitor from the Sun takes him on a tour of our solar system.

Mascot new lookThe first planet they travel to is Saturn, where Davy is awestruck by the alien landscape. Strange clouds fill the skies and among the oddest planetary features are large columns of liquid which flow from the ground upward. Saturn is inhabited by intelligent beings with three pairs of wings and organs like elephant trunks dangling from their bodies. Continue reading

6 Comments

Filed under Ancient Science Fiction

COLLEGE BASKETBALL: D3 and NJCAA TOURNAMENTS

NCAA DIVISION THREE

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – It all came down to the TRINITY (CT) BANTAMS fighting it out with the NEW YORK UNIVERSITY VIOLETS. The Violets were threatening an Upset with their 30-27 Halftime edge but Trinity College came out of the locker room ready for a comeback. The Bantams went on to win the game 64-60 led by 20 points from Jarrel Okorougo. Teammate Drew (not Rem) Lazarre logged a Double Double of 10 points and 10 rebounds.

NJCAA DIVISION ONE

FIRST SEMIFINAL – The CONNORS STATE COWBOYS played the SOUTH PLAINS COLLEGE TEXANS. The Cowboys put SPC on Upset Alert at the Half as they led 40-28. From there Connors State carried through, holding on against a Texans rally for an 80-74 triumph. Twenty-eight points from D.J. Dormu led the Cowboys to victory. Continue reading

10 Comments

Filed under College Basketball

VAL KILMER: RIP – TOP SECRET (1984)

With the passing of the one and only Val Kilmer here’s a look at his debut movie, Top Secret

TOP SECRET (1984)

Directed and written by the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams, Top Secret is the Citizen Kane of movies which simultaneously parody spy movies and Elvis Presley flicks.

Val Kilmer, in the years before he took himself way too seriously, could truly do it all and masterfully stars as rock music idol Nick Rivers. Nick gets caught up in an anachronistic World War Two-style spy movie which also incorporates elements of Elvis’ Harum Scarum but with Nazi stereotypes instead of Arab stereotypes.    Continue reading

42 Comments

Filed under humor, opinion