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.
Balladeer’s Blog continues its celebration of the program’s FORTIETH anniversary year. Beginning on Saturday February 9th, 1985 “Film Vault Technicians First Class” Randy and Richard presented old serials and bad or campy movies while wielding their machine guns in defense of “America’s schlock-culture heritage.”
MOVIE: Billy the Kid vs Dracula (1966)
ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday May 18th, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma.
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).
In that classically campy serial Gene Autry played a singing cowboy who saves the world from an advanced underground civilization that comes complete with killer robots who wear cowboy hats. Continue reading
FIRST SEMIFINAL – The 4th seeded JOHNSON UNIVERSITY ROYALS (formerly the Royal Crusaders) took on the 1 seeds – the UNIVERSITY OF PIKEVILLE BEARS. By Halftime the Royals were on top 35-26. After the break the University of Pikeville mounted a small rally but fell short as Johnson U. triumphed 78-73. Isaiah Poore led the victors with 29 points. 
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 
THE DEFENDERS 
THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) 
IN THE CLUTCH OF THE WAR-GOD (1911) – Written by Milo Milton Hastings and serialized in the July, August and September 1911 issues of Physical Culture magazine. 
FIRST QUARTERFINAL – The number 1 seed – the GRACE COLLEGE LANCERS – took on the 8th seeded MT. VERNON NAZARENE UNIVERSITY COUGARS. By Halftime the Lancers were up 45-36, and after the break they left the Cougars further and further behind. In the end, Grace College won the game 83-64 led by Ian Scott with 23 points. 
SECOND QUARTERFINAL – Up next the 2nd seeded BETHEL (IN) PILOTS (Riverboat Pilots) played the 7 seeds – the TAYLOR UNIVERSITY TROJANS. The Pilots got more of a fight than expected from Taylor U. and led them by just 39-35 at the Half. From there Bethel University squeezed out some more distance from the Trojans in their 77-69 victory. Trent Edwards tossed in 22 points to lead the Pilots. 
THE TELEVISION GHOST (1931-1933) – As astonishing at it may seem, there were actually some regularly televised programs on pioneering channels like W2XAB beginning in 1931. Comparatively few people actually had the mechanical television sets of that period when the whole enterprise was highly experimental. Newspaper listings offer most of what little information survives about the broadcasts.
The Television Ghost ran 15 minutes and starred George Kelting as the Ghost with Bill Schudt as an announcer and narrator. The show’s Halloween Episode of 1931 was nicely hyped with a reference to some primitive television special effects magic. 
MOTOR PIRATES (1906) American release title The Modern Pirates – This British action short was directed by England’s monumentally underrated silent film director Arthur Melbourne Cooper. Motor Pirates clocks in at under 9 minutes but crams quite a bit into that runtime. 
The Motor Pirates drive their vehicle on to a country estate where they employ its front-end “suction feature” to vacuum up several chickens. Four men of the estate come out with guns blazing to stop the crooks, but they shoot down their victims, leaving three dead and one barely clinging to life as they drive off. 
DOWN GOES NUMBER ONE – This game pitted the LSU-SHREVEPORT PILOTS (Riverboat Pilots) against their guests, the nation’s number 1 team – the LSU-ALEXANDRIA GENERALS. The Pilots were up 38-31 at the Half before defeating the Generals by a final count of 101-96. Twenty-seven points from Tahjae Hill led LSU-Shreveport.
NAIL-BITER – The INDIANA UNIVERSITY-EAST RED WOLVES took it on the road against the UNIVERSITY OF RIO GRANDE RED STORM. The Red Storm had eked out a 30-29 edge by Halftime, but an equally hard-fought 2nd Half ended in a 63-62 Red Wolves win. Antuane Allen led Indiana University-East with 24 points. 
Balladeer's Blog 