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THE HUNTRESS (2000-2001) MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOUNTY HUNTERS FOR MOTHER’S DAY 2026

THE HUNTRESS (2000-2001) – This Forgotten Television series is appropriate for Mother’s Day. Annette O’Toole and Jordana Spiro starred in what was basically a continuation of the Steve McQueen movie The Hunter. McQueen depicted the real-life bounty hunter Ralph “Papa” Thorson.

In 1994 Thorson was killed by one of his previous captures via car bomb. He also planned on killing Ralph’s widow Dottie Thorson and daughter Brandi. The two women carried on “Papa” Thorson’s bounty hunting business while simultaneously dodging assassination attempts by the man who killed their father and husband.

This actually happened and was covered in the True Crime book Deadly Games, written by Christopher Keane, who had also written The Hunter, on which the Steve McQueen film was based.

A made-for-TV movie titled The Huntress was produced in 2000 about the mother-daughter bounty hunters based on Keane’s book and launched the 2000-2001 series of the same title. The series ran for 28 episodes in the spirit of previous television dramas about real-life figures like Serpico, Elliott Ness and others.

Keane wrote or co-wrote nearly every episode.

THE HUNTRESS – This telefilm aired March 7th, 2000 with Annette O’Toole portraying Dottie Thorson and Aleksa Paladino playing Brandi Thorson. Paladino would be replaced by Jordana Spiro for the subsequent series. Craig T. Nelson played Ralph Thorson before his murder.

Alanna Ubach played another real-life character – Robin Ripley, a tough juvenile placed in Dottie Thorson’s temporary custody. The chemistry among the three actresses is great, with daughter Brandi focused and ready, mother Dottie struggling to adjust to bounty hunting and Robin providing extra street-savvy.  Continue reading

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BAD MOVIE: HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! LOVE, GEORGE (1973)

Despite the movie poster’s warning this flick won’t even untie your shoelaces.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! LOVE, GEORGE (1973) – Directed by THE Darren McGavin and featuring his wife Kathie Browne in a small role, this hilariously bizarre film is also known as Run, Stranger, Run. “Run, Potential Viewer, Run” would be a more appropriate title. 

Happy Mother’s Day Love, George  (henceforth HMDLG) is often described as a psycho-sexual thriller but actually it is nothing more than a melodramatic soap opera with a few murders and VERY few scenes of blood and gore. Those blood and gore scenes are so over-the-top they are completely at odds with the low-key, almost made-for-tv mildness of the rest of the movie.

This was a theatrical release but is so subdued and slow-paced it seems like a telefilm. You and your friends can keep yourselves entertained making jokes about the recognizable cast members to kill time since the first murder doesn’t happen until we’re more than an hour into this flick.

Mascot FOUR original pics

Balladeer’s Blog

Ron Howard IS Johnny, a teenager who has come to town to discover who his birth parents are but who mostly just stands around staring at people and ESPECIALLY at houses. He seems completely taken aback that the townspeople find this somewhat creepy. Johnny is intrigued by the rash of missing persons plaguing the small town and feels they are connected to the secret of his past. Continue reading

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FRENCH-CREATED SUPERHEROES

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at several superheroes created in France.

FANTAX

Debut Year: 1946

Secret Identity: Horace Neighbour

Origin: Horace Neighbour was a diplomatic attache at his country’s embassy in Washington D.C. He decided to fight international and purely American menaces by adopting the costumed identity Fantax. As Horace he was suave & sophisticated and as Fantax he was tough & streetwise. 

Powers: Fantax was in peak physical condition and was an expert at unarmed combat. He was also more agile than an acrobat and was skilled with a knife. This hero would periodically wield a gun or blunt objects. In addition, Fantax was a master detective.

Comment: Fantax’s wife Barbara sometimes assisted him, as did his butler Murph and muscular aide P’tit Louis. This hero’s foes included the Cobra, the Black Tigers, Nazi fugitives, the Gentleman Ghost, the Mafia, the Werewolf, the Ku Klux Klan and the Mikado. Later, Fantax’s son Horace fils became the costumed superhero Garcon Noir (Black Boy).

SALTARELLA 

Debut Year: 1980

Secret Identity: Priscilla “Bibi” Conway

Origin: The insectoid alien race called the Svizz wanted to conquer the Earth with an army of human slaves granted insect-related superpowers. As the costumed Saltarella, this heroine rebelled against the Svizz and helped defeat the interstellar invasion, then battled other evil forces afterward.

Powers: Saltarella could fly via the wings added to her body by the Svizz, possessed super-strength (say, the proportionate strength of a winged insect), was capable of long leaps and could shrink. Priscilla was a former Olympic gymnast and was very agile.

Comment: Priscilla Conway was a top-level research entomologist. Among her other foes were Psi, the Gondolier Noir, Microbios, l’Executeur, Cagliostro and Vaudou. Continue reading

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THE FOURTEEN-YEAR POKER GAME

THE FOURTEEN-YEAR POKER GAME – This legendary poker game in all likelihood never really happened but has come to embody the early 20th Century wildness of Thurmond, WV. During America’s coal boom Thurmond attracted the wealthy including mine and railroad tycoons. It became such a hub of gambling, drinking, prostitution and partying that it’s been called the Las Vegas of its era.

The poker game that supposedly lasted for fourteen years was set in Thurmond’s Dun Glen Hotel, also spelled as the Dunglen Hotel. The establishment’s bar and gambling room operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Amounts in some of the individual pots being competed for numbered in the tens of thousands of dollars, which would be equal to hundreds of millions of dollars here in 2026. Continue reading

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A RECIPE FOR SEDUCTION (2020) COMEDY PLAYED STRAIGHT-FACED AS LESLIE NIELSEN

A RECIPE FOR SEDUCTION (2020) – This 15-minute short was put together by KFC and Lifetime Television in what deserves to be recognized for the intentional comedy that it is! Yes, it would be even funnier if it wasn’t trying to be, but too many reviewers apparently miss the point.

I love Bad Movies as much as anybody, so I settled in to finally watch A Recipe for Seduction ready to laugh at it based on reviews implying its ludicrous premise was being played straight. Instead, I wound up laughing at how perfectly this short film/ comedy advertisement parodies Lifetime Television’s steamy romance flicks.

Our characters:

MARIO LOPEZ plays a hunkified COLONEL HARLAN SANDERS of KFC fame. One look at the way he’s made up should have alerted grumpy critics to the fact that this thing is not to be taken seriously! Hell, his makeup is just a few adjustments away from making him a hunkified Orville Redenbacher, but we’ll never get to see THAT parody because of how badly misunderstood A Recipe for Seduction was.

This A.C. Slaterific Colonel Sanders/ Sid Dithers is a master chef at a ritzy restaurant but at heart he wants to use his secret recipe for fried chicken to capture the world’s taste buds and stomachs despite the scorn his ambitions receive from the snobbish rich pigs he works among.    Continue reading

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FORGOTTEN TELEVISION: THE BEST OF THE (SATURDAY EVENING) POST

THE BEST OF THE POST (1960-1961) – This anthology series ran for 26 half-hour episodes, all of them in color and all of them based on short stories published in the Saturday Evening Post. John Conte hosted.

STANDOUT EPISODES:

COMMAND aka CAVALRY COMMAND – In the post-Civil War American southwest a cavalry captain and his young lieutenant clash over issues of command. Meanwhile, a conflict with Native Americans rages. Starring Everett Sloane and Ben Cooper.

THE LITTLE TERROR – A little girl (Patty Ann Gerrity) learns she has the power to make things disappear by whispering the word “oogledeboo.” Though her grandfather (Charles Ruggles) tries to get her to stop using her power she still experiments with it. Hey, maybe the Twilight Zone‘s little kid who wishes people into the cornfield got his start this same way. Also with Robert Quarry himself.

THE MARRIAGE THAT COULDN’T SUCCEED – June Lockhart stars as a blind woman whose marriage to a miner faces various challenges. When he goes off to war and is Missing in Action, she refuses to lose faith that he is still alive.  Continue reading

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CELTIC MYTHOLOGY: THE FEAST OF BRICRIU

THE FEAST OF BRICRIU (Fled Bricrenn) – The Book of the Dun Cow version of this tale is dated to around the 700s A.D. and is considered the forerunner of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in British legends.

The frequent troublemaker of Irish myths – Bricriu – holds a feast in his new banquet hall at Dun Rudraige. He invites all the nobles of Ulster and, always a jerk, starts a conflict at the party by having three heroes argue over which of them deserves the Curadmir – the champion’s portion of the feast. Continue reading

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THE VAMPIRA SHOW (1954-1955) TOP MOVIES SHOWN

Vampira

Vampira and her Movie Host show are still remembered fondly here in the present day. For something a little different in a Bad Movie Host item this time around, I’ll follow up my original post about her from long ago with a look at my favorites from the films shown on The Vampira Show.

Like almost all hosts and hostesses, Vampira (Maila Nurmi) had no control over the movies shown and the station saddled her with a bunch of lame detective and mystery films mixed in with the old horror flicks that the program is remembered for.

Here are what I consider to be the most fitting films from the short run of The Vampira Show.

PREVIEW: DIG ME LATER, VAMPIRA (Apr 30th, 1954) – A special devoted to hyping Vampira’s movie show which would start the next night.

THE FACE OF MARBLE (1946) – John “He’s probably even in the Zapruder Film if you look hard enough” Carradine stars as a mad scientist who is trying to use electrical and chemical treatments to revive the recently deceased. Human and animal test subjects come back to life able to walk through solid objects and are controlled by John’s voodoo-practicing maid. William “One-Shot” Beaudine directed and Willie Best was on hand as the butler. Continue reading

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AMERICA 250: 1876 MONTH BY MONTH

America’s 250th birthday is coming up in July, so over the next few months Balladeer’s Blog will take a look at various anniversary years. Last month I did 1826, so this time it’s 1876. Next will be 1926 and 1976.

Centennial Mirror

1876

U.S. President: Ulysses S. Grant    Vice President: Vacant. Henry Wilson had died on Nov 22nd, 1875 and the 25th Amendment requiring a new Vice President to fill any such vacancy would not be passed until 1967.     Speaker of the House: Michael C. Kerr     Chief Justice: Morrison R. Waite

Number of Senators: 76    Number of House Representatives: 293    Number of Supreme Court Justices: 9

JANUARY

12th – Future writer Jack London is born.

13th – Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, noted for his anti-slavery position even before the U.S. Civil War, passes away.

26th – The Northampton Bank in Massachusetts is robbed of $1,600,000 (worth $49,400,000 here in 2026), the largest such robbery in U.S. history at the time. The robbery was planned by America’s “King of the Bank Robbers” George Leonidas Leslie. George Leslie was involved in an astonishing EIGHTY PERCENT of U.S. bank robberies from 1869-1878.

     After this caper, Leslie broke ties with accomplices Thomas Dunlap and Robert Scott over their gratuitous use of violence since George preferred bloodless affairs. 

FEBRUARY

Exact Date Unknown – The first issue of the satirical publication The Harvard Lampoon is nailed to a tree on campus. 

2nd – The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs is formed. Significantly, the organization replaced the National Association of Baseball Players, setting the stage for owner and management abuse of players. Continue reading

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