Balladeer’s Blog continues celebrating the FORTIETH anniversary year of this neglected cult show which debuted Saturday night February 9th, 1985. As I often mention, before MST3K came The Texas 27 Film Vault. Before Joel and Mike came Randy and Richard. Before Devil Dogs, Pearl and Deep 13 came Cellumites, Laurie Savino and Level 31.
This show was broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma on Saturday nights from 10:30PM to 1:00AM.
MOVIE: The Food of the Gods (1976).
ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Sometime in 1985, possibly February or March. Some info points to this being the first episode in which Randy and Richard used their machine guns and “prop-pack” mini-copters to fight giant rats from deep in the Earth. Given how central the giant rats would be going forward IF that can be verified it would make this a pretty pivotal episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault.
SERIAL: IF the February or March of 1985 date is correct – and that’s still up in the air – then the serial episode would definitely have been from The Lost City (1935). That serial dealt with a mad scientist and his futuristic city hidden in the African jungle.
COMEDY SKETCHES: The Film Vault Corps (“The few, the proud, the sarcastic”), led by Randy, Richard and Ken “Tex” Miller POSSIBLY taking on the first of many packs of giant rats. The effects, models and dolls of the human figures would – for humor’s sake – have been INTENTIONALLY as cheesy as the kind Bert I. Gordon used in The Food of the Gods and so many of his other “gigantic monster” films.
THE FOOD OF THE GODS – This was one of the many, MANY “size change” movies of Bert I Gordon, “Mister B.I.G.” himself. (Amazing Colossal Man, Attack of the Puppet People, Earth vs the Spider, Beginning of the End, War of the Colossal Beast, The Cyclops, Village of the Giants, Empire of the Ants, etc.)
The Food of the Gods was very loosely based on part of H.G. Wells’ novel of the same name. Gordon’s Village of the Giants, about a gang of giant-sized teenagers, was likewise loosely based on an often-forgotten section of that novel. Continue reading
THE PHANTOM CHARIOT OF CUCHULAINN (Siaburchapat Con Culaind) – This tale is dated to around the mid-400s A.D. because of the presence of St. Patrick. 
The next day, St. Patrick and King Loegaire are both on hand at the appointed place when Cuchulainn appears, riding in his chariot driven by his usual charioteer Laege. The demigod’s two horses – the Dub Sainglend (black horse of Saingliu) and the Liath Macha (gray horse of Macha) – are pulling the chariot. 
HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY! From People’s Favorite Magazine in 1916 to Argosy in the 1930s, the saga of Irish pirate and mercenary soldier Denis Burke unfolded from the pen of H. Bedford-Jones. The fictional buccaneer deserves to be remembered in the same breath 
FIRST QUARTERFINAL – The 4 seeds – the CROWN COLLEGE POLARS – faced the 5th seeded GRACE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY TIGERS. GCU was on top of the Polars 39-33 by Halftime, but Crown College came out of the locker room ready for a comeback. In the end the Polars triumphed 74-69 led by 24 points from Tyrus Buckner. 
SECOND QUARTERFINAL – The 3rd seeded MANHATTAN CHRISTIAN COLLEGE THUNDER took the court against the 6 seeds – the CAMPBELLSVILLE UNIVERSITY AT HARRODSBURG PIONEERS. At the Half the score was knotted up 38-38. From there the Thunder squeezed out a little separation from the Pioneers for a 72-69 victory. Xavier Lucas led MCC with 20 points. 
SUN GIRL 
SUN GIRL Vol 1 #1 (August 1948) 
Our heroine outfights and outshoots the entire gang and hauls them into a police station. Expository dialogue reveals this is the latest in a rash of bank robberies and Sun Girl vows to lure out the secret leader of the gangs. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
ROUND ONE: GAME ONE – The 4 seeds – the NEWPORT NEWS APPRENTICE SCHOOL BUILDERS (Shipbuilders) played the 5th seeded SOUTHEASTERN ILLINOIS COLLEGE FALCONS. By Halftime the Builders had acquired a 38-30 advantage over SIC. After the break, the Apprentice School pressed down on the accelerator, routing the Falcons by a score of 85-61. Adrion Wall led the Builders with 19 points.
ROUND ONE: GAME TWO – This game pitted the 2nd seeded LYON COLLEGE SCOTS against the 7 seeds – the BRYANT & STRATTON COLLEGE AT BUFFALO BOBCATS. The Scots were on fire and led BSC-Buffalo 48-31 at the midpoint. From there Lyon College squeezed out a bit more separation for an 84-63 triumph. Kylon McCullough’s 23 points led the Scots, while teammate Frank Toney had a Double Double of 14 points & 10 rebounds. 
KAPITAN MORS DER LUFTPIRAT – From 1908 to 1911 the masked Captain Mors, a combination of Robin Hood, Captain Nemo and Robur, appeared in weekly adventures running 32-33 pages. The character’s creator is not known but over his 3-year run various writers were linked to this German series, which was basically a late Dime Novel but early Pulp Magazine. 
After the initial run of 3 years and a few months, the Captain Mors stories were reprinted around Europe in various languages until 1916. The good captain at first adventured in the skies above, then later took his crew to other planets aboard his “world ship” (which we today would call a spaceship) the Meteor. 
FIRE DRILL aka Simulacro de Incendio (1897) – On January 24th of this year, Gabriel Veyre (at left) held the very first exhibition of silent film shorts in Cuban history at a theater in Havana. 
FILM COMMERCIAL FOR LA TROPICAL BEER aka the Missing Sorcerer (1898) – This was the very first film directed by a native Cuban – Jose Esteban Casasús, a noted pioneer of Cuban Cinema. Lasting just under a minute, this short advertised the brewery & product of La Tropical beer and was produced by Cinemataca de Cuba.
CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY (1901) – A film capturing the 1901 assembly, the equivalent of our Constitutional Convention. Following the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War, Cuba produced its first constitution a few years later. That document was openly based on the United States Constitution but had 115 articles instead of America’s 7. 
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