Before MST3K there was … The Texas 27 Film Vault!
In the middle 1980s, way down on Level 31 Randy Clower and Richard Malmos, machine-gun toting Film Vault Technicians First Class hosted this neglected cult show.
Balladeer’s Blog continues its celebration of the program’s THIRTIETH anniversary year.
ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday November 2nd, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am.
SERIAL: Before showing and mocking the movie our members of the Film Vault Corps (“The few, the proud, the sarcastic”) usually showed and mocked chapters of old Republic or Columbia serials. For this episode a break was taken from Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Instead the 1977 Centron Educational short Halloween Safety was shown and mocked for its seasonal relevance.
Halloween Safety was eleven minutes long and is as much fun to riff on as such old shorts generally are. The killjoy Safety Czars at Centron do their best to drain as much fun from Trick or Treating as they can, although they never approach Sid Davis levels of paranoia.
The funniest part of the short is when the little girl is browbeaten by the narrator to change from her black witch costume (poor visibility for drivers) to an all-white witch’s costume, which, with the peaked hat and flowing robe makes her look like she’s auditioning for a role in The Littlest Klansman. Though the little black kid in whiteface is a close second.
Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault
FILM VAULT LORE: Randy and Richard often joked that The Texas 27 Film Vault showed just about every movie with the word “blood” in the title. That’s nowhere near true, of course, but they did show a lot of them. Previously Balladeer’s Blog has reviewed Randy and Richard’s airing of Blood Freak, Queen of Blood and Blood Beach. There are a few more to come after this one, too, including Blood Orgy of the She Devils and the infamous bit where the local tv listings refused to run the title of the movie. (Hey, it was mid-1980’s Texas and Oklahoma.)
THE MOVIE: Blood of Dracula’s Castle was directed by Bad Movie icon Al Adamson and is a fun Monster Rally turkey for the Halloween time of year. The Texas 27 Film Vault also showed a few other Al Adamson anti-classics like Dracula vs Frankenstein and Vampire Men of the Lost Planet. Continue reading
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