JOE BOB'S GREATEST HITS!

TNT's Monstervision website was a riot, too. If I ever missed a segment or (God forbid) a whole night of Joe Bob, I could read the complete transcript each week. Including Joe Bob's "Jail Break" segments, where he'd answer letters from fans in prison.

Joe Bob's latest gig (aside from the numerous columns he writes) is doing commentary tracks for Elite DVDs. Find out more at Joe Bob's official website. Or read Creature Corner's interview with the man himself.

I'm posting some highlights from the MonsterVision transcripts for other fans to enjoy...

Table of Contents

Intro to Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Hey, Joe Bob Briggs, with the special Halloween edition of "Monster Vision," even though it's not Halloween and last year when we did the Halloween edition of "Monster Vision," we TANKED in the ratings. More people were watching Ukrainian Opera that night than were watching "Monster Vision." The ratings came in the next morning, and the head TNT research guy said, "Everybody watching the show was in Oregon! Both of em." Anyway, that's not gonna happen tonight because we have "Wes Craven's New Nightmare," the best Freddy Krueger sequel, and the ONLY Freddy Krueger sequel directed by Wes Craven, the original creator of "Nightmare on Elm Street." And we're gonna follow that up with another classic sequel, "Halloween II," with Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence. And, of course, both movies will be shown in their full-bore gooey squishy unedited "Monster Vision" versions, with the original artists being dismembered as they were in the theatrical version.

Original artists. Why am I saying that?

What is this "artist" thing?

Have you noticed this? When did 90 per cent of the population start referring to themselves as "artists"?

When did actors become "artists"? You've got these people who have done six episodes of a sitcom, saying, "Well, as an artist, I was looking for more CHALLENGING material, but it's part of the role of an artist in this society . . ."

People who cook food think of themselves as "artists." People who EAT food think of themselves as "artists." MADONNA calls herself an "artist" all the time. In fact, record companies have departments called "Artist Relations," which means the guys who go to motel rooms in the middle of the night and deliver coked-up rock stars to the emergency room.

I was at a bookstore a couple years ago, reading stuff out of my new book, and this guy in the audience asks me, "What do you think the role of the artist is when you're dealing with something as volatile as satire?"

And I said to him, "What is this ARTIST thing? I'm a WRITER. I WRITE stuff. I go on TV and SAY stuff. I don't paint stuff."

You know what people really mean when they say "artist"? They mean somebody who reads Gertrude Stein and hangs out at wine-spritzer coffeehouses in Seattle and writes all their profound thoughts down in a turquoise spiral notebook they bought at a gay and lesbian bookshop in Greenwich Village and have arguments about Malcolm X at Berkeley seminars and go to gallery openings in the Miami Beach Deco District and talk to long-haired Indians at New Age conventions in Santa Fe.

That's what they mean when they say "artist."

You know what a real artist is? A real artist is like a peasant dirt farmer in Bulgaria. He gets up every morning and he works his butt off until he's too tired to work anymore, and then he goes to bed and hopes he has enough energy left in him to harvest the dang crop. At harvest time he gets drunk, waits a few weeks, and then starts all over again.

He doesn't have time to talk about it in college classes. He doesn't have time to go to art exhibits in Jackson Hole or film festivals in Portland. He doesn't have time to sit up night after night at coffeehouses, spouting his philosophy while he sips cappuccino.

A real artist is so busy doing it he doesn't even know he's an artist.

Here's another rule of thumb:

If the person calls himself an "artist," he's probably not. That's my opinion anyhow. I like to cover all subjects here. I'm looking over here at the camera artist, to see if he agrees with me. He's thinking, "That jerk! I AM an artist. An artist of LIGHT." You're a cameraman, get used to it.

All right, here we go. "Wes Craven's New Nightmare." Heather Langenkamp is back from the original movie, trying to live out her suburban dream life, when Freddy Krueger starts showing up in her young SON's dreams. This is one of those where-does-the- reality-end-and-the-film-begin kinda concepts, where Heather is actually playing the ACTRESS Heather, who starred in the original "Nightmare," and Wes Craven plays himself, and a lot of the other people from the original play themselves, including Bob Shaye, the president of New Line Cinema! That's not a guy playing a movie executive--that's a movie executive! In fact, it's the very movie executive who gave the go-ahead to make the actual movie we're watching. Kinda boggles the brain, doesn't it? Anyhow, we'll talk about it as we go on, but let's just run down those drive-in totals. We have: Three dead bodies. Hand-hacking. Bloody-stump blood-spurting. Five earthquakes. Chest-ripping. Two motor vehicle crashes. One epileptic fit, with white-goo spitting. Arm-slashing. Blood-spitting. Neck-crushing. Levitating babysitter. Nurse-pummeling. Eel to the eyeball. Knife to the leg. Exploding underground demonic temple. Four stars. Check it out--we'll be here.

[fading] Joe Bob glances at the Technical Artist and says, "Roll film." What are they saying to you on those headphones? They're probly saying, "We are control-booth artists." Right?"

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Outro to Wes Craven's New Nightmare & Intro to Halloween II

Good grief, the credits are longer than the movie! Eight minutes of credits at the end of that baby. You know, that movie cost $11 million to make, and I would estimate they spent 10 million just on that last sequence, in the infernal furnace of Freddy! Did you notice in the credits that they had an "eel wrangler" and an "eel double," both credited. Anyway, that was supposed to be the very end of Freddy--but then New Line Cinema started talking about making a "Freddy vs. Jason" movie, because they own the rights to both "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and the "Friday the 13th" sequels. I personally think that Freddy is a much better character than Jason, but I guess that's the whole point. Everybody would have an opinion about it. It would be like Tyson-Holyfield. "Freddy can beat Jason's butt." "Uh-uh!" I personally don't see how you can even DO a movie with two bad guys, since they would both have to die at the end. You couldn't let one live. They would have to be COOPERATING in evil, and both of those guys are--let's face it--loners. Anyway, the inventor of the "Friday the 13th" series is Sean Cunningham, and that's the SAME Sean Cunningham who gave Wes Craven his first job in the business--when he hired him to direct "Last House on the Left" in 1972. So the good thing about it would be the re-teaming of Sean and Wes after all these years.

Okey dokey, we're gonna watch "Halloween II" in just a second, but I wanna remind you that next week on "Monster Vision," we have an Arnold the Barbarian double feature. We have "Conan the Destroyer," the one with Grace Jones and Wilt Chamberlain, pretty decent Conan flick. And we're gonna follow that up with Arnold's very first movie after he came to America in 1968. "Hercules in New York," also called "Hercules Goes Bananas." In which Arnold co-stars with a really lame night-club comic and plays Hercules, visiting New York against Zeus's wishes. Arnold's English was so bad at the time they had to dub his voice. Anyway, it'll be fun.

Right now, though, we're gonna watch "Halloween II," which is a pretty good sequel to the film that started it all, John Carpenter's "Halloween." The interesting thing about this film is that it takes place the SAME day as the original "Halloween." The original film ends a little before dawn, and this one starts with the paramedics coming to take Jamie Lee Curtis to the hospital and pick up Michael Myers' body. Or they THINK they're gonna pick up Michael Myers' body. This is also one of the best musical scores that John Carpenter ever wrote. That "Halloween" theme is one of the scariest things. John Carpenter wrote, produced and did the music for this one, but he didn't actually direct it. I don't wanna give it away, so I'll just reel off those drive-in totals and we'll get to it. We have: Thirteen dead bodies. One nekkid breast. (I swear. Watch for it.) Throat-slitting. Throat- stabbing. One motor vehicle crash, with explosion. Claw hammer to the head. One strangulation. Scalding water to the face. Knife to the forehead. Needle to the ear. Exploding stuntman. Four stars. Check it out. We'll be here, continuing to diddle around like we know what we're talking about. Go.

[fading] They should have Jason and Freddy and Michael Myers all in the same movie. Like a tag team match. "Halloween the 13th on Elm Street Meets Abbott and Costello." Also starring Richard Roundtree as the police commissioner."

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Outro to Alien 3/Intro to Barbarella

Joe Bob Briggs still here.

I forgot to mention that the credits of "Alien 3" are LONGER than "Alien 3." Six minutes of credits on that baby--whoa! Anyhow, you gotta love that ending-- Sigourney Weaver's backward swan dive into a vat of boiling lead. They had a big debate about that, and they didn't shoot that ending until right before they finished the movie.

All right, the long-awaited "Barbarella" in just a minute, but I wanna remind you that next week on "Monster Vision" we have the rarely seen "Serpent and the Rainbow," Wes Craven's movie about Haitian voodoo that many think is the best movie he ever made--he actually went to Haiti to make it, I think it's the only movie filmed there in 40 years. And we'll follow that up with "Steel Dawn," which is Patrick Swayze's version of the "Road Warrior." You've kinda gotta see it to believe it.

That's next week, but right now we've got "Barbarella." Beginning with the famous "Barbarella" theme song. "Ba-ba-ba-ba Barbarella. Barbarella Psychadella, there's a kinda cockle shell-a bout you. Barbarella Ba-Barbarella." They don't write lyrics like that anymore, do they? And, of course, you know what I'm talkin about. I'm talkin about Jane Fonda as that kooky outer-space traveller in shiny black leather and go-go boots, the peace-loving free-love gal who goes in search of missing scientist Duran Duran. But in order to do that she has to steer her rocket to the distant land of Tao City, which "could still be living in a primitive state of neurotic irresponsibility."

I was hoping we could have Jane on tonight to talk about the deeper meanings of this bizarre fantasy comic from the sixties, but I'm told Jane is not too fonda this movie.

Is that right? Anyway, we understand it's ONLY ACTING! This is like a science fiction "Alice in Wonderland" for drugheads. If you haven't seen it, there's no way I could possibly explain it, so I'll just give you those drive-in totals and we'll roll it. We have:

Fourteen dead bodies.
One vicious parakeet attack.
One Roman orgy.
One portable brain-wave detector.
Shag-carpeted spaceship.
Two crash-landings.
One giant rubber stingray.
One vicious biting sharp-toothed doll attack.
Demonic children.
Flower-eating.
See-through man.
Flying pod attack, with fireballs.
One burning outer-space city.
Snowball Fu.
Green laser Fu. And, of course, the famous lovemaking tube!

I give it two stars--but three stars for camp value. Okay, let's go.

[fading] Oh. This is one of the most famous title sequences ever filmed, in which Jane Fonda pretty much strips off every article of clothing she's wearing as the Barbarella Singers croon "Get me up high, teach me to fly--Electrify" and "Dazzle me with rainbow colors--fade away the duller shade of living." Don't you think we could use those sentiments today, in the nineties? As the president of the Sun System would say, ["how" sign] "Love."

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Thoughts on Barbarella

It's like a combination of Jules Verne, Flash Gordon, the Marquis de Sade, Salvador Dali, Dante's Inferno, and Disney World on Ice all combined in one movie. Which means it's an inspired comic satirical tongue-in-cheek high-camp high-concept . . . means it doesn't make a lick of sense, is what it means."

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Dubbing

This is one of those movies they make in Italy in English, but everybody speaks the language of their own country and then they dub in the voices later. I always wondered how they do that.

A guy says "I love you." And the girl says "Te amo also je t'aime polski." And they dub it into English and it looks normal. They LOVE dubbing in Italy. They even dub Italian actors, who are speaking Italian in real life, for Italian audiences. In other words, the guy speaks Italian on the set, and then he comes into the studio and dubs the Italian he already spoke, and then they add some more dialogue in there after he's finished, and then the whole thing is shown to an audience that could have understood him in the first place! Those wacky Eyetalians.

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Intro to Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Hey, Joe Bob Briggs here, with another thrilling edition of "Monster Vision," and tonight's first movie--you know . . . I admit it, I was a scoffer.

I didn't believe they could do it.

Me of little faith.

"Night of the Living Dead"--regarded by the drive-in-going public of the world as the greatest movie ever made--was rewritten a few years back, and a remake was announced. Not only did it have the blessing of George Romero, but George Romero was gonna WRITE and PRODUCE the remake.

Excuse me, but this would be like Mark Twain waking up one morning and saying "You know that Huck Finn thing I did? I don't like it anymore. I'm doing it AGAIN."

And so everybody went "George! No! Please! You're senile! Don't try it!"

But he did it. He turned over the direction to Tom Savini, his special-effects makeup guy, the man who's made a whole career out of building slimy pus-filled ghoul faces.

And we kept trying to talk him out of it. "George, don't do it! We LOVE the black-and-white! It won't work in color!"

But he kept on.

The Menahem Golan, the Israeli king of the ninja flick, announced he was producing the remake.

And I personally said to Menahem, "No! Menahem! Please! This will be a bigger turkey than 'Treasure of the Four Crowns'!"

And Menahem said, "What is 'Treasure of the Four Crowns'?"

And I said, "'Treasure of the Four Crowns' is a 3-D Indiana Jones ripoff full of Spanish extras that you made in 1982."

And Menahem said, "I made that?"

And then they got to the point of no return: they started casting the lead roles--in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh, the city where it all started. 1967. George Romero was an unknown director of TV commercials. One day he wrote a script called "Night of the Flesh Eaters." He hired some local actors. He conned a crew into working for him. He got investors. Seven months later, the modern horror film was born. (The distributor retitled it "Night of the Living Dead.")

One night, for no reason, the zombies rise up out of the earth and start devouring the eastern third of the United States. Seven people are holed up in a Pennsylvania farmhouse, trying to decide which is worse--fighting the flesh-eating zombies, or fighting each other.

And zombies have never been the same since.

George invented the Zombie Stomp, that herky-jerky movement of drunken, stumbling zombies in every zombie movie since then. Brain-eating first became a staple of the American zombie diet in this flick. And it was the first movie where the white guy wasn't the hero. Women did the clear thinking. The black guy did the fighting and protecting. And the white males just got in the way.

In other words, it was also the first DEMOCRATIC zombie movie. In the fifties, all the heroes were Republicans, fighting against Russian-type space aliens that were trying to take over our minds, and the women all stood by their men. In George Romero's movies, the women have to know how to lock-and-load. It's the ZOMBIES that are mostly white and mostly male. (Actually, the zombies are kinda pale yellow in the remake, but I don't THINK George is making an Asian statement here. Racism! Racism! I'm sure SOMEBODY will notice that.)

In 1968 George had a hard time getting anybody to release "Night of the Living Dead," but by 1970 it was already considered the greatest horror film in history. Romero has made two sequels, "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead," and one of the original producers has done an excellent comedy version, "Return of the Living Dead." The original movie has probly been seen by more people, worldwide, than any other horror flick except "Psycho" and "The Exorcist."

And now they've done it again.

They've not only done it again. They've done it better. This time, with professional actors, with color, with special effects, with zombies that out-zombie the original zombies, they've told the exact same story, with about five minutes of changes in the plot, JUST ENOUGH to give it a great surprise at the end, and even though you've seen it before, and even though you know what the zombies are gonna do, and even though you know what each of the people inside the house are gonna do, it still scares the bejabbers out of you and satisfies the first rule of drive-in moviemaking: Anybody can die at any moment.

I'm humiliated that I was such a doubter. And right now we're gonna watch it. Twenty-one dead bodies. Exploding pickup. Exploding supporting actors. Neck-crunching. Zombie corral. Zombie target practice. Zombie bonfire. Eighteen gallons blood. A 74 on the Vomit Meter. Kung Fu. Zombie Fu. Four stars. Check it out, and then later tonight we've got ANOTHER drive-in classic, the immortal "Swamp Thing" starring Adrienne Barbeau and her very wet rayon blouse. Great night on "Monster Vision." Let's get to it.

[fading] Did I hype it a little much there? I laid it on pretty thick, huh? Should have, like, cut that in half. It's those infomercials."

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Commercial Break #5 Big Trouble in Little China

"So Lo Pan, after 2,000 years of not getting ANY nookie, has decided to marry TWO women. Kim Cattrall, and Suzee Pai. It's interesting that she goes by the name Suzee Pai in this movie, because in the January 1981 Penthouse, she went by the name "Sue Francis." Why do they do that? "All right, you can print 12 pages of totally nekkid pictures of me, just DON'T USE MY NAME." And speaking of people I'd like to see totally nekkid, [enters] it's time for "Joe Bob's Advice to the Hopeless," and to help us out is the very alluring TNT Mail Girl. Would you pose for Penthouse or Playboy if they asked you?

RENO: I don't think so.

Even if they gave you, like, 40 thousand dollars?

RENO: No!

Would you pose for a guy named Stan with a Kodak Instamatic if he gave you 40 thousand dollars?

RENO: It's not a matter of money!

What if you got a million dollars to sleep with Robert Redford while Marv Albert watched?

RENO: Can we change the subject?

I don't know. I kinda like the subject of your nekkid body.

RENO: Well, this is just about as much of it as you're ever gonna see, so have yourself a party.

Are you in a bad mood?

RENO: Why don't we read this? It's from T. Lucas of Oakland, California.

You're in a bad mood. Here, maybe this'll cheer you up.

"Dear Sirs:

OH NO! Not one of THOSE! I HATE it when they start out "Dear Sirs."

"I was appalled this evening . . ."

How come when people write to BITCH at us, they always use the word "appalled." Why don't they ever say "upset"?

"I was appalled this evening at the so-called "comedic" comments of host of your Friday MonsterVision Movie. A man who portrayed himself as the epitome of the brainless, gun-loving, "angry white man," neo-fascist made light of the poor, demeaned public education, and ended with the solution to all ills in society by urging everyone to "kill a liberal." This ignorant buffoon knows nothing of education personally quite obviously, and reveals the heart and compassion which are more in tune with Adolf Hitler than any other public or private figure I know."

I'm thinking this guy doesn't like me.

"It seems chic these days to spout hatred, blame those in society least able to defined themselves, and turn a hard, unfeeling, and deaf ear to those about us. It appears to me that this "host" must have stepped directly out of his white sheet, and into his chair in front of the camera.

"It would appear that the FCC might need to investigate speech such as this on the public airways, as I doubt if it would be considered protected under the First Amendment, since it espouses the murder of persons solely upon the basis of their social and/or political views.

"I would close with a comment to your "host." There are many liberals who would eagerly meet with him face to face, but I assume that he, like most cowardly bullies, would defer.

"Sincerely,
"T. Lucas"

And there's no return address--like most cowardly bullies. But he sent a copy to the FCC.

I guess we'll be having a hearing any day now. What do you think, Reno? First of all, why did you choose this one?

RENO: I thought it was interesting that he thought you were in the Ku Klux Klan.

I didn't say go kill anybody. Well, maybe I did. You know, it would help if I could REMEMBER what I say on these shows. All right, Mr. T. Lucas, thank you for your letter, but what are you saying here? That liberal intellectuals would like to beat me up? What would we do--go to Harvard Square and have an Elizabethan sonnet-writing contest? "Whoops! Joe Bob, you LOSE! That's an iambic HEXameter, not PENtameter."

RENO: What are you talking about?

I'm trying to figure out what this guy wants.

RENO: I saw the show that night. You said "Kill a liberal."

And I immediately said "ONLY KIDDING." Besides, the network is run by liberals. I was talking about . . . killing members of my own family.

RENO: You're making it worse!

Would you pose nekkid if I didn't put any film in the camera.

RENO: So much for politics. [exits]

We better get back to the movie. [calling to her] I just didn't understand what the guy is talking about. I'm not in the Klan. How could he say that? Go ahead, roll it.

[fading] They kicked me out in 1987. They thought I was an extremist.

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The Girl in the Movie

Kim Morgan Greene, as the mysterious Karen Keeler who we already know is the love interest because she and Roddy hate each other so much right now. Kim Morgan Greene makes a lot of B movies, and she's always sexy and her acting is always pretty decent. She's "the girl" in this movie. You always have to have The Girl. The Girl's job is to create complications for The Guy, especially in the middle part of the movie. Beginning of the movie, you've got a big fight scene. End of the movie, you've got a bigger fight scene, with explosives. And then you've got that PESKY middle section. Hence The Girl. She's bitchy, then she's flirty, then she gets in trouble, then she starts crying, then she gets angry, then she falls in love, then she thinks it's a mistake, then she turns out to be something you didn't expect, like a cop or a journalist or a spy--and then it's time for the fight scene so you can forget about her. Yall already know this, don't you?

You went to English class. They teach this. Matthew Arnold explained it all in the nineteenth century in an essay called "Kung Fu Aesthetics." Watch. You'll see. Roll the film.

[fading] Or was it Northrop Frye? No, he wrote "The Anatomy of Kung Fu." Oh noooooo, how stupid can I be? What am I saying? It was Thomas Carlyle. "Martial Arts and the Reform Act of 1832." You guys need to start CORRECTING ME on this stuff."

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Godzilla

You know what's funny? Godzilla was created by the Japanese as a symbol of what Americans did to em, right? We dropped the nuclear bomb on em and it created all these mutations, and one of em was Godzilla. So they make these movies where Godzilla is the symbol of American nuclear evil, and then they become popular in America, and then forty years later somebody says "Hey, we should make an American Godzilla movie, where the monster eats AMERICAN cities," and so the symbol of anti-American sentiment is sent over to America to devour itself, and the company doing the AMERICAN film is . . . Sony. . . .

They nuked us right back, didn't they? Were you following that?"

"You know that noise Godzilla makes? I always thought it was an elephant. But I read an interview with the official Godzilla soundtrack composer, Akira Ifukube, and he said it's actually a glove rubbed over the string on a contrabass.

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Deep Blue

I'm sorry if I'm a little grumpy. You know what it is? I've been following this thing about the Deep Blue chess computer. You know everybody's been making such a BIG DEAL out of how the Deep Blue computer wasted Garry Kasparov in a few games of chess.

Not impressed.

You wanna impress me with a computer? Build one that can play poker. I don't think you could ever come up with any computer program that could consistently win at any game of stud or draw with seven poker professionals sitting at the same table.

Think about it. Chess is a game of math. There are all these different ways to move, and the computer rapidly scans through all the combinations, planning six or seven moves ahead to see what might happen.

But poker is a game of math, money management, and PERSONALITY. You've gotta sit at the table at least eight hours before you even BEGIN to know who the best players are. I've seen high-stakes players fold 30 times in a row, just to study the betting patterns.

So the computer might know the precise odds on each hand--but so does every pro.

The computer might have perfect card memory--but so does every great high-stakes player, and besides, card memory doesn't help you in a draw game anyway.

Let's say you program the computer to fold with a pair of aces or lower in an eight-person game. Then, if the computer sees someone consistently drawing three cards, you could knock that down to a pair of kings, or a pair of queens. But the pro at the table can make a SLIGHT shift in his pattern, force the computer to CONSISTENTLY draw to a pair of queens, fold after the draw, and lose small amounts all night long. As the computer's bankroll dwindles, the computer has to either get recklesslyaggressive--unlikely that the programmers would choose that option --or move back up to three-of-a-kind to open. Every time the computer drew two cards, everybody at the table would know what was going on.

The only advantage the computer might have is money management.

But you can SEE how many chips are on the table.

AND I would be amazed if anyone could ever design a computer program that would have true killerinstinct, that would know when to annihilate someone because they're under-financed.

And if you don't know how to murder, you can't play poker.

Bring on the IBM boys. I wanna see em in Vegas, with THEIR OWN MONEY, you know what I mean?

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Plagiarism

Plagiarism is not really a crime in Hollywood. It's about as serious as, oh, double-parking. In a Mexican border town. During a riot.

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Cat-And-Mouse

This is the Cat-And-Mouse part of the story. Cat-And-Mouse is where the killer and the would-be killee run around in a warehouse, and you don't know who can see who, and it's supposed to be real scary and it never is. I hate Cat-And-Mouse. You know who could do Cat-And-Mouse scenes? Mannix. Remember "Mannix"? Mike Connors running through abandoned warehouses in thousand-dollar suits? Now THAT was some serious Cat-And-Mouse.

This is horror-flick Cat-And-Mouse. "I hope the mean guy can't see me behind this big box."

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"Philadelphia Experiment II" Commercial Break #2

All right, well, as we leave David there in the Twilight Zone, running for his life, getting beaten up by jackbooted thugs, this might be the emotionally correct time for the feature we like to call "Joe Bob's Jail Break," and to help us out [enters] we have the previously introduced TNT Mail Girl. Nice outfit.

MAIL GIRL: Thank you.

Of course you ALWAYS have a nice outfit.

MAIL GIRL: Thank you.

But it's not the outfit, it's YOU.

MAIL GIRL: Why are you being so nice?

It's INNER beauty that counts.

MAIL GIRL: Now I totally do not believe you.

You don't believe you have inner beauty?

MAIL GIRL: I don't believe you care whether I have inner beauty or not.

Of course I do. If you have inner beauty, you'll be much more likely to take pity on me and eventually have sex with me.

MAIL GIRL: Exactly.

Why do you always make me tell you the truth?

MAIL GIRL: Why do you always think about sex sex sex?

Because I'm MALE.

MAIL GIRL: I noticed.

It's our JOB. If we didn't do it, civilization would die out.

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"Philadelphia Experiment II" Commercial Break #4

"Man was not meant to play with time." Did he actually say that? So what we've got here apparently is TWO different 1993's. Operating at the same time. Which actually makes sense, because it solves the problem of all time-travel movies. And that is that you can't go back in time without violating the First Law of Thermodynamics. Okay, I promised I would explain this again, because some of you didn't get it the first time we showed this movie. If Brad Chapman in this movie is signified as a collection of molecules, "m," then he can be described at any time "t" by "6n" variables--three variables describing the position of each molecule, because there are three dimensions, and three variables describing the momentum of each molecule. Now, when Brad Chapman travels forward or backward in time, the 6n variables are duplicated at some time t minus a or t plus a. His molecules have disappeared at time t and have reappeared at time t minus a in precisely the same relative configuration. The only problem is, this violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that the mass-energy of the universe (Ue) is constant. Therefore, an observer at rest at time t minus a relative to Brad Chapman would observe an increase in Ue of mc^2 Joules, where m is Brad Chapman's rest mass in kilograms. And no observer can detect a violation of the First Law. Therefore, the trip back through time would thus violate the First Law of Thermodynamics. Okay, back to the movie.

[fading] What? Ask Stephen Hawking. We'll go into this in much more detail next week on "Joe Bob's Summer School." But this is a preview. Bonus round.

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"Philadelphia Experiment II" Commercial Break #5

All right, well, the studio is still buzzing with my demonstration of why the guy in this movie CAN'T go back to 1943. It's impossible. You know, these time-travel movies always burn my bacon, because it's impossible. You go back in time, you shoot your grandfather, therefore YOU are never born, so you can't go back in time and shoot your grandfather, but then you ARE born, you DO go back--it makes no sense. You try to figure out the "Terminator" movies--you can't! In fact, you know what? It not only violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, it violates the SECOND Law of Thermodynamics. [crew GROANS] All right, fine, I won't explain it. [crew CHEERS] You try to make the show just a LITTLE bit educational, maybe send the audience away LEARNING something instead of just sittin on the couch drinkin Old Milwaukee and eatin Doritos, and who thanks me? All right. Fine. Back to the movie.

[fading] I think I should explain it. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that the entropy of the universe is always increasing--going to hell, decaying, fallin apart. You take Brad Chapman and zap him back to 1943, you've REVERSED the entropy at that point in time. All right. That's all I'm gonna say. Till next week. Guys at Caltech and MIT are gonna write in, saying, "Joe Bob is correct." . . . Caltech and MIT are UNIVERSITIES. Jeezus.

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"Philadelphia Experiment II" Commercial Break #6

[sulking] I'm not even gonna comment. No. I'm humiliated. I could have used this break to explain "wormholes," where these guys at Caltech built a model showing how you could actually travel through time. But you guys don't deserve it. I'm through for the night. [crew CHEERS]

[fading] And now the conclusion of "Philadelphia Experiment II." Which commits the Paradox of Causality, by the way. Not that anybody would be INTERESTED.

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"THE TIME MACHINE" Commercial Break #2

[Joe Bob and Rusty the Mail Girl conduct a physics demonstration. To recreate at home, you'll need a bedsheet w/small slit cut in center and lightly re-stitched or taped so you can't see it, tennis balls, bowling ball, and a piece of garden hose]

Those were Oscar-winning special effects--pretty impressive, aren't they? Remember, this movie was made in 1960, when time-lapse photography of flowers blooming was considered high-tech. Or maybe there just wasn't a lot of competition that year. Anyhoo, I thought this would be a good time to demonstrate how scientists TODAY think time travel could be possible. And to help me out, because it's a holiday weekend and there's no mail, [enters w/bowling ball] is the relaxed and rested Rusty, the TNT Mail Girl. Oh, good, Regal Lanes was still open.

MAIL GIRL: Actually, they weren't. Billy says you owe him a six-pack.

Tell him I'll buy it with the 200 pesos he still owes me from the last poker night. [unfolding sheet] Grab an end there. [Joe Bob & Rusty hold sheet out flat] Okay, this sheet represents spacetime. Don't ask me exactly what spacetime IS. Let's just say when you put space and time together, you get . . . spacetime. Rusty, do you see a couple of tennis balls over there? Roll one on here. [she does, while holding sheet] See how the ball distorts the sheet when it rolls to the center? That represents matter distorting spacetime. Now roll the other ball on there. [she does] See, the second ball's dragged toward the first ball, cause the first ball distorted the spacetime. Now, take out the tennis balls and put the bowling ball on there.

MAIL GIRL: I don't think I can hold the sheet and put the bowling ball on it at the same time.

All right, I'll do it. [gets out bowling ball while hodling sheet] Okay, hold tight. Watch how the bowling ball distorts the spacetime. [Joe Bob rolls bowling ball onto sheet, and the ball (hopefully slowly) rips through sheet]

MAIL GIRL: Whoops.

No, no, that was supposed to happen. You know what that is?

MAIL GIRL: Um . . . a black hole?

Exactly! And if you look at it from the other side, it's a white hole, maybe even a wormhole. Now, a bunch of American and Russian physicists with too much time on their hands got together and decided that if you use gravity to tow one mouth of the wormhole until it rests up against the other end--go ahead, Rusty, feed that hose through there . . . [she feeds it through the hole] Don't think about it, guys. [she joins the two ends together] --that a time traveler who jumped into one mouth would come out the other one at a different time, because time is the physical property of each wormhole mouth. Get it?

[Rusty shakes her head no]

See, because there's a disparity in spacetime between the two mouths.

MAIL GIRL: How do you use gravity to tow a hose?

It's not a hose, it's a wormhole.

MAIL GIRL: I don't get it.

Well, I'm glad I ripped up my bedsheet for this.

MAIL GIRL: This is the sheet off your bed? [she drops it like a hot potato] I need to go wash my hands. [exits]

Don't you want me to explain the granny paradox?

MAIL GIRL [O.S.]: NO!

There's just no sense of intellectual curiosity around here.

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"THE TIME MACHINE" Commercial Break #6

So basically, Rod Taylor wants em to start another war, is that about right? See, now that we've got a little plot out of the way, I can talk about how they changed the story for the movie. The first thing you have to remember is that H.G. Wells was writing in the 1890s, about a generation after Dickens. And he was a socialist sympathizer, because all around him he saw the working classes being exploited, starving and working long hours, living in terrible housing conditions. Meanwhile the rich industrialists and people of leisure were livin large. So H.G. Wells wrote this as a satire where the Eloi are the descendents of the leisured classes, who've become these brainless zombies who die young--we'll see why in a minute--and the Morlocks are the descendents of the working classes, who were driven into underground factories, but who now prey on the Eloi at night. But when they made the movie in 1960, they "updated" it. They dropped the whole class thing, said that people CHOSE whether to go underground or above-ground, and put all the war stuff into it. See, this was at the peak of the Cold War, right after the Cuban Missile Crisis, right after the McCarthy Era, when all the sci-fi flicks were about, like, invasions of giant Red ants and stuff--representing the Commies. And of course, in this flick, the attacks in the near future come from atomic satellites--or Sputniks. And the Eloi are like the rebellious Youth of the era, you know? Hedonists that need to be whipped into shape to defend their country, dang it. And the women--represented also by the mannequin and the housekeeper--are supposed to dress nice and get dinner on the table. The Feminists hate this flick almost as much as the Liberals do. And I'm ruinin the movie again, aren't I? All right, I'll shut up. Go.

[fading] Oh, and you know what else makes em mad? In the book, the sphinx is white. But in the movie, the sphinx is brown. People write whole academic papers on that one. I read one a few years ago in the Quarterly of the Salisbury State University. Not to be confused with the Salisbury STEAK University. They don't write a lot of papers there.

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"King Kong Lives" Commercial Break #4

"Okay, as you know, here at "MonsterVision" we try and give you the full story, so I have here a list of all the big monkey movies that have been made. Like I said earlier, the original, beloved "King Kong" with Fay Wray as the monkey's love interest was made in 1933. It was so popular, they made "Son of Kong" and put it out the very same year. "King Kong Appears in Edo" came out in 34. There was a movie called "Nabonga" in 1944, which seems to be a remake of one called "King of the Kongo" from 1929. They're not really King Kong movies per se, but they do feature giant African apes. In 1949, "Mighty Joe Young" came out, with special effects done by Willis O'Brien, who was one of the original Kong creators, and Ray Harryhausen. A remake of that one's coming out this year. In fact, I saw a trailer for it, and it looks like they've really ironed all the kinks out of big monkey special effects. Okay, "Queen Kong" was the female "King Kong." "Konga" or "I Was a Teenage Gorilla" is self-explanatory. We mustn't forget the great Japanesey kinda movies from the sixties: "King Kong vs. Godzilla," "King Kong vs. Frankenstein," and "King Kong Escapes." And for thoroughness, I'll throw in "Ingagi" from 1931 and "Son of Ingagi" from 1940. I'm not sure about the first one, but the second one featured an African-American cast, which sets it apart a little bit. And then we have the 1976 "King Kong" with Jessica Lange playing Fay Wray, and tonight's extravaganza, "King Kong Lives." And the whole thing really goes all the way back to the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast." Which is weird, because there was a TV show called "Beauty and the Beast" which starred... Linda Hamilton. Coincidence? I think not.

[fading] Now. I KNOW somebody is gonna write to us and say, "Joe Bob, you IDIOT, you said you listed ALL the big monkey movies, and you didn't even BOTHER to mention 'Magilla Gorilla Eats a Taco' in 1936. Why don't you CHECK YOUR FACTS? DUDE!" So go ahead, fire away. E-mail me. Tell me how WRONG and PATHETIC I am. I can take it."

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One Million Years B.C. Commercial Break #5

"Aw, isn't that sweet? Loana and Tumak cuddle. And speaking of people I'd like to cuddle with, it's time for our weekly installment of "Joe Bob's Advice to the Hopeless," with help from Rusty, our lovable TNT Mail Girl. [enters] Do you ever wonder what sex was like in caveman times, Rusty?

MAIL GIRL: I can't say that I've really wondered about that, Joe Bob.

I mean, you gotta figure once they hit puberty, it was pretty much an all-out orgy. With all those hormones raging, no social constraints--just one big urge to perpetuate the species.

MAIL GIRL: If you're planning to proposition me, I believe in negative population growth.

You're not gonna have kids?

MAIL GIRL: Not with you. Here's a letter from Tony R. in South Gate, California.

You couldn't even tease me a little before shooting me down?

"Mr. Joe Bob Briggs,

"My name is Tony R. I am in the tenth grade at South Gate High School, and I watch your show when I can! I think your show rules! I think you should run for President because I would vote for you. And, I think your jokes are the coolest. It's weak the way you try to teach people a little science and ever one looks at you stupidly just because they think you're a moron. But you're not a moron. You're cool. I wish you would rule the world!

"Sincerely,
Tony R.,
South Gate, California."

I love when people compliment you by saying "Everyone else in the world thinks you're a stupid moron, but I think you're great." Well, thanks, Tony. In fact, both the Democratic Party AND the Republican Party have approached me to run for President in the year 2K. Apparently they know I'm someone women CAN say no to. And I'm glad you appreciate our science lessons--it took me and the crack TNT research department just... minutes upon MINUTES to put together tonight's show. I tell you what, when I rule the world, you can be my V.P.

Okay, let's get back to "One Million Years B.C." Rusty, I thought we talked about you wearing a doeskin bikini to celebrate the movie.

MAIL GIRL: I believe YOU talked about that. I don't believe I talked about it at all.

You know what I love about these cavegirls?

MAIL GIRL: Tell me.

They have MASCARA. Think how many DAYS and WEEKS it must have taken to find the perfect rocks, pound them into fine granuals, mix them with pure spring water, and churn it into mascara. That's the problem with modern women. They just don't wanna work that hard anymore.

MAIL GIRL: You're such an expert on modern women.

And cave women.

MAIL GIRL: All women.

I'm glad you feel that way.

MAIL GIRL: And you're so sensitive. You always pick up on sarcasm, no matter how subtle it is.

Thank you.

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"STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN" Commercial Break #2

Great armadillo ear-leeches--I love that part. But whoa! Is that Ricardo Montalban's real chest? That guy's in pretty good shape for someone his age--he was 62 when this was made. But that's also his real hair!

By the way, the Trekkies found a plot hole in the scene where Khan captures Chekov and the black guy.

"The Wrath of Khan"--or TWOK, as they like to call it--was based on an episode of "Star Trek" called "Space Seed," starring Ricardo Montalban as a genetically- engineered superman, who Kirk maroons on a barren planet. And this is twenty years later, right? But here's what gets the Trekkies all in a tizzy: Walter Koenig -- that's Chekov -- WASN'T IN THAT EPISODE. So how do he and Khan recognize each other? Hm? Pretty astute of em, huh?

Actually, I know why he recognizes him, and that's because the script had Chekov viewing a library tape on Khan before he beams down and gets the old larva fu in the ear. Sounds a little high on the coinky-dink scale, and maybe the director thought so too, because they cut that scene out and rewrote the one we saw, and the Trekkie police weren't on- hand to stomp their feet and make em fix it.

So there you have it. Mystery solved. Sort of. And Kirk just got the blame for wanting to steal the Genesis thing, so let's go see what happens.

[fading] I think the Trekkies LIKE to find things that are wrong with these movies. Gives em something to do. Besides design websites and tape their glasses back together.

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"RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD" Commercial Break #1

All RIGHT, only 19 minutes into this baby, and I'm already in a better mood than I've been in in months. I love this movie. I think it's got the perfect mixture of comedy and reality. This was written and directed by Dan O'Bannon, the guy who wrote "Alien," and was originally supposed to be directed by Tobe Hooper, who is best known, of course, for "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Poltergeist." Actually, I'll back up and tell you a little more about it. "Night of the Living Dead" came out in 1968, and it was made by a couple of guys in the advertising business in Pittsburgh--George Romero, the director, and his writing partner John Russo. So after it became THE most successful independent horror film in history, Romero and Russo started fussing with each other over who had the rights. And you know what they settled on? Russo got the rights to the script and to the words "Living Dead," but Romero got the rights to the word "Dead" by itself. Are you following this? That's why George Romero's sequels are not "Living Dead" movies, they're "Dead" movies--"Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead." Not to be confused with Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" series. I wonder if Sam owns the rights to the words "evil dead." So anyway, Russo, the forgotten partner in the series, ends up owning "living dead." He writes up this story, the one we're watching, in the early seventies. Then in the late seventies he sells the story to a Chicago stockbroker. The Chicago stockbroker hires Dan O'Bannon to write a NEW script, and Tobe Hooper to direct it. Tobe drops out. Dan takes over as director. They make the movie. The people who own Romero's "dead" movies SUE EM to prevent its release, saying it'll be confused with Romero's films. They fight about it. They settle it. It comes out a year late. End of story.

And, you know, when "Day of the Dead" did finally come out, the third in Romero's series, some people said the reason it flopped at the box office is that THIS movie came out first, ruining zombie movies forever. After you've seen these cadavers, it's hard to take the original ones seriously anymore. Somehow, in the early eighties, Zombie America had changed. As you'll see, right now, when our guest Linnea Quigley, as the punk rocker Trash, writhes bodaciously on a tombstone.

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Love Potion no. 9 and The Serpent and The Rainbow

See, I told you these movies are related. It's the whole Black Magic thang. Drink one potion, marry Sandra Bullock. Drink another potion, turn into an undead amputee Harvard experiment. You don't wanna get THOSE mixed up in the medicine cabinet. Can you imagine comin in after a night of partying, reaching for the ole Bufferin, and WHAP!, you're a potted plant.

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JOKES

Did you guys hear the one about the farmer who had three daughters? Well, he tended to be a little over-protective. So whenever a guy came to take his daughters on a date, he would greet them with a shotgun to make sure they knew who was boss. One evening, all three daughters are going out on dates. So the doorbell rings, the farmer gets his shotgun and answers the door. The guy at the door says, "Hi, I'm Joe, I'm here for Flo, We're goin' to the show, Is she ready to go?" The farmer really didn't care much for the poetry, but he let em go on the date. The doorbell rings again, farmer gets his shotgun and answers the door. The second guy says, "Hi, I'm Eddie, I'm here for Betty, We're gettin' spaghetti, Is she ready?" The farmer frowns but decides to let them go. Doorbell rings again, farmer gets his shotgun, answers the door. The third guy says, "Hi, I'm Chuck"--and the farmer shot him.

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Did you guys hear the one about the woman who got a divorce because her husband beat her all the time? Well, she remarried, but her second husband ran out on her, so she got another divorce. Years went by.

She started getting lonely, so she decided to look for another husband. So she put an ad in the paper: "Wanted: Husband. Won't beat me, won't run out on me, good in bed."

Several days later, the doorbell rings. The woman answers it, and she finds this man standing there with no arms and no legs.

"I'm answering your ad," he says.

She says, "Well, you've got no arms, so you can't beat me. You've got no legs, so you can't run out on me. But how do I know you're any good in bed?"

The man says, "I rang the doorbell, didn't I?"

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That's it for me, Joe Bob Briggs, reminding you that there are 24 hours in a day, and 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not.

A professor of linguistics is lecturing to his class. And he says, "In English, a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, like Russian, a double negative is still a negative." "But," he says, "there is NO language in which a double positive can form a negative."

Voice from the back of the room says, "Yeah. Right."

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Mahatma Ghandi walked barefoot everywhere, to the point that his feet became real thick and hard. He was also a very spiritual person. Even when he was not on a hunger strike, he did not eat much and became very thin and frail. Due to his diet, he ended up with very bad breath. He came to be known as the "Super callused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis." Super callused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis. Release the Kraken!

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