So Bad it's Good Friday

There's a guy at the Ranch who likes to share stuff. Like the "Robot Bastard" movie from a few weeks back. "Off"-stuff. Wierd stuff. But stuff I find amusing. Sure, it might have the budget of a week's buying of groceries at the P-X, but there's some spark there that makes it worth it. Some knowledge of "yeah, it looks like crap, but we know what we're doing" that brings a smile to the face.

So here's a British series (comedie) that embraces the cliches of really bad-tv, and the egos that don't have a clue they're producing bad-tv. That's all the set-up I'll give you, other than to warn you this is a retrospective of a (*kaff*)70's horror series (that, according to the show's creators--in their DVD like commentary--was "too much ahead-of-its-time to broadcast,") and so, has some "shocking" amounts of badly-realised violence.

I give you "Garth Marenghi's 'DarkPlace.'" *


Oh man, where do I start? Of course, there's a bit of "Ray Bradbury Theater" in there, and "Orson Welles' Great Mysteries," throw in a dash of Stephen King and Clive Barker and amp the ego to "11." "DarkPlace" Hospital looks like one of those cardboard settings in Gerry Anderson's puppet series. Lots of nice little jokes about bad dubbing and out-of-sync dialog...and just BAD BAD BAD writing. Wow. In one of the "interview" segments of the show, they try to compare Garth's "acting style" to that of Emmy Award winner William Shatner, but I see a lot more of Patrick McGoohan there (much as I love "Secret Agent" (or "DangerMan") and "The Prisoner."

This is good stuff. A lot of knowledge went into this. And it's bad. But enjoyably bad. I've seen some of the films of Ed Wood. And I'd watch them fully expecting to be entertained, but I'd always end up feeling annoyed. Even a little angry. Wood didn't make films so bad they were good (as Michael Medved** would have you believe). He made films so bad, they were just...BAD. I've never found incompetence entertaining (which is why I guess I'm not a fan of "American Idol"), so, I've never found Wood's films entertaining in the slightest. The best thing you could say about Ed was...he didn't not know how to use a camera. Is that faint praise enough?

But...I have this sense of...loss. Of...(pause) some-thing left un...done. But....(long interminable pause...is that long enough, yeah, I think so) whatcoulditbee?
Oh! Yeah! I let William Shatner off the hook. Here's Bill doing "Rocket-Man" from the 1978 Sci-Fi Awards Show.*** They broadcast it, unfortunately.

The memory...still haunts.

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K is still sick, so 1) I'm not taking her to "DarkPlace Hospital" and 2) I won't show her the Shatner video. No need making her sicker in either case!

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Crude Oil prices continue to rise--it's at $60.95 a barrel today. Expect a gas-hike in the near-term.

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Song in me head: Still blessedly free of what the Germans call (roughly translated)"ear-worms." Believe me, you don't want to know what the last one was....

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* What you're seeing is Part 1 of Episode 1. If you go to your local YouTube constabulary there are Parts 2 and 3 of Episode 1, a complete Episode 2, a Garth Marenghi movie "War of the Wasps," and a spin-off interview series "Man to Man with Dean Lerner." It's a franchise, people!

**Medved can be co-credited for the re-appreciation of Wood in his book "The Golden Turkey Awards." Thanks for that, Michael.

*** The thing I like about Shatner? He is self-aware. But he charges right over that thar' cliff, anyway, bless him.