I feel that I want to do something special for this entry
and I figure that I would write this blog about the man that helped inspire me
to become The Video Creep.This entry we are going to focus on the career of John Bloom but you may know him by his other
name Joe Bob Briggs.
I first discovered Joe Bob Briggs in 1996 when at the age of
16 during the early days of the Monday Night Wars I would tune in to WCW Monday
Nitro and during some of the commercial Breaks I would see advertisements for
Monstervision.
Now I was familiar with Monstervision and its rotating hosts
which included Penn and Teller as well as some puppets that I felt were
creepier than the films that they were playing.
The films also focused on Godzilla and occasionally they
would show the Time Machine and When Dinosaurs ruled the Earth and I honestly
expected that the host of Monstervision would be a character more like Grandpa
Munster who had for a period hosted Super Scary Saturday on TBS.
The adds for Monstervision featured a man dressed like a
cowboy and emerging from a trailer to plug the show and I had to say that I was
interested.
After months of this ad campaign the night finally came
where Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs premiered on TNT on a Friday night that
summer and the films being broadcast were the 1990 remake of Night of the
Living Dead and Motel Hell.
The program began with Joe Bob yelling out the window of his
trailer to his neighbor and then addressing the audience talking about the
Night of the Living Dead in a way that I had never heard before.
I was at the time a steady viewer of USA Up All Night on
Friday with Rhonda Shear and Saturday Nights with Gilbert Gottfried who would
often be making fun of the movies that they were showing while having antics of
their own. I noticed that Joe Bob while entertaining the audience with his own antics
kept the focus on the film and even gave information about the production. Rarely
did he bash the film that he was showing.
At the end of the program Joe Bob introduced himself as the
Drive-In Critic of Grapevine Texas and I was shocked at the fact this man was
from my area. How did I not hear of him sooner?
For many years my parent’s cable provider did not carry The
Movie Channel and I never read the news publications that printed his articles
but needless to say I decided to do my digging. It’s amazing what a kid can do
in the early stages of the internet.
John Irving Bloom was born on January 27, 1953 in Dallas
Texas however he grew up in Little Rock Arkansas and studied Sports writing at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville Tennessee.
After graduating he relocated back to Dallas where he began
to write articles for Texas Monthly and the Dallas Times Herald. After the
Herald’s movie reviewer left the paper Bloom approached the editor and asked
for the job.
Bloom had always had a love of the B-Picture as well as the
Drive-in and soon realized that the films that he wanted to review weren’t
reviewed by any “Respectable” reviewer and then decided to review the films
himself under a pseudonym when various ideas were rejected because they sounded
too ethnic Bloom decided on the whitest name that he could think of…Joe Bob
Briggs.
Bloom soon created the character for Briggs being the
Unapologetic, Unrefined redneck and the articles took the form of Briggs
talking about that week’s misadventures with the interesting cast of supporting
characters from BoBo Rodriguez, Ugly-on-a-Stick, and Wanda Bodeine among
others. The articles would always end
with Joe Bob making it to the local Drive-in to watch whatever film had come
out that week and would offer his own style of reviews with the Drive-In Totals
counting the Blood Breasts and The Beasts as well as telling the dismemberments
in the form of FU.
Joe Bob Briggs also used his column to rant about some of
society’s more annoying facts and would also be an avid defender of films that
the sensors would target referring to them as Communist Russia as well as a
champion of the Drive-In and would refer to other movies as Indoor Bull Stuff
but eventually began to review Video titles.
The column titled Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In’s popularity began
to pick up but it also met it’s own fair share of detractors and
controversies. Bloom has said himself
that writing Satire is like having a Machine Gun and you are going around
shooting anything thing that moves until you hit a nerve and then you hit that
1000 more times.
On April 12th 1985 Joe Bob in his article
reviewing the film The Last Dragon also wrote a spoof of Michael Jackson’s song
in support of USA for Africa’s We are the World titled We are the Weird. In his Parody Joe Bob Briggs wrote about all of the Drive in
Icons joining together in Grapevine to sing the song which was all in print
however the lyrics were printed in the article.
The African American community in the Dallas area was not
too pleased and they marched on the Dallas Times Herald led by Dallas County
Commisioner John Wiley Price demanding a front page apology which they received
and The Herald’s editor Will Jarret issued a public statement that “Joe Bob
Briggs was Dead”.
Like many of the antagonists in the films that he reviewed
Joe Bob Briggs was not dead but he came back with a vengeance.
Jarret intended to keep Bloom on as a writer since many had
not made the connection that Bloom and Briggs were one and the same however
Bloom decided to resign from the Herald and the column had already began to be
printed in other publications across the country.
Soon Bloom published a collection of his past articles and
reviews in book format with the original Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-in with the forward
written by Stephen King.
Soon thereafter Joe Bob Briggs began to tour with his
one-man show An Evening with Joe Bob Briggs which was soon retitled Joe Bob
Briggs Dead in concert in which Joe Bob would take the stage and while
entertaining the audience with the stories about his “Assassination” comparing
it to the infamous killing of JFK in Dallas.
Not only was original songs that Joe Bob would sing on the
stage included in the show but Joe Bob would also open the show by swearing in
the audience with the Drive-In Oath and would close the show with We are the
Weird. Eventually Joe Bob taped one of his performances at the Arcadia Theatre
in Dallas and the video was distributed.
Around this time Bloom was working for Rolling Stone
Magazine and was sent on Assignment to
Austin to cover Dennis Hopper’s role in Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 and was
asked to perform a role in the film as Gonzo Moviegoer in which he is turned
into Saw Fu by Leatherface along with two young ladies. The scene was
eventually cut from the final product but Joe Bob Briggs remains in the end
credits and the scene can be found in the deleted scenes on the 2006 DVD
release aka the Gruesome Edition.
In 1988 Bloom released Joe Bob’s autobiography A Guide to
the Western Civilization or My Story and Joe Bob also made a brief appearance
in the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire playing DJ Daddy-O' Phillips.
Joe Bob Briggs also released a series of Home Videos in the
stores titled The Sleaziest Movies in the History of the World where he would
introduce titles such as the Doris Wishman Nudist movies and the Herschel
Gordon Lewis Splatter Films.
Eventually Briggs was approached by The Movie Channel to
host his own segment titled Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theatre. Which was intended to
be a one time occurrence but eventually became a on-going gig.
The program consisted of Joe Bob appearing at the beginning
of the program where he would similar to his column often rant about events and
trends in society while also talking about his own misadventures then
introducing the movie and giving small
facts about the film.
After the film played Joe Bob would return and close off the
show discussing more facts about the film and giving a glimpse of the next
weeks film. Joe Bob would often have
guests on the show that he would interview from the film including Linda Blair,
Andy Sidaris, and the Cast of Night of the Living Dead for the 25th
Anniversary Reunion.
Never one not to acknowlege his roots there was even a month where Joe Bob payed tribute to Horror Hosts from the Past where every week he would feature a different famous host.
Originally the show was filmed in New York on the old
Honeymooner’s set and soon Joe Bob decided to produce the show from Texas at
the local production facilities.
Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theatre proved to be so popular that it was soon made into a double feature with two films
Joe Bob Briggs would go on to celebrate his 5 year
anniversary show with a month of episodes in Las Vegas where Joe Bob would
struggle with being cut of his expense account, being busted with a fools way
to cheat at Black Jack, and other misadventures with a loyal cast of supporting
characters in Vegas and eventually meeting with Vegas Icon Wayne Newton.
It turns out that Newton also wrote the Forward to Joe Bob’s
next book Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive-In.
You could also subscribe to and recieve Joe Bob's We are the Weird Newsletter in the mail.
Eventually Joe Bob was given his own award show on The Movie Channel called the Hubbie Awards and for this award the character of Joe Bob Briggs and his movie hosting would change forever.
Honey Gregory was introduced as a presenter at the Hubbie Awards and soon joined the show as Honey the Mail Girl. A well Endowed sterotypical blond Honey would walk out and give
Joe Bob letters from viewers with Joe Bob’s advice to the hopeless.
Briggs would always make passes at Honey and she would shoot
him down in a viraty of interesting ways. The two maintained a great chemistry and
Honey became Joe Bob’s sidekick and remained with the Movie Channel for the
remainder of the show.
Joe Bob continued publishing his books with two additional
titles with 1991’s The Cosmic Wisdom of Joe Bob Briggs where he continued with his
own brand of humor talking about sociaties issues and trends.
In 1994’s Iron Joe Bob in which Joe Bob tries to teach the
Journey of the Young Brave in All of us with keeping our Spears hard and not
stuck in the mud.
It is around this time that Bloom began to make more appearances
not just in the Joe Bob Briggs character but also making appearances in other
films with small but important roles.
In 1994 he made a brief appearance in Stephen King’s The
Stand where he played Deputy Joe Bob who is the person to lie about traveling
outside of the quarantine zone therefor spreading the decease that eventually
kills most of the population on the planet. Bloom would go on to talk about his
appearance in the film where he was in Make up for six hours and the scene
would be eventually cut from the final product of the film.
He also appeared in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino
opposite Robert De Niro. Bloom plays Don Ward the Las Vegas yokel that works as
a floor manager in the Tangiers Casino. After
Ward is fired by De Niro the casino’s gaming license is revokes effectively
beginning the end of the Mob’s power in Vegas.
You would occasionally see Bloom making small appearences as
Billy Ray Wetnap the boss of Kelly Bundy’s Verminator on Married with Children.
Also 1990's release of the Made-for-TV movie A Killing in a Small Town was based on Bloom's True Crime Novel Evidence of Love about the murder of Betty Gore in Texas.
Also 1990's release of the Made-for-TV movie A Killing in a Small Town was based on Bloom's True Crime Novel Evidence of Love about the murder of Betty Gore in Texas.
Where I lived in the Dallas area you would often hear Joe
Bob on the local radio in commercials for Shiner Bock while reading letters or
giving manly advice on how to enjoy the Beverage telling us “Drink one and
You’ll Understand”.
Eventually Joe Bob’s run on The Movie Channel came to an end
when in an effort to cut costs decided to eliminate the movie hosts from their
channels and just run the films. However Joe Bob Briggs was not gone for very
long.
That brings us back to Monstervision on TNT which is where
most of us know Joe Bob Briggs. Monstervision was produced in the same facility
in Dallas where Joe Bob’s Drive in Theatre was produced with the same crew and
Honey also joined Joe Bob in his new move to TNT.
Honey soon began delivering mail to Joe Bob that was from
various correctional institutions in the country which Joe Bob would read on
the air. Some of this mail included letters from both Night Stalker Richard
Ramirez as well as Rebecca Schaeffer’s murderer Robert John Bardo.
I myself wrote to Joe Bob during this time and I did receive
a response on a special stationary that stated that “Joe Bob is a Close
Personal Friend of Mine”.
Joe Bob also found himself trying to get the TNT censors to
ease off on the cuts on the films since the show had such a late timeslot and
often won some of these victories and at times managed to get them to blur out
the nudity instead of just cutting out the scenes all together.
He did not always win these battles in terms of the gore,
Blood and Violence in these films.
Sadly Honey eventually left the series and Joe Bob stated in
character that she had hooked up with a man and left with him leaving him
devastated. Honey was soon replaced by her sister Reno.
One of the innovations for Monstervision that proved popular
around this time was the use of the Monstervision website
tnt.turner.com/monstervision which continued to have content added overtime.
All while looking like a trailer park/Drive-In the website included
a chat room where viewers and a moderator can discuss the film as well as the
caption contest where you look at a picture and think of a caption and try to
make the 6-headed Jury laugh and the winners received a free Monstervision
T-shirt. You could also play the Find that Flick contest where clues would be
given and the viewers would try to figure out what the movie was with the prize
being from Joe Bob’s library of films.
Soon Monstervision was moved to Saturday Nights on TNT
separated into two separate shows The first program was still Monstervision and
featured Joe Bob sitting outside his trailer on the set made to resemble a
trailer park with the TNT logo as the sign talking about Baffling modern trends
and then the film and reading mail from the Mail Girl.
There was then the second feature of the evening where Joe
Bob would move inside his trailer which looked far more larger on the inside,
all While sitting at a table with various props and posters in the background
that was relevant to that night’s movie This segment was titled Joe Bob’s Last Call.
Joe Bob’s popularity on TNT continued to grow and more was
added to the show and for the Super Bowl XXXI Weekend Joe Bob hosted a 16 hour
marathon of films. However the TNT executives were none too pleased with the
mail Girl and she was replaced one last time with former US Air Force Veteran Renner
St John as Rusty the Mail Girl.
On Halloween Night 1998 Joe Bob Hosted a the First ever From
Dusk Till Dawn Friday the 13th Marathon. While deviating from his
usual format this episode of Monstervision featured Joe Bob while showing as
many of the Friday the 13th sequels as he could was being stalked by
a mysterious killer that was taking out his crew with all evidence pointing to
Ted Turner as the culprit.
Soon an annual occasion began during the summers with Joe
Bob’s Summer School where Joe Bob would host the film in a classroom this time
with guest lecturer who was also stars from that night’s films as well as
lessons and trivia.
The website was even moderated for the Summers where you
can download a syllabus and take the pop quiz and you were even had finals and
would receive a diploma if you passed.
Soon after the 1999 Joe Bob’s Summer School TNT decided to
make some changes to the program and the filming location was moved from Dallas
to Los Angeles and the show was changed to appeal to a more female friendly
demographic as was the plan for TNT at the time.
Joe Bob’s Last Call was dropped from the line-up and the
first show to air was Joe Bob’s Hollywood Saturday Night to be followed by
Monstervision. In order to follow TNT’s
new direction the first movie that was aired was either a “Chick Flick” or a
far more mainstream release than was previously shown.
At this time Joe Bob dropped most of his cowboy attire save
for his boots and dressed in nicer clothes such as slacks and button down
shirts to “Look More Hollywood”.
For Joe Bob’s Hollywood Saturday Night it was explained that
Joe Bob and Rusty had moved to Hollywood and Joe Bob was romancing a former
Hollywood starlet in Miss Verona and Joe Bob would host his first program and
would have the occasional special guest that would watch the film with him and
other times Joe Bob would host the movie while trying to hit on Miss Verona’s
Dog Walker Summer.
Eventually Joe Bob would hear Miss Verona calling for him
and he would sneak out of the mansion and would end up at his new trailer park
where he would host Monstervision and be joined by Rusty to read the viewer
mail.
There were some fun times during this era on TNT. On
Halloween Eve of 1999 Joe Bob, Rusty, and Summer Hosted a four movie marathon
and on the breaks were lost in the Hollywood Hills searching for the Nair Witch
in their own Blair Witch Parody.
The Next Night Joe Bob was joined by Count Floyd himself and
his former Friday Night rival Rhonda Shear to host John Carpenter’s in the
Mouth of Madness.
Soon into the year 2000 TNT realized the budget of the
program and soon decided to cut the show down to a single movie a week while
dropping Hollywood Saturday Night kept Monstervision but this didn’t last.
Monstervision was canceled on On July 8, 2000 with it’s
final movie being Children of the Corn 2.
After Joe Bob and his staff finished filming they were promptly
told that they were fired and viewers were told with a message on the
Monstervision Website that Joe Bob was leaving. The next Week was far more
depressing when viewers logged into the site that was loaded with the drive-in
images you witnessed all of the lights on the site shutting off and a sign
posting on the front of the site stating that they were out of business.
This was again not the end of Joe Bob Briggs.
This time saw the launch of joebobbriggs.com and The Joe Bob
Report and at the time you would have Joe Bob’s Week in Review emailed to you
featuring that week’s news with Joe Bob’s humorous twist.
John Bloom began to work for United Press International and
other publications penning columns like The Vegas Guy and Joe Bob’s America. His work can also be seen in the book Choice:
The Best of Reason.
John Bloom was also for years seen hosting the God Stuff
segments of the Daily Show.
A religious man himself Bloom began helping with the Trinity
foundation in the Dallas area and their work on the The Wittenburg Door working
as a Watchdog for the Watchdogs.
2003 saw the release of the Millennium Edition of I Spit on
Your Grave by Elite Entertainment and the DVD contained Audio Commentary by Joe
Bob defending the film from it’s detractors. When Asked about this commentary
Joe Bob stated that he was recommended by the director Meir Zarchi himself because
he was the only critic that liked the film.
This DVD was followed by a brief series titled Joe Bob
Briggs presents Jessie James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter and the Double D
Avenger.
Fans of Monstervision were treated to another DVD line that
had Joe Bob’s Private Screening Room as an option where Joe Bob would introduce
the film while providing another Commentary on the feature.
These titles included Hell High, Samurai Cop, and many
titles from Ray Dennis Steckler including The Chooper aka Blood Shack and The
Incredible Creatures that Stopped Living and became Mixed Up Zombies.
Bloom Also published two other books post Monstervision with
Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies that Changed History consisting of
Essays on some of the groundbreaking films and their influence on our culture
and how they effected filmmaking in general.
There was even a follow-up book titled Profoundly Erotic:
Sexy Movies that Changed History again consisting of Essays on films that
rocked the boat in censors and sensuality.
Ever the man of knowlege of the genre but of films and the Drive-In in general Joe Bob has also been an interview subject in many documentries ranging from horror special features like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jason X to films like American Scary and Drive-In Memories.
Joe Bob Briggs has also become a fixture on the Horror
Convention Circuit. He was announced as a guest at the inaugural Texas
Frightmare Weekend I finally got to meet the man in person while he moderated
many QnAs on the weekend and granted us an exclusive interview for the event
while we were filming the official DVD.
He can be seen at many great conventions across the country
often moderating QnAs and many times he is joined with Honey the Mailgirl who
has become a successful Family Lawyer in Bloomington, Indiana.
Renner St John has also become a successful attorney in Charlotte,
North Carolina. I am unsure of Summer and Reno’s whereabouts and what they have
been doing since the end of Monstervision.
When Monstervision was canceled in 2000 I remember being disappointed
but I knew that that was not the end of Joe Bob Briggs and in 2010 10 years
later Anjanette and I had the honor of presenting him with a lifetime achievement
award for his contributions to the genre in Tulsa ,Oklahoma.
There were a few technical difficulties as I was told to
present the award on the stage with the microphones so that it could be
recorded for the Podcast however there was no one pressing record at the
soundboard and the videographer was having trouble with the recording of the
audio on the camera as well. Luckily I am a skilled Video Tech and was able to
restore as much as I could and then I would go on to moderate the QnA with Joe
Bob and Frank De Felitta the director of Dark Night of the Scarecrow.
In 2012 I spent a great amount of time converting and
restoring many of my old Monstervision VHSs to digital formats when my home was
destroyed in a fire taking my entire media collection among others.
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Soon after this Anjanette presented me with a package
from Joe Bob with new autographed copies of some of his books to begin the
rebuilding of my autograph collection. I was able to tank him personally when
he appeared at the Alamo Drafthouse in January 2013 to present screenings of
Don Knott’s The Love God? and the Roger Corman Angie Dickenson Classic Big Bad
Mama.
Recently Joe Bob Briggs has announced the inception of Joe
Bob Briggs Productions. While currently selecting scripts for production the
films will be low budget films in the tradition of Roger Corman’s era of filmmaking
which was a great time for movies.
This is shaping up to be a great endeavor and I hope to be
involved with it in the near future.
You can still reach
Joe Bob Briggs at his website www.joebobbriggs.com
As well as on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/JoeBobBriggs
Also on on Twitter @therealjoebob
You can also follow his production company on Twitter as
well @JBBProTeam
I expect great things from this production company so keep
an eye on them.
Till Next time this is Casey C. Corpier reminding you that
The Eagle Has Landed, The Falcoln Has Molted, The Package has been Delivered ,
and the Fat Lady has Sung, But….
THE DRIVE-IN WILL NEVER DIE
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