There are times in life that you just can’t relive. Sure you can take pictures and watch recordings of the experience, but that does not match the real time. Last weekend was one of those events.
To tell you about it first I have to take you back to my youth. In what many would consider the early days of the internet, not to mention “The Dial-Up Years”. One of my greatest memories of this time is the late nights on TNT.TURNER.COM/MONSTERVISION playing “Find That Flick” among other activities on the website and in the chatroom with other fans. All of this while watching the late night double feature of Monstervision all hosted by one of my hometown heroes John Bloom, better known as his alter egos Joe Bob Briggs.
After the cancelation of Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theatre on The Movie Channel the program was quickly picked up by TNT and became a late night staple as viewers watched the antics of the host and his mail girl along with the crew. Enjoying gimics like Summer School where viewers were given quizzes on the website in relevance to the film that was viewed and featured guest lectures from actors in the flick. Joe Bob’s Last Call, and the Halloween weekend marathons where Joe Bob and his crew were stalked by a maniacal Ted Turner or the search for The Nair Witch.
Without warning in the height of the popularity of the show Monstervision was abruptly canceled by TNT, The first victim of the AOL merger and the change in format of TNT. Viewers were informed of this after logging on to the website to see an official statement by the network. Overnight Monstervision was gone without a finale leaving viewers asking the simple question…Where was Joe Bob?
While many of us were now without our Saturday night hero, Joe Bob was not hard to find. Soon DVDs were released with commentary tracks by the former host and Joe Bob frequently appeared at many conventions and festivals, but the question remained. Will there be another Monstervision? Viewers longed for the trailer and to enjoy a “Long Neck” while hearing of The Drive-In Totals, and to be delivered by the Mail Girl letters form inmates at various correctional facilities that wrote sent letters and later exclaimed the Joe Bob got them through that time.
The answer to these questions came in the announcement from Joe Bob and Shudder.
Joe Bob was back for The Last Drive-In; a 24 Hour Marathon on Friday the 13th where Joe Bob will host 13 flicks “Monstervision Style” where he will interrupt the flick every now and then to give his opinions on the flick as will as give some facts about what was seen, and Joe Bob was off to the promotional tour with appearances on popular podcasts, websites and personal appearances hosting films at specialty theatres around the country.
My home away from home, aka Richardson’s Alamo Drafthouse was the location of the Screening of the 1980s Cult Classic The original Sleepaway Camp featuring a similar intro by Joe Bob in which our audience was treated to a rant about the drama involving transgender restrooms. Needless to say it was a hell of a night.
Now this is where I have my own rant about Shudder. You see Shudder was not prepared for this kind of fan base and on the long awaited night of the screenings, well…WE CRASHED THE SERVERS!!!
Now while I was able to quickly troubleshoot this problem by constantly refreshing there were many of us that were not too fortunate. Needless to say this was not the fault of Joe Bob Briggs and I do give credit to Shudder for their handling of the situation.
Now this issue aside this 24 Hr marathon did indeed remind me of tho old days where I would spend the evenings watching Joe Bob and the fact that I was on Twitter and Instagram the whole time. As a matter of fact with the uncensored content of the films I considered this to be Monstervision Unrated!
While there were no commercials the Joe Bob segments interrupted the flicks with a static channel change effect, giving us the illusion that Joe Bob was hacking the website to give us facts about the films and I have to say that I loved these segments more for this reason.
Cosplayer Diana Prince took over the Mail girl Role, and I did briefly meet her in her appearance at the Alamo she seemed nice and polite but taking into consideration that in this case this role is more ceremonial as it made myself and others on social media long for Honey, or my personal favorite Rusty. Who I am sure have since have moved on from the role decades later.
That being said Diana added a new freshness to the role as she appeared in every Mail Call segment wearing a different costume in relevance to the film that was being shown.
Like many times before The Last Drive-In featured guest appearances relevant to a couple of the flicks. Starting with an appearance by Sleepaway Camp Star Felecia Rose giving her own facts and experiences working on the film and her chemistry with Joe Bob added to the humor and was a great way to start the night. I would like to talk about her “confrontation” with The Mail Girl but that would contain spoilers for those of you that have not seen the flick.
Personally I admit that the appearance by my friend Cryptozoologist and Ghoultown frontman Lyle Blackburn during the showing of The Legend of Boggy Creekwas my favorite part of the marathon. Seeing Joe Bob express his theory of the identity of The Fouke Monster with Lyle alone was enough, but when they had their own rendition of the Travis Crabtree “Ballad” from the film had many of us singing along despite ourselves.
When it finally came down to the final film Joe Bob selected the cult Hit Pieces due to his personal history of the film.
Emotions ran high as Joe Bob opened the flick talking about his recently departed friend and original horror host John Zacherle and became emotional speaking about his history and the tremendous respect he had for the man.
Fans fought back tears as Joe Bob closed the program thanking the fans who reached out to him and reminded us as the lights went out on The Last Drive-In. The credits rolled as Joe Bob sat in his chair in the dark after his trademark closing reminding us the “The Drive-In will Never Die”.
The Last Drive-In can be seen by Shudder Subscribers on Shudder.com and the Amazon channel.
By the way it was just announced that like the villains that we frequently seen in the genre that Shudder is in fact bring Joe Bob back for another marathon. This in fact proves that not only The Drive-In but Joe Bob Briggs will never Die!
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