"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 3/13/92
cutline: Marc Singer, as the Beastmaster, survives fire, wild beasts, and a deadly laser gun, but is finally vanquished by the powerful creature Stinky Sequel Scriptus, in "Beastmaster 2."
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
Ugly-on-a-Stick has started worrying that her little one-year-old E.T.-faced baby is a "Type A Personality."
I said to her, "Ugly, you've been reading Redbook again, haven't you?"
She admitted it. Ugly-on-a-Stick is the only six-foot-two, 47-pound woman ever kicked out of a beauty parlor for writing down the answers to every personality test in Cosmopolitan magazine, yelling out the questions to all the other customers, and then demanding to know "If I'm such a SENSUAL woman, how come I haven't had a date in three years with a man who has all his limbs?"
If I'd of been there, I could have told her: "Because you're UGLY." But I wasn't there.
Anyhow, as you all know, Chloris (the Christian name of U-O-A-S) gave birth about a year ago to a little splotchy-skinned mutant baby that we THINK is Mexican, but Chloris insists he's Swedish. And all she's done for the last year is worry about how little Bjorn is growing up, whether he has the right food, the right stuffed rhinos in his crib, the right diapers.
"How can there be WRONG diapers?" I asked her. "It's not like he's gonna WAIT for you to find another one. I'd say that, if the diaper is ON HIS BUTT when he NEEDS it, then by definition it's the RIGHT diaper."
But Ugly went on and on about how some diapers make little Bjorn's hiney turn purple. She fails to notice that it's BEEN purple ever since he was born. Bjorn's got colors in his skin that normally you have to live to be 89 and get Ted Kennedy's nose transplanted onto your face to have that many colors.
Anyhow, I'm getting off the point here. My point was that the latest thing Ugly's started worrying about is that Bjorn is a Type-A baby.
"What the heck is a Type A baby?" I asked her.
"It's a person who spends all his time working and planning things."
"I see what you mean," I told her. "Bjorn has been spending all his time working at his job of spitting up 94 times a day, and then planning how many times he'll spit up tomorrow."
"No, Joe Bob, I'm serious. Have you noticed how he plays with his blocks? He stacks them up in a neat pile. And he can't stand to wait. If he has to wait thirty seconds for his food, he starts crying. And he's very competitive. If he sees the cat playing with something, he has to have it."
"And so what?" I asked her. "He's a little 18-pound Scandinavian-Mexican-Ugandan mutant with a brain that's probly been mangled like the fender on an '82 Camaro--you gotta expect a LITTLE bit of white-trash behavior."
"But that's not what I'm afraid of," Chloris said. "Type A personalities are NEVER white trash."
"What are they then?"
"They all go to work on Wall Street. They run companies into the ground and get rich and retire."
"So what are you worried about?"
"What if he becomes a lawyer? It would be the first one in the Sturtivant family."
"Maybe he could get all the OTHER Sturtivants out of jail?"
"They couldn't stand the humiliation of knowing they were related to him."
"Chloris, you know what Bjorn's REAL problem is gonna be?"
"What?"
"He's gonna be a Type U personality."
"He is?"
"Yes he is. And I think we all know what the U stands for, don't we?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Good."
"Thank you, Joe Bob. You always put things into perspective."
Speaking of people who have no perspective on life, the creators of "The Beastmaster," which was a halfway decent movie when it came out ten years ago, suddenly decided to do a SEQUEL because in the last couple years a whole new audience discovered the movie from watching it 978 times on cable TV. So they called up Marc Singer, who was a little heftier but still plenty beasty, dusted off his loincloth, and told him to start talking to the animals again. They got the money together, hired a director, replaced Tanya Roberts (because she doesn't do nudity anymore) with an Empty-V gal named Kari Wuhrer (only evidently she doesn't do nudity either, so what's the point?). They brought back the tiger, the twin ferrets, the trained hawk or eagle or pterodactyl--whatever that thing is. They got Wings Hauser, Mr. B-Movie Meanie himself, to play the evil overlord Arklon. They spent big bucks on the poster, the promotion, the special effects. And then, after they finished the movie, they suddenly realized that--DARN!--they forgot to write a script.
So what we ended up with is "Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time," the story of a sensitive animal-loving barbarian who gets sucked into modern El Lay through a time warp in an alley caused by a bimbo in a Mazda Miata who was driving too fast and zoomed through a brick wall and landed in the desert where Arklon's army was trying to kill the Beastmaster, only she's kidnapped by Arklon who wants her to take him to the 20th century so he can get a "neutron detonator" he's been told about by Sarah Douglas as the evil conniving witch Lyranna, and then the Beastmaster finds out that Arklon is his brother, and so they'll eventually have to fight it out over the neutron detonator while surrounded by wild beasts at the Griffith Park Zoo and, well, uh, actually, I kinda forget all the parts in the middle, but the main thing I remember is that the animals follow along but they never really DO something. They do a few stunts with the lion, a few cute furry shots of the ferrets, but what I'm telling you is . . . it's no "Beastmaster One."
I don't understand why, but Marc never quite gets into full loincloth mode in this one.
We're talking 49 dead bodies. Zero breasts. Two motor vehicle chases, with explosion. Hunchback zombie cannibal swamp thing. Laser fireballs. Avalanche. Lost hounds "searching for souls to drag down into the abyss." Swordfighting. Face-eating tiger. Arrow through the throat. Face-chewing eagle. Mazda Miata worship. Kung Fu. Ferret Fu. Zoo Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Wings Hauser, for wearing a lame "Phantom of the Opera" mask throughout the whole movie and for saying stuff like "I don't like it--bring the witch!" and "I shall feed on your memories and know all that you know" and "Oh gods of war and thunder, show me the way to my kingdom!"; Sarah Douglas, as the witch, for saying "The power of the key is not eternal" and then for disappearing before the movie is over--she just suddenly VANISHES; Marc Singer, for doing that loincloth thang, and for saying "The animals are the only family I have" and "Where I come from, the only thing virgins are good for is sacrifice"; Kari Wuhrer, the MTV gal, for saying "Way rad!" and "Tell Daddy I'm going to stop World War 3!"; and James Avery, as the police chief, for saying "Have somebody run a check on all loincloth freaks" and "What you're trying to tell me, Bendowski, is that there's some stranger running around with a laser beam blowing brassieres off mannequins?"
One and a half stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS
Republican Alert! The Knight Drive-In, only movie theater in Riverton, Wyo., is dead but not gone. Jason Aycock is trying to revive it and reminds us that, without eternal vigilance, it can happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and his world-famous "We Are the Weird" newsletter, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.
Joe Bob,
Council Bluffs is in IOWA, not Nebraska! Shame on you!!
Lori Mitchell
Dallas
Dear
Lori:
Even though the current Rand-McNally map shows that Council Bluffs is indeed in Iowa, I have never been there to verify this and so, in the great tradition of The Washington Post series on the ten-year-old heroin junkie, "I stand by my story."
Dear Joe Bob:
Please note: There is only ONE University of Miami and it is in Coral Gables, Florida.
The other institution, to which you erroneously referred to as being "another University of Miami," is actually Miami University, and it is, indeed, somewhere in Ohio.
James W. Meloney
Raleigh, N.C.
Dear
Jimbo:
Sorry.
Lighten up.
Sheesh.
Dear Joe Bob,
My hubbie and I were wondering how the World High Sheriffs get their titles. Like Strongman (ole Manuel N.), Kingpin (John Gotti), Dictator--excuse me, THE Dictator (you know who), Madman (as in Muamar), and the President-For-Life (Baby Doc, but there've been so many . . .)? And why would anyone want to be called "President-For-LIFE" anyway? By the way, does a Strongman beat out a Kingpin, etc.? If all these guys got together for a meeting, who'd sit at the head of the table? Aside from the chairman of BCCI, and I don't know what his title is? And why hasn't Imelda qualified for her title yet? FOUL! I think it's SEXIST DISCRIMINATION!
Do people aspire to these titles as children? I ask 'cause I'm considering giving my baby a head start in this amazing career field. If I start calling him "Supreme Leader" at the age of one, will it scar him for life?
Monica "The Weasel" Menco
Sunnyvale, Calif.
Dear
Monica:
What I wonder is, why don't the titles ever work in REVERSE? Like "Nerd Man Jimmy Carter" or "Fat Museum Piece Fidel Castro"?
Dear Mr. Briggs,
I just wanted to let you know I absolutely love your article "Advanced Bigotry 101." I got hold of it through a friend and feel it sums up America perfectly.
I was also wondering what brought you to write it? And also where did you get the guts to write and publish it!
Also, it was nice of you to not include the Hungarians, because we are, of course, the superior race. (Just kidding!)
Thanks again for pointing out the simplicity of it all.
Yours truly,
Ms. Elaine Meszaros
Ladysmith, Wis.
Dear
Elaine:
Hungarian, eh?
I can't BELIEVE we let you people into this country.
Dear Joe Bob--
I was watching late night TV last Friday, and I happened upon a drive-in delight, "The Freak Maker," starring Donald Pleasance. With lines such as, "I'll create a race of plants that can walk, and men that can take root," I thought it suspiciously similar to your description of "The Mutations." Not to mention identical plot lines. What's the scoop? (I was so sad to see the Lizard Lady die.)
It's me again,
Riba Meryl
Burbank, Calif.
Dear
Riba:
Yes, "The Freak Maker" and "The Mutations" are the exact same movie, EXCEPT that if you saw it under the name of "The Freak Maker," then you saw the Communist edited version. If you saw it on MY show, on the other hand, you saw the Lizard Lady and all the other freaks in their complete and unedited disgustingly realistic splendor.
© 1992 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved