"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 4/30/93
cutline: Cat Sassoon, star of "Angelfist," has a fist like an angel and a face like a fist.
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
You might of seen this thing in the paper about a motorcyclist who got wasted by a sem-eye in the middle of San Francisco. It was a terrible tragic accident. But then, after they put him in a body bag, the Coroner's Office van showed up to investigate--and ran over the poor sucker AGAIN. Then, after realizing he'd run over him, the driver of the van BACKED over him while trying to park.
I know I know I know, it's no laughing matter. People were outraged. They held press conferences about it. There'll probly be lawsuits. The guy didn't deserve it, even if he WAS dead.
But one thing nobody noticed, I don't think, was the TV movie possibilities we've got here. It's gotten to where there's hardly anything horrible that happens to ANYBODY that hasn't ALREADY been a TV movie. I mean, we've done incest, we've done teenage drugs, we've done Amy Fisher. We've done realtor-by-day, hooker-by-night. We've done the guy who married three women at the same time. We've done most of the women who kill their husbands and ALL of the husbands who kill their wives. We're fast approaching the greasy bottom of the TV-movie fried-chicken bucket.
And then this happens.
I think we have a winner.
I can see the TV Guide ad now:
Tonight, a CBS Special Event Movie . . .
ROADKILL!
The true story of the biker so mean they had to flatten him twice!
Or was it, in the words of the coroner, "JUST AN ACCIDENT"?
Twenty-five years after "Easy Rider" made every biker think twice about passing a pick-up, we finally have a sequel for the nineties . . . Now watch the rednecks FINISH THE JOB.
Why did high-ranking officials, many of whom had watched Oliver Stone's "JFK," want Tony Simpson dead?
And WHY DID THEY WANT HIM DEAD AGAIN?
Listen to witnesses who saw the van emerge from a grassy knoll. Was the biker run over three times, or only two?
Was he a zombie biker, spawned at a secret government laboratory, soon to rise from the street and lead an army of the undead down Market Street? Was the mysterious van on a mission of mercy?
Or was it a case of mistaken identity? Did the coroner's office re-kill the WRONG MAN?
Watch for the big autopsy scene, where the medical examiner describes the body: 'We have multiple injuries to the head, contusions on the neck, cuts and abrasions to the left forearm, two giant tire tracks across the chest, three broken fingernails . . ."
Government conspiracy? Or "just a bunch of crazy teenagers fooling around"?
You decide. Tonight only. With Erik Estrada as the dead, really dead biker. Drew Barrymore as the girl who told him not to take the Harley that day. Michael J. Pollard as "the guy in the brown overalls." Casey Kasem as the reporter. And Lou Gossett Jr. as Levar.
As narrator Wilford Brimley puts it, "Was it an accident, or does it just LOOK LIKE AN ACCIDENT?"
Whatever you decide, one thing's for sure:
He's dead.
A Hearst Entertainment Production of a Stephen King Film. Special makeup effects by Industrial Light and Magic.
And speaking of films that should never be made, "Angelfist" is the latest attempt to create a FEMALE kung-fu star, this time with North American karate champeen Cat Sassoon, the woman with a fist like an angel and a face like a fist.
Normally Cat is a pouty-lipped El Lay cop who busts into motel rooms and kung-fus Mexican drug dealers, but now her kickboxing topless dancer sister has been murdered by samurai ninjas in the Philippines. Pretty soon she's fighting her way through political demonstrations, befriending a weenie named Alcatraz, and entering the big "Kubate" women's kickboxing tournament so she can find out who . . . er . . . why . . . er . . . actually, I don't KNOW why she enters the big women's kickboxing tournament, but I know it has something to do with drug dealers, the American ambassador, death brigades, the FBI, and her sister's friend, Melissa Moore, who gets tied up by terrorists, tortured, raped, and made to suffer a LOT of lewd remarks, before she breaks loose, leaps onto a train, chokes a ninja to death with her KNEES, and rushes into the kickboxing arena to warn Cat they're trying to assassinate the ambassador.
I'm sorry, I'm doing the best I can.
Twenty dead bodies. Twenty-eight breasts. Five ninja attacks, including one where the ninjas wear panty-hose over their heads. Exploding car. THREE gratuitous shower scenes. Gratuitous topless-bar entertainment. Eleven kickboxing scenes. Kung Fu. Bimbo Fu. Sword Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Cat Sassoon, the only kickboxer whose lips are bigger than her thighs, for performing brutal kung-fu-in-the-nude; Roland Dantes, the stick-fighting martial arts expert with nothing to do in the movie, for saying "Vengeance is not an acceptable motive for fighting in the Kubate"; and Melissa Moore, who has always had enormous talents but now reveals kung-fu skills as well.
One and a half stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS
Foreign Republican Alert! The K-W Drive-In, located halfway between Kitchener and Waterloo, Canada, showed "Forbidden Planet" on the final night of its existence, after being bought by a Toronto land developer. The K-W opened 41 years ago with "The Big Wheel," starring Mickey Rooney and Thomas Mitchell, featuring free baby-sitting, "largest screen in Canada," "largest arc lamps in Ontario," and "a modern refreshment booth." Glen and Laurette of San Francisco remind us that, without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and Joe Bob's 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.
Dear Mr. Briggs:
Alert! A joke is no joke! All business is serious business! So you had better quit fooling around if you know what is good for the rest of us.
Enclosed is an enlightening story from the November 29 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. I will summarize:
At a recent staff meeting, the Director of Athletics at San Jose State University passed out a memo on sexual harassment written by one--not two--Marilyn Moniz-Kahoohanohano. The Kahoohanohano slant on the issue suggested that non-G-rated movies may not be described in the presence of women. Athletic staff members took umbrage.
Ladies B-ball coach Tina Krah took precious time out from her class on Stooping For Rebounds to join Kathy, Jackie, and Karen in composing a letter to the President--of the San Jose State University. (It used to be San Jose State Teacher's College, then, in the Tommie Smith days, Speed City, but now it's a university where you send your kids to get older if their SATs are not up there with your dog's). T, K, J and K took the position that jokes are horrifying things that stick in their krahs. They were fully supported by the campus harassment maven, Wiggsy Silversten.
Our Wiggsy advises us that the memo itself was harassment incarnate in that it "placed women in the most negative of lights."
I know you will join with me in shutting off all those negative lights and remaining, forevermore, stone-faced.
It's not funny, JB.
Jerry Wright
Portola Valley, Calif.
Dear
Jerry:
Sexual harassment is nothing to joke about. And there's a good reason. Women who no one would ever, in their entire life, even CONSIDER sexually harassing will always complain about it to men who are always HOPING they'll be sexually harassed themselves, and the whole thing will always be reported by journalists, male and female, who just flat don't ever get any dates at all.
Joe Bob,
Retroactive nomination for best drive-in movie of 1934:
"Tarzan and His Mate": Evidently a jab at the Hays Office, this non-stop actioner set on African continent opens with implied adultery, segues to male buns, gratuitous shooting of insubordinate native porter by white hunter (his distressed partner says "A whip would have worked!"), arrow-in-native-forehead, arrow-in-white-mens'-foreheads with one white hunter suspended by heels while ants nibble face, slaughter of friendly native porters by hostile natives, slaughter of hostile natives by white hunters, slaughter of one sacrilegious hostile native by another hostile, extended nude swimming scene by Mia Farrow's mom, Maureen O'Sullivan, simulated rhino-stabbing, actual giant-rubber-crocodile stabbing, actual safari footage of lion-shooting, lion-spearing, simulated torture of friendly native porters by hostile natives, docile Indian elephants with huge artificial eats to simulate wild African elephants, loincloth flapping crotch-shot while making friction-fire, again, of Mia's mom. (Beginning of nude swimming scene was broadcast in "MGM: When the Lion Roars" last winter on Turnervision, after which I made "mental note" to look at this video. It's a revelation. Weissmuller plays straight-arrow Tarzan, while canvas elephant ears and Jane's loincloth flap in turmoil about him.)
Clint Williams
Oakland, Mich.
Dear
Clint:
I, too, have seen "Tarzan and His Mate," and, yes, we now know how Mia's mom got so kinky.
Dear Jimbo:
I was conceived at a drive-in on the hood of a '48 Packard and therefore feel qualified to make the following statement:
Last Sunday I was digesting your weekly article and a six-pack when a show titled "Drive-In Blues" came on the Discovery Channel. Other than some old intermission snack bar ads, the show gnawed pud. Raw, uncredited film of numerous drive-ins being demolished. Old people whining. All references to the drive-in were in the past tense. What kind of Republican gay-boy that doesn't know how to drink beer could produce a half-hour documentary on the drive-in and not include Joe Bob Briggs? It's a sacrilege! I hope their legs grow together.
From the knees up,
Andy Williams
San Leandro, Calif.
Dear
Andy:
It's even worse: That pseudo-documentary dealie was originally made for the Communist-inspired PBS.
Dear Joe Bob:
This has been a really good week. Not only did I receive my tax return check and make the long-awaited purchase of this nifty word processor, but I read my first Joe Bob column of the year.
I've been reading your work in various trashy publications (and one trashy compilation) for about five years and I hope your hat will still fit after I tell you that, in my humble opinion, you are without peer among movie critics.
Anyhoo, I was reading this column about sickies from Wisconsin and I thought I would share a couple things with you. First of all, any human who would CHOOSE to live in a climate like that of Wisconsin is deeply sick to begin with. Nuff said.
Secondly, I have collected a huge slew of Dahmer jokes that I was saving to sell to "Easyriders" or somebody (any sick-humor markets you could turn me on to would be greatly appreciated), but I figured I'd share em with you. Just give me a spot of credit if you publish; I'm still planning to sell them if I can.
Did you hear Dahmer got out of jail? Yep, got a fancy lawyer--cost him an arm and a leg.
Of course, with all those legal bills he had to sell his car. He didn't really mind, though. It was a Scirocco, and they're famous for not having enough head and leg room.
Sold his condo, too. Newspaper ad said "2-bedroom condo for sale. Fully furnished, roommate included--some assembly required."
One night his mom was over for dinner and said to him, "Jeffrey, I don't like your friends." His reply: "Well, shut up and eat your vegetables, then."
His neighbor came over in a panic cause a first date was coming over for dinner in ten minutes and the guy was out of lettuce for the salad. Jeffrey's reply? "No problem, I've got a couple of heads in the fridge."
And to top it all off, Jeff's girlfriend left him. She said their sex life had gotten boring cause he liked to skip the foreplay and go straight to his pleasure. Seems he wanted to save the head for later.
Your friend and mine,
Trespassers Will
Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Dear
Trespassers Will:
I won't be showing your letter to Jeffrey. He might bite your head off.
Joe Bob:
I was wrong. You are right. The worst thing about the lesbo menace is that they coach straight women to act like a microwave with metal in it. Your column on the subject was one helluva stand, and really, courage is what writing and sex is all about (at least when everyone else rates higher on the Wimp Meter). Someone ought to do a drive-in movie of "Norman Mailer on the Isle of Lesbos," where he gets held, captured and tortured, but eventually arm-wrestles em all into the sack (not with each other). Bless you. Screw em. Especially if they CAN take a joke.
Tony Wilds
Baltimore
Dear
Tony:
I have nothing against lesbos. I'm thinking of becoming one myself.
© 1993 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved