The Laughing Reindeer is the current home to show-and-tell the latest creative visions of Frank Kurtz. Here you will find works in progress, finished pieces, flights of fancy and more. Run for cover! Monsters! Nightmares! Comics! Oven mitts! (Okay, maybe not oven mitts. Then, again, hmmmm...)
Those of you longtime readers of this Blog probably will recall through the last few years, I've had lots of technical difficulties with my computer, which resulted in my disappearance from this Blog. Once again, the computer problems returned, this time taking out a computer that I have had for 10 years. 10 years is a long time for a computer, and this one was the same that I wrote material for Cinescape Online.
We finally got a new computer, but there were more problems ahead. Then, my scanner broke... another old device that just went as far as it could and then stopped. Anyway, enough bellyaching. I'm still working on the Creepville Collected book and resumed work on my Agents of Peril online comic strip. Both of these will be previewed or serialized here.
I'm also working on a couple of other projects, which I hope to debut or tease here.
Honestly, I also needed a break from the Blog anyway, while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. Blogs can be time consuming, but I also found them to be as fun as doing a fanzine, with better production values. After putting some thought into it, my plans feel pretty good to me. Some things will disappear while other things stay alongside new stuff. I hope that you'll enjoy them as well. Feel free to comment on them.
Thanks for your questions, comments, praise and opinions from before. Hope you like what's coming next.
My wife always asks me to smile, and I tell her I am smiling. In this picture? Yes, I'm smiling.
See you soon!
Most of you don’t really know me. You’ve never met me. You probably have no idea what I look like or where I live, but you owe me…
You all owe me big time. Why?
For all of you, I dared to look a demon in the face and spit in its eye. Nay, nay, worse than that… I actually watched the Paul Lynde Halloween Special, shown on the ABC TV network on October 29, 1976. More recently, this program was actually released on DVD.
Now, I’m going to give you a small taste… and a very small taste is all you dare try, because this thing is too terrible to believe.
Okay, I’m no dope. These days Paul Lynde as an entertainer is more a punch line himself than a teller of jokes. This holiday special takes all the worst aspects of the man, crams it into an hour long special, tosses in a few bizarre guest stars, and ends up with a cocktail that is all bad 70’s. In fact, it is so much a part of its era that when you see the title of the program with narration, you may find yourself thinking this is all some ingenious SCTV bit.
I should also note that there is a strong connection to TV kid vid creators Sid and Marty Krofft. Though they are only mentioned in the end credits regarding Witchiepoo as being their creation, almost every guest is involved with a Krofft production of that era.
But how bad is it? It’s so bad that when watching it you may find yourself closing all the curtains, putting towels under the door and whatever else is necessary to avoid letting friends and neighbors know that you’re actually watching it.
So, what’s so bad? Let’s go…
The program opens with a short series of bad jokes wherein Paul dresses up for Christmas, Easter and Valentines Day, pretending to ignore the fact that it is Halloween. His housekeeper, Margaret (played by Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West) chides Paul, until he admits that it is Halloween. Cut to Paul on stage, telling bad jokes and dancing and singing. The dancers (including Donnie and Marie Osmond) finish the number by putting Paul in a garbage can, which explodes.
After the commercial break, we see Paul and Margaret driving to her home out in the country, which happens to be a creepy castle. They ring the doorbell and Witchiepoo (Billie Hayes) from H.R. Pufnstuf answers the door. She’s actually Margaret’s sister. Margaret then assumes her real self, the Wicked Witch of the West. Loads of bad jokes follow, plus a cameo by Betty White (for no particular reason) during which Paul is granted three wishes.
His first wish is to be a truck driver with a big 18 wheeler. Tim Conway appears in the awful sketch as a couple of different truckers doing jokes with Paul through their CB radios. As it ends up, they’re both supposed to be getting married to a waitress at a seedy café. The waitress is played by Roz Kelly… who was the very short-lived Pinky, Fonzie’s girlfriend from Happy Days. She’s attractive, but can’t act or sing at all… which is proved in a singing and dancing number to finish the bit off.
Back at the mansion, Paul does more shtick with the witches… which results in introducing KISS in their TV debut appearance. They do a couple of songs but remain removed from the show’s star.
Next up, comes a second wish from Paul that will challenge anyone with an upset stomach. Paul wishes he was sheik in the desert a la Rudolph Valentino. He’s trying to woo Florence Henderson. Their scenes of kissing and hugging strain the very fabric of sanity and the ability of my stomach to hang on to whatever I just ate.
After a commercial break, we see a small unfunny bit with Margaret and Billy Barty. Paul returns and decides to let the witch sisters use his third wish for themselves. Touched (in the head) by his kindness, they decide they want their home to be a disco. A disco dance number follows, with Florence Henderson singing a song and Roz pretending she has any talent at all (she still doesn’t).
Paul wants KISS to return, this time having them actually talk to the program’s star. Peter Kriss sings (or more correctly, lip synches) “Beth.” The band does another song, but there are still a few more jokes from Paul, Roz, the witches left to be squeezed out. The show ends with the cast dancing and this TV viewer drooling from the mouth while bleeding from my eyes and ears.
This I have spared you. If you think I’ve been exaggerating, check it out for yourself. I dare you…
Remember the so-called good ol' days when local TV stations would show movies (with commercial breaks) into the late hours instead of reruns of sitcoms and infomercials? I've always been a person who woke up in the night and would turn on the tube and watch a film clunker or gem, get tired and fall back asleep again.
Very often this was when films that would become favorites of mine would be shown.
Here are a few...
When I first saw The Blob, it was on WGN Channel 9 in Chicago. I was familiar with what the movie was, thanks to Famous Monsters of Filmland, but when I finally saw it... well, it was better than I thought it would be with its snappy color, wacky theme song, great low budget FX and Steve McQueen... and The Blob, itself.
Hot Rods to Hell was a regular late night feature on WGN. Dana Andrews gets into a car accident on Christmas Eve and retires to run a motel in a desert town. There, he is forced into tussling with young hot rodding punks fearing that a back injury has weakened him too much. He gets the balls up at the end and just about pounds a kid's head in with a tire iron. Blisteringly bad in a boffo way. Word has it that this flick was originally shot as a TV movie, but the end product was so lurid compared to banal shows like My Three Sons, MGM tossed it out to drive-ins... but, of course, it ended up back on TV.
The Severed Arm was on the nearly forgotten WSNS Channel 44, when it was an English language channel. It's a dreary but effective 70s horror flick, heavy in late night quiet creepiness and low in budget. It's typical 70s trash with no humor (I think) and even less hope of a happy ending. It may have been the first sort of gore movie I ever saw.
Is The Vulture really all that bad? Most of the film is an entertaining little horror flick with the story of a giant vulture killing people, including a boozed up Broderick Crawford. It all has something to do with an atomic experiment and a wacky mad scientist played by Akim Tamiroff. I was a sucker for the film even though the ending was so goofy it had me laughing. Heck, I still am!
Sadly, this film is not on You Tube... but here's the movie poster.
They Came From Beyond Space was a lot like The Vulture with enough to keep you awake until the end ... and an end that was so goofy you wish you hadn't. Hey, hold on there... both films also star Robert Hutton, who starred in a lot of these marginal low budget flicks as a hero, including Invisible Invaders (a rare cowardly, unlikable role) and The Slime People. If I stumbled onto any of these films, I left 'em on.
Anybody out there still awake? Speak up, everyone! What are those late night gems you stayed up watching through bleery, bloodshot eyes? Let me hear from you!
Are there any TV stations out there still showing movies at night? Thank goodness, Svengoolie is still at it in Chicago. It would seem to me that there may be a market to put together a package of low budget junk ready to feed late night fiends like me.
Yes, it is... and that's all I'm gonna say for now.
Also, Nightmare City is back with the 7th page of the comic's first story.
As for Creepsville... well, I hate making excuses after posting what I hoped to do with this Blog, but here's the deal: I'm still coloring the page that would have gone up today. I'll post it next week. My excuse is life... working the day job, being a dad, working around the house, and hanging out with my wife. It will be done and posted here next week. After that, I'll just cross my fingers.
In fact, two weeks from today, the page will take a break, because the whole family is participating in the Avon Breast Cancer marathon walk in Chicago. Colette's sister, Chris, is in the walk. We'll be making sure she has water and food along the way.
As usual, click on the images on this page and the much larger versions will appear as if by magic before your bedazzled eyes.
See you next week on Memorial Day weekend. And as H.R. Pufnstuf said, "Keep those cards and letters comin'."
Here are this week's installments of Agents of Peril & the Creepsville story "Destroy All Toy Pirates."
Rat and Percy make the break into 4 colors in Creepsville, while Frank and Dick are still out of it. On the latter point, I'll just say this for the last time, next week it's gonna get weird in AoP. For how long I cannot say, mainly because I don't want to say.
As usual, click on the images here and they will appear on your browser at the right size to read 'em. If they still look small, hold you cursor over the image and click once. Hopefully that increases the size for you.
What's that? Oh, yes, something is missing...
Nightmare City is taking a one week break due to pesky technical difficulties. It will be back, picking up where it left off.
Maybe a bit later than I would like it to be, but here, finally, is the 27th installment of the latest Agents of Peril comics strip.
Maybe it's appropriate that the strip be presented by itself (at least this week). What I mean is that I'm now journeying into unknown territory with the strip. This installment is the first of the newly wrought installments in an attempt to finish a story that has waited over a decade to get done. (I've made a habit out of doing this... for example, the movie Carnivore I worked on took over 10 years.)
I have to admit that given my Parkinson's condition, I feared that I would no longer be able to draw the sort of detail-obsessed, ink crazy type of work I loved doing years ago... and still do. What do you think?
After this story, there will be more. I'm looking forward to it!
Click on the image above to see the larger scan as it should be seen. I've noticed that my browser tries to shrink the image to fit the window. If you're having that issue, click on the image once and it should grow to full-size.
