We had a wrassler in the second feature of the premiere, we get a wrassler in the second feature of the finale. It’s called bookending.
As the old sayin goes, the more the merrier.
But unfortunately there ain’t no more of Season Two-o of the Last Drive-In as we closed out the final double feature with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s amphibious opus Hell Comes to Frogtown. Check out Laura’s trip to Hell if you wanna see how the night got rolling.
The late wrestling icon — he’s in my personal Top Five of all time — had a spectacular pair of four-star drive-in classics in 1988: They Live and the aforementioned direct-to-video exploits of Sam Hell, he of the very fertile loins and impressive whangdoodle whose special purpose was to repopulate a post-apocalyptic Newnited States. For sure, a monogamist, Sam Hell was not.
So that’s why we got to hear Joe Bob wax poetic about the perils of polygamy, the ability to get a quickie divorce in the Middle East and the swinging Vegas life of auteur Ted V. Mikels, he of The Astro-Zombies, The Corpse Grinders and Ten Violent Women.
- It’s not the sex that kills you when you’re a polygamist, it’s keeping up with the social media.
- Polygamists need to sock away about $5 million per wife to finance it.
- If you keep bringing in younger wives, Byzantine arguments will be constructed, entrapping the household in a cage of labyrinthine domesticity.
- Health insurance ain’t gonna be cheap.
- The modern polygamist is gonna end up on a reality show and your whole home life will end up being dissected.
Speaking of dissected, I couldn’t help but observe that the way his handlers kept Sam Hell under wraps was kind of like what they did with Snake Plissken in Escape From New York, only lower. And when you’re under the constant threat of having your equipment blown, performance difficulties can set in.
But Big Kurt didn’t have to fight a one-eyed chainsaw-wielding mutant frog (Ox Baker kinda comes close, but not quite), and that was just one of the more intriguing aspects of Donald G. Jackson’s science-fiction mutant-amphibian franchise-establishing flick. Let’s also not forget that Piper has a climactic fight at the uber-recognizable Vasquez Rocks, site of big battles in Star Trek and in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.
- 10 Dead Bodies
- 6 Breasts
- 2 Fistfights
- Forced Aardvarking
- Exploding Pinkmobile
- Forced Exploratory Surgery with a Chainsaw
- Pierced-Chest Sword Hurling
- Attempted Reverse Frog-Lady Rape
- Bottle Bashing to the Head
- Dance of the Three Snakes
- 1 Motor Vehicle Chase, with Machine Guns
- Hand-to-Hand Cliff-Edge Combat, with Eye Poking
- Hand Rolls
- Kung Fu
- Bimbo Fu
- Post-Apocalypse Fu
- Electro-Shock Chastity Belt Fu
- Bazooka Fu
We had wrestler Chris Jericho as a guest during the first double feature, the closest wrestler these days to approach the Rowdy One, as a ring personality, and we had Piper, one of the best to set foot in the ring, to close out the season. Yes, Hulk Hogan might have been the good guy and gotten the accolades at the first Wrestlemania and the Sports Illustrated cover, but when it comes to acting success, Piper’s performances in They Live and Frogtown absolutely blow No Holds Barred and Suburban Commando away.
RIP, Mr. Piper. The Mutant Fam misses you.
And that’s not all — we got a second cosplay from Darcy, this time channeling Sandahl Bergman’s stint as a froggy harem candidate, and a bonus one from Yuki as Pinhead.
Joe Bob sang us out with two performances — “The Frogtown Blues,” accompanied by a guitar-playing frog-headed guy who had to strum since John Brennan’s still lost in a parallel dimension after the end of Hogzilla, and then a rendition of The Last Drive-In theme.
So it’s goodbye for now, but with a summer special ahead, there’s still more surprises to look forward to.
And speakin of forward, since we’re done with Season Two-o Last Call recaps, I’m gonna get back to reviewing some flicks. If you’re a filmmaker and want me to check it out, shoot us a line here.
Stay tuned and see you soon…