-Post by Ben Nagy – @BJ_Nagy
Greetins Mutants! We have an update on the quest for the missing Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In reviews.
Seems that our timelines got a bit messed up and one of the dates in question wasn’t right. (After 37 years and with the Dallas Slimes Herald defunct, who can blame us?) Joe Bob took Nov. 26, 1982, off, so there was no review of Swamp Thing in that provincial rag. We owe many thanks to @SpookySarahSays on Twitter and Mr. William Kressin of Wisconsin for some impeccable Research Fu and gettin the gov’mnt involved to clear that up. You shall be rewarded. (And it proves that Joe Bob wasn’t lying when he said in his Mailbag way back when that his columns got sent to the Library of Congress). Also chiming in with some good info was Mr. Ronald Miller with his big ol’ collection of columns as well.
Now, there still is a drive-in mystery afoot. The Joe Bob column from Feb. 5, 1982, is still missing. We still think it’s for The Boogens. We still think it’s Bobo Rodriguez’s fault for dumping nacho cheese glopola on the hard copy Joe Bob had. We know that some high sheriff at the Slimes Herald didn’t bother to send in this bit of vital drive-in history to be enshrined in microfilm. Despite the efforts of many dedicated mutants who have been emailing and calling them, the Library of Congress can’t help. (The requests for Joe Bob material they’ve handled have gone up 4,000% since the call for help ran last week). We’re definitely gonna need a hard copy of the Dallas Time Herald Weekend section from February 5, 1982. I don’t know if any Texas libraries still have hard copies of a newspaper that’s been out of business for more than 25 years, but if anyone can find that missing review, it’ll be our loyal horde of fellow Drive-In Mutants.
Speaking of reviews, keep an eye out here on Joe Bob’s site in the coming weeks. As you all well know, our favorite drive-in critic in the history of the universe is a busy guy with his daily wellness regimen, adventures in travel and convention appearances (see the front page for those) as well as that burgeoning streaming empire he and Darcy (@kinky_horror) have going on Shudder. (Your patience regarding Season 2 is appreciated by the way; I’m antsy for news myself.)
In his travels, filmmakers give Joe Bob a ton of movies both physically and virtually to review. He wanted to make sure that all these hard-working creators get their due and so, in the grand tradition of the critic from Grapevine, Texas, yours truly is going to start checking em out on at least a weekly basis until they get sick of me. In the new section of the website called Screening Room, you’re going to get Drive-In Totals, Drive-In Academy Award nominations plus the star ratings you’ve come to expect for these flicks every Tuesday in the future from this reviewer from Greater Cleveburg. Future editions of the Last Call Blog will move ahead a couple of days to Thursdays. Stay tuned!
We’ll keep you posted as our search goes on and be sure to keep an eye out for the Screening Room’s de-butt.