Mr. Mixtape-ptlk, Track #7: "The Screamin' Meemies from Planet X" by Merv Griffin (1961)

Merv Griffin, Media Mogul

All this recent talk about The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror shutting down in the near future at Disney California Adventure may have a lot of longtime fans of the Tower down in the dumps, but it has had a marvelous effect on me. While I don't want to see it closed or changed as much as the next fan of the attraction, I recognize that things are always in flux in Disney's parks, and I also understand the reasons behind the closure and updating of the attraction. And on the plus side, riding the Tower so much recently has definitely put The Twilight Zone TV show back in mind for me.

Billboard Music Week, Oct. 9. 1961 -
Apparently all new singles (and their
"B" sides) were given 3 stars at the time. 

Luckily enough, I have numerous outlets through which I may pursue my love of this property in the comfort of my own home and collection: paperbacks of original stories, a "making of" trade paperback, issues from the Gold Key comic book series, and a couple of sets of DVDs to go through when it puts me in The Twilight Zone, er, "zone," as it were.

Strangely though, this has also triggered something else "Twilight Zone"-related in my mind: endless, repeated singing and humming of a rather obscure song from 1961 called The Screamin' Meemies from Planet "X".

For songs referencing The Twilight Zone, you certainly have other options. Sure, you could go with the big Golden Earring hit from 1984, if you like to hear stiffly sung English and indecipherable lyrics. (Don't get me wrong, I do like both of  those things when the mood strikes me; I am also very fond of the Golden Earring song, but only the full album version with the whole spooky instrumental break buildup). You could go with Rush's The Twilight Zone from their 1976 album, 2112, that directly references two memorable episodes of the show within drummer Neil Peart's lyrics. The members of Rush were such fans of the show, that they even dedicated not one, but two – TWO! – entire albums to the memory of Zone creator and host Rod Serling after he passed away in 1975.

Jazzbos have options too. Raymond "Powerhouse" Scott did a tasty instrumental with the title in 1960 that does not incorporate any elements from the theme music of the show, but does make vivid use of a theremin to give the song an unearthly intro and outro over a conga beat. The Manhattan Transfer, in one of their least jazzy moments though, went full disco with Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone and had a surprising Top 30 hit with it. (To my ears, though, it's pretty goddamned unlistenable, though I do have it in my collection.)

Possibly most famous was a huge surf hit from 1963 that surprisingly enough is not titled after the show, but was actually named for a rival show, The Outer Limits. The Marketts created a song called The Outer Limits, but the song's main riff is seemingly inspired by the famous four-note signature from The Twilight Zone theme, or a damn close approximation of it. Michael Gordon of The Marketts took the song to the producers of The Outer Limits, but it was too close to the Zone theme to use. Later, the band was forced to change the name of the song, and thus, it became known as Out of Limits. But it still sounds completely like they are doing The Twilight Zone theme for much of the song. But the Marketts won out in the end, because the track went to #3 on the charts to become their biggest hit. To make matters even more confusing, fellow surf guitar legends, the Ventures, put out an album called The Ventures in Space in 1964, that not only opened with their version of Out of Limits, but closes with a track titled The Twilight Zone.

But I came here to talk about a song called The Screamin' Meemies from Planet "X", and to do that, we need to bring up a fellow called Merv Griffin. If you are younger, it is likely you have no knowledge of Mr. Griffin, but anyone about a generation back can probably tell you at least one of the many things in which he was involved. Griffin started out as a singer and actor, became a talk show host, and made some of the smartest moves a man can make in the entertainment industry (they weren't all golden, though) to become a genuine powerhouse media mogul in his day. Pretty easy-going and genial on the air on his own long-running talk show, Griffin created both Jeopardy! (though he always said his wife came up with the concept) and Wheel of Fortune. He even wrote their theme songs. As a young singer, Merv had a #1 hit in 1950 with I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts, but it was to be his biggest success in that venue.

"I can't even lurk anymore!"

More important to the subject at hand, Griffin actually had some surprising horror and sci-fi credentials under his belt. He was a radio announcer in 1953's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, which you might recall is chiefly important for its Ray Bradbury source material and profoundly cool monster effects created by one Ray Harryhausen. Griffin also appeared as an actor in a 1954 remake of Edgar Allan Poe's Murders of the Rue Morgue titled Phantom of the Rue Morgue. In 1962, he released a truly odd single called House of Horrors, which clearly is inspired by the success of Monster Mash that same year, that I might feature on a future mixtape just because describing the song would be a task indeed. And, of course, fans of Steve Martin know full well that Mr. Griffin made cameo appearances in a couple of Martin comedy classics in the early '80s, most effectively playing himself exposed as the Elevator Killer in The Man with Two Brains, Martin's wacky spoof of mad scientist films.

And then there were The Screamin’ Meemies from Planet “X”...

I was walkin' a-lone Saturday night
Me and my baby, we had a fight
when a creature SWOOPED down in the gloom
and rode away with me on her broom!

"Oh Earth man, I've come to take you...

[chorus]
...Way out in the Twilight Zone,
the wild wild women live all alone!
We’ve got no men and we’re nervous wrecks!
We’re the Screamin' Meemies of Planet X!"

We flew where not even spacemen fly
as soon as we got there I knew why
the shakes and-a shivers ran down my spine
it was the land of the female Frankensteins!

"Oh, Earth man, you're gonna like it...

[chorus]
...Way out in the Twilight Zone,
the wild wild women live all alone!
We’ve got no men and we’re nervous wrecks!
We’re the Screamin' Meemies of Planet X!"

Their one green eye was a real nightmare
and the blackbirds nested in their hair!
I tried to run but what could I do
they had four legs where I had two!

They hugged me for breakfast 
and squeezed me for lunch
and just like bananas 
they kissed me a bunch!

There were no stoppin' 'em 
NO-SIR-EEEE!!!
And that was the start 
of the finish of me!

They had me...

[chorus]
...Way out in the Twilight Zone,
the wild wild women live all alone!
We’ve got no men and we’re nervous wrecks!
We’re the Screamin' Meemies of Planet X!"

T'was a real sad tragedy
like Macbeth
Cause they hugged and squeezed
and kissed me to death!

So take care brother
whatever you do,
and don't let the Screamin' Meemies 
get you!!!

Or you'll be...

[chorus]
...Way out in the Twilight Zone,
the wild wild women live all alone!
We’ve got no men and we’re nervous wrecks!
We’re the Screamin' Meemies of Planet X!"

Music and lyrics by Ruth Roberts | Copyright 1961 Pambill Music, Inc.

Merv's voice in this song is clearly supposed to be that of a recognizable hillbilly sort; you know, the type who might report an alien sighting tale such as this that just can't be believed. The lyrics are filled with mentions of how the cruel alien menaces "hugged and squeezed and kissed me to death" and "how "that was the start of the finish of me!" And yet, he lives to tell us his tale of woe. I find the unidentified voices of the Screamin' Meemies themselves to be hypnotic in nature, and it is their chorus of the song that actually gets stuck in my brain for weeks on end.

The song is chockfull of marvelous sci-fi movie detail, with vivid descriptions of the girls (with one big green eye and twice the normal complement of legs), but what the narrator does not tell us is how he got back to relate this story to us. So, has he just had a fever dream? Is he just making up a story for attention? Or did he really take a trip on a broom and flown "where not even spacemen fly" to "the land of the female Frankensteins"?

I guess only Merv knows for sure, and he took that knowledge with him when he left this void in 2007. The epitaph on his tombstone at Westwood Village reads ""I will not be right back after this message," which shows both his dedication to the medium that brought him fame and his ultimate reluctance to answer my belated questions about this very silly song.

No matter. Silly it may be, but I sure am glad that Merv recorded it.

RTJ

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor AND my brother…) Pt. 3

Here is another round of capsule reviews for several of the Christopher Lee films I have been pounding down for the last couple of weeks. 

An interesting note: While I was in the midst of finishing up the first segment of this series, I received a phone call from my youngest brother, whose first and middle names are also Christopher Lee. I had titled this series "Catching Up with..." and then appended the title with "(the actor, not my brother)," but now I had literally caught up with A Christopher Lee. 

Yes, I didn't post the first two parts of this series until after I talked to him, but I decided to keep things in the order in which they were created, and that includes changing the title this time to reflect that very necessary contact. Regardless, it was so good to hear from him after over a year of radio silence, and I won't allow time to pass like that again.

And now, more capsule reviews of some smaller C. Lee flicks, and I must say that it is a very diverse mix of genres this time...

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) [Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes]

Dir: Terence Fisher

TC4P Rating: 4

An extreme disappointment, given that the very idea of seeing Christopher Lee filming a Sherlock Holmes film just a couple of years after his part as Sir Henry Baskerville in a Hammer production is immensely appealing. But his wonderful voice is dubbed over in this film, as are all of the actors (including Thorley Walters as Dr. Watson), and so the world would have to wait many, many years to hear Lee actually produce sounds out of the mouth of literature's most famous detective.

Also adding to the disappointment is learning that the rather staid direction is done by none other than Terence Fisher, who was at the helm of all those early Hammer horror hits for Lee, including The Hound of the Baskervilles. What a difference four years and filming in Germany instead of Britain can make.

The film itself is not so much a coherent mystery as it is several small set pieces that never jell together. Apart from Lee, who at least shows that he is working hard and displays abundant energy in his role, the film comes off rather dull and uninteresting, and when added to my stated disappointment that one will not get to hear Lee as Holmes at all, lessens the effect of the film even more. Oh well, at least the sets look swell.

End of the World (1977)

Dir: John Hayes

TC4P Rating: 3

How many films do you know that start off with a public payphone exploding in front of a desperate priest played by Christopher Lee, followed by a coffee shop owner getting scalding by an exploding coffee machine and then electrocuted by a neon sign as he blindly crashes through the window at the front of his shop? And then Lee meets what appears to be his doppelgänger, who welcomes him home? It’s probably a very slim genre, comprised of just this poorly produced (by none other than Charles Band, creator of Laserblast and father of the Full Moon studio) and far too dark, alien invasion flick.

The film is stocked with Ed Wood-level character motivations and dialogue, which in itself would make this seem to be a must-watch for “bad movie” enthusiasts, a contention with which I will agree. Looking at a shopping list of the elements of this film — coded messages from space warning of massive natural disasters, aliens disguised as nuns, a host of well-known character actors (MacDonald Carey, Dean Jagger, Lew Ayres, Sue “Lolita” Lyon, and the aforementioned Lee) — one would think that at the very least you are going to be in for some good, cheap thrills. And how wrong you would be.

Director John Hayes, working since the early ‘60s, would end up his career for the most part making X-rated films under a pseudonym, but I am certain those were far better lit than this film, which seems to mistake a pitch black screen for large portions of the running time as “suspenseful”. When the lead character, a scientist, is harangued again and again by his superior to get back on his speaking tour, then you realize it is not the most exciting setting for science fiction fun. And when one finishes watching a film and the chief image one takes away from it is that of the same scientist sitting endlessly in a room full of archaic computers while the nonstop clacking of a computer keyboard is heard on the soundtrack, then saying the film is bereft of real action is a true understatement.

Jaguar Lives! (1979)

Dir: Ernest Pintoff

TC4P Rating: 5

I must admit that I knew nothing of the star of Jaguar Lives! — kickboxing champion Joe Lewis — going into watching the film. I have yet to see his other big film, Force: Five (1981), and I was also not aware that he was apparently the first choice to play the villain role taken memorably by Chuck Norris in Bruce Lee’s The Way of the Dragon, in the famous fight finale in the Roman Colosseum. Possibly things may have gone another way for Lewis’ Hollywood career had he not lost the part, but it is hard to tell. He is about as wooden an actor as Norris was at that same point in time, though I think Lewis is certainly better-looking. (And now ol' Chuck is going to kick me in the face for that...)

Jaguar Lives! is filmed quite well (for the most part), and veteran director Ernest Pintoff keeps things tight and moving from scene to scene in a film quite obviously meant to be a James Bond pastiche. This a case where having a large cast of famous character actors works to the film’s definite advantage. Apart from Woody Strode (as Lewis’ taciturn sensei), John Huston, and Capucine, the film has been stocked to the rafters with actors who have previous experience toying around in the Bond series: Christopher Lee (The Man with the Golden Gun), Donald Pleasence (You Only Live Twice), Joseph Wiseman (Dr. No), and Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me).

Lewis’ secret agent character, Jonathan Cross aka Jaguar, zips around the world meeting several seemingly villainous characters who might have some information that will help him figure out who is behind an international drug cartel that tried to have him killed. I assume the intent of the Bond connections is to keep the viewer guessing who the Big Bad is behind the plot’s machinations, but it is pretty easy to figure it out. Each stop about the globe also presents Lewis with an action scenario from which he must use his formidable martial arts skills to extricate himself. As long as you are willing to swing along with the episodic format and don’t suffer from a need for any sort of emotional depth from a film, Jaguar Lives! can be a pleasant little time-waster, but nothing more.

Penny and the Pownall Case (1948)

Dir: Slim Hand

TC4P Rating: 5

Once upon a time there was a British comic strip in The Daily Mirror named Jane, which featured the title character, Jane Gay, in various misadventures where she would inevitably get stripped down to her undies (and eventually, in 1943, down to even less). It was exceedingly popular in the UK and with soldiers, kindled American strips which were far tamer, was subsequently distributed and rejected in America, and inspired stage, television and screen versions throughout the decades. (Does anyone remember Jane and the Lost City from 1987? I do.)

The British-made Penny and the Pownall Case is not a version of Jane, but it does revolve around a comic strip exactly like Jane. The lead character is a comic artist’s model who ends up getting sucked into a plot involving Nazi war criminals. She also tends to get undressed here and there, but it is all done rather innocently, and there is nothing truly prurient about the film. Lead actress Peggy Evans seems to be having a lot of fun in the role, as her character manages to keep unsullied as she teams up with a detective to stop the bad guys. One of those bad guys, Christopher Lee, is only 25 or 26 years old in this, but he is already a magnetic screen presence. (Having that voice helps…)

Penny is barely of feature film length — only around 44 minutes — and is practically over before you realize it. In fact, I had to research whether it was an early television film before I watched it. The plot is predictable but quick, there are some good farcical bits involving an adjoining hotel suite, and the comic strip trappings add a welcome twist of novelty to what could be just another Nazi potboiler. But it needs a bit more, because it doesn’t come off as nourishing entertainment overall. Maybe if it was stretched out for another 15-20 minutes with a bit more character development, Penny and the Pownall Case could have been something more than just standard.

"Why is it always, always so costly for man to move from the present to the future?"

The answer to the question in the title above is "Because mankind is generally composed of ignorant dickheads."

Halloween for me isn't so much about the scares than it is about the monsters. People frighten me in real life far more than imaginary creatures from our mythological systems or Hollywood-style dream machines. They can be the revenge-driven undead and they can be sci-fi aliens; they can come from the ocean, the forest, underground, or they can come from outer space; they can be 500 feet tall or they can be squirmy little worm-like creatures... as long as they irrationally but rightly seek to devour or destroy mankind and his works. (Or be our pals, but that rarely happens... though it might fall into the "mating with our women" category...)

It would be somewhere close to this time of year that I first discovered this Ray Harryhausen treat:

 

It will undoubtedly not end well for the poor Ymir, but that's how these things go. You just have to enjoy his rampage while it lasts... 

Buzzing Thru the Pylon: Growling at Best Buy's Exclusivity...

Warner Home Video Sci-Fi Double Features
Disc #1
Moon Zero Two (1969)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)
Director/Writer: Val Guest
Cinema 4 Rating: 6

Disc #2
Battle Beneath the Earth (1967)
DirectorMontgomery Tully
Cinema 4 Rating: 3

The Ultimate Warrior (1975)
Director/Writer: Robert Clouse
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Disc #3
World Without End (1956)
Director/Writer: Edward Bernds
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Satellite in the Sky (1956)
Director: Paul Dickson
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

Quite regularly, I sift through a seemingly endless list of titles which I am hoping will get released onto DVD so I can replace old versions of these same films. Most of these films were taped off of cable television anytime in the past twenty to five years, though a certain number of them were prerecorded version officially released by their respective studios. No matter how I might have them in my collection, it is still my fervent hope that they shall be released onto disc form, and thus save space in our crammed little hovel (it's amazing the space saved when comparing discs versus tapes) and also, the hope remains that the print in which they are burned onto disc will far outweigh my previous versions in overall quality.

One of the films on this list, which I began compiling a full decade ago, was Hammer Films' special effects-heavy follow-up to One Million Years B.C., When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.

Every couple of months since I moved down here to Cali, I have gone through most of this list, and one of the first films I always look up is When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Not that it is any great shakes as a film per se, but it is highly sought by fans of stop-motion animation for its exquisite dinosaur footage by Jim Danforth and Roger Dicken. (While I am at it, I should mention that David Allen, amongst others, also worked on the effects as an assistant, though only Danforth and Dicken were actually nominated for an Oscar at the 1972 awards.) It is for this reason alone (OK, the cave girls play a part too) that I embraced the film as a teenager, and made sure to grab a copy on VHS when it came out in the '90s. And this is without knowing that the original story for the film was devised by none other than J.G. Ballard, writer of Crash (the wonderfully twisted and kinky Cronenberg one) and Empire of the Sun.

But I had always heard there was a slightly longer version of the film, one that took the cavegirl stuff even further than when Raquel Welch leaped about in a fur bikini in B.C. Supposedly, the film originally held a handful (more than a handful, as they say, is a waste) of topless shots, both innocent (swimming about in mucky, sea monster-infested waters) and randy (mild cavepeople whoopee, apparently), as well as a scene where lead Playboy bunny/"actress" Victoria Vetri gets stripped down in a cave (appropriately) by her would-be cave beau. Gee, I'm was actually only here for the dinosaurs, but I can you heap some of this, too, on my plate? All the more reason to remain impatient over an official special edition.

And yet, I could never find this one, even while the entire Harryhausen oeuvre and much of the Hammer library had been released already. I felt certain that it was bound to come out sooner or later, because if there is one diehard fanbase out there, it's the one for special effects epics -- dinosaurs, spaceships, aliens, or what have you. But, as I kept checking over the last few years to find news of its arrival on DVD, I found nothing. My searches came up empty, over and over again. And then, the other day, I found out why: I had been primarily looking on Amazon.

Cut to last week, as I decided to take a quick first look at the new neighborhood Best Buy store. There, sitting in plain sight on a shelf in the science-fiction DVD section, was a single copy of a Warner Home Video Sci-Fi Double Feature disc holding, of course, two movies. The first was of no real consequence to me, though I had seen it years earlier: Moon Zero Two, often described (self-described, really) as the "first space western." But who could care when the other film on the disc was When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth? After the usual shake of the head and pinch of the skin to clear things up for me in as cartoonish a way as possible, I grabbed the copy and refused to let go of it until I arrived home.

I didn't get a chance to watch the film until yesterday, but in the meantime, mostly out of consternation over how I discovered the disc, I went online to research it once more, knowing full well I had been on Amazon just a couple of months prior and had seen nothing on WDRTE. It turns out there is now an entry for it on the site, but it is for an outside party trying to make some cash selling "used/new" copies of the disc. And in the description? The words "Best Buy Exclusive."

This is not the first time I have come at odds with this "Best Buy Exclusive" scenario. I also did this for years looking for Ernest B. Schoedsack's sweet 1940 mad science thriller Dr. Cyclops (the absolute inspiration for The Krofft Supershow's Dr. Shrinker, a crappie but fun show from my youth). I had the Universal VHS release, but was hoping for it on DVD, to accompany the rest of my Cooper and Schoedsack DVD library. Then I found out that Best Buy had been selling it for months as an exclusive set with several other prime golden age horror and sci-fi flicks, including two more on my list, The Land Unknown and The Deadly Mantis. A rush to Best Buy found me a copy all right, but the fact that it said "Volume 2" on it meant that there was an entire first volume of five possible films that I didn't have, and I finally procured a copy off of someone on Amazon for about fifteen bucks over retail in new condition. Which is how I landed The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Mole People and Tarantula in my DVD collection, after years of frustration, and also how my ire was first raised over these exclusive deals with Best Buy.

This wouldn't be a problem with me if they would do a general release a few months later, but from what I can gather from some movie boards is that there is a group of people who rush out and buy up every copy of these exclusives just so they can sell them later to needy, hungry fans once the discs go out of print. It's ticket-scalping without the tickets, I guess -- if you really want to see the movie, you are going to have to pay the price. As proof of this, another "exclusive," a set of generally low-grade horror thrillers thrown into a box called the Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive, is already selling for far above what I would be willing to pay for it (example: click here). Even though the undiscerning horror fan in me (which is the same one that embraces even the truly terrible films on the discs discussed above) would love to add those films to my overall collection, I already own four of them on tape, and none of them are truly essential by any means.

None of the six films in the three discs I did discover at Best Buy as exclusives last week were really essential to me either... except for the Hammer cave girls and dinosaurs epic. Truthfully, I could have saved the money on the other two discs, though I really did love Yul Brynner's The Ultimate Warrior as a kid, and also watched Battle Beneath the Earth lo those many years ago on that beloved after school sci-fi matinee show on KTVA. The upside is that I will be replacing five different tapes in my collection with these three discs (Satellite in the Sky is the only one of the six I did not previously own), and the purchase does give me widescreen versions of all of these films, which is a great addition to the collection too.

And now I have the apparently uncut version of WDRTE. Yes, the disc does say it is rated "G" on the case and shows a running time of 96 minutes. Watching it, you get at least some PG nudity antics and 100 minutes of cave girls tumbling about the animated dinosaur attacks. I found a few entries online talking about Warner recalling this disc from the Best Buy stores, but also some entries offering up different versions of the confusion from various locations. Who knows why it was recalled? My disc works, Vetri doffs her clothes, I couldn't care less about film ratings anyway (I am an adult, can watch anything I damn well please, don't believe in censorship at all, and do not pay attention to ratings or the bluenoses who maintain them), and everything is peachy keen once again in my universe...

...until I remember to ask: Where the hell is Roogie's Bump? Or It Happens Every Spring? Damn it...