Monstervision Please Come Back!

It’s a Saturday night in the late nineties, you’re a teenager that doesn’t have a license to drive, your friends are lame, and you’re a horror fan stuck at home with nothing to do. Before there was Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, online video games, tons of terrible television programming, DVDs, etc. What did you do? You’d watch a copy of a horror movie (if you had one) or you could tune to TNT and watch Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs.

Monstervision was one of the last horror host shows in recent memory with the host Joe Bob Briggs, a B-movie/drive in movie guru. It ran from 1995 and finished in 2000 due to Ted Turner wanting to change the format of TNT.

Many of us have our favorite horror hosts. Mine was a tie between Commander USA and Joe Bob Briggs (more on Commander USA in a future blog). Joe Bob Briggs was known for “Drive In Totals” which he would give at the beginning of the show or after the first commercial break. The “totals” were what you’d be seeing (or not seeing due to TNT censors) throughout the film. They would go something like:

“7 Breasts, 5 Dead Bodies, 3 Beheadings, Monk fu, finger fu, obligatory gay housekeeper. “

That’s not an actual quote, but you get the idea. In between the commercial breaks Joe Bob would tell you some fun facts about the film you’re watching or the actors/actresses that star in it. One of my favorite facts was on the “Return of the living dead” show. That is the clip attached.

I’m not going to just give you facts about the show. The point I want to make is that something like this doesn’t happen on television these days. The problem is the masses don’t want something like this. They just want to see a movie or a television show as they are recording another movie or television show. They are missing out on the fun of these films and the hosts they make bad movies good, and good movies better, even with edits. When a film on television cuts to commercial your brain tunes out and you want to change the channel. When you have program like Monstervision, you actually look forward to the breaks to see what Joe Bob, or the host says or does next.

I truly hope one day someone will see the light and give Joe Bob or any horror host another shot at a program like this. Except this time let the host do what he or she wants, and just go with it. The fans will follow.