24. SHLOCK & AWE: Can you believe how “good” this is?

The Incredibly Strange Film Show aired on Discovery in the 1990s and it was such a part of my early psychotronic obsession. In just two seasons, I learned who Ray Dennis Steckler, Ted V. Mikels and Doris Wishman were and got so much more info on the movies of El Santo, Russ Meyer, John Waters, Ed Wood, Herschell Gordon Lewis and more.

Ray Dennis Steckler was a filmmaker who I’m fascinated by. Who else could make The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies and have László Kovács and Vilmos Zsigmond operating the cameras? Who else could be Cash Flagg, Harry Nixon, Sven Christian, Henri-Pierre Duval, Pierre Duvall, Michael J. Rogers, Michel J. Rogers, Wolfgang Schmidt, Sven Hellstrom, Ricardo Malatoté, Cindy Lou Steckler and Cindy Lou Sutters? And who could direct films like Wild Guitar and Sinthia: The Devil’s Doll, not to mention the music video for “White Rabbit?”

This starts as a very real and horrifying story of The Chain Gang killing people and abducting Cee Bee Beaumont (Carolyn Brandt), the girlfriend of rock star Lonnie Lord (Ron Haydock using the name Vin Saxon) after terrorizing her with phone calls. That’s because this was originally a crime drama called Depraved that was inspired by real-life crank calls Brandt kept getting.

And 40 minutes in, Lord walks into a closet and walks out as Rat Pfink as his friend Titus Twimbly (Titus Moede) becomes Boo Boo. They chase The Chain Gang on their Ratcycle as suddenly, this has become a Batman parody. This is followed by a big bad monkey named Kogar (Bob Burns, always the man who has the costume) knocking out our hero and taking Cee Bee, but he’s soon coming back to her rescue.

You may ask, at this point, why is the title so off? The legend: Rat Pfink and Boo Boo was the intended title, but when they made the titles, and became a and Steckler couldn’t afford $50 to fix it. The truth: Steckler said, “The real story is that my little girl, when we were shooting this one fight scene, kept chanting, “Rat pfink a boo boo, rat pfink a boo boo…” And that sounded great! But when I tell people the real story, they don’t wanna hear it, so you better print the legend.”

You have to love a man who crashes a Christmas parade for his rapey crime movie that somehow becomes a superhero movie by the end, complete with songs. Any time you need a song, get Lonnie Lord, because “He always carries his guitar with him in case he is called on to sing!”

The thing is, I can show some strange movies to guests, but how do you even start showing Steckler’s films? There’s so much backstory and I really don’t want folks coming over saying, “This is stupid,” because I’m very defensive of the art. I mean, the fact that this movie even exists makes me hopeful for the human race.

You can watch this on Tubi.