EDITOR’S NOTE: Earthbound was on the CBS Late Movie on July 25, 1986 and April 15, 1987.

Rejected as a TV pilot, Earthbound played a limited release in theaters. In fact, it would be one of the last films that Schick Sunn Classic Pictures made that played in theaters.

Directed by James L. Conway, who would go from Sunn Classics to working on Star Trek and Charmed, this has kindly Ned Anderson (Burl Ives) and his grandson Tommy (Todd Porter) protecting aliens — Zef (Christopher Connelly), Lara (Meredith MacRae), Dalem (Marc Gilpin) and Teva (Elissa Leeds) — from Sheriff De Rita (John Schuck) and Deputy Sweeney (Stuart Pankin) and a Man In Black (Joseph Campanella).

There are all sorts of alien psychic hijinks, a space monkey, and it feels like a 1970s Disney movie, yet it was made after that. If you told me it was Italian, given the references to 1970s U.S. pop culture, I’d believe you. Nope. That’s Park City, Utah. Sunn Classics country.

But hey — Doodles Weaver is in it!

You can watch this on YouTube.