Category Archives: Made for TV Movie

Cotton Candy (1978)

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“That’s part of the problem with being a kid actor. When your show’s over, nobody informs you that your career’s over, too.”
— Luke Halpin, aka Sandy Ricks on TV’s Flipper (1964 – 1968)

To become a child actor; a kid star, to paraphrase British modernist poet David Jones: it is both a blessing and a curse.

And for every Leonardo DiCaprio, who got his start as a kid actor on TV’s Growing Pains, receiving the industry’s blessing to transition into adult roles, there’s a Dustin Diamond, from TV’s Saved by the Bell, who’s destined to experience a fateful, Longfellowian rain fall.

Courtesy of Made for TV Movie Fandom Wiki/You Tube trailer.

And in the case of Luke Halpin (Shock Waves), his successful ‘60s doppelganger would be Ron Howard who, as a kid actor, got his start as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show (1960 -1968). If only Luke Halpin had been noticed by George Lucas and cast in one of the most profitable films in history, American Graffiti (1973; we’re reviewed the sequel, More American Graffiti), or booked a part on ABC-TV’s Happy Days . . . damn the cackling Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, that trio of witches weaving the looms of fate.

And the witches saw fit to weave Roger Corman into Ron Howard’s tapestry. And the B-Movie King and the strawberry-mop topped sitcom star made a deal: If Howard would star in New World’s hicksploitation romp Eat My Dust (1975), he would give Howard the opportunity pursue his dream of directing a feature film, which became Grand Theft Auto (1977; its theatrical one-sheet appears in Cotton Candy as George and Brenda go on a date to a movie theater). Both films duplicated the insane box office of American Graffiti: Eat My Dust grossed $5 million against $300,000 and Howard’s directing debut grossed $15 million against $600,000.

So with three box office bonanzas and a hit TV series on his resume, NBC-TV wanted a piece of the Howard action. So they gave Ron an opportunity to direct his second film—his first TV movie (the others were 1980’s Skyward, 1981’s Through the Magic Pyramid, and 1983’s Little Shots)—for his newly formed Major H Productions with his father Rance and brother Clint (Ice Cream Man!!!). The idea that Ron and Clint came up with was Cotton Candy: a TV movie-length pilot for a weekly series concerning the rock ‘n’ romance adventures between the rival high school bands (starring 30-year-old teenagers, as is the case with all teen comedies of the ’70s) Cotton Candy (the underdogs) and Rapid Fire (the chick magnets) making the race for stardom in Dallas, Texas. (The high school in the film was called-out-by-name Lake Highlands High School.)

Tad Painter, Morgan Ferguson, actor Mark Wheeler, Mark Ridlen (also a Dallas radio jock), and John Painter, collectively known as Rapid Fire, aka Dallas local band Quad Pi, formerly known as Lithum X-Mas/image courtesy of Clint Howard via Robert Wilonsky and The Dallas Morning News.

For his leading man, Howard cast his old buddy Charles Martin Smith (Toad from American Graffiti; he later directed the “No False Metal” classic, Trick or Treat!!!). Smith is George Smalley: a geeky high school senior who’s dogged by his mother about dating and girls and a dad (Alvy “Hank Kimble” Moore from Green Acres . . . Ack! Stop right there. This is B&S About Movies, buddy! We remember Alvy from Smokey and the Hotwire Gang, The Witchmaker . . . and The Brotherhood of Satan!!) who wants him to stop wasting his time with the guitar (oh, do I relate). So to get chicks and get dad off his back, he joins the school’s football team, but is quickly cut from the squad.

No matter. George hated football and was only doing it to please dad. What he really wants to do is music. So when one of the guitarists of the school’s hottest band (they do all of the school’s dances, mall concerts, hot parties, and get paid gigs!), Rapid Fire, leaves the group as result of a family move, George decides to ask for an audition after a show. And Torbin Bequette (an excellently dickish Mark Wheeler; portrayed Neil Armstrong for Ron in Apollo 13), the band’s popular singer and big man on campus, humiliates George in front of everyone.

So, together with his best friend (ugh, not another clueless, talentless dork with no musical or legal skills “managing” a band, riding his talented friend’s coattails: this is Ricky from American Satan all over again), Corky MacPherson (Clint Howard), they resolve to form a rock band to perform George’s original tunes and take down Rapid Fire at the big “Battle of the Bands” (Oh, the “Battles” at the local skating rink and the city park’s outdoor stage of the ’70s and ’80s!) competition at the real life, Town East Mall (Oh, those teen years of living at the mall! Orange Julius and Spencer Gifts!!) in East Dallas. Together, George and Corky recruit a set of brothers who play keyboards and guitar, a former gang member on bass guitar (Manuel Padilla, Jr., aka Jai from ‘60s TV Tarzan), and a very cute female drummer (Leslie King, she of the 1979 Drive-In T&A classics Gas Pump Girls and The Great American Girl Robbery; as a screenwriter she penned 1988’s To Die For for Deran Sarafin, yes, he of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Death Warrant!).

The out-of-print paperback tie-in/courtesy of Amazon (this was the best available image).

So, what about the music, you ask?

It is pure ’70s pop bubblegum. But Cotton Candy ain’t the Knack or Sweet. So instead of “Frustrated” or “Good Girls Don’t,” or “Fox on the Run” and “Love Is Like Oxygen,” we get a rocky-upbeat version of the safe n’ sweet sounds of the Carpenters (girl drummer, hatch), with the George Smalley originals “She Rolls,” “Born Rich,” and “Starship” (damn it: not uploaded to You Tube).

As for Rapid Fire’s catalog: And you thought the Sebastians (of Rocktober Blood fame) securing the right to Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” and Ted Nugent’s “Sweet Sally” for their pirate radio romp On the Air Live with Captain Midnight (1979) was a rock ‘n’ boondoggle? How in the hell did Ron Howard get the rights to Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” via Eric Clapton? How did he get the rights to Billy Preston’s (Hammond organist on the Beatles’ albums) “You are So Beautiful” via Joe Cocker?

Clearly, Cotton Candy, while a bunch of clueless dorks who decide playing strip poker with their female drummer is the mature thing to do, is the more talented band. Sure, Rapid Fire has the slick, silk windbreakers, smoldering good looks and feathered hair . . . and can afford snazzy, three-piece suits and fedoras, you know, to carry through that “gangster” theme to go along with that awesome “Tommy Gun” band logo.

“Rapid Fire’s got to reload . . . we’ll be back in five.”

But Torbin and the boys can’t write music; they can only can butcher jukebox-from-hell covers that ’70s sound-alike budget album distributor Pickwick International would reject for release.

Yeah, it’s all very “Pickwick International” with Rapid Fire. If you went on a Sunday “Swap Swap” excursion with the family at the local Drive-In, you know the label. I got burned by Pickwick’s version of Tommy (You Tube) thinking I was buying the Who’s rock opera. Well, that’s Torbin Bequette and Rapid Fire: all the girls, none of the talent, and it ain’t Clapton or Cocker.

Yeah, this is taking me back to those bag-o-dicks from Mad Sire in their silk band jackets and platform shoes and flared jeans churnin’ out their covers of Rick Derringer’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hoochie Coo” and Styx “Renegade” at the school dances . . . and taunting Hot Rats, the underdog Ramones-inspired stalwarts as “Hot Rats . . . more like cold crap,” as we ripped out the originals “Rock ‘n’ Roll Stereo Kids” and “Scene Queen” (which later became “Bitch Queen” as we, pathetically, went “metal”) to a garage audience of five fellow lost souls that were a lot like Sam, my boss at B&S About Movies.

Ack! Tagents and non-sequiturs! Back to the movie. . . .

Because Howard’s TV movie debut tanked in the ratings, and both Ron and Clint expressed embarrassment over the years regarding the project, Ron has publically stated the film will never, ever see (a hard or digital) release. And once Ron’s career took off with the likes of the theatrical features Night Shift, Splash, and Cocoon, he didn’t want anyone to remember Cotton Candy; when the ‘80s video boom hit and stores were hungry for product, the film was never released to VHS.

So how bad is it?

Well, in our review of It’s a Complex World, we spoke of how revered it is among the movers and shakers of Providence, Rhode Island, where it was filmed—ditto for Richmond, Virginia’s denizens who remember the making of the failed Rock N’ Roll Hotel. And the rock denizens of Dallas, rightfully, feel the same way about Cotton Candy. It’s all about nostalgia on this one. If you were in middle or high school in 1978 when Cotton Candy aired, you’ll love it. If you never seen it before and, compare it against Howard’s later works, such as Apollo 13 . . . let’s put it this way: it’s not as bad as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (is any rock movie?), but the proceedings will not be as cool as Eddie and the Cruisers, and not as awesome as Rock Star with Mark Wahlberg (” . . . stand up and shooout!”). Those who love it (moi): we are loading up our TV-to-VHS-ripped copies of Cotton Candy alongside Ladies and Gentleman: The Fabulous Stains and the Dennis Hopper Elvis-Johnny Rotton punk-tale oddity that is Out of the Blue (we’ve got to review that one!).

Cotton Candy recently had an 40th anniversary screening at the Lake Highland Alamo Drafthouse outside of Dallas, put together by Mark Ridlen of the faux Rapid Fire. But do not let that fool you into thinking a DVD restoration is forthcoming. . . .

The bootlegged VHS-ripped-from-TV (regardless of the flashy slip cases) on this one are impossible to find. Cotton Candy has never been officially released on DVD (by Howard or NBC-TV’s corporate parent, Universal) and hasn’t re-aired on TV since the mid ’80s—so watch out for those grey market TV-to-VHS-to-DVD rips in the marketplace. Yes, there are 1985-dated foreign VHS tapes in the marketplace (an image of the Swedish version recently, post-this-review, posted on the IMDb), but it’s doubtful those are from the original negative. Well, perhaps a PPV or VOD stream, Ron? How about a with-ads stream on TubiTV? That’s unlikely. After Howard’s Imagine Entertainment was acquired by Disney, the negative to Cotton Candy has been buried in their vaults ever since. . . .

So the best we’ve got to enjoy Cotton Candy are ’70s UHF-TV rips uploaded to You Tube. And it seems Ron Howard doesn’t mind, since they’ve been there a while. You have three uploads to choose from HERE, HERE, and HERE. Sadly, the ending of the film sticks on all of them before we can see the songwriting credits behind Cotton Candy’s tunes. Ah, but there’s nothing like a B&S About Movies review obscurity (see Arctic Warriors) to inspire those IMDb page updates. Courtesy of those updates, we now know that Joe Renzetti wrote those nifty Cotton Candy tunes with Charles Martin Smith. The Philadelphia-born Renzetti got his start as a film composer and soundtrack consultant alongside Smith in The Buddy Holly Story, teaching Smith and the rest of the cast to sing and play their instruments—live on camera—the first for a theatrical film. Another of Renzetti’s film gigs was instructing Kurt Russell as “The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” on John Carpenter’s 1979 TV movie, Elvis.

So, you want more fake bands of the Cotton Candy variety? Then be sure to check out our “Ten Bands Make Up for Movies (and a whole lot more)” featurette.

* Our thanks to Advocate Mag and The Dallas News for preserving this beloved rock flick obscurity with interesting trivia bits in the preparation of this review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Firestarter: Rekindled (2002)

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Yes, there is a sequel to Firestarter. No, I didn’t know there was either, much less that I already owned it. Life is full of crazy moments, huh?

Marguerite Moreau, who was in The Mighty Ducks series, plays the grown-up Charlie, who is still being chased by The Shop, represented here by the somehow still alive John Rainbird (now played by Malcolm McDowell). Somehow, he has raised an entire gang of young boys who love to use their powers.

Originally airing on March 10 and 11, 2002 on SciFi (before it was SyFy), I’m as surprised as you are that this exists.

Somehow, they got Dennis Hopper to be in this as well. Man, this is getting odder and odder that I didn’t know that this was a thing.

Also: Deborah Van Valkenburgh is in it. Who, you may ask? Oh, just Mercy from The Warriors and Jackie on Too Close for Comfort and Reva in Streets of Fire.

This was written by Phillip Eisner, who also scripted Event Horizon, and directed by Robert Iscove, who made the “it seems real and yes, people are going to lose their minds” TV movie Without Warning, as well as She’s All That and From Justin to Kelly. Man, what a strange group of films to have made.

So yeah. Firestarter 2. There you go.

Gold of the Amazon Women (1979)

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Tom Jensen (Bo Svenson) is looking for adventure. What he finds is a tribe of Amazons led by Queen Na-Eela (Anita Ekberg!) and Clarence Blasko (Donald Pleasence) trying to steal their gold.

Richard Romanus (Mean Streets), Bob Minor (Jackson from Commando) and Susan Miller (Playboy September 1972 Playmate of the Month and at 6’1″, the tallest woman at the time to pose for a centerfold; Cara Michelle Meschter beat her by an inch in December 2000) all show up.

If only this was a drive-in movie and not one made on a TV budget. That said, I wasn’t bored and like all of Lester’s movies, it moves fast.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Pterodactyl (2005)

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Let me sum up why you should watch this movie: Coolio has a machine gun and he’s shooting down flying prehistoric creatures. If that doesn’t win you over, well, I don’t know what to say.

Made for the Sy Fy channel, this movie has it all and by all, when I say that it’s a Mark Lester movie, you’ll understand. While it has a singular title, trust me that there is more than one pterodactyl in this movie. There are also teenagers who are camping in Turkey that discover a giant mound of pteropoop, which is when I would have left to go home.

Coolio plays the anti-terrorist squad leader Captain Bergen, who protects the kids from Russians when he’s not battling 2005’s best CGI that I could make on my iPhone today. He even says, “the music’s coming down and guess what I’m your DJ”, before giving his life for the kids. I regret that Coolio has one life to give to this movie.

Of course, another dinosaur soon emerges after all is well, but Lester is nothing if not ready to sell a sequel. There’s also the neat trick of having nearly everyone in the movie named for famous science fiction authors, such as Bradbury, Burroughs, Clarke, Donaldson, Heinlein, Herbert, Lem, Lovecraft, Serling, Yolen and Zelazny.

If you have nothing to do, by all means, watch this on YouTube.

The Babysitter (1980)

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The ABC Friday Night Movie for November 28, 1980, The Babysitter was directed by Peter Medak, who was also in the chair for movies like The Changeling, Cry for the Strangers, Zorro the Gay Blade, Romeo Is Bleeding, Species II and The Ruling Class. What an amazing lineup of films to have on your resume and such a disparate list of movies.

Dr. Jeff Benedict and his wife Liz (TV movie supercouple William Shatner and Patty Duke) have moved from Seattle to Chicago. Between their daughter Tara (Quinn Cummings, The Goodbye Girl) and the demands of housework, Liz isn’t doing so well. That means they bring in a live-in nanny named Joanna Redwine (Stephanie Zimbalist, before Remington Steele) and that’s when things go to seed.

Before you can say movie of the week, Joanna has Liz drinking again and convinced that Jeff has a mistress. While that game is afoot, she’s also trying to convince Jeff that loading his clown into her cannon while wifey is passed out is beyond a good idea

This is when you fire the babysitter. That said — if they did, we would not have the next hour and change of this movie.

Before it’s over, the bodies of the last family Joanna killed — wrapped in plastic a half decade before Laura Palmer — have showed up, she’s wearing Patty Duke’s lingerie and served up a dinner of raw beef tongue. The family is lucky that they know John Houseman, who saves them all.

I have a weakness for both made for TV movies and ones where babysitters slowly drive a family insane. This movie is at the center of this magnificent cycle and must be experienced. These TV movies are exploitation films, with small budgets and insane stories, that scream at you the entire time they are on the screen.

You can watch this on YouTube:

Earth II (1971) and Plymouth (1991)

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From the Editor’s Desk: Both of these “hard science” TV movies were produced, in part, by ABC-TV as weekly series pilots — which the network, passed. Regardless of the twenty-years difference between the films, fans have confused the two films — as result of mistaking Gary Lockwood starred “in a TV movie about miners on the moon.”

So, lets review Earth II . . . and examine the elusive, out-of-print and distribution Plymouth.

You wanna see a movie directed by Uncle Rico’s dad, you know from Napoleon Dynamite . . . well, since we just finished off “James Bond Month,” Lazlo Hollyfeld from Real Genius?

Then this is your movie.

Earth II is directed by Jon Gries’s pop, Tom, whose bat-shite crazy TV series resume lead him to directing Jim Brown and Burt Reynolds in 100 Rifles, Charlton Heston in Will Penny, Charles Bronson in Breakout and Breakheart Pass, along with with the ultimate Charles Manson document, 1976 Helter Skelter. Tom Gries died on January 3, 1977, shortly after — and amazingly, somehow, making Muhammad Ali not look completely incompetent — completing 1977’s The Greatest (but it’s still pretty bad, even with Ernest Borgnine of Marty in it).

But let’s get back to Earth II.

As we all know, 2001: A Space Odyssey was a game changer and everyone wanted back in the sci-fi game. So here we have Gary Lockwood — Frank Poole from Kubrick’s classic — as well as Mariette Hartley from Gene Roddenberry’s endless cycle of post-Star Trek endeavors, mainly Genesis II. Yep, that’ s Anthony Franciosa (Tenebre), Lew Ayres (Battle for the Planet of the Apes), and Hari Rhodes (Malcolm MacDonald from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) along for the interstellar intrique.

As with most all U.S. TV movies, Earth II was an overseas theatrical feature, known as Killer Satellites, and it pushed its 2001, Apes, and Star Trek connections (Mariette Hartley was in one of that series’ popular episodes as Spock’s love interest) in its marketing materials. And it worked. But the foreign box office was better than the U.S. TV ratings; as result, Earth II wasn’t picked up for a weekly series as intended. But Gary Lockwood didn’t mind; he’s on record as saying he hated working on the production, eschewing it overly complex, sociopolitcal plotting.

Since this is very easily obtained as a still-in-print DVD and VOD stream, the reviews on this (rife with plot spoilers) are many. The basic gist of the story, if you haven’t guessed, is about a “second Earth,” that is, an orbital international space station. When things go amiss in Communist Red China and a nuclear missile comes to threaten the station’s 2000-strong pacifist inhabitants, they search for a way to solve the problem — without violence.

So, is Lockwood right?

Yeah. This is a bit slow to the point of boring. And it is complex, way too much for the young minds sci-fi-on-TV was geared for. And that complexity also resulted in the cancellation of the Planet of the Apes TV series and for Roddenberry’s Genesis II (and its reboots as Planet Earth and Strange New World) not going to series. Natch for Rodenberry’s The Questor Tapes.

But in terms of science accuracy, Earth II is stunning and the special effects are effective — just remember: in 1970 years. One can’t help but wonder if the creators behind TV’s Babylon 5 and the later SyFy Channel Battlestar Galactica reboot pinched from this classic TV movie (and we all know the debates regarding Babylon 5 vs. Star Trek: Deep Space 9). If you enjoy your sci-fi with intelligence, without the Lucasian Flash Gordon trimmings, then this “Before Star Wars” romp is for you.

This one is widely available on DVD and all the usual VOD platforms, but we found a free version — a really clean rip — over on You Tube.

Earth II was one of the many films we didn’t get around to reviewing during our month-long Star Wars ripoffs and galactic droppings month. You can catch up on those films with our Before and After Star Wars explorations. And since there’s a little bit o’ post-apoc in Earth II, be sure to check out our two-part post-apoc blowout with our Atomic Dustbins, Part 1 and Part 2. And since were on the subject of both Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey, be sure to check out our “Exploring (Before “Star Wars”): The Russian Antecedents of 2001: A Space Odyssey” featurette.

Plymouth (1991)

“Remember that TV movie about miners on the moon?”

Did you hear the one about the 8 million dollar TV movie — the most expensive ever made, in part by ABC-TV — that no one watched? Well, they watched, but forgot all about it, soon after. Then they wracked their brains years later trying to remember the film, scouring the Internet to find it?

Well, it wasn’t a tween-teen fever dream. The film is real. And it was made a lot later than you remember, because you’re remembering Earth II (1971), itself another, well-made TV movie pilot (and overseas theatrical) produced by MGM-Warner Bros. for ABC-TV. So, yes, in 1990, you really did read an article about Plymouth’s production in Starlog Magazine — complete with that memory-haunting, (now, easily Googled) black and white production still of miners decked out in Alien (1979)-styled miner-space suits exiting a pressure hatch (also, the lead, here isn’t Gary Lockwood, but the always likable Dale Midkiff).

Plymouth — which debuted on Sunday, May 26, 1991 — was a co-production between ABC-TV, Walt Disney Studios (their Touchstone PIctures arm), and Italy’s Rai uno radiotelevisione. As result of Rai’s involvement, Plymouth played as a theatrical feature (?) in the Eurasian marketplace. It eventually turned up on European television (in the U.K. in July 2001), and as a Spanish-language Argentinian VHS. After its stateside debut on ABC-TV, Plymouth replayed once more as part of ABC-TV’s “The Wonderful World of Disney” that aired on Sunday nights (which ended production in 1997).

Then, Plymouth vanished from stateside television. It’s never been syndicated for UHF-TV nor for the retro-channels, such as the sci-fi-centric Comet. While DVDs are in the market, they’re grey market DVDr, since Plymouth has never officially been issued to VHS or DVD in the United States.

During a 1998 interview regarding the 30th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), actor Gary Lockwood, who starred in Earth II, said he hated working on the ABC-TV project due to “its complexities.” And that’s the problem with Plymouth: too complex (expensive) for its own good. Lockwood, of course, was referring to Earth II’s plotting — and Plymouth has its plot complexities. So, yeah, this isn’t Gerry Anderson’s Space: 1999 or its predecessor, U.F.O: so no goofy aliens, here. But Plymouth is dangerously close to Battlestar Galactica territory via its plot and character departments.

Sure, Plymouth, like Earth II, is a “hard science fiction” piece that deals with the physical and psychological challenges facing the first moon base colony populated by the citizens of a Northwestern U.S. mining-timber town displaced by a corporation’s Chernobyl-Love Canal-styled disaster. UNIDAC, the company responsible, also operates a financially-failing helium-3 mining operation on the moon. A deal is stuck: the citizens of Plymouth, Oregon, will move to the moon and run the operation.

Plymouth completed production in 1990, remained shelved for year, and then was passed over as a series replacement. ABC-TV declined to purchase the series because, “It just didn’t meet our needs.” (And they probably knew another BSG flop when they saw one.)

While the production values are stellar (Lockheed served as tech advisors), and the writing (from director Lee David Zlotoff of TV’s MacGyver fame) and acting are on equal: this is all too “Battlestar Galactica on the moon,” with little action and too much human yakity-yak drama: e.g., a UNIDAC worker and Plymouth citizen (the town’s female doctor) engage in forbidden love that leads to an outlawed pregnancy, teen-bickering love, a souped-up moon buggy prototype (no, not Brad Pitt’s Ad Astra!), and the mischievous son of the town’s now pregnant doctor as the series’ resident “Boxey,” skirting (weekly, if this went to series) security protocols, as he finds himself (and a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt) trapped in a construction-mining tunnel. Oh, and a solar flair hits the moon, which increases cancer risks. You see where this is going: no space battles, no aliens. But, eventually: juvenile delinquent moon buggy racing.

If Plymouth did go to series — as did NBC-TV’s 1993 to 1996 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea reimaging, seaQuest DSV (by producer Steven Speilberg and writer Rockne S. O’Bannon) — it would have, in order to survive in the ratings, ditch its “hard science” trappings for aliens, etc. (and SQV brought on a talking dolphin!), which caused Roy Scheider quitting that show. Yeah, Plymouth probably would have gone “Daggit,” too, for the kids, and brought on the eventual human androids kerfuffles.

You can learn more about the production of Plymouth at the “Say, Hello Spaceman” blog in a discussion about the impressive space suits’ creation, as well as the suits’ repurposing in Unearthed (1991), The Outer Limits: The Voyage Home (1995), and Star Command (1996). The “Beamjocky” blog on Live Journals also delves into the suits and the “hard science” of helium-3.

There are more TV movies to be had with our “Week of Made for TV Movies,” “Lost TV Week,” “Son of Made for TV Movie Week” and “Grandson of Made for TV Movie Week” tribute spotlights to those films that, in many cases, are even better than the movies that played in theatres.

More Space Flicks!

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Contagious (1997)

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Could a major infectious disease cripple America? This TV movie presents this far-fetched…wait, I’ve been inside my house for two months because of one? Never mind. This movie is quaint by comparison to the life we’ve been living.

Dr. Hannah Cole (former bionic Lindsay Wagner) finds herself investigating an epidemic while her Tom Wopat-plated husband takes the kids camping and gets sick.

How did the disease start? A lab? A bat? Nope. Bad shrimp on an airplane, the kind of thing that would give Kareem Abdul-Jabbar the sweats. Here it gets into a coke mule’s stomach. He gets cut open for the drugs, everyone dies and the world pays the price for that sweet, sweet white powder trade.

If you love Elizabeth Pena and enjoy movies where people just rant exposition at you, have I got some great news for you! You can watch this on YouTube:

The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973)

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Someday, scholars will speak in awe of the post-Star Trek Satanic twosome of Shatner films, which would be this movie and The Devil’s Rain! Until then, maniacs like me will yell into the uncaring silence and tell you that for a shining moment — or literally two — the once and future Kirk would die twice (spoilers be damned, again literally) while facing off with the Lord of the Flies.

Originally airing on CBS on February 13, 1973, I first learned of this movie in a TV Guide Book of Lists that featured Anton LaVey discussing the most Satanic TV moments of the last decade. This movie has it all: Mario Bava lighting, a cursed altar, Shatner drunk and railing against humanity, and finally, a bunch of Old Hollywood actors daring to sacrifice a young child to the Left Hand Path.

Sure, the flight from London to New York is supposed to be mainly cargo — that druid altar I hinted at before — but the plane still has plenty of talent on board. There’s Captain Ernie Slade (Chuck Connors), as well as an architect (Roy Thinnes, who would enter this territory again in The Norliss Tapes) and his wife (Jane Merrow, Hands of the Ripper) who have placed said altar on board. There’s also Paul Kovalik (Shatner), a priest who has lost his way, and super-rich Glenn Farlee (Buddy Ebsen, who makes it extraordinary as it’s basically Jed Clampett and Barnaby Jones against Satan). You also get Tammy Grimes — whose daughter Amanda Plummer looks just like her — as well as Lynn Loring (also in the occultist Black Noon), Paul Winfield, France Nuyen (Code Name: Diamond Head), Will Hutchins, Darleen Carr (she’s in the TV remake of Piranha), Russell Johnson (The Professor!) and H. M. Wynant (Hangar 18).

Some people have the wrong idea that this movie, shot on the sound stages at CBS Studio Center, is one of Shatner’s worst films. They’re wrong. This movie is everything. Near the end, my wife looked at me and said, “This is pretty intense for TV.” I told her that life was cheap in 1973.

Director David Lowell Rich also made Satan’s School for Girls, SST Death Flight and The Concorde … Airport ’79, all movies that some people would make fun of. Not me—this is my bread and butter. It tastes delicious.

You can watch this on YouTube:

SST Death Flight (1977)

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David Lowell Rich directed Eye of the Cat and Satan’s School for Girls before this made-for-TV movie, which originally aired February 25, 1977 on ABC. He also directed The Horror at 37,000 Feet, which probably is why he was selected to make the final movie in the Airport series, the absolutely insane The Concorde … Airport ’79.

There’s also a European version of this called Death Flight that has nudity in it, if you want some more death in the sky with breasts action. You’ll get that but no realism, as the plane model used for the film is actually American SST as the first of its kind. The aviation sequences utilized a Concorde with Boeing 747 turbofan engines attached in some scenes and a Lockheed L-2000 in others. Neither of these planes ever flew at these speeds.

On the maiden flight of Maiden 1, Captain Jim Walsh (Robert Reed, The Brady Bunch), Flight Engineer Roy Nakamura (Robert Ito, Quincy M.D.), stewardess Mae (Tina Louise, Gilligan’s Island) and steward David (Billy Crystal, City Slickers) are preparing for the first supersonic flight from New York City to Paris. Joining them are plenty of guest stars, like the designer of the ship (Burgess Meredith, Rocky), the head of PR (Bert Convy!) and the supermodel who he’s sleeping with (Misty Rowe, Hee-Haw, Meatballs Part 2) and a former pilot (Doug McClure, Firebird 2015 A.D.).

There are so many people in this and you know that I love movies like that. Peter Graves, John de Lancie (the Q!), Season Hubley (Hardcore, Escape from New York), Susan Strasberg, Regis Philbin, George Maharis, Martin Milner, Brock Peters …1977 was such a great time for TV movies like this.

There’s also a virus unleashed on the plane beyond all the mechanical failures that you’d expect. Man, disaster films — on a budget! — are where it’s at.

Somehow, despite both being on Route 66, Milner and Maharis don’t appear in a single scene together.

This was one of the first movies that Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed back when they were KTMA. Here it is on YouTube so you can watch the unadulterated movie all on its own:

ABC Afterschool Special: The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon (1976)

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Editor’s Note, January 2023: Lance Kerwin passed away on January 24, 2023, at the age of 62. Lance got his start in acting by way of his mother, who worked as a booking agent, and his father, who worked as an acting coach. Kerwin, who came to prominence for his work in the Michael Landon TV movie The Loneliest Runner (1976), the NBC-TV series James at 16 (1978), and the Stephen King adaptation, Salem’s Lot (1979), left Hollywood in the late ’90s to serve the Lord as a Christian youth minister.

Thank you for the films, Lance. You were loved and you will be missed.

If you read our reviews for the ABC Afterschool Special: Hewitt’s Just Different, along with the CBS Schoolbreak Special: Portrait of a Teenage Shoplifter, and the NBC Special Treat: New York City Too Far from Tampa Blues, then you’re up to speed on the backstory of the “Big Three” network’s competition for a slice of the young adult audience during the late afternoon school days during the ’70s and ’80s. So let’s jump right into the review!

This movie that aired on February 4, 1976, is simply too special to casually mention in passing amid some of the other notable young adult flicks aired during the ABC anthology series, which we pointed out in our review of Hewitt’s Just Different.

Why?

Because during that spring, and into the summer of 1976, anytime we faced a challenge, e.g., scaling a particularly tall tree, a knee-scraping bike stunt, or a dive off the pool house, someone would inevitably say, “You can do it, Duffy Moon!”

Yeah, to hell with J.J, Rerun, The Fonz, and Gary Coleman (please tell me you know your ’70s television characters) and their tired catch phrases. We had Ike Eisenmann fueling our kiddie vernacular.

And besides: How can you pass up a young adult flick starring Jim “Thurston Howell III” Backus and Jerry Van Dyke (Luther Van Dam from ABC-TV’s long-running Coach), and Lance Kerwin? (Yes, the epic Lance Kerwin* from TV’s James at 15, the Robbie Benson-starring TV movie The Death of Richie, the Michael Landon’s biographical The Loneliest Runner, Salem’s Lot with David Soul, and Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine.)

You don’t.

Ike Eisenmann (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Escape to Witch Mountain) is the undersized sixth-grader Duffy, and he’s sick and tired of being called “shrimp” by the other boys in his class. Then, one day, he buys a mysterious, magical book, “Cosmic Awareness,” which enables him to “Think Big,” not just figuratively—but literally. And with the puff of his cheeks, he chants the self-motivational mantra “You Can Do it, Duffy Moon!” in his head and develops powers that enable him to beat life’s challenges.

As with the previously reviewed New York City Too Far from Tampa Blues, everybody check-out this book by Jean Robinson from the school library. Yeah, those were the days. Today, young adults are shilled Twilight and The Hunger Games. And we in the pre-Internet epoch got this. And we became better adults because of it. And that was the whole point of young adult fiction in the ’70s.

They just don’t write ’em like this anymore. To say this carries the B&S About Movies’ “Seal of Nostalgic Approval” is an understatement. Watch it!

“You can do it, Duffy Moon!”

Well, that concludes our fourth and final review of the afternoon anthology movie programming offered by the “Big Three” networks during the ‘70s and ‘80s. You can relive those days with this pretty cool catch-all playlist we found on You Tube that features a mix of the ABC Afterschool Break, CBS Schoolbreak Special, and NBC Special Treat young adult films. Enjoy! You can watch the full episode, here.

* Lance did five ABC Afterschool Specials in all. He also starred in 1974’s Pssst! Hammerman’s After You! and The Bridge of Adam Rush, and 1976’s P.J. and the President’s Son and Me and Dad’s New Wife. Looks like you’re surfin’ You Tube!

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.