EDITOR’S NOTE: Stuck On You! aired on USA Up All Night on January 7, 1989 as the second movie ever shown on the late night movie show. It also played on June 6 and October 29 of that year, as well as March 10, 1990.

Stuck On You! was supposedly based on the writings of writings of Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg, but it was really from a huge team of writers, including Jeffrey Delman, Tony Gittleson,  Darren Kloomok, Warren Leight, Duffy Caesar, Magesis Melanie Mintz, Don Perman, Stuart Strutin and the two men credited with directing this movie, Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman.

Along with Squeeze Play!, Waitress! and The First Turn-On!, these sex comedies established Troma. All I have to say is, “Ugh.”

Bill and Carol are in the middle of a palimony suit against one another presided over by Judge Gabriel (Professor Irwin Corey, who had a crazy childhood where he was raised with five siblings in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York before leaving in his teens to ride the rails and enroll himself into a Los Angeles high school before working for the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression and then becoming a Golden Gloves champ. Known as the World’s Greatest Authority, he was a stand-up comedian and staunch Communist who dealt with being blacklisted for most of his career. He also accepted National Book Award Fiction Citation when publicity-shy Thomas Pynchon won it for Gravity’s Rainbow, panhandle for charity into his 90s and lived to be 104. He’s also in Chatterbox.)

As Bill and Carol share their issues with the court, the judge — who is, of course, the angel Gabriel — shows how lovers from the beginning of time, like Adam and Eve, Queen Isabella and Christopher Columbus,  King Arthur and Lady Guinevere and even cavemen have all fought.

Keep an eye out for Patricia Tallman, who would go on to play Barbara in the remake of Night of the Living Dead, as well as stand-up Eddie Brill. Otherwise, well, this is Troma trying to make a Zucker Brothers movie without any of the skill or talent. But let me tell you, as a pre-teen standing there in a mom and pop video store and not understanding the power of the posterior, I stared at this VHS box for what probably added up to be several months. I still never rented it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Message from Space aired as the third movie on USA Up All Night on December 1, 1990.

At nearly half the budget of Star Wars — $6 to $7 million dollars — Message from Space was the most expensive movie in Japanese history up until 1980. At the time, it was routinely panned by the critics. Yet watching it nearly 40 years later, I was struck by just how ambitious, fun and strange it is.

Jillucia was once a planet of peace, but that was before the Gavanas Empire turned it into one of their military bases. Kido, one of the planet’s leaders, sends eight Liabe seeds into space to find soldiers strong enough to liberate the planet from the steel grip — and faces — of the Gavanas. Princess Emeralida (Etsuko Shiomi, Sister Street Fighter) and Urocco follow them into space in a space galleon.

We meet some space racers — Shiro (Hiroyuki Sanada, Shingen from The Wolverine) and Aaron — and a spoiled rich kid named Meia who are chasing one another through some asteroids. These guys mess up the Kessel Run and wreck, but then find some Laibe seeds in their ships.

General Garuda (the name means phoenix and the role is played by Vic Morrow, who graced the screen in films like 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Humanoids from the Deep before dying while making Twilight Zone: The Movie) is a drinking man, embittered by the loss of Beba-1, his robot. He orders that a rocket send the body of his faithful companion into space, which gets him in trouble with his superiors, who see it as a waste. This leads him to retire and take up a bar stool on Milazeria, where he also finds a Liabe seed.

In that very same bar, Jack puts the pressure on Shiro and Aaron to repay their debts, as he himself owes the gangster Big Sam (no relation to Jabba) plenty of dough. Oh — he also finds a seed. To get the cash, they agree to take Meia to a forbidden zone where she can watch fireflies. On the way, the Gavanas attack, destroying the space galleon and a police ship.

All of our heroes battle, but when the seeds — and Garuda, who is sleeping off his drinking — reveal themselves, Emeralida explains that the seeds have chosen them to liberate her planet. Garuda responds by leaving in a huff, but Beba-2 promises to get him to change his mind. There’s supposedly a Chris Isaak cameo as a gambler in the bar scenes, way before he became famous.

What follows next is a confusing mess of double crosses and people trying to get rid of their seeds and ten-year-old Sam would probably be not paying attention, just wishing that some aliens would show up and have a laser battle. Luckily, the Gavanas do show up to declare war on Earth and Garuda realizes his destiny is to defend his home planet. And to make the film a million times more exciting, they meet Prince Hans, the rightful leader of the Gavanas. He doesn’t have their silver skin, but he is played by Sonny Chiba.

Urocco, Jack, Shiro and Aaron fly to Jilutia, with Shiro and Aaron’s ships mounted on Mayah’s ship. As they near their destination, Mayah’s Leyabe seed explodes, causing the ship to crash on a planet in the Bernard system. There they find what appears to be a Gavanas warrior without a metallic skin, and wearing a Leyabe seed around his neck. The warrior introduces himself as Prince Hans, the rightful heir of the Gavanas’ throne. He explains that Rockseia killed his royal parents and took the throne for himself.

The Emperor and Empress of the Gavanas meet with Garuda, who challenges one of their warriors to a duel. After walking less than ten paces, that warrior sneak attacks Garuda, who shrugs off a laser beam to the back (it must have been his snazzy military uniform and phoenix patch). Garuda bests the soldier, yet gives him mercy before the Emperor wipes the disgraced soldier out. The leaders — who had to have inspired Prince Zarkon and Haggar from Voltron — destroy the moon and demand that Earth surrender.

Garuda, Jack and Beba-2 leave Jilutia but then turn around. All three parachute to the surface. In the meantime Maya’s ship approaches Jilutia, making the ‘chicken run’ approach used earlier by Aaron and Shiro. The pair separate their ships near the surface, and the three ships pull up and fly through a rocky canyon, simulating a meteor impact. The ships then re-connect and land. Urrocco finds the Jilutian survivors hiding in the hull of a space galleon. Urrocco and the others meet Jack, Garuda and Beba-2. They realize there are now six Leyabe warriors, but wonder who the other two might be.

Finally, it’s time for space battles and sword fights. Sonny Chiba goes off slashing everyone with his sword. There are suicide runs — Meia uncomfortably says, “They don’t call me kamikaze for nothing.” — and ships blowing up and planets exploding and all manner of space opera nonsense, ending with all of the heroes being saved from death by the seeds.

Message from Space was popular enough that it became a TV series in Japan. Over here, it didn’t fare as well. It’s a crazy looking movie, with gigantic sets, gorgeous costumes and lunacy aplenty, like people skydiving from space and silver faced aliens doing battle with drunken space captains and a rich girl and dudes who just like to race rockets.

Director Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) really has a great time with the budget he’s been given and wastes none of it. It’s a glitzy, gaudy spectacle that the cynical amongst us would choose to deride and make fun of. I chose to watch it through younger eyes and find a fun and infectious joy at the heart of the film. Sure, it’s no Star Wars, but it’s still a fun Saturday afternoon film.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cheerleader’s Beach Party was the first movie ever played on USA Up All Night on January 7, 1989. It played five more times after that: April 22 and October 6, 1989; March 16 and 17 and September 15, 1990.

Alex E. Goitein had already made Cherry Hill High for Cannon, but now he had Chuck Vincent writing his script, the man who would one day be able to boast of making Bedroom Eyes, Hot T-Shirts, American Tickler, Bedroom Eyes II, Sensations, Deranged, Young Nurses in Love and so many more movies. In fact, if you watched a lot of USA Up All Night, the chances were quite high that you were watching a Chuck Vincent movie.

Animal House then came out the same year and changed how sex comedies went from dirty little drive-in movies to big business. This film follows a similar story and was also known as California Cheerleaders.

The cheerleaders of Rambling University — Monica (Elizabeth Loredan), Toni (Jamie Jenson), Sissy (Lynn Hastings, also in Cherry Hill High) and Sheryl (Gloria Upson, who was also in…did you guess Cherry Hill High?) — fight to keep their players from going to another college, which means stealing the van of an opposing coach and putting crabs into the jockstraps of his players. They also destroy an old person pool party — or make it so much better — with some pot-laced brownies.

One of the teachers in this movie, Mr. Langley, is played by John Hart. Hart was a war hero who came back to Hollywood as an action film actor — he’s in the Jack Armstrong serial — and he was offered the opportunity to replace Clayton Moore on The Lone Ranger television series. The producers of the show believed that it was the character and not the actor that was the true star and when Moore asked for a better salary, he was let go. The public never accepted Hart as a replacement and by 1954 the producers returned Moore to the role. In his book I Was That Masked Man, Moore claimed that he’d never asked for a raise and had no idea why he was replaced. This was not the last time that producers screwed with Clayton Moore and the public stood up for the man they saw as the true Lone Ranger.

Back to Cheerleader’s Beach Party.

This movie is as 1978 as it gets, filled with disco, a Saturday Night Beaver, Billy Carter references and Fleetwood Mac pillow talk. There are, however, better cheerleader movies and to the point, better Chuck Vincent movies. But hey — if you were a kid and up late, Gilbert would make fun of this movie before and after the commercials, getting your weekend started.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The first time Nadia Georges (Kyle Kankonde) meets Juliet Gold (Savoy Bailey), they’re both trying out for a ballet role. Nadia tries to be kind to her but Juliet gets in her face and says, “Break a leg. Literally.” And that’s pretty much what happens when Nadia’s mother Salina (April Hernandez Castillo) distracts her and she slips and breaks a metatarsal bone in her foot.

Their next meeting is a bit friendlier. Nadia is struggling to teach dance and suffering through the pain of a bone that wasn’t set properly. Juliet has left dance behind, tired of having to listen to her mother live through her. She’s forced to live on her own with no monetary help, but she has an idea, thanks to her friend Paris (Raquel Antonia). She still dances. It’s a different kind of dance. But still…it’s dance.

Mickey Valle (Rob Figueroa) is their boss at Pandora’s Palace and at first, they seem to be protected. But then he tells her that Paris has left with a man she met in the champagne room. So what seems like a fun way to keep on dancing while earning enough money to pay to live and keep their families taken care of soon spirals out of control — it’s a Tubi movie about exotic dancing, what did you expect? — and soon they’re set up and dancing in the home of organized crime figure “Handsome” Johnny Palermo (Anthony Robert Grasso) and killing made men when they feel like they’re in danger, which puts them in danger that they may not escape. And now, Mickey wants to kill them too.

Directed by Elaine del Valle and written by Cate Holahan (Deadly Estate), Midnight Hustle remembers to empower its leads without descending into the expected exotic dancing downfall for both. Instead, they both gain from the experience, despite the danger they find themselves in.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Nothing gives me greater joy than when our site gets mentioned on my favorite podcast, The Cannon Canon. There are a few movies they’ve covered that I haven’t, so it’s time to fix that.

I am happy to admit that I rented Action Jackson more than a few times. Carl Weathers deserved to be the star of more movies and, well, Vanity was in it. After watching this movie, I realize that I am only two movies away from seeing every film that she was ever in.

It starts unlike any normal action movie you’d expect, as almost supernatural killers, the Invisible Men, come out of nowhere and kill some auto union guys. That’s how you know we’re in Detroit, you know?

Detroit Police Department Detective Sergeant Jericho “Action” Jackson (Weathers) was a star athlete who went to law school and became a hometown hero, but that was before he arrested the son of important businessman Peter Anthony Dellaplane (Craig T. Nelson). He was quickly demoted, divorced and demoralized. He’s at odds with the public and his boss, Captain Earl Armbruster (Bill Duke, always an angry ranked cop) because he won’t stop chasing down Dellaplane, who really is dirty and is too smart to get caught.

Yet there’s hope. Dellaplace’s wife Patrice (Sharon Stone, fated to be the dead bad girl in every movie at this point) gives him info before she’s killed and Dellaplace’s mistress Sydney Ash (Vanity) is set up. Yes, Craig T. Nelson is at near Michael Douglas level here, sleeping with both Sharon Stone and Vanity. Action Jackson also has help from Kid Sable, a local hotel owner and retired professional boxer — this movie is like James Bond with its strange helper characters — played by Chino ‘Fats’ Williams, hairdresser and connected gossip queen Dee (Armelia McQueen), his old partner Detective Kotterwell (Jack Thibeau), bad kid gone good Albert (Stan Foster) and Sydney’s bodyguard Big Edd (Prince A. Hughes).

This is the kind of movie where the bad guys plan on barbecuing our hero and instead he sets them on fire and shoots them with a grenade launcher. It’s beyond over the top but in a way that completely works within its universe.

I love how matter of fact Weathers was about how this movie got made: “A creation that came about when I was doing Predator and talking to Joel Silver, who loved blaxploitation movies. Joel said, “Well, you know, why don’t you put something together?” So during that time of shooting down in Puerto Vallarta, I created this story and came up with this guy – or at least this title – Action Jackson. And Joel found a writer who wrote the screenplay, and that was it. We got it made.” There’s a TV movie Weathers did after, Dangerous Passion, which was called Action Jackson 2 in Germany, but unfortunately there was no sequel. Weathers said that it was because, “Lorimar sold the lot to Sony and sold the library to Warner Bros., and that was that. It never resurfaced again, unfortunately.”

If you love 80s action, this has so many people you know in it. Dennis Hayden, De’voreaux White, Robert Davi, Mary Ellen Trainor and Al Leong were all in Die Hard together, while Weathers, Duke and Sonny Landham were in Predator. In a better world, we got a whole bunch of these movies.

This was the first movie — after episodes of The A-Team — of former stunt coordinator Craig R. Baxley, a beyond dependable name because he also directed Stone Cold, Storm of the Century, Rose Red and Kingdom Hospital. It was written by Robert Reneau, one of the writers of Demolition Man.

You can listen to The Cannon Canon episode of Action Jackson here.