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kathleen-hambrecht
Reviews
The Uncle Floyd Show (1974)
Cheap, stoopid and brilliant
The longest running local show in New Jersey history, Uncle Floyd was a hilarious local New Jersey TV show that aired most of the 1970s. It's a spoof of 1950s variety shows and their awful vaudeville humor, with a cast of charming burnout dudes acting as the guests, dressed in costumes they look like they brought from home. The memorable howling "laugh track" is courtesy of whatever rowdy cast members are off camera, and the whole show was filmed in front of a cardboard-brown wall with viewer-drawn pictures tacked to it. Also, crummy, scary puppets such as "Cuppy," a monstrous dadaist creation in a Yankees nightshirt with a cup for a head are frequent guests. The awe-inspiring chutzpah of Floyd Vivino was the driving force of this madness. The Ramones were big fans. Conan O'Brien has said this was one of his favorite shows, and if you like the demented skits on Conan, Uncle Floyd is right up your alley. Floyd Vivino (Uncle Floyd) also plays a mean piano, and in September of 1999, he set the Guinness record for non-stop piano playing at 24 hours and 15 minutes.
Forbidden Zone (1980)
Hervé's best performance/a jaw-dropping film
Forbidden Zone is a brilliant, unique film that's like a bawdy, live-action 1930s cartoon. It has a real arts-and-crafts look to it - you can see how all the sets were put together - but that actually adds to how cool it looks. There are gorgeous (super-pro-looking) animated sequences interspersed throughout the movie. And Susan Tyrrell is really radiant. I was a huge fan of this movie aesthetically for years, even though I didn't think it made much sense, but I recently saw it on the big screen and found the plot much easier to follow that way. Richard Elfman spoke after the screening and sort of hinted that financing the film ruined his life, but I'm sure you can read about that somewhere online.