Where To Watch
Svengoolie and Joe Bob Briggs' panel at Flashback Weekend '23 pt. 3
The horror hosts discuss the worst movies they've ever shown.
August 2023 saw a historical horror summit as Flashback Weekend once more turned Rosemont, IL, into the spooky capital of the world. Fans who were lucky enough to attend were delighted by Q&A panels with horror icons like Dick Warlock (Michael Myers, Halloween II), Kane Hodder (Jason Vorhees, Friday the 13th pts. VII - X), and Rose McGowan (Scream, Planet Terror).
However, the highlight of the event, the crown jewel of Flashback Weekend, was a panel hosted by horror legends Svengoolie and Joe Bob Briggs. Together, the hosts regaled guests with tales of TV, from their onscreen lives to their hopes for the future of horror hosts. With attendance limited to seating capacity, the intimate conversation will be fondly remembered by everyone in the room. Luckily for fans who could not make it to Rosemont, the conversation has been lovingly recorded and transcribed here for posterity. Enjoy!
In the third part of their conversation, Sven and Joe Bob recount some of the lows of their careers, including the worst movies they've ever aired.
Joe Bob: What’s the worst movie you ever showed?
Sven: In all the time I've been doing this?
Joe Bob: Yes.
Sven: I would have to say it’s a tie between The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, a Dr. Seuss movie, and at times, even Dr. Seuss hated it because they did so many changes and cut out so many of his songs — some of which probably deserve to be cut out. The other one — it’s one I ran years ago — was called Track of the Vampire. Now this movie was made in two places, in Los Angeles, and also in some places like Romania. And it was very apparent that neither side knew what the other side was doing. So, a lot of it didn’t make sense. It was an artist who ends up killing people, and he’s a vampire. But, at times he doesn’t seem like a vampire. There are long, stupid stretches. There’s a girl dancing on the beach and it’s got, like, the fly-eye lens with all the different images of her, and this goes on for like six-and-a-half minutes. And I remember sitting there, going “Why is she—? I don’t get that!”
And one time we did — you know we do Svensurround, where we replace dialogue, or add some sound effects. I was so sick of them scheduling this movie for me, that we did one whole sequence in Svensurround. They had the vampire chasing the girl down the street. So we re-dubbed it, and he was her swim coach, and she didn’t want to go to practice. Eventually, she ends up jumping into the ocean. There was a lifeguard, who was a tall, bald guy, so I re-dubbed him as Curly Howard. I don’t think this exists anywhere unless someone recorded it off of their TV.
What’s the worst one you’ve ever shown, might I ask? And I know it’s not Halloween III!
Joe Bob: No, we've never shown Halloween III.
Sven: I know!
(A ‘HOGZILLA’ CHANT ERUPTS FROM THE CROWD)
Joe Bob: Yes, I mean, that wasn’t my choice to show Hogzilla. That probably is the worst movie I’ve ever shown. But, we had one at TNT called Superbeast.
Sven: Oh, man, yes!
Joe Bob: Have you seen — have you played Superbeast?
Sven: I played that! Many years ago.
Joe Bob: There’s no beast! Much less a "super" beast. It’s basically guys wandering around the woods in the Philippines for a couple of hours. And I never knew — I couldn’t follow — it must have been several movies pieced together because I couldn’t follow exactly what the plot was, where the Superbeast was, why they cared about the Superbeast… Were they pursuing the Superbeast? Was the Superbeast attacking them? Were they gonna bag the Superbeast, bring it back from the Philippines, and do something with it? Since we never saw the Superbeast, I didn’t know.
I actually, well I got in trouble… I said, “If anybody can successfully describe the plot of this movie, in writing, and tell us exactly what’s going on in this movie, I’ll send you a case of Old Milwaukee.” I said that on the air. Standards and Practices went crazy. “You can’t offer alcohol on the air, much less free alcohol!” So the following week, I said “Obviously, I was kidding, I’m not going to send you a case of anything. But we are having a contest, and you’ll win TNT bumper stickers or something.” And so, we got remarkable participation trying — unsuccessfully, by the way — to describe the plot of Superbeast.
I remember that specifically because periodically, the people that run TNT would go over to these film markets they have in Europe. They had one in Milan that was sort of oriented toward television. And there are these guys sitting at tables just like here at this event, only they’re selling the rights to films. Some of them have like 500 films that have never been shown in the U.S. So, they go over to these film markets because they don’t have enough material for the year. And they can’t watch them all.
Sven: Sure!
Joe Bob: And they have certain films that they want. So the guy will say “Yeah, I can give you those three films if you buy these other 48!” And they come back with these big film packages. And they say “Joe Bob, all of these are going on your show.” so that’s how Superbeast ends up being on MonsterVision.
Sven: I remember we did a song on that one like we do on all the shows, and it was to [Rick James’] “Superfreak.” It was “Superbeast, Superbeast, it’s super beast-y...” It still didn’t make the movie make any sense, but it kind of eased the pain a little.
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