Look! Up in the Sky! It's the "Giant Claw"- Tonight!

It’s the so-called official end of the summer, as some call this Labor Day weekend-  and, since it is a big travel weekend, let us once again head up towards the North Pole-where a huge menace is about to be freed and begin an unstoppable assault on mankind,caught in the grip of -“The Giant Claw”!

Up in the frozen North, Mitch MacAfee, an aeronautical engineer, is carrying out a test flight- when he spots a strange shadow- possibly a UFO? - passing him in the sky. He reports it to the authorities, who are confused, since nothing is showing up on their radar, but nonetheless they send out planes to locate the object. They find nothing- and yet- one of the planes is never heard from again- and never returns! The big brass accuse Mitch of staging a hoax, resulting in a tragic loss. Naturally, Mitch is outraged by this accusation.

Mitch and Sally, a female mathematician who had been assisting in his test flight, return to New York on a small plane – only to have their pilot spot the same UFO- whose interference causes the plane to crash on a farm in the Adirondacks, owned by a French-Canadian farmer. The still-skeptical authorities are soon forced to believe in the reality of this UFO when it is repeatedly spotted and brings about the loss of more planes. Solid evidence reveals that unidentified flying object is a huge bird- being described over and over again “as big as a battleship”!

The unfathomable mystery of why the big bird doesn’t show up on radar, and why no weapon seems to hurt it plagues Mitch, the military, and scientists- but, once the fantastic reason is discovered- it’s a race against time to find a way to stop what appears to be a completely invincible winged enemy!

Premiering in 1957, “The Giant Claw” is a truly entertaining movie that we first ran earlier this year, and have had many requests to give an encore. The way the monster looks is one of the reasons why this movie is often the target of, shall we say, derisive comments.( We once again ask our blog commenters to hold off on any pictures of it, until after the show runs in all time zones.) Of course, we’ll explain WHY the filmmakers depicted the big bird in the way they did, as well as filling you in on the cast, featuring familiar faces, like Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Morris Ankrum, and Robert Shayne. You get your full helping of Sven shtick-and, with me soon being involved with superheroes, we’ll appropriately return to the amazing “Hall of Heroes” museum in Elkhart, Indiana ( which is moving to a new super location!)

“The Giant Claw” grips you tonight on MeTV at 8 pm eastern/pacific, 7 central, or, for info where you live, you can check your local listings, or at www.metv.com . We know that, even on this holiday weekend, Sven fans will be on Twitter during the show, and live- tweeting using the hashtag #svengoolie  ! For our local Chicago area viewers, you’ll get one final look at our show- featuring “Strait Jacket”- on the U’s current location- with the change of 26.1 to CW26- featuring the CW ‘s slate of shows- be aware that the U is moving , so starting next Saturday morning,  it shifts to its new home- the channel that has been known as the UToo. We’ll be on that channel at the usual 11 am time next weekend. You can find it over the air ( with an antenna) on 48.1 and 26.2  . If you watch on cable, Comcast will have the U on 230 ( some suburban areas may have a different channel allocation)- RCN will have it at 610- and WOW will have the U at 170. You’ll find us on Dish on channel 48, as well as on other providers.

Join us tonight on MeTV when the feathers fly- and victims gasp in the grasp of the  “Giant Claw”!