So what pair of episodes works together for an awesome double feature? (Triple feature?)
My pick: “Catalina Caper” and “Horror of Party Beach.” Little Richard meets the Del Aires.
What’s your pick?
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Weekend Discussion Thread: Episode PairingsIn the episode guide discussion this week, somebody suggested a good episode that would go well with “City Limits,” and I thought, hey…!
87 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Episode Pairings”Commenting at Satellite News
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The obvious answer: “Prince of Space” with “Invasion of the Neptune Men”.
Other ideas:
“Mitchell” and “The Final Sacrifice” (2 films with a drunk-ass slob of a hero).
“The Crawling Eye” and “Attack of the the Eye Creatures”.
I’ve thought about this topic myself before, and I suppose I do like the thought of juxtaposing “Joel episodes” and “Mike episodes” on the same general topic of movie… so how about “Rocket Attack USA” and “Invasion USA,” “Operation Double 007” and “Danger!! Death Ray,” “Hercules Unchained” and “Colossus and the Headhunters,” or “Godzilla vs. Megalon” and “Gorgo?” (Well, maybe I haven’t thought about it enough to settle on a single perfect example.)
“Werewolf” and “Track of the Moon Beast.” Uncharismatic leads transformed by bad makeup jobs into Southwest Native American legends, and the airheaded, untalented actresses who love them.
I always like to pair together Track of the Moon Beast and It Lives By Night. Something about the locations where they filmed just seem to go together.
“The Undead” and “The She Creature” both complete with creepy hypnotists.
Double features:
Rocketship X-M and Space Travelers (Marooned, the one the mads claimed they couldn’t get)
Crawling Eye and Danger Diabolik (beginning and the end)
Gunslinger and Angel’s Revenge (female justice)
Girls Town with Daddy-O. In each one a “teen” is accused wrongly, amid lots of songs and dancing kids. And everything works out in the end.
Amazing Colossal Man and War of the Colossal Beast – natch!
This precludes some of the stated two-parters such as Fugitive Alien and Master Ninja, eh? I’ll go with “Manos” and “Red Zone Cuba,” because I like my movies relatively plotless and incomprehensible.
Props to Brandon Pierce for the season 8 Japanese pairing – that was going to be my first pick, *and* it got in at #1. Ha ha ha, your weapons are useless against me.
Master Ninja
Hmmm…
How about “Space Mutiny” and “Diabolik”? You see John Phillip Law overplaying and underplaying.
“Gamera” and “Gorgo” might make a good pair. Two giant monster movies featuring cute kids who seem to understand the monster and try to tell the adults what to do. The difference is that, in the latter, Sean has a point. But, in the former, Kenny is a psycho.
For an obvious quadruple-feature, there’s “The Day the Earth Froze”, “Magic Voyage of Sinbad”, “Sword and the Dragon” and “Jack Frost”.
I think “Projected Man” and “Deadly Bees” might work. Both are mid-Sixties British horror/sci-fi movies, and have a similar look and vibe to them.
Teenage Caveman and The Thing That Couldn’t Die. One movie has a heroine who goes around accusing people of being evil and the other has a villain who goes around accusing people of being evil. You could even throw in Hobgoblins where most everyone is evil (in an annoying way).
I saw Herc against the moon men before I saw lost continent. Remember rock climbing? rock climbing was supposed to be a cool groove compared to sand storm, and I didn’t know what that meant. So I always imagined those two paired.
The other pair I thought would be fun was Manos, and monster a go go. I bet you could take over the world with those two back to back.
Terror from the year 5000 and Time Chasers. Turns out Bob Evel (the plane killed one) had dupicated Nick’s floppy discs. original Robertson fins them. While helping create a nuclear wasteland in the yeear 5000 he signs up time traveling women there to kidnap men to fix the future. When the airplane mechnic disappears Nick and the plaid girl swing into tepid action…
Btw, future topic? How about poorly written/thought out plot contrivances? While watching Jungle Goddess noticed the heroine explaining how to get from New York State to Holland she flew to Johannesburg and was then to fly the length of Africa. perhaps the pilots were filming viewmaster slides.
Let’s have a double feature of Bela Lugosi as a lackey-abusing mad scientist with The Corpse Vanishes and Bride of the Monster.
All three Coleman Francis greats. Red Zone Cuba, Skydivers, and Beast of Yucca Flats. Same actors, same camera work, same shooting people from an airplane!
You could pair Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell with The Undead for incomprehensible medieval antics.
Being from Another Planet and Riding with Death would help you mellow out with a double-dose of Ben Murphy.
Arachnophobic viewers would have a field day with a triple combination of Earth Vs. the Spider, The Giant Spider Invasion, and Horrors of Spider Island.
Outlaw, Cave Dwellers and Hercules Unchained. Six straight hours of boobular, tubular joy.
You could have a marathon viewing of creepy hypnotist movies from Season 8.
Not only did you have The Undead and The She Creature, but you also had The Thing That Wouldn’t Die (the head was hypnotizing people left and right), Terror from the Year 5000 (the Terror’s glittery fingernails hypnotized her victims), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (Doctor Whit Bissell affecting Michael Landon), and Devil Doll (the Great Vorelli’s party tricks).
Wild Rebels with Hellcats. First Spaceship On Venus with Rocketship X-M. Amazing Colossal Man with its sequel, War Of The Colossal Beast. Lost Continent with King Dinosaur. Cave Dwellers with Outlaw Of Gor.
Mamie Van Doren had a great pair. “Untamed Youth” and “Girls Town”.
The 70’s had a glut of “TV Movies” that would star a slough of then former A list and current B list stars with mini soapy story lines. Here is a trifecta of Seventies Star Smorgasbord;
SST: DEATH FLIGHT
Barbara Anderson, Bert Convy, Peter Graves, Lorne Greene, Season Hubley, Tina Louise, George Maharis, Doug McClure, Burgess Meredith, Martin Milner, Brock Peters, Regis PhilbiN, Robert Reed, Susan Strasberg, Misty Rowe, Billy Crystal, John DeLancie and Chrystie Jenner (not sure but may have been Caitlyn’s ex spouse).
SUPERDOME
David Janssen, Edie Adams, Peter Haskell, Ken Howard, Susan Howard, Van Johnson, Vonetta McGee, Donna Mills, Ed Nelson, Jane Wyatt, Tom Selleck, Shelly Novack, Marvin Fleming, Les Josephson, Bubba Smith, Dick Butkus, Michael Pataki and M. Emmet Walsh.
SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL
Pernell Roberts, Clu Gulager, Beth Brickell, Van Johnson, Tab Hunter, Nancy Malone, David Hartman, Ted Eccles, Walter Brooke, Cliff Potts, Chuck Daniel, Dana Elcar, Jim B. Smith, Jason Wingreen and Frank Gerstle.
Although we no longer have TV Movies for stars like this we can take comfort in the fact that these folks like this can now be seen on reality TV shows.
EARTH VERSUS THE SPIDER and DEADLY MANTIS. Giant Bugs/Critters = Good Times. Moreover, these happen to be two of our very favourite episodes, and I like the Joel-Mike symmetry, because Joel and Mike = Good Times.
How about Manos and …Mixed Up Zombies? Torgo and Ortega would go great together.
For me it would be Creeping Terror and Monster a Go-Go, due to the similar use of narration.
I tend to watch It Lives by Night and Track of the Moon Beast together a lot. I also like to watch the “Paul monster” trilogy of Track of the Moon Beast, Werewolf, and Projected Man.
Alien From L.A. works well with The Mole People. Also King Dinosaur with Last of the Wild Horses for the whole “Joey the Lemur” bit. Both of these pairings were put together in Shout sets, 26 and 23 respectively. I like to think that these are not coincidences.
You could do Girls Town and Untamed Youth (for your Mamie Van Doren fix.)
Black Scorpion and Deadly Mantis ( or for that manner Deadly Mantis and Beginning of the End)
High School Big Shot and I Accuse My Parents
Samson vs the Vampire Women and Racket Girls ( for all your wrestling needs.)
Beatniks and TeenAge Crime Wave
Death stalkers and the Warriors from Hell and Cave Dwellers
Stranded in Space and Time Chasers
Swamp Diamonds and Violent Years
Jack Frost and The Day the Earth Froze
I would say Red Zone Cuba and Rocket Attack USA, but I don’t people to be suicidal.
I’d go with The Beatniks and Daddy-O or any two Gamera offerings.
Being From Another Planet and Riding With Death. Get ready for a Ben Murphy overdose!
“Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” and “Santa Claus”! Every December in our house!
Here’s another one. A William Sylvester in England double feature with Devil Doll and Gorgo.
The Brain That Wouldn’t (Couldn’t) Die and The Thing That Couldn’t (Wouldn’t) Die – two evil heads.
I guess another obvious pairing is Manhunt in Space and Crash of the Moons.
Also, since I watched Operation Double 007 last night, some combination of that and Secret Agent Super Dragon or Danger!! Death Ray (or all 3).
A tripleheader: Mitchell, Samson vs the Vampire Women and Laserblast. Say Farewell to Joel, TVs Frank and Trace.
A Tor Johnson marathon: Unearthly, Bride of the Monster and Beast of Yucca Flats.
I would pair up ‘The Indestructible Man’ and ‘The Human Duplicators’. Two movies that involve police drama and sci-fi.
The Last of the Wild Horses and Quest of the Delta Knights for some “Mads in the theater” action.
How about The Crawling Eye and Danger: Diabolik as double feature of the show’s bookends?
Last of the Wild Horses and Quest of the Delta Knights. In Wild Horses we get Clay and Frank in the theater for a while, and in Delta Knights we get Pearl joining the bots for a while. They are also two terrific episodes.
A “Monster Paul” set. Show “The Crawling Hand” with “The Projected Man”, “Werewolf” and “Track of the Moonbeast”.
For a REALLY depressing time show the “Cheating” short with “High School Big Shot”.
I thought of that pairing, too. The two skuzziest movies (one Joel, one Mike).
Wild World of Batwoman would also work well with The Mole People, what with all the stock footage and all. Setting aside sequels and movies that star the same actors, you could put any of the Albert Glasser-scored Bert I. Gordon films together. Or for a real stretch, Village of the Giants and Riding with Death both claim to be inspired by H.G. Wells stories.
That’s going by the movies themselves; going by host segments would give different pairings, like the aforementioned “Joey the Lemur” double-bill, or the holo-clowns “arc”, or the NBC Mystery Movie thing. Or re-used Invention Exchanges.
Pairing a movie with its sequel (or whatever you want to call Master Ninja) while fun for the movie parts, can be a bit disjointed for the host segments, since they weren’t made or aired back-to-back. And with the Gamera movies, they skipped one, so you miss out on the full effect of the (dis)continuity.
Pairing up KTMA episodes with the later era re-dos. Has to be done with the KTMA one(s) first.
KTMA (good) –> Later version (great)
Later version(great) –> KTMA (depressing)
Though such pairings might work better with one episode one day, and the other the next (which I’ve done, enjoyably).
Teenagers from Outer Space with Teenage Caveman! Cheesy movies with lame effects and no actual Teens in the starring roles, what’s not to love! Of course, you could substitute Teenage Strangler with either one for some more lack of truth in advertising fun!
Jungle Goddess and Lost Continent.
It’d have to be Danger!! Death Ray and Agent for H.A.R.M. for me. All that ’60s spy goodness, with questionable fashions, smarm, and terrible special effects. You know you love it, baby.
I see what you did there.
How about 11 Gamera movies in a row?
Godzilla vs Gamera and the Colossal Man
Wait, you mean those are actually two different movies?!?!?