Episode 817-
Horrors of Party Beach
Movie
Summary: Doughty 1960s
seagoing polluters dump rusty casks filled with radioactive
waste into the ocean. The spill is immediate, as is the
effect: A long-submerged human skeleton turns into a monster
with many odd tubes protruding where its mouth should be.
(Surrounding fish remain unaffected).
Meanwhile, on the beach, a convention of old teenagers bare
their aging bodies and enjoy the really pretty good songs of
a band called the Del-Aires. As sinewy men dance and wiggle
their pelvi far too enthusiastically, a motorcycle gang
arrives; a girl flirts with a gang member, and a fight
ensues. The girl, angry at the loss of focus on her
perfectly innocent striptease, swims out to a tiny island
and is eaten.
A whole townload of fleshy cops and scientists, moving with
the quick precision of a school of groupers, wake slowly to
the possibility that they have a problem. When a whole
slumber party's worth of girls is eaten these guys really
begin working feverishly, and before too many weeks have
passed they discover they have no idea what's going on.
Eulabelle, a scientist's happy servant (those were the days,
huh?), helps these stupid white men realize the monsters can
be killed with sodium.
Which, basically, is what happens, after way too long a
time. There's also a romance sub- plot, which concludes with
two normal people beginning a normal life together.
Prologue: Servo is a Gyuto Monk, and achieve
multi-layers of his own chanting voice.
Segment One: Pearl and Observer must convince Callipygeas
and Flavia they're gods, so Observer produces a spoon and
then a bigger spoon. Flavia sees Pearl talking to the
robots, and remarks on the average-looking man-god, the
golden spider duck, and the squat crimson pig.
Segment
Two: Mike's trunks, that the
'bots made him for the "manly beach dance," are a trifle
small.
Segment Three: Still trying to convince their hosts of their
god-dom, Pearl and Observer make some old-fashioned hoe-down
music. Observer begins talk-singing about "Beef!"
Segment Four: Impressed with the ever-changing newspaper
headlines in the movie, Servo irritates Mike with his own
version, with headlines reflecting what's happening at that
moment.
Segment Five: Dressed as the Del-Aires, Mike and the 'bots
sing of sodium. Flavia and Pearl insult each other, a lot
and viciously.
Stinger: The dancing on the beach, with eyes drawn to
semi-nude sinewy fellow.
Reflections: The
Del-Aires gradually seduced us all with their playing
ability, song-writing talents, and wry self-aware dorkiness.
I mean it -- they were a darn good band, and if anybody out
there knows anything about them we'd be interested.
Reflexively, of course, we made fun of them anyway.
Sorry.
This movie could be viewed as an allegory on the dangers of
over-regulation. Sure, the dumping of radioactive waste
would seem to be a bad thing, especially since it resulted
in hellish monsters that ate people. And yet, didn't the
free market stand ready to correct this mistake? Weren't
there an endless array of sodium supply houses, efficiently
providing exactly the stuff needed to kill the creatures?
Who's to say that stifling regulations against waste dumping
wouldn't result -- albeit indirectly -- in even more deaths,
what with the loss of jobs and innovation?
The leading man, Hank, seemed genetically compelled to
verbalize the name "Eulabelle" with a plantation owner's
resonance and southern patois. Sadly, it was the only time
he ever put any sort of spin on anything he said. -- Paul
Chaplin.
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