Phyllis Diller Spends Halloween At Disneyland

Disney does Halloween right. They do Halloween specials right. Somebody behind the scenes of The Mouse Factory did drugs wrong. I don't know if Phillis Diller did drugs, but I do know her name is slang for cocaine. Which I'm sure there was a mountain of offstage on this episode.

Spooks and Magic, the Halloween episode of The Mouse Factory features Phyllis Diller as the guest star going absolutely insane with Disney characters. At one point she's breaking into the Haunted Mansion and harassing the ghosts, the next minute she's having a Halloween costume party with Donald Duck. Said costume party doesn't sound bad until she shows them her batshit family slides then runs them off by singing.

The whole thing ends with her forming a witches coven with King Louie, Goofy, and Witch Hazel. The later is sent to Donald Duck's (who just left) house as a set up to the classic Disney 'Trick or Treat' short. In the end, Phyllis uses her evil witch powers to steal Snow Whites identity and... it just ends. That means she's still out there.

Originally Posted 10/02/2020

Tim Burton's Hansel and Gretel (1983)

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I love Halloween. By proxy, I'm a big fan of Halloween specials as well. Some people follow the NFL, I follow the Great Pumpkin. While various Halloween specials are produced every year... I prefer the old ones. Because nostalgia? Maybe, but also because they were vastly different. The gloves were off, obviously too much fun being had behind the scenes, or maybe it was a good opportunity to try something different. The more obscure the special, the more out there, the better. Such is the case with today's post.

The video above is a Disney Channel Halloween special from 1983. At the time a young Tim Burton was a Disney employee and made this short for the company. It was literally only shown once, on Halloween in 1983. Even as a Halloween special it was a little too dark. Even for Tim Burton. It might be cursed.

I've used the term fever dream often to describe things here and... that's a nice way of putting it. We have a retelling of Hansel and Gretel which is a pretty good story for Halloween. You know, they get lost in the woods and find a witches house. In this telling, their step mother tries to get rid of them by getting them lost in the woods (involving a robot duck), which leads to the witches house and some of the weirdest hellscape I've ever seen on film. You'll have to pause it occasionally.

Enjoy!

Originally Posted 8/28/2020

Halloween Is Glade Night

When it stinks in Whoville so bad that the wildlife starts howling that means one thing, it's Halloween! That's right, our favorite holiday here on Planet Zone! When it starts to stink that bad, they residents lock themselves away in their houses, because The Grinch is about to raise all sorts of hell! Fortunately Euchariah has to take a dump and on his way to the euphemism get blown away by the stinky wind... I'm pretty sure the Grinch is just holding his ass open in front of a fan... and ends up face to face with the Grinch! The showdown ends in a nightmarish fever dream that probably causes some pants shitting. I wish I was joking, this cartoon is one long fart joke and the adventures of a boy who really has to poop. It used to come on the Disney Channel.  

King Kong's Ghost Adventures

It's probably no suprise to any of you that I enjoy watching paranormal TV shows. I think I've talked about that before here. Saturday night I fell asleep in the living room with paranormal shows on in the background. This happens quite often, I'll wake up shortly after and find my way to the bedroom. Well Saturday night, the Mrs. and I were watching TV and she feel asleep on the couch and I soon did the same in my chair. We're here today to talk about the dream I had... it's a weird one. I may need help.

In my dream I had become very interested in a lost King Kong film production. The movie had begun filming, but never finished and had become lost media over time. All that was available was a picture of the King Kong costume in a warehouse door. I couldn't shake the idea that the warehouse looked super familiar. Sure enough, it turned out to be nearby. So I printed out the picture and headed there. 

The picture matched up perfectly with the warehouse. So while I was taking pictures for a post a old man walked up and asked what I was doing. After talking for a bit, it turns out he knew a lot about the production. He actually was working in the area at the time. The production was moved shortly after there was a murder in the back alley.

DUN DUN DDDDUUUUNNNNNNN

Details were scarce, but a guy was chased down the alley and shot to death. Ever since, every night you could hear the gun shots in that alley. Needless to say I came back that night to see if I could hear them. As I walked down the alley, gunshots rang out. It was scary, holy crap. I had info on this lost King Kong movie with a ghost story to boot! Then... then... I heard the hosts of The Dead Files talking as I awoke really needing to pee. Dammit.

Want To Be Your New Week, New Week

When I hear Loverboy, naturally a low budget sci fi fever dream is exactly what crosses my mind.  It's also Monday and the start of a new week here on Planet Zone! There's a new episode of Not As Brightly Lit for a little Halloween in April up for your listening enjoyment. I've got a fun week of posts for you all. Thank you for continuing to read Zone Base and as always please share with your friends!

Tim Burton's Hansel and Gretel (1983)

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I love Halloween. By proxy, I'm a big fan of Halloween specials as well. Some people follow the NFL, I follow the Great Pumpkin. While various Halloween specials are produced every year... I prefer the old ones. Because nostalgia? Maybe, but also because they were vastly different. The gloves were off, obviously too much fun being had behind the scenes, or maybe it was a good opportunity to try something different. The more obscure the special, the more out there, the better. Such is the case with today's post.

The video above is a Disney Channel Halloween special from 1983. At the time a young Tim Burton was a Disney employee and made this short for the company. It was literally only shown once, on Halloween in 1983. Even as a Halloween special it was a little too dark. Even for Tim Burton. It might be cursed.

I've used the term fever dream often to describe things here and... that's a nice way of putting it. We have a retelling of Hansel and Gretel which is a pretty good story for Halloween. You know, they get lost in the woods and find a witches house. In this telling, their step mother tries to get rid of them by getting them lost in the woods (involving a robot duck), which leads to the witches house and some of the weirdest hellscape I've ever seen on film. You'll have to pause it occasionally.

Enjoy!

Green Harold And My Basement

It's a day for dreaming here on the Base I guess. I had prior posted this story on the former additional hidden blog here on the site. None of you ever saw it. So I thought I'd retell it here. What's that? Never mind, I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe click around at random sometime, things may happen. You saw nothing.

Anyway, while I've mentioned moving here before... it's been something I've been trying to do for a few years now and just man... Well, last summer I dreamt I had finally bought a house. It was an older house, but a very big house. Moving is an ordeal and my wife and I were calling it a night after a long day. She and my mother rode back to our old place in our car while I locked up and drove the U-Haul back. In a moment of pride, I took a tour of the house. Looking downstairs in the basement and just man, it was a big basement. Multiple rooms, halls, and as I turned the corner... there was Harold the Yeti. From The Matterhorn Bobsleds. Pre-update.

Harold roared and chased me. I should mention Harold was green while he's normally white. And had horns. Basically it was a bootlegged Harold, probably from Six Flags or something. Still though, Green Harold was in my basement, and he was chasing me. We ran up and down the halls. Holy crap, how big is my basement? After a few minutes, I decided to fight back. So I turned around and shot him with my Specium Ray. It took a few hits, but Green Harold fell down defeated and probably dead. Here's a reenactment.

Dokken- In My Dreams

I guess today just has a theme or something.

Colossal Rubber Tussle

I'm sure we all have a lot on our minds right now. Me, I've got the obvious things we've dealing with as well as preparing for our move in the summer. That's not the best introduction to this post, but I'm not afraid to admit it. I was dreaming about being quarantined in our new place and organizing M.U.S.C.L.E toys. Honestly it's the kind of this I'd do normally.

So, there I was, setting up the new Zone Base headquarters and decided it was time to hold a giant wrestling event with my toys. A real life issue is my childhood M.U.S.C.L.E toys are in various forms of storage at my Mom's house. Real talk, most have probably evaporated in that parents house wormhole that eats things. My 2000's Ultimate M.U.S.C.L.E figures are all sorts of assorted throughout multiple boxed next to most of my Microman toys. My current ones are readily handy as well as multiple other keshi lines.

I traveled to the local Dollar Tree to pick up a good $10 worth of those tiny crappy wrestling rings they usually have with el cheapo jobbers included. For the record, I was taking advantage of all current wrestling events being filmed without audiences. Clearly I have cats and Vince McMahon doesn't. Also my event was streamed on Instagram, completely free like this site. So hey, if you like what I do, please share, it's all I ask.

So I divided my teams up. Universal Monsters, The Worst, WWE, Transformers (Beast Wars and G1), Peanuts, Star Wars, etc. I set up a ranking system based on a very crucial formula (which ever I grabbed first). One of my many tablets served as the titan tron and in the crowd... my fish. I think he was awake. Play that 'click, click, boom' song, it was on. And by on I mean I woke up having to pee another ocean. In my defense, if they sold Surge in normal sized cans at the gas station... I'd still get the tall boy.

Trick or Treat Fever Dream

Submitted without Context.

The Iron Superman/Roboter Der Sterne/Mazinger Z - El robot de las estrellas

Yes, it's Super Robot Mach Baron.

One thing charmingly weird thing about oddball robot/monster shows is that they can surface in the strangest ways. Take Mach Baron, the follow up to Red Baron. He had his tv series, toys, and assorted fame that comes with such a character. Though oddly enough, he also had a movie in Hong Kong named 'The Iron Superman' made from assorted episodes of the show with new actors filmed for scenes (like Power Rangers). This movie found it's way to German and Mexican audiences under different titles (Mazinger Z?) and I'm sure there's probably fans of these movies that have no clue of it's heritage (like Power Rangers). Aside from odd clips, I've never seen Mach Baron. Just been aware of him, appreciated his look, that sort of thing (I can't watch and know everything ya'll).

So as I'm adding fun stuff to my watch que, I run across 'The Iron Superman' and say to myself 'That's Mach Baron, I'll watch this'. And after starting the weird movie, decide to look into the bizarre production and that's when I learned about it. Like other oddball robot movies you'll find in discount bins, it's another cobbled together production obviously meant to entertain children without much regard to it's manic pacing. Being made from random episodes of a tv show, the movie has a bunch of episodic adventures for our heroes at a crazy pace. 

Aside from the weirdness of the movies production, the show's pretty weird too in an awesome way. Like other older tokusatsu productions, Mach Baron has some crazy bad guys straight out of a haunted house (which I love) and the generic foot soldiers... are football players for some reason. I love the villains. There isn't a clear reason as to what they're trying to do, other than cause destruction and kill everything (they're from Deathstar, not the Deathstar... just Deathstar) and the head honcho looks like a demonic wizard with crazy hair that changes colors at random intervals (I don't know what's going on either). What's awesome is the outright violence. For a children's show, there's a complete disregard for the intended audience. It's somewhat jarring at times (I've said 'damn' so many times) and also completely amazing. I know I call things a fever dream often, but this might just be the epitome of the term.

Gain Ground, cover tracks

I have a little story to tell. Last night (for me, for you it was yesterday) before bed, I played my portable Genesis player that I keep by my bed (as I usually do). I played Gain Ground for a while before getting sleepy. Ever play Gain Ground? It's an excellent game. Each round you have a level you have to clear with each of your assigned characters, either by reaching the exit or killing all the onscreen enemies. It's a mix of strategy and good old arcade shooting enemies and dodging the enemies fire. Just a great game that I'm surprised isn't more popular in today's world of mobile games.

So as I'm sleeping I have a dream, and in this dream I help a person escape prison. I don't know how I got involved, but I pulled it off. Perfectly too might I add, somehow I sneaked them off into a car and into busy traffic. Though later as I worried that the police my get me for helping the person escape, I decided to cover my tracks. That's when it became all to clear as to the only thing that would clue the police to my involvement. You guessed it.

If they knew I had been playing Gain Ground, they'd know it was me who helped the guy escape.

GiG Pretenders Commercial

Mr. Denim Jacket over the Shoulder here apparently has special powers. Because when his hands turn blue, he can rip a Pretender shell in half. Which doesn't exactly sell the longevity of the toy very well. Outside of the neon horror and toy mutilation, the commercial does do a decent job of selling Finback to viewers. It's hip and cool, perfect during an afternoon of children's television at the time. I'm kind of impressed and maybe a little frightened to let that kid around my toys.

Phantasm trailer