Always get a kick out of the wacky-named films Patty cites when she's headed to the moviehouse. If anything, it almost seemed like an extension of the running-gag used in "Dobie Gillis," where Maynard is invariably describing some ridiculously-titled horror or sci-fi film that he recently saw. "The Monster that Devoured Cleveland," more often than not. Indeed, along similar lines, when Patty takes Ross to the matinee for his birthday (in the episode Little Brother is Watching You), it's to see something called "The Creature that Swallowed the Earth." Patty herself didn't seem too enthused at the prospect of seeing that one, yet earlier in the season (in The Boy Next Door), she was rather gung-ho about going to see "The Mechanical Werewolf from a Hundred-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Whatta title.

In the 'allergy' episode (The Friendship Bit), Patty goes into great detail to Cathy about the film she and Richard just attended that evening, "The Witch Doctor Strikes Back." Heck, her description made me want to see it! A shame all these films are non-existent. One film actually gets mentioned in two separate episodes (Drop Out and The Little Dictator), that being something entitled "Seven Empty Coffins." Which actually, come to think of it, is a pretty darned good name for a movie. It could serve equally well for a horror flick or even a spaghetti western. Altogether, the titles tend to be pleasantly evocative of that era's fun, b-grade thrillers, even if they are just examples of the writers having some fun.

Oh, I should add that, when it comes to wildly-titled movies, the TPDS writers missed out on what could have been a great in-joke: A scene in which Patty and Richard are leaving the house, in which Patty informs her parents that they are going to the Rialto to see a double-feature presentation of "The Man from Planet X" and "Jungle Moon Men." The in-joke being, that both films are quite real, and that William Schallert appeared in the former, as the bearded villain by the name of Professor Mears, and Jean Byron appeared in the latter, one of the last of the Jungle Jim films, as a plucky authoress accompanying our hero into forbidden land.

Hmm, but maybe Schallert and Byron might not have wanted to be reminded of appearing in such fare. Not that the two films were all that bad. In fact, they were reasonably entertaining as I recall, albeit pretty hampered by their ultra-low budgets. Actually, I first became familiar with Byron via her two Jungle Jim movies, which used to be rerun all the time on one of my local channel's afternoon "Dialing for Dollars" movie airings. If my memory serves me correctly, she looked quite fetching in a pith helment!

Jean Byron ... Jungle Girl!

Since my previous post, there was the unexpected but pleasing news that Jean Byron's second "Jungle Jim" film, "Jungle Moon Men," has actually made it to dvd. The 1955 movie has been released as part of the first wave of Columbia's new 'manufactured-on-demand' series of dvd-r's. They are a bit pricey, but I did order a copy, as I hadn't seen the film in probably 30 years, and wanted to revisit it. Typical b-grade mumbo-jumbo, but Byron always makes for a fun leading lady. There's a scene with Jean Byron in the jungle, slowly stalking and then shooting a wild boar with a bow-and-arrow! I don't believe, as Natalie, she was ever called to do that on TPDS. But I'm sure the reasoning behind this was that the wild game in Brooklyn Heights might have been a tad sparse, right? Come to think of it, remember Patty practicing with the bow-and-arrow in the episode "The Boy Next Door?" Just where did that bow-and-arrow set come from? Hmmm.