The Awesome Lost TV Pilot: ‘Tag Team’ with Rowdy Roddy Piper & Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura!

I recently discovered an awesome little bit of information about a tv show pilot from way back in 1991 called “Tag Team”- an awesome little pilot that for some reason never made it into a full blown series. Tag Team starred Jesse Ventura & Rowdy Roddy Piper as two tag team professional wrestlers who get black mailed into becoming cops. The show brought in the writers from Magnum PI and they aimed high for an A-Team type of show filled with comedy and plenty of action. I was recently listening to the latest “We the People” which is Jesse Ventura’s podcast, where he has Roddy Piper on as his guest and they discuss some of their greatest wrasslin’ memories together. They spend a decent amount of time talking about “Tag Team” and the troubles they ran into getting the show on the air.

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Both of these guys were favorites of mine as a kid and honestly I’m quite surprised that I haven’t heard about this show until just now. Considering that both of them star in some of my favorite movies ever like “Predator” and “They Live” and neither of these two guys appear to be slowing down one bit these days. Piper has his own podcast appropriately called “Piper’s Pit” and has a cool new HP Lovecraft inspired horror flick in the works called “Portal to Hell” which I am dying to see!

Roddy has been praised by his fans as being one of the coolest guys to meet. Ventura has been Governor of Minnesota and most recently has started his own political web series called “Off the Grid” and has been hinting at a Presidential run in 2016 to really shake things up.

 

I’m a big fan of Ventura and his no B.S. political views would be a breath of fresh air, so I’m hoping he runs as Universal Dork will be behind him if he does. Either way the whole lost pilot of Tag Team can be seen right here on Youtube! Check this out it’s a ton of fun~!

 

The CRITTERS are Back from the Eighties?!!

It seems the Critters back! There’s rumors going around that Warner Bros is getting ready to revive the 1980’s classic flick with a reboot or sorts. Well we all know that this new version of critters will most likely be nothing like the original movies, but a fan took matters into his own hands and came up with this awesome short film, Critters: Bounty Hunter.

This is pretty rad and it feels just like the 80’s Critters franchise we have grown to love over the years. Jordan Downey put this cool little six minute film together and if Warner wants to get the spirit of the original they should really be taking notes on this sweet little short! This is the type of Critters that we want. I’m starting to feel like the fan made movies are better than what Hollywood is coming up with these days- Check this shit out!

Tusk: One of the Worst Movies of 2014? For sure!!

I finally got around to checking out Kevin Smith’s horror podcast inspired movie “Tusk”. I have been looking forward to seeing it for a while now, but unfortunately this one doesn’t live up to the hype. Nope, what we have here is Kevin Smith’s “wacky” idea of a movie inspired by one of his “wacky” podcast episodes. I guess I really wonder why he’d waste the time to make such a shitty movie? Did the idea really sound that awesome on his podcast? I know it’s supposed to be like the Kevin Smith version of Human Centipede but this movie really didn’t need to be made. It was boring, it’s plot was generic, it’s characters were not likable in the least and it wasn’t funny or for that matter scary. Hell Johnny Depp couldn’t even save this one, in fact Depp’s character made the movie even worse!! Spoilers Ahead be WARNED!

So we have a hotshot podcaster played by Justin Long and his wisecracking nerd hipster buddy Haley Joel Osment who are supposed internet celebrities with their “clever” named website “The Not See Party”. Get it?!! Duh…They interview strange people and post viral videos that star these odd people basically making fools of themselves. So justin Long’s character goes on a trip to Canada and ends up randomly meeting an odd old man from a flyer he finds hanging on a wall in a dive bar. He goes to the creepy home of the man and listens to him blabber on about his unbelievable (stupid) stories at sea and his totally idiotic story of a walrus saving his life on a desert island. Then Justin Long realizes his tea has been drugged and passes out. This is where things are supposed to get “intense” when we realize the old man is obsessed with that walrus that saved his dumb life! Yep like Human Centipede he decides to transform Long into a big ol’ walrus. Shocking right? Hardly!

Johnny Depp wouldn’t attach his name to this movie even though he stars in it…hmm…I wonder why?!

On top of that we get some kinda lame side story with a “Kevin Smith-y” type love triangle going on that I honestly could’t care less about as all the characters in the movie are pretty uninteresting & annoying. Then we get an another pointless, irritating character showing up, Johnny Depp in heavy make up flashing some truly cringeworthy acting. The rest of the flick is just one big dumb pile of crap. We get an uneven story with bunch of idiotic scenes of Justin Long “arping” around in a big walrus suit, eating fish, and fighting his captor in a walrus battle. All of this shit is supposed to be clever and funny but it’s really just well…boring. I feel like I lost some brain cells watching this one and the surprise ending is just as dumb as you might expect. It tries hard to make some witty sense of this big stupid pile of horse shit of a film.

I have a love/hate relationship with Kevin Smith he has made a few ok films but for the most part I just don’t think he’s all that funny. This was most definitely his worst movie, which I’d call a gigantic waste of time for all those involved and all those who’ve watched. Please Mr. Smith don’t make anymore podcast inspired movies. I am now officially not excited to see Kevin Smith’s Krampus flick…

A New Actor Replaces Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones!!

Well, sorta! I just had to share this cool video called “Indiana Bones: Raiders of the Lost Bark”! Check this rad little video out and see what grand adventure this canine version of Indy gets into! I’d rather have this cool dog pick up the character than Shia Labeouf any day!!

Finally the Fight We Have Been Waiting for: Batman vs……Dexter?!

Boy do I love a good fan made film, often times they are more inspiring than the big blockbusters! We’ve had some cool superhero fan films over the years but this one is quite a bizarre match up when Dexter Morgan moves to Gotham and decides to go after The Penguin and put him on his table to pay for his crimes!

Not a bad idea, until Batman shows up to stop him! Check this one out, it’s a pretty fun little piece of work…maybe Batman isn’t quite as cool looking as he could be, ok  I admit it..he looks pretty bad but it’s the thought that counts right?!

oh yeah and if you missed this one check this out, an awesome return to animated Batman by the series cartoon legend Bruce Timm, truly amazing!!

‘Realm of the Underworld’ Action Figures are here to Kick He-man’s Ass!!

I LOVED He-Man and The Masters of the universe action figures as a kid, I just could not get enough of them and all of the cool accessories! The cartoon was a ton of fun, I had almost all of the action figures, mainly the bad guys and  back in the day there were even some cool knock offs, the poor man’s He-man figures you could snatch up at places like K-Mart. You remember the Remco “DC” line of figures? There guys were great and quite a bit less expensive than the Masters of the Universe, with cool figures like Warlord and Hercules…

 

Here’s all of the old 80’s Remco ones together..

They may have been He-man knock offs but they were pretty fucking awesome!

 

Well there’s a new toy line by Zoloworld called Realm of the Underworld and they totally look like lost action figures from the 80’s. Infact they really remind me of the Remco collection from the 1980’s. They share that same quality of the Knock off and He-man and the Masters of the Universe in the fact that they use basically the same body molds with a different paint job a different rubber head and maybe different costuming.

 

I didn’t give a shit that they used the same body parts! They were awesome durable toys that could take a serious beating!

This new action figure line takes me back to those days at K-mart when I’d spend my time hanging out in the toy department as long as I could and sometime my mom would buy me a cool new action figure. Check these out they are pretty great!

 

Oh yeah and it looks like the Slime (as in the same Masters of the Universe Horde green slime- that was amazing!!) will be coming soon to Realm of the Underworld soon too-how rad is that?!!

totally gross and awesome!!!

 

Comic Book Covers of the Week: 24 Crazy Christmas Comic Book Covers!!

Here’s some really rad Christmas themed comic book covers from yesteryear to get you into the holiday mood! Check out these 24 holiday comic book covers and have an awesome Christmas eve night! Ho Ho Ho!!

 

 

 

 

 

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Toe Tag Riot: Punk Rock Zombie Mayhem!

If you’re a fan of punk rock and old school 80’s style horror there’s a good chance you’ll get a kick out Black Mask’s “Toe Tag Riot” a new rowdy zombie comic book adventure! This one reads more like an installment of the “Return of the Living Dead” movie franchise than “The Walking Dead” and that’s a good thing because we really don’t need any more comic books hitting the shelves these days trying to capture what Robert Kirkman has so gloriously accomplished. Written By Matt Miner and illustrated by Sean Von Gorman we get bloody good tale of a touring punk rock band with a zombie curse mysteriously cast upon them. They fight with the urges to eat flesh as they spend only part of the time as undead (from what I can tell thus far it seems right before they hit the stage) and when they do turn into flesh eaters they spend much of their time ripping apart Nazi Skinheads, angry moms and pissed off bible thumpers!

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This series so far really reminds me of something you might have found in a punk rock fanzine back in the 1990’s, full of crude humor & gore, while hitting on several political and social issues like racism, homophobia and nut job religious groups like the Westboro Baptist Church. It follows the bands exploits while giving us brief flashbacks of how the band came to be and just how they developed into zombies. If you’re looking for a serious zombie epic you’ll most likely be a bit disappointed here, but if you’re looking for a good tongue in cheek comedy you’ll probably dig Toe Tag Riot quite a bit.

The first read really reminded me of a canadian vampire flick called “Suck” which had a pretty similar premise but not hitting on issues Toe Tag Riot delves into. If you’re familiar with that movie, the band, like in Toe Tag Riot are struggling with their popularity & end up tragically becoming Vampires. They use their unique new attributes to their advantage to hit the big time. Still I found the first two issues to be a pretty sweet little ball of mayhem and I’m curious to see where the next couple take us.

A fun read which would go down nice with a few stiff drinks, the only part of it I wasn’t particularly keen on was the odd inclusion of the main dude from ‘Fall Out Boy’ into the story-not exactly screaming punk rock to me at least, I’m actually kinda hoping that guy gets eaten by the band (nothing personal, I just think that’d be kinda cool)….. either way Check it out! A cool zombie comic that’s quite a bit different from the herd!

2015: Year of The Movie Krampus?!

It seems my Christmas dreams will be coming true next year as there are now several Krampus movies planned for release around the 2015 holiday season! It’s about time too, as I’ve been saying for years that someone needs to make an awesome Christmas horror movie about the bad boy yuletide creature!  Krampus is a dark version Saint Nick, a horned  demonic creature, according to German folklore he seeks out the bad children, puts them in his sack and beats them with a bundle of branches. Sounds terrifying right?!

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Well up til this day we have gotten some scary versions of Santa Claus (Sint, Rare Exports, Santa’s Slay) some creepy slashers dressed up like Saint Nick ( Silent Night Deadly Night, Christmas Evil, Tales from The Crypt: And all Through the House) but we have NEVER seen the Krampus in all of his glory on the big or small screen. This baffles me and for some time I had developed my own version of a Krampus movie that I think would be brilliant.

I guess I could mention in 2013 there was a Krampus movie that was well….not so impressive. “Krampus: The Christmas Devil”  was technically the first Krampus flick, but just one that well has slipped under nearly everyone’s radar. You can watch the whole thing on youtube if you’re feeling the challenge!

There was also another lackluster attempt to bring Krampus to life in this short “Night of the Krampus”

I guess while I’m at it I could also mention Krampus was on the Grimm tv series and he looked pretty cool:

However in 2015 it seems that Krampus will be the star of Christmas as there are now two major Krampus flicks on the way(and I’m sure we’ll see some smaller studios trying to get in on the Krampus action too)! The first one being Kevin Smith’s “Anti-Claus” which is rumored to be a anthology starring Tusk’s Justin Long & Haley Joel Osment. I’m excited to see this one as I really think Kevin Smith did good work on Red State and I still need to check out Tusk.

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But it gets even better, it was just announced that Michael Dougherty will be directing his own Krampus movie as well for Legendary Pictures. If you remember Dougherty was responsible for the amazing Trick ‘r Treat back in 2007 one of my favorite modern horror flicks. I’ve a feeling that he’ll be giving Kevin Smith some serious “krampetition” for the best Krampus flick ever! So it seems well have more than enough of the Christmas demon next year-here’s hoping for a true cult flick to watch every year after on the holidays! I think it’ll be important for at least one of the film makers to try and refrain too much from the comedy, let’s face it if done right the Krampus could be truly terrifying. I simply cannot wait to see what they come up with.

Here’s a little more Krampus for you, check out this awesomely freaky video of the Krampusnacht, a traditional Krampus type parade/celebration yearly in parts of Europe. These guys go all out with some truly terrifying Krampus costumes, imagine what a studio with a budget could come up with!

And of course here’s more on the origins of the Krampus folklore!

 

 

Universal Dork Backs The Uncommon Geek!

Hey a quick message here as I’d like to let everyone know about one of my favorite blogs out there: Uncommongeek.com you can get the full scoop there for more awesome nerd news, but what’s even more exciting is that they just recently launched their youtube channel!

There you’ll be able to watch some great reviews, news and geeky discussions on what’s going on in the nerd world. These guys are really on top of things and I can’t wait to check out their very first full youtube show! So check it out Dorks and Geeks UNITE! And just to be clear the phrase “uncommon geek” is listed in the Urban Dictionary and this here is it’s official meaning:

Someone who likes both Star Trek AND Star Wars, often times equally . The term was made popular by the website uncommongeek.com
Geek one: “Do you like Star Trek or Star Wars?”

Geek two: “Actually, I like both.”

Geek one: “Really? You’re an uncommon geek!”

Hmmm…now I wonder what the official meaning of a Universal Dork might be?!!