Beware! The Blob! - The So-Bad-It's-Good Blogathon

1959

A group of townsfolk with fire extinguishers surround a diner covered by huge one-celled creature that has been ingesting their friends and neighbors. It moves off the building and is frozen solid. We next seen the frozen creature dropped by helicopter into the frozen wastes of the Arctic. The End? Well, we hope.

1972

Coming back from three months in the Arctic, Chester Hargis brings a piece of something that one of his co-workers bulldozed out of the permafrost. His wife, Mariane, doesn't want it in the freezer. It thaws and the blob starts eating people all over again.

Now, here begins a string of characters introduced just to be eaten. And the majority of the actors and actresses are "name" people from that time. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Does it resemble the Sharknado series with cameos of famous people just in time to be eaten by sharks?

What we may have here is the "original" Sharknado!

Let's run down our list of victims!

First, we have a fly, the family cat, then Chester's wife, Mariane. Next is Chester, himself, played by popular actor and comedian, Godfrey Cambridge. Veteran of television and films, his name was well-known by 1972, especially after 1970's comedy, "Watermelon Man", and the crime comedy, "Cotton Comes to Harlem." It does not escape one's attention that he is watching "The Blob" when the Blob gets him. Makes you wonder if that 1959 film is a documentary in that universe.

Next, Randy and his girlfriend steal away for a toke in a storm drain. Of course, they are caught by the police. A questionable officer, named Zed, keeps them where they are. They try to tell him that the Blob is behind him, blocking the exit, but he doesn't listen. More food for the Blob. Randy's girl is played by Cindy William, who two year's prior was in Roger Corman's "Gas-s-s-s", and would work in films directed by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. Officer Zed is uncredited, but we can see that it is our old friend, Sid Haig. This won't be the last time someone is menaced by Officer Zed. Zed would turn up in "Pulp Fiction", and would be dispatched by Marsellus Wallace.

We are then brought to a barber shop. The barber is alone when a "hippie" comes in wanting a hair cut. The barber charges him $400 for a "Hair Sculpt". The hippie okays it. But first, his hair needs to be washed. Before they can rinse it, the Blob fills the sink, taking both men for lunch. The barber is portrayed by the famous stand-up comedian Shelley Berman. In 1955, Berman had an uncredited role in the film "Dementia". The name of the film was changed to "Daughter of Horror" in 1957. It is the film everyone is watching in the theater scene in the original Blob.

We, then, come to a trio of drunks who run afoul of the Blob, which has grown to huge proportions. The first to go is director Larry Hagman, whose stint in "I Dream of Jeannie" made him a television star. He would become J.R. Ewing in the original "Dallas". His two friends would be next to go. One is Burgess Meredith (uncredited), star of TV and movies. The other is played by actor Del Close. Why I mention him is that he would play Reverend Meeker in the 1988 remake of "The Blob". It looks as if he even wore the same eye patch!

In the beginning of the film, we see a Scoutmaster leading a group of boys for a camping trip. The Scout master is played by Dick Van Patten, actor on stage and on television, including a episode of "I Dream of Jeannie". Of course, he would go on to play the father in "Eight is Enough" and have parts in a number of Mel Brooks comedies. We only see the campsite in shambles. Did the Blob get the Scoutmaster and all the kids?

Speaking of the kids, the only one with a speaking role is Preston Hagman. Yes, Larry's ten-year-old son.

Our heroes run from the party, trying to get the sheriff. The lovely Leslie accompanies them. They find the Blob is now blocking the road. Not only that, but Leslie's boyfriend's buggie is caught in the Blob. Yes, he was an evening snack. Leslie runs to the car, hoping to save her man, but only helps the Blob grow bigger. Leslie is played by Carol Lynley. She had roles in numerous movie and television shows from the late 1950s forward and would be well seen in her role in "The Poseidon Adventure" that very same year.

The Blob then goes bowling, eating several bowler, a pinsetter in a scene very reminiscent of the auto mechanic scene in the original film, and a sheriff's deputy. Thank goodness there is an ice rink on the premises (hint, hint).

But let's not forget the survivors. Aside from our heroic couple, there is Richard Stahl a longtime character actor you've seen in everything, you just don't know his name; Tiger Joe Marsh, a wrestler of some repute, who runs naked through the streets escaping the Blob (he is credited as Naked Turk, but Marsh was Yugoslavian. I think he was speaking Yugoslavian in the film, not Turkish); and, of course, the sheriff, played by Richard Webb. Webb was the superhero Captain Midnight in the 1950s. We also find out that the Scouts have survived, but their Scoutmaster was not so lucky.

Somewhere in there is also Tim Barr, who had a small role and did the special effects. Barr had an Oscar to his credit for the effects on George Pal's "The Time Machine".

Thanks to IMBd for some of the wonderful info that helped make so many connections. Thanks also to Kino Lorber, who had the guts to put this film out of Blu-ray. I got my copy for Christmas. Isn't Santa wonderful?

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