She describes the feature to her patrons this way: 'Tonight's film is Bride of the Monster, written and directed in 1953 by the legendary Edward Wood. Laraine's character, meanwhile, can be described as a trivia-spouting film fanatic. Two nerds, talkative Fitzy (Garner) and taciturn Chan (Nee), are more enthusiastic.

Perky, naive Becky (Laura Galusha, whose resume is largely barren) is freaked out by Tor's visage, while gossipy Doris (Rossetter) is thoroughly unimpressed. Unlike MST3K, there is no commentary from the cast during the movie portions.Īt the outset of the show, Laraine Newman is proudly handing out genuine Tor Johnson masks from Don Post Studios. (You Square One Television fanatics might remember him as 'Simon Legume' on Mathnet.) Kathryn Rossetter and Phil Nee have also had durable careers in TV and film without ever becoming household names. Of these supporting players, I recognized amiably dopey character actor Patrick Garner from his appearances on Chappelle's Show, where he made an ideal 'clueless white guy' stereotype. Running an hour and a half with commercials, the show intersperses movie segments with sitcom-like vignettes centered around Laraine and her group of zany regulars who come in to wash their clothes and watch the flicks. The Bride of the Monster episode gives you a good idea of what The Canned Film Festival was all about. Pepper account in 2008 after nearly 40 years of truly creative, memorable advertising. That campaign, like The Canned Film Festival itself, was devised by a New York-based marketing firm called Young & Rubicam. Pepper was running its own ambitious Mad Max-inspired science-fiction ad campaign. The soft drink maker had long prided itself on its eccentricity (see the 'I'm a pepper!' spots with David Naughton), so underwriting a series built around wild and woolly B-movies somehow seemed a natural fit for the brand.Īt the time, Dr.

The show's title served as both a pun on the famed Cannes Film Festival and a reference to the program's sponsor, Dr. Lasting for 13 wacky weeks in the summer of 1986, it was hosted by another Saturday Night Live veteran, Laraine Newman, whose thin frame and Los Angeles twang had typecast her somewhat as a Valley Girl ditz. A less-heralded, indeed largely forgotten, example of this trend was a syndicated series called The Canned Film Festival.

Mst3k tor johnson