22-March-2006

The Dry Bean, Fitchburg, Wisconsin

This show was like any other Clovis Mann show, so that means that a bunch of people gave us a giant chocolate birthday cake after the show, we had two movie and one photographic journalist taking shots of us (for our upcoming music video of “Stone Moses”), and King Kong Bundy tried to destroy Ethan’s drum kit after Ethan was nice enough to give him a drum stick. This stuff actually happened.

But now, I’m going to go completely off subject and write about the bizarre movie I watched this weekend. So, taking advantage of the Spooner Video Store’s (formerly known as Tesky’s) 5 movies for 5 days for 5 dollars deal, one of the movies I decided to rent was Blood Hook, a horror movie from 1987 that was actually filmed in Hayward Wisconsin (Spooner’s biggest rival, about 30 miles away). The impetus being, I had a kid in my shop class back in high school told me he was the baby who got hooked on the beach and cried (sadly, Robussen was uncredited for his role). Anyway, the movie is about an insane bait-shop owner/fisherman who goes crazy when rock music and cicadas play at the same time because of a metal plate in his head he received in the Korean war. He ends up killing a bunch of FIBs, so the local police turn a blind eye to his behavior, until he messes with the wrong guy, some FIB weak tit who hooks him but doesn’t kill him. Oh yeah, ole’ Luedtke, who is the bad guy, kills people by hooking them with the biggest Muskey lure I’ve ever seen, so there’s a bunch of somewhat graphic shots of giant lures sinking into people. All the while, famous places in Hayward provide the setting for this madness—including Coop’s Pizza and the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. So…not to get too off track here, it turns out the same guy who directed this movie, Jim Mallon, was the same guy who, well, here’s the real story:

“About the same time, Jim Mallon, was attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Hailing from Rochester, MN, his comedic career also began early when he did a parody of Wild Kingdom while still in high school. With fellow U of W students Leon Varjian and Stu Baker, Jim founded the Pail and Shovel Party in the spring of 1978 in an effort to win control of the self-righteous student government. They campaigned in clown suits and, to the surprise and dismay of some, actually won the May election. Taking control in the fall of 1978 it was the peak of the Animal House craze and Jim took advantage by throwing a toga party for 20,000 people. He threw a Halloween party on the capital mall that was attended by almost 50,000. Mallon fulfilled a campaign promise by bringing the Statue of Liberty to Lake Mendota, WI in February 1979. It mysteriously burned on 3/2/79.
He also won the election the next year, becoming the only two-term student body president in the history of the school. When students returned to school on 9/4/79 they were again surprised by seeing Bascom Hill in front of the administration building filled with 1,000 pink flamingoes.”

And it turns out, this same bastard also created Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which, as I’ve been told, has a few episodes that make fun of Spooner Wisconsin in the opening monologue. Weird, huh?