Non-Monster of the Day

Updated on June 19, 2020 By Ken Begg 29 Comments

Yay, Friday!

As a change of pace, no monster today. If you have Amazon Prime, though, you might want to give the documentary That Guy Dick Miller a look.

On YouTube, Red Letter Media’s Mike and Jay recently did a 40 minute Re:View on one of my all time personal kid’s films, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It’s always interesting to see the guys not be cynical about a movie, especially Mike. Still, they do get to reserve that for the hasn’t-aged-well Tim Burton remake (which itself came out Fifteen Years Ago!)

Amazon Prime also offers the exhaustive (but not exhausting) Filmed In Supermarionation, a documentary about all the puppet shows Gerry Anderson made back in the day. Prime also offers many of those shows, including Thunderbirds are Go, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterions, and the wonderful (mostly) live action UFO.

Many people here seemed to have fond memories of The Black Hole when it was a recent MotD subject. The YouTube channel GoodBadFlicks just posted a 45 minute history of the film entitled Exploring the Black Hole – The Movie That Changed Disney Forever. This is easily their most ambitious ‘exploring’ video, where they serve up a lot of production info on whatever film they’re looking at. Check it out.

Have you guys seen anything else like this floating around that you’d like to recommend?

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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  • Gamera977

    Thanks Ken! Love Dick Miller and will give the documentary on him and ‘The Black Hole’ one a look.

    Might look at the ‘Willy Wonka’ one, I liked Jay and Mike. It’s the other people on Red Letter Media that soured me on the channel. Like a hysterical rant by Rich and Jack attacking Christians. Or the twenty minute rant on Dom Deluise. I mean I fast-forwarded though the video twice and they were still trashing Deluise. Did Dom run over Rich’s cat or something?!? If you’re looking for humorous videos knocking movies on YouTube Mauler and The Critical Drinker are way funnier.

  • I will second your recommendation on the Dick Miller documentary, great stuff!

    I went ahead and sprung for BritBox and have been watching “Yes, Minister” which is a great distraction from this flaming dumpster fire of an election year, and a good (an really funny) reminder that the bureaucrats really run the show, the politicians are just there to distract us peasants.

    For the mystery fans/literary wonks among us “Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Detectives” is a very sweet and funny series (with some ‘orrible murders, mind). And for real life ‘orrible murder, there is a 3 part Lucy Worsley doc called “Murder Most British” which traces the birth of the modern detective novel as a development from the 19th-early 20th century British obsession with lurid true crime reporting.

    I have a short attention span on YouTube, but the weekly “Sabaton History” episodes are absolutely fascinating if you have any interest in military history at all. Generally broken up into chunks of 10 minutes or less, but since the focus is usually pretty narrow, there is a lot of information there. Plus the stories behind the songs that were inspired by whatever bit of history is being studied. Indy Neidel handles the historian end and he is pretty engaging.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    I like Brandon Tenold’s channel, though he always has this angry look to him. And I Hate Everything did some amusing videos on bad movies, though lately he’s gotten kind of artsy.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    Oh, man. Ian Holm RIP.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    Was that their “Pre Recorded” show? Yeah, I never watch that. Jack is pretty hard to take in any context.

  • Gamera977

    Sorry, I don’t remember. This was two years or so ago. The Christian thing was some weird Asian movie someone sent them. The Deluise thing was a corny kid’s movie where Dom voiced some sort of skateboard with an AI.

  • Gamera977

    Thanks guys I’ll check out some of these channels!

    As to some other YouTube channels I’ve been following:

    Real science and hard SF: Isaac Arthur

    Star Trek: The Anti-Trekker & Trekyards

    Tech both modern and antique: LGR & Techmoan

    Weird stuff- cryptids, ghosts and other fun stuff: Williamdefalco, Bedtime Stories, Beyond Creepy, & Paranormal Junkie

  • Beckoning Chasm

    A couple of other Weird Stuff channels I’d recommend: Scare Theatre and Top5s. Nexpo is pretty good but ne’s started making his videos super long.

  • Ken_Begg

    I love Critical Drinker but had never heard of Mauler, so thanks for the tip. I also like FanboyFlicks, because I generally prefer dry humor over really antic stuff. (Although Critical Drinker is smart and antic, so it can be done.) Dark Corners Review are shorter, but snappy, and they have a huge backlog of videos.

  • Ken_Begg

    I LOVE Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, hands down the funniest show on politics ever. I have both DVD sets and have watched through the complete run at least a dozen times. As GJ knows, the vast majority of DVDs and Blu Rays in my house sit never watched, but that run gets a gander every couple of years.

  • Ken_Begg

    I second Tenold’s channel although his aggressive sarcasm eventually wore on me. That was after quite a lot of videos. Ralph the Moviemaker is also artsy, but his critiques are very good.

  • Ken_Begg

    That made me very sad. Chariots of Fire is one of my two favorite movies from the ’80s (the other being The Right Stuff), so he has really stuck in my mind.

  • Ken_Begg

    Backyard Scientist for goofy more Mythbuster-esque experiments.

  • If you read the book version of the show, you’ll see in the footnotes that just about every situation in the series is based on something that really happened.

  • zombiewhacker

    Ian Holm was one of those actors whose mere mention would have most movie fans going, “Ian who?” But then if you showed them a montage of all the pivotal film roles he’d played over the past fifty years, they’d be going, “Holy crap!”

    First personal memory of Holm: Zerah in Jesus of Nazareth. Nicely understated, low-key villainy. He made quite an impression, even when I was a youngster.

  • zombiewhacker

    Lucy Worsley’s great. I just discovered her in a documentary I streamed on Prime a few days ago and became an instant fan.

  • zombiewhacker

    I saw RLM’s review of Wonka listed on Youtube but avoided it for fear it would be another angry snark attack. But if you guys think it’s decent then I might give it a look.

    My take on the original Wonka can be summed up in two sentences:

    From Gene Wilder’s first scene onward, it’s a timeless classic. Before that scene… um… not so much.

  • Rock Baker

    “Have you guys seen anything else like this floating around that you’d like to recommend?”

    Would it be uncouth of me to put in a plug for the “cartoons” I’ve been making for YouTube releases?

  • Up to and including finding *multiple* examples of NHS hospitals with full staff and no patients, which they *thought* they were making up at the time.

  • I’d watched it sporadically during some of it’s PBS runs, but this is the first time I’ve really sat down and watched it all the way through from the get-go. Just the sharpest writing and all the funnier for ringing perfectly true to anyone who has had any time inside the Beltway.

  • I know! She is just the cutest thing ever when she *has* to get all dressed up in period garb so she can properly get in the spirit of whatever the thing she is thinging is. Loved her 12 Days of Tudor Christmas and the Victoria and Albert Wedding too.

  • Given my short attention span and tendency to pick things apart, I do like Cinema Sins’ “Everything Wrong With” series. Mostly newer stuff but he did seem to really enjoy “Death Race 2000” and “Troll 2” is the only thing he ever rated as having negative sins.

  • Ooh, yes, Sean loves those!

  • That’s the specific one I always mention.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Obviously British health care is so good that no one ever gets sick. XD (Note: That _is_ a joke.)

  • Eric Hinkle

    What are ‘the Anti-Trekker’ and ‘Trekyards’?

  • Ken_Begg

    It most certainly would not!!

  • Gamera977

    Sorry Eric, I was away from the PC this weekend. Trekyards is a Canadian and a British guy who, as the name suggests mostly talk about different ships (mostly Star Trek but other stuff as well) on their YouTube channel. The Anti-Trekker is a big Trek fan but is a bit of a grumbler and curmudgeon. His stuff is mostly Trek but a few other things here and there as well that catch his eye.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Thanks for explaining.