“If you hate what you're seeing, you call it sex and violence. If you like it, you call it 'romance and adventure.'“

Author and film critic, “Joe Bob Briggs” (John Irving Bloom)

Finnish actress Maila Nurmi, TV’s original Horror Host known as “Vampira” and also a former Guinness World Record holder for smallest waist.

Voice announcer, actor and disc jockey Ernie Anderson aka “Ghoulardi,” the horror host of Shock Theater at WJW-TV, Channel 8 in Cleveland, Ohio, also known as the father to acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson

Ernie Anderson as “Ghoulardi”

Bill Cardille, aka “Chill Bill,” Horror Host from Pittsburgh, PA.

Renowned Horror Hostess “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark,” aka actress Cassandra Peterson

Horror Host, “Son of Ghoul”

Horror Host “Stella” from her show Saturday Night Dead

The Chicago area’s beloved Horror Host “Svengoolie,” ready to throw his Rubber Chicken

A signed publicity photo of Svengoolie

Location:

Joe Bob Briggs is a long-time resident of New York City, which is where he was speaking to us for this interview.

Background:

The Horror Movie genre, like any other genre of cinema, has its classics and its forgotten, its masterpieces, and its failures. But while the highbrow, serious films enjoy praise or at least critical analysis from the intellectual set, lowbrow horror offerings are often ignored by the academic-minded critics and in many cases even despised. Not so from our guest tonight, pop-culture icon, author, performer, and movie reviewer, Joe Bob Briggs. Joe Bob (John Irving Bloom) has made a name and a storied career for himself, starting first as a newspaper journalist and then finding himself adopting the persona of "Joe Bob Briggs." Joe Bob is a Texas "good ol' boy" who watches B-grade (and much lower) horror movies with you and as your "Horror Host," has a lot of funny and thought-provoking things to say about them, as well as commenting on what they reveal about our culture. What Joe Bob has taught us, is that watching even the most schlocky of shock cinema doesn't have to be a guilty pleasure, because even films below the grade of A can also reflect who we are as a society, and like it or not, have their place. Joe Bob Briggs is the movie critic for the rest of us.

Suggested Viewing:

Check out the Horror-themed streaming movie service, Shudder, where you can find the full first season of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, his marathon of Thanksgiving-inspired horror movies, The Last Drive-In: Joe Bob's Dinners of Death and starting on December 21, 2018 his Christmas-inspired marathon, A Very Joe Bob Christmas! It’s a cornucopia of scary good fun!

Reference Links:

Related Books:

Joe Bob Goes To the Drive-In

By Joe Bob Briggs, John Bloom

Buy on Amazon

Profoundly Erotic: Sexy Movies that Changed History

By Joe Bob Briggs

Buy on Amazon

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CREDITS:

Episode 127: Hosting Horror with Joe Bob Briggs. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel; Ryan McCullough and John Bolen Sound Design; Research Assistance by Tess Pfeifle and the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2018 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Ep 127: Hosting Horror with Joe Bob Briggs