To those of you who missed tonight’s AV Geeks show in NYC, which is most of you, you missed a good time. There are two more area shows (with different films) on Monday and Tuesday which probably won’t see capper gatherings either, but are probably worth going to if you can make it. If you don’t live in the area, keep your eyes peeled at their website for shows in your area.

If you do live in the area, don’t forget about the proposed capperfest on the 28th mentioned in my last post.

Most of the shorts in tonight’s show aren’t amongst the ones AV-Geeks guru Skip Elsheimer has made available at archive.org, so they haven’t shown up on IS (yet). That’s a pity, since most of these were right in the average capper’s wheelhouse. Despite a fairly interactive show - starting off with audience members taking turns reading frames in a slideshow and occasional sing-a-longs with the film (the theme of the show was musical shorts), I’m pretty sure if there were more than one capper there, we’d have been thrown out for talking back.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must excorcise my soul of the horror that was the evening’s last film, Telezonia:

Made by THE PHONE COMPANY back in 1974, this thing is deeply in need of getting riffed a new one. This edutainment flick aimed at helping youngsters learn to use the phone was described by Mr. Elsheimer as “Sid and Marty Kroft Inspired”, I’d say at least as much inspiration stemmed from sharp blows to the head. It starts off with four phono-phobic kids suddenly shrinking, then being lured into a telephone by a phone spirit named Telly (played by Robert Towers, who apparently might’ve been inside one of the Banana Splits suits).

Oh, yes, Telly. I remember the days before I knew Telly. Good, innocent days. Imagine if you will, Mr. B-Natural’s younger brother-sister, as portrayed by a cross between Topher Grace and Joel Grey, yet more sexless. Give him a man-skirted outfit that’s a mix of Gil Gerard’s Buck Rogers uniform and Captain America’s sidekick Bucky’s costume, add some AT&T insignias, then let him sing and you begin to understand Telly.

Once inside the phone, Telly leads the kids to the magical city/world (well, large room) of Telezonia. The kids spend eight minutes travelling to and exploring said land before they finally get to speak on a telephone. First, they must meet half of Bell’s support crew, meet horrifying characters dressed as punctuation marks, get some introductory electrical engineering coursework in, hear a few Barneyrific songs, and travel through the Dr. Who opening credits three or four times. The journey really was harrowing, the audience’s shock and horror at the suddent arrival of the Question Mark was palapable. After the kids get to talk on a phone, it takes another ten minutes featuring several more songs (including one by a frightfully manic exclamation mark) before they actually get to dial one. With each new and frightening character hopping into frame, I could hear Crow crying “just show us how to dial the thing . .. with the thing . . . and . . . ohpleaseIwantmymommy!” But enough from me, just watch it and see if you don’t have to shield your eyes.

Telezonia, won’t you?

This entry was posted by GersonK on Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 12:43 am and is filed under Ephemeral Films, cappers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.