Brian Katcher

1st Mar 2024

General questions

What was the name of this screwball movie (not TV show) about competing funeral homes from the late 80s or early 90s? I only saw the commercial. In one scene, two funeral directors have arrived at the scene of a bad car crash. "There's enough bodies for both of us!" "But we got here first!" In another, there's a dead woman at a fast food drive-in. "She didn't even finish her fries." The tagline was 'Kiss your ash goodbye.'

Brian Katcher

5th Jan 2024

General questions

Does anyone remember this after-school special type show from the early 80s? Some popular high school students convince a nerdy kid that an uppity popular girl likes him, causing him to humiliate himself in public. Shortly after, all three of the popular kids start receiving messages from an alien being on their TV. The kids freak out and tell the world they're communicating with a spaceman, only for the alien to actually be the nerdy kid who hacked the TV broadcast as revenge.

Brian Katcher

5th Jan 2024

General questions

What is the name of this possibly Japanese cartoon I saw in the 80s? Futuristic soldiers are converted into cyborgs to work in space. It follows an elite team before and after the conversion. One was an alien from the planet 'Mime' who never spoke. Another were a twin brother and sister who had the code names 'Iron Heart' and 'Iron Will.' During conversion, they realized Iron Heart had a defective heart, so they replaced it with machinery, making his name more appropriate.

Brian Katcher

Answer: "SilverHawks" (1986). The twins were called "Steelheart" and "Steelwill," who had artificial hearts put in during their transformation. Steelheart was the sister, though; Emily Hart, and her brother was Will Hart.

Bishop73

Thank you! Me confusing iron and steel made it impossible to Google.

Brian Katcher

14th May 2023

General questions

What was the name of this music video I saw on MTV in 1998 or 99? A young man works in a hellish office, where everyone is unhappy and miserable. He dies, suddenly in the parking lot and the afterlife is yet another office, only this one is wonderful and heavenly. He works there as a suicide hotline operator who is talking to a living woman. The video was shot chronologically backward, starting with him in heaven and going backwards through his day.

Brian Katcher

6th May 2023

General questions

There was a cartoon I saw in the early 80s but was probably a lot older, which opened with a roster of boxers. The shtick was they all looked like their nicknames: The Mountain was a literal mountain, The Phantom was invisible, etc. Ring any bells for anyone?

Brian Katcher

26th Feb 2023

General questions

What is the name of this point and click video game I played in 1986 or 87? You follow your dog through a portal in your uncle's (?) lab and wind up in a world where everyone (including the dog) is super cool. It being the 80s, that meant they dressed like martians. I could never get very far, because after a couple of minutes of game time, the bad guy would feed you to a carnivorous zoo animal.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Some of this description sounds a lot like "Pepper's Adventures in Time" but that came out in the early 90s. Also the game didn't have any Martians in it.

If it came out in the 90s, I didn't play it in the 80s.

Brian Katcher

23rd Jan 2023

General questions

Looking for a cabinet game I played in an arcade in the early 1990s. It was a first person shooter, where you used a plastic gun to shoot the screen. The premise is you are in a city that's been taken over by ghosts and demons and you fight possessed items rather than monsters. The final boss on the first level is a movie poster where a actor and actress' face jump out of the poster and attack you. The second level is a restaurant where you fight flying plates and coats.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Maybe "Laser Ghost" (1990)?

Bishop73

That's it! Thanks.

Brian Katcher

15th Oct 2022

General questions

There was a short cartoon I saw in the early 80s where every time the guy used a figure of speech, it would happen literally: I combed the beach (with an actual comb); I put my foot in my mouth (literally); She had a lot of little ones (tiny numeral 1s).

Brian Katcher

Answer: "Symphony in Slang" by Tex Avery (1951).

Thanks. You just solved a 40-year-old problem for me.

Brian Katcher

You're welcome.

11th Oct 2022

General questions

What was this science fiction movie from the early 80s or earlier? An earth man is undergoing a procedure by aliens (or future people) to make him super intelligent. I just remember the aliens chanting 'Think about the brain...think about the brain...' over and over again.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Maybe "Starship Invasions," (1977) two alien races bring their war to Earth. One set experiments on humans, while the others ask for their help.

I don't think that's it either. I'm pretty sure I saw it in the theater and that was before my time.

Brian Katcher

Answer: There is a 1977 TV-Movie, "The Man with the Power." A man discovers his father was an alien from another planet. He has super powers. An alien emissary appears to advise him on how to use his powers to help mankind. I don't know about the "think about the brain" scene. It hasn't been broadcast in twenty years. There are a couple of other movies, but I believe this is the one your looking for.

Thanks, but after googling it, I don't think that's it. The man in my movie was older, they definitely were performing some sort of medical procedure on him, there were in some sort of futuristic hospital, there were multiple aliens, and I'm almost certain I saw this in the theater.

Brian Katcher

11th Oct 2022

General questions

What was this science fiction show or movie I saw in the early 80s? There was this eclectic group of aliens, including, strangely, an earth cowboy. Some of the group were identical aliens who did everything exactly the same. When the cowboy offered an alien a hot dog, they all began chewing, and reciting the ingredients ("and artificial flavoring").

Brian Katcher

Answer: "Battle Beyond the Stars" (1980).

Bishop73

29th Jul 2020

General questions

Anyone recognize this horror movie/TV show from 1990 or earlier? A surly preteen is walking down a street, when he's accosted by a strange man who says the boy is upset because it's his birthday and his parents forgot. The boy runs off, but obviously the comment hit home. He walks into an abandoned building to find a party with cake and presents all set up for him. He keeps calling for his family to come out, but instead, strange toy robots come clanking out of the darkness. When the boy opens the cake box, there's a severed human head inside which smiles and says 'hi', causing the boy to scream and run off. I was babysitting when I watched this and it was upsetting my charge so I turned it off, and I never got to see the ending, and it always bothered me.

Brian Katcher

Answer: The movie is called Spookies.

Thank you.

Brian Katcher

18th Sep 2019

General questions

There was a movie about a mad scientist who was trying to create a clone of his dead wife. He had a handsome young lab assistant. When the assistant's girlfriend falls into a coma after an accident, the scientist offers to clone her as well. The assistant declines, saying a clone wouldn't be the woman who fell in love with him; the girlfriend later recovers. The scientist realises he'll never be able to recreate the past and ends up marrying a much younger woman.

Brian Katcher

Answer: Sounds like the 1985 film "Creator", starring Peter O'Toole, although I can't be certain about the lab assistant and his girlfriend. But a young woman who agrees to donate her egg and the scientist fall in love. There's also the 2017 film called "Andover" where a scientist clones his dead wife, although that film has less in common with your description than the first.

Bishop73

Yep, 'Creator' was it. Thank you.

Brian Katcher

13th Nov 2018

General questions

I'm looking for a documentary on the U.S. Constitution that would have come out in the late 80s, when it had its bicentennial. It was comedic and aimed at a junior high/high school audience. I remember that Rhea Perlman and Whoopi Goldberg played waitresses at the Constitutional Convention, though their IMDB pages don't show anything. There was a clip from the 60s Batman TV show where The Penguin runs for office. There was also a sketch about fatigued soldiers in Vietnam staying awake by quizzing each other over the Constitution, and suddenly realizing that at the time, none of them were old enough to vote. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

Brian Katcher

Answer: I think this is "Funny, You Don't Look 200: A Constitutional Vaudeville." It used to be available on VHS, maybe it still is.

Super Grover

16th Feb 2015

General questions

What is the name of this black and white movie? A cowboy has himself thrown in jail to break out another cowboy (his son?). The younger cowboy won't leave, so the older one breaks out and heads for Canada until the heat dies down. It's a lighthearted, funny movie until the end, when he crosses the border. He and his horse are hit by a car. The police have to shoot the dying horse and he's taken away in an ambulance. The film ends with a shot of his bloody cowboy hat in the middle of the street.

Brian Katcher

Chosen answer: The movie is Lonely are the Brave with Kirk Douglas from 1962.

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