Bob and Bestoink and Tubby and Lester

Writing on Bestoink Dooley, Atlanta TV's chiller movie host of the '60s, I mentioned his own celluloid opus, "The Legend of Blood Mountain," aka "Demon Hunter," aka "Monster Mountain." The 1965 horror is padded with dull, uneventful chase and inconsequential footage, which I can verify from my age 13 viewing.

Dave Sindelar at SciFilm reviews the Bestoink blockblister:

He eats cookies and drinks milk in bed while listening to an Easy Listening radio station. We have an extended sequence in this movie where he does this....

We see lots of scenes of Bestoink walking. We see lots of scenes of Bestoink driving....

The legend of Blood Mountain is that when a bloodstain appears on the mountain, the monster is loose. He tears the hearts out of his victims and drinks their blood. Bestoink is too fast for him, though....

I lost 65 minutes of my life today.

Lacking even lackluster, the film is credited to writer Bob Corley. If my memory remains the sparkly marvel we all cherish, Corley was also the frontman of the short-lived "World's Worst Movie" series, which was broadcast in the Atlanta market, Saturday late nights on Channel 11, circa 1966.

After scripting "The Legend of Blood Mountain," he was a certifiable expert on sorry cinema, no doubt.

Corley shared a schlock flick with the viewers each week, presenting himself (unknowingly) as a bad motion picture director, complete with the obligatory directorial accoutrements of jodhpurs and beret and megaphone.

The premise of this series had him searching high and low for the "World's Worst Movie." So, where better to look than in Channel 11's library?

That's the truth! I've laughed at that dig at the station for 40 years. Channel 11 was textbook awful in those days. I'm amazed Corley's putdowns were allowed on their air.

In wrap-arounds and interstitial segments during the feature attractions, Corley insulted the movies. As ramshackle as the dozen or so episodes were, the concept made a major impression on me. I always thought "World's Worst Movie" was a terrific idea, long before "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" came along.

I believe this series unspooled my first viewing of Roger Corman's "A Bucket of Blood," a guilty pleasure, with The Great Dick Miller. In fact, I know it is, because there's a shot in a nightclub where over-the-hill fat cats are chatting up young party babes sitting much too close. Corley recapped the scene and mentioned how heartwarming it was to see the loving fathers escort their young daughters out for an evening on the town.

Corley remains notorious in some Atlanta circles (mainly mine) for a third project. He was the creative genius behind "The Tubby and Lester Show," a massive rip-off of the Laurel and Hardy personas, down to their costumes and weighty extremes. Tubby and Lester anchored a weekday morning children's series on Channel 11 from 7 to 8 (maybe longer). Between cartoons, they would (dis)grace us with their slipshod slapstick comedy.

Almost always, the Tubby and Lester sketches were mangled to a recording of Henry Mancini's "Baby Elephant Walk," from "Hatari!" Since the sketches stretched far too long, the "Baby Elephant Walk" music would finish and fade to silence mid-scenes. So, after some dead air, the TV control room routinely restarted the same recording as T & L bumbled on.

During my first year or two in high school, I manned -- um, boy-ed the Audio-Visual Room in the student library each morning before classes. There, I watched "Tubby and Lester" religiously.

I was praying I was funnier.

The team brought a new dimension to "lame."

To this day, I cannot watch "Hatari!" without thinking of Tubby and Lester.

Thanks to them, I am scarred for life.

I suffer chronic whiplash at the sight of pie.

You'll never see my necktie and a large scissors in the same glimpse.

When my wife strolls aimlessly with a 12-foot plank and a can of paint, I flee.