Bad Movie Night #1 - Minneapolis, MN

Back in Illinois, I used to host regularly-occurring bad movie nights. These evenings usually involved a couple of lower-than-b-grade films and a potluck. And since I have some friends up here who have known about Illinois bad movie night, they have basically demanded I continue the tradition up here in Minneapolis. And a big plus is that I can re-show some of the same films and no one will get upset with me!!!

I picked one of our more fun movie choices from the Illinois days, simply because it was easy to wrap a theme around the concept and get people more involved than usual. I decided to show a couple of midget films (I’m not even going to dignify this with a PC defense of “little people” only because I’m too lazy. IF you think somehow that I might have issue with little people, you have only to ask about my sick and wrong dwarf-fetish and you’ll immediately be reassured -and probably horrified- that I have strong feelings toward the aforementioned “little people” just not in the direction you expected. Get over it.)

So to get people involved with the theme, I encouraged all participants to bring over tiny food of their choosing to go along with the films. They are also supposed to bring the adult beverage of their choice, which sometimes ends up just as funny as the food choices – this instance was no different. We eat about 6pm and then watch the first film about 7. Take a break during intermission to stock up on more tiny foods, and then watch the second film.

Side note here – My father was in town this weekend for some big stock car race in New Richmond, Wisconsin, so he was staying with me. I warned him when he left that afternoon: I didn’t know who was going to be at my house when he got home and also no guarantees what condition those people might be in when he arrived.

I must say the people of Minnesota really came through for this bad movie night. We had AWESOME tiny food – mini pigs in blankets, frozen éclairs, tiny grilled cheese sammiches, tiny Pringles cans, tiny bruschetta, mini upside-down lemon cakes, tiny 8oz sodas/pop (depending on what state you’re from), hookups (airplane bottles of booze sold together with a juice to mix in one cup (ingenious!!!), rumaki, tiny limes for drinks, small pieces of trail mix stuff, watermelon cut in small pieces, small homemade chocolate chip cookies, and probably a few I forgot.

We also had a ton of regular sized food - Mini jalepeno poppers (and presented nicely on a special serving plate with a built in center dip bowl thanks to SB), salsa, and the best sausage dip in the world.

Zapper wins the "over and above" prize hands down! – Mini panninis on tiny rye bread with various meat and cheese and tomatoes (everything labeled appropriately). Tiny éclairs, hilarious individually wrapped tiny gold baked potatoes with bacon bits and a small bowl of sour cream – AWESOME!

We all gorged ourselves for an hour or so, and people brought over things to finish making at my house, which was hilarious. Some certain ladies just assume that since I live alone, I won’t have standard kitchen fare, like cookie sheets, pots, pans, spices, knives, serving trays, and an oven. Apparently, just because you look like a caveman, people think you are a caveman.

I was really unsure how I was going to fit all these people into my living room if we got over about 12 people. So when 22 showed up, we had to get creative. We rearranged major portions of my living room and dining room to make this work. (Hey Coach, remember when I complained to you that you needed to find me bigger friends so you wouldn’t always have to help me move furniture? Well, I’ve found some up here. You’re off the hook.) I managed to scrounge together two couches, five folding chairs, an office chair, a padded footstool, multiple pillows, a drum throne, a couple of people sat on the steam-heat radiators, and we all fit!!!

We packed in real close-like and watched For Your Height Only, a spoof on the James Bond film, but the world-famous little person Weng Weng was James Bond. Just tinier. And it's all set to the blatantly stolen theme music from the James Bond films (they just change one note on the melody to avoid copyright infractions). I don’t think a lot of people really understood the caliber of films I collect. They think of Willow as a bad film. They never even make it to the level that I play in – they should consider themselves lucky. For Your Height Only is hilariously bad. Weng Weng gets thrown into various shots and slid across floor, banging his head from time to time, all the while, working his magic with the ladies and shooting the bad guys without ever hitting an innocent or beautiful person. My metal brimmed ninja throwing hat goes off to you, little man.


We filled in intermission with the world’s only all-midget western, called Terror in Tiny Town. It’s a short film (get it? Ha ha ha), since it’s only an hour. It’s pretty light on plot, so we just showed it while people were refilling plates and drinks and such.

We lost a couple of people after the first film, so it got less packed for the second feature. I took a vote on the second film, since I really hadn’t decided on which one to show. We won’t talk about how many midget films I own, alright? RainbowBrite had been lobbying during intermission to everyone to vote for 9 Dead Gay Guys. This is a film that does feature a midget, however, it also is technically a GOOD movie, so I was a tad hesitant. We gave it a shot.

After about 10 minutes of people concentrating really hard on deciphering the British accents and no sign of midgets (and a painfully obvious lack of yelling and cheering), we tried another film. Under The Rainbow features Chevy Chase and Carrie Fischer and 300 midgets. Again, it’s borderline GOOD, so there wasn’t as much yelling, although much more than 9 Dead Gay Guys. We scrapped that one too, and went with the second Weng Weng film, The Impossible Kid.

The Impossible Kid is basically the second of the James Bond rip-offs and he does the same things in this film as he did in the first film, but this time with blatantly stolen Pink Panther theme music. Again, lots of screaming and yelling, but not as much as the first one. And sadly, no one screamed Charles Napier like Coach does, though. People left during the middle of this film to continue the drinking downtown. I think everyone was scared my father was going to walk through the front door and start grounding people to their rooms. Thankfully, he didn’t even get home until like 1:30am.

Some highlights of the night, besides the awesome food and films: Really hilarious conversations in the kitchen with rotating participants, HotGirlsBrother helping me finish off some liquor that I needed to get rid of to make room for more liquor (thanks, brother), Smallz and I eating in the realm of 40 tiny pigs in blankets, RainbowBrite hyperventilating everytime Weng Weng did something hilarious or showed his cute baby shoes, finally getting to make the really awful drink called the Purple Haze (amaretto, root beer schnapps, milk, and grape Crush), the horrified yell when they saw Weng Weng’s nipples for the first time, and TheDoctor helping me dodge uncomfortable questions about why I had dog toys and dog photos, but no dog was running around (thank you, Doctor, it didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated).

All in all, a fantastic night with great friends, lots of yelling, and hilarious films. No one threw up, no one spilled, and I think most people had a good time.

As I was cleaning up when people left, I thought someone had left a toy frog on the floor for me.

And when I went to pick it up, it hopped away from me. Hilarious end to the evening. I totally used Low-Vee’s tupperware to scoop him up and put him outside. (Don’t worry, I washed your Tupperware out really well afterwards).

I think the frog just showed up a couple of years late. We had a bad movie night featuring frog movies in 2007. I guess maybe I’ll have to do that again up here in Minneapolis.

Top 5 things about Bad Movie Night
1. Seriously, I’m soooo glad I have awesome friends. My usual solo bad movie nights aren’t nearly as fun as a group of people screaming along with me!
2. Weng Weng stole the night (and hearts of the ladies)
3. Awesome tiny food ideas
4. Hookups – airplane bottles of booze sold together with juice for mixed drinks. Hi-Five, HotGirlsBrother! (He can’t NOT hi-five people if you set him up. It’s his kryptonite)
5. MrHerman did, in fact, take his shirt off during the evening

Bottom 5 things
1. Gerd and I had scheduled a bad movie night for Valentine’s Day this year. Unfortunately, she didn’t get to enjoy this awesome night with our friends. She loved to entertain and she was very good at it, and it killed me to do this without her. I only had one small freak out during the night, and a couple of really sad times when people asked about Zoey the Wonderdog. I miss both of them very much.
2. Coach is a staple at Illinois Bad Movie Night. I was worried how it would be without him, but it went just fine. I still missed Coach yelling “Charles Napier!!!” or “plastic vagina!!!” at random though.
3. I think I killed the flow by not having the second film chosen ahead of time. My bad.
4. I might have to invest in bleachers for the next bad movie night
5. I’m glad I tried the Purple Haze, but it’s not going to happen again


Here are some video clips from the night if you want to see what exactly goes on: