About

UPDATE: In early 2018, the horror streaming website Shudder has begun polling users to determine interest in a revival of MonsterVision with Joe Bob Briggs.  Please take to YouTube and post a video proclaiming that the show needs to come back from the dead and Joe Bob Briggs needs to make his long overdue return to the "air waves."

In the Beginning . . . 

Once upon a time, there was a station called Turner Network Television, aka TNT.  Long before the days of non-stop Law and Order episodes or Angel marathons, TNT played great programming.  Westerns, 60s b-flicks, the possibilities were endless.

One event caught my eye, and it was on late Saturday nights.  It was called MonsterVision.  It was a cavalcade of the best and worst monster, sci-fi, horror films imaginable.  The very first episode I ever saw featured 1958s Queen of Outer Space with Zsa Zsa Gabor.  Other memorable titles included Night of the Lepus, Mara and The Wilderness, and the list goes on.  The show would be followed by another showcase, 100% Weird, which would show odd B-fare or cinema rarities not commonly seen on cable Tv.

And then, they toyed with the idea of a host. Several guest hosts, including Roger Corman and famed magicians Penn and Teller, hosted various marathons for the first few years.  Then, TNT retained the infamous drive-in critic from Grapevine, Texas.  He was fresh off his multi-season tenure on The Movie Channel.  Of course I'm talking about the great Joe Bob Briggs.  For those of you who don't know this giant of a man, you can read about him here and here.

From 1996 to 1999, Joe Bob Briggs hosted MonsterVision, along with Joe Bob's Last Call. This usually showcased horror/sci-fi, occasionally veering off into other types of fare (think The Warriors, The Goonies).  It originally aired on Fridays until summer 1997, when the show moved to Saturdays for the remainder of the series.  Special events  occurred from time to time, which included the infamous 1998 Halloween-Friday the 13th marathon.  During this time, 100% Weird continued to air without a host.

During the summer months of 1998 and 1999, the show became Joe Bob's Summer School, which would showcase films set against a certain theme tied with a mock course being by professor Joe Bob.

In the fall of 1999, TNT would see giant personnel changes pertaining to Turner Entertainment's impending annex into Time-Warner. As a result, the show was reformatted into Joe Bob's Hollywood Saturday Night and MonsterVision was relegated to the second showing of the night.  Because programming executives were disgusted with Joe Bob's blatant disregard for political correctness, the new show was created to appeal to female audiences while reigning in the more controversial content of the show.  Joe Bob's Hollywood Saturday Night only lasted a few months before being dropped, as Turner execs failed to consider understand the demographics that were fans of the show.

MonsterVision with Joe Bob Briggs would continue until July 2000.  The last episode hosted was Children of the Corn II.  Unbeknownst to Briggs and his loyal fans, Joe Bob would be fired abruptly in the following days. The manner to which this was carried out was so unceremonious that he simply received a memo that stated, "Your services will no longer be needed at the network."  A farewell episode with Joe Bob was not made.  Briggs wasn't surprised by the news as his tenure always held on by a thread at TNT.  The fans were livid.  Surprisingly, MonsterVision reverted back to its hostless format and continued to air, along with 100% Weird. This didn't end until late September 2000, when the website displayed a flash animated drive-in sign that said, "Closed for the season."  At the end, a note thanked the fans for the years of loyal viewing.  Some considered this bittersweet, others found it to be a slap in the face from TNT.

For the following decade, episodes of MonsterVision went underground, traded by collectors who had taped airings through the run of the show.  Sadly, Joe Bob would never return to television himself on a regular basis, only showing up for panels or guest host spots from time to time.  This was despite a news show pilot called The Joe Bob Report that was filmed for CMT.  Joe Bob's attempts to launch his own horror themed cable network also were unable to get off the ground.  Since then, the critic from Grapevine, TX, has been working the lecture/convention circuit, continues to write columns for places such as Takimag, and occassionally introduces cult film screenings for the Alamo Drafthouse.

In the mid 2000s, YouTube was launched and gave a platform to users similar to cable access channels.  Only the scope was much bigger.  Videos were originally limited to a 10 minute time span, but this changed around 2010.  With the flood of retro-TV content being uploaded, host segments of MV began to emerge on the site, along with previous episodes of the old Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater.

The purpose of this blog is attempt to catalog the explosion of these clips on YouTube. In addition, I will also be attempting to catalog the Drive-In Theater clips as well.  I want to give a big thanks to everyone who has taken the time to archive this show and pulling it from obscurity.