Trash From the Past Vies for TV Time

You can have your high-concept television.

You can have your rip-offs of old shows that copied still older shows. You can have your glamour shows, your high-tech smoothies, your glossy stars, your spotlights, your flash, your fizz, your razzmatazz and all that jazz.

The cream of a mammoth syndicated program-selling conference here last week was not with big-budget big shots trying to sell their slickly packaged wares to American stations and a few foreign networks.

It was in a small, low-cost, out-of-the-way booth on the floor of the George R. Brown Convention Center.

This is trash TV.

“Do I have the trashiest movies of all time?” Tom T. Moore asked rhetorically. “If not, I’m close.”

Very close.

Moore heads Reel Movies International, a small Dallas distributor that sells not only some deliciously ancient TV series, but also a supremely corny movie package called “Killer B’s.”

These “B” movies, mostly from the 1950s, are so absolutely awful that they are irresistible. If you can’t love “Devil Girl From Mars,” “Night of the Ghouls” or “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” you’re hopeless. And “Half Human” (“He still felt a searching need for human love”) isn’t bad, either.

“This is just fantastic trash,” said Moore. Here, at last, was a salesman whose product matched his hype at the annual meeting of the National Assn. of Television Programming Executives.

It’s almost unthinkable that there wouldn’t be a large TV audience for these exhilaratingly horrid productions. Moore played a reel of movie trailers offering some of the best screams and most exquisitely bad dialogue this side of Godzilla.

From “Devil Girl From Mars”: “She’s a creature without mercy! Get back! Get back!”

From “Mesa of Lost Women”: “Have you ever been kissed by a woman like this?”

From “A Date With Death”: “Creatures of the night rush relentlessly to keep . . . a date with death.”

Unfortunately, there were no station executives rushing to keep a date with Moore. His domestic sales here were nil, he said, even though he had recently closed a $1-million deal in England, where the widening over-the-air TV and emerging cable markets have created a large demand for programming.

The English always did have an eye for masterpieces.

And some were available from other distributors, too, making the competition fierce. “Let him brag,” Michael Avery said about Moore. “But I promise you that we have the worst movies over here.”

An empty boast? If nothing else, a look at their catalogue certifies that Avery of Avery Productions and Scott Sobel of Scott Entertainment--who work together despite operating separate companies on opposite coasts--can dish trash with anyone.

They do handle many genuinely formidable movies. But among their multitude of titles is also “Chained for Life,” the 1930 classic about Siamese twins. A quote from the original ad: “I must have a love life!”

Also, their “Teenage Theatre” package, hosted by Mamie Van Doren, offers such appealingly unwholesome movies as “Carnival Rock”: “Thrill-crazed gangsters and sleazy psycho teens all clash together in a seedy carnival nightclub, set to the blistering beat of rockabilly rhythm ‘n’ blues.” Sounds like “The Morton Downey Jr. Show.”

The movies are wonderfully raunchy. In terms of pure fun, however, nothing tops the nostalgic TV packages available from Avery/Scott--whose “TV’s Golden Years” has already run on KHJ-TV Channel 9 in Los Angeles--and other distributors.

A special quality of old TV--whether camp or classic--is its ability to reconnect you to your past and replay moments in time when you were watching specific programs.

Joe Clement of Virginia Beach, Va., began as a collector himself before starting his distribution company, Classic Entertainment. His catalogue for the programming convention included such familiar titles as “The Jack Benny Show” and “The Roy Rogers Show” from the 1950s. Good watching.

But what an even bigger kick it would be--and what childhood memories it would evoke--again to see “Foreign Intrigue,” the 1951-55 series (it changed heroes and titles several times) that was about, well, foreign intrigue in the Cold War era.

Filmed in Europe, it was possibly the most ambitious--and surely one of the best and most urbane--series of its time, reeking of atmosphere, romance, adventure and politics.

However, nothing at the convention here was more political--and nostalgic, in a way--than “The Truth About Communism,” Sidney Fields’ 1968 documentary narrated by Ronald Reagan: “It’s the conspiracy that’s growing stronger and stronger. . . .”

Said Allen Hart, vice president of Excel Telemedia: “This is the old anti-communist, snarling Reagan. We’ve had it for about six or seven years and it’s been a tough sell up ‘til now. I think it was a personal thing. Most of the programmers just didn’t like Reagan. But now that he’s out of office, there’s renewed interest.”

There was never any interest to renew in “The Stan Kann?? Show.” This is carrying nostalgia too far.

Who is Stan Kann? Exactly the point.

The brochure from Weiss Global Enterprises of Oxnard says:

“Stan Kann, who always seems to have a talent for making easy tasks more difficult, is featured with anchorman Doug Paulson as they introduce a potpourri of comedy in a warm, friendly atmosphere for the entire family’s enjoyment. Each episode is situationally unique and features a special celebrity guest.”

Some of whom are no longer alive, unfortunately, for the show is 16 years old.

Kann was once a frequent guest on talk shows. “He’s the buffoon who screws everything up,” said Steven Weiss, president of Weiss Global. “Look, it’s a delightful little show. We thought it would get good demographics. We thought it would make a good afternoon show. So far, we’ve been wrong.”

Not that Weiss Global doesn’t have some pretty terrific oldies, including such Ronald Reagan movies as “Cattle Queen of Montana” and “Tennessee’s Partner,” the memorable movie “Virgin Sacrifice” and such aged TV series as “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger,” “My Little Margie” and “I Married Joan.”

The nostalgia business may be heating up, according to Weiss, whose grandfather, Louis Weiss, produced silent movie comedies and the original 1917 Tarzan serial starring Elmo Lincoln.

“I can’t tell you the amount of calls and letters I get from people who like these TV shows,” Weiss said. “Some of them even want autographed stills. They don’t even realize Joan Davis is dead.”

All of which seemed a universe away from the syndication convention’s creatively moribund, but booming, frenzied, neon world of contemporary trash, where bad is really bad.

A “Devil Girl From Mars” line fits here: “This is the sinister shape of things to come.”