Jamie
It’s March 15, 1986 and it’s a Saturday. Time for some Saturday morning cartoons? Wrong. It’s time for back-to-back 7am and 9am showings of Citizen Kane and Supergirl. Expand our minds. We have no time for Robotech, Terrahawks, or Davey and Goliath. And we definitely don’t have time for Muppets, Babies & Monsters. That’s cause we… we… hold up. What did they say was airing at 9am? Muppets, Babies & Monsters? What thuuuuuuu…. That’s right. I’m getting totally distracted to bring you a breaking news bulletin that apparently Muppet Babies was so popular in its first season that they expanded it to an hour and added a segment about monsters and changed the name to reflect that. It was then so not popular that they only aired three episodes and left ten episodes unaired. Which begs the question: how could a show that only aired three episodes in September 1985 and left a bunch unaired still have an episode airing in March 1986? And how could it be that this cartoon could only get three episodes while Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling (airing at 10am) gets two full seasons? Put BMT in the trash, I think we just got our new website. We’re going to be devoting all our time to solving these important questions (and more). But till then.
To recap, Kara is Superman’s cousin living in Argo City yearning for adventure. Fortunately for her (and less fortunately for the fellow citizens of Argo City) she inadvertently sends the city’s power source, the Omegahedron, to Earth dooming all to death. Off she flies to Earth to try to remedy the situation where she finds herself immediately transformed into Supergirl. She hides away in an all-girls private school and makes friends with Lucy Lane as she tries to find the big O. Turns out a local witch, Selena, has found it and intends to use it to take over the world. But first, love. She sets her eyes on the school’s hunky groundskeeper only to have it go sideways when Supergirl comes in to save him from some runaway construction equipment and he falls in love with her schoolgirl alter ego instead (gross). Selena. Is. Pissed. Time to take out this girl, but gah! Every time she tries to go after the girl Supergirl is somehow right there to stop her. How can this be?! Using extra special baddie powers she traps Supergirl in the Phantom Zone and starts in on conquering the world. Oh despair! No one escapes the Phantom Zone. Except Zaltar, Kara’s former teacher, is also exiled there and hints that they actually kind of can escape. Off they go where Supergirl is able to get out with the help of Zaltar’s self-sacrifice. In a final climactic battle that in no way looks like shit, Supergirl does battle with a giant demon and dispatches Selena. While Supergirl is totally jonesing for that hunky groundskeeper she knows she must leave him behind to save Argo City. THE END.
I feel like I’ve been in a very forgiving mood lately with our BMT films. The biggest sin this film has is that it’s way too long (seemingly by letting the older supporting stars of the film run rampant on the film) and feels a bit like a very extended pilot episode of a television show. But once you get past that there are some solidly positive things I can say. Other than the final battle they clearly had a good handle on the effects they wanted to use, particularly the wire work. I also felt like they knew what they were trying to make in that you couldn’t just superimpose a lady over Superman and get this film. They gave Kara some coming-of-age characteristics that made for an interesting take on the story (although it ended up drowned out by Selena’s story). Ultimately it seemed like they got spooked by the fact that they were working with a rookie lead. Would have been better if it was Supergirl and not Selena the Cougar Witch (feat. Supergirl). As for The Punisher, I was surprised by the professionalism of the film and the fact that Dolph Lundgren is pretty decent. Why it didn’t get released to theaters seems like a mystery to me. The Fantastic Four this was not. Sure it has an offensive Japanese villain storyline befitting a cheap B-movie martial arts film, but what didn’t in those days? America was scared of Japan and so everywhere you turned was Gung Ho and Rising Sun. The Punisher fits right in.
Hot Take Clam Bake! Supergirl is back the next day, if not the next hour. You think she’s going back to lame ass Argo City with its garbage fake tree art when she’s got a hunky groundskeeper back on Earth? Hellllll no. She knows how to get back to Earth. She knows that she’ll be super dope when she gets there. And she definitely knows that Ethan better limber up. Supergirl is coming and she’s going to break him in half if he isn’t careful. Hot Take Temperature: Miami.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Wait a minute! We have a man overboard! We have some flotsam on the port side, captain. It’s the little known Superman spinoff from the 80s, Supergirl. Let’s go!
This movie is so long. Why is this movie so long?!
It is also very silly. Although, I would contend it is no sillier than Superman III which features Richard Pryor skiing off a skyscraper and just landing safely on the street below, and the greatest character in all of cinema: Bad Superman.
I liked Helen Slater though.
Her love interest is like a 25 year-old dating the high schoolers at the private school he landscapes at … I guess maybe we are supposed to read that he’s like 18 or 19 though? A little like Jimmy Olson I think these are people who didn’t go to college and instead went right into their chosen field as cub reporter / landscaper. But then what the hell is Selena doing enchanting a young man to be her sex slave? Helen Slater and Faye Dunaway in a love triangle with anyone is confusing. I’m going to go with: Supergirl reads at 18, Ethan is supposed to be 25, and Selena is genuinely 40 and a creep. Ethan has a constant five o’clock shadow.
Peter O’Toole’s character is a dummy and ultra weird. His part in the Phantom Zone (and the fact that you can escape it?) is best forgotten.
But man … why is this movie so long?!
For the Bring a Friend bit of the Citizen Kane cycle I went hunting for a pair of superhero films. With us finally clearing out the DCEU a bit, it made me wonder how many superhero films I had seen in my life. The answer was: a distressing amount. And yet … not enough. So naturally we dipped back into that low-budget well to witness The Punisher (1989) starring Dolph Lundgren. I can see why it became a cult classic in its own way, it is more of what The Punisher became in later media incarnations I feel like. He kills, he’s driven only by revenge, but he can’t abide the death of innocents, etc. Let’s just pretend the film isn’t disgustingly racist in its depiction of the very eeeeeevil Japanese mafia villains. Indeed, we can add this right to the Hall of Fame of films based on the fear that Japanese corporations were going to take over and destroy American business (and in this case crime I guess). A. I think this is a pretty fun “bad movie” in the end. Easy breezy, genuinely bad, racism du jour for the late 80s, Lundgren. Solid stuff.
This movie has, bar none, some of the greatest Product Placement (What?) we’ve seen, but I have to give a shout out to the classic fast food connection for Popeye’s. This can join Little Nicky as a rep for that chain. I’m going to give this a Setting as a Character (Where?) for rather explicitly setting Superman in Chicago and this film in a suburb outside of it in Midvale. A great and genuine MacGuffin (Why?) for the Omegahedron which everyone is chasing around all film and it does whatever you want whenever you need seemingly. I think this is a BMT film despite its length, I found it to be mildly amusing and a fun 80s time.
Read about the sequel Supergirl 2: Cyber War in the quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 