June Brings a Song from the Phantom Channel

It's a warm, steamy night, and you're taking refuge in the basement rec room, or up in your bedroom with a fan and the AC both on. Maybe you're alone; maybe you have some friends around. You're flicking through the channels on an old TV set you picked up at a yard sale a while back; it's not hooked up to the cable, as there's no way to hook it up, but every so often you find something interesting.

What's this? Channel 67, which has always been static before, now has something on! After a few commercials for businesses you've never heard of, suddenly a movie starts, with this amazing theme song.



The Green Slime (1966) is a unique hybrid: it's got American money, Italian producers, and made in Japan by a Japanese director. It's an unofficial continuation of the "Gamma One" series that began with the cheesy Italian sci-fi film Wild, Wild Planet. It's got myriad flaws but at least it's not dull, and while the song has dreadful lyrics, it still rocks.

You never quite figure out where channel 67 is coming from, but it does show fun old movies and reruns of old shows, so you tune by every so often...one of these days you'll figure out how to find that bookstore that advertises on there...