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starring Dr. Hal !
BY DIRIGIBLE TO THE LOST ISLAND OF KOMAR
March 11, 2016 10:00pm

 

Ask Dr Hal
BY DIRIGIBLE TO THE LOST ISLAND OF KOMAR
This week Dr. H. Owll entertains a quondam guest, Nose Hair Lint Gland's head honcho Karen Carpenter (the alias of a well-known secret super-scientist). Various callers & contributors receive on-air thanks, & Whittier's reflective poem "Maud Muller" is an early feature, a response to a listener request. Eventually, the arrival of Puzzling Evidence precipitates a narrated showing of the 1934 Clyde Beatty feature THE LOST JUNGLE. In the film, circus impresario & animal trainer Clyde Beatty (not related either to Ned or Warren) heads a rescue party in search of his pneumatic peroxide blonde girlfriend, Ruth, & her hapless father, who get lost-- way lost --looking for an uncharted island, site of the fabled Lost City of Komar. Shipwrecked, she & doddering old Dad deal with ferocious lions and tigers, both, improbably, co-inhabitants of the island, not to mention rebellious, surly sailors. Beatty heads after them for Africa in his dirigible, but, wouldn't you know, it crashes right into the jungles of the island instead. When wandering, jodhpur-clad Clyde locates Ruth, he learns that her father has disappeared. The ensuing search is hindered by greedy gold hunters & wild animal mayhem... Meanwhile, the sinister Sharkey, Sadistic animal handler for the Maitland Circus Giganticus (who alternately resembles Richard Nixon & Bob Hope), is revealed to be jealous of the success of stuck-on-himself star animal tamer curly-haired Clyde Beatty - murderously so, as he has once surreptitiously permitted a hungry lion to be prematurely freed in a cage with Clyde, who at that time escaped being mauled by the width of a nanodiameter. Clyde and his buddy, loathsomely repulsive "comical" sidekick circus PR Man Larry Henderson, of the Adam's apple-prompted bobbing bow tie & other quite unforgivable tropes, having taken the maiden flight of an ill-fated dirigible, destination India, to collect tigers, & Africa, to collect lions, to bring both back & make their lives miserable in circus show biz with cracking whips, discharging revolvers & brandished chairs before the peepers of assorted peanut-chewing rubes & wide-eyed urchins-- these guys, unwise, take slippery Sharkey along for the ride. Spoiler: eventually, before the end, he's lion chow. An unholy din on the soundtrack of roaring, infuriated lions, tigers, cheetahs, bears, bleating camels & stampeding zebras permeates the movie. Dr. H. Owll narrates the proceedings. You know, Dr. H. Owll once went to Clyde's circus as a boy. It was memorable. This was after he (Clyde) went to Komar, & also after he discovered a lost race of winged Bat Men in Africa... Then we watch another picture, Doris Wishman's BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL. In this, men, a sordid bunch of leering rapists, are no damn good. So the show covers all the bases. Perhaps this-- this! is the show for you.


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