Food For Thought: Undertaker and His Pals

First off: Shut up!

Secondly: Shut up!

Thirdly: This movie is the greatest thing since someone literally dropped a knife on a loaf of bread and said “Would you look at that!”

In 1966, in a slim sixty minutes, T. L. P. Swicegood (who went on to do nothing… I mean literally, I’m not even sure he exists) was conjured from depths of damnation, tasked with giving us, here on Earth, a diamond perfectly lodged in the caverns of VHS-halla. When Undertaker and His Pals graced all seven or eight theaters it originally played in, the world became a better place. I’m not saying the cold war ended because Gorbachev and Ronny Regan watched a group of motorcycle riding butchers during the Reykjavík Summit, but I’d like to think this happened (I wasn’t there, were you?!). I just feel the solution to any major war is to airdrop a SONY KV-FX29TA TV, a JVC HR-D120EM VCR, and copies of the 1987 VHS edition from Homer Studios. You will have every nation of the world holding hands and drinking Coca-Colas on a grassy knoll (♪ I’d like to buy the world a Coke ♫)

What is the film about? Who gives a Leg of Lamb! If you have a copy of Swicegood’s Epic tome,  just watch it again, shut up and marinate in its deliciousness!  But for some of you, I will try my best to rationalize a plot from a movie made by out-of-work actors on weekends. Sooooooooooooo basically these loony tunes who escaped, or something, get in cahoots with Robert Picardo’s distant undertaker grandfather to kill people so he can have more funerals. But how do they get rid of the evidence? Why, you open a restaurant (how did they get a reputable bank to sign a loan?) and cook the people of course! Why not? I want to be clear here in saying this plot should work. I honestly believe this movie is a cake left out in the rain and they’ll never get the recipe again (♪ Oh noooooooooooooooooooo ♫). For all intents and purposes, the plot has such a great opportunity to be like Interstellar, and maybe if Swicegood had a few more free weekends or a few more friends or a budget, this would have been a masterpiece. Instead, it’s a great addition to the museum on level 3, near the POP ART nudes.

I had no idea of this movie’s existence until a radical experience of a triple feature at the Dixon, Illinois Drive-In. Sandwiched between the classic Stuart Gordan feature Dolls and the legendary Giallo Pieces, they decided to fill some time while people purchased a scrumptious, greasy double cheeseburger (♫ Let’s all go to the lobby, let’s all go to the lobby ♪) and played Undertaker and His Pals. I heard the calling that evening and became a disciple to this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad classic of sheer madness. If you ever hear of this playing at a Drive-In near you (I don’t even care if I have to buy a plane ticket) please let me know. I will be there,  knowing darn well I will never be able to catch the rush I felt the first time way back yonder.

Undertaker and His Pals is a short, funny, wild ride everyone should experience. You can find it free (thanks to public domain) on any streaming service from Youtube or Tubi, and of course on every PD DVD collection known to man. You can also see it chopped at from numerous horror hosts, but I feel nothing was better than the VINTAGE HORRIBLE SHOW with host Hawaiian Hank (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnIHSN6ugeI)

So put on your bib, roast a pig (or at least open a can of SPAM), and enjoy a Swice of good ol’ humble American (people-filled) pie.