Off Beat Cinema is one of the funniest late night television shows I've come across in a while. Unlike some of the cable channels' efforts to insert hosts into Saturday night television, Off Beat Cinema restores the original look and feel of those late night cheesy movies that were so bad that they were good.
Wikipedia and the official OBC website probably offer the best explanation of the history of the show, and a quick visit to those two sites saves everyone the time of me recreating the descriptions here.
In the meantime, though, I'm searching for any information I can find about the cast of the show. I have their names, but so far, internet searches have revealed next to nothing about them.
Cast (left to right):
BIRD THE PAINTER is played by Tony Billoni, who is a creative consultant and event coordinator in Western New York.
THE MYSTERIOUS ZELDA is played by actress Constance McEwen.
MAXWELL TRUTH is played by comedian "Airborne Eddy" Dobosiewicz.
The creator and writer of Off Beat Cinema is JAMES GILLAN.
James Gillian is a Paragon Advertising executive in Buffalo, NY. He states on the official OFB website, "Off Beat Cinema was created to provide a forum for films that are not regularly shown on television – and in many cases – are not readily available, even on DVD. There is an enormous cache of films out there that an entire generation grew up watching that are otherwise unavailable. We wanted to create a program reminiscent of the hosted late night film shows of the 1960s and 1970s – the kind of show that made you beg your parents to let you stay up late to watch. Where else can you watch ‘Teenagers from Outer Space’ and a week later watch Bergman’s ‘Seventh Seal’ in its original language version?"
A recent show of note includes Saturday, August 19, 2006, when OBC featured "Destination Moon", a movie based on the Heinlein novel, and these hep cats performed a hilarious skit involving a giant black monolith in the middle of their cool cafe, The Hungry Ear. And even though there is no connection between any work of Heinlein's and Arthur C. Clarke's monolith, I still giggle whenever I think about that skit.
Another recent show of note came a few weeks later when on Saturday, Sept. 2, they aired "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price; a perfect late night black-and-white movie replete with vampire zombies and experimental science gone wrong. This movie was later remade as "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston in the lead role. Both films were loosely based off the Richard Matheson novel "I Am Legend."
Keep watching the sky.
Last Update: 10-11-2006
