Svengoolie Movie: “Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster”

So, this movie ‘Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster” is high in cheese content and don’t expect to see the Frankenstein made famous by Boris Karloff. It was released in 1965 and directed by Soupy Sales, no wait, it was Robert Gaffney. Marilyn Hanold played the big female lead, Marcuzan, the amazonian leader who looks nothing like the male Martians, one of whom, Dr. Nadir (played by Lou Cotell), reminds me of Yoda.

Seriously this Nadir to take we are? Fits him the name because at the lowest level his quality is! Hmmmm?

In fact, all the male Martians sort of remind me of Yoda. Marcuzan doesn’t resemble any of them. Other cast members include Jim Karen as Dr. Adam Steele, Nancy Marshall as Karen Grant, David Kerman as General Bowers, and Robert Reilly as Col. Frank Saunders, the android astronaut. You can watch the movie on the Internet Archive, but you’ll miss Svengoolie’s cornball jokes and commentary.

The gist of the story is that the Martians (who are never identified as such, by the way) lost an atomic war and somehow all the females on the planet got wiped out. So Marcuzan and Nadir and a bunch of Martians take off for earth to round up new females to repopulate Mars.

At the same time, scientists on earth have built an android named Frank who is test-driving a brand-spanking new NASA space capsule. Nadir boy and the gang shoot it down over Puerto Rico. Frank gets shot in the brain and goes off his nut, which can’t be screwed back on because none of the Martian repairmen know how to use the metric system in order to select the right size socket wrench.

Marcuzan and Nadir and the gang and Frank all cause mayhem in Puerto Rico. It’s kind of like parallel play until the Martians hustle out their hairy monster champion, called Mull, to thumb wrestle Frank and settle the matter. Guess which one is Frankenstein? That’s right—Marcuzan!

Anyway, if you’re looking for production value, you’re barking up the wrong tree. This is about extreme campiness, which is exaggeration and purposeful emphasis on bad taste. Even though the producers wanted a serious science fiction/horror film, according to Svengoolie and one of the original screenwriters who is still teaching at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virgina, the goal was to make a wild parody of the genre. While the producers insisted on the straight version, somehow the screenwriters obviously prevailed.

That explains the obviously botched makeup jobs, the stock footage making up 65% of the scenes, and the comical and jarringly timed soundtrack. One song called “That’s the Way It’s Got to Be,” done by The Poets seems like a sort of anthem for the movie’s real aim. In other words, don’t complain about the lack of production value because it’s a parody, hence (all together now), that’s the way it’s got to be.

The Martians used a weapon that was a popular toy for a short time, the Wham-O Air Blaster. It could shoot air 40 feet and was banned after the blast ruptured a kid’s eardrum.

Early on in the movie, right after Frank the android gets bunged up after being shot down by the Martians, he ends up looking like he’s got a couple of tubes hanging and bouncing around off his chest for the rest of the movie, so I couldn’t help thinking of him by the nickname “Tubular Teats.”

And for some reason this gets connected to the scenes of the bikini-clad women being rounded up for a weird technical assessment (reminiscent of a sliding cat scan table) of their suitability for repopulating the female population back on Mars. The women obligingly assist the Martians who lift them onto the table. This is bizarre considering the fate for some of them.

Anyway, I have to rate “Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster” using a different standard from that which was used by some to rate it as pretty high up on the list of the 50 Worst Movies Ever Made. That’s because I think it’s a parody and therefore not comparable to a serious science fiction/horror flick—because that’s the way it’s got to be!

CDC ACIP Meeting Today on Covid-19 Vaccine

We watched the Covid-19 vaccine part of today’s meeting this morning. I thought it got off to sort of a rough start, mainly with technical difficulties. I can’t recall any other meetings in which the camera flipped back and forth oddly between speakers and their slides. I thought that was distracting.

The question-and-answer periods ran too long which put them behind schedule. One member of the original 8 committee members, Dr. Michael Ross, was missing from the CDC roster. There were news articles about his withdrawing after a review of financial holdings.

While most of the Covid-19 presentation was review, I thought it was too bad that ACIP Chair Dr. Martin Kulldorff announced there would be no vote on the Covid-19 vaccine today. He also said that the ACIP committee would look forward to the missing Evidence to Recommendations (EtR) material in the fall. Dr. Adam MacNeil, the presenter of the Covid-19 vaccine review, admitted that the EtR was not finished. I was not clear on why.

I didn’t really see the point of Dr. Kulldorff’s giving a rather long speech about why he was fired from Harvard after he refused to get the Covid-19 vaccine. I would much rather have heard him give details about his emphasis on the importance of conducting controlled trials (I think he meant placebo-controlled?) and posing this as a question to Dr. MacNeil. I think this is what led to Dr. MacNeil’s response which implied that they would take too long to produce actionable results (I might be putting words in his mouth but that’s my interpretation)—which could lead to saving more lives. It looked like a rather awkward moment.

Dr. MacNeil reviewed the FDA approval of using a JN.1 lineage vaccine at the VRBPAC meeting in May and also mentioned the FDA leadership preference for the LP.8.1 variant. I noticed the CDC variant genomic tracker today shows that the new kid on the block, NB.1.8.1, is now just as prevalent or more prevalent as LP.8.1. They’re both from the JN.1 lineage.

Some of the questions from the newly appointed committee members were over my head. But in all fairness, one of the members asked a question which not only I didn’t get but that Dr. MacNeil said he didn’t quite understand either.

So far, we’re planning to watch the influenza vaccine presentation tomorrow morning. I’m not sure why there’s a vote on thimerosal in the flu vaccine tomorrow but there was no vote on the Covid-19 vaccine today.

CDC Advisory Committee Meeting on Vaccines Starts Tomorrow

The CDC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON IMMUNIZATION PRACTICES (ACIP) is scheduled to begin their meeting tomorrow at 10:00 AM ET despite US Senator Bill Cassidy’s recommendation that it be postponed due to concerns about the lack of experience of the committee members and because there is not yet confirmation of a new CDC Director.

In fact, the CDC Director nominee, Dr. Susan Monarez, of Wisconsin, is scheduled for her confirmation hearing at the same time as the start of the CDC ACIP meeting tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM ET. Dr. Monarez would be the first CDC director “…in decades…” (according to a report posted in The Hill in May) who has neither previously worked at the CDC “…nor obtained a Doctor of Medicine degree…”

As of this morning around 10:00 AM, the meeting agenda has not yet been finalized. So far, it looks like there will be no vote on the Covid-19 vaccine update, although there will be a vote on Thimerosal in flu vaccines about which the FDA has previously published an extensive summary.

Svengoolie Movie: “Village of the Danged Eyeballs!”

OK, so the name of the film is actually Village of the Damned, released in 1960 and directed by Wolf Rilla. It stars George Sanders as Professor Gordon Zellaby and Barbara Shelley as his wife, Anthea Zellaby. It’s based on a British Novel, The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. The gist of the story is that the whole village of Midwich falls asleep, wakes up a few hours later and things are fine until two months pass. That’s when all the trouble starts. You can see the movie on the Internet Archive.

It just so happens that the Great Mutato (Izzy) from the X-Files episode, “The Post-Modern Prometheus” is running around the village impregnating all the women. OK, so Izzy’s not part of the plot at all but it sounds cool.

One morning, all the people of Midwich fall unconscious in the middle of whatever they’re doing, which might have been a community wide orgy (usually prohibited by Homeowner Association rules) based on what happens next. The Midwich women do all get pregnant at the same time which raises eyebrows, and leads to the men raising many glasses of beer because they’re not thrilled about it.

According to an x-ray, which happens to be that of a man, the pregnancy outbreak is indiscriminate. Actually, Svengoolie let the cat out of the bag on that, revealing the goof of using an x-ray of a man by mistake. Of course, the doctors point at the film and sagely remark that the fetus is developing normally. One of the doctors is a smoker. Maybe the x-ray of a man was used to avoid using an x-ray of a pregnant woman, which is not the greatest idea in the world.

This reminds me of our freshman medical school radiology teacher. Dr. Bill Erkonen was the nicest guy in the world and he always reassured us that we shouldn’t try to memorize anything for the radiology exams. He would advise, “Just learn it.” Of course, we were medical students and we knew there was no way to learn anything in medical school; memorization was the only path. We loved him.

Anyway, they (meaning the women) all deliver at the same time and the whippersnappers mature at a highly accelerated rate (males learn quickly to stay away from dangerous things like vacuum cleaners). And their eyes glow. All they have to do is stare at the adults who immediately buy them expensive cars, jewelry, and designer sunglasses. They also teach adults to avoid the self-checkout aisles at grocery stores.

But they can also force adults to do scary things. This becomes a world-wide phenomenon leading to drastic actions by governments to do something about the kids with the danged eyeballs. The solutions don’t include hiring them to work for the post office.

I thought this was actually a pretty good movie. It’s probably a film inspired in part by the post-WWII, Cold War era and the threat of attack from some outside unknown, malignant force. The title of John Wyndam’s book “The Midwest Cuckoos” is based on bird behavior, specifically that of cuckoos laying their eggs in another bird’s nest leaving it to be raised by another bird at the expense of its own. Brown-headed cowbirds do the same thing. The X-Files extraterrestrial-human hybrid mythology is another way to express the idea. The violence in the film makes it unsuitable for younger or sensitive viewers.

More Mall Walking for Everyone!

I don’t get out often to the mall to do mall walking, but I did today. I put on a little over 2.5 miles on my step counter. Mall walking is OK for exercise although I have to drive over there. Right next door to the entrance to the mall is the outdoor entrance to Planet Fitness, which is kind of ironic. But you have to pay a membership fee to use the facilities there. You can just walk through the mall for free and it opens an hour before the other shops just to accommodate mall walkers.

I think mall walking does wonders for my lower back. I see a lot of older people who look like they make mall walking regular exercise. They’re my age or older. Some of them have physical challenges that may be the reasons why they mall walk, that is, for conditioning. Their physicians might have even recommended it.

A minority of mall walkers I see are young, so this isn’t just for the elderly. Occasionally I’ll see a group who are challenged in various ways. Today it looked like the guy who was blind and using a cane was right out in front, actually leading the group.

Mall walking has advantages over, say, walking downtown. It beats getting clobbered by an exploding manhole lid, bit by a dog, or mugged.

There are some studies about mall walking, but the authors of a 2015 review mainly noted that there’s a need for more rigorous studies. Their conclusion sounds a little grumpy:

“We found the potential for mall walking programs to be implemented in various communities as a health promotion measure. However, the research on mall walking programs is limited and has weak study designs. More rigorous research is needed to define best practices for mall walking programs’ reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance.”

Farren L, Belza B, Allen P, Brolliar S, Brown DR, Cormier ML, Janicek S, Jones DL, King DK, Marquez DX, Rosenberg DE. Mall Walking Program Environments, Features, and Participants: A Scoping Review. Prev Chronic Dis. 2015 Aug 13;12:E129. doi: 10.5888/pcd12.150027. PMID: 26270743; PMCID: PMC4552141.

Maybe the authors need to go for a walk.

It’s inspiring to see some of the mall walkers out there despite having major disability of one kind or another. I often see a lady who uses a wheeled walker and cannot hold her head up straight. When she sits down for a break, it looks like she’s collapsed. But she just gets up and at it again a few minutes later.

Mall walking may be understudied—but it’s also underestimated as a sign of resilience in anyone young or old.

University of Minnesota CIDRAP Story on CDC ACIP Meeting Next Week

The University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) posted a news report about the upcoming CDC ACIP meeting next Wednesday. Apparently, so far the new advisory committee draft agenda does not include a vote on the Covid-19 vaccine.

The Short Story on Kiwi for Health

Sena was at the store yesterday and some guy (a total stranger) in a motorized scooter rode up to her and said, “I have trouble sleeping” and asked her where to find the kiwi fruit in the produce section. It didn’t faze her because this didn’t sound like a pickup line, you know like that joke on the TV commercial: “Why do iguanas reproduce only once a year? That’s because they have e-reptile dysfunction.”

Actually, the guy was looking for kiwi fruit because he had heard that it can help you sleep. So, she told him where it was. A little later, she saw him wandering around and asked him if he’d found the kiwi fruit. He hadn’t so she got a package for him.

It turns out there is a news article saying there are a few small studies indicating that eating a couple of kiwis (remember, this is about the fruit, not the birds) about an hour before you hit the sack can help you sleep. They have a lot of serotonin which your body turns into melatonin which can promote sleep.

You have to be careful about eating kiwis if you have a latex or fruit allergy because you could have a reaction. And if you have diabetes you need to be aware kiwis are high in sugar.

The thing is, you have to eat a couple of them about an hour before bedtime. Often enough I find that I’m napping in the evening in front of the TV long before then—but that’s probably because there’s usually nothing on but reruns and the usual commercials about cannabidiol (CBD) products, total body deodorants, and snake oil for e-reptile dysfunction.

In fact, there’s also some limited evidence that kiwi fruit can just help you feel better in general. It’s mainly about yellow kiwi fruit rather than the green ones. The yellow ones are called SunGold, and they have a lot of vitamin C. Actually, if you don’t like kiwi fruit, you can find other fruits and vegetables containing a lot of vitamin C, including strawberries and oranges—and broccoli. Go with kiwi fruit.

On the other hand, it looks like you might pay about 3x more for the yellow kiwi than the green.

Kiwi fruits are packed with vitamins. You can get 100% of vitamin C from SunGold and they have more than 20 vitamins and minerals. More than a million tons of kiwi fruit are produced every year. You can make kiwi pizza-if you’re on drugs!

And if you eat a couple of SunGold kiwis a day you could feel so good you might be more willing to contribute to the foundation for assisting iguanas with e-reptile dysfunction.

Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy Outlook on Covid Data and New CDC ACIP Committee

I have a lot more faith in the infectious disease news from the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy Outlook (CIDRAP) than most other news outlets. Their review of the so far 8 newly appointed CDC ACIP committee members is interesting. I plan to watch the upcoming June 25-27 CDC ACIP meeting.

They also provide updates on the CDC Covid-19 variant tracking data. While the LP.8.1 has been in the spotlight lately as the upcoming variant of note, the Nowcast estimates of the proportion of NB.1.8.1 are currently almost equal to LP.8.1. They report the NB.1.8.1 is minimally more immune evasive than LP.8.1. They are both descended from the JN.1 lineage. Overall, Covid-19 activity is low.

Can We Calm Down?

First of all, I want to make it clear that I am not now nor have I ever been pregnant. Now that I have your attention, I’ll add some context to that weird statement by saying how puzzled I am by all the controversy about whether or not there’s actually a federal recommendation against pregnant women getting the Covid-19 vaccine.

I admit, I actually did think about the movie “Signs” in which the lead character, Graham Hess, says “Everybody in this house needs to calm down and eat some fruit or something.” I think it fits.

I found a lot of news stories claiming that HHS and the CDC don’t recommend that pregnant women get the Covid-19 vaccine. What I actually found on the HHS web site says the opposite—the agency recommends it.

That seems to agree with the paper from the FDA leadership, published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Drs. Prasad and Makary (An Evidence-Based Approach to Covid-19 Vaccination. Authors: Vinay Prasad, M.D., M.P.H., and Martin A. Makary, M.D., M.P.H. Author Info & Affiliations). Published May 20, 2025. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsb2506929.

“Moving forward, the FDA will adopt the following Covid-19 vaccination regulatory framework: On the basis of immunogenicity — proof that a vaccine can generate antibody titers in people — the FDA anticipates that it will be able to make favorable benefit–risk findings for adults over the age of 65 years and for all persons above the age of 6 months with one or more risk factors that put them at high risk for severe Covid-19 outcomes, as described by the CDC (Figure 2).”

Figure 2 is a table which lists many medical conditions that are indications for getting the Covid-19 vaccine. Pregnancy is one of them, based on the idea that it could increase the severity of Covid-19 disease.

On the other hand, when I looked at the health care provider page on the CDC website, the table showing the clinical indications for the Covid-19 vaccine sends a confusing message by showing pregnancy as a condition for which there is currently “No Guidance/Not Applicable.”

Just in case this web page gets updated, I took a screenshot of that part of the table:

But elsewhere on the CDC website are pages which clearly recommend that pregnant women get the Covid-19 vaccine.

I’m not making any political statements here. I’m just an old guy who clearly does have an indication for getting the Covid-19 vaccine and I recently did just that last month.

Dept of Health & Human Services to Reconstitute CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices

HHS announced the removal and replacement of the current members of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in a press release today. The CDC ACIP meeting for vaccine recommendations is still scheduled for June 25-27. According to the Federal Register announcement under Supplementary Information:

“SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Purpose: The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is charged with advising the Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on the use of immunizing agents. In addition, under 42 U.S.C. 1396s, the Committee is mandated to establish and periodically review and, as appropriate, revise the list of vaccines for administration to vaccine-eligible children through the Vaccines for Children program, along with schedules regarding dosing interval, dosage, and contraindications to administration of vaccines. Further, under applicable provisions of the Affordable Care Act and section 2713 of the Public Health Service Act, immunization recommendations of ACIP that have been adopted by the Director, CDC, and appear on CDC immunization schedules generally must be covered by applicable health plans.

Matters To Be Considered: The agenda will include discussions on anthrax vaccines, chikungunya vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines, cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine, Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, influenza vaccines, Lyme disease vaccine, meningococcal vaccines, pneumococcal vaccines, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccines for adults, and RSV vaccines for maternal and pediatric populations. Recommendation votes are scheduled for COVID-19 vaccines, HPV vaccine, influenza vaccines, meningococcal vaccine, RSV vaccines for adults, and RSV vaccine for maternal and pediatric populations. Vaccines for Children (VFC) votes are scheduled for COVID-19 vaccines, HPV vaccine, influenza vaccines, and RSV vaccines. Agenda items are subject to change as priorities dictate. For more information on the meeting agenda, visit https://www.cdc.gov/acip/meetings/index.html.

Meeting Information: The meeting will be webcast live via the World Wide Web. For more information on ACIP, please visit the ACIP website: https://www.cdc.gov/acip.“