Year released: 1965
THE CHARGE: Creating short films 50 years ago with humor that went out of style 80 years ago.
THE EVIDENCE: Ray Dennis Steckler is something of an icon in the B-movie business, having directed such notorious films as The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies and Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. The Lemon Grove Kids were a lesser known creation of his, an attempt to emulate the classic humor of the Bowery Boys with a dash of The Little Rascals thrown in for good measure.
The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters is really a trio of short films. The first, "The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters", is the best despite there being no monsters in it at all until there's about two minutes left in the story. The plot is simple. The titular kids, who all look to be in their 30s, enter into a foot race with their rivals, the East Lemon Grove Kids. A bookie taking bets on the Lemon Grove Kids to win tries to sabotage them by hiring someone called simply "The Saboteur", who uses tactics lifted straight from Wacky Races. They work about as well here as they did for Dick Dastardly and Muttley.
Everyone should be required wear their IQ on their shirt.
This short is a blast to watch. It captures an old school style of comedy that pretty much disappeared with the Three Stooges, with an abundance of hammy slapstick and cartoonish sounds effects emphasizing the equally cartoonish action. It looks cheap, it sounds cheap, it IS cheap, but everyone looks like they're having a ball making the film and their enthusiasm is infectious.
The second short, "The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Green Grasshopper & the Vampire Lady", is less successful, but at least there are more monsters in it. In this one, the Kids try to start a handyman service but things go astray when they spot a flying saucer containing the creatures from the title. It's up to the kids to send these beings back where they came from, with the help of a killer ape that happens to be passing through the neighborhood.
I'd explain more, but there's not much more to it. It's just weird. This film abandons the classic comedy style of the first and tries to go for a more updated 60s look, with brighter colors and funky editing. Unfortunately, it just makes the film look even cheaper than the first and ends up giving it a visual appearance somewhat similar to Gilligan's Island. It also brings back fewer than half the Lemon Grove Kids from the first short. Two shorts into the series and we're already experiencing the law of diminishing returns.
Green grasshopper or bad LSD trip? Why not both?
The trend continues with the last short, "The Lemon Grove Kids Go to Hollywood", which features exactly one Kid from the first two films. Said Kid meets and falls for an actress who gets kidnapped by a couple of thugs. It's up to him to save the day, with help from a guitar-playing buddy who uses up a good portion of the film's running time playing a new, and not particularly good, Lemon Grove Kids theme song.
While this short dials back the weirdness of the last one, it's also not very interesting. The madcap visual style of the second short is replaced by a bland film style more reminiscent of 60's family sitcoms like The Brady Bunch, or maybe Gidget. The jokes are flat. The performances are flat. Everything about this last short is oddly lifeless and it ends up being a sad conclusion to what started out as a promisingly lunatic trilogy.
THE VERDICT: The Lemon Grove Kids are GUILTY of raising expectations only to send them crashing down in a blaze of boredom.
