Ask the Web Fu Master
by Tim Lehnerer
He'll find your rare movie on the Internet – or work up a good sweat trying.

November 26 2002

It’s been far, far, far too long since the Web Fu Master wrote a column. All I can say is that 1) work and school kept me busy and 2) I can’t do this without requests from my readers, but you people want to make me cry. These are VERY difficult things to find.

Let’s start with “Big Jim”, who would like a copy of the 1980 television movie Condominium. This apparently aired exactly one time in 1980 and then again on a PBS station in Boston in 1984; it hasn’t aired since then and has never had a video release, at least not in the US. There has been no help from Amazon, Ebay or Robert’s Hard to Find Videos yet, and one of the few results for this film on Google was a tape-trading post by the same person who asked me if I could find it. Sorry, Jim; no luck so far. Perhaps a Black Belt Irregular out there will know more than I was able to find out.

Next up is Ellen, who wants the old Disney horror flicks Mister Boogedy and Bride of Boogedy. To the best of my knowledge these never had a US video release. Several copies that may or may not be taped off of TV or taken from foreign video releases are up at Ebay; hope that you enjoy the films, Ellen. The ebay link is http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2F&krd=1
&from=R8&MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&query=boogedy, which is quite a mouthful.

“Laura” is trying to find a movie for her father about a doomed romance between a Hawaiian princess and a traveller who may or may not be from America. I can’t be entirely certain this is the right movie, but I think I found it. It’s called Bird of Paradise and was made in 1932; the IMDB information is here at http://us.imdb.com/Title?0022689 ; hopefully it will provide a clue or two for Laura and she’ll be able to ask Dad whether or not this sounds familiar. It’s out on VHS and DVD—Amazon, for one, has it.

AMAZON LINK FOR ST GUYS TO MAKE MONEY OFF MY COLUMN, AND MORE POWER TO THEM FOR PROVIDING ME A CHANCE TO SHOW OFF:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00002E20F/stomptokyo/002-0116951-2203256 (DVD)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/002-0116951-2203256?tag=stomptokyo&mode=vhs
&keyword=6301394100|B000006BSU|B00000F166|B00000FYQF (VHS)

Bruce Packard’s email was short and sweet: “Can you find “The White Lions” 1981 Universal release with Michael York” was the subject and there was no text whatsoever. It appears to be my week to not find copies of early 1980s television movies that were never released on video because there was no love from, Half, GEMM or Robert’s again.

Marlowe from the B-Movie Message Board wants to know what the heck movie had a stop-motion Mark Twain in it. I thought he was just baked. He isn’t, or at least you can’t tell from this request. It turns out that it’s called The Adventures of Mark Twain and it’s by the great Will Vinton, creator of the Claymation process as well as the singing California Raisins. He is selling it for twenty-five American dollars at his web site, and Amazon has it on tape.

That’s it for this time around, and I’m happy to see that I did find a few more of these things than last time. Please send your queries to me at TelstarMan@yahoo.com or to the Stomp Tokyo guys courtesy of this site; I will do what I can to find the films you need. If I don’t know, maybe one of the Black Belt Irregulars will.

Until next time...

Read the previous installment of Ask the Web Fu Master.