Lemon Grove Kids Meet The Monsters (1965)

The three 16mm shorts that the feature are comprised of are: The Lemon Grove Kids, Lemon Grove Kids Meet The Green Grasshopper And The Vampire Lady From Outer Space and Lemon Grove Kids Go Hollywood. The first episode has Steckler’s Huntz Hall clone Gopher, a bogus Leo Gorcey named Slug (Mike Cannon) and their neighborhood pals involved in a cross-country race with a rival gang. This concludes with an attack by a Lon Chaney-like mummy played none other than Bob Burns. A gorilla and Rat Phink also make an appearance. The second episode has Gopher, Slug and some other guys and kiddies running into a vampire woman and grasshopper man who kidnap unsuspecting neighbors, putting them in a trance. The last story has no Slug (sort of like what happened to the real Bowery Boys when Gorcey left), but Gopher, a guitar-strumming Ray Haydock and some children trying to save a Tinseltown starlet from a duo of bumbling thugs. Here, Gopher doesn’t wear the trademark upturned baseball cap, but the reason is easily explained in the accompanying director’s interview and commentary.