Pirate Radio 13

09/11/2026

09/11/2026

In 1986, Worldvision released the Hanna-Barbera produced “Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park”, that wonderfully cheezy TV movie that originally aired October 28, 1978.

It wouldn't air again until 1985 as part of some CBS late night movie block that was shopped to affiliate stations, but by then, KISS's makeup phase was far in the rearview, and the band was deep into their Desmond Child Hair Metal phase. This movie looked positively antiquated at the time.

Still, even by mid 80s standards, this was a great piece of pop art designed as a delivery system for the band's songs and a few stage performances.

It features the Knights In Satan's Service getting recruited to fight an evil inventor (Anthony Zerbe no less) who's replacing humans with animatronic clones at a theme park. In fact, the movie's superhero concept was directly inspired by the band's appearance in Marvel Comics Super Special #1, which was published a year prior. That issue was also written by Steve Ge**er (creator of Howard the Duck) and was notorious for having samples of their blood was mixed into the ink used to print it.

And for a bit of added Kisstory: 1978 was also the year their merchandising went from standard rock band t-shirts to a full-blown empire. This was the era of the Mego KISS action figures, Halloween masks, makeup kits, trading cards, posters, the Marvel comic, and the development of the iconic Bally pinball machine.

KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park airing on NBC was proof-positive that they had completely saturated the mainstream. They weren't the scary, fire-breathing demons that parents rallied against anymore; they were essentially live-action cartoon characters suitable for a Saturday night family broadcast.

I was 6 years old and I went out trick or treating in a makeshift Gene Simmons costume that year. That's how big they were.

This was also the beginning of the End. When they released the Dynasty album several months later featuring the massive disco-rock hit "I Was Made for Lovin' You", they alienated much of their core hard-rock fanbase, and their decline in popularity soon followed. But the Disco song remained a favourite at drunken office parties and weddings for decades.
-Pop

09/11/2026

It didn't mean “Safe For Work" back in 1994.

This is a movie for the nihilist in all of us. A big, loud, obnoxiously sarcastic middle finger to... everything.

Because everything is lame, everything sucks, and if you were the right age in 1994, this felt absolutely true. If this movie had anything to say to us Doc Martin-wearing rebels without causes, it's that it had absolutely nothing at all to say. And it owns that nothing.

Afterall, why should we listen to what movies have to say? Especially TV? It's all fake manipulative consumerist propaganda. So effin' What, indeed. Stop listening to people on camera. Just stop caring about what the media is trying to get you to think. Stop getting lost in that hopeless little screen. And don't take everything so seriously.

Or like, whatever.

Anyway, even though it regularly gets overshadowed by its cuddlier Slacker contemporaries like Singles (1992) or Reality Bites (1994), it’s no less a fun work of peak ultra 90’s complete with appropriate "in your face" edgy soundtrack.

Seriously, the soundtrack is perfection.

I've always had a real soft spot for this angsty militant Slacker manifesto that also doubles as a sneering attack on mass-media manipulation and idealization.

Because when all is said and done, media literacy actually does matter, and this movie's trying real hard teach you a thing or two.
It just won't admit it.

It was clearly aiming to sit on the shelf with the likes of Heathers or Natural Born Killers, but I think it earned a place somewhere between Pump Up The Volume (1990) and Airheads (1994).
-Pop

09/09/2026

Happy heavenly birthday Ron Pigpen McKernan🏍️🪽