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The Day The Earth Got Stoned (1976) - Same Movie?

posted 19 years ago by sjcobert
4 replies | jump to latest

I saw "J-Men Forever" on USA Cable's "Night Flight" show in the early 1980's. It was a send-up of the old Republic serials ("Spy Smasher", "...Captain Marvel", etc.) hilariously mis-dubbed and put together by members of the old Firesign Theater. The villain, "The Lightning Bug" was voiced by California DJ Machine Gun Kelly. The difference in appearance of the villain from serial to serial was explained by making The Lightning Bug an expert in disguise.

Years later, I read about "The Day the Earth Got Stoned". The description was a detail-for-detail copy of the description of J-Men Forever. At the time I assumed it was the same movie with an alternate title. (In fact, I guessed the guy doing the review forgot the title and just made up "TDTEGS", figuring the movie was so minor and obscure, who'd ever know the difference.) Now I see The Internet Movie Database has separate listings for the two titles, and there's even a difference of three years in the release dates. I have to say this: Either TDTEGS was an early, preliminary effort that developed into J-Men Forever, or there's one hell of a copyright infringement lawsuit waiting to be filed.

One of the commenters for "...Stoned" brought up this joke in the dubbing:

"Say, isn't that Leonard Nimoy?"
"Can't tell... I can't see his ears?"

Sound familiar?

[–] sjcobert 19 years ago

I may not have made it clear in my previous post: As far as I'm concerned, they are the same movie. (The difference in release dates is probably an error on someone's part.)

HMMMMM..... Almost two months and no one has replied? Are there no takers anywhere??

[–] alltare2 18 years ago

Sure sounds like the same movie. Same director and writer, too (Patterson). Like you, I've never seen or heard of TDTEGS except at IMDB

[–] Badge 17 years ago

It's definitely a mistake on the IMDB's part. When this played at a film festival back in the early 80s it had the title "J-MEN FOREVER, or, The Day the Earth Got Stoned"

[–] kentauros 17 years ago

They are both the same movie. I saw J-Men when it came out (it was debuted at the 1979 Houston Film Festival.) Years later, it was on the midnight-movie circuit, but that title was not likely going to get many of the midnight-movie crowd. So it was retitled on theater marquees even though the original, unedited title of J-Men Forever was still in place when it was shown. I saw it at one of these venues, but knew what the movie was before going (I believe I figured it out from the synopsis given in the movie-listings.)

However, the stoner/headbanger crowd didn't know what they were getting into and I heard many wonder aloud what "J-Men Forever" was, some thinking it was a short before the "main" feature. When that didn't happen, people slowly started filtering out of the theater until by the end it was just myself and my three friends that all had known what to expect. The theater had been packed in the beginning, so the venue at least made some profit on it. Some seemed to "get it", laughing in the right places, but most didn't. I think it was too far over their heads ;)

Oil well, nobody loves the metal man!

(by the way, the full title as I recall was "The Day the Earth Got Stoned and I Became A Rock & Roll Idol" )