B-Sides: Do the Jellyfish
/may11/bsidess.jpg
To think the world’s only jellyfish man movie would have been lost to the annals of time had it not been rescued from obscurity by Something Weird Video. And if you think a jellyfish man is something weird, then just wait until you hear Neil Sedaka’s theme song, “Do the Jellyfish.”
From 1966 comes Sting of Death, South Florida b-movie maestro William Grefe’s outrageous Creature from the Black Lagoon Everglades-style about an uptight scientist and partying teens being terrorized by a half-man/half-jellyfish.
To be more specific, the monster is a were-jellyfish!
The bullied Igor-like assistant to a swamp scientist in love with his boss’ daughter develops a means by which to transform himself into a jellyfish man – that looks suspiciously like a decorated wetsuit with an inflated plastic bag mask – by dunking his head in a computerized fish tank. Trust me; it doesn’t make much more sense when you watch the film but is amazing nonetheless.
One thing you need to know about these teens it begins stalking – they wanna dance! They wanna dance so much they practically jump off boats before they dock so they can start dancing on the pier. They wanna dance so hard they don’t even notice there’s a mutant jellyfish man in the swimming pool they’re dancing around.
That means they need some swanky tunes to dance to. That’s where the great Neil Sedaka comes in. Though I suspect if he were ever reminded of this tune from before he hit it big, he probably wouldn’t think it was so great. Who could ever be ashamed of a song with lyrics like this?
“Monkey, don’t be a donkey.”
“It’s nothing like the Monkey.”
“It’s isn’t funky or anything that’s junky.”
“It’s something swella!”
“The jilla-jalla-jellyfish!”
Ready to dance? You better be! Because after the jellyfish drags its first victim to her watery grave, you’re gonna do the jellyfish!
Got news? Click here to submit it!
Rock out in the comments section below.
Categorized:B-Sides
