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In our yoot, my very young cousin Weasel used to do this “nudies, nudies, nudies” chant to entertain his older brother and yours truly, the kid having not a clue as to what he was referring...which only made it funnier to us wise teens with the skin mags carefully hidden from prying elders.
In the past year or two, I became a fan of the flesh flicks of a more innocent era. We’ll leave it to my court-appointed shrink Dr. Paolone to analyze whether this is some sort of nostalgic reminiscence, a backlash against the graphic nature of hardcore, a result of not getting that toy bazooka I wanted for my eighth birthday (whattaya mean “symbolism”?) or the aftereffect of attempting to dry my hair in the microwave.
With YouTube and such, everyone’s a porn star today…is a stupid thing to say. Nonetheless, being a legitimate porn star—as in someone who performs for a director in commercial releases—is about, oh, a fadillion more times “acceptable” and mainstream than it was in the old days.
Runaway Rita may think she’s all radical and wild playing a human power strip in the next Gidget Does Compton video, and to a degree, she is. However, this is nothing compared to the girls who bared their bods in the early skin shows, even if their activities constitute PG-13, by today’s standards. It took an I-M-M-E-N-S-E amount of courage and desire to spit in the face of convention, for a doll to doff her duds in an era when such a move would get a gal branded the anti-Christ(ine) and scorned as the town harlot.
But what can be better than Weaz’s “nudies, nudies, nudies”? Nudies, nudies, nudies with cheesy monsters!!! Which brings us to this issue’s double dose of delightful debauchery, Kiss Me Quick and House On Bare Mountain.
Imagine your local childhood Creature Feature host and his cut-rate set, with the occasional cameo by a Dracula or Frankenstein’s creation look-alike; now, picture him doing his shtick surrounded by voluptuous strippers losing their linen. If your TV could also dispense cold beer, that would be absolute perfection, right? Well, “shapely senoritas shed their skivvies while Doctor Shock dilly-dallies” is pretty much the entire scenario of Kiss Me Quick, and that alone should have earned it an Eternal Best Picture Oscar. Stinkin’ Academy gave the 1964 award to My Fair Lady instead. Can you believe the injustice?
Quick (as does House) features females in their purest form, no ugly tattoos, piercings, freakish implants or the hideous scars and misshapen boobitude that often comes with the bolt-on breasts. No coke hoze among these Jos. In addition, the “mad doctor” bares a striking resemblance to Richard Hell—and, thankfully, nothing else—and his sidekick (Bob Cresse) is a pudgy, slightly effeminate man whose speech is an imitation of Stan Laurel.
Cresse is the more central character in House On Bare Mountain (1962), but this time the actor is doing a Jonathan Winters impersonation—in grandma drag. In my baby blues, the ladies of Quick are sexier, but if you prefer quantity over quality, drool no further than the House, where the emphasis is on multi-women scenes, including up to ten topless temptresses in the same shot. (Mind you, the Mountaineers aren’t particularly any less lovely than their Kissing counterparts; it’s just that the latter tend to bump and grind, whereas the former are more into showers and skipping rope.)
And though both features are played for laughs, HOBM is more straight comedy than horror-oriented. Be that as it may, a vampire, wolfman and Frankenstein’s monster show up at the climactic twist party and spike the punch to encourage more gals to take out their ta-tas. Bet you never saw one of these horror staples do THAT anywhere else!!!
So there you have it. Makeup with its end-lines clearly visible; high-saturation color that looks great 40-plus years later (though I doubt that’s true of the cast); monster costumes upon which you can almost see the label from the rental shop; slapstick so dumb you’ll laugh despite not wanting to, cool Sixties dancing: all the ingredients found in the very best entertainment. Still, I feel as though I’ve left one important selling point out. Oh, right…
NUDIES, NUDIES, NUDIES!
Author’s Note: If you have yet to do so, I recommend belting out an enthusiastic “nudies, nudies, nudies” completely out of the blue when alone and stuck in a long line. Sure, the chant may have struck you as juvenile dorkiness when you first read about it above. But you’d be shocked by how effectively it inspires those within earshot to nervously utter, “Here, why don’t you go in front of me.” REALLY works great during Communion services!
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