Even though I might lose credibility, I liked the 1990s comedy team of the Jerky Boys. Crafting a whole mythology that seduced young men with their Howard Stern-era humor, the duo (Johnny B. and Kamal, to the educated) and their prank calls were actually pretty funny when my younger brother played their tapes for me on the way to school.

Complete with their “Hey, jerky!” salutation, we amateurishly taped our own calls from friends’ bedrooms, dialing in to a momentary glimpse of cult stardom we thought we could have, too.

I recall our enthusiasm at the promo screening for The Jerky Boys movie at Oklahoma City’s Penn Square 8 in 1995, where copies of the soundtrack CD (featuring Collective Soul’s minor alt-radio hit “Gel”) were handed out.

But the movie was, in a word, terrible. I realized the Boys’ careers were done, and so was my fandom. These jerks had no more yuks to give. I gave my brother the soundtrack.

Yet 30 years later, my Amazon Prime menu has practically begged me to stream The Jerky Boys, pleading on its scabby knees. After a month, I could no longer resist.

Now, while it’s not the worst cinema of the ’90s as many claim, The Jerky Boys is definitely one of the laziest comedies I’ve ever seen. It even makes hemorrhoids jokes in the first few frames. Johnny B. and Kamal play two unemployed good-for-nothings in Queens. As you might have guessed, they make prank phone calls that are truly scatological in tone and volume.

While trying to look for a job, they create the character of Frank Rizzo, a mob enforcer who fucks with half of the cast of The Sopranos, to great comedic effect. Of course, this gets them in trouble with real mafioso Alan Arkin — let that settle a bit — who orders a hit on them.

In the 81-minute running time, the boys mimic anal sex in a public bathroom, Tom Jones performs “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” Paul Bartel discusses “piss clams” with Kamal’s “Egyptian Magician,” and Ozzy Osbourne manages alt-rockers Helmet. As you probably expected, the climax finds the boys pranking President Bill Clinton.

Oh, to be alive again!

In the hands of The Stoned Age (another of my brother’s favorite films) director James Melkonian, The Jerky Boys was too much, too soon, and he never directed again. Did he kill himself?

While I’ll always snort when I hear the phrases “silly ass,” “milky licker” and “lamby nipple chops,” the movie is so episodic that, if it were made today, it’d be a prestige-format limited series on Netflix and get canceled halfway though, prompting a re-evaluation on TikTok, leading a renaissance of prank calls.

Or maybe The Jerky Boys will be lost to time. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Comedically prescient as all get out, Eat the Rich is all about class warfare, rampant snobbery, low-class politics and, of course, the most sarcastic form of cannibalistic fine dining.

And I would have known about all these stiff-upper-lipped British themes, discussions and subtle comedy before now, if only my VCR worked the way it was supposed to in the early ’90s. Those were the days, when KOBC Channel 34, Oklahoma City’s UHF television station, broadcast religious programming in the morning, Western reruns in the afternoon and low-rent syndicated shows during prime time. When normal broadcasting went bye-bye around 11 p.m., KOBC became the best non-cable station around.

From Z-grade horror and UK sex comedies to rarely seen campy treasures from all around the world, you never knew what you were in for, and I was here for it … but it was past my bedtime. So I used my parents’ VCR to tape dozens of films off KOBC, with 1-900 sexy singles’ lines ads, Time-Life’s Mysteries of the Unexplained shills and Channel 34’s own sad weather reports.

Eat the Rich was one of those tapes, except the VCR only recorded the first five minutes before skipping to the 6 a.m. farm report. Never were cattle futures so sad! Even in the era of Blu-ray special editions, this British satire was impossible to locate until I found it on Amazon Prime. Even better, it was only $3.99 to rent. God save the Queen and her fascist regime!

Featuring bit-part players of England’s alt-comedy faction the Comic Strip and, even better, music from Motörhead, it’s off to a ripping start, well past the originally allotted five minutes. In the posh restaurant Bastards, the abusive patrons dine on cheetahs, koala and pandas.

After a row with a blowhard patron, put-upon waiter Alex (Lanah Pellay) is having not anymore, shouting, “Oi! Where’s my fuckin’ tip?” He’s thrown out by staff and, through a series of blows to his ego and his superego, becomes a leader of a group of nonmilitary anarchists who want to, undoubtably, eat the rich.

Concurrently, former boxer Nosher Powell is a faux politician, a lager-swilling lout who gets all the racist football fans in his corner because he brokers deals with his ill temper and his uncompromising fists. (Sounds like the politicians in Oklahoma — right, Markwayne?) As you can imagine, all these punked-up parties and fucked-up parts end up riotously dead, with arms dealer Lemmy coming out top. And why wouldn’t he?

Though the film was a massive flop on a grand scale, it’s still a Comic Strip Presents movie, giving the well-to-do British society two fingers way up. It’s directed by Peter Richardson, with alternative-comedy regulars such as Nigel Planer, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson in brash cameos. But Eat the Rich is comedian and cabaret singer Pellay’s show as Alex, with every line dripping in sarcastic wherewithal and venomous barbs that made me guffaw in all-knowing titters. Pellay is a true revelation, 30 years too late.

It took me three decades to find, watch and embrace this, but Eat the Rich is a properly digested and classically disposed comedy that needs to be rewatched, reassessed and, true to the movie, regurgitated. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Of all the wavering output of the early 1970s independent studios, most of the Apple Films catalog have been the hardest movies to find. Usually, I have to go for bootlegs, downloads and other shady dealings.

That’s strange, because it was part of the Beatles’ far-reaching Apple Corps, a freewheeling production company investing in records, books, electronics, and numerous Pop Art items that have filled the dumpsters of time. In the end, Apple Corps was a good deal gone bad, with really only the music remaining. Apple Films’ only big hit was Yellow Submarine, maybe also Let It Be. Other films like Born to Boogie and The Concert for Bangladesh are essentially forgotten.

Which brings me to Son of Dracula, the apparently world’s “First Rock-and-Roll Dracula Movie!” according to the advertisements. It’s a take on the vampire mythos starring songster Harry Nilsson and ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, who also produced. But that’s not the most surprising thing about this — instead, this is: It was produced by Jerry Gross, the guy behind Mondo Cane, Teenage Mother and The Black Godfather. The father of the backbeat and the father of cinematic slime, together again!

One dark and ultimately confusing night, Count Dracula is assassinated by an unseen hand and his midget friend. Afterward, Merlin (Ringo Starr, in perhaps a prequel/sequel to Magical Mystery Tour?), the guardian of the netherworld, is summoned to his vampiric concubine to give birth to an immediate scion.

A hundred years later, Nilsson’s new count, Count Downe —ugh — comes to town in a stylish motorcar wanting a lay of the land. After going over some astrological charts with Merlin, he heads to Piccadilly Circus, performs a rousing cut of  “At My Front Door” for the bar patrons and, appropriately, sucks the blood of the buxom maiden. So far, so good!

In case you were wondering, the backing band has Ringo on drums, as well as rock luminaries Peter Frampton, Leon Russell, Keith Moon and John Bonham. Where was that supergroup in the early ’70s and beyond? That’s the movie I’d like to see.

Son of Dracula instead shows Count Downe wanting a life-changing operation to make him a mere human. He does it, of course, to find his one true love. To mark the occasion, Downe has a party, with his hit song “Jump in the Fire” riding up the charts and heating up my speakers. During his preliminary operation, Dr. Van Helsing pulls Downe’s vampire teeth and commits other somewhat-laughable tortures.

This is where the movie loses me: Frankenstein’s monster attacks the Count, aided by a werewolf, a black cat, and, once again, a midget, for, I’m guessing, some revenge plot that seems to try everything while doing nothing. Look, by this time, I don’t know what’s happening, but the music is really good! True to form, it’s truly top-notch, top-shelf and above-board, as it should have been.

Directed by famed cinematographer Freddie Francis, the story and screenplay, the production values and the very bad acting — Nilsson’s nonexistent on-camera talent should live without you — is why most audiences avoided this in droves.

While Dracula and Frankenstein fanatics are not in any way clamoring for this home release, Son of Dracula has never been distributed on any home media format, leaving Beatles completists and Nilsson apologists in the lurch. It’s not very good, but I’d take a big box set with a pristine copy of the film, a 180-gram vinyl soundtrack and other associated memorabilia, like a swatch of Count Downe’s cape to make our own solo-Ringo dreams come true. While we’re at it, how about getting Ravi Shankar’s Raga reissued for my own personal edification … please? —Louis Fowler