How Joe Bob Briggs became a film critic, or as he said, "What?"

(In honor of the 40th anniversary of his first ever movie review, which is officially January 15, here’s an article where some guy named John Bloom introduces the world to our favorite Drive-In critic, Joe Bob Briggs. Also included is that debut review for “The Grim Reaper”…what a way to start!! 😋 Below is a rough transcription of both, because reading the picture version isn’t the most convenient thing ever. 😉❤️❤️)

How Joe Bob Briggs became a film critic, or, as he said, 'What?'

By JOHN BLOOM

    Joe Bob Briggs once told me that he had seen 6,800 drive-in movies, but I told him that was impossible because nobody 19 years old could possibly have seen 6.800 drive-in movies, but Joe Bob said, no, I was wrong, because he was counting triple features. Then Joe Bob launched into this long story about how once he'd driven up to Chillicothe, Okla, just to go to this one drive-in where they start at dusk and show 12 movies every night. And I said there aren't enough hours in the nighttime to see 12 movies in Chillicothe, Okla. in one night, and Joe Bob said, "You hant seen these movies."

    Joe Bob Briggs is the kind of guy who can make "haven't" into a one-syllable word, but except for that, I like him fine. He has seen more drive-in movies than anyone in history, most of them from the
comfort of his '68 baby-blue Dodge Dart, which actually he didn't buy until 76, because before that he had a Packard. Joe Bob can't remember what year the Packard was, because of that night in Texarkana at The Ark-La-Tex Twin when a dough-head in a Barracuda crunched his rear door and scared Dede Wilks half out of her halter top. (I forgot to tell you that Dede Wilks was in the back seat. Dede was Joe Bob's third wife, or at least he says she was, but I think Joe Bob has forgotten a couple before her. That's why I seriously doubt that Joe Bob is really 19 years old. I know this because one night Joe Bob was trying to impress me with a description of his latest girlfriend, and he dropped a reference to Mamie Van Doren that I can't repeat here.)

    Anyway, I got to know Joe Bob
Briggs one night at the Century in Grand Prairie when Joe Bob went up to theman behind the concession stand and started complaining because Joe Bob had asked for a Tub o' Corn and he'd gotten all the way back to the car before he realized he had a Barrel o' Corn With Butter. (Joe Bob never gets butter because he says it messes up his upholstery.) I remember this one particular evening because we were in the middle of an all-night Bela Lugosi marathon and I was anxious to get back for "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire.“ So to make a long story short. I said, 'Here, mine's un-
buttered. Take it." And Joe Bob thought that was about the nicest thing anyone ever said to him.

    For the rest of that night. Joe Bob
and I sat in the lawn chair section, and Joe Bob told me all the scenes of "Zombies on Broadway“ before they happened. (May Ellen Masters didn't care much for Joe Bob alter that, though, and I can't really blame her, since she waited four hours for a Tub o' Corn and finally got so mad that she drove off in Joe Bob's car with the speaker still hanging on the window. I always wondered what happens when you do that. The speaker ripped the plate glass right out of the frame, and ever since then Joe Bob has had to jab the window
roller with an ice pick before it will come loose and work right. I forget what happened to May Ellen.)

    So after that I started going to the drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs on a more or less regular basis. I say "more or less' because I think May Ellen went with her one time after that, but Joe Bob was so mad about the plate glass that he took her to see "Kung-Fu Waitress”, which was rated X and had a lot of breather scenes, and May Ellen's father was preacher: That's the kind of guy Joe Bob is.

    One night after Joe Bob got rid of May Ellen, I said, "Joe Bob, you need to get a job". Joe Bob didn't say anything because he was prying off his radiator cap with a Boy Scout knife.

    "Joe Bob, I mean it." I said, "you're the world's foremost authority on drive-in movies and what good has it done you? All you've got to show for your life is a mouth full of those little slivers that get between your teeth and gum when you eat popcorn.

    Joe Bob raised up from his radiator. "I know how to get those out of your mouth." he said." That's what I mean, Joe Bob, you know everything."   

     Job Bob lifted his Caterpillar Tractor cap, ran his hand through his hair, and bent back over the engine so he could spit into the air filter.

     'I've got the answer. Joe Bob." I persisted. 'I know the one job you're qualified for.
    

   Joe Bob started banging on the carburetor with the wrong end of a Phillips screwdriver, so I had to yell over the commotion.

     "YOU'RE A FILM CRITIC!"

     For a long time Joe Bob didn't an-
swer. Finally he straightened up and said,

    "I don't know from film but I know movies. I don't know from critic but I know what I like.”

     "Precisely." I said. "You are the avatar of popular culture, the personification of the Drive-In Everyman, a connoisseur and a prince of a fellow. You must write.
You must transform the mass consciousness into a critical art form."

    Joe Bob said, "What?"

    So I explained it to him again, and he gave me his characteristic expression of perplexed contentment. "Think about it,“ I said.

    Joe Bob never said yes or no after
that, and I guess I would have forgotten about him altogether - until last week something extraordinary happened. I
came to work one day and there on my desk was Joe Bob's first critical essay: It had obviously been left sometime during the night. (Joe Bob rarely stirs during daylight hours, which is why he always gets to Bill King's Brake-O at 6:05.)

   I read the manuscript with growing amazement. All my assumptions were correct. Joe Bob not only had style; he had the authentic and noble honesty of the American midwestern yeoman. it took me
a while to find Joe Bob again, but a few nights later I finally saw him at the Astro on Loop 12, and without even saying hello, he said,
"What was that you said again about being critical?"

     I hired Joe Bob on the spot, as the first Times Herald Drive-in Movie Critic.I told him he was going to be as famous as Vincent Canby or Pauline Kael or John Simon.

     Joe Bob said, "What?"

     I told Joe Bob that he would start reviewing movies on Friday, Jan. 15. 

    Joe Bob said OK.

John Bloom is the Times Herald movie critic.

JOE GOES TO THE DRIVE-IN

’Grim Reaper': It's got some teeth to it.

   By Joe Bob Briggs 

 "The Grim Reaper" is this movie
about a guy who will use a meat cleaver when he has to, but usually he just uses his mouth. (I know what you're thinking: you're thinking vampire. So was I. But
you're wrong.) I won't tell you the whole deal, but the Grim Reaper is not a monster; he's a believable human being who likes to kill people and then chew on them for a while.

     There are these three guys and three girls who go to a Greek island on vacation. But, boy, do they have a surprise coming! The Grim Reaper has already killed off everybody and stashed them in a cave to make meals for the worms. All that's left is this dark, spooky, old lady who roams around through an abandoned city and doesn't even answer when the guys say things like, "Excuse me, maam, but can you tell us why nobody's here?"

    Then one of the guys gets his headhacked off, and we get a good look at the Reaper. Holy (Editor's note: word deleted!) The great thing about the Reaper is that he looks like he just crawled out of a Dempster Dumpster. His long white hair is dry and tangled and wind-blown. and his face is pitted and creased, and he stands about 6-10 and weighs 260, and he's like all the psychos because he walks real slow. Now get this: The Reaper starts having flashbacks, and we find out he's a cannibal. He had to be, though, because him and his wife and their baby were lost at sea on this raft, and after several days the baby died, and the Reaper started licking his chops over that toddler meat. The mother tried to save the kid, but the Reaper turned gonzo and knifed her in the stomach. I think that, sociologically speaking, this episode could explain much of the Reaper's later behavior.

    There are three really great scenes in this movie: one in a house where the girls (including a blind girl) are left alone, wondering when the Reaper is going to show his molars; another in the Reaper’s crypt, where he has a collection of about 50 moldy bodies; and the final scene
when the Reaper chases a cute blonde (Tisa Farrow) and the blind girl through a creaky old mansion.

     Besides Tisa Farrow, the movie stars Saverio Vallone as the guy who falls in love with her. It was directed by an Italian named Joe D'Amato, who does some great skin flicks starring Laura Gemser. but, sorry, no flesh in this one.
   
   Joe Bob gives "The Grim Reaper"
three stars for scary and two and a half stars for story.

Joe Bob Briggs is not the Times Herald movie critic.