The other day, some friends were talking about, improbably enough, Julie Newmar. Well, all right. Pretty lady in her day! Then I went to check out her IMDB listing to see how the years treated her.

Oh. Um . . . well.

There's, ah, Dance Academy from 1988. User comment?

"Certainly this is a bad movie, but gosh darn it I spent many an hour in my early teens watching and rewatching it. I always dreamed i could perform one of those cheesy fairytale romance dance number and be whisk someone way. And then there is a real gulity pleasure sappy romance ballad that is made completely for the sheer purpose of making girls and young fags (like moi) swoon with Glee!!!"

But at least she got to work with the legendary Galyn Görg.

1988 seems to have been good to Ms. Newmar, for she also appeared that year in Nudity Required, directed by John T. Bone. Outstanding. User comment?

"If want to see a classic Hollywood T & A film of the 80s, this is it. Add Julie Newmar, Troy Donahue, a final "Love the Bomb" Soviet element, and they make it a real Classic. Actually, very clever script -- I loved the auditions in bikinis!!!!"

This movie also featured Troy Donahue. God, I love IMDB.

1990 didn't leave Julie behind, though! That was the year she appeared in the not-at-all creepy John Derek movie, Ghosts Can't Do It. With Anthony Quinn. And, of course, Bo Derek.

Tagline: Only her desire can make him rise again.

But if I had to choose, I think my very favorite has to be this one: the movie known as Cyber-C.H.I.C. from 1989. There's a lot going on here, so much so that I think my brain gets cooked in its own overheated cerebrospinal fluid from trying to apprehend it all.

Let's start small, with the plot synopsis: A cybernetic agent is assigned to break up a drug smuggling ring.

Okay! How about the infamous user comments? Well . . . I'd better blockquote this.

I've got a little confession to make. I'm one of the easiest-to-please movie goers out there. I liked BALLISTICS: ECKS VS. SEVER. I liked THE TUXIDO. I enjoyed MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE so much I saw it almost to the point of having it memorized. Hell, I was even entertained by JOHNNEY MENOMIC. So what does all this have to do with ROBO C.H.I.C.? (Or Cyber Chick or whatever) Just this: when I think a movie was hard to sit through and it's not some intellectual, artsy, slice-of-life film, you know it's BAD. Half of what makes it so painful to watch is the fact that the actress who plays the title character tries WAY too hard to act like an emotionless robot. (Maybe she should've just tried acting "normal", snicker.) The rest of the cast isn't much better, everyone tries to be funny and ends up just being annoying. Of course the film does try to be intentionally goofy, as a spoof of ROBO COP, it's just that it ends up being so in an irritating way instead of a genuinely funny, entertaining way. It's been years since I saw this so I can't remember much about the plot or so many of the things wrong with it, just the general way it made me felt. What's more, the only ways I would ever see this a second time was if someone stuck a gun to my head or eles offered me a minimum of a thousand dollars and I knew he was good to his word. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!

There's a lot to love here, from THE TUXIDO to the title character (that would be the wonderfully named Kathy Shower, Playmate of the Year, 1986) who tries too hard to act emotionless to the fact that the guy basically doesn't remember anything about the movie anyway.

But all this, really, comes to nothing when you look at the cast list. This is where the movie achieves greatness on the page. Here is a cropped version for maximum holy-fuckness.

Kathy Shower
Burt Ward
Julie Newmar
Lyle Waggoner

I . . . I love this. I should note that most of these actors don't even have character names listed, except for Ms. Shower, who is the Robo-CHIC in question. There is, however, another actor listed who DOES have a character name given. The actor is benignly listed as one Mr. Peter Johnson. His character's name?

I have been living on this Earth only for the moment I read it. Peter Johnson's character's name is "Gimp, the Satan's Onion."

This is the best series of words I've ever read in my life. I may quit writing in honor of the magnificence of such a phrase. Enjoy the whole troubling history, courtesy of IMDB, the site that has basically made humor blogs unneccessary.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0628325/