Rat Pfink A Boo Boo

Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (originally to be called Rat Pfink and Boo Boo, but the title got screwed up post-production) is an unhilairous but otherwise somewhat uniquely interesting comedy exploitation superhero musical beach picture, with a guy who does a lot of lip-synching to bad songs while strumming his Wild Guitar. It’s hip, Dad.

His girlfriend is the awesomely lanky, slightly chubby, and always somewhat slouching C.B. Beaumont (Susan Brandt), who sings along with him, and then gets kidnapped by a chain-wielding gang of wild, whacko weirdoes, who keep calling her up pre-kidnapping so they can ask if she’s there.

“C.B. Beaumont. The name is C.B. Beaumont.”

Or something like that.

You’ll forgive me, but I’ve slept since the whole seventy-two minutes of this gutter-level unmasterpiece unspooled in front of me. I suppose it has roughly the same appeal as, say, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Not to be taken seriously, in other words.

On the other hand, Ray Dennis Steckler—whose films (Such as The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies) all bear the same mad, mid-Sixties rock ’n’ roll surf picture twitching-on-the-beach weirdness, along with handsome young all-American Johnny Hunkensteins who most assuredly were not on their way to Vietnam—gets in a few shots. There’s a whole stretch leading up to the midsection which actually puts one in mind of other bad-to-rotten exploitation gutter films resurrected and kept alive by Something Weird Video (which might very well be defunct—I’m not certain and would have to check—but Something Weird founder, impresario, CEO, whatever, Mike Vraney has sadly passed to that great big grindhouse in the sky).

The days of "Reel Wild Cinema" and Sandra Bernhard hosting pared-down versions of these barnyard cinema transgressions against good taste are thirty years or so in the past, and only to be enjoyed now via the modern magic of YouTube. Oh, it is to weep, laugh, or watch Rat Pfink ride around in a bad ski mask and a jockey shorts/pajamas combo that looks as if he ripped them from a Goodwill clothing bin.

So anyway, after some exploitation-film buildup with weird angles and whatnot, C.B. Beaumont is captured by the cruel gang, who noticeably don’t commit any acts of lewd, unsavory, or untoward behavior toward her physical person (we’re trying to be delicate here), but do inspire Johnny Guitar (character name actually Lonnie Lord, played by Ron Haydock, while C.B. is played by Susan Brandt, as previously noted) to pick up and get going. He transforms—after forty minutes of standard exploitation crime-drama fare—into a superhero parody with really tacky costumes which, at the time, were meant to spoof the success of the Adam West and Burt Ward dynamic television duo on "Batman," which, like "Dark Shadows" and "Star Trek," was one of the interstellar cult-icon classics of the mid-Sixties TV era. ("The Outer Limits," "The Twilight Zone," "Thriller," and "One Step Beyond" all aired either in the late Fifties or early Sixties.)

Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1966) SUB ITA

The costumes are pure camp—and not even good camp. His sidekick, Titus Twimbley (Titus Moede), a.k.a. “Boo Boo,” has some weird horn things with flashing little Christmas lights. They ride into action on the “Ratcycle,” which is a motorbike with a sidecar like in old WWII movies, and duke it out with the “Chaingang,” rescuing C.B., and then un-rescuing her again when—no joke—a guy in a gorilla suit escapes, or something, from his (by implication) gay, Clockwork Orange-style bowler-hat-wearing handler, who brings him around. I’m not sure what for.

At the end, everyone goes down to the beach and shimmy-shammies and looks affluent and well-fed and American and has hot bodies and rock ’n’ rolls. And one knows that is rather the point of it all, any damn way.

By the way, the actual song “Rat Fink,” made famous because the Misfits covered it, is not in this movie’s soundtrack. Another song with a refrain of “You is a rat pfink!” is played instead. To correct that, I have embedded the original Misfits cover, which has a certain perfection about it, below.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find a phone booth. And these days, that’s no easy feat. Ciao, baby.

Rat Fink

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