Target Stores Sued For Being Weird
and Monstervision's Joe Bob Briggs looks at Carnosaur (1993)
"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for
7/16/93
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
Target just got sued from here to Nome, Alaska, for asking WEIRD questions on their job application.
Like one of the questions was, "Do you ever hear voices telling you what to do?"
And obviously they're searching for that psycho Norman Bates applicant who wants to spend the rest of his life in the back room at Target, breaking down cardboard boxes. But when you think about it, what if Norman Bates WAS applying for the job? His answer would be, "Yes, I occasionally hear the voice of my sainted mother."
He actually sounds MORE moral than somebody who says, "I don't listen to NOTHIN. I probly won't even listen to YOUR voice, Mr. Assistant Manager Jerk."
Another question they asked was "Have you ever been in trouble for your sexual behavior?"
Do they actually believe there are people who have NEVER been in trouble for their sexual behavior? Again, Norman Bates is the only guy who NEVER, EVER GOT IN TROUBLE FOR HIS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR. The rest of us go around screwing up all the time, getting married, getting divorced, falling in love, falling out of love, and lusting after our various neighbors' wives and husbands, LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE!
It makes you wonder about those people selling the Weed-Eaters, doesn't it?
Another question on the application was "Do you ever have trouble beginning or ending a bowel movement?" I'm NOT making this up. Sometimes I make things up, but this time I am NOT lying. This was on the Target job application.
Now what's the corporate concern here?
Staying gone too long on a break?
Making a good impression in the bathroom fixtures department?
And how long are you supposed to think about this question before you answer? I mean, I DON'T WANNA THINK ABOUT IT, okay? I'm sure it's happened, but I WOULD RATHER NOT DISCUSS IT.
"Do you ever fantasize about setting fires?" That's another one. My question about this one is, How many of the people who DO fantasize about setting fires would ALSO be so brain-dead that they would ADMIT IT on a job application?
Why don't you just come right out and say, "Do you intend to burn down this store? If so, we need to know now."
What's the arsonist gonna say? "Shoot. I didn't think you'd ask me that. I guess you got me."
And now it really gets weird. Target wants to know, "Have you ever considered becoming a florist?"
I'm sorry I didn't get to fill out this application before they stopped using it. I would have written down, "The other day, while trying to finish a bowel movement, I started to hear evil voices telling me to have sex with a florist. Do you have a match?"
Do we really need this information to decide who gets to sell cheap wicker patio furniture?
Who ARE these people?
And now, Joe Bob Briggs Looks At
Carnosaur (1993)
Carny, the Godzilla-like star of the OTHER dinosaur movie this summer, "Carnosaur," which cost $47 in special effects alone
Speaking of dinosaurs, it's time to review the big pre-historic special-effects thriller of the summer.
I speak, of course, of "Carnosaur."
I know that Jurassic Park got all the publicity. This is mainly because Steven Spielberg spent $47 million building his dinosaurs, while Roger Corman spent about 47 dollars on "Carnosaur." Other than that, though, exact same movie. Carny, as we call him, is like a midget Godzilla with a lethal lizard tail, but the scariest thing about him is that he grins exactly like Barney the Dinosaur. Look at THAT while he's chomping your gizzards. Even Raymond Burr would give up.
Okay, what we've got here is your basic genetic-DNA-gone-hog-wild flick, beginning with poultry research at a secret Nevada lab where Looney Tunes scientist Diane Ladd has figured out a way to put dinosaur genes in chicken eggs, sell them to unsuspecting American housewives, and watch all the women of America start getting pregnant and spitting out slimy green Jello molds with baby dinosaurs inside. It's not exactly clear WHY she does this, but it has something to do with cleansing the earth of man's pollution. But once the little meat-eating rascals get loose, they start growing at the rate of, like, three feet per minute of film, and pretty soon they're wiping out entire hippie communities. And the only people who can stop Carny from eating all Nevada and crossing over into Utah are Raphael Sbarge, a drunken chain-smoking security guard, and his blonde New Age mystic ecology-conscious girlfriend, Jennifer Runyon. We've got secret serum, we've got laser prisons, we've got battles to the death involving giant earth-moving equipment as Carny tries to make it to "the ancient dinosaur migration route called Dinosaur Highway." We've got, in short, a movie that can be released one week before "Jurassic Park" and make Roger Corman an even RICHER millionaire than he was before.
Twenty dead bodies.
No breasts.
Stomach-chewing.
Face-eating.
Limb-ripping.
La Maze dinosaur birthing.
Leg-chomping.
Hand-lasering.
Huge bloody green eggs.
Special green-tinted "Dinovision" camera.
Gratuitous goat embryo fluid.
Chicken Fu.
Autopsy Fu.
Flamethrower Fu.
Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Ned Bellamy, as a sleazy government research scientist, for saying "The last thing we need is a biotech panic about chickens";
Clint Howard of Ice Cream Man, for having his head eaten off by a dinosaur while chewing on a drumstick;
Diane Ladd, the crazed scientist, for saying "The earth was not made for us--the earth was made for the dinosaurs";
Harrison Page, as the shotgun-toting sheriff, for saying "I just want some peace and quiet" right before the dinosaur tail rips out his guts;
and Raphael Sbarge, as the hero security guard, for saying "It's heading this way" (yes, he says it) and "I hate wildlife!"
Two stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS
Republican Alert! The Edwards Drive-In in Azusa, Calif., has been closed down. Official excuse: "poor business." We find that a LITTLE hard to believe. New ownership needed! Let's save the place. Tim Murphy of El Monte reminds us that, without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and Joe Bob's world-famous newsletter, "The Joe Bob Report," write to Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.
Dear Joe Bob,
The Drive-In Movie Philosophy in Germany is highly underdeveloped. Could you please tell me the exact number (or give me a rough estimate) of the dead bodies and dead fish in the movie Total Recall, because my friend and I were expelled from the movie theater for shooting back with our toy guns, so we couldn't finish the statistics.
A long-time fan from Germany says thank you.
Yours,
Juliane Closhen
Hanau, West Germany
Dear Juliane:
If you don't quit this rough-housing in the theaters, we're gonna have to SEPARATE you people again. I mean it now.
Dear Joe Bob,
You're great! You're strange! Have you always been great? Have you always been strange? Were you left alone a lot as a child? How can I get a job like yours? Are you hiring?
Vonne Clinkscales
Arlington, Tex.
Dear Vonne:
I was smothered with affection when I was with a child. It's after I grew up that everyone left me alone a lot.
Dear Joe Bob,
Yesterday I decided to go to the ten-plex movie theater. So I looked through the Sunday paper movie reviews. I had seen Highlander II already and the reviewer had hated it. I liked it.
So the next movie he didn't like was a movie called The People Under the Stairs by Wes Craven. This movie rated no stars. I knew now this had to be a drive-in movie.
I went to the theater about five minutes early and when I walked in most of the people were children. So I walked out twice to make sure I had the right movie. Then I went back in and asked one of the two Mexican seventh-grade hoodlums if I had the right movie and they said yes. I found a seat, figuring the youngsters had sneaked in.
Then before the movie started all these people and their families came in--many with their offspring as young as four, five, six years old.
Now I am thinking, "Great, this is a Disney movie." Then I thought, "Well, maybe this movie is corny but fun like when I saw the movie 
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken when I was 5." That scared me at five, so I stayed. I guess you have seen this flick, too. I liked it, too.
Now to get to the point of my letter. Why would both yuppie and peasant bring their four or five or even six, seven, eight, nine or ten-year-old to a movie about sadist serial killers with a cellar full of flesh-eating freaks?
When I left the theater I felt very sad that these so-called intelligent adults can be so much of a bunch of a------s to take their four- or five-year-old to something that will give them nightmares for months and will remember forever.
This movie should have been shown at the drive-in.
Sincerely,
H. Michael Clancey
Eureka, Calif.
Dear Mike:
It's been my experience that, if the parent doesn't act like the flick is a big deal, then the kid won't think it's a big deal either. If, on the other hand, the parent says, "Now, Little Eddie, this movie might be TOO SCARY for you--cover up your eyes if you can't stand it," then the kid will be TERRIFIED, no matter what. It's all a matter of what signals he gets from the dimwit grown-ups.
Dear Joe Bob,
Can you please settle a small dispute between a friend and myself?
On the corner of Royal Lane and Harry Hines there is a huge pink billboard advertising Silk & Satin Modeling Studio. Now my friend, Colleen, says that the girl on the billboard is Barbara Dare. I say no way, Jose. Please help.
Tracy Chreene
Dallas
Dear Tracy:
That girl on the billboard has a face like a labrador retriever after botched plastic surgery. Barbara Dare is good-looking even for a porno star. No way, Jose Feliciano.
Dear Joe Bob:
I did not get to read your column about AIDS; I did see your follow-up column which appeared in the Boston Comic News in which you answer five apparently self-righteous, selfish and cruel attitudes about AIDS. I am sorry I was not able to lend my support in response to the original column, but thank you for addressing the issue--as you do all human issues, I'm sure, with empathy, compassion, insight, clarity, sanity, humanity, truth and common sense . . .
(I am not an AIDS victim, not do I even know anyone suffering from it . . . save a young man I only spoke to on the phone whose cat I found as a stray because the owner had been rushed to the hospital never to return and no one but he had worried about the cats.)
Catherine Chase
New Haven, Conn.
Dear Catherine:
The people who shun the AIDS victims will be the SAME people, after we find a cure, who will say, "I'm so proud of what this country did for the sick. America can conquer anything."
Watch when it happens.
© 1993 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved
For more of Joe Bob's pre-TNT reviews in Grapevine, Texas, go to his Drive-In Reviews Archive over yonder at www.Joe Bob Briggs.com
"Carnosaur" is available on video and on DVD
King Kong Lives! Or do you prefer Jurassic Park?
If you like "Carnosaur," the guy who lives in my closet recommends MonsterVision host segments for The People Under The Stairs
Elvis has left the building, and he took Joe Bob with him.
