Drive-In Horror Legend Brings Back "A Very Joe Bob Christmas" At Shudder
It's been years since the legendary Joe Bob Briggs, the world's premiere drive-in movie critic, had a regular spot on cable tv. In the 90's he grew in popularity and renown with his MonsterVision series on TNT, but before that there was Drive-In Theater on TMC. Thanks to the fine folks at Shudder.com Joe Bob was brought back "for one night only" for a special marathon event at Shudder.
The only problem... the incredible demand for Joe Bob literally broke the servers at Shudder and many people were unable to watch the live event. The live marathon is split up into episodes featuring each movie and is still available at Shudder along with the Thanksgiving live marathon special Dinners Of Death. Thankfully, the Thanksgiving livestream went off without a hitch and thanks to the incredible, initially server-destroying demand, it looks like Joe Bob will become a fixture at the horror streaming service.
If you are a Joe Bob fanatic (like me) or just a b-horror/schlock cinema buff (also, like me) then it might just be worth your while to try to catch the upcoming Shudder special A Very Joe Bob Christmas, if you know what I mean, and I think you do... The special Christmas event will occur live this Friday, December 21 beginning at 9pm ET/6pm PT. According to an announcement via Twitter by Last Drive-In co-star Darci the Mail Girl, Joe Bob will be back in 2019 with a regular weekly show. For those of us who have missed him in the nearly two-decade interim since he appeared on TNT's MonsterVision, it's stupendous news.
In addition to his horror hosting gigs at TCM, TNT and now Shudder, Joe Bob has been a working film critic, stand up comedian and written a handful of excellent books on the subject of fine b-movie cinema, not to mention writing some incredibly insightful and fairly, damn, funny political and cultural pieces at Taki's magazine, a libertarian webzine.
This will be the first "Very Joe Bob Christmas" special since the MonsterVision era and Briggs explains the reason for the special of the season, “In December we have a very special way to fill that void felt by American households ever since ABC stopped airing the ‘Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey’ Claymation special.” Who needs long-eared Christmas donkeys when you've got a movie guru from the Longhorn State, anyway?
More great news for Joe Bob fans overseas, the Shudder service (only $4.99/mo. or $3.99/mo. if you choose annual payment) is now available in Canada and the UK. During the first live events, Shudder was only available to US users. Apparently, Shudder will be opening its doors in Australia as well, but for all others, I can confirm I've had no issues watching Shudder from overseas using a VPN.
As with the previous live specials at Shudder, there are sure to be special guests, interviews, the infamous "drive-in totals" (which I once read Joe Bob hates having to do despite their having become a trademark) and buckets of fake blood so tune in and remember, "the drive-in will never die."
Joe Bob is the reason I subscribe to Shudder. There's lots of other great stuff to stream as well, but that's all just icing on the cake.