The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters

This was (probably) meant for TV. There were three separate shows on the video I saw.

Slide whistles, boops on heads, keystone kops style violence, and goofy outfits.

It looked like a Mack Sennet comedy with sound.

Steckler filmed this in and around his home using his friends and family mostly as cast. The anarchic wildness made this a trip from start to finish.

Steckler had a habit of making things up as he went along. And he was BRILLIANT at it.

My son liked this film enough to ask me to find the DVD so we don't have to deal with our worn out tape anymore.

This is a great film for the kids.

Ray Dennis Steckler put together a trilogy of comic shorts modeled on the Bowery Boys series, with impressive results if you're not expecting any sort of masterpiece. In the first story, the kids, a motley bunch of toddlers and adults dressed as teenagers, head to Coleman Francis's house to do some housework. Extraterrestrials start picking them off, a green grasshopper in a flying saucers claiming the main kid, so it's up to doofy Steckler (acting as Cash Flagg) to find a way to save the day.. In the second part, the kids get a job doing housework for falling star Carolyn Brandt. Some bumbling villains kidnap her, but her sleazy agent says she's not worth the ransom. Thus it falls to Steckler once again to intervene and rescue both Brandt and her career. This episode also features a very annoying adult who spends a little too much time with the kids and sings remarkably uninspired songs about them on an acoustic guitar. Not a person I would trust with my own offspring, but Steckler probably couldn't afford high-end babysitters. In the final part of the trilogy, Steckler heads into the wrong side of town to buy some sodas on a hot afternoon, instigating a rumble. They decide to settle their differences with a cross-country race. A funny French saboteur, hired by the rival team, does their best to put the Kids' star athlete out of the – ahem – running, and somehow we're led into a startling monster attack sequence. This conclusion seals tight the possibility that Steckler was having a grand time making these shorts, possibly never intended for theatrical release. In a way, Lemon Grove Kids exists as an interesting home-movie documenting the styles and culture of the early 1960's made by a barely experienced filmmaker, who had only been in the business for a few years. Although I enjoyed this film quite a bit, I'd only show it to children I really hated. Some of the women-children boast some surprisingly sexy outfits, plus a certain amount of the humor veers toward the sophisticated. Brandt appeared in a number of Steckler's films. Steckler fans with be happy to see hero Ray Pfink in a cameo.

Most of Ray Dennis Steckler's films are so energetic that even if they aren't very good (which is usually the case), they manage to entertain on that same odd level Edward D. Wood, Jr. established a few years before. That being said, "The Lemon Grove Kids" is a surprisingly entertaining anthology (three episodes) aimed at a young audience, but I must say I found a lot of it amusing myself (and I'm 22); Steckler has a real repoire with his actors, as they bumble about in traditional Scooby-Doo fashion, as they encounter space aliens, mummies, and kidnappers (they don't show any signs of humiliation at the sheer wackiness of the material). The first episode has the Lemon Grove Kids cleaning up an eccentric old man's ("Red Zone Cuba" auter Coleman Francis!) house, only to find it's been invaded by a grasshopper alien and a Vampira look-alike (played by Carolyn Brandt!); the second episode has the Kids cleaning the mansion (also used in "The Thrill Killers") of a washed-up Hollywood starlet (Brandt again), who is accosted by a dim-witted duo looking to score a ransom; and the third (and weakest) episode has two rival gangs competing in a cross-country (but more like cross-town) marathon. In general, this is moderately entertaining stuff for kids of any age (sure beats "Barney"), and makes me wonder why Mr. Steckler didn't do more of this type of thing.

5.5/10

This is a very bad film, though as far as bad movies go, there are still worse--though not much worse! The Lemon Grove Kids film is definitely one of the most amateurish and dopey films I have ever seen and it looks like a home movie, though because it doesn't take itself too seriously, I couldn't completely hate it.

The Kids are a very bad knockoff of the Bowery Boys--though it begs you to wonder why anyone would want to do this in the first place?! One of the "actors" is Cash Flagg as a Huntz Hall-like idiot. According to Flagg's impersonation, all you need to do is wear a baseball cap, make stupid faces and walk around like an idiot. The film's knockoff of Leo Gorcy wasn't much better. Like some of the silliest Bowery Boys films, this one has monsters, a rival gang, etc. but is squarely placed in the 1960s with the music and fashions.

The bottom line is that with terrible music, rotten dubbing, horribly exaggerated action and slapstick sound effects, this film is a dud on every level and would probably appeal only to small children and bad movie fans. All others approach at your own risk.

FYI--Cash Flagg is the stage name for Ray Dennis Steckler. He also appeared in such great films as "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?" and was equally pitiful there. Also, there is a homage to the previous film RAT PFINK A BOO BOO--look for it after the gorilla appears.

The trilogy of short films by Ray Dennis Steckler (aka Cash Flagg) were released as a feature titled "the lemon grove kids" the 3 shorts shot on the road he lived at the time (lemon grove)with his family and friends are still as fresh and vibrant as they were nearly 40 yrs ago. The first short "The lemon grove kids meet the green grasshopper and the vampire lady from outer space" revolves around a spooky old house and the disappearence of some of the lemon grove kids themselves, the old man who lives there is suspected but he is being controlled by the evil vampire lady who is out to take over the world. The second short is about a race between local hoods and the lemon grove posse and the chance of them being movie stars (the lemon grove kids go hollywood) and the final short is the Lemon grove kids. A small little review isnt enough time to do justice to this mans work, but check out "Wild Guitar","Ratfink a Boo-Boo","The Thrill Killers","Blood Shack","super Cool" to name but a few.