I watch "A Christmas Story" every Christmas Eve like clockwork. I can quote most of the dialogue and I laugh every time the boy gets his tongue stuck to the flag pole. I like Bob Clark. He must be a nice enough guy, I mean he directed "A Christmas Story" so he cant be THAT mean spirited. I haven't seen "Porky's". Ive heard it was funny enough just quite a bit different than my beloved christmas film. All of this was fine. Until I rented "Baby Geniuses". Why did I rent this film. For one, I hadnt seen it. It COULD be good. Couldnt it? After all, it was directed by the guy who makes me laugh each and every December 24th. "Baby Geniuses" could be a fun, cute, breezy romp pitched towards kids, aimed at adults. And then I watched the damn thing. Is it bad? No. Is it a horrible, un-funny, cringe-inducing experience. Yes. Yes it is. Its so bad on so many levels that the badness of the film cant even be measured. I sat on my living room couch and watched the travesty that played before me. I reneted it for 99 cents. Thats not cheap enough. Bob Clark should pay me to watch his film.

This was several years ago.

Three weeks ago I'm reading the New York Times. It's Friday, there are some new movies out. It's the end of summer so they are all probably bad. I scan the paper past "Anacondas" and such and spot a small review.

"Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2"

Starring: Jon Voight (!?!?!?!)

Directed by: Bob Clark

Could this be. Could the movie that I had watched that fateful afternoon have spawned a sequel starring a good actor and directed by the man who made "A Christmas Story"?

Apparently...yes.

Well what happened?!

After making a couple of ultra-low budget flicks in the 60s that almost nobody saw, Clark graduated to making low-budget horror ficks in the 70s, the best of which was "Black Christmas", which is much better than the 20 or so imitations which come out each year. ( Two films don't exactly make a Christmas theme.)

From there, he went into his most-distinguished and/or profitable era, making reasonably good films, such as the Sherlock Holmes' thriller "Murder By Decree", an adaptation of the play "Tribute" with Jack Lemmon and your beloved "A Christmas Story". He also made the first two "Porky's" movies, which made him some bucks and gave him some clout, and then he started making big-budget flicks with big stars which mostly turned out laughable ("Rhinestone" with Stallone and Dolly Parton and "Over the Top", an arm-wrestling, daddy-loves-his-son movie with Stallone again!)

As ridiculous as those last two sound, they're probably better than anything he's made since, but I wouldn't really know since the only ones I saw were "Turk 182!" (decent) and "Loose Cannons" ( a cop comedy with a good cast but not much else.)

So it seems that we should have started mourning Clark almost 20 years ago ( I realize, E, you couldn't have done that.) Maybe we should just be thankful the guy made a few watchable films and one of your holiday favorites.

I didn't see A CHRISTMAS STORY on original release, but I don't remember it causing much of a fuss when first released. It has since become a cult film and Christmas perennial. I've seen it since its original theatrical release on video and last year when it was revived on the big screen by a rep house and have never been able to really warm up to it.

I remember when PORKY'S came out and always gave it a wide berth because I suspected it was just another no-mind teenage comedy, but in recent years I finally watched a copy of video and thought it was hilarious. Probably his best film.

I am not a huge fan of the horror genre, but did get a chance in recent years to catch up with BLACK CHRISTMAS & DEATH DREAM/DEAD OF NIGHT. Both were ok. I think John Marley was in BC. He was the actor who played the film studio head "Woltz" in THE GODFATHER who wakes up one morning and finds his prize horse's head sitting on his bed.