2008 Wonderfest Live Show featuring the Robot Monster

For the 2008 Wonderfest Live Show Doc Gangrene and crew hosted the b-movie classic "Robot Monster." The Exotic Ones played before, during, and after the show. As always, the doc had the assistance of Nurse Moan-eek, and the one and only Bob Burns was on hand as the special guest of the evening. Bob gave his memories of Robot Monster to the crowd and talked about owning the helmet from the original film, and also showed a clip from a special 3-D version of Robot Monster in which he starred (the crowd were all given 3-D glasses upon entering the theater). As the main movie started rolling it was interrupted by a real "Ro-man" - and Doc Gangrene was startled to hear that the visitor from another planet was actually very interested in his assistant, Moan-eek. Well, Doc decided he couldn't let this alien ruin his fun, so he enlisted two fellow scientists (John Goodwin and Frank Dietz) to help. One of them had in tow what appeared to be a simian creature (which looked suspiciously like Dave Hodge in Planet of the Apes makeup from John Goodwin's makeup session earlier that day) - the doctors all conferred and decided they could learn some clues to defeat the Roman from this specimen. Together they built a similar control helmet to the one Roman wore, a Calcinator Death Ray Helmet. As the movie wrapped the show was invaded by Ro-man himself (Bob Burns wearing the original helmet, no less) - and he confronted the Doc. He was talked out of destroying the world, but he did destroy Doc Gangrene's helmet, much to the Doc's chagrin! The gang all tossed out goodies to the crowd while the Exotic Ones played a Robot Monster song, and afterwards the crowd was able to get photos with Ro-man. A grand time, and thanks again to Wonderfest for allowing us to host the event! - photos by the Wonderfest photo staff