THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF (1973)

This title brings a flood of nostalgia and memories of sitting on my grandmother's living room floor while glued to the TV set. Her house, which was where I grew up, was located across the street from the state hospital on Foothill Road. Back then, there was a constant routine, where I'd be out in the back yard digging holes with salad spoons and playing with my pet turtle, and then I'd hear the siren from up the street and move into the security of our home. That meant that someone had escaped the hospital, and that it was a good idea to move inside and lock the doors. I became a very pale child thanks to the crazies who regularly roved our neighborhoods, and KCOP kept me occupied in those days.

One of my most vivid recollections from childhood occurred one Sunday afternoon while I was parked in front of the TV while my grandmother was in the kitchen making dinner. I can't remember what I was watching, but I saw a bald man in a hospital gown pass by the window behind our large television set. He was shaking and covered in blood. I called to my grandmother, who stepped away from the stove to see what the matter was. She looked out the window and saw this gory escapee ascending our driveway toward our garage. She frowned and shook her head in the sort of way she would when I'd made a minor mess. So she called the hospital, grabbed her broom and went outside to SHOO THE MANIAC AWAY. I protested but she went out anyway. I stood in the living room, stooped down behind the window sill, watching the whole thing. When confronted by my grandmother, the trembling nut job merely turned back around and wandered down the incline of our steep driveway, and into the arms of a few nurses who had parked on the edge of our property in a state hospital station wagon. Apparently the guy had gotten out of his wing and jumped through a plate glass window in a lobby and no one had noticed until my grandmother called.

Anyway, "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf" was one of my favorite features that I'd see with some regularity around that period. After searching for a VHS of the film for a while, I was told that it was actually never put out on tape. Truly a shame. But you can watch it on YouTube, thanks to Jeff1969z, who also put up the "Rock Devil Rock" episode of "CHiPs," starring Donnie Most!