Fast Walker, Klute & guest host Michele Russell judging other potential guest hosts.

Hiya, Halloween Homies!! Happy October! 🎃🖤🖤🖤

I am on set in Georgia, and will have to take a deeper dive into this episode after I wrap (and maybe have a nap…it’s been a long and VERY challenging day!) 

I did want to start showing y’all some of the winners from the "Any Jerk Can Host" contest and this was the first I came across. Hope it makes you smile, and I promise to update you with some juicy facts on this baby ASAP!

On another note…Have you heard the news?? NEXT FRIDAY!!! 🎃🖤🖤🖤🖤

****UPDATE***: Here’s a bucketload of info on this one for you, provided by our homie and JB historian Mr. Ben Nagy. Pasting exactly as it was sent to me, and just like that my tease atch for this one is complete. 😋 Thanks, Ben! ❤️

“So back in the early days of Drive-In Theater in November 1986 when Joe Bob started there (Nov. 7 if you want to mark your calendars, and the first flick he hosted was "Heated Vengeance")  there was a rotation of hosts: Michele Russell, Joe Bob, and Robert Osborne (no relation to Ozzy -- we think).

In June 1987, Joe Bob announced in his fifth anniversary celebratory newsletter that he had conned the Movie Channel into making him the full-time host of the Drive-In Theater segment. We weren't in the board meeting during the negotiations with the High Sheriffs, so we don't know for sure whether it was because of his strong stomach, stamina and the fact that he'd seen 55,000 drive-in movies (including triple-features) at the time and therefore had the constitution to carry on compared to the other hosts or that Robert and Michele had other things to do and JBB came in with the cheapest estimate since he was caught up with his trailer payments and the Toronado was fixed.

This particular segment aired April 29, 1988, when the Movie Channel was in the midst of auditioning the first "Any Jerk Can Host Drive-In Theater" contest, and this is the farewell to Michele, who was sort of a proto-mail-girl as she hosted before Joe Bob, sometimes read mail with him and tolerated his redneck ways when her segments bridged into JBB's. (She went on to do some movies, but her IMDB doesn't even list her tenure as an early Drive-In Theater host or her role in "Kickboxer" that she was headed to Thailand to shoot: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0751342/)

You can see a couple of Michele's solo bumper segments on YouTube and, according to a piece of viewer mail received in late 1989, Michele had gone off to host a travelogue show called "The Great Adventure."

The winner of this iteration of the  "Any Jerk Can Host Drive-In Theater" contest (there were multiple jerks who won the prestigious honor of helping JBB on air) ended up hosting the entire month of June 1988. It was Kent Phillips of Bloomington, Ind., and he helped Joe Bob host "Wild and Beautiful on Ibiza," on June 4, 1988; had a romantic night with his wife Theresa during "Moonshine County Express," on June 11, 1988; helped to host "Open House" on June 18, 1988; and juggled during the outtro to "Streetwalkin'" on June 25, 1988.

-- Ben (@BJ_Nagy on Twitter)”