Well, dip me in beer batter and deep-fry me to a golden brown

Royal Dano did not say that in Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but he did say, “What in tarnation* is going on here?”

I watched about five minutes of the movie. The synopsis is (surprise!) about things from Outer Space that assume the costumes of giant clowns and shoot people with popcorn and cotton candy guns. The first Earther taken is Farmer Green’s bloodhound.

KKFOS was filmed in Watsonville, Calif., and at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Rotten Tomatoes said 71% of 17 of surveyed critics gave KKFOS a positive review. Seventy-one percent of 17 is 12.07, so one critic must have had mixed feelings about the flick.

Suzanne Snyder played Debbie Stone. SS was 20 at the time.

Grant Cramer was the hero. He was 27.

Royal Dano was 66 when the movie was made. Dano was a longtime character actor from 1950-1993. He died in 1971 at age 71. Dano was in at least 100 movies and TV shows, from Undercover Girl in 1950 to The Dark Half in 1993.

Watsonville is in Santa Cruz County. By 2010 census figures, 18.6% of families and 20.4% of total population lived below the Federal poverty line.

* Tarnation appears to be a variant of darnation, itself a taboo deformation of damnation, in the same way that darn is an alteration of damn. Tarnation, however, seems to have been influenced by tarnal!, another mild oath that is derived from the adjective eternal—as used in eternal damnation! for instance. The taboo deformations darn, darnation, and tarnation have been used in New England since the late 1700s.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition Copyright © 2013 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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