KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park

Episode 192: KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)

Theme: Musicians in Movies Month
Hosts: Oz & Curtis

This week, Oz and Curtis kick off Musicians in Movies Month with KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park — a movie marriage of Scooby-Doo + X-Men + Blade + Blade Runner + the end of Vacation, all while asking the musical question: “Oh, Beth… what can I do?” It’s a Hanna-Barbera-made-for-TV fever dream where KISS has superpowers, a disgruntled engineer builds an army of androids, and Six Flags Magic Mountain becomes the battleground for rock-and-roll supremacy. It’s charming, it’s goofy, it’s deeply 1978, and it absolutely feels like a movie KISS would rather you forget.

Join your two favorite “we are the only podcast covering this” scholars as they stomp through:

• Abner Devereaux — the world’s angriest Imagineer with a lab that goes 150 feet underground for reasons.

• Sam, Melissa, and the least threatening biker gang ever to grace a theme park.

• KISS using their mutant powers: teleportation, telepathy, eye lasers, and lion-roar growling.

• The android doppelgangers who play a concert so bad they nearly incite a riot.

• The final showdown featuring Universal Monsters, white gorillas, talismans, and KISS literally descending from the heavens.

From papier-mâché walls to optical effects that were outdated before they aired, Oz and Curtis unpack a TV oddity that’s weird, campy, and strangely lovable — a comic-book adventure starring four rock gods who act as well as they fight androids (so… not great, but with gusto).

Final Verdict

Oz — 5 Star Children
Curtis — 61 Unnatural Tongue Wags
Both — Still unsure what genre this movie even is… besides “Six Flags presents: Chaos.”