Being the second generation child of a Ukraine family, but still a good-ol’ boy type, being involved in sports during his high-school years, he moved his family out of Chicago and promptly got involved in the local Channel 13 [WVTV] in Tampa. He worked there for 30 years. His son helped him out on almost every project. And was very fond of his father. He became director of The Mary Ellen Show.
He was the producer and director of the local “Shock Theater” airing on Friday nights at 11:30. He also acted as “Mr. Wilson”, the unseen next door neighbor to the show’s host, Shock Armstrong, ” The All American Ghoul” [An extremely big coincidence considering the similarities to Mr. Wilson on the later hit sitcom Home Improvement]. After three years on the air, there was a petition involving kids of the area over the show’s end, showing the impact it had on the local generation, which successfully got it reinstated.
Right on the tail-end of the 60s’, he created the Mix Ten production company with the help of some of his workers at WTVT, making Willy’s Gone [Which is now sadly lost, due to bad distribution and only 6 prints existing at the time], dealing with race-relations.
He had a deal with the government of Mexico based off a script by local-Tampa writer Gary Garret [Who would later write Satan’s Children], that never seemed to come through at this time.
After that, he became the director of WTVT’s ” Breakfast Beat” [Previously known as The Ernie Lee Show].
Joe had a noticeable tactic he used on all [two] of his films, which involved each person he convinced at the WTVT to help him with the movie offering 1,000 bucks each into help the film’s budget and become part of the company, since many had dreams of the film at least taking off a career and making Joe the front name for the Tampa area.
Probably his most infamous film is the notorious “Satan’s Children”, which can actually be found on DVD along with Asylum Of Satan. It’s become the butt of the internet age jokes for it’s many themes of “homophobia”, misogyny and incest. But what I find funny is how they could pass these off as making Joe seem homophobic, misogynistic, satani-phobic [?], and anti-incestuous [Which is probably a good thing] without realizing how much of a loving, truly caring person Joe was.
Satan’s Children follows Bobby [ Stephen White, most noticeable as Lester Mcgill on Carnivàle, but also playing in the Roger Corman directed cult classic Ga-s-s-s, and in Walking Tall: Final Chapter] traumatized dealing with the sexual advances of his [admittedly attractive] sister, and the torment from his parents, flees, telling them to “Go to Hell” [Nice foreshadowing for later] but then gets raped by a seemingly friendly stranger named Jake, and is found in a ditch by a pack of Satanists, who then abduct him into their cult.
Trouble arises when the girl in the club who’s caring for him and falling for is chagrined by her lesbian lover Monica, and Simon, the leader of the cult who has returned from doing ‘evil stuf’. They bury her up to her neck [Beach sanded style] in the dirt and force ants on her. Bobby escapes. And it all escalates in true revenge-style justice as Bobby gets vengeance on his family and Jake, and is accepted into the occult as his sister burns on the cross which eye-catchingly graces the poster cover-art. What a happy ending!
But what I find interesting is that many people seem to forget many of the details. Just because he was involved in a film seeming very narrow-minded, and he was involved in a very conservative state and in the South, it doesn’t mean he was that. I know that sentence makes no sense, but follow with me here.
Satan’s Children seems to have this feel that NOBODY wins. It’s a dog-eat dog world. And in the end, The Satanists WIN! The time Bobby is the happiest is as they’re torching his sister [SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT] on a cross and he’s resting next to the love of his life.
Plus, Joe wasn’t the main writer on the film. Sure, supposedly he co-wrote somewhere in, but I highly doubt that the exploitation elements were all of his. Gary Garret wrote most of the film.
In fact, when Mark Wielage [Assistant Cinematographer] asked Gary what kind of story he wrote, he simply replied ” Exploitive”. There.
So of course an Exploitation film would have elements like incest, homophobia and as well as the several mainstays back then, like gore, Satanism and other EXPLOITIVE elements back then.
Also, it’s 1975! [Man, I wish there was a way to capitalize numbers], of course you’re going to see homophobia in 1975! And a lot of people pick this film out for it’s misrepresentation of Satanists… Well duh! When you have a Satan-worshipping cult film, you’re going to have several exploitive elements about a commonly misunderstood religion, especially when it involves an antagonistic figure like Lucifer.
Literally, there is so many misrepresentations nowadays in mainstream culture of homosexuality and Satanism, you’d think that people wouldn’t care about a cheap 1970s’ filmed exploitation movie.
I know I just defended a 70s’ bible-belt exploitation movie that probably no one’s seen except the people in the circle who would visit this page because they’re into this kind of stuff, but I do this. This is what I do. So I just had a couple of defenses I thought of I wanted to put down before even the smallest community who watches this film judges it based on false pseudo moralistic arguments.
Although he made some films, what he might be most known for, if not directly KNOWN for it, [As in you wouldn’t recognize his name] was filming the return of John Glenn, the first Uman to orbit outside of Earth and his waving to the camera after getting out of the recovered Freedom 7. ‘Have him wave at you Joe, that’a boy!!”
Or when he directed a filming of president John F. Kennedy’s motorcade passing through Grand Central Blvd. on it’s way to Ft. Homer Hesterly Armory (Nov. 18, 1963), just 4 days before his death.
He managed Pulse Plus!, [Earlier titled Pulse Midday], for 15 years, getting several big-names, including Ronald and Nancy Reagan, before and after the presidential campaign. He was a guest on his final episode he worked on.
Caser Romero to the left and Joe next to him. Stacey Keach on the far right.
Joe died in 1996, before Satan’s Children was released on DVD. Him and his son are survived in generations and legacy by Larry Jr. [Not Whiskey Joe]. Joe actually never was a drinker. And Jr. is keeping the family spirit alive, being an editor and producer, in Tampa.
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