Who doesn’t love potatoes?
A plump baked potato topped with butter, sour cream, and bacon bits, crispy French fries, curly fries, and waffle fries. Tater tots and Scalloped. Are just the tip of the potatoberg.
No, we haven't changed into a food blog.
There are as many exploitation genres as there are potato dishes: Blaxploitation, Sexploitation, Biker, Horror, Martial Arts, Juvenile Delinquent, Mondo, Spaghetti Westerns, Ozploitation, Slasher, Gore, Au Gratin… Wait, that last one’s a potato dish—but you get the idea.
There is a exploitation genre for everyone, and we have found another to add to the list. . .
Yes, a heretofore unknown marriage of exploitation and the popular vegetable.
We first encountered this odd hybrid in this 1971 advertisement.
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The crazy thing is that this double bill played for ten weeks at Sacramento's Towne theater. Unbelievable!
PLOT: Jennie, who just graduated from jailbait, becomes the third wife of an older, well-off potato farmer. Soon bored with his potato centric lifestyle, she starts frequenting the local bar, enjoying the company of both men and women. Before long, she’s stirred up enough drama to turn the quiet little town into its own version of Peyton Place… or maybe Potato Place.
Taking its cues from Russ Meyer's 1968 hit VIXEN!, VIXEN WITH THE RUSSET POTATOES serves up a hearty helping of starchy sexploitation.
I AM CURIOUS (REMARKA) is a documentary exploring the alleged sexual benefits of potatoes, featuring interviews with doctors, a somewhat dubious scientist, and people who regularly eat them and claim they enhance their sex lives. The film also visits a nude mashed potato encounter group and delves into the history of ancient tuber-based courting rituals from various cultures around the world.
Even more unbelievable is that the spudsploitation genre extended to Kiddie Matinees.
THE SWEET POTATO PRINCE, described as "The story of a boy who turns into a side dish," had theatrical showings only in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas between 1968 and 1971, before fading into obscurity until we recently rediscovered it.
PLOT: While playing in the forest with his friends, young Johnny wanders into a cave, where he meets a talking snail with magical powers. Soon, he finds himself in a whimsical, animated enchanted land, where he befriends the Sweet Potato Prince.
Judging by the rare poster they we unearthed, VIXEN WITH THE RUSSET POTATOES contains enough of the good stuff to make Mr. Potato Head blush.
Never in a million years did we think we’d be diving into a genre called Spudsploitation, but when exploring the deepest recesses of exploitation, you never know what you might unearth.
Here is a Mexican lobby card for THE SWEET POTATO PRINCE that recently was auctioned off at Christie's for 800,000 pounds . . . of potatoes.
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