Boy with a Knife

Boy With a Knife could be an alternate title for John Carpenter’s Halloween, but the short is about something far more frightening: 1950s teens in white t-shirts making trouble at a hot dog stand! Brace yourself for the Fonzie-style thrills and danger!

And let’s go ahead and get this out of the way: Crocodile Dundee has confirmed the “knife” status of the Knife in Boy With a Knife. When we asked him about the Boy, he just spat on the ground and said “not my department, mate.” Fair enough, C.D.!

The titular Boy is troubled because his stepmother openly despises him. He acts out by stabbing the household front door with his switchblade. Next thing you know he’s falling in with a group of dangerous boys, boys so dangerous they call people harsh insults like “Newsreel.” Yep, “Newsreel.” 

The Boy With a Knife faces some tough love from a Man With a Job: specifically, Chuck Connors as a social worker trying to help these kids. Yes, that Chuck Connors, of The Rifleman and RiffTrax features Tourist Trap and Day of the Assassin. He was also in Soylent Green, which isn’t a RiffTrax feature but probably should be.

Can Chuck Connors reach these boys through the power of baseball, ping pong, and his extremely wholesome crew cut? Will the knife come into play? Why can’t hot dogs still be 15 cents? Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill for Boy With a Knife and get answers to all these questions! (Okay, maybe not the hot dog one.)

Written by: Mike Nelson, Conor Lastowka, Sean Thomason, Jason Miller, and Zachary Shatzer