I should know a flesh-eating zombie when I see one.

I was off honing my obsession with Peter Graves by watching 100 straight hours of his movies when someone told me that Earl had defamed the man. Taking a cheap swipe at a man of Peter’s caliber with the baseless charge that he is a flesh-eating zombie is not something I can take lying down. I normally give Earl the benefit of the doubt so I scoured the books to see what I could find out about Peter Graves and any flesh-eating zombie tendencies he may have. I think I have found the answer. Earl must have been watching Roger Corman’s 1959 film The Undead Sorority Girl who Conquered Earth, in which Peter plays the part of Dr. Ted Malone.

The movie is classic Corman in that it makes little sense, has lots of cleavage, rubbery space aliens, more doctors than you could shake a stick at, and a budget lower than Tori Spellings wedding. Peter plays a scientist for NASA who is working on a top secret project to turn sorority girls into zombie astronauts to make up for a shortage of living astronauts. Since it is a well known fact that most sorority girls have no souls, Dr. Malone decides they would be the quickest to produce. One of the new sorority zombie-nauts is launched into space and her capsule turns up missing after passing through the tail of a comet.

One of the classic scenes in the movie involves Peter and Mamie Van Doren, who plays the leader of the sorority zombie astronaut army who returns from space to threaten the earth, facing off in the closing minutes of the film.

Leader: Resistence is futile. We will destroy the human race and replace it with our zombie army.

Dr. Stevens: You’ll never take us, we created you and we can… (zombie leader disintegrates him with lasers from her eyeballs)

Leader: Is there anyone else who wishes to speak?

Dr. Malone: What, so you can disintegrate me with your lasers too?

Leader: Who are you? You intrigue me with your subtle logic.

Dr. Malone: Ted Malone, scientist with NASA, and… the man who created you.

Leader: Then you know that all of mankind must be destroyed for the greater good of the universe.

Dr. Malone: I know man has messed with fire for many years now. We have made war and used weapons which are terrible in their form and function. We in the scientific community are playing God and have unleashed a Pandora’s Box of problems on the world. But we have done many good things too. Man has cured disease, we can fly from coast to coast in a day now, and by 1970 we will be living in bases on the moon. Man may have made his mistakes, but we are learning, and God willing, we’ll put those lessons to use.

Leader: It is too late, we have made our decision.

Dr. Malone: Then you give me no alternative than to use the Hydrogen bomb I have planted beneath this building for just such a possibility.

Leader: You have called our bluff, Dr. Malone. Please return with us to our home planet and take ten of us as your brides. Accept our ways, and we will leave Earth alone.

Dr. Malone: For the good of man… did you say ten of you?

Leader: Yes.

Dr. Malone: Then for the good of man, I will make this ultimate sacrifice. Dr. Collins, Dr. Mulhaney, Dr. Barnard I will miss you and our sardonic banter.

Dr. Mulhaney: Oh Ted, must you go.

Dr. Malone: The world needs this Betty, and maybe I need it too.


Oh, that’s the part that always gets me. Tears start flowing and I just have to turn it off or I’ll be a wreck for the rest of the night. Anyhow, I can see where Earl may have confused Peter for the zombie so I will forgive him for the gaffe. Now, it’s time for me to get back to Peter in the 1963 sci-fi classic The Thing that Ate the Leech People on the Moon.