Friday Fromage double feature: I was a teenage monster movie freak

Back in the dark ages before DVDs, cable networks, even Betamax, movies circulated on theater circuits for years after their initial releases. They returned to towns any number of times, depending on their popularity.

I can't guess how many times my dad played the moonshine melodrama Thunder Road at his Alabama drive-ins, where good ol' boys imagined themselves as Robert Mitchum and their girls wished that were true.

The encores I never missed were horror flicks with "teenage" in their titles, remaking cavemen, zombies and other creatures into something more relatable. The most memorable of these turned two of Hollywood's tentpole monsters -- the Wolfman and Frankenstein -- into high school delinquents.

There was something so right about Michael Landon sprouting hair and fangs whenever the school bell rings, and Gary Conway getting pieced together from body parts yet remaining true to his girlfriend. Kind of like primers for adolescence that was just around the corner.

So, here in all their cheesy glory, are the trailers for I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, each co-starring the mad scientist of the moment, Whit Bissell. Enjoy!