I’m not sure why , on Groundhog Day, this reminds me of Thanksgiving- what with thawing (real life) and a big bird (movie-wise)- but tonight on MeTV, as much of the country gets a break from the deep freeze, we’re happy to be bringing you a movie new to our program- that is legendary to some extent for certain reasons- as  the earth is plagued by a feathered fiend that seems totally unstoppable- causing mayhem with “The Giant Claw”!

This 1957 sci fi feature starts, like “Deadly Mantis”, up near the North Pole- but no big thawing bug is causing the problems this time out. Mitch MacAfee, an aeronautical engineer, is out for a test flight- and spots the strange shadow of a UFO ( no, not a flying ground hog) winging past him in the sky.  He reports it to the authorities, and, in spite of the bogie not showing up on any radar, they send out planes to find the object. Not only do they find nothing- but one of the planes never returns! The big shots accuse Mitch of causing the loss by staging a stupid hoax- while Mitch is outraged by the accusation.

Mitch heads back to New York, along with Sally, a female mathematician who had been assisting in his test flight, on a small plane - when the pilot spots the same UFO- which causes the plane to crash on a farm in the Adirondacks, owned by a French-Canadian farmer. While the authorities continue to be skeptical, they soon are forced to believe- when the UFO makes more appearances and more planes are lost. Before long, the evidence is clear- that unidentified flying object is a huge bird- quoted time and time again as being “as big as a battleship”!

They struggle to discover why the big bird doesn’t show up on radar, and why no weapon seems to hurt it- and, once the fantastic reason is discovered- they must find a way to stop this invincible winged enemy!

“The Giant Claw” is a truly entertaining movie, though legendary for the fact that the monster itself is- shall we say, to put it mildly- “unusual looking”. ( We’ve worked to keep the visual a surprise for those who haven’t seen the movie, and would ask our blog commenters to do the same.) We’ll explain WHY the filmmakers took that route for the big bird, as well as filling you in on the cast, which includes some familiar faces, including Jeff Morrow, the lovely Mara Corday, Morris Ankrum, and Robert Shayne. There’s the usual Sven shtick, including a song- and – for all our Super-friends out there, we’ll show you the amazing “Hall of Heroes” museum in Elkhart, Indiana!

“The Giant Claw” will be gripping you tonight on MeTV at 8 pm eastern/pacific, 7 central, or, for info where you live, you can check your local listings, or at www.metv.com . We appreciate the scores of Sven fans who have been on Twitter during the show, and live- tweeting using the hashtag #svengoolie – this has kept us trending in the top ten in America for the past few weeks! For our local Chicago area viewers, you can get a look at the movie that brought us great ratings on MeTV last week- “the Werewolf”- at 11 am on WCIU, the U.

Though it isn’t as cold, we do have a great Warm-Up sale going on in our Sven store and the MeTV store- get hoodies, sweatshirts, and long sleeve tees for 15% off through Feb. 3^rd – just use the promo code METV15. Also in the store- at the regular price- we still have the current Sven action figure with its own glow-in-the-dark long sleeve shirt- we did order more inventory this time, but they are selling fast, so get them while they last! You’ll find the Sven “store” tab right here on our site.

If you’re reading this early enough, with slightly better weather today- you can be like the groundhog and venture out of your abode- because I will be making an appearance at the Real Art collectibles store in- of all places- BERWYN! Come on out and see the cool items they have available in their warehouse sale- and meet me for autographs ( one item per person)  and photos from 1 to 3 pm. As always, we encourage you to get in line early, in the likely event that we’ll have to cut off the line to end on time! You’ll find the info under the “appearances” tab, also on our site.

Join us tonight on MeTV  when we give you the bird- and save you a drumstick attached to a “Giant Claw”!