"Le Tickle Shoppe"(Cal Star, `93)

[Dr. Bill Kobb]

I know it's almost verboten on this board to sing the praises of California Star, but a friend sent me afew, so here's my take on the first one I picked to watch:
"Le Tickle Shoppe" has a simple premise, and the whole thing is played-out in a 20X20 area. The sort of partical board sets you'd expect from a porn studio serve as a sleazy X-rated Video Rental. Along with various other videos from Cal Star's Tied & Tickled line tacked-up on the walls, there's a makeshift 'counter' and manniquens sporting a varied assortment of sex-toys, feathers, and even novelties like a 3 ft. blow-up penis/pooltoy/thing, and several nastier, S&M-related goodies(gags, whips, chains, etc).

So, utterly adorable Brit-accented brunette walks in, and perfectly sleazy, sweaty, creepy store owner Mr. Hoskins(played brilliantly by one Irving Schwartz) recognizes her from one of the videos on his display wall. He begs and pleads for her to stay and reenact some bound tickling torture from her movies after he closes shop. Naturally, since this is the bizarro-world of porn, she giggles and obliges the perv.

That feeble little premise out of the way, it's on to a fantastic(mostly) 40 minutes of tickling, featuring the first girl, and her friend who shows up the following day for some of Mr. Hoskins' treatment.

Some appealing aspects to this feature were:

Two lovely young women(no silicone or botox) who'd be fun to watch even if they were just filing tax forms or taking out the trash.

Irving Schwartz is like the ultimate scumbag Ler, laughing along the whole time, redfaced with a sweaty sheen, gleefully (practically droolingly) teasing his captives.

The bondage was terrific, considering what they had to work with. Utilizing a chair, a sawhorse, and the cheap-assed oriental rug knock-off, the girls are put into a nice, wide variety of genuine bondages where both wrists and ankles were tightly tied, hot bodies exposed and vulnerable to the dreaded Mr. Hoskins.

Staging--I love it when tying and tickling is accompanied by the gradual removal of Lee's garments. They do this wonderfully in "Le Tickle Shoppe". Both girls go through a three-step routine:
Bondage 1:clothed
Bondage 2:topless
Bondage 3:nude

Toys: Okay, this one's kinda hit-and-miss. Ol Irving utilizes every prop lying around the set as a tickle-toy(even the inflatable 3ft. penis) and that fact could have killed this thing except that he always quickly returns to trusty finger tickling to get his captives hopping. It's as if the thing were funded by a porn merchandiser who kept harping for more, "Product placement!".

Are there drawbacks? Oh, sure. The first woman is only mildly ticklish, the whole scenario is preposterous...
Well, actually, that's the only two I can think of, and neither were egregious enought to ruin things(because):
Evil Irving manages to coax some fun from the first gal, anyway.
Although preposterous, the goofy ease with which Irving convinces the girls to submit is sweet.

I've watched this thing twice now, and seem to love it even more with each successive viewing!