Just when I’m starting to come down from “The Oscar,” Turner Classic Movies is showing another bad-movie rarity. This film is even more obscure than “The Oscar,” because this one was never even on TV when I was a kid, and for decades it was buried and kept under wraps in a kind of Cinematic Witness Protection Program where only the most embarrassing high-profile projects are sent to hide out and avoid retaliation from an angry public. The most notorious example of this is Jerry Lewis’s “The Day The Clown Cried,” which has never seen the light of day in any form. You’d think that a film about a clown who leads children into a Nazi gas chamber would be a perennial family favorite, but alas we’ve never been given the chance to enjoy its whimsical charm. The film that I am going to tell you about might not be an atrocity of that magnitude, but if completely crazy-ass movies mean anything to you (and I have a feeling they do to readers of this blog) then by all means set your Tivos for tonight’s TCM showing of “Skidoo.”

What in God’s name is “Skidoo?” I do not use the Lord’s name in vain here because God is a character in “Skidoo,” played by an aging and feeble Groucho Marx. (See, so far I’ve only given you one tidbit about the content of “Skidoo” and it already seems weird, doesn’t it?)

“Skidoo” was released in 1968 and it was an attempt to cash in on the hippie youth culture of the day. So it’s not surprising that LSD was an element of the plot (I use the word “plot” loosely here). And who better to play a guy having his mind blown while experiencing a freaked-out acid trip than Jackie Gleason? That’s right, I am not kidding, in “Skidoo” you get to see Jackie Gleason on acid. So if after you see “Skidoo,” you hear someone say something stupid like, “Larry the Cable Guy is like Jackie Gleason…ON ACID!” you can reply, “No, I’ve seen Jackie Gleason on acid, and he’s nothing like that.”

Of course, in order to appeal to the tuned-in turned-on dropouts of the late sixties, the makers of “Skidoo” knew that they had to hire an artist who epitomized the social upheaval of that time and embodied the zeitgeist of the era. So they hired…wait for it…Carol Channing! Makes sense, right? I know when I think of 60s counter culture, the first names that always come to mind are Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Carol Channing.

Okay, so far I’ve told you that Groucho Marx plays God, Jackie Gleason is on acid, and Carol Channing is, well, Carol Channing. Oh, and did I mention that “Skidoo” also features the great Arnold Stang, along with Frank Gorshin, Caesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Mickey Rooney, Fred Clark, Peter Lawford (also in “The Oscar!”) George Raft, John Philip Law (the thinking man’s Miles O’Keefe), and Frankie Avalon? Obviously, they used the same casting office as the producers of the 60s era “Batman” TV series (this makes prefect sense because Otto Preminger, the director of “Skidoo,” played “special guest villain” Mr. Freeze on “Batman”).

Do I even need to say anything else to sell “Skidoo” to you? I could say that Harry Nilsson did the music and sings the entire closing credits, but right now I have no doubt that most of you are saying, “Shut up, Frank, you had me at Arnold Stang.”

“Skidoo” was clearly an attempt by Otto Preminger to make himself relevant as a filmmaker to “the kids these days” of those days. When I was a kid, I used to disparage Preminger’s movies; I thought he was a no-talent studio hack. I have since come to realize that I was wrong. While I still have never been passionate about his work, he was the guy who broke the Hollywood blacklist by giving Dalton Trumbo his screen credit on “Exodus,” and he did make several good-if-not-great movies like “The Man With The Golden Arm,” “Anatomy Of A Murder,” and “Advise And Consent.” His most famous film, “Laura,” is considered a classic, although I have to admit it didn’t make much of an impression on me when I finally caught up with it a few years ago. Other noir films of his such as “Where The Sidewalk Ends” and “Angel Face” with Robert Mitchum, are highly regarded in some circles, but I’m afraid I still haven’t seen them.

But I have seen “Skidoo.” There was a special showing of it a few months ago at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd. The enthusiastic audience was made up of comedians and writers and film buffs and all sorts of folks who were really psyched about finally getting the chance to see “Skidoo,” and we all had a really fun time watching it. Yes, it is a psychedelic train wreck, but a fascinating one, and sometimes a movie can be so wrong and so misbegotten and so chemically imbalanced that something transcendental happens and it becomes a wonder to behold. “Skidoo,” in my opinion, is such a movie.

And it’s on TV tonight! I’m sorry for the late notice, but set your Tivos for 2:00 a.m. Eastern time on Turner Classic Movies. And according to the TCM schedule, immediately after “Skidoo,” at 3:45 a.m. Eastern time, they are airing a movie called “The Love-Ins” that also takes place in the late-sixties hippie milieu. I have nothing to say about this movie because I’ve never seen it and until now I had never even heard of it. But any movie this obscure has to be worth a look.

Then, also according to the TCM schedule, at 5:15 a.m. Eastern Time, they are airing a ten minute documentary entitled, “A Look At The World Of Soylent Green.” Are they showing the movie “Soylent Green?” No, the actual full-length film is nowhere to be found on the schedule, but regardless, they are showing a short promotional film about “Soylent Green” at 5 in the morning for no apparent reason. TV programming doesn’t get any better than this.