It's an unusually warm afternoon for a Texas Saturday in December, but inside the AMS Studios in Addison, the air feels cold enough to hang beef carcasses in. Nobody feels this more than Rusty the TNT Mailgirl, a strawberry-blond waitress at Humperdink's in Arlington, who remains here all day and long into the twilight to film Joe Bob's Advice to the Hopeless. That's the viewer-mail segment of MonsterVision, the late-night Saturday movie on Turner Network Television hosted by the drive-in-movie critic from Grapevine, Texas. Rusty wears a leopard-print blouse with a plunging neckline and a tight black miniskirt that look as though they've been painted on her body by the makeup lady.

With about 15 crew people and fans standing in the darkness at the edge of the studio lights, Rusty saunters into camera range, entering the set in black high heels, a mail bag slung over her shoulder. She sits in the lawn chair opposite a black-haired man in a vaguely Western getup, with bolo tie and cowboy boots. Behind the two are the elaborately messy props and flats for the side of a trailer home, with tiki torches and a rusty old refrigerator and a TV tray with a beer can on it. The two performers rehearsed this scene only seconds before the shoot, and will wrap it in one take. The dialogue, written by the man in the vaguely Western getup, includes exchanges like this:

Joe Bob: "Rusty, can you read my mind?"

Rusty: "I'm thinking you want to see me naked."

Joe Bob: "How did you know that?"

Rusty: "Because you always want to see me naked."