For the record,
the purple people eater ate, oddly enough,
purple people. The record being by
Sheb Wooley and making the
top 40 in
1958. It was also a
film,
board game and a game for the
BBC microcomputer.
Useless fact about the film: Thora Birch (also in American Beauty) made her film debut in The Purple People Eater at the age of 6.