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Post by kernunrex on Jul 30, 2006 18:43:40 GMT -5
And listen closely for a callback to K13 “SST Death Flight” when the guys theorize that the plane’s engine troubles might be due to “soap in the hydraulics” - guess those olden days aren’t entirely outside the BBI canon after all. Holy crap! I didn't even catch that. That's great, as K13 is one of my favorites from that season.
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Post by Cleolanta on Jul 31, 2006 4:44:26 GMT -5
I didn't either. Which is odd because I like BOTH episodes and have seen each of them multiple times. :P
Which is why it's a good thing we have other MSTies around to talk to, so we don't miss stuff... :)
...Notorious
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Post by Blurryeye on Jul 31, 2006 13:51:32 GMT -5
jjb3k, these reviews are great. These are some of the most well-written and funny reviews I've read. You've got a knack for finding the key points of each episode and the character interactions of the gang. Your summary of Ring of Terror's plot: "Guy goes to a morgue, scares himself, and gets dead. The end." Perfect!
King Dinosaur just happens to be that one movie on MST3K that offended me on a very deep level so that I've had no desire to watch it again for almost two years now. Everyone has at least one. The Sidehackers offended me the first time I watched it, too, but I watched it again a few days later and eventually grew to love it. I like all the biker flicks, with their outlandish characters, debauchery, ugliness, desperate hedonism and grime (not to mention crime). It's fun! I don't think I'll ever be so fond of the Lippert films, but maybe it's time to revisit King Dinosaur and appreciate the funny in it more than the first time.
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Post by jjb3k on Jul 31, 2006 15:53:59 GMT -5
I encourage you to watch it again. Sometimes, a second chance is all you need to really appreciate an episode (after all, look what happened when I watched "Ring of Terror" again.)
Let's put a fork in Season 2 - it's done!
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212 "Godzilla vs. Megalon" Watched: June 17, 2006
Wow, and here I thought that ol’ Gojira could do no wrong. The first Japanese monster movie of the national run pretty much personifies everything that can go wrong with the genre - you’ve got really cheap models, you’ve got stupid villains, you’ve got a goofy opponent monster, you’ve got a spine-shreddingly annoying kid in short pants, and you’ve got the title monster not actually doing anything until the last ten minutes of the film. Wisconsin wishes it could manufacture this much cheese. And on top of all that, this movie presents us with the automated antichrist known as Jet Jaguar, whose creepy smile undoubtedly sent a million little kids crying for mommy. I can only imagine how ripped off the kid who sent in his design for Jet Jaguar must have felt upon seeing his creation maligned onscreen like this. Poor guy gets kicked around by Megalon and that other monster before Godzilla finally shows up and bails him out. It’s just a lot of bad badness that’s really bad...but what’s bad for the box office is good for Joel and the bots. They prove that Godzilla is no sacred cow (or sacred mutated lizard, or what have you) by tearing into this film with no mercy. It helps that the guys have done Japanese films before in the KTMA era, so they kinda know what to expect. I particularly enjoyed their color commentary on the big fight at the end, which was probably the only interesting part of the movie on its own.
Meanwhile, in the host segments, the guys have their parody helmets on big time. From the opening segment that gleefully trashes the ilk of Regis and Kathie Lee to the absolutely hysterical “Orville Popcorn” sketch (I can’t help yelling “I, me, my, I’m the god, I’M THE GOD!” whenever I go off on a rant now), not to mention the bitingly funny translation of the Jet Jaguar Fight Song, Joel and the bots pull no punches this week. As I mentioned in one of my previous reviews, I always enjoy seeing the bots fight like kids, so I got big, big laughs out of Segment 2, in which they fight over whose monster is better (“Okay, you win, you win the world...”). “Rex Dart, Eskimo Spy” is brief, but it sure makes the movie look a lot better than it really is. And I adored the invention exchange - I oughta try one of those costumes one of these years. Or I would if I didn’t already commit myself to donning my homemade Torgo costume every year from now on to greet trick-or-treaters at the door.
With Godzilla pretty much being the epitome of Japanese cinematic lunacy, he makes for good riff fodder. Fortunately, the Brains managed to harvest enough material from another of his movies as well...
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213 "Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster" Watched: June 18, 2006
This looks like a much better movie from the outset, doesn’t it? After all, there’s no annoying little kid in short pants, there’s a whopping four monsters to pick and choose from, and there’s the cute li’l Mothra Twins to take your mind off the plot if it all gets to be too much. But still, there’s no going into a Japanese monster movie without getting at least a little bit of goofy on you, and this movie has it in spades. Something about an island full of captives and an evil corporation who uses those captives to make some kind of repellent for Ebirah the sea monster, but I think they do something else too...ah, who cares. We all know why this movie was made: so Godzilla could stomp on stuff. And there’s no denying that he does indeed do that. He also sleeps, spends some time on the “thunder bucket” (another term I have to use in real life), and swats down a weird bird monster before ripping off Ebirah’s claws and feeding them to him. Basically, this movie has lots more Godzilla than the last one did, and I enjoy it lots more for that alone. Mothra’s in this too, but he’s not as cool and he sleeps through the whole first 80 minutes anyway. I may be in the minority, but I laughed harder at this episode than I did at the previous episode - Joel and the bots seemed to be more “on” in this one. From the scene where Ebirah spears a couple of escaping natives (“Kabob and Ka-Steve”) to the “suspenseful” scene in which the beeping island detonator draws ever closer to detonating (“Fries are up...I said, fries are UP...”), there’s just a lot of bull’s-eye riffing all around. Probably the most brilliant riff of the week? While eating bananas, one guy says “I feel like a monkey”, to which Crow responds “Me too, where can we find one?”
Joel whiffles and giggles and chortles his way through a bizarre little intro segment before we get to the invention exchange, which results in more funny faces from Joel and a lot of ridiculous guitar-playing from the Mads (this is another one of those segments that started my mom railing against how “foolish” this show is...ah, what does she know?). The real standout here is the Godzilla Genealogy Bop, a tune that was stuck in my head for days after watching. It’s a cleverly written little number, and I must agree - there’s no other explanation for why Karl Malden’s nose is so honkin’ huge. I also particularly enjoyed watching Joel go space crazy in Segment 3 (is it just me, or does he sound a little Martin Short-esque during this bit?), as well as the bots as they smash up his models. Watch closely as Gypsy’s lip starts to come off. Once again, we see Mike in the Hexfield...or rather, we don’t see him, but he is there behind the Mothra mask in a very funny routine. And finally, we see the Cool Thing contest winners. You gotta love that one kid who sent in the picture of Joel and the bots surrounded by swimsuit models, but I also dig that optical illusion-looking thing that one kid drew (“Very trippy, and I’ll bet you listen to Rush, don’t you?”).
Season 2 ends on a brilliant high note. Everything’s pretty much fallen into place at this point, and from here on, the guys just sail upward on a wave of neverending hilarity.
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Post by jjb3k on Aug 8, 2006 22:48:45 GMT -5
Sorry it's been a while - I've been sidetracked by my new "Animaniacs" DVD...
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301 "Cave Dwellers" Watched: June 19, 2006
So...what the hell is this movie about, anyway? I think I caught something about the “Geometric Nucleus”, but I’m not entirely sure what that is. I know there’s a guy with a swan hat who kidnaps an old guy for some reason, and the old guy’s hot daughter goes to get help from the big ol’ slab-o-warrior called Ator and his mute Asian flunky Thong (or Pong or Dong or whatever it was). For a guy with such huge muscles, Ator doesn’t really do much. Or, more accurately, Miles O’Keefe doesn’t do much in the role. Sure, he beats up some mimes, and I guess that’s pretty cool, but he kinda cheats his way through everything else. First, he encounters invisible warriors, so he doesn’t even get to beat anybody up there. Then he meets the cave dwellers mentioned in the title (you gotta love those pointless Film Venture International titles that have nothing to do with the movie), and he just scares ‘em off with some flash powder. Then later on, he gets drugged, and the he wrestles with a big snake puppet. And then his stunt double does some hang gliding - which, I might add, is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in terms of suspended disbelief -before Ator grapples with Swan Hat...and hell, even Thong finishes that off for him. Cripes, Thong got more done in this movie than Ator did! He found the old man, he caught the fish...well, in the end, the Geometric Nucleus blows up in a hail of stock footage, and I guess everyone’s happy with that. With a movie this stupid, you just know that Joel and the bots have to hit it out of the park, and sure enough, they do. From the pop culture references (“We’re getting close to Ridley Scott now”; “God, I love ‘Seinfeld’!”; etc) to just plain pointing out everything that the filmmakers did wrong (jeep tracks? Come on, now...), the riffs hit the mark pretty much every time.
And on the host segment side of the tracks, it’s more laughs all around. I think the prologue might be the first time in which Magic Voice was identified as such, but I could be wrong (and if I am, I just wasn’t paying attention). Again, the Mads make up for a lack of an invention with something screwy, and robot arm wrestling elicits many a chuckle. But that’s just applesauce compared to the credits sequence (“Kim Cattrall as the Mannequin”, “Music by Danny Elfman - again!” and “Continuity by:” all busted me up). The renaming of everyday objects is pretty good, but the sound effects lesson is hilarious. I even snickered at Trace accidentally moving Crow’s mouth when Madam screams - I got a soft spot for this stuff that they just decided to leave in. And a glimmering forerunner to Season 4's “They just didn’t care” sketch rounds out a brilliant episode.
It’s true what they say - this episode is hilarious. It’s blatantly clear that the Brains have fine-tuned their art, and they’ve now gained the ability to perfectly pinpoint the horrible essence of the lamest movies, grab it, and milk it for all it’s worth. Excellent stuff!
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302 "Gamera" Watched: June 19, 2006
After a light and sparse collection of riffings the first time around, it’s finally happened...the turtle is back. And this is the film that made him (in)famous. Before he was “friend to all children”, Gamera was the definition of “kinda badass but not really ‘cause he’s just a guy in a suit knocking over models and stuff”. Much like 212's Roxanne, this tepid little picture’s featured annoying kid in short pants is the ear-splitting Kenny, who’ll undoubtedly be running up the therapy bills in a couple of years. Poor turtle-obsessed freak. After Gamera stomps on some Eskimos, he tears up a lighthouse and starts wiping Japan off the face of the earth. The military sternly refuses to listen to Kenny’s insistent yammerings about how Gamera is a good turtle (okay, kid, see that wave of death and destruction over there? That’s what that “good turtle” did. Now sit down and shut up, ‘kay?) and launch missile after missile at him, despite the fact that he’s, you know, a turtle, with the ability to tuck itself into its shell and stuff. Well, eventually, they trap him in a rocket and blast him off into space (Gamera, sadly, not Kenny). Well, it’s a big heaping dish of ridiculous, and Joel and the bots have no problem ripping into it. It’s clear to see that they’ve made leaps and bounds since K05 - first of all, it helps that the bots are in the theater with Joel this time, but in addition to that, the writing’s gotten sharper and more observant instead of Joel’s off-the-top-of-his-head ad-libs from the KTMA era. In spite of that, they actually recycle two riffs (“Water, the source of all life” and “Sandy Frank? Isn’t that when you drop your hot dog on the beach?”), but everything else is new, and it slays.
We lead with a chuckly little prologue involving Servo’s voice exercises (“Commercial siiiiign...”), then leap right into the invention exchange with Joel’s hysterical salad bar and Frank’s hysterical-er birdcage vacuum - I totally lost it when he sucked up the whole thing. Servo’s “Oh Tibby” is brilliant, as is Crow’s line at the end. The songs in general have just been getting better and better as the show goes on, taking aim at just about anything in these movies and tearing it down. Then comes the whole inquiry about Kenny, which is not only funny, but it spawns the enigmatic “Kenny - What Gives?” contest that’s never heard of again. Mike returns in the Hexfield for a brilliant turn as Gamera himself, and we finish it all off with a funny little “Citizen Kane” parody that gave me some good guffaws.
The first of the KTMA remakes spells more genius to come. The Brains realize that they’ve gotten better, and what better way to flex one’s creative muscles than to go back and rework an old sketch into a masterpiece?
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Post by Hugh Beaumont on Aug 11, 2006 3:21:10 GMT -5
It’s true what they say - this episode is hilarious. It’s blatantly clear that the Brains have fine-tuned their art, and they’ve now gained the ability to perfectly pinpoint the horrible essence of the lamest movies, grab it, and milk it for all it’s worth. Excellent stuff! "Please, don't say 'essence!'"
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Post by jjb3k on Aug 16, 2006 20:49:06 GMT -5
Here we go again...
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303 "Pod People" Watched: June 19, 2006
This might very well be the quintessential bad movie. It’s the stomach-churning tale of an alien being who lands on Earth and starts laying eggs...and there’s also a bunch of poachers...and a little kid who likes nature...and a stressed-out singing group who can’t sing worth half a lick...hell, who knows what this movie’s about? The fact is, one of the poachers smashes up a bunch of the eggs, White Fang kills him and fills his forehead with stars, then runs into the woods and offs the dopey Pocahontas chick from the rock group. And somewhere in this melee of misdirected plot points and sleepy synthesizer music, the little kid named Tommy (who totally gives Kenny a run for his money in the “annoying little kid who you just want to slap” department) uncovers one of the eggs that didn’t get crushed, and it hatches into the utterly ridiculous Trumpy. What E.T. ripoff? Anyway, while Trumpy shows Tommy what an acid trip is like, Trumpy’s ticked-off mama goes around slaughtering more of the thoroughly unlikeable cast - and I mean that, I was totally rooting for the aliens in this one - until the fuzzy beast is finally shot down and Trumpy is left in the woods for dead. Fun for the whole family. And definitely fun for me, as Joel and the bots latched onto this one like a remora and wouldn’t let go, taking advantage of every comedic opportunity. With a movie so looney, you can’t help but break it down like this. And Crow’s Elephant Man voice is hysterical (“This potato’s got long ears...”).
Leading off with Crow and Servo’s funny little one-bot shows, we then move into another explosive invention exchange. Frank brings back “eeyukayee” here, which always makes me giggle. Then we’ve got the immortal “Idiot Control Now” sketch, and even though it’s basically just a re-enactment of a movie scene, it’s still utterly hilarious. Certainly, the altered lyrics helped (“Bees on pie” just busts me up). Next comes a well-deserved slam on the movie’s musical score, but it’s Segment 4 that really sold me on this episode - the re-enactment of the “Trumpy, you can do magic” scene. When the Mads just stared in abject horror and bewilderment at the scene on the SOL, I just fell over laughing. So much is perfectly said without a word. And finally, the episode closes out with a rather touching little rendition of “Clown in the Sky”. Which reminds me, I oughta buy that album...
Even though I thought “Cave Dwellers” was just a touch more hilarious than this, “Pod People” still remains a monument to the brilliance of MST3K. As a standalone episode or as an entry in a marathon such as this, it’s just flat-out funny.
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304 "Gamera vs. Barugon" Watched: June 19, 2006
Gamera’s back, and this time, he’s not gonna do a whole lot. Really, I think the turtle has about five minutes of screen time in this movie, and considering that he got top billing, I’m guessing that he musta done some heavy schmoozing at Daiei to even get this sequel. What this movie (thankfully) lacks in annoying kids in short pants, it more than makes up for in heavy-handed allegory and jocular sweaty guys beating the snot out of each other. Some greedy, greedy men go to a far-off island and steal what they think is an opal, and frankly, that one guy who bites it after getting stung by a scorpion seemed just a skoche too happy about it. Well, anyhoo, the opal hatches and turns out to be the egg of Barugon (or Baragon, according to Toolmaster Jef Maynard), who can destroy anything with his tongue. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. Gamera, who made it back to Earth after the Z-plan failed miserably, ends up frozen solid and can’t do diddly-dee about Barugon smashing stuff up. There’s some other stuff in this movie too, but it’s mostly just a Japanese guy on all fours in a rubber suit steppin’ on models. The humans of Japan are totally lost without their precious turtle, so he finally thaws out and wrestles the dog-lizard-dealie to the bottom of a lake, where it spits out one final half-assed rainbow before it finally kicks the bucket. Holy crap. It’s nice to see this one reworked on Comedy Central, as it greatly outshines the KTMA version. Joel, Servo, and Crow have a lot to work with, and just think, this is before the Gamera series got really screwy. My favorite riff? The narrator mentions that “Gamera loves flames”, and Crow pipes up with “But they go right to his hips.”
The Mac/IBM wars segment is a little out of my range, but I do vaguely remember dealing with the two different computers in early grade school - and what the heck, the skit was still funny. Crow’s arms falls off, and then we get one of Joel’s old inventions in a new package. It’s a bit of a cheat, but Joel’s line about the cumber-bubble-bund seeming familiar helped to save it. Then Servo goes crazy announcing the 5000-piece Fighting Men ‘N’ Monster set, in a bit that just floored me in its rapid-fire lunacy. In space, timing is everything. Crow and Servo’s masks are pretty dang freaky, but it helps add to the ridiculousness of Segment 3 all around. Joel’s celebrity lookalikes don’t really go anywhere (it’s funnier when they just point them out in the theater), but at least the final segment is great. I assume that was Alexandra “Magic Voice” Carr reading as Meryl Streep, but it was hilarious either way.
A very successful remake of a KTMA oldie, and a wonderfully apt dismantling of another Sandy Frank disaster overall. Japanese cinema is such a mixed blessing - it’s unabashedly screwy, but you can’t help but love it for that very reason.
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Aug 17, 2006 15:26:45 GMT -5
I was gonna say, about Gamera (302), that it is before Gamera became the "friend to all children", but then it's kinda not. I think the film in which the monster turtle is firmly established as the friend to all children is Gamera vs. Guiron, and they reference the lighthouse scene as proof of Gamera's loyalty to children and his vow to their protection. And in the movies between #1 and Guiron, there's always an annoying kid in short pants who seems to get Gamera more than anyone else (edit: oh, except Barugon, sorry). So, I'd say the seed for the idea of Gamera as kids' show was planted early on. That doesn't mean it's not ridiculous that Kenny loves his giant turtle despite the guy's tower-topplin', fire-eatin' ways. I hope for Kenny's sake that he never grew up; did you see how Gamera burned the teen scene alive? Watch out Kenny, that friendship isn't good for life.
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Post by jjb3k on Aug 25, 2006 11:35:16 GMT -5
You know, I really ought to pick one day a week on which I should update this thing - I don't want to fall too far behind, after all. But given that my reviews are now about two months behind my marathon, it might be too late.
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305 "Stranded in Space" Watched: June 20, 2006
In a way, Season 3 could almost be called “KTMA Redux”. In addition to the nine Sandy Frank re-riffs throughout the season, with this episode, the show makes a grand return to what was considered gold in the KTMA era - the 1970s made-for-TV movie. However, this ain’t no “SST Death Flight”. It’s the tale of Glen Corbett’s wild ride, from outer space all the way to some far-flung planet that, by pure coincidence, is exactly like Earth (in other words, it let the production company save on sets). He’s pursued by Cameron Mitchell, embarrassing himself greatly - though not nearly as much as he will later on in “Space Mutiny”, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here - and he develops a romantic entanglement with this woman who I’m sure got a big kick out of slapping him across the face. Lots of things happen, as things are wont to do, but a lot of it is boring and unappealing. I seem to remember there being three moons, which I guess is kind of cool if you ignore the scientific implausibilities of it. Other than that, it’s just a big heaping bowl of dull...and Joel and the bots can’t do much to suppress that. Oh sure, they give it their best shot, and there are a number of connecting jabs, such as the guys getting up to leave every time the movie blacks out briefly for a commercial break, but for the most part, it’s not easy to latch on to something so bland. But I understand that Frank Conniff loves this kind of movie, so what the hell.
The host segments, on the other hand, manage to hold their own a lot better. First, we get Joel’s robot shooting range, complete with Crow’s killer Don Knotts impression and Joel explaining the premise of the show once more (this time, he throws in the fact that the Mads made the opening sequence, a tidbit that we’ll never hear from again). The real shining moment here is the war of the invention exchanges, with both Joel and the Mads trying to one-up the other regarding their variations on the old “BANG” gun. You gotta love it when Frank presses the TNT detonator (“BOINGEE BANGA KA BONGA”) and it immediately falls apart. After this, we’re presented with more of the kid-like behavior from the bots that I always get a chuckle from as they trade their TV series cards. I also dig the subsequent sketch concerning what the heck Ward E is - leave it to the Brains to perfectly articulate those everyday feelings of ickiness that it’s usually so hard to describe. Joel and the bots then proceed to wear turtlenecks and off a couple of famous TV detectives (if nothing else, this sketch is worth it for the return of Tibby), then pitch the movie to TV mogul Servo for the closer.
It’s an okay episode. Not a grand slam, but not a dud either - firmly in the middle of the road. I can kinda see why it’s regarded as “the forgotten episode”, though. There isn’t all that much to talk about.
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306 "Time of the Apes" Watched: June 20, 2006
Right off the bat, I can say that this Comedy Central remake is about a kazillion light years better than the KTMA version. Why? Well, Joel is there, for one thing, but the main contributing factor is that the movie is a LOT shorter this time. Yet amazingly, it still seems to last three days. Johnny (who doesn’t care, dammit, and there’s nothing you can do to change that) and his sister Carolyn (I think she’s his sister, anyway; the movie is fairly vague on this and many other points) visit an animal research center where their friend Katherine has made leaps and bounds in monkey freezing technology. But wouldn’t you know it, the little ragamuffins end up trapped in the cryogenics room in the middle of a planet-shattering earthquake (seriously, they made it look like this was the end of the world or something), and when the plot contrivance switch gets thrown, it hurtles Katherine and the kids a couple million years forwards or backwards or somewhere in time, I dunno. The point is, they wind up in a low-budget and infinitely more excruciating version of Charlton Heston’s worst nightmare, where apes evolved from men but lost the ability to move their mouths when they speak. They team up with the mysterious human Godo and the owl-faced Pepe to try and stop getting captured all the damn time, but that’s a lot easier said than done around here. The writers have a lot of fun jerking the audience around in this movie, from Katherine’s random decision to stay imprisoned to Pepe’s desire for his new human buddies to stay with him forever. And the cinematography must have been made to push sales of Dramamine, so rapidly does it fluctuate from lightning-fast zoom-ins to randomly placed slow-mo shots. It’s all just one big mistake that should never have been made in the first place...well, that’s not entirely true, because otherwise I wouldn’t have this superb episode to talk about! Joel and the bots revel in the Sandy Frankness, ripping this turkey so many new ones that I eventually lost count. Everything is fair game, and with such utter Japanese lunacy to pick and choose, the guys can’t help but score hit after hit. I busted up laughing so frequently, it completely took my mind off the fact that this movie would have made me put a bullet in my head under normal circumstances.
The host segments get underway with a humorous little game of T-ball that results in an equally humorous little game of explosive decompression. Joel’s Cellulite Phone doesn’t really go anywhere, but the Mads’ Miracle Growth Baby Formula is utter brilliance. Poor Timothy Scott - I don’t think he ever lived this down. The genius wit from the theater extends into the biting “Why Doesn’t Johnny Care?” segment, with Crow supplying the film noise (Trace is really good at that). We then proceed to a goofy little Scopes Monkey Trial sketch, which is just the kind of unbridled ridiculousness that I love to see on this show (“Fly, judgie, fly!” was the perfect capper). Then Crow reviews the dapper fashions sported by the apes in the film - distracting time code aside - and it all wraps up with a wonderfully sung and well-deserved slam on Sandy Frank, the idiot, for thinking that this movie was actually considered “entertainment”. Pssh. Moron.
An excellent episode, with its source material quite possibly being the worst thing to ever come out of Japan. Yes, worse than Tamagotchis, Hello Kitty, and Yu-Gi-Oh combined, nothing can top the audacious severity that is “Time of the Apes”.
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thanos6
Nanite
Trunks Briefs & Son Goten
Posts: 26
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Post by thanos6 on Oct 17, 2006 1:56:17 GMT -5
Er, not sure if this is still being updated, but great thread so far.
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Post by jjb3k on Oct 17, 2006 12:45:55 GMT -5
Yeah, I kinda lost interest in reviewing the episodes. I'm still watching them all in order, but it's less fun if I have to be critical about it later. I'd rather just enjoy the episodes for what they are without having to analyze them later. Still, it was fun for a while.
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Post by hobbesluigi82 on May 25, 2007 13:45:23 GMT -5
Some fantastic reviews here! These really have helped!
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