Digging Through Volume XXVII

[Torgo]

So had a rough day at work today, and was just looking forward to taking a nap as soon as I get home. But what do I find waiting for me? A package from Shout Factory!

Buh? I thought MST didn't hit until Tuesday? ::double checks:: It doesn't. I got mine three days early! Don't believe me? Check it out...



IN YOUR FACES! What makes this extra special is that my first episode, Deadly Mantis is on it, so this feels like some sort of weird destiny thing.

But yeah, everything is here. New set, extra disc...oh and that little packet up there? It's some sort of calendar Shout sent with it. A 2013 calendar. Thank's for giving me a year that's already half over, Shout. The MST logo is on the April month, so that's kind of cool.

I'm gonna browse through the features and I'll get back to you guys. Can't wait!

[Torgo]

Extras are brief this time around, but they're fair.

The Slime People has an interview with star Judith Morton (now Judith Fraser). She talks about the fun atmosphere of the shoot and her embarassment of the final film, not a lot else. Theatrical trailer is included

Rocket Attack USA has Life After MST: Trace Beaulieu, which is interesting for the bombshell that...brace yourselves...Trace auditioned for the role of Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. I rewound THREE TIMES to make sure I heard that right. Trace said his agent got the audition and ultimately he was thankful to not get the role of the most hated character in science fiction history. Most of the rest is stuff we've already heard before in other Life Afters: AFV, Freaks and Geeks, Cinematic Titanic...

Village of the Giants offers up an interview with one of the dancing giants, Joy Harmon. Of the film she talks about how she loved dancing on the set (yeah, we figured) and how uneasy she was about having her top burst open on camera. A very out of shape trailer is here too.

Deadly Mantis gets the most love, with an introduction from Mary Jo who goofs on the movie a lot, fairly lovingly though. Next is a Ballyhoo documentary called Chasing Rosebud, which talks about producer William Alland from his career with Orson "Citizen Unicron" Wells to producing sci-fi flicks for Universal (including many MSTed favorites) and beyond. Worth a watch if you love these flicks as much as I do. Finally is a trailer for the movie, which bizarrely features the ending with the mantis getting killed. Go figure.

Menus are as fun as ever. I think this is the first time they've been in animorphic? I'll have to dig 26 out to double check. All the black and white features have black and white menus. Slime People features Servo and Crow entering a Slime People deli, Rocket Attack has the duo helping the blind "help me" man to a door, Giants features a dancing giant audition, and Mantis has Mike and Crow flying planes arund the mantis, which is climbing the Washington Monument.

Haven't checked out the transfers yet. Will report back when able.

[sirhamhat]

Thanks for the update, Torgo. Interested to hear your report on the video/transfers, as always... You were spot on with the last box set report. There are no real episodes I hate, but there are some real gems in this one and here's fingers crossed none of them are in bad shape.

[Torgo]

It's the least I can do. I spend good money on these sets and I'm going to post about 'em, damnit!

I've only gotten to the third host segment of Slime People so far, and will finish it later tonight. Season 1 fans will be pleased to know it's in excelent shape so far. If anything big happens later in the ep I'll let you all know.

I really like this one, maybe for the movie more than anything. It's just an odd and silly monster movie, which I can't get enough of.

[sirhamhat]

haha! Good to hear. I will be getting mine on Tuesday, but--as I always say--won't be able to really dig into the set until the weekend, so its always good to know what hopefully good or bad I have to deal with when I finally get to watch them... cause, as you know, I'm a stickler for the video quality. Anyhow! Thanks again and glad to hear you are digging Slime People, cause I think its a fun and silly movie too. Underrated episode, in my opinion.

[Torgo]

Slime People ended solidly. Seal of aproval on that one.

Rocket Attack USA's transfer is solid. Noticed a black bar at the top of the screen halfway through, but it was brief and if it happened more than once, I didn't notice. Episode is good riffing on goofball propaganda.

I started their riff on the obnoxious 60s teen shlock Village of the Giants, but I gots to sleep sometime, so the rest will wait until morning. Unfortunately I've already noticed problims with it. A cluster of tape hits happen over the intro segments. Visual is altered for several seconds, audio is fine. Halfway through the opening movie segment and it seems to have stopped.

[sirhamhat]

Thanks again Torgo... and that's exactly what I feared. I figured Village of the Giants would be awful, because the Mike Comedy Central era eps seem to be riddled with tape hits. Damn. That is one of my favorite episodes. Ugh...

[Who Let Servo Drive]

Sounds like a good set. I actually really like the film The Slime People -- it's a terrible picture of course, but has some entertainment value and it scared me as a kid, perhaps for the same reason as Robot Monster did -- it's so awfully shot that there's something menacing about it.

Too bad it was done in season 1, not my favorite MSTs by any stretch.

I'm approaching too-lazy to play DVDs these days -- perhaps Amazon will make them available on instant view?

[duane]

Jul 20, 2013 22:19:10 GMT -5 Torgo said:

IN YOUR FACES!

Hey, don't act so high and mighty, you're not the only person who got it early.

(points to himself)

[Torgo]

THIS IS MY HIGH AND MIGHTY VOICE!

[Torgo]

Finished Giants. The rest of the episode looked fine. I noticed the same black bar from Rocket Attack, though. Just once.

Almost finished with Mantis. Of all the episodes in the history of the show, this is the one I had hoped was flawless, because of its nostalgia value. Picture is mostly good. Mostly. I noted brief tape flaws, blink and you'll miss them. I saw two of them, one in the opening segment and another in the second movie segment, so if there were more I probably blinked. And yet...that same black bar was in this episode too. Weird that it would hit three random episodes from three different eras, so I assume it was a flaw on Shout's part. I'm tempted to watch Slime People again to see if it pops up there too.

Haven't watched the bonus disc yet. I'm assuming it's the same transfers we've already seen, though.

[sirhamhat]

Thanks again, Torgo. Good to hear that the rest of Village of the Giants is good. Sorry to hear about Deadly Mantis, though. What's weird is all of the SciFi era eps used to be flawless. You could always count on them to be clear. I've never noticed any tape hits or any video or audio distortion on any of the SciFi era eps until you got the last set and pointed out the many hits in Mole People. When you said that, I thought to myself "naw... he must be confusing the movie scratches for tape hits." But when I finally watched I quickly discovered you were absolutely right--unfortunately. I found it to be one of the worst with tape hits since Beast of Yucca Flats... basically ruling it "unwatchable" for me. I can deal with it if there are just a few here and there and they are spread out, but there were just too many in that one. Anyhow.

Good to know what I have to look forward to when I watch them this weekend, and as always, thanks to your early reports on the new box sets. I got mine today... didn't order it from Shout this time, cause I wasn't really interested in the bonus disc this time. Can't wait to find out what the next eps are and then I get to wait 4 or 5 months to discover if they are in bad condition...

[Who Let Servo Drive]

I'm going to expose my ignorance here and ask what a tape hit is. Just googled it and nothing popped up.

[Torgo]

It's basically just a flaw in the video. The masters of the show weren't properly taken care of over the years.

[duane]

Jul 23, 2013 2:21:52 GMT -5 sirhamhat said:

I've never noticed any tape hits or any video or audio distortion on any of the SciFi era eps until you got the last set and pointed out the many hits in Mole People. When you said that, I thought to myself "naw... he must be confusing the movie scratches for tape hits." But when I finally watched I quickly discovered you were absolutely right--unfortunately. I found it to be one of the worst with tape hits since Beast of Yucca Flats... basically ruling it "unwatchable" for me.

Huh? How are you bothered by those tape hits on The Mole People? Comparing to Yucca Flats, whose tape hits truly are very distracting, The Mole People's are minor at best. Definitely not unwatchable - for me, at least. Is there a specific point in the episode where the tape hits are really bad? I have the episode in my laptop right now, and scrolling through it, everything appears acceptable.