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Post by Mighty Jack on May 9, 2021 0:12:08 GMT -5
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 10, 2021 6:51:43 GMT -5
Can't sleep, so I'm eating pizza rolls and watching Bart Fargo... it's a popular episode, and I like it too, though it's kind of limited riff-wise, I mean they sing watermelon man a lot, and do that ba-pa-da-da-da-da *ping*, thing, or play with the title "Danger! Twist Tie!" Still, it's a goodie. Sometimes repetition makes me laugh ("Rowsdower") and sometimes it doesn't ("Pretty nice") So, yeah spies, in order based of laughter... though this is just a guess. I need to invest in a laugh-o-meter and make it a scientific 1. Agent for H.A.R.M. ("Come on, it's not called -Sort of old scientist who helped Agent for h.a.r.m!") 2. Operation Double 007 ("Act natural, your lips might be bugged.") 3. Secret Agent Super Dragon ("Hi, honey, I'm smooth.") 4. Mighty Jack ("They're using every toy in the box!" or from KTMA, "They're playing games with Mr. Atari!") 6. Danger! Death Ray! ("This must be a massive organization to throw away a dollar fifty helicopter like that.") 7. The Million Eyes of Su-Maru ("She must have used at least a thousand eyes blowing up that bridge") is there anything I'm missing? As for what I listed I enjoyed them all, spies are the ginchiest!
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 11, 2021 16:54:50 GMT -5
I should have revisited season 9s British Invasion but elected to go from those delightful spy-flicks to season 2s Biker trilogy. None of these are fun, they're nasty, rapey, gross movies stocked with nasty, rapey, gross characters. If Phantom's theory (or whatever it was we called it back in the day) about movies affecting viewing holds any water, then the biker trilogy is representative of that in negative. Only the darkness in Wild Rebels is beaten back by the light of the riffing, the other two... mmm, not as much. So in ranking these things it comes down to Sidehackers vs. Hellcats to see who gets to sit in the cellar. The uniting factor with both is actor Ross Hagen, so maybe he gets to sit in the cellar (despite being the closest thing to a real human being (among the men) in either film)? I think most fans would side with Hackers as the better of the two. Though neither experiment is devoid of laughs (and "Only love pads the film" is a gem), but Sidehackers makes me feel like Catherine Deneuve must have felt in Belle de Jour, that scene where she's tied up and 2 men throw mud and cow-sht at her. To quote me, "Sidehackers has moments, just not enough of them - and the intangibles work against it - meaning, it isn't a happy watch. I want MST to lift my spirits, not to have them thrown in the muck." Hellcats is grimy too, both rank high on the stinky meter, and both require a shower after viewing, Hacker's could require two. Sidehackers might be a little funnier, but it may also a little more unpleasant. It's a crapout, roll the die and... 1. Wild Rebels (one of season 2s better eps) 2 3 4 . . . A lower level of hell. (okay, I tease, this is not the nadir for mst3k - Hackers has the edge on humor, Cats the relatively easier watch) Hellcats Sidehackers What do you think, sirs?
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 13, 2021 21:05:01 GMT -5
and now a new page for Mary Jo and Bridget's Rifftrax Presents feature films... mightyjacks.blogspot.com/2021/05/bridget-and-mary-jo-rifftrax-features.htmlIt's just quick overviews and I haven't seen their WW84 yet, that's a 'just the joke' release, so I have to watch and synch that the old fashioned way (I don't have the ability to do their apps) so I'm waiting for the library to get me a copy of the movie to check out. As I don't really want to buy it. And *phew* I have not done this much work on the blog in, like, 7 years. Even updating the site for the 2 new KTMAs a few years back was a chore, as I was having such a difficult time getting enthused enough to do much with the place. So this burst of energy was surprising. But I cleaned up a few things, added seasons 11 & 12, updated the top 100 and DVD info on the index. Added a page for the Mads and MJ&B, and completely gutted the grade scale... I thought about eliminating grades altogether but decided I might have fun with it, by letting Glenn Manning be the grade based on expressions (and then allow him to comment - or make comments about him). So it's 3-tiered... Happy Glenn: For above-average to exceptional episodes. This dominates of course Concerned Glenn: For average to mid-range to goodish episodes. And my favorite expression... Angry Glenn! For below-average eps, or to represent some degree of disappointment or upset about something (movie, riffing, unevenness of episode) It's silliness, but silliness suits the spirit of the show. Though it wound up more work than I expected, even skipping KTMA and the new seasons, I still had to come up with short Glenn commentaries for over 170 experiments. It was a challenge, and, running out of ideas, I eventually tried to tap into my inner Jack Perkins and have Glenn do that kind of thing. Edit: and yes I colorized him, it's a cheesy thing to do, and that fits as well, plus the images popped better that way.
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 14, 2021 21:13:23 GMT -5
Trilogies: Season 3 had the bikers, 6 had Coleman Francis, and season 9, the British Invasion... and a very dour, dreary invasion it was. If I associate the Coleman trilogy with the color gray, the British trio is brown and orange (Projected is also very yellowy, Bees has a lot of greens). Another characteristic for the 3 from season 9? They each had a catch-phrase - "Lembech is staying" for the Projected Man, "the dog's meat" for the Deadly Bees, and "Dorkin" from Gorgo. (Projected also has "I want you", and "Pretty you may be") The lead actors from Devil Doll return in 2 of these episodes (William Sylvester in Gorgo, Bryant Halliday in Projected Man, where you get bonus Doll callbacks - In Gorgo we get a callback to Riding With Death). Notable characters - The cigarette hag & bowler hat man (Bees), monkey boy & Dorkin (Gorgo), and our first monster named "Paul" (followed by Wurwilf Paul, and Moon Beast Paul), so there's face diaper man and Sheila in her picnic underwear on that one. And Hammer fans will enjoy seeing Michael Ripper... behind the bar (lol) in Bees. I wasn't in love with these experiments on first viewings (and Projected debuted with some echoey audio issues, while Gorgo disappeared after the first day's showings), but all 3 I've come to enjoy to some degree - no rock stars here (except for the literal one in Bees), but at the right time, with the right mood, they offer up the laughs. Gorgo is my favorite and I rated it 77th on my Top 100, Deadly Bees was the weakest... I say 'was' because the time before this viewing, I had a great time, it might have been the best of the invasion on that day. Projected has always been what it is, a decent, but average ep. #1. Gorgo #2. The Deadly Bees #3. Projected Man How others saw it. Paste Magazine's Rankings The Deadly Bees #99 Gorgo #124 The Project Man #153 The Workprint's Rankings Gorgo #51 The Deadly Bees #54 Projected Man #126 None of them made the "Bring Back MST Top 100" (for Turkey Day) list How would you, the viewer rank these?
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 14, 2021 23:26:04 GMT -5
Strangely enough I think these three episodes are my least favorites of season 9. I didn't think any of them were bad, just very dry.
I think I ranked Deadly Bees the highest during my season overview. It just seemed to have a bit more flavor than the others. Gorgo I want to like more than I do, both movie and episode, because giant monster, but it's pretty okay. Projected Man is mostly okay too, but it gets bottom of the list because of the prolonged and unfunny "Lembech is staying" gag. That alone just kind of sank the episode for me.
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 15, 2021 7:32:20 GMT -5
In watching them again, Gorgo was the only one I was laughing at with any steadiness, though that scene with the bowler hat guy in Bees, and the skit after, had me in stitches.
My bottom 3 would be Delta Knights and Devil Fish, and yeah, probably Projected Man to round it out.
I'll have to go read your season overviews now.
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 18, 2021 7:17:17 GMT -5
I've finally added Astral Factor to the Cinematic Titanic page. I didn't include anchors, so if you're interested in reading you'll have to scroll to the end of the page. mightyjacks.blogspot.com/2014/09/cinematic-titanic.htmlBTW, the cast in that flick includes Marianna Hill, who was in an episode of another classic show I enjoy, The Outer Limits - she starred in "I, Robot", with Leonard Nimoy, which was an adaptation of an Otto Binder story - us comic book fans know Otto as the co-creator of Supergirl. So, hey there's some trivia for nerds, which is me in a nutshell I also watched (unriffed) Samson and Doll Squad, and wow, yeah those were both riff-worthy. Samson is played by Bart Fargo, and that could have been fun.
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 20, 2021 8:23:38 GMT -5
I wish I could remember the specific date I started Mighty Jacks - it first saw life as a WebTV page - it was before Forest started this Discussion Board (he and I were both suffering at the unmoderated Sci-Fi forum back then). It was even before I knew Forest and before he started writing for Don. Don had the major review site, at least it was the one I paid attention to, and we started swapping email messages. So Mighty Jack's was born before this forum, before Forest, and at WebTv's height, which was 97-98 And I believe the logo was just a title card from the episode... A lot has changed over the decades, sadly Don's site is gone (but not forgotten). MJs is somehow still in the game. Even after several forced moves (from WebTV to GeoCities, then they died, so onto Yahoo... until they started charging an arm and a leg, then to a Google Blog). I thought I was done with it once the show was canceled, but then came Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic, and then The Mads and MST3K the return... and yeesh, I'm back plugging away at it. Anyway, with these new MST eps, I went and revised and updated my Top 100 list, and I thought it might be interesting to look at the Top 25 and compare what I had, with other listers lists. While you'll see a lot of the same titles (popular episodes are popular for good reason), I do have a few oddballs. So where does my list follow the crowd, and where does it step to the beat of its own drum? My 25 - and at the bottom of this post, are links to the lists I used for comparisons. (season # after the title) 25 Cave Dwellers (3) - #2 Paste / #8 IMDB Top 37 / #9 Bring Back MST Top 100 Poll / #15 Stackers Top 50 / #69 Workprint 24 Girl in Gold Boots (10) - #11 IMDB / #25 Paste / #46 Bring Back MST Poll / #77 Workprint 23 I Was A Teenage Werewolf (8) - #49 Paste / #82 Workprint 22 Werewolf (9) - #3 Yardbarker top 25 & Bring Back MST Poll / #4 Paste / #17 IMDB / #25 Stackers / #39 Workprint 21 Samson vs. the Vampire Women (6) - #8 Yardbaker / #12 Workprint / #65 Paste /#92 Bring Back MST Poll 20 Agent for H.A.R.M. (8) - #28 IMDB / #31 Paste / #71 Bring Back MST Poll / #75 Workprint 19 Girl In Lovers Lane (5) - #13 Stackers / #30 Paste / #65 Workprint 18 Touch of Satan (9) - #9 Yardbaker / #16 Workprint / #24 Bring Back MST Poll / #26 Paste / #27 IMDB 17 Girls Town (6) - #12 IMDB / #21 Paste / #72 Bring Back MST Top 100 / #108 Workprint 16 Mitchell (5) - #2 Stackers / #3 Bring Back MST Poll & Slashfilm Top 10 /#5 Workprint / #6 IMDB / #7 Yardbarker / #8 Paste 15 Manos: The Hands of Fate (4) - #1 Bring Back MST Poll & Stackers / #7 Workprint /#17 Yardbarker /#27 Paste 14 Monster A-Go Go (4) - #35 Stacker / #40 Bring Back MST Poll / #109 Workprint / #119 Paste 13 Riding With Death (8) - #29 IMDB / #36 Bring Back MST Poll / #54 Paste / #55 Workprint 12 Carnival Magic (11) - #85 Paste / Workprint #40 11 Deadly Mantis (8) - #24 Paste / #98 Bring Back MST Poll / #135 Workprint 10 Pod People (3) - #4 Slashfilm / #5 Bring Back MST Poll /#6 Paste / #10 Yardbarker / #11 Workprint & Stackers / #18 IMDB 9 Eegah (5) - #6 Workprint / #15 Yardbarker / #20 Paste / #34 Stackers 8 The Painted Hills (5) - #14 Workprint & Stackers / #101 Paste 7 The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (5) - #66 Workprint / #70 Bring Back MST Poll / #74 Paste 6 Final Sacrifice (9) - #1 Paste & IMDB top 37 / #2 Workprint / #4 Yardbarker & Bring Back MST Poll / #5 Slashfilm / #10 Stackers 5 Night of the Blood Beast (7) - #5 Paste / #9 Workprint / #46 Stackers / #75 Bring Back MST Poll 4 I Accuse My Parents (5) - #1 Slashfilm / #3 Workprint & Stackers / #5 IMDB / #12 Bring Back MST Poll / #15 Paste / #16 Yardbarker 3 Beast of Yucca Flats (6) - #63 Bring Back MST Poll / #84 Workprint / #188 Paste 2 Santa Claus (5) - #16 Stackers Top 50 / #20 Yardbarker top 25 / #21 Bring Back MST Poll / #41 Workprint /#55 Paste 1 Jack Frost (8) - #12 Paste / #13 Workprint / #15 IMDB / #20 Bring Back MST Poll / #24 Yardbarker Links to Lists: Stacker's Top 50 | Paste's worst to best | The Workprint: Every episode ranked | Yardbarker's 25 | Bring Back MST Top 100 | IMDB Top 37 | Slashfilm Top 10My oddballs? I like Teenage Werewolf, Yucca Flats and Sinbad a lot more than the majority, and from what's missing from mine that's frequently found in others Top 25s? Hobgoblins (#1 Yardbarker, #17 at Paste, #16 Bring Back MST Poll) it's #94 in my Top 100 / Pumaman (#6 Bring Back MST Poll, #11 Yardbarker) is #40 on my list / Prince of Space (#15 MST Poll, #19 Yardbarker ) didn't make my Top 100 nor did Laserblast (#17 Bring Back MST Poll, #5 Yardbarker) As for the highest rankings for Nu-MST: Paste has Wizards of the Lost Kingdom at #14 / Workprint has Mac and Me #1 (seriously, this is his all-time MST ep, which hey, that's fine, but wild) / Yardbarker went with Starcrash at #12 / I went with Carnival Magic and slotted it #12. Cry Wilderness, and Avalanche also placed well on lists that included the new seasons.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on May 20, 2021 20:03:02 GMT -5
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 20, 2021 21:43:06 GMT -5
Oh wow - now THAT'S creamy!
Thanks for sharing that, man what a trip, I fell down the rabbit hole for an hour or two. So nice to see Don's reviews have survived EDIT! Oh, and there's Unsavory's grades too, I forgot about that, Don kept finding helpers).
Then I found my old GeoCities page, where some of those old write-ups make me cringe (Hamlet, forgive me, Mary Jo, forgive me - looks like you can't escape your past).
It appears that version of the site ran from 2002 to 2009. So that narrows down part of it. I was thinking about the old Giant Spider's page the other day, I remember the little Volkswagon and the logo, and the Packers color scheme and the Packers pennant Easter egg (if you clicked on it, you'd hear a sound clip of the guys saying "PACKERS! WOO HOO!" So cool to see that again).
You win the good citizens award of the month Torgo.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
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Post by Torgo on May 20, 2021 22:39:17 GMT -5
Yeah, I looked up the site when I was feeling nostalgic a few years ago. Good times.
I also found out Forrest has a YouTube channel now. He posts his short films on it. He also had a Patreon too, but I think he took it down. When I caught it he was only getting $10 a month.
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 22, 2021 8:02:58 GMT -5
I was wondering what Forrest was doing with himself, and how Don and the rest are fairing? I follow a guy on Letterboxd who calls himself Forrest With2Rs... he loved 2001, has reviewed several films that were featured on MST, but he doesn't talk about being a MSTie or being a filmmaker so I don't think it's the same person. Looking over Don's history, he started his site in '99 and was doing tape trading, which he wasn't doing when I found the site. In 2001 he said he stopped trading and changed the name to Don's MST3K Review, and that's what I remember it as (Forrest joined him in 2003). I had a free page on WebTV... and that's all it was, a page with write-ups only a paragraph long, talking about the handful of Rhino tapes I'd seen. It had those crappy animated images we thought were so cool back then. lol. But one was an image of a TV with static, and I liked and used that. It was a private page, too. I guess I'll go with 2002 as Mighty Jack's official birth date, though it might have been earlier, the private page would be the website equivalent of my KTMA days. Here are a few images from the past... The Geocities Banner, circa 2005 - those fuzzy MST Images came from a site that hosted a bunch of screencaps (It's no longer around) The Cheese-O-Rama clickable banner, circa 2006 (I was not a master banner maker, but I did my best) A couple of episode page headers that amused me, circa 2007, 2008 And other review websites that were around back then included, Greg Eichelberger’s MST3K Reviews and MST3UK, which was a great-looking site. Man they made the rest of us look like dogs when it came to web design.
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 23, 2021 8:11:12 GMT -5
I already spoke of my appreciation for the spy genre, but how did others see it? Looking at four Top 100 (or beyond) lists, I assigned points based on rankings, totaled those up, and here are the results. 4. Secret Agent Super Dragon 43 points on 3 of 4 lists (Highest ranking, #77 MST3K Top 100 Poll) 3. Danger! Death Ray 67 points on 3 of 4 lists (Highest ranking, #52 MST3K Top 100 Poll) 2. Operation Double 007 123 points on 3 of 4 lists (Highest ranking, #35 Mighty Jack's) 1. Agent for H.A.R.M. 203 points on 4 of 4 lists (Highest ranking, #20 Mighty Jack's) - the only spy to crack everyone's Top 100 Highest Ranking for those that failed to make anyone's top 100 (Mighty Jack #105, Rocket Attack USA #112) Highest ranking for List makers not named... Paste had H.A.R.M. as his top spy, ranked #31, and the Workprint list also put H.A.R.M. at the top, but at #75 I have to add, that wasn't SHOUTS best cover art, colors kind of clash, and the spore splash looks like snot, yuk. (the others, including Mighty Jack, had much nicer covers)
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Post by sol-survivor on May 23, 2021 14:54:57 GMT -5
I knew when I first discovered and joined your sites (both the blog and the forum) you were using Web-TV because, well, so was I. I recognized your star background because I was using it with Pagebuilder for a personal site I had going which disappeared when I upgraded to the TV-2. Didn't get a big girl laptop until 2008. I guess I more than made up for it now since I currently have four laptops (two of which are being phased out to be replaced by the other two and will be gone whenever I get around to finishing up with transferring the content), a desktop computer, a Kindle Fire 10 tablet, a Blu-ray player, an Amazon Fire Stick, a smart TV, and two smartphones (one of which is deactivated but I still use for some things so I guess it could now be a small tablet) on my happy little network. I think that's enough for now. I used to post on your forum a lot but haven't in several years. I even supplied you with a Beatles riff you didn't have on your list (Gypsy softly sings a snippet of "Michelle" during the letter reading segment of Colossus and the Headhunters. I wouldn't have heard it myself if I hadn't been listening with headphones). Still have the site bookmarked even in the latest location and check in from time to time. I used the same avatar and username I have here. About half of your Top 25 would not be on mine, and in fact, some would be on my "Meh" list if I had one. I never really put together any lists of my own. I've mentioned at times that I like some not-so-popular episodes and I'm lukewarm about many popular ones, but to each their own. I do have the same #1 as you, though. I have said before that if someone handed me the discs for Hamlet and The Final Sacrifice and told me I had to watch one of them I would choose Hamlet. Yes, I'm weird, which results in creativity. With several exceptions most of my favorites are movies from the 50s and 60s. I have to at least kind of like the movie or at least appreciate the effort in making the movie no matter how goofy it turned out to really enjoy an episode, and so many 70s and later movies are just so unpleasant for me that I just can't enjoy the episode. This is why The Incredible Melting Man is probably my bottom "original recipe" episode and Squirm is the bottom of the SciFi years. Since I didn't enjoy any of the reboot episodes I managed to sit through I can't really say which would be the bottom for those. I see you really like Carnival Magic but I just couldn't watch any more after slogging through that one and it remains the last reboot episode I watched. I have not had the slightest urge to revisit any of them. Most of the other episodes that I don't especially care for I can at least sit through, even if I don't pay much attention to it or rarely crack a smile. Those episodes would probably make up my "Meh" list. Maybe someday I'll make my own lists. Maybe rank them by season from "Yay!!!" to "Meh" to "Lower than the bottom of the barrel." Something like that.
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