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Post by jjb3k on Feb 2, 2007 0:49:17 GMT -5
One of my personal favorite moments in all of MST3K history comes from 404. In the scene where Derek is attempting to shoot down the rogue gargon, there's a shot of the monster in all its glory - cheapo wobbling lobster silhouette with lame screaming voice - and Servo just flatly states "You've got to be kidding me." That just sums up the whole scene right there.
I loaned my DVD of MST3K: Volume 6 to a buddy of mine at work when he wanted to get introduced to the show, and for weeks after, we kept passing in the kitchen and booming "TOHTCHA!" to each other for a laugh.
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Feb 2, 2007 1:12:37 GMT -5
I love it when Tom says that. It's always so perfect.
What you've said reminds me of my current situation with a coworker of mine. I'm always talking about the show, so he asked if I had some eps that he remembered seeing back when they were on SciFi. So I offered to make him a tape. He's pretty much hooked now. We like to just mutter "He's a catcher's mitt with eyes . . . " as we pass each other.
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Feb 5, 2007 19:00:46 GMT -5
405 - Being from another Planet I didn't have a lot to do with this film. (I was expecting a joke like this right off the bat, but was hoping for something a little more creative than this, like maybe "Being from another planet, I had no way of knowing I could've gotten a better role!" Or something. Oh well.)
This one was a little below average. It's just missing some of the energy of a rewatchable episode. It's partially the movie's fault. It's predictable and doesn't have enough wrong with it to make it laughable. Oh it's bad. Just not very good-bad. And then, the riffidge just doesn't pack much of a wallop for the most part.
Aside from the invention exchange and the final segment, the host segments are quite the let down. The Bill Mumy segment gets a zero from me; they're not really even mocking him or anyone; they're simply naming stuff he's been in. The bowls of ick sketch is also not interesting; it's not like they expanded on these classic home-made horror show tricks; they just used them as-is instead of taking them to some logical extreme, which is a type of comedy the Brains usually excel at. The Holoclown party is almost interesting . . . it's goofy and Joel delivers his punchline well.
The ending segment, TV's Frank Shopping Network, is pretty fun, but the star of the whole episode is the Mads' invention: Tragic Moments figurines. These are heartbreaking and right on and funny! If this one isn't already held as a classic among the invention exchanges, it should be. The SOL invention, the Jack Palance Impersonation Kit, is also fun and just so true.
EDIT: I almost forgot to note that the Jack Palance respirators have little pictures of Jack on 'em! Cute, huh?
The credits riffs are pretty fun: ROBERT RANDOM Crow: Oh, they picked him out of nowhere!
A missed riff from the credits: Music Composed by RICHARD H. BAND Me: Gee, a whole score performed by a one-man band? I dunno . . .
Man, they saved a bundle on lighting in this flick. By not using much! From the cops in the boiler room, to the girl running from the mummy through the hallways, it's just dark all over. And then there's the professor's office where he hunches over his desk with only a 60 watt to get him through the scene. Geez, mood is one thing, but think about worker happiness here, people! Joel: Man, if we could see that, I bet it'd be real scary. Can't remember who: Aagh! It's a poorly lit point of view shot! Tom, I think, as cops investigate boiler room: They should turn on some lights . . .
Check it out, the radio station's call letters are KCIS, which spells SICK backwards! Oh, and why is Shari Belafonte-Harper in this movie? For star power? Yikes . . . That's sad. Say, anyone know if her sub-plot is all but cut out of the MST3K edit, or is her involvement really as unnecessary as it seems?
Some of my favorite riffs: Crow: Guests of King Tut stay at the California Institute of the Sciences.
As professor reads Egyptian manuscript . . . Crow: Dear Aunt Nefertiti, thanks for the SOCKS?
Professor: You've been X-raying this mummy with ten times the normal dose! Crow: He could die!
Dorky guy tries to get idiot friend to buy worthless piece of glass (surprised the crystals never got called geometric nuclei) . . . Dorky idiot: Think of what Ellen would think if you gave her this! Tom as idiot friend: Heh, heh, heh, shiny! Who's Ellen?
Then there's the scene with a bunch of sciencey stuff and Ken Melrose checking the mummy's computer-generated plaid, stalagmite, and stalactite levels . . . Tom as sweet lover man, Ken Melrose: I have no idea what's going on . . . While not all that funny, this riff is fun for me because I say this exact phrase all the time. It's become a catch-phrase of mine and I'd seriously like to have it on a t-shirt.
I wish they'd made more fun of the university president's toady. He's in the stinger, but my favorite line of his (and a moment that might've made a funnier stinger, if you ask me) is this: Oh, come off it profethor!
I'm not sure that I'd agree with Tom that this is the worst movie they've seen yet. But Joel and Crow's list of experiments is a fun little checklist to see how well and how quickly you can get a mental picture of all the eps they rapidly list. In case you're curious, they do not list every experiment up to that point. Here are the ones they don't name:
101 - The Crawling Eye 103 - The Mad Monster 105 - The Corpse Vanishes 106 - The Crawling Hand 107 - Robot Monster 108 - The Slime People 109 - Project Moonbase 110 - Robot Holocaust 112 - Untamed Youth 113 - The Black Scorpion 203 - Jungle Goddess 212 - Godzilla vs. Megalon 308 - Gamera vs. Gaos 317 - Viking Women and the Sea Serpent 324 - Master Ninja 2
So pretty much most of season one a few from two and three.
Not to put down the kid who sent in the letter, but he says he's seen 38 episodes, and that's barely better than half up to this point. I'm not sure why I want to note that. Seems mean don't it? Whatever. This is the 73rd ep in my full series viewing. I'm not saying I'm better than that kid; I'm just stating that for the curious . . . Okay, I think I'm done here!
No, that's too weird a note to end on . . . I'll do a sum up. While this ep is not that great, it's not totally worthless. It's got some good riffs and a superb invention exchange. It's biggest drawbacks are the uninteresting host segments. Okay, not much of a better note . . . but that's life!
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Post by jjb3k on Feb 5, 2007 23:09:39 GMT -5
Actually, in Season 4, having seen 38 episodes isn't all that much to sneeze at. Assuming this kid had never seen the KTMAs (and if he didn't reside in Minnesota, odds are pretty good he hadn't), and considering that Comedy Central had already agreed to stop showing the Season 1 episodes long before 405 aired, that only leaves 41 episodes before this one that CC was still airing.
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Feb 6, 2007 8:13:25 GMT -5
Hagh! You're right!
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Post by fanliorel on Feb 9, 2007 15:08:54 GMT -5
Hm, and I wonder which one of us that kid was.....
-surveys the drawing room full of Hercule Poirot-style suspec..., er, guests-
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Feb 10, 2007 21:05:52 GMT -5
Yeah, I was way off on the comment about the kid. I'll just add that to my long list of regrets and move on, thinking about the incident only once a week for the rest of my life . . .
I have no idea what your reference is about fanliorel. And I don't feel like doing the research . . . 'Splain?
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Post by jjb3k on Feb 11, 2007 0:22:00 GMT -5
Yeah, I was way off on the comment about the kid. I'll just add that to my long list of regrets and move on, thinking about the incident only once a week for the rest of my life . . . I have no idea what your reference is about fanliorel. And I don't feel like doing the research . . . 'Splain? You've never heard of Hercule Poirot? Better to find these things out now than after you'd watched "The Rebel Set", I suppose.
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Feb 11, 2007 12:17:53 GMT -5
I'd heard the name . . . But again, I didn't feel like doing the research. Thanks for the help!
Anyway, I'm about half-way through writing my 406 review.
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Feb 11, 2007 16:31:46 GMT -5
Yeah, I was a little bit way off on criticizing the kid, but you just don't understand: I'm a jerk.
406 - Attack of the Giant Leeches with Undersea Kingdom Part 1
Yeah, this one's alright. It's a good average episode. It's as rewatchable as most eps, but there's not a lot that's truly special about this one.
I like the reappearance of Paul and Mike as the Holo-Clowns. They do a convincing job as scary clowns! Mike's acting in the Hexfield is particularly spirited. I think that, had I been a fan at the time, I would definitely have noticed that Mike Nelson was a stand-out talent on the show. From his fine performances in his bit parts as SOL visitors to the fact that he's also credited as head writer and usually the writer of all the songs, despite the fact that he doesn't have all that much screen time at this point, you can definitely tell that Mike has a lot to do with why MST3K is great.
Oh, but look closely when Joel is "cutting" the wire on the Holo-Clown modulator. What he has there is a wire stripper, not a wire cutter. Not actually cutting the wire probably helped them do multiple takes if they had to.
The middle line from Tom's clown haiku is "Hear the scream of the grease paint!" Which is just silly. And I love it.
When Frank goes on the thing about being "the sum of [his] vices", it sounds like he's quoting literature. But I don't find any Google hits that support that. Whatever. Nice performance Frank!
I also like this part during the SOL invention. Joel smears Tom with vaseline and then has it all over his fingers as he retrieves and administers the hormonal spray. Then as Tom is saying, "Hello Suzie! Wanna go to the Snow Days dance with me?" you should keep an eye on Joel; he's wiping the vaseline off on the table top!
I wonder why Lon Chaney Jr. doesn't get a higher billing in the credits for the short. Seems like he'd be one of the names they'd try to sell the serial with. But I guess he wasn't that much of a name until some time after 1936 when Undersea Kingdom was made. Oh and this serial is the oldest film MST3K ever riffed!
FYI, the song Joel and the Bots sing as the sailors enter the athletic center is The Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat". 'Cause they're sailors, see?
I think the short and its riffidge were more fun than the feature. It helps that the short is truly ridiculous. I think the film-makers knew that they could do whatever nonsense they pleased with this thing and as long as there was sciencey stuff, explosions, costumes, and people or horses running around, the kids aren't going to notice that it makes no sense!
So, this machine thing can both predict and prevent earthquakes, huh? Never mind how impossible earthquake prevention is, granted it is "sci-fi", but why didn't the dang professor predict and prevent the earthquake that occurs right before the commercial break? Hello? Do your job, dummy! Save some lives! After all, why else did you invent the thing?
At the beginning of the first Atlantis sequence, the Imperial Margarine kingdom is being attacked. But guess what! They're not in this story! They're just there to be blown up! This serial involves the other, more evil Atlantean kingdom!
Crash: We're being dragged down by some mysterious force! Joel: The Plot?
Crow does a number of good impressions during the short. My favorite is his C-3PO.
Right before the "Hurry, Diana!" moment, watch out for Crash's wandering hand. He gets a big handful of . . . Diana. They were probably too cheap to do another take. I bet some twelve-year-olds got a kick out of that back in the day!
Joel: GE, we bring good things to death!
As the short goes into its cliffhanger ending, leaving Crash and Billy at the edge of a crumbling cliff, Tom says, "I like Meg Ryan in this role better." Do you suppose he means Joe vs. the Volcano? I dunno.
Now, in the credits of the feature, it says the underwater equipment was done by "healthways". Weird name for a scuba company, dontcha think? But I guess it was a big brand in scuba back in the day.
Wonder why there aren't more Gary Busey jokes. The sheriff's resemblance is uncanny. Maybe they're waiting for his appearances in Tormented and The Rebel Set, both later this season.
The guys make a big deal about how much coffee they drink and how great it is. But I recently watched a National Geographic show that said that in the fifties, coffee was usually pretty bad. I can't remember all of the reasons they gave, but it was partially due to there being a lot of percolators (instead of drip systems) and that some coffee was sold unroasted and you had to "roast" it yourself in a pan on the stove! Coffee is apparently a lot better now. I think I'll go make some . . .
I like the bit where Steve and Nan are in the boat and the guys are exaggerating Nan's offering of coffee with her having dinner ready. But right after that Crow says, "Hey, what's this holding the- augh!" Anybody have any idea what's going on there? I don't see the comment's relation to anything on screen.
Joel as Cal: Hey, I'm here about the affair. I have an appointment for 2:00 Wednesday . . .
Oh, and in response to all the coffee happening on screen, Tom gets turned into a coffee maker! I would totally love to have a Tom Servo coffee maker! It would probably be the perfect size for the small pots of coffee I make at home. Almost makes me want to become a bot builder . . .
Liz: One night he tried to hold up a gas station. Tom: But he wasn't very strong and it fell on him.
Tom as Cal: I can't be held accountable; she's got bosoms and everything!
Steve: You just don't understand, do you? Tom as Steve: I'm a jerk!
Missed riff: The yokels cruise the swamp . . . Yokel: Right over there in them reeds . . . Me as yokel in very hard to understand muffly speech: I found a couple of Shoshone arrowheads!
So, this episode is decent and good, but not a barn-burner. But . . .
Crow: Keep in mind I'm intensely stupid . . .
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Post by TarlCabot on Feb 11, 2007 17:22:45 GMT -5
But right after that Crow says, "Hey, what's this holding the- augh!" Anybody have any idea what's going on there? I don't see the comment's relation to anything on screen. Crow is saying: "Hey, what's this hole in the b-AGH!" As in, there's a hole in the boat.
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Feb 11, 2007 18:05:27 GMT -5
Ohhh, okay. That sounds good.
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Post by jjb3k on Feb 12, 2007 12:00:26 GMT -5
"Attack of the Giant Leeches" was the third Joel episode I ever saw, after buying "The Essentials" and watching "Manos: The Hands of Fate" and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" to death. So it's kind of significant to me in that respect, but what really makes it stand out is the short.
The first chapter of "Undersea Kingdom" features some of the funniest riffing ever, in my opinion. By the time they get to chapter two in "The Indestructible Man", they're basically just running the "Hurry, Diana!" thing into the ground. Here, however, they fire on all cylinders:
ALL (singing): Heyyy, it's the Undersea Kingdom / for you and for me / and it's fun...
CROW (as goat): I am the god of hellfire!
JOEL (regarding wide shot of stadium): You know, all these people are dead now, isn't that sad?
JOEL (as submarine submerges): Hey, did you remember to close the hatch? SERVO: D'oh!
SERVO: Meanwhile, at the bottom of Billy's bathtub... CROW: Billy Bathtub, what a horrible movie.
SERVO: Annapolis a day keeps the doctoris away!
SERVO: Xanadu, stately underwater home of Charles Foster Kane! Cost: no fish can say.
(Over a shot of the desert, Servo bleeps and whistles a la R2-D2) CROW (as C-3P0): No, you go that way! You'll be breaking down in no time!
ALL (as robots): I'm a little teapot, short and stout...
I've seen this one a bunch of times, and it never gets old.
EDIT: Although there is one missed riff opportunity that I always take the liberty of filling whenever I watch this. As Crash swings from the rings in the gymnasium, Joel and the bots just make monkey sounds. I, however, always break into my best Charlton Heston with "A gymnasium where apes evolved from men?!"
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Feb 12, 2007 13:30:18 GMT -5
Nice.
You know that riff "I am the god of hellfire!" comes from a song? It's the opening line from the song "Fire" by Arthur Brown, a sort of British proto-Alice Cooper.
I was wondering about the Billy Bathtub riff, though. I tried doing some research but couldn't come up with any evidence of a movie called Billy Bathtub. Was Crow stretching for Billy Bathgate?
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Post by jjb3k on Feb 12, 2007 14:17:04 GMT -5
I was wondering about the Billy Bathtub riff, though. I tried doing some research but couldn't come up with any evidence of a movie called Billy Bathtub. Was Crow stretching for Billy Bathgate? Yeah, I think that him calling the movie "Billy Bathtub" instead of "Billy Bathgate" was supposed to be the joke (at least, according to my dad). It sounds like one of those things that somebody said in the writers' room just to be silly, and they decided to put it in the episode anyway.
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