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Post by Mike Flugennock on Dec 13, 2012 20:37:12 GMT -5
In The Space Children, Crow's presentation of skimpy, naughty outfits he designed for Jackie Coogan, complete with sketches and detailed description, makes me curl my toes and clench my jaw. Turn it off, Turn it OFF! Well, it seems Nelson and Servo were with you on that, but that's still one of my favorite bits, for the very reason it's so cringe-worthy. I love how the outfits get more and more grotesquely salacious -- especially when viewed on Jackie Coogan. Still, the movie really was asking for it; I mean, who in the wardrobe department thought it was OK to put those stupid little swim trunks on Jackie Coogan, f'cripesake?
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Post by Mike Flugennock on Dec 13, 2012 20:41:02 GMT -5
i actually read this as making fun of the tendency in those movies to always put the USA dead center in their establishing globe shots, i.e., the dumb nationalism is the doing of the movies, not the riffers. but i could be wrong.Yes, this was the spirit in which I always took the humor as well. When you think about it, the writers made tons of jokes based around racial/national/sexual stereotypes, but I always got the impression that they were not actually perpetuating the stereotypes, but were making fun of how ridiculous they were. [/b][/quote] Yeah, that's kind of the way I saw it. MST3K was full of movies with those kind of attitudes and, of course, mocking nationalistic/racist/sexist attitudes and stereotypes was part of MST3K's stock in trade.
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Post by Mike Flugennock on Dec 13, 2012 20:50:25 GMT -5
I just finished watching the Gamera box set, and the sketch at the end of Gamera vs. Zigra where they each sing the Gamera theme song in a different style...gahh...so, so awful. Joel's reggae version especially. Give me 10 Joey the Lemur sketches over that every time. I realize I may be in the minority here, but I absolutely loved the three iterations of the Gamera Song in the host segments for Gamera Vs Guiron. The final version was my favorite -- and a real cringefest if there ever was one -- the one performed by Mike Nelson as Michael Feinstein in Deep 13. I've never seen an actual Michael Feinstein performance, but if the accuracy of MST3K's parody of Lisa Loeb is any indication, an actual Michael Feinstein performance would have me making like Crow when he melts down, shaking and quivering and desperately screaming "Turn it OFF! TURN IT OFF!!"
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Post by Mike Flugennock on Dec 13, 2012 20:59:14 GMT -5
It's not really cringe-inducing as such, but really annoying: the acting of the woman who played Betty's rich girlfriend in Teenagers From Outer Space. It's not that I didn't find her attractive in a kind of retro '50s pinup kind of way, it was just her overacting. She could've chewed half the scenery she did in that scene and I still would've totally understood that yes, Betty's rich girlfriend is the town slut -- OK, I GET IT.
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Post by msmystie3000 on Dec 14, 2012 12:31:35 GMT -5
I just finished watching the Gamera box set, and the sketch at the end of Gamera vs. Zigra where they each sing the Gamera theme song in a different style...gahh...so, so awful. Joel's reggae version especially. Give me 10 Joey the Lemur sketches over that every time. I LOVED THAT SKETCH! My favorite "Gamera Song" sketch ever! The one that made me cringe was J&TB singing the tune in faux Japanese. The Michael Feinstein ones were kinda "meh" for the most part. I like "Joey The Lemur" it's so deranged but it's so darn CUTE and I love Joelie's goofy "Borscht Belt/Vegas comedian" voice!
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Post by jimmydoorlocks on Dec 14, 2012 15:55:34 GMT -5
Uugh, the fake Japanese singing...
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Post by Mr. Atari on Dec 14, 2012 19:37:24 GMT -5
I just finished watching the Gamera box set, and the sketch at the end of Gamera vs. Zigra where they each sing the Gamera theme song in a different style...gahh...so, so awful. Joel's reggae version especially. Give me 10 Joey the Lemur sketches over that every time. I LOVED THAT SKETCH! My favorite "Gamera Song" sketch ever! The one that made me cringe was J&TB singing the tune in faux Japanese. The Michael Feinstein ones were kinda "meh" for the most part. I like "Joey The Lemur" it's so deranged but it's so darn CUTE and I love Joelie's goofy "Borscht Belt/Vegas comedian" voice! Gypsy's opera is funny, and the lyrics to Tom's beatnik rant are great. But Joel's reggae "singing" is horrible, and Crow never was able to sing in tempo. Seriously, though, I cringe for Joel during that segment.
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Post by Mike Flugennock on Dec 14, 2012 19:37:56 GMT -5
A few skits really were awful: The Hexfield Gorilla & Kitten With A Whip (though Kevin looked hilarious in a stupid cat costume). Hexfield Gorilla wasn't really awful for me, it was just... y'know... m'eh. As someone who lives with a cat, however, I found the Kitten With A Whip hexfield bit hysterical, and not just because I got to see Murphy in the cat costume. I think that may have been the whole point of that bit. The scenes with Bruce The Gym Guy in Daddy-O didn't really do anything, except perhaps to point out what an ineffectual, useless, rock-stupid twit Bruce The Gym Guy was. Any time Bruce tried to assert himself in any way, Bruno VeSota would just blow him off, and then Bruce would be like, "...oh, well, OK..." Even towards the end of the movie, when he finally tried to take charge of a situation, he proved himself to be massively incompetent and intensely stupid. I only saw Robot Monster two or three times, so I don't remember that bit; I'll have to pull it off the backup pile and give it another look. I nabbed a copy of that one as it was the infamous movie in which the alien is a guy in a gorilla suit with a stupid space helmet in place of the gorilla head, but the riffing was kind of hit-or-miss (an early Season 1 show, iirc).
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Post by Mike Flugennock on Dec 14, 2012 19:53:06 GMT -5
Actually, I'm just now reminded after having just watched The Beatniks this afternoon... some of the most cringe-worthy moments in any movie on MST3K are basically every scene in The Beatniks in which Peter Breck appears. If anyone ever published a definitive guide to theatrical/film slang, the entry for "chewing the scenery" would include a production still of Peter Breck as "Moon" in The Beatniks. My skin especially crawls during that scene in the bar, where That Fat Barkeep is calling the cops, and Moon (Breck) goes into Pathetic Groveling Mode. I found mysel reacting like Crow during the engagement party scene in the General Hospital short... "Turn it OFF... Turn it OFF... TURN IT OFF!!!"
Now, I can't speak for Breck's work in The Big Valley as I never watched it -- I was more of a Wild Wild West and Magnificent Seven fan as a kid -- but now, I'm curious to check out an episode to see if Breck is just as bad in that.
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Post by Mike Flugennock on Dec 14, 2012 21:33:33 GMT -5
Oh, jeez... and how could I have forgotten that horrible, schlocky theme song that starts playing every time the Puma Man shows up, that wretched cheesy music that sounds like the generic background music for a TV commercial?
"...location, price, selection and service..." "...we're busting up prices..." "...when you want the taste of bacon in a dip..." "...burn an old man, and singe all his flesh off..."
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Post by uctions on Dec 17, 2012 6:32:43 GMT -5
The letter readings. Ugh, most of the time they acted like they were being forced at gunpoint to do it or just did not care at all. Then there's the 'Clayton, Clayton' segment and of the riffs, the long-drawn-out sequence where they were making up sports terms for sidehacking. 'Wacky' - sounding made-up words tick me off.
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Post by Monophylos on Dec 17, 2012 9:53:04 GMT -5
The letter readings. Ugh, most of the time they acted like they were being forced at gunpoint to do it or just did not care at all. Good point. It was occasionally amusing when the boys started poking fun a letter while reading it but they were uncomfortable laughs to be sure. There was one case--I can't remember the episode--where Joel starts reading (in what sounds like a bored monotone) a letter from a kid who talks about hating school and falling asleep during class; then Joel stops, saying that the letter was too depressing, and starts reading another. I felt a little sorry for the poor kid who wrote the first one.
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Post by Cubey on Feb 13, 2013 2:59:22 GMT -5
Ugh... as much as I think a lot of the SciFi host segments are bad... to name a few ("Owner of a Lonely Heart" being one), I think the worst one for me is... hell, I don't even know what to call it or what show it was in. I think it was about mid series.
Servo is dressed up and starts basically just screaming over and over and over.. then starts to begin to sing something or other then it's movie sign. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
At first i didn't like "Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter" but it grew on me.
I *love* Joey The Lemur", "The Godzilla Genealogy Bop", "Master Ninja Theme Song", Crow's cheesy guitar solo that goes on for several host segments in "The Dead Talk Back", and lots of others!
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Post by Monophylos on Feb 13, 2013 8:59:44 GMT -5
Ah, yes, the infamous A Star Is Born host segment. And not the good A Star Is Born versions either but the gawdawful, self-regarding Barbra Streisand version. Why? Just...why? You're right, that's much worse than "Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter".
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