The Best of Bert I Gordon

[Mighty Jack]

I looked around, and the only Mr. B.I.G. discussion was about his films, rather than the MST experiments.

So, vote for your top 3 and discuss

[Mighty Jack]

Hmm, tough to chose. Bert I movies make for some of my favorite episodes. 4 of them made my top 50 (Amazing, War, Beginning, Village) but all of them are a kick.

Amazing Colossal Man is my favorite movie, a childhood favorite, and despite some earnest silliness and weak FX, I still think it's a good story with a philosophical side that makes it better than expected.

Saying that the lesser sequel is funnier, at least for me. And I have Beginning of the End (#38) and Village of the Giants (#43) ranked a bit higher than the iconic Amazing (#46), so I guess those are my 3.

But Magic Sword, King Dinosaur, Earth vs. The Spider, and Tormented are all a delight, not a bad Bert in the bunch.

The Experiments
1. War of the Colossal Beast
2. Beginning of the End
3. Village of the Giants
4. Amazing Colossal Man
5. The Magic Sword
6. King Dinosaur
7. Tormented
8. Earth vs. the Spider

The Movies
1. Amazing Colossal Man
2. Magic Sword
3. Tormented

[wedestroymyths]

This is fun! King Dinosaur will always be a favorite for me, since it was the first episode I ever saw (well, saw about 3/4 of), and hooked me. Were I to rank, it'd probably go

1. Colossal Beast
2. Village of Giants
3. King Dinosaur
4. Beginning of the End
5. Colossal Man
6. Earth vs. the Spider
7. Tormented
8. The Magic Sword

And yeah, they're all excellent. Were I to make a top 50, it's possible all 8 would be in there.

[BoB3K]

"Tom Stewart killed me!!"

Joel falls off of SOL balcony. "You guys gotta help me!"   Tom: "Oh, I hate it when people tell me I HAVE to do something."

"Look dad, all I want is the bread."    "In english please, I don't dig with you freaky lactose man."

Rips open loaf of bread, rips out piece and hands it out,  "Try it."    (My daughter now always eats her bread or big pretzels at restaurants this way)

Grasshoppers attacking postcards.  Hi I'm Peter Graves.

WE ARE SPYDOR!    (I named my Guitar Hero band Spydor.)

"Joey, the lemur!!"   "Consider me a possible mascot suitable for any professional or semi professional sport team!"   (I love Joey the lemur. Sometimes I don't get what people don't get about that bit. Joel thinks it's silly just like everyone else, and during the bit itself he just keeps going further in to the absurd. It's great. I'm in tears every time I watch it.)


I love the BIG. All of them. Well, Village of the Giants wasn't as fun IMO. Probably mostly cuz it's newer and in color.

Fun fact, he's still alive and kicking at age 98!!!

[Torgo]

Love Bert, and Beginning of the End is a top episode for me, while Tormented is a solid second.

1. Beginning of the End
2. Tormented
3. The Amazing Colossal Man
4. Earth vs. the Spider
5. The Magic Sword
6. Village of the Giants
7. War of the Colossal Beast
8. King Dinosaur

[sol-survivor]

I voted for Earth vs. the Spider, Beginning of the End, and The Magic Sword, but I enjoy them all. Some more than others, but still.

[leeharveyosmond]

1. Village of the Giants
2. Beginning of the End
3. King Dinosaur

top 3 are all good/great, i'm fond of Earth vs. the Spider and Tormented, really don't like the remaining three that much.

[comedyc]

I was just thinking about this a day or two ago.
Bert I. Gordon's best made film that was featured on MST3K is Village of the Giants, imo. It's superior from a technical standpoint, as well as choice of cast. These two elements put Village above the rest for me. At that stage in his career, he had managed to make a film that didn't have the stilted aspect of his earlier works, while still maintaining his trademark signatures (his "big" effects, for example).
Runners up would be Tormented and The Magic Sword. Tormented is a perfect potboiler, with minimal B.I.G. effects to distract. I really like it. Both Village and Tormented are top ten overall episodes for me.
The Magic Sword, while still falling into the trappings of early B.I.G., is very ambitious. It mostly succeeds in this, and that puts it a cut above the rest.

[Mighty Jack]

I see we have 26 votes by 11 voters - in case you didn't notice, you can vote for 3, if you did notice and didn't want to vote for 3, well...

[Mighty Jack]

Watching King Dino now, very funny episode (though the animals were hurt during the making of this picture, ouch), and yeah, Joey the Lemure is a hoot... though it's interesting that they do that bit before we see Joey. That also happened in Earth Vs Spider where they do a sketch with Hugo the janitor before the janitor shows up in the flick.

[foreign object]

I did vote for three, The Amazing Colossal man, The Beginning of the End, and Earth vs The Spider. Spider is one of my favorites because of the 40 year old teenagers, Fred Ziffel the janitor, a rock band that for some reason had a conductor, and the wisecracking Gene Roth (not Merrit Stone) as the sheriff.

[crowschmo]

"Sessions presents...!!" "Put her down, Jerry Lee."

Tormented is my fave episode overall for MST3K anyway, so natch I'll go for that. It wouldn't be a bad movie to watch even without the riffing. Some corny movie on a rainy Saturday or something.

After Tom Stewart, I guess I would go for the two with Glenn.

[hike'em'up]

ive always missed out on whatever other people see in The Beginning of the End - it starts out well enough then hits a wall and quickly sours into one of the more boring, tedious episodes of the series - but the rest of these all end up pretty close together and among the top half of all episodes:

1 - 309 Amazing Colossal Man (12th)
2 - 411 The Magic Sword (58th)
3 - 210 King Dinosaur (59th)

just missing out are 319 War of Colossal Beast (60th) and 313 Earth vs. The Spider (66th)