MST3K (K18)

K18 - The Million Eyes of Sumuru - I laughed out loud more during this ep than any of the previous KTMAs. JatB were in the groove during the first half of the movie. They were popping off riffs so frequently, I hadn't a clue what the plot of the movie was supposed to be. Crow, in particular, was funnier than he has been this entire season. I could hear the bot he is to become in the jokes he told. Crow and I even had some synergy this time. When JatB try to guess what three Chinese characters on a background wall say, I immediately thought "Eat at Joe's," which was the gold bot's choice as well (Joel: "No tickee, no shirtee." Servo: "Stop. Drop. Roll.").

In the middle of the movie, Servo left to "bake brownies for the Pinewood Derby." I guess this is appropriate: now each of the guys has been missing from the theater at least once. Unfortunately, Servo took much of the riff-energy with him. Joel and Crow by themselves never get back up to the quality of the first half of the movie.

It was nice to have a non-TV movie, non-Sandy Frank film to watch for a change. Plus, it was one of those goofy 60s movies that reminds me of later MST seasons. The film was hard to follow, but I think that was just because it was a poor choice as an MST episode. There was an awful lot exposition during the beginning that was obscured by riffs. Also not helpful was the video transfer guy's handiwork. He must have decided that panning & scanning was for dweebs, and simply left the video transfer camera centered in the middle of the widescreen film frame. We get a lot of nice shots of doors and curtains with half-faces on the sides, much to both my and Crow's annoyance.

Hey, I didn't know Joel could play the guitar?

Man, what the hell happened to Servo during the five-week break? The poor bot is now sporting fresh, red duct tape holding his torso to his hoverskirt. Despite this kludge, he's leaning dangerously forwards like a 90-year-old woman with a bad back. Adding to his misery, the string control for his mouth broke for the final host segment. Geez. Lucky the guy only has to survive three more eps. (6/10)

film d. Lindsay Shonteff (1967)
mst d. Todd Ziegler (7 May 1989)