MST3K (302)

302 - Gamera - The first KTMA repeat of the season. I watched K05 just under three months ago, but I couldn't remember much about it. I do recall that K05 is the worst episode to date, with Joel all alone in the theater. Watching Gamera get riffed by all three guys using pre-written lines was a thousands times better. Appropriately enough, they begin with a KTMA riff: "Water, the source of all life."

"If someone walked in and saw the images on the screen that I was watching…" That thought bounced around my head throughout the "Tibby" song. A paper mache turtle sits in a glass fishbowl, relentlessly spinning on a turntable spray-painted silver. The lighting is dim and moody. A man with mussed hair and sleepy eyes stands behind a pair of puppet-robots. The puppet shaped like a gumball machine belts out a ballad directed towards the faux turtle, his voice full of yearning. It's all beautiful in its calculated silliness.

The guys were into breaking the fourth wall this episode. At the end of the "Tibby" song, Crow makes a crack about the scene towards the camera (die-hard "just a show" deniers might say he was speaking to the Mads or CamBot). Later when a cheesy rocket model lifts off, Crow asks "Hey, Joel, remind you of anything?" and Servo sings a bit of the theme song. Wink, wink. Then again, I suppose the weekly letters are bit of fourth-wall breaking themselves.

I don't know why, but Joel acting like an abusive parent is always funny. As punishment for a bad pun ("And that's the tanks I get.") and without warning, Joel rips off Crow's arm, bonks him on the beak with it and tosses it across the theater. Not as hysterical as the time he broke a chair over Servo, but still pretty funny. Funny the second time, too.

"Do you realize a robot just sang a love song to a turtle?" (7/10)

[Update: Shoot, I forgot to enter the "Kenny, What Gives?" contest. I would have to claim that Kenny is, in reality, composed of millions upon million of tiny, little turtles. This would explain everything.]

film d. Noriaki Yuasa (1965)
mst d. Jim Mallon (8 Jun 1991)