MST3K (324)

324 - Master Ninja II - (aka The Master: "State of the Union" + The Master: "Hostages") Season three ends with a bang; MN2 is even better that part 1. In fact, the first part -- episode "State of the Union," I suppose -- had Mitchell-level riffing accompanying it. It felt really good to bust out laughing after the torture of 323.

I never got tired of Crow's impression of the mush-mouthed Timothy Van Patten. "Bleh bla bleh bla..." As a rule, it seems like mercilessly poking fun at movie characters with speech impediments is a path to guaranteed success. At the same time, Crow does a helluva George C. Scott impression, too.

I was going to snap a screenshot to post here because the image was so funny, but I see the guys beat me to it with this ep's stinger. The Master seems to be a little too fond of The Hamster. I'm never going to be able to watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the same way again.

In response to a letter, the guys name their favorite movies:

• Servo: Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
  a biker picture by the director of Superman IV.
• Crow: The Castle (1971)
  the depressing Kafka story filmed in German.
• Joel: Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
  man vs sentient computer.

I think Trace and Kevin were just trying to name obscure, crappy movies, but Joel's pick seems to be well-liked among sci-fi geeks. Probably not coincidentally, it's the only one available from Netflix. Into the queue it goes, though it'll have to wait until after Halloween.

Frank -- in addition to calling himself "TV's Frank" -- uses his end-of-episode time to pimp an old show called The Second Hundred Years. I get the feeling this was Frank Conniff speaking and not TV's Frank. Why not use his power as bit player on a small-time cable show for the good of all? It's too bad his pleas to ABC didn't work (this show isn't even on DVD fourteen years later). It sounds pretty cool.

"Oh, excellent, Master Dipstick. That's $50,000-worth of merchandise, Lee." (8/10)

film d. Alan Myerson & Ray Austin (1984)
mst d. Jim Mallon & Michael J. Nelson (25 Jan 1992)