MST3K (404)
404 - Teenagers from Outer Space - From the title to the flying saucer's design to the jumpsuits to the rayguns to the giant monster, this is the quintessential '50s sci-fi movie. Coming out at the end of the decade, it's a Road House-like decade-capper for its genre. Given the pure, '50s goofiness it contains, it's pretty entertaining to watch on its own.
Betty: "Grandpa was so exhausted, he fell sound asleep with all of his clothes on." Joel: "And then he soiled himself." My favorite riffs from this ep were those directed at the nine-fingered grandfather. I'm pleased to see he returns in a couple of the Ed Wood movies coming in later seasons.
Aww... what a rip. An alien pulled up to the SOL in a super-boss skull ship, but the visitor was just a skeleton that immediately collapsed. Where's Mike, man? We haven't had a visit from him in ages. They made up for it in the last host segment. The fashion show of coveralls with duct tape trim was great, even if some of Joel's poses were extremely disturbing.
This episode sports a couple of behind-the-scenes firsts. It was Mary Jo Pehl's first show as a writer. Little did she know, five years later she'd take over as the main villain. This was also the first episode of the cable era not directed by Jim Mallon (well, not counting 324 in which he shared a credit with Mike). I don't think that I can detect either person's influence on this episode. It doesn't seem any different from the last one, to me. Maybe one of the newbies was to blame for the first host segment being out of order (it references stuff in the movie that we hadn't seen yet)? Anyway, not noticing any differences during these personnel switcheroos is a strength of the show. More on that when 513 rolls around.
Weird. There's a music cue ~52 minutes into the episode that sounds really familiar. During the scene in which Thor is almost passing out on the operating table, the music sounds very similar to that played when Mills learns "what's in the box" at the end of Se7en. They both use that "tweee-EEE-tweee-EEE" screechy violin sound with some scary bass notes underneath.
"Wait until you see my tongues." (7/10)
film d. Tom Graeff (1959)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (27 Jun 1992)
