MST3K (417)
417 - Crash of Moons (w/ General Hospital [segment 3]) - (aka Rocky Jones, Space Ranger: "Crash of the Moons, Part 1" + Rocky Jones, Space Ranger: "Crash of the Moons, Part 2" + Rocky Jones, Space Ranger: "Crash of the Moons, Part 3") Rare for this season, this was an episode I didn't really like all that much. Its prequel, Manhunt in Space, was a much funnier episode. I think the guys should've stopped at one Rocky Jones adventure and called it good. Not only is the movie itself more painful than the previous one, the riffing just isn't as sharp. I chuckled a few times, but it didn't seem like JatB were on their 'A' game today.
Finally, the soap opera actually gets into an expected soap-style situation. Dr. Someguy secretly loves Ms. Whoknows, even though they are married/engaged to other people. Not knowing who any of those people are, this juicy tidbit doesn't really mean anything to me. Not really exciting stuff. The soaps were an interesting experiment, but they don't fit with MST very well.
Wow. I got my degree in English literature, but even I can tell that the physics in this movie were beyond questionable. OK, so there are two moons orbiting a common baricenter and traveling through space. I think this would probably be called a binary dwarf planet system these days, but whatever, we'll call them moons. One of the moons in this system is on a collision course with a planet. Rocky and pals, in their wisdom, decide to evacuate (*snicker*) the inhabitants of one of the moons... onto the other moon. Waitaminute. These two moons are shown to be so close to each other that they share part of their atmospheres. What do they think is going to happen to the safe moon when the other explodes on the surface of that planet? Strong northern lights in the sky?
Who knew that the Nickelodeon programming department of the late 1980s and early 1990s would've been so important for my enjoyment of this show? As a tot, I spent a lot of time at my nearby grandparents' house (Happy 90th birthday tomorrow, Grandpa!). One set of shows the three of us all enjoyed watching together were the reruns of '50s and '60s shows on Nickelodeon. From Leave It Beaver to Dobie Gillis to Get Smart, we enjoyed a variety of them. During my MST watching, this pop culture experience has come in useful countless times. Hundreds of riffs would've been lost on me had I not wasted thousands of hours in front of the tube catching up on the previous 30 years of television.
However, I didn't watch every single rerun available on that channel. One show that I was never interested in was Hogan's Heroes. To my child-eyes, it just didn't look like something I wanted to sit through. Twenty years later, I paid for this disinterest. Not one, but two entire host segments were wasted as a reference to one of the characters on this show. I'm sure those familiar with Sgt. Schultz were amused, but, like I said before, I hate seeing host segments used solely for pop culture references.
"Ew, yuck. You can see Rocky's whole area." (6/10)
film d. Hollingsworth Morse (1954)
short d. ?? (1963)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (28 Nov 1992)
