MST3K (505)

505 - The Magic Voyage of Sinbad - Another lazy Saturday, another colorful fairy tale from Aleksandr Ptushko. These films from Russia/Scandinavia are great. They're so different from what I normally watch: epics from half a century ago filmed by a different culture culled from fairy tales I've never heard. They're also quite different from MST3K's normal fair. These films are not low-budget, sloppy productions made to show at a drive-in theater for a couple of weeks. It's obvious quite a bit of money and energy went into them back in the day. They're pretty much the closest this show could get to riffing on, say, The Wizard of Oz.

Narrator: "Sinbad wandered to the edge of the Magic Sea." Servo: "And had a magic BM." Nice riffing, similar to what we were seeing all through season 4. I am disappointed that they obviously cut out a big chunk of the goofy underwater musical section. The guys could've done a lot, I'm sure, with more footage of the puppet octopus and catfish dancing around to Sinbad's stylings.

My favorite part of the episode: when Crow faints when Joel's catfish puppet talks to him. "It knows what I'm thinking! Get out of my head!" Whatever Crow freaks out over nothing, as he did with the scary basement in 405, it's hilarious. Also interesting during this final host segment is the fact that Joel, with his puppet, playfully plays with Gypsy. There goes my conspiracy theory.

"I have Lyuberia. It's eating into my embouchure." (7/10)

film d. Aleksandr Ptushko [as Alfred Posco] (1953)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (14 Aug 1993)