MST3K (523)

523 - Village of the Giants - Holy cow! B.I.G., master of the intended-to-be-serious giant monster flicks of the 1950s, dives headfirst into the style and sensibilities of the '60s. I'm not likely to forget his 3-hour-long scene in which the newly giant-ized teens dance in slow-mo to psychedelic music.

This is one of the rare episodes that I enjoyed the host segments more than any of the riffing. The riffing didn't manage to get me to laugh out loud even once. The density of the commenting was high. There was good variety to the things they had to say. I'm not sure what went wrong. It could be that the movie was sufficiently goofy enough on its own and didn't need any help from snarky silhouettes. Not helping is the laugh that Crow has begun using to laugh at his own jokes. I don't mind when Servo does it -- he keeps his chuckles short, low and respectful. Crow's, on the other hand, is kind of like a higher-pitched Hawkeye laugh.

No riffs about "Mickey"? C'mon, guys! Toni Basil, the one-hit wonder, was the redhead who distracted the giants with her interpretive dance.

I normally dislike it when all of the host segments follow a continuing story. I usually argue that I'd prefer the crapshoot of random segments. I take that back. The storyline of Frank getting laid off from Deep 13 was great. I was looking forward to the next segment as soon as the previous one had ended. I'm a huge fan of Frank, anyway, which undoubtedly increased my appreciation of the segments. Normally, we only get 3 seconds of guy per episode.

Mike was better than ever as Torgo, Frank's replacement. Mike has Torgo's signature tics and voice mannerism down better than even the great John Reynolds. I had no idea that there were more Mike-as-Torgo appearances after 508. What a treat! I hope he makes more surprise visits.

"There were sanitation problems." (7/10)

film d. Bert I. Gordon (1965)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (22 Jan 1994)