MST3K (605)

605 - Colossus and the Headhunters - I discovered today that I'm not a Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter fan. This slightly modified, stuffed pink puppy occupies every single host segment in this episode. Mike and Frank fall in love with him, he sheds a lot, Frank sings a ballad about him and, most alarmingly, Dr. F. spends his final moments onscreen coochie-cooing it. It's all disturbingly Cousin Oliver-esque and just about as funny. Intellectually, I can understand that Frank's tremendously off-key song dedicated to this fur ball is very humorous, but it didn't get me to laugh today.

Fortunately, the Mike part of the final host segment restored a little normality to this episode. In fact, it's just the kind of final host segment that I like. It starts with the bots asking a movie-related question of Big Brother Mike: can you still see for a while after your head is cut off? That segues into viewer mail. One thing I like about the viewer mail segments -- besides their down-home charm -- is that they're clearly un- or less-scripted. The bots appears to be throwing spontaneous comments at Mike, which interrupts his reading of the letter. Mike even has trouble pronouncing the kid's last name in this episode, which is left in. It's raw and KTMAish. I'll be sad to see this part of the show leave.

The riffing for this show took a while to get going. It was sparse and not particularly funny for quite a while. I didn't chuckle at all until about 2/3rds of the way into it. Finally, comments like "A steel piñata? That could take hours!" and the jabs at the guy who looked like a cross between Spock and McCoy began to liven up this pretty lifeless episode.

Maciste and his men pass by some ferns in the woods. Mike, in a stoner voice: "Look at all the pot." Hey, did Joel drop by the writing room?

"There's no one around for miles and he's still self-conscious about tinkling." (6/10)

film d. Guido Malatesta (1960)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (20 Aug 1994)