MST3K (820)

820 - Space Mutiny - Of the next 28 episodes, there are some I haven't seen. I'd be very surprised if any of those are as funny as this one. I think that might make Space Mutiny my favorite episode of the entire series now. It's hard to imagine a movie more suited to the show than this one. The bad acting, the bad dialogue, the spaceship that seems to be an industrial boiler room attached to a mid-'80s office building... it's almost like David Winters was mystically called to crash two golf carts together in a gigantic explosion so that MST3K could make one of its strongest episodes nine years later.

Some of the strength in the riffing lies with Mike and the bots' repetition of a few jokes. Unlike Pod People's "McCloud!"s, none of the repeated riffs rely on obscure pop culture knowledge and they aren't used enough to turn from funny to annoying. Captain Santa, "Did you sign Shari's card?", hissing whenever the brown-haired lady is onscreen, Ryder's obsession with bodybuilding and Kalgan's attempts to push his skull out of his face are some of my favorites. One hardly needs to mention the recurring manly names the guys make up for Dave Ryder. "Smoke Manmuscle!"

I don't know why, but one riff absolutely kills me every time I watch this one. Space Mutineer: "Gentlemen, it seems that we are all not in agreement." Mike: "I disagree."

As with Mitchell, the host segments in this episode serve as speed bumps to kill the momentum of the humor in the theater segments. Even on a good day, it would be hard for the host segments to compete with this one. The episode does have one of my favorite host segment lines, though. Brain Guy: "He swallowed a woman! He swallowed a woman!"

"Hey you guys, I got my dad's Enforcer for the weekend." (9/10)

film d. David Winters & Neal Sundstrom (1988)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (8 Nov 1997)