MST3K (906)

906 - The Space Children (w/ Century 21 Calling…) - I don't think this is that bad of a movie. Compared to the complete crap the Japanese were making at the time, this "alien meets innocent children" flick is pretty good. Compared to the only other "alien destroys our nukes for us" movie I can think of, this is a masterpiece. It's a nice piece of Cold War-era hopefulness. I can see why Spielberg came out as a fan of this film in a recent TV special.

It's been years since we last had a short. The first of the Sci-Fi era was an appropriate choice about the past-future of telephones. Man, the advent of the personal computer really screwed with the telephone people's plans. Telephone-controlled appliances? Not quite.

Listening to this episode using headphones, this was the first time I really noticed that the show is in stereo. During the "(Model) Rocketry" segment, they really play around with their two channel power. As the bots hide off-screen at stage left on the SOL, their voices appropriately come from the left speaker. As Bobo spins in the out-of-control centrifuge, his screams begin in the left speaker, fly into the center and end up on the right. I had no idea they were putting this much work into the sound design of the show. Neat.

"C'mon! Let's go grope that Eskimo!" (7/10)

film d. Jack Arnold (1958)
short d. Robert Larsen (1962)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (13 Jun 1998)