MST3K (K17)

K17 - Time of the Apes - (aka Saru no Gundan: "Episode 1" + Saru no Gundan: "Episode 26") Kinda like Robin and Alfred fighting crime while Batman's MIA. That's the feeling I got from this ep, where an inexplicably nude Joel is floating in space outside of the SOL. Was that a Hulk Hogan action figure?

Even compared to the other two-riffer shows (K06 & K12), the riffing was pretty poor. Servo was overly reliant on monkey puns and neither bot had too much to say. Each bot did get exactly one laugh out of me despite this. Servo: "We almost got a cool shot there," when a low-angle camera almost gives us a glimpse up the main female character's shirt. As a heterosexual male, that happened to be almost exactly the thought floating through my own mind at the time. I love when I have an MST match like that. I also liked Crow's quip, when the humans are departing from His Excellency, that "they're going to open up an electrolysis salon." It was the perfect time to say something like that.

I liked the host segment in which the bots try to fool us with an old clip of Joel. In fact, that clip was more of a treat than they could've known, as it was from the MIA K01. I also dug the "that wasn't really the host segment" trick they pulled after that. It actually mirrored the end of the movie in a way.

I think Sandy Frank might have been onto something genius here. Taking the first and final episodes from a TV series originally broadcast in another language and created by an entirely different culture and smushing them together creates something Buñuel would've slit his own eyeballs for. I could've done with a little less enthusiasm on the part of the English voice actors, however. It seems like the last half-hour of movie consisted of four people yelling at the top of their lungs. I still have a headache. (4/10)

film d. Atsuo Okunaka & Kiyo Sumi Fukazawa (1974)
mst d. Vince Rodriguez (2 Apr 1989)

Guest MST3K: K16

This movie might be called "City on Fire", but one of my first impressions of it is that it should have been called "How Not to make a Smoothie". I took this as a good sign, since not so many of the KMTA episodes have made me laugh within the first five minutes. Letsee, avocado, eggs (with shells), booze, cream, and according to Joel, "Detergent?". Turns out I was right; there were several times that I found myself laughing during this show.

This is a tedious example of a cheap disaster movie that features no likable characters or sense of suspense. The riffing is much faster paced than in some of the previous KTMAs I've seen. I got the feeling that they guys had just come out of a staff meeting where they all agreed that they needed punch it up a bit. Josh does step on Joel's and Trace's comments fairly often, but Joel does some interrupting as well. "Hey, we're beginning to annoy ourselves. Cool!" Trace notes at one point. I think this is just a function of the episodes being ad libbed rather than scripted. All the guys are trying to get a many riffs out just off the top of their heads with no real guidance in their timing. It's no surprise to me that they trip over each other.

I find myself being increasingly impressed with the comedic skills of JatBs the more I watch the KTMAs. Yes, they are much less polished than the episodes that follow on cable. But the fact that they work as well as they do under the circumstances highlights in inherent natural talent of the gang of Best Brains. Despite the fact that the copy I have had an annoying glitch that caused the sound to fade in and out in places, I really enjoyed this episode.

-Tealeaf

OLR: Orwell Rolls in His Grave (2004)

Mostly talking heads and nothing that surprised me two years later. (6/10)

d. Robert Kane Pappas

Marx (1940)

1940 - Go West - I like westerns. I like the Marx Bros. This film should've been great. I was looking forward to it. Somehow, however, the film was less than what it should've been.

The scene in which the three Bros. first meet might be a good indicator of why this is. It is essentially a re-working of the "tutti fruiti" scene from A Day at the Races and one of those rare scenes where someone gets the better of Groucho. The gag in Races cleverly builds: you need a code book for the tipsheet, then you need a codebook for the codebook, etc. In West, the gag just repeats itself: Groucho sells Harpo worthless piece of Western wear, Harpo and Chico scam him out of $9 in change. In the former, you can't wait to see what other goofy requirement Chico comes up with that Groucho will be forced to buy. In the latter, you just wait for the scene to end.

Even in the Old West, Chico and Harpo both manage to find their signature instruments. Like A Day at the Races, Harpo finds his harp within another object. This time he plays a Native American blanket in the process of being weaved. I thought this working prop was nicely constructed. It had me fooled and the song Harpo played on it sounded great.

The chase sequence with the steam train was impressive. They have the thing going off the rails and pushing houses around, while the Bros. run on top of it. It was exciting and funny enough to almost make up for the previous scenes. Still, I miss Margaret Dumont. (6/10)

d. Edward Buzzell

MST3K (K16)

K16 - City on Fire - Well, more like One Street in a Canadian Movie Lot on Fire, but close enough for a TV movie. Shelly Winters and Leslie Neilsen in a disaster movie together? Man, I love The Poseidon Adventure! Alas, this flick wasn't fit to shine Mrs. Rosen's swimming medal. It was also a criminal waste of a very old-looking Henry Fonda. On a positive note, I haven't seen so many stunt men on fire in a while.

The riffing was as good as it ever has been this season. The guys don't have too many quiet periods and all three of them get a number of good lines in. However, Josh continues to annoy by interrupting both Joel and Trace's jokes. Joel and Trace constantly had to re-start their jokes in this ep when they had the misfortune to begin speaking at the same time Josh did.

One of the host segments also features the first of Joel's inventions (unless K01-K03 had some?). It's an anti-theft purse that bursts into flames. It's nice to see a host segment that ties into the movie. I like those.

Just from a technical perspective, this is a good show to illustrate the differences in the production of a UHF MST and a cable MST. The audio for Servo in the episode was terrible. Josh's voice would often be far too quiet to hear and then suddenly revert back to normal volume. About 10% of his riffs this time out were inaudible to me. I notice that their regular audio guy was the director this time. I'm thinking he was spending too much time trying to figure out how to direct and not enough time with his ears in the headphones. As well, there were numerous flubs inside the theater that a cable-era director would've yelled "Cut!" for. Both Josh and Trace sneeze flemily into their mics and, at one point, Trace looses his grip on Crow and the poor bot falls off-screen. JatB cover these events well, but I don't remember any such goofs making it into the cable shows I've seen.

"Put the doobage out." Joel: making it hard for teachers to show MST in class since 1989.

If I've learned anything today, it's: never offer a better job to a psycho maintenance man without making sure the fire insurance is up-to-date. (5/10)

film d. Alvin Rakoff (1978)
mst d. Todd Ziegler (19 Mar 1989)

Guest OLR: Equus (1977)

Who would have thought, a Hollywood film about having sex with horses. (7/10)

d. Sidney Lumet

MST3K (K15)

K15 - Superdome - Crow nailed it: this TV movie about the Superbowl without any actual football in it is "a real snooze-fest." It's filled with melodrama about characters you never really care about and is paced painfully slow. A little editing could've really helped the latter problem, but I think the producers just needed to fill a 2-hour TV timeslot.

The end credits proudly declare that this movie was filmed on location in New Orleans, but you can hardly tell. There's an obligatory shot or two of Bourbon Street and the soundtrack is crammed full of New Orleans-style jazz, but most of the film takes place in a hotel. It could've been shot on any soundstage in Hollywood, for all we know. We do get some exterior and interior shots of the football-free Superdome. However, at this point in time, these just dredge up memories of recently witnessed human misery.

In the middle of the movie, after a long period of silence by JatB, Joel says "I just can't say anything funny about this." Yep. This is one of the episodes where the weakness of improvising all of the riffs while watching a movie for the very first time shows. They didn't score too many laugh with me this round at all, and you could feel the guys struggling to come up with stuff to say.

I liked the framing device for the host segments, in which Servo writes a letter (on a typewriter!) to his "uncle." I just wished they hadn't gotten lazy and used old segments from prior shows, though we do get a glimpse of one of the bits from a missing ep.

Speaking of missing bits, special thanks go out to Amethyst for preserving the final host segment of this show (nice drawing, by the way!). (4/10)

film d. Jerry Jameson (1978)
mst d. ?? (12 Mar 1989)

OLR: Road House (1989)

Sure, the plot can't bear a lot of scrutiny, but 80s machismo films rule. (7/10)

d. Rowdy Herrington

OLR: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

A tad cheezy now, but, man, this scared the hell out of me as a kid. (7/10)

d. Jack Clayton

[watched after returning from Hell]

Guest OLR: Running on Empty (1988)

As usual, made watchable by River Phoenix (6/10)

d. Sidney Lumet

MST3K (K14)

K14 - Mighty Jack - (aka Maitei Jyakku: "Episode 1" + Maitei Jyakku: "Episode 13") You have to wonder how well these things are translated. Maybe Sandy Frank was just Farking with people? The evil bad guys capture some "VIP" named Atari and think they can trade him for the mighty Mighty Jack? Was that really the plan? The German guy Fritz was really supposed to be the Japanese guy's son? The freeze gun creates ice that "never melts"?

Not a terribly exciting movie. There's some cool scenes involving missiles exploding on an Arctic secret base. There's a hilarious, oft-repeated shot of Ernst Blofeld's Japanese counterpart maniacally laughing with his kitty. Outside of that, I only remember endless scenes of people holding other people hostage with guns and freeze rays.

Better riffing would've helped ease the pain. The riffing in this episode was a bit sparse and not much of it hit my funny bone. Hopefully, all of those missed opportunities will be caught in 314. Though, you have to grin when Crow mentions that one of the characters looks like Frank Conniff. There's a joke no one would've ever gotten had Josh not quit later on. (4/10)

film d. Kazuko Mitsoti (1968)
mst p. Jim Mallon (26 Feb 1989)

Marx (1939)

1939 - At the Circus - Considering this and A Day at the Races, I think I can safely ignore the "common knowledge" that the post-Paramount Marx films weren't any good. This film is pure fun. I loved the setting, the songs, the gags and the wild ending.

A circus troop is a great place for the Bros. to play around in. You can have giraffes licking Margaret Dumont (and Groucho taking credit). You can watch Peerless Pauline and Groucho having an upside-down tête-à-tête. You can laugh at a hysterical investigation by Chico and Harpo in the tiny room of a little person. At the circus, the Bros. can terrorize a poor, sleeping strongman. And, Groucho can croon about a tattooed lady named Lydia. It's a great setting and the Bros. take advantage of it.

I noticed that Groucho appears to have donned a wig for this film. It struck me as odd at first, as it isn't particularly real-looking. Then I remembered that Harpo has always worn one, and the hair styles are a part of the Bros.' characters costumes.

I think Harpo's harp song in this film was my favorite thus far. There's a shot in the middle of it that I found fascinating. It showed Harpo's face from a low angle, through the strings. His eyes were closed and his face was fixed in an expression of pure intensity. It's clear that Harpo the Id and Harpo the serious musician were two different characters. (8/10)

d. Edward Buzzell

MST3K (K13)

K13 - SST- Death Flight - Good movie, terrible episode. This is a perfect example of the type of movie not to pick for an MST3K episode. For one, the movie was actually good. It was tense, well-acted and contained an interesting moral quandary. I found it entirely engrossing. Such films you would not generally deem MST fodder. As well, the movie was very dialogue-heavy. Whenever JatB would attempt a riff, they would inevitably talk over the movie characters. Worse, rather than seeking a laugh from them, I found this annoying and wished they'd stop. For the first time ever, I was more interested in what the movie characters were saying than any jokes JatB had to offer. There was also not much for them to make fun of. The best they could do was mention the past or future jobs of the largely TV show-based cast. But, I liked seeing Ginger, the Penguin, Q, Mr. Brady and that game show host guy acting together.

The first host segment was bizarre. There was something off about Trace's delivery. I kept waiting for Dr. F to deliver the punch line after winning all of that money. I thought he might be mad with Dr. E for encouraging him to go out with a transvestite in the last episode. I was expecting him to do something to Dr. E in the TV's Frank-style of torture. It wasn't so. It was just weird and not funny.

We did get the first batch of Still Store letters, which means the voicemail thing is likely dead forever. Ah well. Letters are cute in their own way. (5/10)

film d. David Lowell (1977)
mst p. Jim Mallon (19 Feb 1989)

MST3K (K12)

K12 - Fugitive Alien - (aka Sutâurufu: "Episode 1" + Sutâurufu: "Episode 2") This would easily have been the best KTMA ever, were it not another "Trace is missing" episode. Had Crow been in the theater, the theater segments would've been just like any of the average cable episodes. Without him, things still go fairly well. The riffing is pretty steady and Joel and Servo seem to have a grand old time. Josh gets Joel to crack up more than once and they perform many duets together. Most memorable was the extended parody of the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever."

If I were a Twin Cities UHF addict in 1989, this is the episode during which I would've become a full-on Joel fan. In particular, when the mussed-haired, sleepy-eyed Joel breaks into his "Fugitive Alien" song with absolutely no shred of embarrassment or self-consciousness, I would've realized what kind of unique talent we had standing next to those puppets.

I thought the movie itself was keen, as well. I'm looking forward to re-watching it and seeing the sequel. Sure, it was heavily influenced by Star Wars, as JatB point out several times, but it was SW with kooky Japanese charm. Remember: never kill someone with your same name.

"Luke Skywalker liked peyote." I just had to get that K12 quote in here for random Google searches to pick up. (6/10)

film d. Minoru Kanaya & Kiyosumi Kuzakawa (1978)
mst d. Vince Rodriguez (5 Feb 1989)

OLR: McLibel (2005)

I'm sympathetic, but the film was unfocused and close to lifeless. (5/10)

d. Franny Armstrong & Ken Loach