MST3K (season eight closing thoughts)

Goodbye, season eight.

It was a rough transition at the start. Was it the Sci-Fi Channel that mandated nine 1950s horror movies in a row to kick off the new version of the show? Or did BBI suffer from some poor planning or unlucky rights acquisitions and didn't have much of a choice in the matter? Whatever the reason, I wonder if put off some potential new fans? People who might've tuned in to check out this weird puppet show that SFC saved from oblivion could've gotten worn out quickly from the repetitive movie selection. Then again, I wondered the same thing after the KTMA season did a five-episode Gamera marathon. That didn't really hurt the show's future at all. Then again, the show wasn't canceled just two short years after that.

What's wrong with horror movies from the 1950s? Personally, I dislike them quite a bit. I might go so far as to dub the 1950s as the worst decade for cinematic horror. The transgressive nature of horror just doesn't mesh well with the most repressive decade in our recent history. Sure, sometimes it's interesting to see how filmmakers managed to sneak images and ideas past the censors, but that's not usually enough to survive the sea of "he tampered in God's domain" garbage.

As far as the show is concerned, I think '50s horror movies can work just fine. By their nature, they're goofy and very easy for the guys to riff on. The lack of variety was the only problem with the early part of this season. Had the nine movies been spread out more evenly in the season, I wouldn't have even noticed.

Luckily, the show made up for this poor start in the latter half of the season. Space Mutiny is may end up being my all-time favorite episode. The Giant Spider Invasion was one of those nice, very funny surprises the show unleashes. I'm still not a fan of the '60s Japanese movies, though, same as I felt during season 3.

Having a storyline thread through all of the host segments for every episode was an interesting idea. It could've been a nice change of pace from the regular host segments. However, it just doesn't make any sense given the fact that the show was always rerun out of order. In reruns, this season just seems to be a random mishmash of ancient Rome, a monkey planet, a camping planet and Pearl driving the Widowmaker. These story-bound segments also turned out to be, in general, not quite as good as the free-form host segments from years past. I miss Joel singing "Joey the Lemur" while bouncing a puppet off of the robots' heads, though the Wisconsin cheese factory segment almost makes me forget that.

I'm looking forward to a number of episodes in season 9. I've never seen the infamous Pumaman, Werewolf or The Final Sacrifice before, all of which seem to be fan favorites.

Just seven more weeks and 26 episodes to go. The year is going by fast.


The Numbers

Total Length

34 hours, 50 minutes, 33 seconds
(92 min average for 22 episodes)
(24 min average for 3 specials)

Years Spanned

1955-1993
(1966 average)

Time to Watch

29 days

Time to Broadcast Originally

309 days

Speed

10.7x

Turkey Day Episodes

7 (32%)
801, 807, 808, 809, 810, 811, 812 (27 Nov 1997)

Horror Movies from the 1950s

801, 802, 803, 804, 805, 806, 807, 808, 809 (41%)

Movies Exploring the Evils of Hypnosis

805, 806, 808, 809, 812, 818 (27%)

Black and White to Color Ratio

13:9

MST3K (P!2)

Poopie! II - The first blooper video must have sold well (did the infomercial help?), as this one arrived just two years later. It's a bit strange that it covers just seasons 7 and 8, sort of straddling the Comedy Central-Sci-Fi Channel divide. Watch as Crow's voice changes from Trace to Bill and back again! Also thrown into the mix are a few specials from that era. Here's a listing of what is included.

This one probably should've been renamed some variant of "whiz it down your leg," as this seems to be the favored replacement for "oh, poopie!" when someone messed up. BBI has also decided to censor the word "shit" this time around. Complaints from parents about the first tape's salty language, maybe?

One blooper felt out of place, or at least in need of further explanation. In 701, Pearl makes Dr. F play the trombone for her. As he's playing in the background, Mary Jo bangs on the bell of the instrument with a ruler really hard. You can hear Trace grunt in pain, but he gamely tries to finish the scene. He eventually has to give up as a stream of blood gushes from his lacerated lips. "Ugh, sorry... bleeding..." Not exactly a knee-slapper of a blooper. An epilogue would've been appreciated, presumably showing Mary Jo profusely apologizing, or Trace making a joke or saying "poopie" or something. Something to lighten it up. Else, this should've been left out. I wonder if it's in the truncated version of P!2 that's on the official 514 DVD?

"Am I Claytoning too loud? Is that distracting you?" (7/10)

mst d. Jim Mallon & Trace Beaulieu & Kevin Murphy & Michael J. Nelson (Holiday 1997)

[update: I just fast-forwarded through the edited version. They left the bleeding bit in, much to my surprise. Based on this list of scenes in the original edit, here's what has been cut out of the Vol. 10 DVD version (29/41 clips removed):

• (820) Space Mutiny (seg. 5)--Bill flubs line
• (814) Riding With Death (seg. 1)--Mary Jo cracks up
• (703) Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell (seg. 2)--Crow's eyes get stuck
• (819) Invasion of the Neptune Men (seg. 1)--Kevin flubs line twice, Jeff not ready 3rd time
• (705) Escape 2000 (seg. 1)--Tom's head falls off
• (821) Time Chasers (seg. 5)--Crow's eyes fall out
• (810) The Giant Spider Invasion (seg. 5)--Crow flubs fall after punch
• (802) Leech Woman (seg. 2)--Mike flubs line
• (I01) Infomercial --Mike flubs line
• (S04) Summer Blockbuster Review--Mary Jo cracks up
• (809) I was a Teenage Werewolf (seg. 5)--Mary Jo flubs line
• (808) The She Creature (seg. 1)--Mary Jo cracks up
• (802) Leech Woman (seg. 5)--Kevin flubs line
• (I01) Infomercial --Kevin flubs line
• (817) Horror of Party Beach (seg. 3)--Bill's hood hides face
• (816) Prince of Space (seg. 1)--Bill can't pull back rope
• (814) Riding With Death (seg. 5)--medal falls off ribbon
• (810) The Giant Spider Invasion (seg. 5)--Mike flubs line
• (805) The Thing that Couldn't Die (seg. 1)--Bill flubs line
• (701a) Night of the Blood Beast (seg. 5)--Kevin flubs line
• (701a) Night of the Blood Beast (seg. 5)--laughing at hairball; Trace cracks up
• (801) The Revenge of the Creature (seg. 5)--Mary Jo cracks up
• (701) Night of the Blood Beast (seg. 1)--Crow loses trombone
• (702) The Brute Man (seg. 4)--Crow gets turned around
• (I01) Infomercial --Mike flubs line
• (804) The Deadly Mantis (seg. 1)--Mike flubs line
• (808) The She Creature (seg. 3)--Mary Jo cracks up
• (703) Deathstalker & Warriors from Hell (seg. 4)--Trace, then Mary Jo crack up
• (813) Jack Frost (seg. 1)--Bill flubs line

Lots of "Mary Jo cracks up" has been cut, which probably helps the flow of the video a bit. It's disappointing to see all of the bits from Turkey Day '95 removed, though.]

MST3K (822)

822 - Overdrawn at the Memory Bank - Exactly like The Matrix, except without anything remotely cool in it. The similarities between the two movies were interesting, especially towards the end. Both have men who feel like there's something more to life than what their dystopic society offers. They both get arrested for hacking. Both have brain implants allowing them to interface with computers. When interfacing, both become minds separated from their bodies in a virtual world. Both learn that "there is no spoon" and discover how to affect the simulated reality in the computer. Both destroy their enemies after maximizing this power over reality. Both escape the simulated world into reality, reuniting with both their bodies and their lovers. I think Dougie Williams might be able to succeed where crazies have failed.

The writers must be in a nostalgic mood lately. Last episode, they referenced Joel for the first time in years. This episode, they peg a movie character as resembling TV's Frank. It's nice to see that the show will never forget its roots.

I like the way the show is dealing with modern movies' extra-long credits lately. In 821, Brain Guy popped up in a split-screen to talk to Mike and the bots. In this one, Mike calls the Overdrawn at the Memory Bank tech support help line (1-800-SUCK). This is much funnier than trying to figure out how to goof on a scrolling list of names. Still, I wonder why they don't just cut the credits out? After all, they cut plenty of scenes in the middle of these films in order to get them to fit inside of an episode. I wonder if it's professional courtesy or some legal reason for not cutting the credits to help save on time?

The show already has one monkey. We didn't really need two. At least Henry Kissinger was relegated to off-screen tossing of junk. Still, the show got really monkey'd out this episode. Married with the stale PBS parody in the rest of the host segments, and this part of the show is back to being not-great again.

Sorry, I'd dopple into an anteater over a baboon any old day of the week. I already know what being a primate is like. Gimme four legs and a long snout.

"This movie just hates anteaters!" (7/10)

film d. Douglas Williams (1983)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (6 Dec 1997)

MST3K (821)

821 - Time Chasers - What a pleasant surprise: the host segments were different, funny and something to look forward to. Mike's visits with Pearl, bookending the film, were a great change of pace. They were slow -- the polar opposite of a "crazy Joel" segment from back in the day -- and neighborly. Mike and Pearl chatted like two friends sitting on a porch on a breezy summer night, except with appropriate dialogue changes regarding space, evil and time travel. Beats the hell out of Rome. I liked it.

I also liked Crow's journey into Mike's past. Mike, dressed as a scuzz-bucket complete with bad mustache, mullet and aviator sunglasses, was hilarious as his 1985, cheese factory-working self. Maybe the novelty of a host segment having nothing to do with ancient Rome helped, but the entire ambience of the cheese factory scene was fun. I especially liked Patrick in the background, throwing out a helpful "dude!" when required. I laughed harder than I have during a host segment in quite some time when Mike revealed the name of his band (Sex Factory). We even got the first reference to Joel since Gypsy's Joike sweater from 521 in these segments when Mike's evil brother Eddie mentions a "sleepy-eyed guy" that he replaced. Cool.

"Man, I wet every bit of me." Though I laughed with Mike and the bots at the film, I have to respect it, too. It was directed by a 22/23/24-year-old guy in his local, non-LA/non-Vancouver/non-NY community. He managed to wrangle the participation of some local Revolutionary War re-enactors who were undoubtedly clueless as to what the heck these damned kids were doing with their movie cameras and time machines and whatnot. I'm still not sure how they filmed the "hanging off the airplane wing" stunt. Sure, the main character was a complete moron. You need grant money, so you sell the rights to a time machine to Evil Co.? Uh, how about traveling back in time and investing to make some scratch? Traveling to the future and grabbing some tech to sell in the past? Think, man! Anyway, I liked the movie and admire the effort that went into it.

"You had the misfortune to run into me. I'm a life-wrecking idiot." (8/10)

film d. David Giancola (1993)
mst d. Michael J. Nelson (22 Nov 1997)

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)

OLR: This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)

The MPAA sucks, but it seems to me the theater owners, retailers, renters and TV stations who refuse to show, sell, rent or advertise NC-17 or unrated movies are the true enemies of free speech barely even mentioned in this documentary. (6/10)

d. Kirby Dick

MST3K (819)

819 - Invasion of the Neptune Men - Just like Mike and the bots, Krankor's visit during the third host segment really did cheer me up. Before he arrived to "take over" the SOL, I was ready to peg this episode as the absolute worst of the season. The movie, like Prince of Space before it, is nigh-unbearable children's sci-fi crap from Japan. What this means is that film is composed of equal parts super-precocious children with improbably high-level government access and adults technobabbling while firing stock footage missiles at UFOs. Both make the movie so tedious, even the obviously kitschy Space Chief cannot raise a smile or any interest in the goings on.

The guys' contribution to the movie wasn't helping at all. It felt like 90% of the riffing consisted of jokes about Japanese culture. I get it. They eat weird seafood and place a lot of importance on schooling. You just covered all of this ground during Prince. Get over it and move on, please. The host segments were similarly sub-par. One of them was essentially a remake of Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" skit. I've seen more than enough reinterpretations of that overrated bit to last me my entire life. I had no desire to watch another.

Krankor's arrival, though, was like magic. Suddenly, my stoney-faced neutral expression cracked into a smile. Mike and the bots throwing the love at a conquering space dictator because he was saving them from a really, really bad movie was pure funny. I think Bill's acting really helped sell the scene. Krankor just seemed so surprised and touched that people liked him.

After Krankor, both the movie and riffing started to pick up. Suddenly, there's tons of cool shots of UFOs blowing the hell out of buildings. I yelled out loud -- eliciting an odd look from my wife, busy driving the car -- when the Hitler building exploded. What the hell was that? Suddenly, the guys are saying things that make me laugh. Yes, he should be called "Lower-Atmosphere Chief," Crow! And where was that guy's record, anyway?

Thank you, Krankor. Sir, you are a miracle worker.

"The significance of twenty-to-one can't be overstated." (6/10)

film d. Koji Ota (1961)
mst d. Michael J. Nelson (11 Oct 1997)

[watched while traveling an average of 75 mph relative to the surface of the Earth]

Star Trek: TOS 1.05: "The Man Trap"

I can see why this episode was picked to air first. The cast has really come together at this point and everyone seems comfortable in their roles. It's got some of that "western in space" flavor Roddenberry was going for with the lone scientist/rancher in the desert having a shootout with space army/marshals. It has a really scary alien monster at the end that freaked me out as a kid. There's a glimpse of some classic Trekian morality as Kirk briefly laments to death of the last of its kind.

You kinda have to wonder what the monster's problem was. Clearly, the critter was intelligent. It could speak in English when in human form and successfully pretended to be various crew persons. One of the reasons a starship arrived on its planet in the first place was to drop off supplies. Why couldn't the thing hold its horses and wait for the giant bags of salt to beam down? To immediately begin feasting on the new arrivals has got to be a record in the annals of bad manners. I'm glad it was phasered to death, the rude bastard.

yr: 2266
sd: 1513.1
ad: 8 Sep 1966

OLR: The Island (2005)

Like Clonus rewritten by a Hollywood committee and with $10 million in product placement. (6/10)

d. Michael Bay

MST3K (818)

818 - Devil Doll - What is with season 8 and movies about the evils of hypnotism? Fully one third of the episodes so far have had hypnosis subplots: 805, 806, 808, 809, 812 and now this one. I guess it's appropriate fodder for horror movies: the loss of control, playing with human minds, a poorly understood science, etc. I had no idea it was such a big-deal cultural fear. Apparently, it's up there with nuclear power and cloning and guys in hockey masks.

Hey, Pitch came back. He's the very first movie character from the Comedy Central days to stop by. For a while, it looked like they were going to forget their old cast of scamps. There was some attempt to have Ortega from 812 carry that water, it seemed. I'm glad the rules are getting broken. No reason to throw away good stuff. Is there hope for one more visit from Torgo?

Mike: "When does Mr. Lifto come out?" My compliments to the writer who came up with that riff. I'm guessing it wasn't the same person who wrote the joke in the host segment that Crow having lunch with Marilyn Manson was "satanic."

"I'm due for a dimple cleaning." (7/10)

film d. Lindsay Shonteff & Sidney J. Furie [as Lindsay Shonteff] (1963)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (4 Oct 1997)

[finally, after three months, back on schedule]

OLR: Jesus Camp (2006)

Just letting the nutters speak for themselves was very effective; I would've cut the radio commentator out. (8/10)

d. Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady

MST3K (817)

817 - The Horror of Party Beach - In rubber-suited, googly-eyed appearance, maybe the titular horrors weren't very special. Their back-story, however, was quite cool. Toxic waste spills around the sunken bones of a sailor. Using the skeleton as a plan and the surrounding sea life as material, this radioactive goo creates a sort of simulacrum of a man made of sea urchins and plankton and the like. I think Del Tenney may just have a case against Alan Moore here. Unfortunately, instead of pondering its place in the universe and discovering that it is some kind of bipedal protector of The Blue, it runs around with some friends and kills teenagers. Speaking of, man, these horrors rack up a teen body count that would put Freddy himself to shame.

Kevin Murphy plays the Roman Callipygeas... Greek for pretty butt. Eww.

I could see the host segment song about sodium coming as soon as it was mentioned in the movie. It's just something the show is going to sing about. It wasn't one of the show's better songs. In an effort to mimic the inane lyrics of the band featured in the movie, the MST "Sodium" song was just the word sodium repeated over and over. I liked the geeky band costumes, though.

"That's a female buttocks, Gary. I don’t see the connection. " (7/10)

film d. Del Tenney (1963)
mst d. Michael J. Nelson (6 Sep 1997)

Star Trek: TOS 1.04: "The Enemy Within"

It only took five episodes to get to the very first transporter accident. The wrath of those infernal machines will extend for at least the next 113 years. I might blame Richard Matheson for that, but I'd rather thank him for the first solid episode of the show. I'm not surprised such a talented writer was the man to establish the essential Kirk-Spock-McCoy triangle.

Evil Kirk: a tour de force performance from one Mr. William Shatner. Thank you, Bill.

yr: 2266
sd: 1672.1
ad: 6 Oct 1966

MST3K (SBR1)

1st Annual Mystery Science Theater 3000 Summer Blockbuster Review - That's the way. They took the good idea they had last season and improved upon it. The main flaw with the Little Gold Statue Preview Special was that the bots let the clips from the films play without comment. In this special, they treat the studio-provided promo material as they would any movie on a regular episode. This involves mistaking Milla Jovovich for a clown, pointing out the holes in the plot to Lost World and having a dumb ape laugh uproariously at the really stupid jokes in MIB. Good fun.

It's kind of neat to have the three villains cram into the theater with the bots. I'm impressed with the flawlessness of having Crow and Brain Guy or Servo and Bobo onscreen at the same time. You couldn't even tell that something was amiss. They must have pre-recorded the robot's lines ahead of time? My compliments to the timing of the guest puppeteers.

I'm somewhat amazed to remember that I saw each and every one of these films on the big screen that year:

• Batman & Robin
• Contact
• The Fifth Element
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Men in Black

Ten years later, I have three of these on DVD... but only one on purpose (The Fifth Element, which I like, clown and all).

"If you like injecting LSD into your eyeballs then you'll like this film." (7/10)

mst d. Kevin Murphy (2 Sep 1997)

MST3K (816)

816 - Prince of Space - Boring, boring, boring. I wanted to escape the theater as badly as Crow did by the end of this one. Space guys with silly noses and weird laughs trying to taking over the world may sound like a good time, but it is not. It's not fun at all; it's just tiring. The worst part: there's this sound effect that repeats endlessly on Krankor's spaceship. As there are about 5 hours of scenes on that set, we get to hear "Wee, wee, wee, wee, woo, wooo, wooooooo." repeat around 7.5 billion times. Arrggg!

The riffing didn't help in the least. All the guys have are a bagful of crappy Japanese jokes. Super-violent porn, weird seafood, Godzilla... yeah, yeah. I also have no idea what the "I like that very much" thing was about. Did I miss someone in the movie saying that or is this a reference to some bit of late-'90s pop culture trivia I've forgotten? Also, Crow, what the hell was this: "Yeah, I need those guys like I need another one inch weiner."?

Luckily, the host segments were great this time around. The "getting trapped in a wormhole" idea is perfect for playing around with the show. We got to see Mike, Crow and Servo out of time-sync with each other in rather Lynchian segment. Mike trades places with his alternate universe self, who happens to be a robot/puppet that the robots can't take seriously in the second wormhole segment. In the last and strangest, the SOL turns into a Minnesotan forest. It was quite disconcerting to see Mike and the bots in a woods. Location shooting with MST3K? Who'd'a thunk?

"I'm gon' mess you up. Uh." (6/10)

film d. Eijirô Wakabayashi (1959)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (16 Aug 1997)