MST3K (1004)

1004 - Future War - I liked Mary Jo's description of the scene with the cardboard-and-tape "camera" carried by the movie's TV cameraman as "heartbreaking." It's sort of a good description of the entire movie. They tried -- they really did -- but just not very hard. Then again, the director was also the SFX guy who created the finger critter in Bride of Re-Animator, so he gets some bonus points for that.

"This is because Joel stopped by recently, isn't it?" quips Crow as Mike makes shadow puppets on the movie screen using toys during the credits of the film. Ah, I knew it! That's why Mike did the pool cue gag a couple of episodes ago. I wonder if, after 1001, the writers began reminiscing: "remember when Joel used to..."? I'm not complaining.

"A Macy's balloon! Oh, it's you." Pretty good riffing this time, though it seemed a tad lighter than recent episodes. Still, any crack about the beefy guys from the halfway house always got me to laugh. "May your road be paved with sausages."

"Fred Burroughs! Help me!" (7/10)

film d. Anthony Doublin (1994)
mst d. Michael J. Nelson (25 Apr 1999)

MST3K (1003)

1003 - Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders - Many years ago, after I'd successfully collected some of the Sci-Fi era episodes from reruns, I randomly grabbed this one off the shelf to show some friends. I'd had great success showing them perennial favorite Mitchell a few months prior. While I was converting Merlin to DVD, it looked like it might be fun, so I gave it a shot. It didn't disappoint. Though the copious bottles of beer may have helped, there was much laughter that night.

Sober, it doesn't disappoint, either. A completely goofy gestalt film starring Mermaid Man himself, there are ample subjects populating the film begging for riffing. "I'm Bob Jackass." My one complaint: the guys are a little hard on Merlin's wife Zurella. Aw, she just seemed like such a nice lady. No need to poke fun at her dog bed hat.

In a weird coincidence, the power went out while I was in the middle of this episode. Just like the kid in the framing segments --SNAP-- the TV and all of the lights shut off. I didn't have a grandfather handy to tell me about his failed movie scripts, so I settled for reading further in my collected Poe book by candlelight. "Emo," as the kids say, perhaps... but nifty all the same. Anyway, this makes 1003 the only episode to take me two whole days to watch.

"Merlin sends in his trained flatulence to scout the room." (9/10)

film d. Kenneth J. Berton (1995)
mst d. Michael J. Nelson (18 Sep 1999)

OLR: 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)

I'm more of a Something Wicked This Way Comes kind of guy, but this was some good fun. (7/10)

d. George Pal

[thanks for the recommend, Joel]

OLR: Masters of Horror: "The Fair-Haired Child" (2005)

Exquisitely plotted and shot, though I think Malone owes Chris Cunningham some royalties. (9/10)

d. William Malone

OLR: Masters of Horror: "Haeckel's Tale" (2005)

Veered dangerously close to Cryptkeeper territory, but who doesn't love a good corpse orgy? (7/10)

d. John McNaughton

Star Trek: TOS 1.12: "The Conscience of the King"

Lenore gets angry with Kirk because he applied the ole Captain's charm just to get close to her father, but she's the one with Kirk on her "to kill" list. Then again, she was nuts.

yr: 2266
sd: 2817.6
ad: 8 Dec 1966

Star Trek: TOS 1.11: "Miri"

McCoy effortlessly comes up with the cure to another unknown disease for the second time in five episode while on a planet that, for absolutely no reason outside of the budget, looks exactly like 1960s Earth. Worst. Episode. Ever. (up to this point)

yr: 2266
sd: 2713.5
ad: 27 Oct 1966

MST3K (1002)

1002 - Girl in Gold Boots - We haven't had a late-'60s-youth-gone-wild flick in a really, really long time. Like its predecessors, Gold Boots boldly defines the words sleazy and oily.

"I'm having Critter's varmint!" The riffing was much funnier than I remembered. Last time I watched this episode, I found it boring. I must have been sleepy, because the riffing was consistent and dead-on target for most of the episode. Season ten's off to a great start. "I'm gonna drive in reverse and get some of that gas back."

I think Joel's visit had a lasting affect into this episode. I betcha his really old habit of using props in the theater inspired Mike's gag with the pool cue in this one. Mike even admits to the bots that he's been saving it for "8 years," which is longer than he's been the host but not longer than he has been head writer.

The ACEG mentions that the whole "Mad Scientist Accreditation" thing was a result of a Sci-Fi mandated storyline arc for the season. I liked it, anyway. I've also come to the slow realization that Paul Chaplin is hilarious as a guest actor. This time, he plays a foppish mad scientist from the accreditation bureau. He's great in these bureaucratic roles. He was also a funny Observer back at the beginning of season 8.

Bill: you owe me a brainwashing. The image of Brain Guy dressed only in a gold mini dress, gold boots and too-tight tights dancing for the pleasure of Pearl and the mad scientist is going to weasel its way into my mind's eye repeatedly throughout the day, despite my attempts to block that memory from ever surfacing again. Sorry, I just can't accept Observer as a sexual being.

"Hey, my butt is drunk." (8/10)

film d. Ted V. Mikels (1968)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (18 Apr 1999)

MST3K (1001)

1001 - Soultaker - Man, it was good to see Joel and Frank on the show again. After four-and-a-half years of Mike, I was starting to forget what Joel's goofy, easy-going demeanor was like. I miss him. Yeah, Joel seems a little out of practice at being on camera again. Big deal. Joel's weirdness-resulting-in-creativity Joelitude shines through all the same. And, Frank obviously had a lot of fun stepping back into the shoes of his former TV persona. He mugs for the camera just like he always used to, shoving his generous face too close to the lens and fixing it with his trademark benignly stupid appearance. Frank was good people.

A little dangerous for the newbies to be bringing back the old schoolers, though. "Oh yeah, I remember now when the show was like that..." might not be a good thing to bring up in the minds of the viewers if they prefer the old days to the new. This might be especially true to the Mad host segments. Frank and Dr. F. were about as good as those segments can possibly be.

"Man, that guy's got a small face!" There was some fine riffage going on in this episode as well. I didn't laugh as much as I was expecting to -- I already knew I liked this episode -- but that might be because I'm not feeling great today. And, on that note, I should cut this short.

"Being low class, we only had corncobs for windows." (8/10)

film d. Michael Rissi (1990)
mst d. Kevin Murphy (11 Apr 1999)

OLR: Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

I would probably kneel before Colossus almost as quickly as I'd kneel before Zod. (8/10)

d. Joseph Sargent

[thanks for the recommend, Joel]

MST3K (season nine closing thoughts)

Goodbye, season nine.

Similar to my feelings on season four, the guys are now humming along like a well-oiled machine on their new network. Instead of a pointless storyline, there's good variety in the host segments. The riffing feels like it's more than second nature to the trio in the theater (one-and-a-half nature, nearly). I'm enjoying their creativity in dealing with some of the over-long, unriffable credits. Pearl testing for pain leakage, Servo singing a song to himself, and abusing a cardboard cutout of Rick Sloane were all three thousand times funnier than making fun of a list of names.

It's getting harder to keep myself on schedule. In the early months of this project, my attitude was generally "I need a laugh, let's watch an episode." Lately, I approach most episodes with a sigh and a "let's get this out of the way." Watching MST3K has become a job, which wasn't unexpected but still isn't very fun. Once I get an episode started, things are fine. I fall easily into the groove of the show and approach it open to laughter. Werewolf demonstrated to me that I haven't lost the ability to really enjoy the show when en episode calls for it.

Luckily, having seen many of the episodes already, I know season ten is solid stuff. I'm looking forward to Joel, Frank and Mitchell all coming back, Ernest Borgnine scaring the shit out of a little kid and Gypsy starting her own company. Mostly, though, I'm looking forward to being done. Freedom!


The Numbers

Total Length

20 hours, 45 minutes, 35 seconds
(92 min average for 13 episodes)
(18 min average for 3 specials)

Years Spanned

1958-1995
(1975 average)

Shorts Years Spanned

1957-1962
(1960 average)

Time to Watch

22 days

Time to Broadcast Originally

197 days

Speed

9.0x

British Invasion

901, 905, 909 (23%)

Attack of the Mutant Animals

904, 905, 907, 909, 911 (38%)

Black and White to Color Ratio

3:10

Star Trek: TOS 1.10: "Dagger of the Mind"

Spock mind-melds with Dr. Van Gelder, becoming intimately familiar with what being a really sweaty man is like.

yr: 2266
sd: 2715.1
ad: 3 Nov 1966

MST3K (913)

913 - Quest of the Delta Knights - As with 611, a Mad takes a turn in the theater during the first section of the movie. For Pearl, this isn't technically a brand new concept. She visited during the 1st summer movie special and was rather annoyingly obsessed with George Clooney. For this episode, I think she did a slightly better job at the theater riffing than Frank did during his season six shot. It might just be that her delivery is closer to Mike's style than Frank's, is all. Still, for both episodes, I'm glad the Mad experiment only last for a part of the movie.

The riffing, with Mike or Pearl, was OK. I was surprised at their restraint: there was hardly any "huzzahs!" or references to sales of mugs made of tanned cow hide in the entire show.

Nice to see a visitor to the hexfield. Those are far too rare in the Mike era. The guest was even a character from the movie this time, traveling in an appropriately themed spaceship. Just like old times! Bill did great as the long-lived Leonardo da Vinci, currently a made man from Queens.

As for the movie itself: I have never seen that much urine thrown on someone in my entire life. Yuck.

"I accidentally put a sign on myself that read: 'slave for sale.'" (7/10)

film d. James Dodson (1993)
mst d. Michael J. Nelson (26 Sep 1998)

Star Trek: TOS 1.09: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

I wish I had Kirk around every time I have computer trouble. No one will ever be as good at talking computers to death than he was.

So, after this incident and and "The Enemy Within" issue, you'd think the crew of the Enterprise would devise some method of determining whether the captain was the captain or yet another evil twin. A pass phrase, a bio-scan, a tattoo on the real Kirk's thigh... something that's easy to check every time you run into the man to make sure he isn't evil. This would at least save some time when the Mirror Universe stuff goes down.

yr: 2266
sd: 2712.4
ad: 20 Oct 1966

MST3K (SBR2)

2nd Annual Mystery Science Theater 3000 Summer Blockbuster Review - Pretty much the same deal as last year's offering, though they covered twice as many movies:

• The X-Files: Fight the Future
  
• Ever After
  
• Halloween: H20
  
• The Truman Show
  
• Pi
  
• Saving Private Ryan
  
• Small Soldiers
  
• Godzilla
  
• Deep Impact
  
• Armageddon
  

Of those, I only own one on DVD: Halloween: Water, which was an OK horror sequel in my book. I have to say, 1998's summer offered a much better selection of movies than 1997. After seeing the clips in this special, I wouldn't mind rewatching several of these now. Also: Deep Impact > Armageddon.

They claimed that they weren't allowed to show any footage from Godzilla or even say its name for this show. I wonder if Sony, stinging from the massive failure of this film, wasn't about to allow a rinky-dink puppet show to throw more lemon juice in the wound? Or, it might've been that the MST3K crew was just funning around, making Godzilla the butt of the standard "hope we don't get sued" joke. I wish there was an ACEG for these specials for some behind-the-scenes info.

If MST3K were to have survived in a leaner form post-cancellation, specials like these would've been a fine way to go. There's no crew better to offer reviews of up-coming blockbusters and the shorter length of these specials is far friendlier to syndication, rerunning, and kids' short attention spans.

"I can only hear naked people." (7/10)

mst d. Michael J. Nelson (4 Sep 1998)