That short and the following skit were absolutely hilarious. “No springs!” “No Mike’s socks!”
I second the nominations for Horror at Party Beach (my personal favorite), Hobgoblins, Jack Frost, Manos, Pod People, and The Leech Woman. Nobody’s listed Incredibly Strange Creatures? How could anyone forget that one?
“HELPING CHILDREN THROUGH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT is the acronym, Mike. It stands for 'Hey Everyone, Let’s Pitch In 'N Get Cracking Here In Louisiana Doing Right, Eh? Now Then, Hateful Rich Overbearing Ugly Guys…”
Let me second “Sidehackers” ROTF funny, also the pilot for that TV show “The Master” with Lee Van Cleef as a ninja, Tim Van Patten, and a young Demi Moore.
I think the movie title was something like “Invasion of the Giant Spider” or something like that (someone please correct me if I’m wrong). It starred Alan (the skipper)Hale as a sheriff in Wisconsin. Having lived in the Land of Cheese my entire life, the wise cracks they made were hilarious to me! Especially the many comments about us being drunks and bumpkin shit kickers. My God did I laugh! Anyone else see this one?
My fave has got to be Attack of The The Eye Creatures.
That’s not a typo, at least not on my part. The title card at the beginning of the flick actually has two "The"s.
It was one of those wretched old horror movies where all the nighttime shots were blatantly shot at high noon with filters, etc. “Wow. It sure is dark out here. I hope I don’t get a moonburn!”
They also completely underestimated how dark things would look when they shot scenes of the creatures roaming through the forest. Evidently the budget didn’t stretch enough to buy more than one or two monster suits, so they had one guy wearing just the head, somebody else only got the torso, with the rest of their body clad in black. Only problem, you can blatantly see a couple of guys walking around with just a monster head on!
Many times during the course of the show, Mike and the bots were resigned to merely shaking their heads and saying, “Ladies and Gentlemen, they just didn’t care!”
My favorite MST3K feature is “Attack of the the Eye Creatures.” I always thought it was the best mix of a ridiculously schlocky movie plus inspired satire.
But my absolute, totally tip-top favorite thing MST3K ever did was a short. I don’t know the title, so it’s possible someone has already mentioned it by name and I just don’t recognize it. It’s the one where the Great White Hunter type goes out into the woods and captures animals; there’s the horrible scene where they knock a bear cub off a low branch with a pole and thrust it into a canvas bag.
So when they followed the short with the sketch where they torture the action-figure guy, sticking it in a bag with rubber snakes and pounding on it with a hammer, I literally fell off the couch. I was screaming with laughter; the meting out of justice was just too perfect. I only saw it once, much to my dismay.
[Note simulpost; ReservoirDog hadn’t posted when I started my message, and it popped up when I did Preview. Nice to know that great minds think alike…]
I have to agree about the shorts—as wonderful as the movies are, you can’t beat the hilarity of “Mr. B. Natural,” “Are You Ready for Marriage?,” “The Home Economics Story,” “New Cars,” and those bizarre bon-bons about Satan and bread salesmen, and the electric kitchen and brother’s college roomie.
Those, I can watch over and over again (and thanks to my VCR, I do!).
My favorite episode is the first one I ever saw: “Laser Blast.”
I also love all the 1950’s shorts on personal hygeine, etiquette, home economics, women’s colleges. The one where they show how a “normal” family eats dinner together almost made me pee. “Emotions are for ethnic people.”
Mystery Science Theater 3000, which ran on Comedy Central and The Sci-fi Channel for 7 years. Joel or Mike would watch horrible movies with 2 wise-cracking robots (the conceit of the show was that it was a mad science experiment) and make fun of the movies.
Rocketship X-M (“By this time my lungs were aching for air!”)
Manos (“The master wouldn’t like that!”)
SideHackers (“Side hackin’ is the thing to do, and it doesn’t hurt to have a low IQ!”)
I found the album “Dick Contino and his Amazing Accordian” (or some such bosh) and it’s truly my prized possession. From his frame on the wall, Daddy-o gazes benovelently surrounded by women in voluminous dresses ogling his organ. AHEM!
I love the music too, and have both “Clowns in the Sky” CD’s. I can never hear “Let me be Frank about Frank” too many times.
I’ve always loved the first one I ever saw: “Wild Rebels,” a horrible movie about a race car driver getting involved with a biker gang and their moll. Since it was filmed in Florida, the wild car chase scenes got a little slogged down in all the sand on the country roads. I was hooked for life in the first five minutes!
I also loved “Jack Frost,” which actually was not an extremely bad movie, as MST3K movies go. But the scenes with the little mushroom gnome were hysterical!
I’ll have to buy that “Shorts” video. From the titles, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of those particular shorts. Anyone remember the short filmed at the Seattle World’s Fair to promote newfangled telephones?
I have both…I’d reccomend the first Shorts tape before the Poopie tapes. Though the Poopie blooper tapes are funny, they work better for people who watch the show a lot as I do.
Also, using the shorts is a good way to introduce friends to the show. The shorts are usually cheezy in themselves.
BTW…the short fans often consider the best short they ever did, Mr. B Natural, is on a third tape of Short offered by Best Brains, the group that produced the show. It’s available online through the Satellite News, the official MST3K fan site, at http://mst3kinfo.com.
