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I love lizards being passed off as dinosaurs. makes me all tingly inside.
“King Dinosaur! Have breakfast with the king!”
He’d have to leave that to Weather Servo Nine!
(Sorry, just felt like posting.)
This wraps up season two with two Kaiju-sized episodes…
MST3K 2.12 - Godzilla vs. Megalon
Ahhh. The friend that introduced me to MST used to reference this one all the time.
The Invention exchange this week is “easy Halloween costumes”, some apparently lifted from Joel’s real-life stand-up act. Later in the episode, Tom and Crow create rival monsters, which turns into a vulgar display of one-upmanship.
The movie… well, basically, a scientist invents a robot, Jet Jaguar, with a sunny disposition. The scientist’s pals include a mini-Gilligan kid named Roxanne, and Rex Dart, Eskimo spy. They are menaced by the agents of Seatopia, Bluto and Oscar Wilde. They spend a lot of time running up or down the stairs to the lab.
Oh, and there are some giant monsters. Including a cameo by Gigan. Seriously, though, the running commentary on the four-way brawl that concludes the picture is hilarity itself, eclipsed only by the subtitled version of the ‘Jet Jaguar Fight Song’ presented in the final host segment.
Signature Riff:
<Joel> : “Saigon. I can’t believe I’m in a model of Saigon.”
MST3K 2.13 - Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster
Two, two, two Kaiju in one!
Joel invents a thought-controlled guitar.
Interestingly, as we first see the theater, the credits are running, and Joel and the Bots are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they didn’t want to deal with riffing the sequence, which was edited on an Amiga - but it’s odd that they don’t come in till after the opening credits. I had to doublecheck once I saw them go in - their silhouettes become smaller with this episode. It looks like Cambot backed off a foot or two, for some reason.
We get a use of the ‘Rock Climbing’ saw here, as the protagonists are actually climbing some rocks. And sneaking out of nowhere, in an uncredited appearance, is Mothra! Mostly he just lays there, but the Doublemint twins finally awaken him for the last five minutes.
Outside the theater, we get the Godzilla Family Tree and ‘Geneaology Bop’; Mothra pays a visit to the SOL to mildly chastise Tom and Crow, and we wrap up the Cool Thing contest from a few episodes back.
Signature Riff :
(as the Sea Monster pulls two men it impaled with a claw to its mouth)
<Crow> : “Ka-Bob… and Ka-Steve!”
Season Two In Review
They really pulled it together this season. They’re still tweaking little things here and there, but it’s pretty darn solid. Godzilla vs. Megalon would get a long-standing place in the title credits, with the bizarro visual of Godzilla rocketing forward while leaning back on his tail. We learned to love TV’s Frank, despite the weird gulpy noise thing he sometimes does, and met Jerry and Sylvia.
And of course, until the abortive Season 7, this would be the last less-than-full season of MST on Comedy Central, as they go to 24 episodes with Season Three.
26 down, 150 to go.
You have a perilous journey ahead with Season III. Some of the weirdest movies ever and some of the most memorable gags in the show’s run. Q’apla!
Ah, Jet Jaguar; one of the first MST3K movies I ever saw. I only saw it once and it was awhile back so I’ve forgetten most of the gags. Still, I remember enjoying it a lot.
I wish I’d taken “Rex Dart, Eskimo Spy” as my doper-name.
MST3K - The Third Season Begins
The first “full” (>=22) season of MST3K. Mostly, things remain from season 2, entirely intact.
MST3K 3.01 - Cave Dwellers
AKA, “Ator the Invincible.” Available on the MST3K Collection, Volume 2.
This is my favorite sort of movie for the crew to do - a C-grade Fantasy film. And it’s a hoot from start to finish - the guy has a sidekick named Thong, for cryin’ out loud. The crew starts out strong (Joel : “How much Keeffe is in this movie, anyway?” Tom : “Miles O’Keeffe.”) and stays solid throughout, particularly during the two most jaw-dropping moments in the film. Yes, I mean the invisible enemies sequence (“They were too cheap to hire villains!”) and the later hang-gliding sequence, where the crew speculates as to how Ator managed to construct the device during the passage of about half an hour.
Outside the theater - Dr. F isn’t wearing his trademark green-frame glasses this ep, but they come back next time. Joel and the Bots dress up and parody the bizarre credits sequence (which play over clips from a DIFFERENT movie), and Joel explains how to Foley sounds. I think this episode marks the first time Dr. F calls Joel ‘Bubie’. At the end, a disgruntled SOL crew glares at the Mads.
Signature Riff :
(during a massive flashback about Ator’s past)
<Crow> : “Geez, Tolkien couldn’t follow this plot!”
MST3K 3.02 - Gamera
Yes, all the way, from Tokyo Bay, to make the Earth pay, it’s that wacky namesake of mine, Dai-Kaiju Gamera! This marks the first Sandy Frank film during the crew’s national run (they had done some on KTMA) - Sandy Frank imported a lot of crap movies, and much of Season Three features his work - which he has refused to license for subsequent DVD release, because of the ribbing he got from the crew.
The theater’s smallish again this time - they may vary the size for some reason beyond my ken. This movie includes wonderful characters, like the devil-child Kenny, the stalker/reporter, and Chief Scientist Colonel Sanders-san. There’s also a stone shaped like a steak that seems important, but really isn’t.
We get to hear Crow’s impression of Gregory Peck for the first time here, as he riffs on ‘The Omen’; we also have what I believe to be their first use of ‘Sleep! Sleep!’ in the overly dramatic hypnotist mode. We move closer to the Chief/McCloud joke too - they still use ‘Gilligan!’/‘Skipper!’ here, but as one fellow says ‘Goodbye, Chief!’ to an eskimo chief, they do fire back with ‘Goodbye, McCloud!’
During one host segment, Tom sings a love song to featured regular-sized turtle Tibby - and back inside the theatre, Crow teases him mercilessly. The capper for me was, as the humans launch Gamera towards Mars, the Bots pick up on the similarity of that launch to the one in the credits of the show, and tease Joel with a snippet of the MST themesong!
Outside the theater, they have the “Kenny, What Gives?” write-in contest; and Gamera himself stops by the Hexfield. At the end, they thank the Mads for not sending such a bad film this time.
Signature Riff:
<Kenny> “Tibby!”
<Crow> “Or not Tibby. Heh.”
Don’t they have a song belittling Sandy Frank? Something about Sandy thinking people grow on trees?
I can only assume that shows up later. Not this episode, though.
Since I don’t do much to recap the plot of the featured movies, and some few might be interested in that, I thought I’d compile some links for you, and I’ll try to include them in future recaps. Check’em out, some have neat quotes and stuff.
Season One
1.01 The Crawling Eye
1.02 The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
1.03 Mad Monster
1.04 Women of the Prehistoric Planet
1.05 The Corpse Vanishes
1.06 The Crawling Hand
1.07 Robot Monster
1.08 The Slime People
1.09 Project Moonbase
1.10 Robot Holocaust
1.11 Moon Zero Two
1.12 Untamed Youth
1.13 The Black Scorpion
Season One Shorts
Commando Cody and the Radar Men from the Moon (Much of it, anyway)
Season Two
2.01 Rocketship X-M
2.02 The Sidehackers
2.03 Jungle Goddess
2.04 Catalina Caper
2.05 Rocket Attack USA
2.06 The Ring of Terror
2.07 Wild Rebels
2.08 Lost Continent
2.09 The Hellcats
2.10 King Dinosaur
2.11 First Spaceship on Venus
2.12 Godzilla vs. Megalon
2.13 Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster
Season Two Shorts
The Phantom Creeps (parts 1-3)
X Marks the Spot
Season Three (so far)
3.01 Cave Dwellers
3.02 Gamera
I watched “Attack of the Giant Leeches” last night. A tepid little flick with a weak-ass ending. But I noticed something interesting. During one scene of bodies floating to the surface, Servo makes a comment about “Dementia 13.” This was a Corman-produced flick that was directed by a young beginner named Francis Ford Cuppola. It was never a MST episode as far as I know but it was still mentioned by the bots. I wonder if they ever considered using it on the show?
No way to tell - I’ve never seen a big list of the movies they considered, but did not ultimately do…
Pod People got no reason to live.
Ah, this one’s a classic. Available on Collection II, just like Cave Dwellers. Considering they’re two of the best of the Joel era, that might be a good jumping-on set for new viewers.
Let me take a moment aside to address something annoying. During the Invention exchange, the Mads present a public-domain Karaoke machine. Both Frank and Clay pronounce it ‘Ka-rokey’ - and while I am no authority on regional dialect variants in the pronunciation of foreign words, that version of the word has always driven me insane. Whew. Better now.
Once again, our movie uses clips from a completely unrelated movie under its credits. Our cast includes some lovable poachers, pseudo-Lorne Green and the ‘Huzzah’ guy; an annoying child with an inexplicably British accent, and a Greg-Brady lookalike who sings.
We have memorable scenes like the recording studio bit (“Idiot Control now…”), with the guy wearing the ‘I’m a Virgin’ t-shirt, and of course, Trumpy’s audition tape to be Peter Gabriel’s video director. ( Joel : “Trumpy, you can do *stupid * things!”) The plot meanders between three different groups of characters for a while, and a fog obscures everything visually (Tom : “The movie ‘The Fog’ didn’t have this much fog…”) which is kind of a metaphor for the plot.
The host segments are genius, though - the crew riffs on the recording studio and Trumpy-magic bits in two separate segments, to hilarious effect. We also get to see the Wall of Keyboards during another. They don’t read a letter at the end, oddly.
Perhaps most important to note : This is the birthplace of the Chief/McCloud riff. It springs fully formed from the brow(s) of Tom and Crow. It gets used again and again - anytime people are wandering through the woods, calling out someone’s name (which is a LOT in this movie), the Crew will be sure to add on a series of names, almost at random, culminating in “Chief!” “McCloud!” The first use is probably the best - the redheaded brat looks for his uncle, and calls out “Uncle Bill?” which leads to : “Jody?” “Buffy?” “Mr. French?” “Sissy?” “Mrs. Beasley?” “Chief?” “McCloud?” … and the second best is probably the Walton-inspired gag as two of our characters bed down for the night… “Goodnight, John-boy.” “Goodnight, Hardcastle.” “Goodnight, McCormick.” “Goodnight, Chief.” “Goodnight, McCloud.”
Signature Riff :
<Crow> : “It was a dark and stormy night. I’d taken a creative writing class…”
Pod People was the reason I picked up Collection II first. Such a great episode. The McCloud riff is one of those gags that never gets old for me; even just thinking about it sends me into fits.
I just received my DVDs of *Carnival of Souls * and House on Haunted Hill, both with commentary from Mike Nelson. Damn this thread to heck; it makes me buy things! We enjoyed Mike’s commentary on Reefer Madness, which was released by the same company, Legend Films. It’s not quite the same as MST3K, but it’s still fun.
I have a friend who calls me Cheif. I call him McCloud.
He still doesn’t get it.
Was the red-haired kid dubbed over by a woman?
No freakin’ clue. Could be…
We open on the SOL as Tom and Crow bicker about favorite operating systems. We get an amusing bit where Joel elbows Tom, causing his head to pop up, Rock’em Sock’em style. Dr. Forrester presents the Disco-Cummer-Bubble-Bund.
After the recap at the beginning of the film, we get some color Gamera action - Gamera wrecks a hydroelectric plant. Treasure it, because he doesn’t show up again till the middle of the film. As a footnote, there’s a Fawlty Towers riff (“Don’t mention the war!”) that I appreciated all the more, because I was watching Fawlty Towers for the first time earlier today.
The most spastic actor in the history of Japan finds a huge “opal” in a cave, before being killed by the fastest-acting scorpion venom, ever. Sure enough, a day later, Barugon’s hatching and all heck breaks loose. Fiesty little dog-lizard.
We take a break to join Joel and the Bots at TGI Tokyo’s, then back to the film. Barugon demonstrates freezer-breath, and a magic Skittle-rainbow beam. And hey, Gamera shows up again… only to be immediately frozen by Barugon. We’ll see him again in the last five minutes, after the people of Earth… well, Japan … try every last little plan they can think of to destroy Barugon. Gamera just shows up and beats the crud outta him. Crow fires off the Sea Hunt riff as they wrestle in the lake (“By this time, my lungs were aching for air.”) but Joel tells him that’s the last time he can do that, ever.
Signature Riff :
<Joel> : “Oh, it’s a bridge over troubled models.”