I love “A Date with Your Family”! That family scares me to death.
I haven’t seen Invasion USA. Sounds like it would make a good double bill with Red Dawn.
MST3K 6.03 - The Dead Talk Back
Available in Volume 8. Shown with Short, The Selling Wizard . Notable because the original source, according to MST3K, was damaged - causing a few visible glitches in the DVD release. (I mean the MST episode, not the movie itself - though it has its share of glitches.) Still very watchable, nonetheless. We’ve got a kooky scientist breaking the fourth wall to tell us about his radio that lets him talk to the dead, and narrating the story to kick us off - then the narration is taken over by a police lieutenant. It’s essentially a murder mystery, though the whole radio-to-the-dead stuff gets a workout at the end. The short’s an amusing one, previously released in one of the Shorts collections.
Intro : Fire Drill on the SOL; Dr. F invents Pinpoint marketing, with Nelson cigarettes. Host Segments : ‘The Dead Talk Back’ radio show - but all they want to talk about are the Buffalo Bills; Mike and the Bots impersonate the Grateful Dead - Crow begins an interminable guitar solo; Crow pauses the solo while Dr. F tries interrogation techniques on Mike - but Frank cracks. ‘I killed that fat barkeep!’ Finale : The solo endures, while Frank and Dr. F engage in a little archery.
Signature Riffs :
(as the praise of the ice cream freezer comes to a climax in the short)
<Mike> “Meanwhile, the Soviets were launching Sputnik.”
<Crow> “It was a bitter affair, that ended briefly.”
MST3K 6.04 - Zombie Nightmare
Not a bad outing at all. It reeks of the 80’s, though. A young boy’s father is killed by street toughs in a fight - years later, the same boy is hit by a bunch of joyriding high school punks. His mother, grieving at the loss of both men in her life, calls up the local voodoo lady, who sounds like a Jamaican sheep. Voodoo lady animates the boy’s corpse to seek vengeance on his killers. Tia Carrere has a small part as one of the joyriders, and don’t miss Adam West at his drinkingest as the Police Captain.
Intro : Bots as Secret Service; Dr. F and Frank practice Voodoo. Host Segments : Tom runs over Crow; The Bots and Mike frolic briefly in a hot tub; Mike and Tom dress for a Batman sketch of Crow’s devising, but he’s forgotten about it. Finale : Letters to Adam West.
Signature Riffs:
(the film opens on a baseball game)
<Mike> “Pride of the Zombies.”
<Tom> “It takes a <i>man</i> to wear Farrah Fawcett hair.”
(familiar looking sequence of buildings zipping by)
<Crow> “It’s the Kids in the Hall!”
(two of the joyriders lock lips after a tennis match)
<Tom> “So many women tennis players wish they were that… guy.”
Next:
MST3K 6.05 - Colossus and the Headhunters.
MST3K 6.05 - Colossus and the Headhunters
Colossus, or Cheesesteak? Someone forgot to tell the dubbing team that the lead hero was going to be named Colossus for the American release. What we have here is a low-rent Hercules knockoff, with our incredibly strong hero protecting a group of people whose island home exploded - even as they find themselves amidst political intrigue on a new island.
Intro : Tom audits Crow’s taxes; Mads introduce NummyMuffinCocoButter, the ultimate pet. Host Segments : Mike cares for Nummy, Frank sings a sad song missing Nummy; Nummy is shedding all over the SOL; Nummy and Frank are ill from missing one another. Fin : Musings on decapitation.
Signature Riffs:
(re : the title)
<Mike> " The struggles of a Greek immigrant in a tough job market."
<Crow> “The Bataan ‘Oh My Dogs Are Aching’ March.”
MST3K 6.06 - The Creeping Terror
Available in Vol. 1.
One of the lamest movie monsters in history, folks. It creeps, but terror? Not so much. Oddly, half of this movie lacks dialogue - instead, we get the narrator describing the conversations we see. The movie doesn’y really have a plot that one can discern - the monster basically lands in a spacecraft and proceeds to very slowly eat people too dumb not to climb into its mouth.
Intro : Servo as SOL Security; Proven link between Coffee houses and pretension. Host Segs : Crow makes the SOL a flag; Love, Satellite Style!; Mike is a Stereo Geek. Finale : Tom and Crow try to force Gypsy to eat them.
Signature Riffs :
<Crow> “Aw, great. A race of ham radio operators!”
(with regard to a pair of white teens in white bathing suits making out)
<Mike> “The Unbearable Whiteness of Being…”
MST3K 6.07 - Bloodlust
Also available in Vol. 1.
Shown with Short, Uncle Jim’s Dairy Farm.
Y’know the classic story of man hunting the most dangerous prey - Man? Time-honored cliche, and never more cliche than here. Two unlucky couples go ashore on an island owned by a rich madman who enjoys hunting men for sport. Robert Reed ( Mike Brady) plays the TOUGH guy, so you can just imagine how nerdy the other men are. The short’s title is self-explanatory.
Intro : Tom Analyzes Crow; Pearl Forrester visits Deep 13. Host Segs : Crow’s ‘Vegable’ stand is taken out by Tom, driving wild; SOL Square Dance; Crow spoils the SOL Mystery Murder Dinner. Fin : Tom and Crow think Mike is hunting them.
Signature Riffs:
<Mike> “Ah, yes. Now’s the time for Uncle Jim’s fundamentalist dogma!”
(re : the Tree of Death)
<Mike> “They found the Tree of Interminable Dialogue!”
<Crow> “Robert Reed is Buford T Pusser in : ‘Prancing Tall.’”
**MST3K 6.08 - Codename : Diamondhead **
Shown with Short : A Day at the Fair.
Made for TV spy drama… ish. Never quite makes it to ‘James Bondian’. Two agents on opposite sides of… the street, I guess… engage in a tepid game of cat and also-cat regarding a top secret biological weapon. The short amuses in the way that only 1940s edu-shorts can.
Intro : SOL covered in junk, cleaning begins. (They throw out Crow’s Wire Mother! - or perhaps not… ) Host Segs : Magic Voice shows Tom and Crow what life would be like without Mike, in three different flavors, including a singing Crash Test Dummy, and the Frugal Gourmet. Fin : Hawaiian day on the SOL, Crow blows the Hawaiian punch gag.
Signature Riffs:
<Narrator of Short> “Too soon, the rides are over.”
<Crow> “And the lawsuits begin!”
(as vad guy spy, dressed as priest)
<Crow> “Ah, Mr. Jesus. You have a nasty habit of surviving.”
<Mike> “Vatican 2 : The Final Reckoning.”
<Tom> “This is so, almost, Mitchell.”
<Crow> “It’s about 50 pounds short of Mitchell.”
Next : MST3K 6.09 - The Sky Divers
I love The Creeping Terror. The constant narration gets funnier every time it cuts in. It makes you wonder if they couldn’t afford to record sound on location, or if they tried and it turned out to be unusable, or if they just didn’t think about it at all.
I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that the filmmakers had somehow lost a good portion of the recorded dialogue and had to whip up some narration to describe what was going on.
I thought I remembered that too, but I honestly think that was another one of the episodes.
Village of the Giants is my absolute least favorite Mike era episode. I’m the biggest MST fan, but they cannot save that movie. It makes my skin crawl, the slow-motion way the “giants” move and talk, the shirtless Beau Bridges, the dancing. Especially the dancing. I could barf.
On a lighter note, yay for the appearance of Ian McShane in Codename: Diamondhead!
ZJ
Could be I got the episodes mixed up. Do you remember which one it was?
I first saw **Creeping Terror ** un-Msted (years before MST3K went on the air) on my local Creature Feature show; and at that time I heard the same thing–that the sound track had been lost, and replaced with narration.
Not off the top of my head. It may be this one, but I thought it was one I’d already reviewed here, and I thought the one for which it happened had a note to that effect on it’s IMDB entry.
I just watched **Atomic Brain ** this weekend, for the first time since the collection came out. Excellent episode! Favorite riffs…(all from Mike, I believe)
As Cat Lady falls, very unconvincingly, from the roof: “…and she floats gently to her death.”
Re Cat Lady; “Did they pack her skull with stuffing to keep the cat brain from rattling around?” (something I wondered, too)
As Victor gives a very dispirited tour of the house to the young ladies, and turns on a lamp: “ta da…”
A visual…perhaps you had to be there: our heroine is strapped to a gurney, wearing a tight sweater and one of those 1950s rigid, pointy bras: “hey, guys…I’d really like to visit Egypt someday”.
The plot of **Atomic Brain ** is virtually identical to that of a more recent movie,
2005’s Skeleton Key. But apparently SK’s hoodoo works better than AB’s science & technology.
MST3K 6.09 - The Skydivers
Available on Collection One. Shown with Short, Why Study Industrial Arts.
This Coleman Francis stinkburger goes nowhere, does nothing. There are some skydiving scenes, and a love rhombus or pentagon or something, and a jealous gal finally decides to put acid in someone’s parachute. Oh, and there’s coffee. The short, on the other hand, has some of the most singularly flat delivery of lines I’ve ever seen - it makes the actors in the movie look decent by comparison.
Intro : Tom’s Planetarium shows; Crow heckles. Swing choir competition between the SOL and Deep 13. Host Segments : Industrial Arts projects - Crow manages to bisect himself; Crow gets himself into a double jock-lock; Tom strafes Crow’s Hot rod. Finale : Tom and Crow are tangled in chutes, Dr. F pelts Frank with dodgeballs.
Signature Riffs :
<Crow> (re : the short) “I keep Popular Mechanics under my mattress…”
<Mike> (re : Female Lead) “Marlo Thomas in : ‘That Guy’.”
<Tom> “Oh, she’s setting up for a seance.”
<Crow> “They’re going to invoke the spirit of the continuity guy.”
<Mike> “Seems like they forgot to have things happen in this movie.”
<Tom> (re : cleavagey shot of femme fatale) “‘Double-D Indemnity.’”
<Mike> “This isn’t ‘The Right Stuff’, it’s just… some stuff.”
Next up : 6.10 - The Violent Years
MST3K 6.10 - The Violent Years
Shown with Short, A Young Man’s Fancy.
Another Juvenile Delinquent movie, this time written by Ed Wood. A gang of girls goes bad because of neglectful parenting and they all end up dead, and one of them even manages to have an illegitimate child as a bonus. The short is actually rather long, and pretty amusing - I suspect it was sponsored by G.E., because the convenience of modern appliances gets more play than the titular romance.
Intro : Tom has a new head; Dr. F and Frank sing a duet - Livin in Deep 13. Host Segments : Turn Your Crank to Frank; Tom as a performer, has a breakdown on stage; Mike in the One Man show of Keanu Reeves. Finale : Mike and Crow re-enact a tense holdup scene.
Signature Riffs:
<Tom> (re : Title) “The Bobby Knight Story!”
<Crow> (re : a headline - Young Man Assaulted By Girl Gang) “Refuses to press charges!”
<Mike> (an abrupt cut to a cop car) “Later, in completely unrelated footage…”
MST3K 6.11 - Last of the Wild Horses
Mysterious stranger protagonist blows into town, makes some friends, makes some enemies, gets caught up in a rancher-squabble, and framed for crimes he didn’t commit. It’s a fairly typical Western plot, but what makes this episode special is that the metaplot on the SOL is a parody of "Mirror, Mirror. " Frank and Dr. F do the riffing in the theater for the first quarter of the show. Also, don’t miss the series of ‘Johnnie Pooper’ riffs late in the film.
Intro : The Mads experiment with a matter transference device during an ion storm - Tom and Gypsy get sent to alternate, evil universe - Frank and Dr. F are on the satellite, forced to watch movies, and Mike and Crow are running the experiment. Host Segments : Dr. F and Frank perform Joey the Lemur and back in the normal universe, Evil Tom struggles with the SOL crew; Evil Tom and Evil Gypsy plot to take over the ship; Tom and Gypsy manage to reverse the transfer and put everyone in their proper universe. Finale : Mike explains what happened, and the Good Mads dial in on the hexfield to share a song.
Signature Riffs:
<Barnum> “My horse threw a shoe.”
<Frank, as Barnum> “Got a ringer.”
<Crow> (as a fight breaks out) “Hey, the 2 o’clock shootout’s startin’!”
(old man mentions how helpless he is for being in a wheelchair)
<Mike> “Don’t use your wheelchair as a crutch.”
<BadGuy> “He dropped something, see what it is.”
<Crow> “It’s a plot device. It’s very flimsy, so be careful.”
Next : 6.12 - The Starfighters
So what’s going on in this thread exactly?
Is the information being posted not already available on some website somewhere?
Are we witnessing the creation of this database? Because that would be pretty cool.
Otherwise, I’m confused.
Actually, I’m always confused. But otherwise, I’m just confused.
-FrL-
Mission Statement of Thread is in post #1. To sum up, I have a mild obsessive compulsive tendency, I like MST3K, and I’m watching them all in order, and posting brief summaries here, to foster discussion of the series, answer questions, share memories, et cetera. It’s not a database.
Woops, should have read that post, sorry.
-FrL-
Mmm. Starfighters. Airborne Refueling at its finest! Thank you, B-1 Bob!
Ahhh…Starfighters. My first episode. You never forget your first time.
And now I’ll never forget the Starfighters either.
MST3K 6.12 - The Starfighters
Ah, holy hell, this was rough. Another one of those movies where very little happens, and it seems like a commercial for something. In this case, Military Expenditure. There is a trio of hotshot young pilots , who come to live and learn in the Air Force, one of whom has a congressman father, but there’s no drama, no tension. Features a young Bob Dornan. There’s also about 15 minutes of hot refueling action.
Intro : Crow can’t get to the Internet, Tech Support is less than quick to pick up. Pseudo Invention Exchange - the Mads have Cranial Ports, Mike invents Cowboy Mike’s Ric-o-chet (ka-ting!) Barbecue Sauce. Host segments : Simulated Refueling, still waiting on tech support; Crow and Tom debrief Mike; The Servo Academy Men’s Chorus. Finale : Crow connects, at last.
Signature Riffs :
(on refueling)
<Mike> “Yes, lie back, and think of England’s airspace.”
<Crow> “I’d like to thank me, for flying ‘Me’ airlines.” - reused in the Movie.
<Mike> “You know, I read this screenplay. It was two pages.”
MST3K 6.13 - The Sinister Urge
Shown with Short, Keeping Clean and Neat. Nothing stings like a hygiene short. Available on Volume 9. Comes with special intro from bit player, Conrad Brooks.
This Ed Wood stinker deals with the pornography industry - though nothing more racy than a swimsuit is sported here. Apparently, pornography is the scourge of mankind, and since one of the local smut peddler’s thugs has started killing off some of the smut starlets, the police have decided to do something about it. Their cunning plan includes having a cop crossdress to go undercover. Mike and the Bots adopt bit-part cop ‘Kline’ as a favorite, and Mike pulls off a reference to Jet Jaguar that leaves Crow baffled as to how he’d know to make it.
Intro : Throwing a Shower for Gypsy, Frank’s missing and has left a bomb threat. Host Segments : Frank’s taken over Deep 13, Dr. F is tied up, and Frank’s going to blow it all to hell; The SOL crew plays police officers, trying to unravel the best way to defeat Frank; they suggest Dr. F get potato cakes; Finale : Dr. F uses the Potato Cakes to distract Frank and disarm the bomb. Then Deep-Frys Frank.
Signature Riffs :
(in the short, the film speeds up as a kid picks up)
<Crow> “Shift into another Time-Dimension, if it helps…”
(a bra-and-slip-skirt clad girl running opens the film)
<Tom> “The Scantily-Clad Prey.”
(and a few seconds later)
<Tom> “Hey, she’s trying to give someone… the slip!”
<Tom> “Ed Wood agonized over this scene.”
<Crow> “And now we are.”
<Mike> “Fonzie, Ace of Spies.”
<Crow> (angry) “Film it all, Ed!”
(about Drag Cop about to be attacked)
<Mike> “Janet Reno, Look out!”
Next : 6.14 - San Francisco International