The Ultimate MST3K Thread

Cafe Society
1001

The rights for Godzilla vs. Megalon in Volume 10 weren’t properly secured, and Best Brains had to take it off the shelves. They re-released it as 10.2, with The Giant Gila Monster in the place of G vs. M. The Gila Monster disc is/was available from Rhino as a standalone, for the people who snapped up copies of Vol 10 in time to get the original version.

It includes a little extra - Joel, Tom, Crow, Dr. F, and Frank, talking about the mix-up with the rights. It’s cute. Tom actually hovers. Frank looks really old. Joel looks a little old. Trace looks okay. Deep 13 was reproduced via green screen, but it looks like the SOL set was for real.

1002

Hmmmm, another purchase to pursue…

1003

We just watched the Giant Gila Monster disc last night. I thought the back of the Satellite set was greenscreened in as well, but the desk clearly was real. Continuity-wise, our guess was that sometime after the final episode, Joel was shot back into space by a newly teamed-up Dr. Forrester and Frank, and then the Bots moved out of Mike’s apartment and rejoined Joel on the SoL. The later seasons of the show did have time travel shenanigans, so maybe history got changed somehow to allow all this to happen. Eh, I’ve decided not to think about it too hard, much like the issues of how Joel and Mike ate and breathed while in space.

1004

Like I said in Post #979. Yeah, I know, it’s a big thread, but it hurts my feelings to think you guys aren’t reading and memorizing everything I write.

1005

Unless you’re a radical completist, I don’t know whether it would really be worth it to purchase the disc just for the extra. It’s only a few minutes long; and in comparison to host segments past, it feels a bit perfunctory.

It’s certainly neat to see the guys in character again, but it’s not exactly a “DS9 viewscreen clears to reveal original series Enterprise” moment. It’s more along the lines of a DeForrest Kelley cameo: they show up and trade a few barbs, we smile fondly, and that’s it.

There’s one good laugh courtesy of Frank-- who doesn’t look that old! I think it’s mostly the greenscreen lighting. Speaking of which, I am pretty certain the SOL background was also greenscreen-- Tom’s dome appears weirdly out of focus throughout, which I guess is probably the same effect which mandated the use of an opaque dome for the theater segments.

Anyhoo… I didn’t have a good copy of The Giant Gila Monster, so it was an easy choice for me. You’ve got to figure that the new segment will likely wind up posted to YouTube before too long anyway.

On the other hand, the disc also features some groovy additional music by Don Sullivan, star of The Giant Gila Monster! So if you were enraptured by his crooning and ukelele-strumming in that film, by all means seek out this disc without delay!

There’s also a smallish gallery of extremely random photos, at least a couple of which I suspect were included by accident (A picture of toys on a concrete floor! Ah, so that’s how the show’s creators stored their toys! Fascinating…) Then there’s a picture that appears to be of Frank in a Superman-style costume consisting of boxing trunks and a gray leotard with “DM” emblazoned on the chest. Which show was that from, again…?

1006

Hey, someone asks a question, I try to answer. :wink:

1007

MST3K 10.06 - Boggy Creek II

Episode Thoughts: Ow, ow, ow. A legacy of my upbringing in southern West Virginia is that a lot of hillbilly-type scenarios just instinctively revolt me. And Boggy Creek II wallows in southern stereotypes from beginning to end. It hurts us, my precious. This is probably the most painful episode in Season 10 for me. Available on DVD in Volume Five.

Movie : The Director, his son, and a couple of ladies who were paid to film some scenes in scanty clothes descend into the wilderness pursuing the “legendary” creature of Boggy Creek. They find it, but the Director decides not to tell anybody, so the creature can live in peace. The Director (also Writer) is playing a professor of anthropology, but that’s neither important nor believable.

Memorable Bits : “I saw the little creature.” The chewin’, shootin’, overweight mountain-man character. Numerous flashbacks presented as tales of the creature. The power of … RADAR. Monster Radar. Jeep in the mud.

Intro: Cub Scout meeting on the SOL - Tom dresses as a Brownie. Pearl plots to take over the world with potato batteries, but Bobo screws up.

Host Segments: Tom and Crow fight, then each member of the crew relives the fight through progressively fuzzier flashbacks; Pearl tries to play up her own legendary create (Bobo), with a folksy song by Brain Guy; Tom tries to break into the whittling industry.

Finale: Crow tends to his fires, while a kid in Pearl’s creature gift shop uncovers the truth about the creature of Castle Forrester.

Signature Riffs:

<Crow> The sun has a hard time getting up when we switch to Daylight Savings Time.

<Tom> They’re waving giant tribbles!
<Mike> (as a football player) The cheerleaders suggest that we GO!

<Tom> The Razorback hat lacks the quiet dignity of the cheese wedge.

<Mike> (as Director) We’re going camping, and you’re going to watch.

<Crow> (as Director’s son) Can I borrow a cup of shirt?

<Mike> Thank goodness for the jeep’s braking distance of five hundred yards.

<Mike> (as the creature) Where’s the Law-Giver?

<Tom> (as Deputy, narrating flashback) Suddenly, I was attacked by a muppet!

<Tom> (re : Mountain Man) Boy, Thor has really hit the skids.

Line of the show:
<Guy> (regarding the creature) There ain’t no such thing, you know…
<Crow> (as Professor) I know, but we got this ‘funding’…
Next: 10.07 - Track of the Moon Beast

1008

I don’t remember seeing this one. Were there any Gilligan riffs?

1009

… not as I recall, no…

1010

It’s just that you’d think with Dawn Wells in the movie…

1011

You’re thinking of the wrong Boggy Creek movie. Dawn Wells was in Return to Boggy Creek (1977), which was produced by an entirely different creative team. When Charles B. Pierce (the creator of the original Legend of Boggy Creek) decided to film his own sequel, he pointedly ignored the existence of Return to Boggy Creek. So **Boggy Creek II ** is actually the third Boggy Creek movie.

1012

Ah…okay. I was confused.

1013

On the Sci-Fi website, the brains addressed the people of Arkansas, telling them to not let themselves be portrayed in this manner. Especially by the fat guy with the broccoli rubber band on his head. Arkansas has its share of intelligent, cultured people, but this movie is ruining it for them.

There was only one redeeming feature of the film. The long-haired brunette was HOT.

Lines that really had me laughing:

“Where’s the money you son of a bitch!”

“Why does my head hurt?”

“Thor’s really let himself go.”

“Well we can’t do it now, Earl. He’s standing right there.”

“Wow, Tim’s really showing up on the Gay-dar.”

As a goat: “Yes, I’m Mad, MAAAAD!”

And Terrifel, I need a DVD copy of The Giant Gila Monster anyway, so I might as well get it.

1014

Understandable. Needless to say, there have been decades of acrimonious debate among the Boggy Creek fandom regarding the canonicity of Return to Boggy Creek. Most feel that RtBC should be considered non-canon, though there are a few hard-core “Boggies” who insist on shoehorning all the films into a single Extended Boggyverse chronology. As you might expect, these are the same fans who show up at Boggy Creek conventions in full Crenshaw beard and biballs.

1015

Decades of acrimony? Jesus, these people need a life! I’d never even heard of Boggy Creek until MST3K.

1016

w h o o o o o s h

1017

Actually, it’s not too surprising when you consider the powerful Campbellian archetypes that infuse the films. Charles B. Pierce specifically set out to “craft a mythology for Arkansas,” and few can deny that he succeeded. Even today a recent poll by the *Arkansas Democrat-Gazette * ranks him as the third most-influential Arkansaniac of all time, after Dick Powell and Helen Gurley-Brown.

Even those who are unfamiliar with the films may recall with fondness the early-90s TV spinoff, Legend of Boggy Creek: The Series, in which Robbie Rist took on the role of Tim, now a paranormal investigator who travelled the country pursuing sightings of the Boggy Creek Creature while solving crimes. Sadly this series is unavailable today, due to a series of lawsuits over rights with Chuck Pierce Jr., the original Tim.

However, the show proved popular enough for Hanna-Barbera to produce a short-lived Saturday Morning cartoon series, Boggy and the Creek Creepers, which united the characters of Tim, Crenshaw and the Creature itself (all voiced by Don Messick) in a madcap dune buggy race around the globe.

1018

I’ve been looking for years for one of the early “Revenge of Boggy Creek” posters. They changed it to “Return,” saying that the Boggy Creek Creature does not seek revenge.

1019

Man, the lack of a search function is a real bitch when trying to find this thread.

I just saw **Escape 2000 ** and Laserblast.

**Escape 2000 ** reminded me a lot of Diabolik, probably they’re both Italian productions. What can be said other than it’s a bunch of guys getting shot while wearing silver suits or 1920’s style police uniforms. I find it interesting that anyone caught didn’t want to “LEAVE THE BRONX” was killed with a flamethrower. A flamethrower that just smeared soot all over you. No, don’t shoot them with a gun or better yet just arrest them and send them to New Mexico. No, use a FLAMETHROWER. Inside.

Laserblast just had me confused. What was the point? Was the Mark Hamill wannabee being turned into the green alien? Was he concious of what he was doing or was he “posessed” by the green necklace? And what was the point of Keenan Wynnes character? So he knew about a secret project. So? How was that secret project related to the aliens, the gun or the kid? The stop motion animation showed some ambition but is silly looking, even by the standards of the day they did it.

1020

What else can be said? Why, plenty of things! For example:

LEAVE THE BRONX!

Weirdly, the premise of the film (real estate developers conspiring with city officials to disenfranchise poor neighborhoods) is probably one of the most realistic of any MST3K movie, aside from the futuristic death squads.

I enjoyed how, even though the paramilitary annihilation squads were supposed to be a closely guarded secret, they still had their own logo and everything.

"The technical term is “dissiffisstessah.”

In the 1980s, it was plausible to suggest that in the future, New York City would have extensive subterranean colonies of fashionable guerrilla street performers. (They don’t yet, do they?)
Ah, Laserblast. At this point I recall almost nothing about the movie, other than the bizarre stop-motion animation and the presence of Eddie Deezen. I’m not even sure I would characterize it as a “movie,” rather than a “series of random student film vignettes, linked mostly by implication.”