In December, I began the task of watching all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. More about that can be found here and here.
In December, I covered the KTMA season (Season Zero), in which the format developed into something quite recognizable ... and quite good. Now, as the new year is underway, so is the new season of MST3K. At least, insofar as the whole "watch them all" project.
The first episode isn't the first episode after all. We covered that last time.
"It's so hard to find a spot I haven't hit."
The new-look Mads? I like them. I really like Dr. Erhardt, who I never saw during the show's run -- remember, I came in late and saw mostly Mike episodes. This exchange from the Invention Exchange shows one of the reasons I like Dr. Erhardt so much:
DR. FORRESTER: When's the last time you saw a dog sweat? Larry?
DR. ERHARDT: Never!
DR. FORRESTER: Exactly! And why is that?
DR. ERHARDT: Dogs don't sweat.
I had to hit "pause" just so I could finish laughing.
Joel plays Amazing Grace and Whole Lotta Love
I also loved Joel's leaf-blower bagpipes from the Invention Exchange. That's a prop for which I have a whole lotta love.
Some background on Deep 13 was provided. Joel suggests that the Mads were kicked out of Gizmonic Institute for shooting him into space. They deny that, saying they simply moved to Deep 13. Joel mentions that it's in the sub-basement of Gizmonic Institute, and he had to clean up a flubber spill there once, and that the place is "incredibly radioactive."
Of course, Joel slaps the table since there's no button. When the crew enters the theater, Tom Servo enters on his own. In the previous episode, Joel carried him. Of course, since this episode may have been filmed first (it's 101 while the previous episode was 102), maybe ... never mind. Anyway, Servo entered under his own power for the first movie segment, and Joel carried him in subsequent movie segment entrances.
Tom enters under his own power
Joel carries Tom
The movie was hard to follow, in part because the sound was horrible. The Mads mentioned this fact when they were getting ready to send the movie up to Joel. They weren't kidding. I could have used some closed captioning on this. Though how they'd pull that off -- movie soundtrack and riffing soundtrack at the same time -- I have no idea.
Though this movie is nearly as bad as the Sandy Frank films from the KTMA season, there are no hot Japanese she-villains. There is the lovely Janet Munro, though. She's British and the heroine, but that's close enough.
The riffing degenerates into a series of eye puns towards the end, when the Crawling Eyes (*SPOILER* there's more than one) finally appear.
A Whole Lotta Gypsy
Gypsy from KTMA
Oh, and we met Gypsy for the first time (other than the opening credits). She's one big robot. And we hear her first Richard Basehart reference. (*SPOILER*) The answer to the question "What's two plus two?" is "Richard Basehart."
I didn't say it made sense.
Everything I've read indicates that they began scripting -- or seriously scripting -- the riffs in Season One, as opposed to the more ad-libbed fare of Season Zero/KTMA. Even so, they stepped on each other's lines a few times. I wonder if the following the script is still something they're getting used to, or if they're still throwing in ad-libs.
Joel, Josh, and Trace do play well off each other. They've had a year to practice, so that shouldn't be an issue. Still, the dynamic of Joel, Josh, and Trace is a very good one. I'm more familiar with the Mike, Kevin, and Bill team, so it's interesting seeing a different crew doing the same thing.
One other thing: Joel is referred to simply as "Joel." No last name. The credits mention him by his real name, Joel Hodgson. His character's name isn't listed in the credits. I'm not sure when the character became "Joel Robinson," but that'll play out soon enough.
In December, I began the task of watching all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. More about that can be found here and here.
In December, I covered the KTMA season (Season Zero), in which the format developed into something quite recognizable ... and quite good. Now, as the new year is underway, so is the new season of MST3K. At least, insofar as the whole "watch them all" project.
So, why am I starting with Episode 102 instead of Episode 101? Because Episode 102 aired first. While records from that time aren't all that great, here's the proof:
A good source for MST3K trivia and dates and stuff is MST3K Temple. There are actually lots of MST3K Websites out there. People with even more free time than I have.
Anyway, we're clear? The second episode aired first? Yep. Let's go.
The Comedy Channel, by the way, was one of two comedy channels that premiered in 1989. The other was HA! (complete with the exclamation point as part of the name). They merged a couple of years later and became Comedy Central.
Okay, now let's go.
The show has a new opening. The lyrics were changed to reflect the updated nature of the premise: that Joel had been shot into space so they could study the effects of bad movies on the human brain.
In the not-too-distant future, next Sunday A.D.
There was a guy named Joel, not too different from you or me.
He worked at Gizmonic Institute, just another face in a red jumpsuit.
He did a good job cleaning up the place, but his bosses didn't like him so they shot him into space.
We'll send him cheesy movies, the worst we can find (la-la-la).
He'll have to sit and watch them all, and we'll monitor his mind (la-la-la).
Now keep in mind Joel can't control where the movies begin or end (la-la-la)
Because he used those special parts to make his robot friends.
Robot Roll Call (Let's go!)
Cambot! (Pan left!)
Gypsy! (Hi, girl!)
Tom Servo! (What a cool guy!)
Croooow! (He's a wisecracker.)
If you're wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts (la la la),
Then repeat to yourself, "It's just a show, I should really just relax
For Mystery Science Theater 3000!"
Drs. Erhardt & Forrester: "Thank you!"
Dr. Forrester is wearing the familiar green suit, green glasses, and wild hair. Dr. Erhardt looks a bit more mature than the KTMA season (just a few months earlier). He's still babyfaced, but something about the character is different. Maybe he lost weight.
At the end of the invention exchange, we heard the Mads use their "Thank you!" catchphrase. I don't recall them saying that in the KTMA season, but I may have missed it.
Though the opening lyrics mention Gizmonic Institute, and Dr. Forrester's suit jacket has a Gizmonics Institute logo, Dr. Forrester refers to their location as "Deep 13." There's no explanation for that, though it may have occurred in Episode 101 (which aired second; we drove that point into the ground earlier). I need to pay close attention for that.
The tilted angle view of the Mad Scientists in their lair was the norm in the KTMA season
Also, the camera angle for the Mad Scientists is no longer tilted. We first saw the Mads in Episode K07- Gamera vs. Zigra, but the camera angle didn't skew until Episode K08- Gamera Vs. Guiron. Now, it's back to a normal angle.
The opening segment (the Invention Exchange) concluded with a slapstick gag that looked like it had to hurt. Oh, and Joel didn't have any buttons to press when he yelled "Movie Sign!" I wonder if they weren't built yet. The whole set redesign must have taken some time to complete.
The redesign included a new hallway sequence, the one we're all familiar with. Or nearly so. I think there was a change when Joel left in Season Five. We'll look for that when the time comes.
The movie didn't start right off. They had a short: an episode of the Republic Pictures serial Radar Men from the Moon. They also had a long explanation of what a serial was.
The Lone Ranger, sans mask (2nd from left)
Seeing Clayton Moore (he played the henchman Graber in the short) without his Lone Ranger mask was odd. I don't recall seeing him in anything else without his mask or a similar disguise.
After referring to Tom Servo as "Servo" the whole KTMA season, Joel calls him simply "Tom" early in this episode.
There were two gags the crew pulled that were not standard riffs. Early in the movie, Joel puts his hand over the singer's mouth several times, and the sound muffled each time. I first thought this was a flaw in the sound of the film that Joel turned into a joke. But, according to Michael J. Nelson (in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide) this was not so; they messed with the movie's sound to create the joke. And, about half-way through the episode, when the characters are all standing with their backs to the camera, the peeing sound was added, allowing them to tell pee jokes. Again, the kind of thing they wouldn't do later in the series.
The standard of Joel & the Bots leaving the theater for the host segment with Cambot backing down the hallway, with the doors closing, wasn't followed every time in this episode. J&tB left the theater for the Host Segment, and the movie played for another 12 seconds, concluding not with the hallway sequence, but with the spaghetti ball logo.
They did the whole "Lassie" routine ("What is it fella? I think he's trying to tell us something. Dad? He's trapped? Under a rock? Down in Dead Rock Canyon?") when the leader of the Devil Dogs arrived at the door.
The new Tom Servo
The old Tom Servo
One major change involved Tom Servo. He got a major redesign. He's now the familiar red, rather than the KTMA silver Servo. Same voice (Josh Weinstein still has that role), just an improved look.
In fact, all the robots got a redesign to some degree. We'll cover the others later, as well as some of the other changes to the switch from KTMA to The Comedy Channel.
The movie itself was hard to watch, but not impossible. It's not the worst movie MST3K has done, but darn close. The riffing of the short was much funnier than the riffing of the movie. That said, the movie had some fun parts. Just, compared to the short, the movie fell ... um ... short.
For 2012, I have composed a list of resolutions for the new year. I have reviewed the list and removed the items that I really don't mean, and left the ones that have the best chance of being kept. That might not be in the true spirit of resolutions, but at least it's honest.
I hereby resolve to:
do a better job of helping out around the house
be respectful of liberals
not think everyone who voted for Obama is an idiot
not throw rocks at the neighbors' dogs
not make fun of rednecks
not make fun of yankees
not think everyone who voted for Obama is a moron
be a role model for children
pay attention when my wife is talking
apologize when I'm wrong
compliment people more often
become a serious blogger
stop recycling old posts
not think everyone who voted for Obama is a dumbass
sprout wings and fly
Best wishes for a safe, prosperous, and happy 2012.
You've been following the blow-up over the Girl Scouts, right? The Blaze reported that the organization has a booklet that refers Girl Scouts to Media Matters to correct "media misinformation." If you don't understand the problem with Media Matters as a source of information, check out the from Big Journalism.
So, that should be a story, right? Of course. And there are plenty of stories about it. On FoxNews. And The Daily Caller. And Hot Air.
Oh, wait. Those aren't traditional media outlets. Except maybe Fox News, and they're only 15 or so years old. But they do have stories about it.
What about the traditional media? I know. Let's do a search on the phrases "Girl Scouts" and "Media Matters" for specific Websites and see how many hits we get:
Well, now that can't be right. None of these pillars of journalism are covering a case of media bias?
Ah! I know. The Washington Post. There we go. Two search results. Oh, wait. Both are unrelated comments in unrelated stories.
USA Today? Yes!! Oh wait. One's the Don Imus "Nappy-headed Hos" story where where both Girls Scouts and Media Matters were mentioned, but nothing to do with the story at hand. The other one is a link to the story on The Blaze. So, they provide a link to a different source, if you search for it.
How about The Old Grey Lady? Surely the New York Times ought to have something. A-ha! Three hits. Oh, wait. Two of the hits are unrelated stories that have sidebar links to other sources. The third one is a page with two separate stories, one on the Girl Scouts and the other on Media Matters.
Watching all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes is a big job. More about that can be found here and here.
The show began as a local program on KTMA (now WUCW) in Minneapolis before they got a deal to go national on the Comedy Channel. Some fans of the show have copies of most of the shows the first season. 18 of the 21 KTMA shows were recorded and survive to this day. We've covered episodes K04 - K20. Now, the final KTMA episode.
Episode K21: The Legend of the Dinosaurs
First aired: KTMA on 28 May 1989 Availability: MST3KVideos.com
It's a Sandy Frank film. And the episode where Joel said "Never trust a man with two first names, especially if the first one's a woman."
Mt. Fuji
I can't figure out if they love Sandy Frank, or hate the viewers. The reason is probably a lot simpler: they used what they had. Of course, finding out it was a Sandy Frank film gave me hope for a hot Japanese she-villain.
But it did give an image of Mt. Fuji. Actually a couple of images of Mt. Fuji. Actually, more than a couple of images of Mt. Fuji. Okay, about eight dozen images of Mt. Fuji.
The riffing had several that referenced the background music, including references to The Girl from Ipanema, Shaft, songs by Harry Nilsson, James Bond movies, Surf City, Up Against the Wall Redneck Mothers, music by Jethro Tull, and others.
My buddy, Mad Max, couldn't believe the music either:
Whoever did the soundtrack NEVER saw the movie - light jazz and ... "softcore porn music" plays during tense life & death moments."
Joel is dead
Joel, Josh (Servo) & Trace (Crow) still stepped on each other's lines a few times. And Joel misspoke a line, cracking up all three of the riffers. Those are some of the problems with ad-libbing the riffs, rather than scripting them.
It looks like they reversed host segments one and three. If they ever release these episodes commercially (I don't think they will) things would make more sense if they swapped these segments around.
One of the funniest parts was the whole "Joel is dead" thing they did, a takeoff of the "Paul is dead" rumors from the 1960s, complete with clues in the Abby Road album. And, yes, kiddies, that's an actual album. It was before CDs.
What are CDs? That was before iTunes.
This wraps the KTMA season. After New Year's, we'll dive into Season One.
I mentioned earlier this month that I needed a new bumper sticker for my car. Well, blog buddy Andy pointed me over to his buddy Woody, who has some bumper stickers.
I'm not going to steal all of Woody's thunder, but I will list a couple here. Then, I'll ask for more suggestions.
Now, here's where I could use your help. I want some suggestions for bumper stickers. You can make your own images and post them, or just suggest a sticker. They don't even have to be about Ron Paul.
NOTE: Oh, by the way. How much you want to bet that a bunch of Ron Paul nuts come by and don't offer bumper sticker suggestions, but instead start spouting whatever the current Ron Paul Talking Points are?
I'm continuing my project of watching all of the episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. More about that can be found here and here.
We're nearly done with Season K/Season Zero. The nationally-broadcast season are coming up after the first of the year. Let's finish the KTMA season first.
Episode K20: The Last Chase
First aired: KTMA on 21 May 1989 Availability: MST3KVideos.com
Close you eyes and imagine the future. Imagine a future where Burgess Meredith flies an F-86. Then imagine he uses he F-86 to chase Lee Majors across the country.
"Rowsdower?"
No, really. That's this film. See what happens when you let Canadians make films?
The Mads try a cold fusion experiment ... in Dr. Erhardt's mouth. It doesn't go well. But Trace Beauliew and Josh Weinstein do work well together. I really don't remember ever watching a lot (read that: any) of shows from Season One (Weinstein left after Season One), so the Dr. Erhardt character was unknown to me before I expanded my collection of MST3K shows. I like the character. And, watching how Servo has developed has been fun and interesting.
The movie itself is ... bad. Which I don't need to say. MST3K doesn't do good movies. This one suffers from a bad plot more than bad acting. It's the future, and nobody has any gas. Except there's enough for one car, Lee Majors' Porsche (it looks to me sort of like a 917, but I'm no expert on Porche). And a Korea War-era jet.
Not a hot Japanese she-villain
This one was hard to watch. I tried to not get distracted, but failed several times. Not that the riffing was bad; it wasn't. Just that to get the jokes you have to also watch the movie. And that was hard.
And it wasn't a Sandy Frank film. And no hot Japanese she-villains.
One thing: it reminded me a little of "The Final Sacrifice." Remember that one from Season Nine? If so, when I saw the goofy-smile kid in the audience listening to Lee Majors, I thought "Rowsdower!"
Still, not a bad show. The show has developed, matured over the last 17 episodes. They have the format down pat. There's still some tweaking to Dr. Forrester's character to be done, but Joel & the Bots are, well, Joel & the Bots.
As the vote in Iowa approaches, the Republican candidates are turning up the heat on each other. Newt Gingrich had some not-so-nice words for Ron Paul, according the National Journal:
"I think Barack Obama is very destructive to the future of the United States. I think Ron Paul's views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American," Gingrich said Tuesday in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer.
Could he vote for Paul? "No." If it came down to Paul vs. Obama? "You'd have a very hard choice at that point."
So, if it were between Obama and Ron Paul, who would you vote for? I’m leaning Obama there; he’s a known entity and can at least be bullied into doing what’s right. Ron Paul would just stand back while nukes are launched at us and say, “We had this coming for abandoning the gold standard!”
Then there's Mitt Romney, who seems to be every conservative's last or next-to-last choice. He compared Newt Gingrich to the I Love Lucy "Chocolate Factory" sketch:
Appearing in Portsmouth, Romney noted a statement that Gingrich's campaign director compared the former House speaker's recent inability to qualify for the Virginia ballot as a setback comparable to Pearl Harbor from which the campaign would recover.
"I think he compared that to Pearl Harbor? I think it's more like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory," Romney said in reference to the famous I Love Lucy skit in which the comedienne was overwhelmed by a rapid assembly line of candies. "You've got to get it organized."
That was a good line. Let's look at Lucy in the Chocolate Factory:
I'm watching all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. Information about that can be found here and here.
Episode K19: Hangar 18
First aired: KTMA on 14 May 1989 Availability: MST3KVideos.com
ZOMG there is an alien spaceship in Hangar 18!!1!
There's all kinds of crazy in this world. Some of it is good crazy. Like a guy who decides to create a TV show about him and two robots being forced to watch bad movies in space. You gotta admit, that's crazy. But good crazy.
Then there's bad crazy. Like people who watch a movie and decide that it's all real. Like people who watch Michael Moore or Al Gore movies. Or people who watch movies about the government covering up evidence of aliens.
Hangar 18 is one of those government alien conspiracy movies that was at the forefront of movement. In 1978, the whole Roswell aliens thing took off, and this movie capitalized on that -- and helped make it worse.
Everybody got all blowed up at the end. Or did they?
The version of Hangar 18 isn't the original theatrical release, where everybody died and the cover-up was successful, but the edit-for-television version where some survived and the cover-up was exposed. I'm not sure how that played into the conspiracy movement. Probably not. Nuts is nuts.
In this episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the two crazies collide. Only one survived. And, as always, it was Joel & the Bots.
My copy is rather dark. That made it really hard to see J&tB in the corner. It always helps, on a bad movie, to see J&tB in the corner. It helps me realize I'm not alone.
Shortest. Opening. Ever. Joel tells the name of the movie and yells "Movie sign!" and we're underway.
Since it's a space movie, they got to do the Far-Out Space Nuts joke, "Did you say 'lunch?'"
The thing is, there aren't a lot of great riffs. But, overall, good riffs. A couple of instances where you could tell it was mostly ad-lib, but they work well together.
While the movie was bad, something good came from this episode. We did find out what "Crow" stands for.
It's no secret that I think Barack Obama is an idiot. And that I think that those that voted for Obama are idiots. But, during certain times of the year, I try to put that kind of stuff aside and do the whole "can't we all play nice" kind of thing.
For example, here on this little blog, I've posted proclamations by the current president regarding Thanksgiving (2009) and Veterans Day (2009, 2010).
Why not Veterans Day proclamation post? Simple. The current president didn't issue any such proclamation this year. Check for yourself. Find one for Thanksgiving, too.
Oh, and find one for Christmas. Not just for this year, but for any of the three Christmases since he occupied the Oval Office. They don't exist. The last Presidential Proclamation regarding Christmas came from President George W. Bush in 2008.
Now, you will find a proclamation on Hanukkah for this year. But you won't find one for last year. I suppose after this year's missteps regarding Israel, he did this, hoping to mend fences. But, Obama being Obama, he screwed it up. Though the proclamation got the dates right, the actual ceremony was 12 days off -- and all jacked up.
He did issue a statement on Kwanzaa this year, as well as in 2010 and 2009. Maybe if Kwanzaa was more than 45 years old, he'd issue a proclamation. Till then, made-up holidays got to take what they can get, I suppose.
Anyway, about Obama. There's no hope for this guy. And, if you are planning on voting for him in 2012, there's no hope for you. And, if he wins, there's no hope for any of us.
