While I enjoyed myself greatly at this past weekend's Infinicon, I couldn't help but feel a certain degree of simultaneous ennui. Due to a personal crisis, my good friend Roy Buckingham (of Cult Film Fanatics) had to cancel all of his panels, including his Saturday night double feature of vintage science-fiction movies. Thankfully, the convention was able to find a most-excellent substitute on relatively short notice. Thus I was exposed to The Mihmiverse
Christopher R. Mihm is a triple-threat. In truth, he's probably a greater threat than that, given the many credits he is given at the end of his movies. Yet at his core he is a writer, producer and director of vintage B-movies. He has the look of a school-teacher but behind the unassuming facade is an auteur in the most classic sense - even if his area of expertise is movies that beg to be projected on a drive-in screen or viewed on The Late, Late Show.
The first film of the evening was Mihm's 2013 releaseThe Giant Spider. As one might guess from the title, the story involves a giant spider created by excess radiation. As the titular arachnid runs rampant through 1950s suburbia, it falls to a trio of scientists and an intrepid reporter to save the day when the might of the American Military proves insufficient.
Mihm perfectly captures the aesthetic of the old giant-animal movies of yesteryear. The special effects are low-grade, yet skilfully applied. A live spider crawls across obvious models and in front of green-screens, with a puppet being used for close-ups when the spider attacks its prey.
What really sells The Giant Spider, however, is the performances of the cast, who manage to go over-the-top in just the right way. Mihm's script also proves to be a highlight, as the film has fun with the conventions of the genre. The townsfolk, for instance, are all too ready to flee at the prospect of an invasion of Russians or Aliens but laugh down any attempt to suggest a giant spider is about to spoil the big dance. And, of course, there's a scene where an alcoholic hobo sees the giant spider and immediately swears off booze forever.
If The Giant Spider is Mihm's salute to Bert I. Gordon-style creature features, then Danny Johnson Saves The Worldis his tribute to classic boys' adventure fiction. Released in 2015, the movie is told by our titular hero - now a grandfather being pestered for a story by his grandchildren as he's trying to take a long winter's nap. So he tells them the story of the first time he saved the world from alien invaders, back when he was a young boy about their age.
Danny Johnson Saves The Worldplays out like a lost collaboration between Jim Henson and Stephen King. I admit this may seem a daft comparison on the face of it as all of Mihm's films are decidedly family friendly but I think the comparison holds up. Like Stand By Me, Danny Johnson Saves the World is a tale told in flashback of how a boy took his first steps to becoming a man. And like It, it's about a group of children confronting an evil they should never have had to face. The fact that said evil manifests as stop-motion dinosaurs and murderous puppets is besides the point.
If you're the sort of person who has a shrine to Vincent Price or who prefers the creativity of Roger Corman and William Castle to Michael Bay or Brent Ratner, I think you'll love The Mihmiverse as much as I do. These are not mere movies but works of love and art. And if you're a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, the movies are good riffing fodder by design. I can tell you from personal experience that Mr. Mihm takes no offense at people laughing at his movies so long as they are enjoying themselves.
All I Really Need To Know I Learned Watching Cheesy Movies With Puppets Or: Five Ways Mystery Science Theater 3000 Got Me Through Middle School
You wouldn't think it from my writing output, but my first fandom wasn't science-fiction or
fantasy. And the first publication I
wrote for – a fanzine called Brainfood
- had nothing to do with comic books. No,
the first thing that drove me head-first into the deep-end of the geek pool was
a little show called Mystery Science Theater 3000.
A quick bit
of background for those of you unfortunate enough to have not stumbled across
this fine little program. Mystery Science Theater 3000 (hereafter
MST3K)was the brainchild ofcomedian/magician/spy
Joel Hodgson. It started out on a local
UHF station in the Twin Cities before running for ten years across three cable
networks from 1989 to 1999.
Set in “the
not too distant future”, MST3K
centered upon a janitor named Joel who was shot into space by mad scientists for the
purpose of acting as a test subject for their twisted experiments. Their ultimate goal? Find a movie so bad that they could drive the
populace of Earth insane by forcing them to watch it and then take over the
world in the ensuing chaos. Funny stuff,
but this plot was just dressing for the core of the show – Joel and two robot
friends watching some of the worst movies ever made and making fun of them with
the wit of The Algonquin Roundtable and the abandon of a theater full of
teenagers.
Packed full
of sarcasm and referential humor, the show was a perfect stepping stone for a
smartass lad like me who had cut his teeth on what few Mel Brooks and Monty
Python movies his parents would let him watch.
MST3K definitely had an influence on my sense of humor. But looking back, I think Joel Hodgson
actually taught me a few things about life in between the riffs and wisecracks.
1. You
can use comedy as a weapon.
Every
other comedy nerd out there probably just thought “Well, duh! Of course comedy is a weapon!” All the great comedians from Groucho Marx to
George Carlin used comedy to attack the ills of society as they saw them. Heck, Mel Brooks once said “The only weapon I've got is comedy”. And that’s just
modern comedy. I’m sure there are 17th
century French satirists I've never heard of who wrote whole novels about the
power of comedy as a weapon.
And
yet, with the possible exception of Eddie Valiant’s battle with a gang of cartoon weasels, I don’t think any piece of entertainment has made the idea of
comedy as a weapon more literal than MST3K. Every Saturday morning Joel, Tom
Servo and Crow faced their tormentors with the only weapon available to them – pure
snark. And the idea that I could do the
same thing helped make middle-school a bit more tolerable… even if most of my
classmates didn't get my jokes.
2. Don’t
worry about making yourself understood. The right people will understand you.
Isolation
is a problem for a lot of teens and a lot of us still haven’t fully left that
awkward loner phase as adults. We felt
alone because nobody understands us – not our parents, not our teachers and
certainly not our classmates.
Maybe you
were a brain in a village of idiots.
Maybe you were gay in a small Red State town. Maybe you were a dreamer who wanted to move
beyond a town and see the wide world. In
any case, the need for social bonding was there but you were unlikely to find
it in the world of middle-school, which is built upon a foundation of
superficiality and conformity. You were
better off not wasting time trying to follow the crowd and just finding someone
– anyone – who accepted you for you.
Unlike
the other lessons on this list, this wasn't something that was preached
directly during the show. But in a
documentary on the show – This is MST3K
– Joel Hodgson said some words that came back to me as I was despairing over
the fact that most of my classmates didn't get my sense of humor.
“We never say ‘Who is going to get this?’ We always say ‘The right people will get this’.
“
That
phrase clicked with me and made me realize the futility of trying to change
myself for an audience that was never going to accept me anyway. From that moment on, I decided to please
myself instead of my so-called peers.
Eventually, I found my audience and my friends. But until that happened (after high school,
not surprisingly) I was at least happy with myself.
3.“People
don’t mean to be obnoxious. It’s just that
they’re all screwed up inside. “
Empathy
comes as naturally to the average teenager as flight does to a walrus. When I was a lad, I nursed a rather extensive
persecution complex and was fairly certain that even if the whole world wasn't out to get me, a considerable chunk of my classmates were united in some grand conspiracy against me. Even after
puberty, a lot of adults still have trouble grasping the idea that the people
who annoy them probably aren't doing so out of malice.
In
Episode 302 – Gamera, Joel tries to
drive this lesson home to Tom Servo and Crow, after they forge a make-shift
voodoo doll in order to inflict pain on the movie’s child hero, Kenny. Is Kenny annoying? Absolutely!
His voice is grating, he’s kind of a weirdo and he gets away with things
that should get him grounded until he is 30 over the course of the movie. But as Joel points out, ignoring the fact
that Kenny is a fictional character, none of that is his fault and he’s got
kind of a messed-up home life that fuels some of his more obnoxious traits.
Thinking
on that, I started realizing things about my own tormentors. That one bully’s parents were in the middle
of a divorce. That the guy who kept
pushing me into the lockers was being beat up by his own dad. This didn't excuse their behavior but that
knowledge probably did keep me from retaliating in kind or worse.
4. You
don’t have to accept the ending they hand you.
In
Episode 509 - The Girl in Lover’s Lane,
the robots are filled with rage by the film’s ending. The heroine – a kind, loving waitress named
Carrie – is killed, the hero is
blamed for the murder and the whole thing is incredibly bleak and depressing
even after he is cleared of any wrong-doing.
Carrie’s death was a fridging before the term was ever coined – a pointless
death that did nothing to advance the plot and accomplished nothing save giving
“Big Stupid” even more angst.
Joel
comforts the bots by pointing out that there’s nothing to stop them from
writing a better ending to the movie and that you don’t have to accept the bad
things people throw at you. The
same concept applies to life. There are
many people who will try and bully you into accepting things as being the way
they say they are. That you're a loser and a failure and that nothing will ever be better. But you don’t have to
accept it. You can fight for change,
even if all that change is amounts to a fan-fiction that lifts your spirits.
5. Surviving
Is Winning
Episode 323 – The Castle of Fu Manchu was widely held to be the worst movie
MST3K had tackled for a time. Certainly
the episode’s host segments billed it as such, with all of the skits ending
with one of The Bots having a nervous breakdown and Joel doing his best to try
and comfort them before even he is reduced to tears. By the end of the movie, The Mads are
drinking a champagne toast to their victory even as Joel, Crow and Servo wail
and lament.
And
then, as Dr. Forester gloats one more time, Joel gives a speech that for my
money ranks right up there with the “Anyone can win a fight when the odds are
easy…” speech from Amazing Spider-Man
#33 for sheer awesome and defiance in the face of certain doom…
"You haven't won, Dr. Forester. You've lost. And I feel sorry for you. You're nothing but a sad little man in a hole in the ground, who can only feel power by hurting others! Well, we've won! Because we've survived!"
In
recent years, the It Gets Better movement has done a lot to reassure LGBT youth
that however bad things are for them in their formative years, things will get
better once they become adults and that they just have to hold on a little
longer. Similar movements for geek girls
and awkward-looking people have also done a lot of good in preaching the
message that I learned from MST3K
during my awkward years – that survival itself is a victory condition.
*****
I
got bullied a fair bit in middle school.
And there were occasions when my jokes weren’t enough. When I felt all alone in the world. When I gave in to the hate. When I felt like there was nothing I could
do. And on those occasions, I just
remembered that this was all temporary.
That eventually I’d be free of that place. I just had to last a little while longer and
eventually I’d get to someplace better.
And
I did.
Today,
I get paid to write about the books and TV shows I once got made fun of for
enjoying. I’ve gotten to meet some
of my favorite creators and even befriended a few of them. I’m part of a Rocky Horror troupe and I get
to make people laugh with my own wisecracks as I riff on the movie. And all of that is awesome and if you’d told
my teenage self about all of that he wouldn't have believed it.
And
yet, the most awesome part of my life is my day job as a teen librarian. Not just because I’m getting paid to talk
about books and comics and computers and all the things I like. But because I get to create a safe place for
those awkward teens like me. A little
Satellite of Love in the back corner of the building where – even if just for a
little while – they know they aren't alone.
I
had the good fortune to meet Joel Hodgson once after a performance of his show,
Riffing Myself. For those who haven’t seen the show, Joel
explores his own past and discusses a lot of his influences - including all the
kids show hosts he grew up watching.
Until then I had never really thought about how MST3K was a more mature take on shows like Captain Kangaroo and Peppermint
Place. And I wondered if Joel had
ever thought about inspiring another generation of kids who liked magic and
ventriloquism and other weird things to be better people in the same way that his
idols did.
Well,
like it not Mr. Hodgson, you influenced at least one of us. And I thank you for it.
It occurred to me in all the times I've been to the convention center Dallas Comic Con is usually held in Irving, Texas, I've never actually taken a picture of the convention center proper. It's not what you'd call an attractive building, with its' severe edges, rust coloring and a shape I've heard likened to "a collapsed Borg ship". Still, its' home of a sort for thousands of geeks three weekends a year, so I guess that description is fitting. I took this picture from the field I had to park in on Sunday, somewhat closer to the building than I'd been on Friday, some two hours after the convention opened.
I have no idea what style you'd call this. Any architecture geeks in the house?
Today I was dressed down, playing the role I play the best - a smartass geek with a blog. The only costume I had clean was my Fourth Doctor outfit. Given the long walks to the convention center I was expecting - to say nothing of the day's 90+ degrees Fahrenheit temperature - I decided today was not the day to don the curly wig, the London Fog coat or the 17 foot long scarf. I'd seen far too many miserable folks in Jayne hats over the past two days to think anything wool a wise fashion choice.
And so it was with just me in jeans and a Doctor Who shirt with my trademark fedora and a camera as I entered into the final day of Dallas Comic Con 2013.
Fittingly, the first costumed couple I found was The Tenth Doctor and The Doctor's Wife.
Crossplay Loki.
River Tam from Firefly & Serenity.
Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Taffeta Darling, mixing things up again, as Velma from Scooby Doo as Batgirl. Accompanying her is a mash-up of Daphne and Poison Ivy. Note the Scooby Doo doll altered to be Ace The Bat Hound.
Kimmie Britt of IHO Geek as Danyers Targayen from A Game Of Thrones.
This was the first Green Arrow cosplayer I've seen based on Arrow. It's a great costume but I don't know how he survived in that leather get-up all day!
The Hood vs. Deathstroke.
My friend Jeremy as Deathstroke, all by himself. Sadly, there were no groups of Titans for him to harass today.
Reading through a recent AV Club article, it occurred to me that despite it being my favorite TV Show of all time, I had never composed a list of my personal picks for the greatest episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Further contemplation caused something else to occur to me - I had no idea what movies I'd put on such a list!
"Greatness" is largely subjective, particularly with a show like MST3K which attracts viewers for a variety of reasons. As a famous fictional character I'm rather fond of once noted, everyone has a favorite Woody Allen movie or a favorite superhero that isn't the best of the bunch. Sure, everyone knows Annie Hall and Batman are the best... but that doesn't stop you from liking Radio Days or Green Lantern better. Similarly, everyone agrees "Manos" The Hands of Fate is a great MST3K episode... but damnit, you laugh so much harder at every "HE TRIED TO KILL ME WITH A FORKLIFT!" in the Fugitive Alien movies.
So rather than twist my brain trying to narrow the field down, continually correcting myself muttering "Wait, this one is good too!", I've decided that instead I'm going to give you a different list. I'm going to pick out ten of my favorite episodes that - for one reason or another - I don't think get the credit or attention they deserve. And to spare myself having to rank any of these episodes, I'm going to list them off in chronological order from Season 1 to Season 10.
Notable as the first episode to abandon the Invention Exchange at the start of the show since Joel's departure, this episode isn't notable for much else. Both Kevin Murphy and Frank Conniff decried Radar Secret Service as the dullest movie they ever covered, the movie basically being the 1950s equivalent of the many thriller films from the 1990s that were based around the amazing power of The Information Superhighway. Just swap "radar" with "Net" and you'll have some idea of what we're dealing with.
And yet, despite a duller than usual movie, there's so much about this episode that makes it work. For one thing, the host segments are all top-notch. Mike starts to stand out as a character apart from Joel, the skits establishing him as being totally incompetent as a robot doctor and being far more concerned with escaping from the Satellite Of Love than his red-jumpsuited counterpart. The Deep 13 skits where "Dr. Felix Frankenkeister (i.e. TV's Frank in a fake-beard) extols the power of Hypno-Helio-Static-Stasis With X-4 are gleefully insane. And the short before the film - a vehicle safety short sponsored by Union Specific Railroad titled Last Clear Chance - is one of the finest shorts the MST3K team ever tackled.
7. Village Of The Giants (Episode 523)
While many MSTies extoll the 3rd and 4th seasons as the show's Golden Age, this critic would also include the 5th season. Mike Nelson was fortunate to have a run of great episodes immediately after taking over the hosting duties but none of these episodes better showed that Mike had filled Joel's shoes than Village of the Giants.
Loosely based on the H.G. Wells story Food Of The Gods and overseen by writer/director Burt I. Gordon (the master of movies where things are made bigger through SCIENCE!), the cast of this film is a mishmash of actors who you probably saw somewhere else but can't place now. The one exception to this is Ron Howard, who plays a boy genius creatively named Genius. The movie is campy fun that takes itself far too seriously. But what really sells this episode is the alternatively touching and hilarious host segments where Dr. Forrester fires TV's Frank, hires Torgo of "Manos" The Hands Of Fate fame as a replacement henchman and it honestly appears that Frank might be leaving the show. This leads to the SOL Crew wishing him well with one of MST3K's finest songs - "The Greatest Frank Of All".
8. Deathstalker And The Warriors From Hell (Episode 703)
Produced by Roger Corman in response to the popularity of Conan The Barbarian, The Deathstalker Series is rightfully infamous. Any one of the Deathstalker movies might have made a fine MST3K episode yet the only one they ever tackled was Deathstalker And The Warriors From Hell a.k.a. Deathstalker 3. I suspect this may have been because this this film had the least nudity to edit out out of the entire quadrology. Or perhaps it was because this film - unlike the rest of the films in the series - seemed to be take itself completely seriously.
Either way, most people agree this was definitely the weakest of all the Deathstalker films - an impressive accomplishment when you consider that the fourth and final Deathstalker movie was 50% stock footage of other fantasy movies. But that is neither here nor there. What is here is some truly wicked host segments about Renaissance Fairs and a skit between Crow and Pearl Forrester that hints at their future implied friendship in the Sci-Fi Channel days.
9. Pumaman (Episode 903)
Perhaps the most well known episode on this list, Puma Man was continually rerun throughout the Sci-Fi Channel era. And yet, it hasn't been released for sale in any form. Reportedly this is due to difficulties Shout Factory is having in tracking down whoever currently holds the rights to this movie - one of the few superhero movies to make Batman and Robin look well-made.
The special effects are a mess, clearly meant to replicate those in Superman: The Movie with a lower budget. Our "hero" is a whiny twerp who has to be bullied into action by his Aztec-American sidekick, who is the real hero of the film. And the love interest - mind controlled by the villain for much of the movie - somehow manages to seem more vacant and empty headed in the scenes where she isn't being controlled.
10. Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (Episode 1003)
Notable for being the final episode of MST3K to be aired but not the last one to be filmed (apparently there were issues with securing the film rights that came up after filming of the episode was finished), everything about this episode screams "cheap". Borrowing footage from a horror movie made by the same director several years earlier, this was apparently meant to be the pilot for a TV show based around the concept of Merlin and his wife running a magical mystery shop and helping people solve their problems in the modern day.
It's not a bad concept for a story but it's oddly framed. Rather than having a narrator or Merlin himself set up the concept of the show... er, movie... we have Ernest Borgnine explaining the concept of TV pilots to his grandson and then telling him the story of this pilot he read once. So... yeah. Basically the whole movie is a really weird story-time session. This would be weird enough if the stories being told were at all appropriate for young audiences but all of the stories contain dark elements like evil toys from the Twilight Zone and a woman being granted the baby she always wanted after her crybaby husband is magically de-aged.
Reading through a recent AV Club article, it occurred to me that despite it being my favorite TV Show of all time, I had never composed a list of my personal picks for the greatest episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Further contemplation caused something else to occur to me - I had no idea what movies I'd put on such a list!
"Greatness" is largely subjective, particularly with a show like MST3K which attracts viewers for a variety of reasons. As a famous fictional character I'm rather fond of once noted, everyone has a favorite Woody Allen movie or a favorite superhero that isn't the best of the bunch. Sure, everyone knows Annie Hall and Batman are the best... but that doesn't stop you from liking Radio Days or Green Lantern better. Similarly, everyone agrees "Manos" The Hands of Fate is a great MST3K episode... but damnit, you laugh so much harder at every "HE TRIED TO KILL ME WITH A FORKLIFT!" in the Fugitive Alien movies.
So rather than twist my brain trying to narrow the field down, continually correcting myself muttering "Wait, this one is good too!", I've decided that instead I'm going to give you a different list. I'm going to pick out ten of my favorite episodes that - for one reason or another - I don't think get the credit or attention they deserve. And to spare myself having to rank any of these episodes, I'm going to list them off in chronological order from Season 1 to Season 10.
1. Robot Monster (Episode 107)
A frequent nominee for the title of Worst Movie Ever Made, Robot Monster has little going for it besides its' title character - Ro-Man the Ro-Man. Played by expert gorilla actor George Barrows (who actually had a distinguished career after this movie) , Ro-Man is quite the sympathetic figure if only because the humans he is attempting to destroy are so incredibly annoying. The plot isn't worth going into. Suffice it to say it's the end of the world as we know it, except it's all a dream... OR IS IT?!
Why Is This A Great Episode? : It's no secret that The Best Brains team asked for Comedy Central to take all their Season One episodes out of the rerun rotation, believing the entire season to be of inferior quality. Even the most die-hard of MSTies typically think the show didn't start to be consistently good until the second season, at earliest. And Josh Weinstein reportedly objected to this movie being used in the first place, believing it was too infamous to be properly riffed and that it was ridiculous enough on its' own without commentary.
Personally, I agree with all of the above viewpoints.
And yet... this episode has moments of greatness that indicated the heights that were yet to come. While the riffs are often unnecessary and frequently are limited to Joel adding dialogue over bits where there is none or Crow pointing out flaws in continuity such as an unconcious hostage apparently tying themselves up, there are a couple of great lines here.
More importantly, the host segment skits - usually the weakest point of any MST3K episode - are amazingly effective this time around. There's just something unashamedly fun about The Bots attempting to roleplay Ro-Man and his commander before play-attacking Joel, who defends himself a bit too well with the conveniently placed break-away furniture. And the closing skit, in which Joel and The Bots don garbage-bag tunics and hum a dirge while pointing out Ro-Man's general incompetence and stupidity ("Ro-Man the Ro-Man used a cosmic ray that kept the cities of the world intact, to be enjoyed later by all Ro-Man. Yet, he lived in a cave. And not even a very good cave.") was an indicator of just how very strange yet hilarious the show would become.
2. Catalina Caper (Episode 204)
Originally released as Never Steal Anything Wet, this film marked an attempt by American International Pictures to mix the beach party musical and crime-caper comedy genres in one film. The fact that The Best Brains felt they could riff this movie gives you some idea of how successful they ultimately were.
Why Is This A Great Episode? : I picked this one for three reasons. First, there's a fair chance that most of you haven't seen this episode. Best Brains lost the rights to the movie during the middle of the original MST3K run, so there was a goodly amount of time when you couldn't see this episode in reruns. A similar situation came along years later, when the movie was optioned for a VHS/DVD release and then went out of print.
Secondly, this episode is notable as the first episode from the Comedy Central days that wasn't a low-budget B-Movie. Of course MST3K is synonymous with bad science-fiction, exploitation and horror/thrillers but Catalina Caper proved they could apply their riffing talents to other genres. Indeed, it proved that they could even tackle a musical comedy.
Finally, this episode contains Kevin Murphy's first turn lending his splendid singing voice to Tom Servo. The song he sings - a tribute to the film's heroine - has rightfully become a standard among MSTies and it is said that many a MSTie has serenaded many a confused woman with it. I speak, of course, of The Creepy Girl Song.
3. Teenage Caveman (Episode 315)
A timeless tale of youthful enthusiasm versus traditional conservatism, made slightly sillier in that the whole thing is set in caveman times, everyone is wearing costumes made from fake fur car-seat covers and the titular teenage caveman is closer to 30 than 20. Still, Roger Corman got it made on-time and under-budget, so presumably it was a success by his notoriously low standards.
Why Is This A Great Episode? : Another episode that has yet to be released for sale in any form (Roger Corman has apparently become much more protective of licensing his older works in recent years), this episode is a hoot and a half. There's a lot to make fun of - the cheapness of the costumes and sets, the haminess of most of the performances and the twist ending, which would be a good deal more effective if it were not so damned preachy.
This leads into a delightful skit where The Bots take on the role/roles of the closing narrator, in costume, and continue to try and "tie up a few loose ends" even as Joel (bemused as any parent might be, walking in on his kids playing pretend) tries to get down to the serious business of reading the fan mail. There's also a brilliant running gag with The Mads attempting to kill each other for the privilege of introducing this episode's Invention Exchange... complete with Star Trek fight music.
But what really makes this episode a must-see is the two shorts that accompany the main feature. Aquatic Wizards is a fairly standard 50's Sports Montage, made more enjoyable by the standard dark riffing. But Catching Trouble - depicting the "real life" (i.e. obviously staged) exploits of hunter Ross Allen attempting to capture several animals alive- will leave you howling with laughter even as you write out a check to the SPCA.
4. Being From Another Planet (Episode 405)
The world's worst Egyptology professor has to deal with the theft of his newly discovered mummy, a humorless dean who is convinced the mummy's disappearance is a plot to justify more grant money, a strange fungus that is slowly killing his students and reports of a killer dressed like a mummy. Originally released in 1982 under the title Time Walker, the new title gives away the "shocking" twist of this movie. Namely, that the murderous mummy that wasn't quite as dead as previously believed is actually an alien who REALLY overslept after a hard day of helping build the pyramids.
Why Is This A Great Episode? : Following immediately after the classic Teenagers From Outer Space,this episodehas become the neglected middle child of MST3K's Fourth Season. Surprisingly, Being From Another Planet was widely held by many MSTies to be the worst movie the show had ever tackled until it covered Monster-A-Go-Go and "Manos" The Hands Of Fate later that season. Indeed, Tom Servo spends the entire closing credits arguing this point with the rest of the cast and it's not hard to see why.
The "twist" ending is obvious to the audience long before anyone in the film works out what is going on. The characters who aren't idiots are loathsome, with even our professor hero carrying on a relationship with one of his students. All the performances are lackluster. And the effects are laughable, with the "trick" used to show things from the monster's point of view (i.e. a blue-green gel over the camera lens) making much of the film as hard to see as it is to watch.
5. Hercules (Episode 502)
Steve Reeves in the role that made him a household name and a Rocky Horror song lyric. Set against the story of Jason and the Argonauts quest for the Golden Fleece, Hercules renounces his immortality to win the acceptance of his fellow men and the love of a good woman. Basically it's like Superman 2, only with more dancing amazons in mini-togas and big, well-oiled Greek guys.
Why Is This A Great Episode? : With this episode, The Best Brains team proved that they could riff anything. They had tackled Hercules movies before. Heck, they even tackled the sequel to this movie - Hercules Unchained - first. But in all honesty, this movie isn't that bad. It isn't a great movie but it is good for what it is.
And out of all the movies based on Greek Mythology, it's probably the truest to the source material if you ignore little touches like Ulysses playing Robin to Hercules' Batman. Even then there's some cute touches that will have the mythology geeks chuckling, like Ulysses sending homing pigeons to his girlfriend assuring her he'll be home soon.
Rattlers is the most recent DVD release by the crew at Cinematic Titanic. Founded by original Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson and starring the original cast of the show during its' KTMA season (Trace Beaulieu and J. Elvis Weinstein) as well as Frank "TV's Frank" Conniff and Mary Jo "Pearl Forrester" Pehl, Cinematic Titanic has been performing live shows in venues across the United States for several years now and offering periodic DVD releases of their live shows.
Rattlers, as the name suggests, is a horror movie about killer rattlesnakes. The action, such as it is, centers upon herpetologist Dr. Tom Parkinson - a man who would be the Indiana Jones of snake experts if Indy liked snakes and Tom were played by a better actor. Lured away from the halls of academia for the princely sum of $200, Dr. Tom is brought into investigate a series of mysterious deaths in the Mojave desert. After confirming that the victim's wounds do look like rattlesnake bites, Dr. Tom does nothing much but drive around in the desert with photographer Ann Bradley as more and more people are killed by the snakes in increasingly unlikely fashion.
The trail eventually leads them to the local military base, where commanding officer Colonel Stroud tries to distract Dr. Tom with free helicopter rides and amusing conversations with the base doctor - the finest drunk to command an army medical unit since Hawkeye Pierce. But the drunken doctor has a secret that has nothing to do with the world's greatest martini recipe and it will fall to Dr. Tom - and to a lesser extent Ann - to expose the truth about how a secret government project created a horrible menace to society.
Even by the standards of MST3K, Rattlers is a bad film. There is not a single part of it's production that is not handled in a ham-fisted or half-assed manner. Say what you will about "Manos" The Hands of Fate but at least Hal P. Warren tried to recruit the finest actors that the El Paso Community Theater had to offer. With Rattlers, you doubt they went through that kind of effort. Every performance feels like it was delivered by someone who was a friend of the director.
There are scenes where the boom mike operator couldn't be arsed to follow the actors. The There are scenes where the camera man forgot to remove the "day for night" lens. The storyline resembles a sin wave more than an arc. And the characters - if I may use that term - are all bland, lifeless stock figures with the exception of photographer Ann Bradley, who is either a stereotypical angry feminist or the typical wilting-flower horror movie heroine depending on what scene we are in.
Sadly, there is only so much the CT Crew can do with a movie this dull. While there are numerous WTF moments and numerous bits of slopping editing that add to the humor, you can't avoid the fact that long stretches of the movie are of people walking around in the desert while nothing happens. This isn't a bad episode, by any stretch of the imagination and there are a lot of funny riffs. It just seems that most of the riffs are what we long-time MSTies call "waffle" gags.
A quick explanation: waffle gags are a reference to the classic MST3K episode Viking Women vs. The Sea Serpent where, for some reason nobody seems to recall, all of the skits involved waffles and there was a running gag throughout the movie about waffles. Why? Because 'waffles' is a funny word and it seemed funny at the time to talk about waffles instead of the movie.
That is what many of the riffs here feel like. There's a lot more random non-sequitur lines than usual (i.e. Joel screaming "THE GORILLA IS LOOSE!" after a voice over an intercom requests the attention of all the Zoology students). It's also a bit like the classic episode Lost Continent, where half of the movie is spent trying to desperately think of things to say as we watch several men go rock-climbing.... VERY SLOWLY. This isn't bad, to my mind, but I do know some MSTies who prefer things to be a little heavier on the pop-culture references, as they were in the later Sci-Fi channel episodes.
Despite this, I have no trouble recommending Rattlers to any fan of quality riffing. It's not quite as gut-bustingly funny as recent videos such as War of the Insects or Danger on Tiki Island, but Rattlers is still a solid piece of entertainment that is well worth purchasing. It is available exclusively from Amazon.com.
I was part of the expert panel for the most recent episode of Cult Film Fanatics (sponsored by United States of Geekdom), devoted to my favorite TV show of all time - Mystery Science Theater 3000!
