Every MST3K Episode, Ranked!

It’s nearly Thanksgiving and we’re doing something only a couple of websites have done: watch every episode of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” (dubbed “MST3K” for short) and rank each one.

I’d love to sit here and pontificate about the show’s history and how great it was…but 1) you’ve heard it all before 2) you don’t really wanna sit here and read what I think about the show’s history when so many other people have said what’s already been said and 3) we’ve gotta get going with this thing.

The one thing I will say is that this list is long overdue from me. Allow me to recite my qualifications…

I’ve loved Mystery Science Theater 3000 from the first moment I laid eyes on it in 1991 when I saw the episode “Fugitive Alien”. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with the show. I recorded Turkey Day marathons and caught up on episodes I missed. I remember where I was during specific show events — like watching the Jays and Phillies in the World Series the night Joel left the SOL and Mike joined. Or the final episode of the Comedy Central era and how it took place the night of my high school graduation and casino night — and I was looking forward more to the FINALE than I was that evening. I didn’t see the SyFy episodes until a little later in my life — but I did have a friend, online, who sent me everything he had on VHS (with some holes in the collection) and I was overjoyed to have caught up somewhat.

As we moved into the digital age, I managed to get a hold of my best friend’s copy of “The MST3K Digital Archive Project” which housed every single episode of the show. Over time, I added to it and customized it with files I found online. I downloaded the new Turkey Day bumpers from the recent marathons on Shout TV. I found new interviews and unedited versions of episodes that didn’t air. I added the “Film Crew”, “Cinematic Titanic” and “RiffTrax” projects the various cast members went on to do after the show ended.

That archive is probably now one of my most prized possessions in my entire collection of digital shows and films.

To this day, I still watch old shows in November and I watch the marathon Shout puts up each Thanksgiving Day.

MST3K is one of the greatest television shows of all-time simply because it helped give birth to modern trolling (in a positive way), thus it fits right in with modern times.

So, this is as much personal as it is a professional assignment.

If you still insist on knowing what the hell I’m talking about, feel free to visit the following sites:

The MST3K Wikipedia Page
The MST3k YouTube Channel
Their Official Website
The MST3K Satellite News Site

And, if you wanna compare lists (though that doesn’t sound the LEAST bit healthy for a growing man such as yourself), you can do so here:

Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review
Ranking Every MST3K Episode, From Worst to Best – Paste Magazine

If you want to watch episodes with other MSTies, you can visit the following sites.

Club MST3K – This site compiles a full episode guide for the show along with corresponding streaming video of nearly every single episode available online. It also offers a forum to chat with fellow MSTies while you watch. 🙂
Where to See MST3K Episodes – This site does the same thing.

(A QUICK NOTE AS OF 11/22/21: Every single episode is accounted for here — HOWEVER, due to the regular removal of episodes, you might see episodes vanish. I will do my best to keep on top of this and replace the dead links regularly.)

With all that out of the way, WE’VE GOT MOVIE SIGN!!!

We start at #196…

196) 410 – Hercules Against the Moon Men

This is one of many of the “Hercules” films featured on the show (this time, with Alan Steele playing him) and it manages to toss out all the fun of the prior films in the series of Herc films and introduce pseudo-alien beings as the main perps in the film. How in the hell anyone from BBI was able to get ANYTHING out of this film is beyond me. It features a climatic sandstorm sequence that goes on for almost 20 minutes — and the riffing is awful. I know it’s PURPOSELY awful — Joel and the Bots are doing a bit where they’re desperate to make jokes where there are none — but it’s just uncomfortable to watch, even when they’re acting. Even when they try and recover and make actual jokes, they’re not funny and, sadly, that’s the story of this entire episode, the worst in MST3K’s run.

BEST RIFF:

(HERCULES sidesteps two guards who run into a giant gong.)
JOEL (as HERCULES): You’ve been GONGED! A-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!

 

195) 211 – First Spaceship on Venus

A bunch of idiotic scientists investigate a signal coming from Venus and figure out that the people there were planning on attacking our planet…but it just didn’t happen. Ok, then. The movie is boring with a capital “B” with astronauts and scientists explaining how things work, ad nauseum. The riffing on this sucker is just as boring. It’s pre-Japanese Movie Monster and one would think this would be in the show’s wheelhouse but the film is so dull, it sucks the life out of everything else. The sketches are terrible, with a random gorilla calling the SOL and the Bots inventing a robot which emits foam as a sort of speech. They’re just flat this time around.

BEST RIFF:

MAN: How long can we stay here?
CROW: About…three and a half minutes ago…

 

194) 317 – The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (w/ short: Home Economics Story)

I swear…everything Roger Corman touches, he wrecks…which extends to anything MST3K. Watching “Viking Women” is as torturous as watching “Teenage Caveman” and the riffing on this episode makes me crazy because it’s inexplicably centered around waffles. Like, obsessively centered. Almost every other joke after the terrific short is about waffles for some reason. The ones that aren’t are just about flat. Even the sketches are about waffles. The second sketch is literally ten seconds long, features Joel eating waffles and finally saying “waffles”. Easily, one of the worst episodes of the series.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: …but for Fran Tarkington and the Vikings, there would be another day…

 

193) 617 – The Sword and the Dragon

Another MST3K, another Russo-Finnish production. And not the best of them. Whereas “Sinbad” and “The Day the Earth Froze” were so bright and silly and provided material for some great jokes, this one is flat and just drags all the way up to the climatic dragon battle with a beast that looks so ridiculous, it should be an easy target — and it’s just not. There’s pure silence from the guys at times, the jokes that are there (Crow’s “just a torso” riff is so-so) miss the mark. I will never see why there’s so much love for this one. Cheers, though, to the hilarious Ingmar Bergman joke sketch. It’s beautifully produced and executed.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Y’know, now I have an unhealthy hatred of Finnish people.

 

192) 902 – The Phantom Planet

There are episodes which hearken back to Season 1 and this is one of them. This is a murky, dirty, dark sci-fi outing about a man who lands on a meteor and then shrinks down to about the size of a human foot and meets beings who are as tall before gaining wisdom…and the whole thing is a dream, I guess. It’s crap and the riffing is just dull to boot with jokes that really only got smiles from me. The sketches aren’t really all that much better as Pearl attempts to build some sort of Doomsday Device — only to see the main component accidentally getting sent to Mike and the Bots on the SOL. This isn’t really expanded upon in any way and the climax (villagers storm Castle Forrester) is just so-so.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Wow, this is almost as good as 2001…NAILS driven into your eyes.

 

191) 107 – Robot Monster (w/ short: Commando Cody: Radar Men From the Moon, Chapters 4 & 5)

Good LORD, this movie…a family survives the end of the world and is tormented by a thing wearing an ape suit and a robot helmet. He says things like “To live like the HUE-MAN…” and waddles around like goofball. Then nothing happens and everything’s a dream at the end. I forgot to tell you: dinosaurs fight before that. I don’t know why. This movie is painful and the worst thing Joel and the Bots have consumed up to this point. The riffing is so-so. The best of it, unfortunately, comes from not one, but TWO Commando Cody sketches where they mock Cody for constantly getting his ass kicked day in and day out. The sketches are the same with the sole highlight being Ro-Tom as he plagues Joel and Crow. This episode is on YouTube.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Upon further review, the refs find that Cody is dead. The play stands…Cody is dead…

 

190) 103 – Mad Monster (w/ short: Commando Cody: Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 2)

Oof. Another hard one to take, though slightly above “The Crawling Eye” in terms of execution. Massive pauses in jokes and a movie that is just terrible and makes no sense (something, something mad scientist, werewolf) and the whole thing is an exercise in patience. We have ANOTHER Commander Cody short, which is fine since the riffing is superior there. There’s a great sketch involving Tom Servo hitting on a blender — and Joel coming over and drinking from the blender pitcher, horrifying Tom completely. That’s some funny stuff, but this is still mediocre stuff.

BEST RIFF:

(The werewolf wanders underground.)
CROW: What’s the werewolf doing in the wine cellar?
JOEL: Trying to figure out which wine goes with people, I think…

 

189) 209 – The Hellcats

Good LORD…another biker film is shown here as MST3K tries to re-capture the magic that was “Wild Rebels”. It’s nowhere close. The film is like watching badly-edited home movie footage of someone’s drunken weekend in the woods.. There are endless scenes of idiots doing stupid things like fighting with leather and chains and stretching people between bikes. The riffing is dull and boring with almost none of the jokes landing. What’s worse: the sketches are simply flashbacks to past sketches we’ve seen because Joel and the Bots are “sick” and are writing down their thoughts. Cute idea, but we’re literally watching entire past sketches. It’s just lazy. This is easily one of the worst episodes of the series thus far.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: I bet if these guys filmed “Citizen Kane”, it would have had a 20-minute sled sequence in it.

 

188) 111 – Moon Zero Two

“Moon Zero Two” is like if Stanley Kubrick didn’t exist and “2001” was made by the people who produced “Laugh-In”. It’s a terrible movie…like watching a doughy, uncooked version of Space Mutiny where “Zero Gravity” means you’re just moving in slow-motion. It’s good fodder for Joel & the Bots…or, so you’d think. This is another case where it might have been funnier with a more seasoned MST3K writing crew. There are some funny lines. During the lounge scene, groovy dancing blonde ladies do ballet while people drink. “Wow! They’re so versatile…it’s like Swan Lake-a-Go-Go!” says Joel. The cheesy, jazzy swingin’ soundtrack score does the film no favors and Servo lets them have it: “Music to shoot thugs by!” The sketches are also so-so. It’s forgettable. (Free on YouTube)

BEST RIFF

CROW: In space, no one can hear you YAWN.

 

187) 616 – Racket Girls (w/ short: Are You Ready for Marriage?)

Imagine an entire movie built around female wrestlers. Wait, where are you going? It’s as bad as it sounds. The film features seemingly ENDLESS sequences where women wrestle in a ring. It’s not interesting. It’s not titillating. It’s just there. And it’s all unedited as Mike points out well into one of the matches. The rest of the film features a sub-plot about the mob and dirty money being funneled through this wrestling promotion. That’s also not interesting. The riffing doesn’t help things but, then, there isn’t much you can do with women locking arms for ten straight minutes. The sketches aren’t much better with Crow and Servo attempting to marry one another. something which just devolves into random chaos because the show, at this point, seemed to lose its knack for succinct sketches with decent punchlines. Luckily, the short saves the whole thing from being a total loss…but that isn’t saying much.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: This film awakened Eleanor Roosevelt’s sexuality.

 

186) 808 – The She-Creature

If you can get by the first ten episodes of the 8th season and continue on, unabated, bully for you. “The She-Creature” is brutal. It’s murky and dull and there’s just not a damn thing the guys can do with the material. The line below is the funniest line and it’s funny because it’s true. The film sucks the life from everything. Luckily, this episode marks the end of Observer World as Mike inadvertently destroys their planet, something which will pay off later in “Agent From H.A.R.M.”.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: They tried to light this, but the movie is like a super-absorbing black hole.

 

185) 101 – The Crawling Eye

The one that started it all. This was the first cable episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, airing on “The Comedy Channel” (what would later become “Comedy Central”) in November of 1989. At this point, this show was The Comedy Channel’s signature show — though, if you just watched the episode I’m talking about, it’s difficult to even fathom that. The episode is full of major pauses between riffs from Joel and the Bots and what’s there isn’t entirely laugh-out-loud (what the kids would now call “LOL”) funny like the later episodes are. The sketches aren’t well-written, falling more on the cutesy side of things and everything seems cheap and basic. But what was there was huge: a clever concept soaked in pure wit and charm courtesy of series creator Joel Hodgson. Joel’s encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture fueled everything and his ideas were undeniably clever — and when the show’s jokes landed, boy, did they land. That said, “The Crawling Eye” isn’t a great start. The riffing is slow and has some major gaps. The timing is way off, too. It does gain some speed around the halfway point but only manages to get some chuckles here and there as Joel and the Bots take on an incredibly boring creature feature about gigantic mutant eyeballs who drive people to murder. The full episode is above, courtesy of the MST3K Channel on YouTube.

BEST RIFF:

(Joel has told the Bots to stop making “eye” jokes)
JOEL: I spy with my little eye…
SERVO: You hypocrite…

 

184) 105 – The Corpse Vanishes (w/ short: Commando Cody: Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 3)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Bela Lugosi is a mad scientist. I know, unreal, right?! He basically uses weird juice from the necks of younger women to keep his wife young. I think. The 8th season’s “The Leech Woman” covered this a little better, as creepy as this was. The movie is as dull and lifeless as “Mad Monster” and “The Crawling Eye”. Luckily, the riffing makes it watchable, as anemic as it is. I’m finding that this is the case for much of the first year. It’s hard to rank the episodes because of it so everything is based on a slight gradient system. Also, there’s another Commander Cody short but the riffing wasn’t as sharp, which is a shame since the series is so silly. The sketches are getting funnier with the Bots being more humanized as they read “Tiger Bot” magazine where they fantasize about Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and learn his turn-ons and turn-offs. The barbershop segment also has some laughs but, overall, the episode is a bit of a dud. Once again, the episode is free on YouTube.

BEST RIFF:

MAN: Hey, Pat…you’re not gonna pass out too, are ya’?
WOMAN: No…no, I’m ok.
SERVO: It’s just the pace of this movie that’s gotten to me…

 

183) 411 – The Magic Sword

Bert I. Gordon strikes again with this gorgeous sword and sorcery epic shot in glorious color and starring Basil freakin’ RATHBONE. This episode holds the distinction of featuring one of the most quality films the show has seen. But, while the feature is decent and fun, the riffing just isn’t. I might be in the minority here but there’s just nothing that’s laugh-out-loud funny or even chuckle-worthy. Most of the jokes are flat and Crow’s crush on Estelle Winwood is old hat — though the sketch where he professes his love for Winwood is Emmy and Golden Globe material. In fact, it’s the sketches that carry this episode. It’s just weird.

BEST RIFF:

(During the big dragon battle at the end.)
JOEL: Lighten up! They’re just PUPPETS!
CROW: Hey!
JOEL: Sorry…

 

182) 102 – The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (w/ Commando Cody: Radar Men From the Moon: Chapter 1)

MST3K’s second episode ever is a bit easier to watch. The jokes are still a little slow but nowhere near as delayed as the first episode. They’re also a bit tighter and funnier. The goofy opening short film (a staple of MST3K) is a riot and produces some great lines (“The moon looks just like Arizona!”) and, unlike “The Crawling Eye”, the nonsensical feature film is a lot of fun to watch with some great riffs (“The table’s moving…it’s a better actor than anyone in this film”, followed by “Well, it’s made out of the same material as everyone else: wood!”). The sketches are also cute, introducing a bunch of “Demon Dogs” which invade the Satellite of Love and occasionally “disgrace themselves” all over Crow and Servo when they try to talk sense into the dogs and get them to leave. One of the main issues which persists through most of it is how hushed the jokes are. The boys don’t read anything with any emphasis and mumble things from time to time. Still, a major improvement over the first episode. The full episode is above, courtesy of the MST3K Channel on YouTube.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: This is the kinda film you WON’T put on “pause” when you leave the room.

 

181) 205 – Rocket Attack U.S.A. (w/ Phantom Creeps, Chapter 2)

Joel and the Bots get a true-blue black-and-white Cold War paranoia film in “Rocket Attack U.S.A.” and, boy, is it preachy and depressing. The riffs aren’t totally memorable (a lot of their jokes are at the expense of a narrator who just talks over nearly everything and the Bela Lugosi imitations during “Phantom Creeps” just aren’t working anymore) and the sketches are bland and fairly dark (Joel hosting a quiz show about Civil Defense is just morbid and unfunny). Not the worst episode of the bunch but feels mediocre. Some notes here: The Hexfield Door is all done and debuted in this episode! Servo got a “buzzcut”, a gimmick which didn’t last long, thank god. Episode “Stingers” began with this episode. A “Stinger” is the small bit of footage from the film they watched after the end credits.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: “Nobody will be admitted during the breathtaking car-parking sequence!”

 

180) 104 – Women of the Prehistoric Planet

“Women of the Prehistoric Planet?!” Joel exclaims. “My sister watched this film and the boys all had to go to the GYM.” The first color film the cable MST3K did has some women on a planet which is dubbed “prehistoric” thanks to the fake plant life all over the place. Most of the film is dweeby white guys standing around discussing science while leaning against boulders and ferns. It’s like watching “Star Trek” if the show was cast by a half dozen 1960’s high school Biology teachers. The riffing is quick and lively here, a nice departure from the first few episodes of the series, with the birth of some trademark running riffs like “Hi-Keeba!”, “You’re lucky my chick’s here, man!” and the singing of the Gilligan’s Island theme during storm scenes. This is also the first episode where Joel reads fan letters, a tradition which never should have gone away. Listen for future host Mike Nelson as the voice of the Doomsday Satellite Joel manages to nab from outer space.

BEST RIFF:

JOEL: The sexual harassment laws are a lot more loose in the future…

179) 110 – Robot Holocaust (w/ short: Commando Cody: Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 9)

Thank the lord, there’s no more Commando Cody after this. The film breaks a little ways into things and I’m thrilled. This leaves us with the 80’s dystopian goodness that is “Robot Holocaust”. This was the youngest film shown on the show, having been made in 1987. It’s supposed to be depicting a world post-holocaust from a “robot war of ’33″…except there’s a huge, glistening city in nearly every shot and the actors just wander the outer-boroughs like D&D roleplay geeks. The film’s opening theme sound familiar? You’ll hear it later in Season 7…Joel and the Bots go back to some sparse riffing which is hit-or-miss and that’s a shame what with the terrible costumes, the wooden acting and the random voiceovers. Most of the jokes come at the expense of Angelika Jager who plays the monotonous Valeria. Simply listening to her recite her lines makes you laugh, reminding one of Adrianna Miles from Season 9’s “Werewolf”. It’s a riot hearing them try to guess what she’s saying…but it wears thin after the first few times. The movie is SO unintentionally funny by itself and the riffing (which does pick up in the second half) could have been epic if the boys were on point. This marks the first time the boys stay and watch the credits for a little while before heading back to the main bridge. In any case, they’ve done better with the 80’s as we would see in Season 3. (The episode is available on YouTube)

BEST RIFF

SERVO: “Yeah, I GUESS it’s a wasteland if you don’t count that big CITY behind them…”

178) 203 – Jungle Goddess (w/ Phantom Creeps, Chapter 1)

Welp, we have a Robert Lippert film starring Superman and Wanda McKay. This is after a NEW series of shorts called “Phantom Creeps” starring Bela Lugosi. That’s all the shorts we’d see for Season 2, so settle in. That was the one thing leftover from Season 1: crusty, boring shorts. The main film has not aged well. The “natives” are all of completely different races and, of course, look like White Hollywood of the 40’s thinks they should look. There’s stock footage of just about every wild animal in the bush and a character who just fires at anything that moves. The riffing is decent but nothing to write home about. While the guys have fun with many of their lines, they’re mostly minor observations and nothing more. The sketches are fair. One is a meandering infomercial involving Phantom Creeps which clean surfaces but it just goes nowhere. The second is brilliant featuring Joel demonstrating different camera POV’s…but the third just devolves into meaningless meandering when Jim Mallon and Mike Nelson show up playing the two white male leads from the film. The whole ordeal feels like a Season One episode with more output. (Free on YouTube)

BEST RIFF:

JOEL (as the snake on the tree): “Hi! I’m Satan! Enjoy the film!”

177) 607 – Bloodlust (w/ short: Uncle Jim’s Dairy Farm)

It’s an extremely low-budget version of “The Most Dangerous Game” starring Robert Reed of “The Brady Bunch” fame. “Robert Reed listed this film as ‘The Tempest’ on his resume”, says Mike, but the film isn’t that bad. It’s fairly decent and suspenseful for what it is (teens end up on an island where they’re hunted by a madman for sport), so the jokes are just so-so throughout the episode. The grimy farm short before it is pretty funny stuff so, yeah…it’s one of those episodes. The sketches are decent, but arbitrary (though we get to meet Dr. Forrester’s mom, Pearl, for the first time — and she’s closer to Frank than her own son as it turns out) — and short, which would become somewhat of a thing from here on out. From here on out, the SOL’s “bridge” had been modified. The bridge went from a beige color scheme to something more grey…or, at least that’s how it appeared. The overall lighting was lowered and ambient and the color highlights were heightened somewhat.

BEST RIFF:

(Mice crawl inside the remains of a skeleton)
MIKE: Cadavers for Algernon!

176) 818 – Devil Doll

“Devil Doll” is the equivalent of being stuck in a room with awful, sleazy people who have seen better days, while they chain smoke. The movie is just gross and creepy. And that impression doesn’t come from the “doll” featured in the film. The ventriloquist in the film is a total sex fiend who seduces not one, but two women in the film, in scenes which rival “Mitchell” in sheer vomit-inducing disgust. It’s so awful, the riffing drowns in it and that’s a shame because Mike and the Bots manage some decent one-liners throughout but nothing sticks consistently. The constant mockery of Vorelli’s abuse only has so much traction as does the mockery of his dummy’s requests for wine and various food items. The sketches are pretty good as Pitch returns (of 52’s “Santa Claus”) to sell Crow some dolls at the cost of his eternal soul. But, overall, the show bit off more than it could chew with a mean and ugly picture.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: If not for alcohol, there would be no moisture in that woman at all.

175) 615 – Kitten With a Whip

A fugitive on the run (Ann Margaret) shacks up with with a state Senator (John Forsythe) in a truly bizarre film. The issue with this film is that it’s surprisingly pleasantly off-beat and watchable and dialogue-heavy and that kills the riffing here. Sure, the guys get some good shots in but most of it is boring and it isn’t helped by fairly mediocre, arbitrary sketches (the “Kitten With a Whip” sketch with Kevin Murphy playing the “kitten” is just absolutely painful and will make you wish for the days when Joel had some say in the writer’s room) and bad pacing.

BEST RIFF:

(A stripper dances on stage.)
CROW: Wow! Amy Grant has REALLY crossed over!

 

174) 412 – Hercules and the Captive Women

We’re on our third Hercules flick, this one starring the third different actor to portray him in Reg Park. But that’s neither here nor there. MST3K tries something new in adding Gypsy…which lasts all of about five minutes before she bails on the guys because, simply put, the movie is “not very good”. She does get one good lick in during a scene where men on horseback move through a sudden fog bank (“Get this: they’re steam-cleaning their horses!”) and It’s a neat moment in the show — but it’s a moment with so much more potential that gets squandered. The episode has energy and life up until Gypsy leaves. After that, it’s tough sledding. The jokes aren’t great and Hercules fatigue sets in long before the episode is over. Three trips to the well in five episodes will do that.

BEST RIFFS:

(ANTINEA kisses HERCULES.)
CROW (as ANTINEA): You taste like Alan Steel!
SERVO (as HERCULES): You taste like Yvonne De Carlo!
JOEL: Wait a minute! Now you can have BOTH!

173) 605 – Colossus and the Headhunters

I don’t know what this show’s obsession was with Italian leather-and-sandals films but, I swear, they’re cursed to the point where even the riffing isn’t funny. There’s a point in “Colossus and the Headhunters” where two of the characters are talking to one another and there’s just long periods of silence between the riffing which isn’t very funny. The “Nummy Muffin CocoButter” sketches on the ship are amusing but can’t save a fairly dull Season 1-esque episode.

BEST RIFF:

(Colossus walks through a forest)
MIKE: Jeez, he’s like Art Garfunkel walking around the world…
SERVO: Yeah, except he doesn’t have an assistant to pick him up and take him to his hotel every night.

172) 1111 – Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II

(Available on Netflix)

During one of the break points, Patton Oswalt says “Just be glad ‘Wizards of the Lost Kingdom’ wasn’t a trilogy!” Indeed. Watching this movie is agonizing, as it just dumps the goofy charm of the original film and goes for an almost improvised film where things just happen. “Just shut up and act interested in things,” the elderly, overweight, wheezing wizard says to the young boy in the film. “Is he talking directly to us?” Crow quips. And that doesn’t sound like a joke. It’s genuine. The riffing doesn’t get good until about halfway into the film and then it just peters out and dies again and you’re left just smiling and chuckling at the remainder. Sketch-wise, we’re not doing well, either. This opens up the weird story arc where Kinga tries to marry Jonah for ratings. I never really get what’s going on with the modern sketches. I want them to be good but I feel like they should just stand on their own like the past bits did.

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: The threat of the knife is diminished by the man purse.

171) 202 – The Sidehackers

Oy…we ask for color films and we get…this…a film about morons who “Sidehack”, which is basically a racing sport comprised of dirt bike nuts who attach makeshift rolling platforms to their bikes that can be fit another rider…who uses their weight to –you k now what? You don’t care and I don’t care. The film is like somebody’s home movies edited together to show that…along with random scenes of men fixing bikes and men abusing women. It’s an ugly, ugly film and one that is nearly un-riffable. The full, uncut version of the film exists online and shows a fairly graphic scene where a female character is raped, murdered and hung from a ceiling. Why the Brains decided to air even the edited version of the film is beyond me. The riffs are just so-so with maybe a few good lines sprinkled in. The running joke from “Patton” (“You magnificent son of a bitch!”) is funny once and then just falls apart a few times afterward. It’s sloppy for the most part, with the guys just talking over dialogue at times and there’s no timing. The sketches are also average. Nothing really stands out. There’s a cute “Sidehacker” musical number by Joel and the Bots but they’ve done better in that regard but the “Sidehack commentary” and “Rommel hats” bit are just flat, despite the cleverness of Mike making another appearance as “J.C.” from the movie. (Free on YouTube)

BEST RIFF:

JOEL: This is kinda like “Thirtysomething”…
CROW: Except for all the naked pictures in the background…

170) 1005 – Blood Waters of Dr. Z

Remember how ridiculous the fish creature from “Horror at Party Beach” looked? The fish creature in this flick is somehow worse than that. “Blood Waters of Dr. Z” is nearly unwatchable. It’s ugly, grimy, pervy and features a shrill, irritating “soundtrack” that I can say best resembles the sound of a piece of warped aluminum being struck by a dying cat. It’s awful on every level. So awful, in fact, that one becomes a victim of Godwin’s law and immediately feels compelled to call this an aquatic version of “Manos, the Hands of Fate”. It’s not out of the question. It’s easy to see why one might do such a thing. The riffing is so-so on the film (the creature attacking the swimming girl is funny, but that’s about it) and it doesn’t help that the opening sketch involves Crow spitting tobacco into soda cans — which Servo drinks by accident. It just adds to the lac of attractiveness and makes you want to throw up.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Ah, he’s a “Copafeelacanth”.

169) 811 – Parts: The Clonus Horror

Peter Graves returns in “Parts: The Clonus Horror”, a film famous for being ripped off by “The Island”. It’s not bad at all, really. The film is certainly more interesting than the riffing is, which is mostly quiet up until the last third of the film where Richard finds his real life counterpart, but even then, it’s hindered by that unriffable 70’s TV drama feel that plagued films like “San Francisco International” and “Stranded in Space”. The “Three’s Company” and “Bewitched” references don’t help. That, and the running storyline during the sketches takes another stupid turn with the omniscient “Star Children”, played by Mike and Bridget Nelson, and Paul Chaplin.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: And the director just points the camera at the lamp and expects the lamp to carry the scene.

168) 508 – Operation Double 007

It’s Bond. Not Bond. Neil Connery (Sean’s real-life brother) plays James Bond’s…brother, I guess? And James Bond dies at the beginning…? I think? So Neil goes on a secret mission to save the world. Like the film, the jokes are hollow and predictable, poking fun at the entire Bond franchise. The only saving grace is a sketch where Joel and the Bots compare Neil and Sean’s career trajectories which starts out a touch mean-spirited but ends with the Bots giving Neil the rub in the Kiel vein. What else can you say about an episode which has to rely on a Manos reference to wring comedy from this sucker?

BEST RIFF:

CROW: We just came to beat everybody up…we’re leaving now…thanks.

167) 305 – Stranded in Space

Film Ventures, the goofballs who bought and redistributed such fare as “Cave Dwellers” and “Pod People”, gives us a repackaged failed TV pilot for a series called “The Stranger”, about a man who ends up on a terrible, parallel universe Earth. The premise of the film and some of the events are more interesting than most of the riffing, which is sparse.with a lot of pauses and “hm’s” from the riffers. The film, itself, is boring and dull, despite the interesting plot, so it’s hard to get anything worthwhile from it. Points for the host sketch where Joel (the leader of the evil totalitarian syndicate) orders the Bots to kill various 70’s heroes who stand in his way.

BEST RIFF:

(Man walks through room with several different TV actors in it.)
SERVO: Boy…do you know how many TV series would wiped out if this room was blown up?

166) 323 – The Castle of Fu Manchu

I know films on MST3K are supposed to be bad…but this is pushing it. “Fu Manchu” is an ugly, plodding film with long periods of people talking and talking…and talking…and even the riffing, which thankfully picks up midway through before fizzling out again, doesn’t do anything to help it. The sketches feature a running gag where Joel and the Bots keep losing their emotional shit (while Dr. Forrester and Frank revel in their pain) because the movie is just a gigantic gorilla that sits on you and refuses to move. It’s not the complete flaming wreck of an episode the fans say it is, but it’s sure close.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: This must be like a triathlon: you swim, jog, then appear in a boring movie.
JOEL: Yeah, well, I’ll have you know that Roger Ebert liked this film…
CROW: Hey, I’ll have you know that the only thing Roger Ebert “likes” is big pans of LASAGNA.
SERVO: LOTS of ’em.

165) 1114 – At the Earth’s Core

(Available on Netflix)

The last time we saw Doug McClure on MST3K, he was working with Ze Germans and ended up in a land where dinosaurs and man co-existed. In “At the Earth’s Core”, he joins forces with Peter Cushing to travel to the Earth’s core (as the title suggests) to lead an insurrection against some evil troll things whose language “sounds like an AM radio with bad reception” according to Crow. The riffing on the episode is so-so. A bit reminiscent of the early seasons on the show. The big attraction is the sketch work which is Jonah and Kinga getting married for ratings while Max attempts to stop her because he loves her so much. Growler, another new robot, is introduced here (He’s the second new robot after the introduction of M. Waverly a few eps back) and he also gets he cold shoulder from the veteran bots, only to see them apologize for their behavior…and then take it back the moment he “piano fakes Leonard Cohen”.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Jim Henson’s “Muppet Atrocity”!

164) 322 – Master Ninja I

The first of two “Master Ninja” experiments, this one is the lesser of the two and I still have no idea why. The film (which, like “Fugitive Alien”, is just TV episodes sewn together) is so charmingly silly and absurd, one would think it’s the perfect target. Instead, there are long bouts of silence and missed opportunities galore. It isn’t until the end that the jokes get good (the one where Crow asks who the “Arab woman” is, is a riot as horrible as that sounds) and, by then, the episode is already so far into mediocrity, it’s not salvagable. Points, though, to the only part of the show with any personality: the “Master Ninja Theme Song” sketch at the end.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Doesn’t anybody ever SLEEP in this movie?! It’s like ten in the morning, for cryin’ outloud!

163) 324 – Master Ninja II

Just what nobody wanted: a sequel to the original “Master Ninja”. It’s more ninja hijinx as Kung Fu star wannabe Lee Van Cleef and Timothy Van Patten traipse all over America in a van, getting into danger…so, pretty much the same thing as last time. The episode really could have used a short or funnier riffing. The film isn’t “Fu Manchu” bad but, like the first “Master Ninja”, it feels like there were a lot of misses. The sketches aren’t particularly good, either. The best of them has Joel and the Bots designing their own sweet custom vans (wooo!) but, overall, the episode is another weak Season 3 entry, which is odd because, for some reason, I remember this season as being one of their funniest.

BEST RIFFS:

MAX: She’ll talk you to death.
THE MASTER: I’ll risk it.
MAX: I’ll need a game plan…
(THE MASTER reaches out to straight Max’s bow tie.)
THE MASTER: On the tenth sentence…kiss her.
CROW: Oh, sure! Take advice from long-time bachelor, Lee Van Cleef.

162) 614 – San Francisco International

A kidnapping, political figures on a plane, and a neglected teen hijacking a prop plane. One of these things, if focused on intently, might produce decent television. Unfortunately, the producers of “San Francisco International” decided to go with all of them, so we got a messy television pilot set at the famous coastal airport, which somehow got a half dozen episode order AND Lloyd Bridges as the lead. The riffing on the episode is so-so with some decent hits near the end. The butt of the jokes come at the expense of that poor neglected teenager who takes off in a plane and has to be taught how to land it but it can’t carry the entire show. Neither do the “Urkel” sketches which are merely comprised of Mike imitating Steve Urkel from “Family Matters” until it literally isn’t funny anymore. I get the concept of the sketches (that Urkel isn’t that funny and the joke gets old quick) but it’s something that could have gone one sketch and died. Still, there are some local jokes that might resonate with Bay Area residents such as myself (Herb Caen and ABC newscaster Spencer Christian both get mentions).

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: This movie just staggers from one commercial break to another.

161) 308 – Gamera vs. Gaos

Either this episode wasn’t very good or I’m just tired of the entire Gamera series of films. Most of this film is people talking, so it doesn’t give Joel and the Bots much to work with and there’s only so much mileage you can get making fun of the requisite “monster child” and the two morons in the film who talk in weird, high-pitched voices. The main battle doesn’t even have much to offer and is riffed on like every other Japanese Monster Movie. The sketches are slightly better featuring Joel and the Bots debating on how to kill Gaos while Crow struggles to find a happy medium which will impress his colleagues.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Well, kids, if you enjoyed today’s movie, you’re SURE to like this shameless padding!
CROW: Yeah, it’s just like a Burt Reynolds film: these are the outtakes.

160) 213 – Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster

The second and last Godzilla film on the MST3K film slate, this one features Godzilla going toe to toe with a huge crustacean. This isn’t nearly as good as the last Godzilla entry nor is it even as good as any of the later Gamera entries. The entire thing just seems lost, The film was renamed, so there’s a running joke where Joel and the Bots don’t even know what the film is called. The jokes are purely observational and aren’t very funny. The sketches are far funnier than anything heard in the theater with “The Godzilla Genealogy Bop”, followed by Joel going nuts and building Earth landmarks with junk found around the SOL — and Mothra (Mike Nelson again) visits the ship to talk and joke around with the Bots. Those moments save the episode from being a complete loss but it’s still not very good.

BEST RIFF:

(Sea Monster stabs his spike into the water and lifts up, seeing that he’s stabbed two men completely.)
CROW: Ah! Kabob and…Ka-STEVE! (he laughs to himself)

159) 310 – Fugitive Alien

Another episode, another Sandy Frank mess. Fugitive Alien is a Japanese television show and this is basically a bunch of episodes strung together to make a “movie”. It’s like watching a never-ending space opera where almost everyone is named Ken except for the main characters. The riffs aren’t particularly memorable as the “Ken” thing has a window of about ten minutes before they kill it and repeat “AGAIN” after somebody says “Rocky!”, the name of one of the main ship’s crew. It IS memorable for having one of the trademark riffs of the show: “They tried to kill me with a forklift!”, sung to the tune of the movie’s musical score. But, the entire thing is dialogue-heavy and there aren’t many jokes that can be wrung from it. The sketches are pretty good, though, with Mike Nelson making his first appearance as Jack Perkins, the lovable host of A&E’s Biography. We’ll see more of “Jack” as the show goes along.

BEST RIFF:

MAN: When we saved you…a little swatch of cloth got torn off your uniform…I found one exactly like it…NEXT TO THE BODY OF MY LITTLE DAUGHTER! Well! What have you got to say?!
SERVO: Um…oops…?

158) 312 – Gamera vs. Guiron

The 4th of the five “Gamera” films featured on this show and I’m worn out by all things Gamera/Sandy Frank at this point. And that’s not good because, at this point, there are at least a few more of those features ready for me to analyze. This is probably the most unintentionally funny “Gamera” flick of the set with weird alien women abducting some kids (one is Japanese, the other American) and making them watch as Gamera is tortured and made to fight a giant mutated steak knife with eyes. The riffs are all right with most of the laughs coming from the goofy, stilted dialogue (which might be the fault of the American translators) and the “Gamera Song” (“Gamera is really neat! Gamera is filled with meat!”) which shows up in the brilliant ending sketch where Mike Nelson appears, playing tacky lounge artist Michael Feinstein who delights the mads in a piano version of the song while regaling them with stories of old jazz legends. Still, it’s just another Gamera episode and this is one of those episodes where Joel and the Bots beat a dead horse with jokes that weren’t that funny to begin with (the “Cornjob” character joke is overkill).

BEST RIFF:

(Gamera is flipping around on a gymnastic bar between two pillars.)
SERVO: You know, guys…it just dawned on me how, how…WEIRD this film is, y’know?

157) 1110 – Wizards of the Lost Kingdom

(Available on Netflix)

It’s the modern MST3K’s first venture into sword-and-sorcery territory involving young wizards, rogue swordsmen, and…what the hell is that, a YETI?! And the same dude from “Deathstalker” playing almost an exact carbon copy of the villain he was in that film?! All the ingredients are there for a classic episode and it’s gonna draw comparisons to “Deathstalker”…except it isn’t that. This is like a medieval version of “Starcrash”, a film that’s already hokey on its own and that’s been one of the problems with the Netflix era: a few of these films aren’t really designed to be riffed. They’re more like Asylum (“Sharknado” and next season’s “Atlantic Rim”) before there was Asylum. Jonah and the Bots try to make Kor the next “Lovable Hero” in MST3K’s lore but it falls flat mainly because there isn’t anything memorable about the guy. I mean, yeah, it’s hilarious when they dub him “Fat Sting” but, after that, it’s an uninteresting blonde guy with a sword. Nothing more, nothing less. The riffing is boring with only a few bright spots.

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: You know, movie, I doubted you before but Kor the Conquerer vs. three wicked ass demon men? This is gonna be GREAT!
CROW: Yeah!
(The demon guys run away and the battle never happens.)
JONAH: …aaaand I’m disappointed.

156) 1008 – Final Justice

Joe Don Baker returns(!) in a film about a Texas cop who thinks he’s a cowboy — and who has to go to Malta to hunt down his perp. We have fond memories of Joe Don Baker in “Mitchell”, which “Final Justice” is unavoidably going to be compared with. This is not that film. It’s not even close. The charm (what there was of it) just isn’t there. It has a harder edge and the actors involve swear and curse so much, the censored audio takes away from the flow. Furthermore, whereas Joel and the Bots hit bucket after bucket going after Baker for being an unattractive slob in “Mitchell”, he actually does fit the role he’s in here (though his catchphrase, “Go ahead on” is really awkward and not really intimidating), so the comments about his obesity seem desperate and cheap and fall flat as a result and, once you look beyond that gag, the riffing is sparse and uninteresting. The sketch work saves the episode somewhat with Crow completely trashing “men from Malta” in a bit that’s a little mean-spirited and may not fly these days. Also funny is the ending segment where the SOL’s alert systems are on and Gypsy is counting down as Mike proclaims that he gets to go back to Earth since he watched a bad Joe Don Baker movie, just like Joel (he really isn’t; he’s sitting in the boiler room of the ship instead of in an escape pod as the Bots point out, rather miffed). The plaque dedicated to the Bots showcasing “an inspirational quote from ‘Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo'” is hilarious.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: The sun is blotted out as Joe Don Baker approaches!

155) 314 – Mighty Jack

It’s a Japanese spy caper where the villains are dumb as rocks and we get to witness SEVERAL…BANK…TURNS! Training films showing how to MAKE bank turns didn’t have this many bank turns. But here they are. And, then, there’s the awkward editing and arbitrary occurrences which don’t seem to gel together. I don’t know what it is about MST3K and most of the Japanese imports that came through the show but the guys don’t have too much to add here, though some of the callbacks are funny (the “Sandy Frank” song, “You’re stuck here!” from “Fugitive Alien”) but the film is so discombobulated, it’s like sitting through a Season 1 episode and that’s not good.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Wow! Just think about if this movie had a PLOT…it would REALLY be neat!

154) 502 – Hercules

Another season, another Hercules flick. This was the first and most famous Herc film. It’s campy and beautiful at the same time but the film is dull as hell. I don’t know what it is about the Herc films but the guys just can’t do much with them. The jokes are mostly chuckle-worthy with a few good zingers and it finally picks up at the end during the big climatic battle (Joel’s line about it being “South Central Greece” after the government troops attack is great here) but the episode falters due to the bar being set so high that this show seems like a throw-away.

BEST RIFF:

(A slew of primitive men attack Hercules and his men.)
JOEL (as Hercules): Well, they’re not Amazons but, when in Rome, fellas!

153) 401 – Space Travelers

Season 4 began with “Space Travelers” which was really “Marooned” under the Film Ventures label. The film is also the only one featured on MST3K to win an Oscar (Best Visual Effects) AND it boasts a hell of a cast in Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman, David Janssen, and James Franciscus. It’s not a bad film at all, really, and it’s one that my Mom was a huge fan of when she saw it in theaters. The problem? The riffing. Again. It gets good right in the middle with an excellent zingers during the bit where the astronaut’s wives contact the boys on the shuttle (and Crow constantly — and perfectly — imitates Gregory Peck) but, otherwise, this is a dull affair despite the high production value and actors involved and the jokes just don’t work.

BEST RIFF:

MAN: What are your numbers, Tony?
CROW (as Tony): Uh, Cleveland 8, Cincinnati 4…uh…oh…

152) 405 – Being From Another Planet

More 80’s crap…and it’s another massive strikeout for MST3K. An exhumed mummy turns out to be an alien in “Being From Another Planet”. I think this might have worked in the later seasons but not this one. The entire episode barely induces a chuckle to the point where I struggled to even find a “Best Riff”. There’s a running joke involving the mummy/alien’s POV (shot in a green camera filter) and the Bots flip out and act like they’re afraid. The sketches are as dull as the jokes are. Thankfully, the riffing DOES pick up in the second half but it still adds up to an experience that’s nowhere near as good as it should be. I will never understand missed opportunities like this because the film is just cruisin’ for an MST3K bruisin’.

BEST RIFF:

(A young girl finishes making out with her boyfriend and walks down the hall to tend to a crying baby.)
SERVO: Don’t tell Mom the babysitter’s HOT!

151) 106 – The Crawling Hand

An astronaut’s severed hand comes to life, chokes some guy out, and then causes him to re-animate and go nuts and murder people. It’s hilarious. Spot-on riffing here. The long delays between riffs are mostly gone and the timing is better. The entire kitchen sequence with the hand’s first victim is a scream as is Joel playing the phone operator after the murder. The sketch where Joel and the Bots “Shatner” while severed hands choke them is great stuff but, beyond that, the sketches are a bit weak. Alan Hale, Jr. is in this film. We’ll see him again later. Despite all that, this might be the first season’s first good episode. The entire episode is currently online at YouTube.

BEST RIFF:

JOEL: “The Crawling Hand”…you will believe a hand can crawl…
CROW: You will believe Alan Hale can act…
SERVO: No.

150) 803 – The Mole People

“The Mole People” has been seen on MST3K before. “The Wild Wild World of Batwoman” made reference to it and Dr. Forrester’s two henchmen, Jerry and Sylvia, were Moles. So, here we are, we’re on our third SyFy episode and our third Universal film (from SyFy’s vault) and it’s “The Mole People” starring John Agar and Hugh Beaumont and it’s dull. There’s a ten minute sequence where we’re just hiking and digging holes and crawling around in the dark. With NO MUSIC (Crow remarks that the music supervisor had it real easy). And that means Mike and the Bots do their best with what they’re given. The riffing gets a little better toward the middle but peters out again near the end. At least the sketches are halfway decent as Servo attempts to sing a folk song but has issues with his guitar, prompting Crow to tell him that he “couldn’t tune a kazoo” which still makes me laugh hard. Also, we finally get “our” Crow back as he goes on an archaeological dig and discovers the truth about himself and his past with Mike and Servo, so that’s out of the way.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Ah, treasure these brief moments…when John Agar ISN’T TALKING.

149) 805 – The Thing That Couldn’t Die

The fifth Universal picture in a row for Season 8 and, thankfully, it’s the last for a bit. This one’s about a severed head which makes people do unspeakable things…and the young woman who sees unspeakable things. It’s all as forgettable as the episode which mainly makes fun of the big dumb guy who originally discovers the head and keeps it sitting near a tree. Aunt Flavia’s mispronunciation of “treasure” is funny for about 3 seconds and becomes unbearable once the guys latch onto it and try to make it a thing. The sketch work is decent as we are introduced to “The Observers” (played by Bill Corbett, Paul Chaplin, and Mike Nelson) and their world.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: So, she’s kind of a “Ouija Broad”? (laughs to himself)

148) 623 – The Amazing Transparent Man (w/ short: The Days of Our Years)

Another case of the opening short overshadowing the feature completely, “The Amazing Transparent Man” leans on a running joke about a transparent Guinea Pig far too much. It’s cute but it’s not everything. The film is uninteresting and the riffing is just so-so, which is frustrating since “The Days of Our Years” is so hilarious despite the insanely bleak subject matter (the short focuses on at-work accidents that ruin the lives of ordinary people and it’s just awful to watch in any environment), that it just renders the feature moot.

BEST RIFF:

WOMAN: We’ve been at a party at Pritchard’s Point…and I’m afraid he overdid it.
MIKE (as woman): He’s a Kennedy.

147) 204 – Catalina Caper

MST3K takes on a wacky comedy caper film…and it works. Behold, “Catalina Caper”, a film with a guy who steals a painting, then heads to Catalina complete with a cast so blonde, they look like they’re from “Village of the Damned”. You know things aren’t going as planned when even Little Richard shows up and looks bored as hell. The guys have fun with the film with more than a few great riffs (SERVO: “Screenplay written in crayon.”; “JOEL: “Little Richard: the only real talent in this film!”) but it’s odd to see them attempting to riff on a comedy. Some of it doesn’t work so well. That said, the sketches are fun and it’s a much more lighthearted second season romp than, say, “The Sidehackers”. (Free on YouTube)

BEST RIFF:

(Man and Woman tread water and the man keeps touching her.)
WOMAN: You’ve got the wrong sport!
MAN: When does it become the RIGHT sport?
CROW: When ESPN merges with the Playboy Channel! Now, get under water!

146) 304 – Gamera vs. Barugon

The second Gamera film on MST3K has the giant turtle facing off against a monster that (checks notes)…emits a rainbow death ray. Yup. I don’t know if it’s the way it’s been edited but Gamera doesn’t really star much in this one. The riffing is decent with some good lines (SERVO: Look! It’s a bridge over troubled models!) but the humor is sparse and, at times, it comes across like a first year episode. The sketches are hilarious with at least two really funny segments in Joel trying to convince the Bots that “everyone in Hollywood wanted to be in a Gamera film” as he has Cambot show stills of the actors from the film and tries to pass them off as the likes of “Harrison Ford” and “Willem Dafoe” to which Crow responds, “Uh, Joel, when you went to the drive-in, did you spend a lot of time in the trunk?” The end segment where Joel shares books about the making of the Gamera films is also a scream, featuring a “book on tape of The Velveteen Turtle read by Meryl Streep” in which “Streep” reads the line, “You aren’t like the other toys, you’re different. That is why I…am going…to kill you. Why? Because YOU are GOING to DIE!” It’s very clever stuff. It’s just too bad the rest of the episode doesn’t follow suit.

BEST RIFF:

VOICE-OVER: Gamera is attracted to any form of heat energy…
CROW: And I’M attracted to Bea Arthur, go figure!

145) 307 – Daddy-O (w/ short: Alphabet Antics)

A mid-50’s B-movie starring Dick Contino as Phil, a street-racer who gets in too deep with the mafia. It’s perfect fodder for MST3K — which is puzzling since Joel and the Bots have an epic batting practice session with the short which precedes it in Alphabet Antics, where the boys make fun of each escalating letter of the alphabet (SERVO: “N is for Parade Float — wuh–HUH?!”) — but then pull some punches on Daddy-O when it counts. It does get somewhat better near the end (the second time Phil performs at the club is SO funny; the boys have a gift for mocking musical numbers in films) but there are moments when there are long periods of silence before the guys take a swing at the film and the jokes which do land aren’t great. It’s really too bad for an episode that had a promising start and wonderful sketches, culminating with the famous “button” on Deep 13 breaking down and no longer working — great stuff.

BEST RIFF:

(PHIL sings a slow, romantic pop groove in a nightclub, terribly.)
CROW: Why couldn’t THIS guy have been on the plane instead of Buddy Holly?!

144) 416 – Fire Maidens of Outer Space

Oh, man…there’s some real crap on this show…and then there’s some REAL crap on this show. Some guys find a slightly less advanced society that doesn’t matter because chicks, bro. There are long periods with no dialogue that drive one CRAZY and plenty of classical filler music. The whole thing feels like a student film. The episode isn’t much and is glued together by the whole running “Timmy” sketch where a dark, evil version of Crow runs amok on the SOL and attempts to bring down the members of the crew. It’s a cute idea but the riffing doesn’t match the sketches.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: There’s more action in the wallpaper!

143) 1011 – Horrors of Spider Island

This movie has it all: women, misogyny, women grinding, water, women taking their clothes off, hiking, women grinding on a deck, dancing, women cat-fighting over clothing and, eventually, I suppose…spiders that are really men in bad half-assed werewolf costumes. Kinda. Remember that moment where Crow said “Filmed in glorious black and…slightly LESS black”? THAT’S THIS FILM. It’s almost bad monochrome at times, ugly to look at by any stretch of the imagination. The women are all blithering idiots and the men are horny assholes who just mansplain and boss them around and manhandle them to the point where Servo remarks that the women might as well have handles on them to make them easier to carry. Almost nothing here has to do with spiders and it’s the sharp riffing near the middle and during the end that saves this episode from being a total loss. It gets so bad, Crow takes a break, saying that he deserves it “after 10 years of this”. At times, this show does wear you down like that.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Oh, man…I’m not just wondering if there’s a point to the movie now…I’m wondering if there’s a point to anything!

142) 606 – The Creeping Terror

Imagine if “Monster A-Go-Go” had an even worse film print, was slightly older and dustier and actually HAD a monster and the actors had to crawl up inside it to give the illusion that they were “being eaten”. That’s “The Creeping Terror”, the story of an over-sized, carnivorous rubber sack terrorizing a local town. The film is god-awful and, somehow, snuck by, undetected, as one of the worst films every featured on the show. The riffing gets better as it goes along but the film’s uneven descent from talkie horror film to pseudo-silent film doesn’t do Mike and the Bots any favors. Still, they hold their own with the material. It was at this point that one might start to notice the show’s more colorful, ambient turn. The lights on the SOL had been dimmed little by little and the ambient accent lighting had been turned up to highlight certain spots. Mike’s jumpsuit became a bright blue and the show seemed to have more visual pop during the sketch sequences.

BEST RIFF:

NARRATOR: Bradford dismissed Martin’s fears by pointing out that the creature was not exhibiting any signs of violence.
CROW: Aside from EATING PEOPLE.

141) 406 – Attack of the Giant Leeches (w/ short: The Undersea Kingdom, Chapter 1)

A Corman-produced mess of a film with giant leeches (basically, people wearing big rubber suits) who terrorize a local town of southern yokels. It comes with the first short in quite some time in “The Undersea Kingdom” which, thankfully, doesn’t get much play beyond Part 2. It’s more dull than Commando Cody, if that’s even possible and there’s maybe one or two good riffs which keep it somewhat afloat. This is one of the rare instances where the riffing on the feature is much better than the short before it — but not by much. Joel and the Bots get some mileage off the “dumb southerner” thing and the sequence where they simply blow up whatever is floating around in the lake is hilarious. But it’s a long time getting to these scenes and it’s hard sitting through fits of dialogue and seemingly endless shots of the leeches in their “underwater cave”.

BEST RIFF:

(Dave fires a shotgun round into the ground, scaring his wife.)
JOEL (as DAVE): Now, I know what you’re thinkin’: did I fire one shot or only one?

140) 611 – Last of the Wild Horses

Another MST3K episode, another Western. This one is murky and hard to hear, featuring a rancher war of epic proportions…but the main crux of the episode revolves around the gimmicky storyline sketch where an ion storm screws up the transfer of a Matter Transference Device to the SOL, which creates an alternate dimension in which a plucky, good version of Frank and Dr. Forrester are stuck on the SOL and an evil version of Mike and the Bots (well, Mike and Crow, anyway) end up on Deep 13. The entire thing is a parody of the old Star Trek (original series) episode, “Mirror, Mirror”. It gives us something different in that Dr. F and Frank get to riff the first portion of the film up until the first sketch. It’s all very clever but the riffs aren’t any funnier than they were when the regulars return to the theater. The riffing, itself, takes time to get off the ground and doesn’t pick up until about the second half where we get some great zingers (Mike: “That’s dating in the 90’s…THE 1890’s!”) but the episode feels too reliant on the running sketches rather than the theater jokes.

BEST RIFF:

CROW (as Narrator): And, now, Robert Lippert pretends he is John Ford…

139) 315 – Teenage Caveman (w/ shorts: Aquatic Wizards & Catching Trouble)

It’s Roger Corman’s second feature on MST3K and, oof. As well-meaning as Corman is, he’s made a career out of B-movie schlock and this is a prime example of his early dreck: a meandering plot, loads of stock footage haphazardly pasted into the proceedings, and horrible acting by people who don’t fit the part. The riffing is solid, however, so there’s that, but most of the good stuff comes early on with the two shorts which precede the main feature. The second short is better than the first as it features a madman who wrangles wild animals for a living in the most unfriendly way possible which horrifies Joel and the Bots to no end. It’s just frustrating to see that early promise go out the window when the main film starts.

BEST RIFF:

(A caveman examines a hurt man in a cave as everyone watches.)
SERVO (as doctor): Give me the 3-0 Silk…now the metzenbaums…boy, this bullet is buried DEEP, close to his heart…
CROW: He was killed by a BEAR…
SERVO: Oh, uh…ahem…

138) 1007 – Track of the Moon Beast

Another episode, another crappy monster flick. This one is about a guy who is struck by a tiny part of meteorite and it causes him to turn into a freakin’ Gorn (the riff about being ready to fight Captain Kirk is just brilliant). It’s another grimy 70’s mess with terrible audio and bad acting but at least we have “Johnny Longbow” as the main hero! The riffing here starts out well, then sinks near the middle only to clean up well with a great ending where everyone “decides to act” before driving off as Mike points out “And they abandon the film one by one.” It’s not a great episode but it has its moments.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Well…I’ve learned something from this movie, you guys…
SERVO: Yeah, Crow?
CROW: Yeah, I learned my vomit can rise pretty high…and I can still tamp it down!

137) 403 – City Limits

It’s more 80’s sludge with a post-apocalyptic tale about teens who have survived a plague and their war against the rising powers that be and, just like “Space Travelers”, we have a somewhat decent cast in James Earl Jones, Kim Cattral, the insanely active John Stockwell and Robby Benson whose appeal I STILL don’t understand to this day. The riffing is steady here with a great freeze-frame opening credits callback to “Master Ninja” (“I’m Max Keller.”) and some deserved shots at Robby Benson. The sketches aren’t great but is buoyed by Crow’s somewhat sewn-together Kim Cattral ballad. Not the best of the series by any means, but still better than I expected given that I initially thought the episode was boring as hell.

BEST RIFF:

(The Clippers bust into Carver’s office — Carver is played by Robby Benson)
CROW: All right, Benson! What the heck have you been DOING in this movie?!

136) 408 – Hercules Unchained

The first of about a half dozen Hercules flicks in the MST3K library. This one is about Herc and his sex drive kicking into high after he drinks water that makes him forget who he is. It’s light movie pain this time around. The film is low-budget but looks good. The riffs get better after Herc’s arrival with some real winners revolving around Herc’s lust for Omphale and her female servants/dancers. The entire product, however, is brought down by weak sketches — though Mike Nelson is a riot as Steve Reeves who has taken up a career as an exterminator after his acting career didn’t work out.

BEST RIFF:

HERCULES: Ha, ha! I’m beginning to like this place!
QUEEN OMPHALE: And me?
SERVO (as HERCULES): Uh, YOU, I could take or leave.

135) 804 – The Deadly Mantis

Four Universal pictures in and the 8th season feels like it’s dragging. It isn’t that the films they’re showing aren’t worthy of the show, it’s that the lower-end Universal sci-fi/fantasy fare was fairly decent stuff B-movie stuff. It’s still riffable. Except for the opener (“Revenge of the Creature”) I just don’t think the guys ever really synced up right with these films. Here, the riffing is steady and solid. It gets better as it goes along, though most of the jokes revolve around the female lead in the film and come across as fairly juvenile (Though “There’s a mantis in my pantis” is inspired.). At least the plot outside the theater moves along somewhat as Mike and company are hurled into space after a nuke destroys what’s left of Earth. Pearl and Bobo manage to escape in Pearl’s rocket-powered VW Bus. The country-music-in-the-middle-of-nowhere sketch is great but the others are a bit of a mixed bag. That was the issue with the running storyline. It didn’t give the writers much to work with and, aside from the theater sequences, really weren’t much to look forward to.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: So, did you like meeting my privates? (The Bots look at Mike.) I MEAN THE GUYS BACK AT THE BASE!

134) 108 – The Slime People (w/ short: Commando Cody: Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 6)

The aliens have landed and invaded Los Angeles. But you can’t see them. Like almost ever. Because the news describes them a lot and there’s a lot of fog which covers them up. There’s more fog here than “The Fog”. Our heroes drive from place to place and meet a dude with a goat (Servo: “It might work better if he made it into a coat instead of just carrying it around the whole time…”) before hiding out in a butcher shop (“Good thing they’re in a butcher shop…if one of them gets a black eye, they’ll have a cold steak to put on it!” says Joel.) and then eventually fighting the spear-tossing slime people. The episode is a riot with better joke pacing and great humor. Slightly above “The Crawling Hand” for the consistency. It’s joined but, yet, ANOTHER Commando Cody short which plays into a hilarious sketch where Joel and the Bots put Cody on trial. The Cody shorts would continue through most of Season 1 but it’s already reached a point of fatigue. The episode is available on YouTube.

BEST RIFF:

MAN: Look at this! Blonde hair!
SERVO: Yeah, you can USUALLY find blonde hair in a field of WHEAT…
CROW: At NIGHT!
JOEL: In FOG!

133) 313 – Earth vs. the Spider (w short: Speech: Using Your Voice)

It’s another Bert I. Gordon adventure which follows the legendary “The Amazing Colossal Man”. This one’s basically about a small town struggling to defeat a giant spider. It’s not the comedy masterpiece that was the adventures of Glenn but it does boast a great short about how to speak properly (“with lots of lip and tongue action”, the narrator says in a creepy voice, prompting laughs from Joel & the Bots) and some great sketches in “Spydor”, a spider-themed rock band as well as Crow’s passion for writing his prized screenplay, “Earth vs. Soup”. One of the other jokes that works well is the cop who laughs at his own jokes. This works precisely because the guys know when to quit with it and don’t drag it on throughout the episode. The episode is also notable for paying homage to the first season with the (possible) fate of Dr. Erhardt finally being revealed and a bit where Dr. Forrester and Frank both say “THANK YOU!” in the same tone after Joel scolds them for being so evil that they stole one of his inventions.

BEST RIFF:

[Reverse angle shot from the POV of the spider. All we can see are the guys surrounding a big furry leg.]
CROW: Oh, imagine if they had the budget to show it ALL!

132) 802 – The Leech Woman

It’s hard to watch this episode because of just how awful the men in the film treat the women in their life — and, perhaps, that was the entire point of the thing. Whatever the case, it’s a cruel film, a mean film. The stock footage of “Africa” doesn’t help things — though it provides for some good jokes from Mike and the Bots who point it out, ad nauseam. The riffing doesn’t get really good until the last third of the film, when June comes back from Africa and sees Neil for the first time in ages — and discovers he has a new fiance. It does have a great sketch, though, as the Bots attempt to extract Mike’s pineal juice to make themselves younger.

BEST RIFF:

CROW (as sleazy guy): Hey, what do you say we go home, turn up the thermostat to 85 and watch a little Matlock?

131) 402 – The Giant Gila Monster

Almost after a dozen episodes without one, MST3K returns to a tried-and-true formula: a giant monster movie. “The Giant Gila Monster” (from the director of episode 407’s “The Killer Shrews”) isn’t a great episode by any means but the consistency of funny riffing improves somewhat after a slew of by-the-numbers entries. The mockery of the male cast members’ penchant for propping their legs up on elevated objects is funny as hell and, thankfully, Joel and the Bots know when to quit so it doesn’t get old. The rest of the episode mocks the town drunk and Chase’s arbitrary musical numbers. This is a fun episode and most welcome after it felt like the show was beginning to buy into its own hype and mail a few episodes in.

BEST RIFF:

(Chase sings a song on his ukelele. His family looks at him, stone-faced.)
SERVO: Ouch! Tough room…
(His little sister does not look at all thrilled.)
JOEL: She’s trying to wish him into the cornfield right now…

130) 420 – The Human Duplicators

Richard Kiel was such a sweet guy, it’s hard to laugh at some of the guys’ jokes about him. The dude was a lot of fun in the two Bond films he starred in and was one of the most memorable villains in Bond lore. He was delightful in Happy Gilmore and easily had one of the best lines in the film (“And YOU can count…on ME, waiting for YOU in the parking lot!”…gets me EVERY single time). Regardless, Kiel’s the butt of many of the jokes here. Perhaps Joel felt bad about that and that’s why he becomes the guys’ pseudo-hero in “Eegah!”, shown in the 5th season. Regardless, the episode is steadily riffed, but not quite on par with the last few episodes before it this season. It’s the episode after this that begins a nice streak that ends the fourth year of MST3K nicely.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: “This is ‘Beverly Hills Cop’, only the slow, white version.

129) 1205 – Killer Fish

(Available on Netflix)

“Killer Fish…is like watching the entire 1970’s go on the world’s worst vacation”, according to Kinga Forrester. And it is. And the frustrating thing about the episode is that the execution of the film makes everything uneven. One moment, you’re dealing with Lee Majors in a shower. The next, you’re witnessing a photoshoot. The next, you’re seeing piranha eat somebody while James Franciscus somehow channels Guy Pearce as he smugly stands in front of a piranha tank like a James Bond villain. The film is, at the very least, watchable. Of the six films presented thus far, it’s quality. The riffing, however, comes in fits. When it slows down, it really slows down. When the riffing takes off and the cast starts hitting jokes like the Steph Curry rains three-pointers, it’s hilarious. The best shots come near the end, when our group of heroes is attempting to survive being stranded on a boat in the middle of the piranha-infested lake. The belly-laughs are few and far between, however, as most of consistent riffs only induce mild chuckling, at best. The problem is that there’s always some sort of un-riffable sequence that murders any momentum Jonah and the Bots create. Case-in-point: the inclusion of Growler, Gypsy and M. Waverly during the bit where Karen is attacked in the reservoir by the piranha. Suddenly, Growler comes into the theater with, along with M. Waverly and a piano. Gypsy hangs from the ceiling and a full-on song breaks out. The entire cast appears to be having fun…but it just isn’t funny. It’s silly. Might it have worked better as a sketch? Yes! Considering just how weak the sketches are in this episode, the song would have gone a long way in improving things on that front. The beauty of MST3K is the simplicity. Every single character has a place in the show. We’ve done different characters in the theater. It’s an experiment that hasn’t worked. Furthermore, Growler makes about a half dozen more appearances in the theater throughout the film and, aside from his first bit (the Kool-Aid bit listed below), his quips are really off-putting. This sort of thing worked for Joel in Cinematic Titanic…but this isn’t Cinematic Titanic. So, while the riffing saves this from being a total loss, it’s too sparse. Combine that with weak sketch work and “Killer Fish” is the weakest offering of the 12th season.

BEST RIFF:

(A prop plane takes off, flying over water.)
CROW: Good move! The director is high-tailin’ it out of here!

128) 602 – Invasion U.S.A. (w/ short: A Date With Your Family)

A bunch of people walk into a bar and watch as World War 3 unfolds on live TV…very slowly. In fact, it’s more like a mix of stock footage and people watching a sweaty guy frantically read about how much we suck at war. Anyhow, Russia eventually takes over everything and one of their soldiers tries to rape one of the female characters in a fairly disturbing scene where she struggles and falls to her death — except the whole thing’s a dream. Aren’t you glad? This. Movie. Sucked. Even by MST3K standards. It’s awful and painful on every single level and the riffing barely saves it as there’s just far too much talking and dialogue, though they do manage some great lines near the end during the taxi driver sequence. The short is the highlight of this episode. It’s sexist as hell and way outdated and the guys make sure to go all in with that, making cracks about the darkness of the otherwise perfect American family.

BEST RIFF:

(Lots of talking occurs)
SERVO: Will somebody PLEASE invade SOMETHING!

127) 522 – Teenage Crime Wave

Two murderous teens break out of prison and escape to the country where the terrorize a wholesome farm family. “Teenage Crime Wave” is one of the films featured on the show that’s watchable to the point where the riffs don’t matter much and that’s probably why sitting through this one is a bit of a chore. It’s still funny but not “funny ha-ha” as the young kids say these days. The sketches are also pretty fun. The SOL Deil sketch needed more time to breathe but the “Mystos Commerical” sketch was perfection, even though it bordered on heavy-handed comedy overkill. Mentos commercials were terrible on their own so a parody feels like it’s low-hanging fruit.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: At this point, it’s more like a “Teenage Crime RIPPLE”.

126) 901 – The Projected Man

Season 9 starts with a stuffy British film about a professor (played by Bryant Halliday who was “Vorelli” in 818’s “Devil Doll”) who becomes a killer after he’s transported or “projected” to another location nearby. The film’s tone reminds me a bit of 1101’s “Reptilicus”, only with a murderer instead of a giant lizard. The riffing isn’t totally memorable though Tom Servo’s obsession with Sheila, a woman who spends a good portion of the film in plaid picnic blanket lingerie, produces some big laughs. The riffing does get stronger near the end but it’s nothing to write home about. The episode IS notable for finally ending the continued storyline sketches as a wormhole sucks everyone back into their own dimension, pre-ape apocalypse, and sees Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy wandering into “Castle Forrester”, a structure that has been in Pearl’s family for generations. It’s here that the “Deep 13” vibe returns, somewhat, and episodes can be enjoyed out of order once again.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: You know, even when stuff’s happening in this movie, stuff doesn’t happen.

125) 1004 – Future War

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes another MST3K feature which says “hold my beer”. “Future War” stars Daniel Bernhardt, a Jean Claude Van Damme look-alike who starred in several “Bloodsport” sequels, as a (checks notes) mute, kickboxing slave from another time who crash lands on Earth and joins a hooker-turned-nun in the fight against dinosaurs that are bred to hunt slaves. It’s insanity. There’s no other way around it. It’s cheap, too, and it’s hilarious to watch Bernhardt kick and choke and punch dinosaurs. The problem is that the riffing is kinda dull until about midway through the feature when it finally picks up — then frustratingly peters out. By then, it’s hard not to wish for the episode to simply end.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: See, I COULD point out that this isn’t “the future” and it’s not a “war”, but…you know me, I don’t like to complain.

124) 806 – The Undead

We’re on our first (and last) Corman adventure of the SyFy era. We wouldn’t see another Corman production until Season 11 at this point. And it’s time to get weird. A woman is hypnotized and sent back to medieval times where unrelated stuff happens. It’s so goofy and weird, it makes everything we’ve seen so far from Corman look like a set of masterpieces. The riffing is frustratingly uneven on this one to start, then gets going midway through when all hell breaks loose (literally) to the point where Mike says the film needs a flow chart and remarks, “I’ve never known more about what ISN’T going on in a movie.” The Livia sketch is one of my absolute favorites as she visits the SOL, then can’t control transforming into various creatures and objects, such as a football and a container of bleach, which she eventually remains because she gets “stuck”. Good stuff.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: You know, when Satan thinks you’ve gone too far, you’ve gone too far.

123) 1009 – Hamlet

The Bard meets MST3K as Mike and the Bots take on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, an episode which is infamous for being one of the worst on the show. It’s not close to that. That’s not to say it’s the greatest. The version they watch is crusty and old (a German dubbed version that Mike “won” the privilege of watching after beating Pearl in a game of Three Card Monte; he really wanted something by Branagh or even Mel Gibson’s version but Pearl turns out to be crafty) but the guys are all in with their riffing. This is one of the most famous plays in all of history. When would there be another chance at something like this? The production is dull. Black-and-white. No real decor. It’s bare bones theater. Yet, the guys make the absolute best of this. Usually, in moments like this, they sell the guys as afraid and accepting of their fate. Not so. Yes, the riffing doesn’t always hit but, when they do, it’s good: “May a flight of angels see thee to they rest” is met with “But they’re Northwestern Angels, so they’ll be late.” It’s playful stuff.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: This place could use a shrub…hell, even a stick would cheer it up.

122) 1010 – It Lives By Night

It’s a bat…man. A scientist who deals with bats runs afoul of the little night rats and — you guessed it — starts to become a bat himself. Or a weird gorilla/wolfman thing depending on the terrible lighting. The film is your usual dreary 70’s pile of crap this show foisted on us in the latter years of the SyFy era but the riffing is a hell of a lot of fun and the hilarity involving the guys’ incredulity that bats could do much damage, if any, to the locals. Servo’s disbelief that a “creature that weighs one pound kicked a guy’s ass” is so genuine, you can’t help but laugh.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: So, who’s this movie’s target audience?
SERVO: Oh, I don’t know…a bat fetishist named “Stan”…and even he missed this.

121) 311 – It Conquered the World (w/ short: Snow Thrills)

It’s Peter Graves vs. a flying…something. It’s like a bat mixed with a bird mixed with an oven mitt. And it possesses your family and friends like Pokemon Go! and makes them do weird shit. This is the first Corman flick we’re subjected to on this series (we’d see him two more times in the next six episodes) and it’s a lot of fun to watch by itself. The riffing (which is slightly better on “Snow Thrills”) is fairly steady here with several of the jokes coming at the expense of Peter Graves. Crow’s Peter Graves impression is right on and we would revisit that obsession two years later in Episode 517 with “The Beginning of the End”.

BEST RIFFS:

CROW (as Peter Graves): Next, on Biography, ME, being terrorized by a giant plastic flying mitten!

120) 407 – The Killer Shrews (w/ short: Junior Rodeo Daredevils)

Dogs dressed in weird fabric attack a bunch of drunken morons on an island in a film directed by the man who brought us “The Giant Gila Monster”. It’s the perfect complement to the episode prior to it in “Attack of the Giant Leeches” in that the star attraction (the “shrews”) are as ridiculous as the “leeches” in the last film. The crew spends most of the time trying to riff on the horrible audio in the film but the best riffs come at the end when the action ramps up and the Shrews go on the attack. It’s frustrating to see another movie go to waste like that but the last half hour is worth the wait. Some funny sketch work makes up for the rest of it which is great since we get a somewhat lackluster sketch involving rodeo cowboys.

BEST RIFF:

(The group opens the fence door and looks around.)
SERVO (as main character): Well…looks like the coast is clear!)
(CROW and JOEL suddenly make attacking, rabid shrew sounds.)

119) 503 – Swamp Diamonds (w/ short: What to Do on a Date)

Another Roger Corman adventure, this time in the Louisiana swamps where a group of women who just broke out of prison go on a quest for hidden diamonds in the Bayou. This flick would be NOTHING without the great Beverly Garland who would go on to become one of MST3K’s biggest ambassadors next to Miles O’Keefe of “Cave Dwellers” fame. The riffing here starts well enough with the “dating” short which tells you how to ACT on a date rather than what to do or where to go. This inspires all the sketches on the show as Servo attempts to take Gypsy out on a date that ends in Gypsy putting him in the Friend Zone. Funny stuff. The riffing on Swamp Diamonds starts slow but gets better as it goes along. Most of the jokes come at the expense of the notion that every single women in the film shamelessly attempts to get into his pants as well as the cattiness of the female actresses. It’s a fun episode, if not all that memorable.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Do you guys think it’s possible that the Video Watchdog people are WRONG and that Roger Corman really IS a terrible director?

118) 320 – The Unearthly (w/ shorts: Posture Pals & Appreciating Our Parents)

A weird medical monster movie starring Tor Johnson who you’d THINK the jokes would revolve around — but they only target him when necessary. Most of the funny stuff comes at the expense of the doctor stuff, which the boys have a history of excelling at with “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”, “Ring of Terror”, and “The Atomic Brain” just to name a few. It also helps that the episode has fantastic riffing on two great shorts in “Posture Pals” and “Appreciating Our Parents”. Joel has the line of the week on the latter when the narrator says that the little boy, for the time being, must “put things away”. Joel: “Yes, like all his hopes and dreams!” Great stuff.

BEST RIFF:

JOEL: Man, the doctor lives in the same house and you still have to wait an hour?!

117) 318 – Star Force: Fugitive Alien II

The final Sandy Frank film we’re subjected to is the sequel to whatever the hell we saw in the original “Fugitive Alien” — only it makes even less sense. The riffing is a lot of fun on this one, far more loose and relaxed than the original “Fugitive Alien” and noticeably better than the episode which came before this one in “Viking Women”. The style very much reminds one of sitting in the dark with your friends, late on a summer evening, tossing back some cold ones and watching a really crappy movie and just having fun. Even the expansion of the “Forklift Song” works and doesn’t feel repetitious due to the constant change in lyrics which precede the chorus. It’s a nice send-off in the Sandy Frank parade of films.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: So! Let’s review the plot so far: they went into outer space and, uh…let’s see, uh…oh, wait a minute, it’s, uh…
CROW: Yeah…
SERVO: They went into space…it’s on the tip of my tongue!
CROW: Oh, I know! I know! They suffocated for awhile!
SERVO: Yeah!
JOEL: Then came lots of explosions…
(SERVO and CROW make ship and firing sounds)

116) 113 – The Black Scorpion

The first season concludes the same way it began: with a black-and-white creature feature. This one features giant mutant scorpions (or just regular scorpions…I dunno) who go nuts all over Mexico. The episode ends the first year on a nice high note which is fantastic, considering the slow start it had. There are some great lines here, with a free-wheeling relaxed style from the cast. Servo (as Ramos): “I’ll just move this high voltage power line with this piece of metal…let me dip it in water first.”. There’s a roar heard off-screen as two men hold a rescued baby. Servo: “No more beans and tortillas for THAT kid.” A Mexican man warns Dr. Ramos not to go on his journey. Crow: “Look, Frank…drop the cheesy accent…” A precocious kid serves Tequila to adults as Joel says “Take a shot for yourself, little buddy!” and Servo dubs him a “kiss-up”. Just some good stuff. The film, itself, reminds me a lot of the 5th season’s “The Beginning of the End”. It’s so silly. Squeaking prehistoric scorpions which have somehow survived inside of rocks…I just can’t.

BEST RIFF:

NARRATOR: And, then…tragedy struck!
JOEL: “We ran out of stock footage!”

115) 417 – Crash of Moons (w/ short: General Hospital, Part 3)

It’s another round of “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger” and if you loved epic plotlines involving invisible rockets…you’re gonna LOVE endless sequences of rockets taking off and landing…and taking off…and landing…and taking off and landi–AAAAAAAAAAA!!! The riffing here is about the same as it was on the last entry with a little less emphasis on Rocky, Bobby and Winky. The sketches are decent, with the highlight being the VERY cute “Gypsy Moon” sketch where Crow and Servo attempt to serenade Gypsy and get her to fall in love with them. This, by the way, is the last time we’ll see “General Hospital” and that’s a damn shame because I think they were riffed beautifully.

BEST RIFF:

CROW (as narrator): Even in the future, booze satisfies!

114) 413 – Manhunt in Space (w/ short: General Hospital, Part 1)

Two episodes of “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger” are put together, a’la “Fugitive Alien” to make “Manhunt in Space”, a film which gets some great riffing courtesy of the constant referral to “invisible” ships…which shouldn’t be that hard to find, despite the insistence of every single character saying otherwise. The rest of the jokes come at the expense of “Winky” and “Bobby” who are two of the most annoying sci-fi kids since the Gamera films. The riffing style reminds me a lot of what was on “Rocketship X-M” and that’s just fine with me. The riffing is even good on the “General Hospital” soap opera short (which my Mom watched at one point in her life) which makes for an incredibly fun episode.

BEST RIFF:

REGGIE: No use kidding ourselves, Vena. It’s like a million to one shot that we’ll ever be seen…
CROW: Oh, they’re on Comedy Central!

113) 109 – Project Moonbase (w/ shorts: Commando Cody: Radar Men From the Moon, Chapters 7 & 8)

Two more Cody shorts to lead off — and they’re both hilariously riffed (the line about “Cody Institute for Selective Editing” is great, poking fun at the silly “cliffhanger” endings of each chapter that don’t work once you see the solution edited in during the opening of the next chapter). That was just a harbinger for things to come. “Project Moonbase” is just a fun ride. Gone are the gritty, ugly black-and-white monster films we’ve been seeing. We get pure sci-fi here and it’s still awful. Sexist as hell (the big boss threatening to spank a young Captain is just unforgivable) and not so futuristic (the Dodgers are still playing in Brooklyn, according to a radio broadcast; “This is the future where the Dodgers were sold BACK to Brooklyn,” says Crow. The pauses between riffs are gone. Joel and the Bots are rapid fire as the movie just provides perfect fodder for them with the cheesy effects and horrible characterizations. Joel & the Bots outright booing the ending is just the cherry on top of a great first season cake. The sketches are a lot of fun (SPACOM!) as the stiffness is gone and the interaction between Joel, Servo and Crow is much more natural. This is, easily, one of the best episodes of Season One.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: “Spanking really IS protocol in the upper echelons of NASA.”

112) 112 – Untamed Youth

This is the first song-and-dance film the show got a hold of and it’s SO good. Joel & the Bots rarely fail when it comes to movies with musical numbers and the ones seen in this film are so odd and corny, the frustrated tone of the riffs is perfect: when a character just arbitrarily begins shuckin’ and jivin’ and singing (acapella, which just makes it even weirder) in a cotton field, Servo just goes “Shut up…don’t even start,” and all you can do is laugh because the scene just FEELS that way, especially with the lack of musical accompaniment. That’s every other sequence in the film, a few of them courtesy of then-fantasy girl, Mamie Van Doren who wails and gyrates so much, I’m surprised she didn’t dislocate something. There’s a great line where she’s on a bed, posing seductively with a piece of cloth pulled over her bent leg, prompting Servo to say “Check out that LEVER! NICE fulcrum!” It’s simple stuff like that which makes the episode a riot. The sketches aren’t great, however. Gypsy having a virus is a cute idea (she needed a spotlight) but it’s just a little boring. Regardless, this and “Project Moonbase” are a joy to watch in the first year and this is the best of Season One.

BEST RIFF:

(One of the cotton pickers in the fields just randomly sings and dances in a cotton field. Everyone joins him, singing and dance and it’s really weird.)
JOEL: Interesting enough, this scene was included in the film, “Scared Straight”…

111) 415 – The Beatniks (w/ short: General Hospital, Part 2)

A black-and-white “Beatnik” musical of sorts which devolves into a noir thriller. The jokes fly fast and furious right out of the gate, thanks to another round of “General Hospital” which just asks for verbal fists to the face. The best parts of the episode center around the musical numbers, like every other episode featuring a “musical”. The riffs are great during these spots and everything else is fairly even-keel, too. It’s too bad the sketch-work isn’t on par with the rest of it, but so it goes.

BEST RIFFS:

CROW: “You know, if any real Beatniks come by, it’s really gonna be embarrassing…”

110) 523 – Village of the Giants

We arrive at the final Bert I. Gordon romp of MST3K’s run (so far — the Netflix era has only just begun) and it’s odd for Gordon. Gone is the thoughtful camp, replaced by gratuitous sequences of scantily clad men and women dancing in slow motion, jiggling everything they have on their bodies. And, as Crow says during the first round of it, “So far, there’s not one thing wrong with this movie!” But, therein lies the problem: the line between sophomoric jokes and true incredulity is very thin and there’s not a whole lot that can be done with giant boob jokes. The rest of the time is spent making fun of Tommy Kirk’s dweebiness and Ron Howard (who is in single digits here) for making “Willow”, which the boys debate over in a running joke that runs the length of the film.

BEST RIFF:

(The teens dance endlessly.)
CROW: Mike, do you think this scene is providing characterization and establishing narrative?
MIKE: No…but who cares?

109) 421 – Monster A-Go-Go (w/ short: Circus on Ice)

I think my next MST3K list will be “The Worst Films Shown on MST3K”. I mean, they’re almost always horrible but some are more watchable than others. But, sometimes, there comes a film that even riffing doesn’t fix. This might be one of those. There’s a monster on the loose and government agents (or whatever) are after it. It kills and murders. And then, at the end, there was no monster. It was all made up. You can’t really hear the dialogue which just adds to the confusion. The riffing is somewhat steady with some great lines (Servo playing the narrator promising “unspeakable horror” over and over is great) and the show’s “Pina Colada song analysis” sketch is absolute gold. It’s just too bad the short isn’t very good.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO (as NARRATOR): This is a test. Had this been an ACTUAL movie, you would have been entertained!

108) 601 – Girls Town

Mamie Van Doren stars as a woman who goes to an all-girl reform school where Paul Anka is the object of every girl’s dream. Like, he’s actually a visitor at the school and girls drool all over him. And he actually singes “Ave Maria” inside a church in one of the most embarrassing, hokey musical moments in film history. The film is largely unappealing due to the behavior of the male characters (the film literally opens with an attempted rape…which two other characters ignore) and I just can’t get with it. That said, the guys do a good job riffing the movie — but it doesn’t really pick up until about a quarter of the way through and they do nothing but add to the sexism by making light of the rape attempt which does not age well upon modern viewings. The episode IS notable for adding in the “Umbilicus” gimmick where Dr. Forrester tethers the SOL to Earth and is also able to send and receive objects to and from the ship.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: This song is longer than “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida”…

107) 622 – Angels’ Revenge

What would you do if you took “Charlie’s Angels” and cast it with actresses who couldn’t act? Well…you’d probably STILL have “Charlie’s Angels”, honestly. It’s the type of film Uma Thurman describes in Pulp Fiction (“Fox Force Five” — something even Mike and the Bots make a reference to during the riffing) starring about a half dozen ladies attempting to break up a drug ring run by Jack Palance. Jim Backus and Alan Hale (who would later be seen in “The Great Spider Invasion”) also make appearances here in a film that tries so hard to be sexy, it ends up being a boring parody of films that do it right. Even Mike and the Bots become disillusioned when the “Angels” make two drug dealers remove their clothes on a public beach and declare that the director of the film “doesn’t have Ed Wood’s passion for this kind of material.” The riffing is fairly solid but is more of a fit of incredulous reactions to this rip-off of “Charlie’s Angels”.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: All right! You know what? I’m just givin’ in and LOOKIN’ at the breasts.

106) 816 – Prince of Space

The first Japanese import we’ve had during the SyFy era, “Prince of Space” is about a goofy hero with a face-guard and a cape who defends the Earth against “Krankor”, a kinduva human Muppet with a really weird, slow cackle of a laugh. It’s not as endearing or fun as the “Gamera” films or anything Sandy Frank brought us and the jokes get old quick (Did anyone explain that the constant “cram school” riffs were overbearing to the point of being borderline racist?) but, overall, the riffing is mostly fun. The sketches, while not entirely funny, are interesting as Pearl and the SOL are sucked into a wormhole, causing some weird crap to to occur aboard the ship (conversations are out of order, Mike becomes a robot, and Mike and the Bots end up in a weird dimension where the bridge is transformed into an actual forest) before Pearl and her minions find themselves in ancient Roman times, another ridiculous stop on the way to normalcy. It’s not a bad episode, just not at the bar the show has set.

BEST RIFF:

(The camera pans across empty streets.)
CROW: A rare Godzilla-free day.

105) 819 – Invasion of the Neptune Men

This would be the last Japanese flick featured in the SyFy era and it’s a doozy. If you thought Krankor and his invasion of Earth was clunky and awful, just wait until you experience the last third of “Invasion of the Neptune Men” which features non-stop shots of radars and missiles and ships firing at one another and exploding…all to the point where Mike and Crow actually lose hope and semi-retire from watching the film for a bit. Reminiscent of yelling for “The Wild Wild World of Batwoman” to end, Servo losing it near the end of this film, with his “Stock Footage Song” (in which he starts with a quick little musical lead-off — and then blows up, yelling at the movie to go to hell), is as soul-cleansing as it is hilarious. It’s just too bad the riffing isn’t as consistent during the first half. The sketches are so-so with a silly “Who’s On First”-inspired sketch about Noh Theater and how it relates to Kabuki Theater. The best moment (which is anything but the dumb “ancient Rome” sketches with Pearl and Brain Guy) comes from Krankor visiting the SOL during Mike and the Bots’ darkest hour, as they’re huddling in fear and confusion over the hellish mess that is the movie. It’s a surprisingly moving moment that makes you smile…if only for a few minutes before we witness the awful climax of the movie.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: You know, maybe the Japanese didn’t know they were making a film, per se. Maybe they thought they were working in a different medium…like fabric sculptures or something…

104) 201 – Rocketship X-M

Changes were abound with the lead-off episode of the second season of the show. The intro sequence no longer looked cheap, with better models and new footage. The ship’s bridge had been completely re-designed to look more industrial, adding flashing beacon lights at the top of the ship’s hallway door behind Joel. The “Hexfield Viewscreen” gimmick was introduced where Joel and the Bots could now be contacted by various beings and people outside the ship — even though the viewscreen’s door wasn’t there yet, so Joel and the Bots simply turned off the light inside the compartment housing the actor on the other side of the screen and pretended they were gone. Deep 13 was more immersive. We got to see more of Dr. Forrester’s secret base of operations and Jerry and Sylvia, Dr. Forrester’s horrific housefly/human hybrid things, were also introduced. Josh “J. Elvis” Weinstein had left the show to find his fortune, so two changes had to be made: Dr. Erhardt could no longer be Dr. Forrester’s right-hand man and Tom Servo’s voice had to be re-cast. I’ve never liked Dr. Erhardt. I always thought he was whiny and annoying and he never connected with me. Enter Frank Conniff who not only filled in as Clay’s second banana…Frank became a legend. Literally named “TV’s Frank”, he’s arguably one of the greatest characters in comedy television because he’s accessible. He’s supposed to be “evil” for all intents and purposes, but he’s lovable because he’s a goofball. You can’t help but feel terrible for him as Forrester pushes him around and abuses him because he’s human. He has empathy and he’s hilarious. So, that was one casting issue out of the way. Servo’s big shoes were filled by the great Kevin Murphy who would play the voice of Servo for the next nine years until the end of the 10th year. This Servo was more jovial, more expressive, more alive. He could sing (in harmony…just wait until “The Starfighters”…my god, it’s gorgeous) and he could shoot the breeze and you were laughing. So, while I miss Weinstein, I don’t totally grieve his absence on the show. In any case, the second season gets off to a roaring start with all the new blood injected into the show. The writing became much better. Riffing was tighter and more natural and films were slightly more edited to eliminate dead spots. Jokes were rapid-fire, better-timed and more of them seemed to land and induce a good laugh thanks to Joel and the Bots becoming more observational and riffing during dead spots where there wasn’t any dialogue and, most important, they stopped coldly reading lines. More emotion and acting was put into the riffs. Perhaps “Rocketship X-M” is a simple, run-of-the-mill episode, perhaps it isn’t. It’s still very funny, with the guys lampooning Lloyd Bridges’ “SeaQuest” time with the immortal running MST3K riff, “By this time, my lungs were aching for air” as well as the guy from “The Rockford Files” who never seems to shut up. Everything is much improved. Even the sketches have more energy (future host Mike Nelson plays a space vixen who Joel speaks with using his pop culture knowledge of “space vixens”. Great stuff, all around.

BEST RIFF:

MAN: We’re still drifting…
CROW: …off to SLEEP!

103) 208 – The Lost Continent

Get ready…for HOT…ROCK…CLIMBING…ACTION! Oh my god, this film. I lost weight watching Robert Lippert’s epic where these guys traipse through the jungle and climb endless rocky mountain summits to view — and then shoot — stop-motion dinosaurs. The riffing starts out slow but picks up speed once the men reach the “Lost Continent”. Most of the jokes have to do with the sheer amount of rock-climbing footage seen here, but you’d be amazed at how much MILEAGE those jokes get in this episode mainly because Joel and the Bots play everything as fed up and frustrated. The skits are the weakest thing about the show. One of them is half-realized, with Mike Nelson playing Hugh Beaumont for the very first time. He’d reprise that role later on in the series. Even still, when the riffing does pick up, it quickly moves up this list.

BEST RIFF:

(EVEN MORE rock-climbing scenes are shown)
SERVO (as narrator): “From the director who brought you that earlier stuff…more of the same!”
CROW: Doesn’t the action let up for a MOMENT?!
JOEL: This is better than that Indiana Jones truck sequence!

102) 212 – Godzilla vs. Megalon

The first of the Japanese monster films on MST3K is a Godzilla film — one of two. After this, Gamera would become the preferred MST3K Kaiju. It’s a great episode. The film is your typical Godzilla film: a couple monsters shake loose and wreak havoc in Japan. Jet Jaguar, a robot invented by a total goofball inventor who runs around, toting his nephew  with his friend, is sent to summon Godzilla to take them out. The riffing is fast here with the boys mocking “Roxanne”, the nephew of the inventor in the film, mercilessly. It’s not hard to see why. He talks with this whiny, high-pitched voice and you just want him to shut up. The film is just bizarre with lots of unnecessary close-ups and characters doing some stupid things (One of the main characters is seen on a surveillance camera…he knows it’s there and waves at it; Crow goes, “It’s the All-Idiot Channel!”). The big climatic monster fight is plain silly with Jet Jaguar becoming 100 feet tall and battling two monsters alongside Godzilla — who has somehow learned how to slide forward on his tail. The sketches are funny as hell, with the highlight being the insanely dark-humored “Orville Redenbacher” popcorn sketch which ends with Crow berating his “son”, played by Tom Servo as Servo screams in anguish over the lack of a life he has being related to his “dad”, Orville. It’s apropos of nothing, but it doesn’t need to be when it’s this well-executed. The episode is also notable for Joel finally ditching that god-awful baby blue jumpsuit and debuting his trademark crimson red jumper.

BEST RIFF:

MAN: Hey, listen! It would be funny if the earthquakes destroyed your robot!
JOEL: Yeah, it would be funny if the earthquake killed your FAMILY!

101) 302 – Gamera

With Godzilla films out of the running, MST3K introduced us to “Gamera”, a giant turtle that could fly and breathe fire and trash Japan just like its spiritual cousin, Godzilla. The film was a creation of Japan’s Daiei Films and was intended to try and grab some of that sweet 60’s Giant Japanese Monster money. The riffs in the film come at the expense of Kenny, the little kid in the film who somehow befriends Gamera and is allowed, by the Japanese military, to pretty much do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to do it. Like the Joey the Lemur stuff in “King Dinosaur”, the joke never gets old because the characters pretty much DO allow Kenny to do what he wants and keep doing it throughout the movie. The sketches are great, as well, with Servo singing a ballad for Kenny’s turtle as Crow completely messes it up. We also meet “Gamera” who is represented by Mike Nelson. (“I don’t have to separate my laundry because it’s…all green,” he says). Still, besides the Kenny stuff, the movie is so goofy, Joel and the Bots miss some targets, so it’s not as good as it should be.

BEST RIFF:

(Kenny looks at Gamera as he comes up over a hillside. Gamera looks back at him.)
CROW (as Gamera): Those kids at school, they tease you, Kenny…because they’ve never tasted HELL. Today, we turn the tables!

100) 514 – Teenage Strangler (w/ short: Is This Love?)

MST3K knows how to pick ’em. “Teenage Strangler” falls into the same category as “Daddy-O” and “Untamed Youth”, The dialogue, the weird “Painted Hills” color pallet and hammy overacting help yank it into “Attack of the Eye Creatures” territory. Mike and the Bots do what they can with the material their given, starting with a great short about young love which is just as goofy, but shot in black-and-white. The feature sees the guys taking multiple shots at the dweeby “Mikey” who is such an easy target, his place in MST3K history should be solid — except it isn’t. Torgo, the Gamera kids, Jack Perkins, and Glenn are all more memorable than he is and, unless you’re an absolute die hard, you may not even remember him or this episode. That’s a shame. It’s not riffed as well as most of Season 5 was, but it was solid.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Are cops Constitutionally ABLE to ground kids?

 

99) 404 – Teenagers From Outer Space

Despite the threat of “TORTCHA!”, “Teenagers From Outer Space” is charming and easy to take. The plot revolves around teen aliens who land on Earth during some political strife on their planet. The ray gun which reduces people and animals to skeletons is as funny as the alien names (“Thor” and “Derek” — I kid you not) and the riffing is steady and hilarious. The sketches are extremely funny with the Mads showcasing a “Resusci-Annie” ventriloquist doll that literally “chokes” while on stage (“I’ll perform CPR…you call 911 while drinking water”, says Dr. Forrester — deadpan at its finest) and Joel and the Bots re-enact a movie theater “Feature Presentation” commercial. This is some good stuff.

BEST RIFF:

(DEREK drives his car while he thinks of THE LEADER’S words from earlier.)
THE LEADER: WE are the supreme race! WE have the supreme weapons!
CROW: Aw, turn Rush Limbaugh OFF!

 

98) 1108 – The Loves of Hercules

(Available on Netflix)

“The Loves of Hercules” comes to us in the fine tradition of other Hercules films which have crossed MST3K’s radar like “Hercules Against the Moon Men”, “Hercules Unchained”, and “Hercules and the Captive Women”. So sue me if I wasn’t looking forward to this one. Sure enough, “The Loves of Hercules” is boring as all hell. And, yes, I’m talking both the film and the riffing. Aside from a few gems (listed below) and the ridiculous dragon sequence, the writers seem to have a massive off-day here with nearly nothing landing for a good belly laugh. Making fun of Hargitay’s accent can only get you so much mileage and attempting to take swipes at character names is really only funny once. The problem, I think, is that there’s a lot of downtime in the film. Between the “action” sequences is a LOT of talking and there isn’t much Jonah and the Bots can do with that.

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: I must have fallen asleep in Greek Mythology the day they talked about Sasquatch.

 

97) 618 – High School Big Shot (w/ short: Out of This World)

If “I Accuse My Parents” was darker and more depressing and had an alcoholic father instead of an alcoholic mother with not one hint of a happy ending, you would have “High School Big Shot”, a film which continues the fine MST3K outlook that nobody is safe from the world of organized crime. Luckily, the riffing is decent as most of the jokes come at the expense of poor “Marvin”, an insecure kid who is lured into the mafia by way of a girl he likes. It’s preceded by a short about guys who deliver and market bread and supermarkets — and how they’re puzzlingly watched over by an angel and her Satanic nemesis for some reason. It’s a bizarre, surreal short and, thus, in keeping with MST3K’s fine tradition of pseudo-Lynchian material.

BEST RIFF:

CROW (as Marvin): Are those voices in your head or mine?

 

96) 524 – 12 to the Moon (w/ short: Design for Dreaming)

A bunch of goofballs representing every race in the world go to the moon and somehow run afoul of aliens because why the hell not? Aliens can live on the moon, too! And that’s not even the worst of it. The film is so cheaply produced, you’ll notice the stage lighting above “the moon” before the guys do. I mean, the filmmakers didn’t even try to hide them. And don’t even get me started on the space helmets “with invisible face shields” because the producers couldn’t even afford decent costumes. Those moments where the guys don’t have a joke and just laugh? This is one of those moments. It’s not a terrible film. It has conviction, but it’s hard to take a film seriously when the space aliens’ language can be read and interpreted only by the Chinese for some reason. The riffing is fairly solid if not wholly funny. One of the running jokes here might seem familiar. Before we had “Butch Deadlift” and “Big McLargeHuge” in “Space Mutiny”, we had “Cliff Beefpile” and “Chunk Pylon” in “12 to the Moon”. It was just better realized in Season 8. The main feature is preceded by “Design for Dreaming” which the guys have a ton of fun with (the riffing is funnier here than in the feature film) but I’m more partial to its sister film, “Once Upon a Honeymoon”. Still, the running gag where Nuveena, the dancing lady from the short (Bridget Nelson, Mike’s real-life spouse), shows up to court and marry Mike is a scream — especially since the only way to communicate with Nuveena is to sing to her like you’re in a musical, so hearing Mike go baritone and plead with her to go easy on his friends is a treat.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Way to ruin the space walk, Chuckles!

 

95) 518 – The Atomic Brain (w/ short: What About Juvenile Delinquency?)

Another piece of sci-fi sleaze about a wealthy old woman who recruits younger women to come to her mansion…so she can put her brain inside one of them and let her male suitor have sex with her again. Yep, it’s gross and it’s a really unpleasant, horrible film, reminiscent of “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”. The riffing is fairly decent (Mike and the Bots’ “Dr. Chad rap” at the beginning ALWAYS makes me laugh and sets the overall tone and the constant “she’s old/she creeps/she’s so/damn old music riffs are funny), though it’s not as funny as I remember it being, which is weird since “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” still holds up for me upon repeated viewings. It might be that this is one of the episodes I overdosed on during my many early marathons. This episode marks the first time Magic Voice got her own sketch (she interacts with the film’s creepy narrator and it’s hilarious) and that’s really cool. The Juvenile Delinquency short is perfection as most of the shorts usually are, but I’m baffled as to why this didn’t hold up for me.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: So, did they put stuffing around the “cat brain” so it wouldn’t rattle around inside her skull?!

 

94) 620 – Danger! Death Ray!

A man who could only be described as a constipated Javier Bardem steals a “death ray” which was “made for peaceful purposes”. And it’s up to a EUROPEAN American secret agent to save the world. James Bond this obviously isn’t, especially with the odd cocktail lounge music and the lack of witty dialogue and wisecracks…or any suspense or action, really. The riffing is funny and solid — though some repetitive jokes permeate the proceedings (the “Watermelon Man” thing during any and all music arrangements is long in the tooth as are the “THIS MAN” declarations) and the sketch work continues to be so-so throughout the 6th season.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: It was an interesting choice not to have ANY suspense in this movie…

 

93) 517 – The Beginning of the End

Bert I. Gordon returns with another black-and-white disaster flick in “The Beginning of the End”. Giant locusts invade the Midwest and it’s up to Audrey Ames and Peter Graves to stop the grasshopper apocalypse…which simply means taking away the postcards with pictures of building they’re climbing. This used to be a Top Ten episode for me…but times have changed. Watching it again, years later, the riffs are still funny but it’s not as funny as I remember. The Peter Graves jokes are fine and I love the classic “Peter Graves” sketch but there are so-called “weaker” episodes that are better than this.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE (as Peter Graves to Frank, who is deaf): Frank! That’s FILTHY! I should wash your hands out with soap!

 

92) 423 – Bride of the Monster (w/ short: Hired!, Part 1)

One of two Ed Wood-directed features on MST3K and I’m still not sure which one of the two is worse. This stars the immortal Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson and a big rubber squid that does nothing unless it’s featured in stock footage. It’s a prime example of why Wood was notorious for making bad films and it’s riffed wonderfully, with most of the jokes coming at the expense of Bela Lugosi (“Now he’ll have the strength of 20 Heroin addicts!”) and Tor Johnson who is just on-board for his appearance. Another short comes before it in “Hired!, Part 1”, which is nowhere near as funny as it should be thanks to the odd decision to cut the short in half and save the second half for the god-awful Manos.

BEST RIFF:

(Bela Lugosi enters his lab and starts setting up.)
SERVO (singing to the “Mr. Rogers” theme): It’s a sinister day in the laboratory, a sinister day in the laboratory…

 

91) 419 – The Rebel Set (w/ short: Johnny at the Fair)

After fake “Rebels” in “Wild Rebels” and “Untamed Youth” and “The Beatniks”, we’re finally given honest-to-gosh beatniks in “The Rebel Set” which doesn’t actually feature any real “rebels”. It’s just a heist movie given a punchy name. It’s preceded by the classic short, “Johnny at the Fair” which is a tour-de-force of riffing from the guys. So much so that is overshadows about half of the feature film. Luckily, it DOES pick up during the second half when the heist kicks into full gear as Joel and the Bots tee off on the bizarre goofiness of the caper (the line where investigators come get the dead body and Crow says “Ok, who wants his Visa card?” always makes me crack up).

BEST RIFF:

CROW: I don’t get why these guys are “Rebels”.

 

90) 619 – Red Zone Cuba (w/ short: Platform, Posture, and Appearance)

Coleman Francis (609’s “Skydivers”) strikes again with a tale of a bunch of yahoos who become involved in a mercenary operation which seeks to invade Cuba. The episode starts with an insanely funny sketch about how to give a great speech which includes having clean shoes and twerking (Crow shouting “Shake your moneymaker!” gets me every single time because that’s just what it looks like the guy is doing.) The film riffing starts slow but picks up after the second half after the dialogue dies down (“Hour after hour after heart-pounding small talk,” proclaims Mike.) and the action starts up…then peters out. Francis, himself, cast himself in the lead, which still confuses the hell out of me being that he’s the most unappealing lead since Joe Don Baker in “Mitchell”.

BEST RIFF:

(A half dozen soldiers storm a large field.)
MIKE: Can you imagine being Fidel Castro and seeing THAT force swarming up at you?

 

89) 520 – Radar Secret Service (w/ short: Last Clear Chance)

I don’t mind government propaganda being showcased on MST3K. I just ask for it to be riffed well. The first portion of it (“Last Clear Chance”) is simply brilliant, taking to task one of those horrible driving films you have to sit through in Driver’s Ed in high school. It’s terrible with a police narrator who comes across as a pure-bred psychopath to the point where Mike and the Bots feel the need to assure viewers that the cop narrating the short film was summarily dismissed due to his “reign of terror”. The second half is a film about the positive virtues of radar. Because it’s the type of film we deserve…but not the film we NEED right now. The first half of the show is focused. The second, not so much — though it does have its moments. The maid (who Mike dubs “the director’s mistress”) coming in and discovering the dead body — and then casually leaving — is hilarious on its own.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE (as narrator): Only RADAR knows what the hell is going on!

 

88) 409 – Indestructible Man (w/ short: The Undersea Kingdom, Chapter 2)

Long close-ups of Lon Chaney, Jr., detectives and strippers, oh my! “Indestructible Man” is like watching “Monster-a-Go-Go” with a slightly more lucid plot. The riffing is solid with most of the jokes revolving around the detective novel-like narration which sees Joel and the Bots pushing back against, arguing with, or simply confirming the narration. Thankfully, this is the last we’d see of the lame “Undersea Kingdom” shorts which were so crusty and dull, it bogs down the riffing.

BEST RIFFS:

(RICHARD meets EVA at a strip club.)
EVA: Do you have a first name?
RICHARD: Dick.
CROW: THAT figures…

 

87) 504 – Secret Agent Super Dragon

A spy caper about an unnaturally smooth spy who’s assigned to investigate chewing gum spiked with drugs. The movie, itself, is a lot of fun and the guys make several jokes at the expense of the oily, smooth super spy and all the James Bond-esque spy tropes (the bit near the end where Joel and the Bots are making fun of spies using random objects as telephones is priceless; I laugh hard at the line, “Am I on speaker-pen?”) as well as the awkward love scenes where he Dragon tries to bed woman after woman. This one was fun.

BEST RIFF:

(Super Dragon turns on the make-out music, turns and smiles.)
JOEL (as Super Dragon): AmsterDAMN, I’M GOOD!

 

86) 501 – Warrior of the Lost World

Yet another 80’s apocalypse film where everything looks pretty good despite the death of kabillions of people. It’s not at strong as “Cave Dwellers” or “Pod People” in terms of MST3K 80’s cheese but it’s far better than earlier MST3K 80’s installments like “Robot Holocaust” and “City Limits” and that’s very welcome in my book. The sketches are fairly low-key if you don’t count the hilarious slot car race where Servo ends up getting royally screwed, but the jokes in the theater are solid, revolving around the motorbike with the stupid, hipster voice. Also, Donald Pleasance is in this film because he just can’t help himself and said “yes” to just about everything thrown at him at this point.

BEST RIFF:

(A massive fight sequence involving several different types of people.)
CROW: There’s like EIGHT DIFFERENT MOVIES being shot here!
SERVO: Ninjas, PLEASE report to the “Master Ninja” set! Grunge Girls, you’re needed on the “Mad Max” set — WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE FROM “THE PHILADELPHIA STORY” DOING HERE?!

 

85) 913 – Quest of the Delta Knights

If Rob Reiner walked away from “The Princess Bride” and burned William Goldman’s script and the studio fired the all-star cast and then hired David Warner in a hurry, you might have “Quest of the Delta Knights”, a movie that feels like you’re watching D&D players waltz around cheap ren-fair settings looking for “treasure”. The riffing isn’t bad but it isn’t great. We do get to see Pearl in theater for the first segment but it feels like she’s reading from a script and there’s little chemistry between her and the Bots save for a great moment where she gives them each a mint to chew on while they watch the film. Adding somebody else to the theater is a great idea but it rarely works as evidenced here and when Gypsy joined the guys for “Hercules and the Captive Women”. It barely worked in “Last of the Wild Horses” when Dr. F and Frank sat in for a segment. And, besides, it’s arbitrary. As is the end credits sequence where Pearl and a contractor visit the theater to take some measurements so that the theater can be altered for maximum pain delivery. Nothing really comes of this. Still, some of the riffing is great as the Bots have a field day with the character of “Leonardo” who is basically “Leonardo DaVinci” because he “came from the town of Vinci”. You can imagine how that goes for the next hour.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Well, better than “Quest of the Delta BURKES”, I suppose…

 

84) 621 – The Beast of Yucca Flats (w/ shorts: Money Talks / Progress Island U.S.A.)

Coleman Francis (“Red Zone Cuba”, “Skydivers”) brings us a less murky, yet just as mundane version of “Monster a-Go-Go” as Tor Johnson plays the titular character after he ends up being badly burned by a test nuke set off in the Yucca Flats area. Meanwhile, nothing ever happens. This was the last of his features and it’s a doozy, surprisingly uncomplicated and simplistic, compared to his other features and more of a victim of the shoddy editing and narration than anything else. Mike and the Bots do what they can here. The riffing for the feature doesn’t get great until the last half of the show which isn’t too bad. The shorts are loads better, though two shorts seems like overload.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: This movie stops at nothing…and stays there.

 

83) 316 – Gamera vs. Zigra

MST3K sees its last “Gamera” film and it’s the best of the bunch precisely because the show finally corrects the pauses and strikes the right balance between the goofiness of the film and the humor of the riffs. The episode feels like a celebration, literally opening with a party thrown by Joel and the Bots as they toast their fifth and final Gamera film (though we still have one more Sandy Frank feature coming in “Fugitive Alien II” at this point). The riffs are spot on as the boys are more relaxed here with more natural sounding jokes and some great lines involving the ridiculous monster children in the film — something that’s made fun of later by Mike Nelson and his real-life Bridget as they appear as 30-year-old monster children who still hang out with Gamera. The look on Joel’s face when Bridget says “Gamera is my boyfriend” is as priceless as any of the child riffs in the film.

BEST RIFF:

CROW (to the tune of “Yellow Submarine”): They all die in a yellow bathysphere…

 

82) 809 – I Was a Teenage Werewolf

It’s “High School Big Shot” (the same actor playing the Dad is here) with a werewolf in it…played by Michael Landon, no less, so expect plenty of “Bonanza” references (Servo singing “It’s all right if I kill a couple kids, Bonanza!” is just great). It’s a hilarious film on its own mainly because the characters are so poorly written and unbelievable. It was obviously produced by somebody who thought this was the way kids acted in school, if the horrible, arbitrary musical number near the beginning of the flick is any indication. Sung hastily and awfully, Crow remarks, “Fifteen teenagers savagely tore apart one of their peers today…” after the conclusion of it. The sketches are a change of pace with Mike and the Bots battling a horrible alien being because Pearl (being Pearl) decided to troll and lower the ship’s shields. It’s clever stuff that sort of hearkens back to the Joel era.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Does just walking through it make you want to kill yourself? Well, then, it’s a HIGH SCHOOL!

 

81) 1012 – Squirm (w/ short: A Case of Spring Fever)

When a movie is set in the deep South and it’s featured on MST3K, it’s a good bet that a) it’s going to be god-awful, showcasing the most over-the-top stereotypes you’ve ever heard about the region and b) it’s most likely going to produce some good belly laughs. The penultimate episode of the SyFy era, “Squirm” (directed by Jeff Lieberman who was none too happy about his film being roasted on the show, accusing the MST3K crew of cheapening what he made sound like a masterpiece) isn’t a classic episode by any means but there’s some good-natured, observational riffing to be had as the film’s protagonists, Mick and his girlfriend Geri (who the Bots say looks like everything from a “badly dressed Pixie stick” to “a straw with a piece of lint at one end”) contend with aggressive worms that kill humans and eat their flesh, stripping them down to the bone. Hey, we’ve seen films about bats that can smack somebody upside the head and injure them so, why the hell not? It’s preceded by the final short seen on the show (as of writing this) called “A Case of Spring Fever”, a puzzling number about a man who hates springs, wishes he’d never see one again — only to have that wish granted by a creepy animated imp named “Coyly” who shows him what the world would be like without springs — then immediately backs down and returns springs to everything, transforming the man into a spring-loving genius who won’t shut the holy hell up about how springs are used. It’s a bizarre, disturbing short and a fitting end to the slew of shorts we’ve seen on the show.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: You know, this whole movie deftly illustrates one unshakable principle: never go to the South for any reason. In fact, South, SECEDE, will ya’? We won’t stop ya’ this time!
MIKE: Crow…
CROW: Oh, come on…they know we hate ’em!
MIKE: Stop it! Sorry, South…he’s a…violent little robot, pay no attention…

 

80) 206 – Ring of Terror (w/ short: Phantom Creeps, Chapter 3)

A hazing ritual goes wrong in this murky black-and-really-black film which doesn’t even seem like it could possibly be the least bit humorous…but it is. Most of the jokes revolve around a cast of people who look very much like they should be well on their way to 50 years old and nowhere near college age. This makes the romantic make-out scene near the beginning of the film SO gross — and SO funny thanks to Joel and the Bots (CROW: “Now, where were we? I believe I had my tongue down your throat!” followed by sucking and slobbering noises — great stuff). What’s not so good is ANOTHER “Phantom Creeps” short — and it’s AFTER the main film…ugh. At least the riffs are great (CROW: How come they keep killing people and the cast list isn’t getting any shorter?!) AND it’s the LAST time we see this set of shorts, which was DOA to begin with. Also, the skits are great — including a concluding sketch with Frank singing about being Forrester’s second banana which just ends in the most satisfying, hilarious way. It’s brilliant. “Ring of Terror” is, ironically, bright and fun to watch despite how dark the film is.

BEST RIFF:

(A couple makes out and takes a bite out of the same sandwich at the same time.)
CROW: Ugh…I’m physically ILL…
JOEL: This is like ‘9 1/2 Weeks”…
CROW: It’s worse than the AUTOPSY…
SERVO: This movie should be called “ONION Ring of Terror”…

 

79) 207 – Wild Rebels

We get a Nazi biker picture in this one. Tarantino would be proud. “Wild Rebels” is a hell of a lot of fun. A race car driver gets mixed up with some really off-kilter biker nuts who wreak havoc “for the kicks, baby!” The riffing is spot-on, with Joel and the Bots mercilessly mocking the dweeby Steve Alaimo as the hero of the film for his singing and dancing scenes. Yes, in a BIKER MOVIE. The sketches are absolutely wonderful with a Rebel Set cereal commercial from Joel and the Bots as well as Joel being attacked by Crow and Servo (as bikers) during a date with Gypsy who merely says “I did it for the kicks” as the Bots kick the crap out of poor Joel. Everything works in the episode because of the cheesy source material and because MST3K was beginning to find its stride.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Do not induce vomiting…
CROW: The movie will do that FOR you.

 

78) 821 – Time Chasers

“Time Chasers” is basically “Birdemic” with a bigger budget and better editing. You still have the same botched casting (Crow’s outright objection to the casting of the main hero near the beginning is great stuff) and the dippy acting but everything is slightly more intense and a little more suspenseful. It’s still a horribly ridiculous film (a guy invents a prop plane time machine and sells it to a company that stabs him in the back and changes the future into an apocalyptic hellscape) and the riffing is not as memorable as “Space Mutiny” or the other 80’s/90’s films that have been featured on the show,. but it has charm and the director is a great sport. The sketches are very clever, dealing with a running storyline where Crow travels back into the time to prevent Mike from temping for a living and ending up on the SOL — only to find out that Mike eventually died playing with his rock band and his meaner, alcoholic, chainsmoking brother, Eddie, has taken his place on the ship. This set of sketches, while a little more involved and complex than what we’ve seen on this show, is more interesting and clever than the continuous storyline sludge (Ape World, Observer World, Ancient Rome, etc.) we’ve been subjected to in Season 8.

BEST RIFF:

(During “Written by” end credit)
CROW: This was “WRITTEN”?! I don’t think so.

 

77) 1002 – The Girl in Gold Boots

If “The Sinister Urge” got an update, you might end up with “The Girl in Gold Boots”, a film with characters who are either remarkably sleazy or really goddamn stupid. The first film in the SyFy era that isn’t science fiction or fantasy, It’s about a woman who is “discovered” in a roadside diner outside Los Angeles and falls for some random guy’s promises of fame and fortune in Hollywood. You’d think she’d be shocked when she discovers the venue she’s gonna be performing in is literally a go-go dancer dive. But, no, she eyes that stage as if she’s a kid seeing a giant stack of buttery warm pancakes for the first time. The riffing here wavers but gets better near the end. It can’t hold a candle to its spiritual cousin named above, but it DOES feature a great sketch where Mike sings the “sad song” that “Critter” sings in the film complete with Crow’s face superimposed to the side every now and then — except, instead of sitting there and smiling like the girl in the movie, Crow describes a horrific fire that’s started on the SOL and which manages to take out a few decks on the ship. It’s a riot.

BEST RIFF:

(Stripper faints in dressing room.)
SERVO: Great! Now we gotta drag her out on stage and take her clothes off manually.

 

76) 210 – King Dinosaur (w/ short: X Marks the Spot)

“The lemur tastes a little gamey,” says Tom Servo, making chewing noises. And that’s one of several lemur jokes which don’t get old in “King Dinosaur”, the first experiment from Bert I. Gordon whose further bodies of work will happily be exposed later on this show. It’s probably the funniest episode of the 2nd season of the show. A bunch of idiots travel to an island to do SCIENCE STUFF(!) and run afoul with the island’s “dinosaurs”…which are really just blown-up, blue-screened iguanas and bearded dragons and alligators and it’s a riot when the scientists pretend they’re seeing actual “dinosaurs”. The sketches vary with the highlight being the “Joey the Lemur” sketch where Joel goes apeshit insane with a stuffed puppet lemur which he brags about at length to the point of insanity. The Bots half-assing Joey’s theme and trying to play along with Joel’s mental breakdown is a thing of beauty. This episode was also notable for having the first short film that wasn’t part of a serial in “X Marks the Spot”, a weird short about a reckless driver who is killed in a traffic accident — and is immediately sent to a heavenly traffic court where angels talk proper driving etiquette. It’s as bizarre as it sounds but the riffing on it is hilarious with some choice lines (“You know how boys are!” “Yes, I know how boys are!” JOEL: “And I know WHERE the boys are!”; SERVO: “So, help me, ME!”) and it would set the standard for the shorts to come.

BEST RIFF:

GUY: OVER HERE!
GIRL: FASTER!
CROW (as guy climbing hill): UP YOURS!!! Er, I mean…WE’LL BE RIGHT THERE!

 

75) 815 – Agent for h.a.r.m.

A spy flick so boring, it makes “Tinker, Tailor, Spy” look like “Skyfall”. Predictably, many of the jokes here are Mike and the Bots suddenly attempting to sing the big “James Bond Theme” overture while a lot of others are Prince-based (due to a supporting character’s passing resemblance to the late singer). All in all, the riffing is pretty solid even when they’re not milking those two jokes. It’s notable for a couple other things: 1) This is the episode where Mike stands trial for accidentally blowing up those three planets, featuring a great segment where Crow drops a roaringly funny, expletive-laced video defending him and 2) This is Patrick Brantseg’s debut as the voice of Gypsy as the entire original cast of MST3K officially turns completely over.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: There’s the wind-up…and there’s the smarm!

 

74) 911 – Devil Fish

“Devil Fish” is the answer to “Is there a killer fish film worse than ‘Jaws: The Revenge’?”. It’s an Italian film masquerading as a film made in the United States…Florida, to be exact, and it features Italian actors pretending to be Floridians, which never fails to get a laugh out of me. If the first sentence wasn’t a clue, it’s about a giant fish the government made that wreaks havoc on a beach community. You’ve heard this one before. Some great riffs here regarding the shoddy editing that permeates this film but most of it is throwaway stuff, not that it isn’t humorous on its own. It does boast one of the funniest sketches I’ve seen on the show: Pearl and Bobo attempting to “filter” Mike and the Bots so they match the Italian actors — except the filters morph them into Italian stereotypes. It sounds awful…except I come from an Italian family and most of them think the sketch is fairly on point.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: So, Mike, turtles excrete wax and you humans put it in cans and just rub it all over your cars? Good! That’s good…just keep DOING that.

 

73) 321 – Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

“Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” reminds me of the shoddy Christmas films my extended family would subject me to after I arrived at an uncle or aunt’s house for Christmas Day dinner. They would toss me in a room with all the other younger cousins and what-not and put on some schlocky, dusty Christmas crud I’d have to sit through so I wouldn’t bug the adults who were indulging in bourbon and Frank Sinatra singing carols. That said, I always thought this episode was hard to get through. This time, not so much. It felt like I was spending the holiday with friends. The riffing isn’t spectacular but it’s very funny in spots. A lot of people will say that Season 5’s “Santa Claus” is better. I’m probably on board with that line of thought. That episode doesn’t feature the classic “Patrick Swayze Christmas” song, though. That sketch (and song) has become a classic part of MST3K lore.

BEST RIFF:

SANTA (smoking a pipe and talking to a reporter): We’re goin’ out the good ol’ fashioned way! With our reindeer, Prancer and Dancer and Thunder and Blitzen and Vixen and NIXON!
SERVO (as reporter): Uh, yeah, so what’s in the pipe, Santa?

 

72) 306 – Time of the Apes

A family climbs into suspended animation capsules during an earthquake (for some reason) and ends up in a time where apes have evolved from men. It’s another Sandy Frank pain-fest and, here, Joel and the Bots dub Frank “The source of all our pain” as they sing along to the Time of the Apes theme song, a moment which helped perpetuate a now-debunked rumor that Frank hated MST3K and pulled the distribution rights out from under them. The episode is a lot of fun in true Frank fashion with laughably low-budget ape costumes and weird, extreme close-ups, and odd editing. Most of the jokes come at the expense of “Johnny”, the little boy whose catchphrase in the face of danger is an obnoxious “I don’t care!”, yet another memorable MST3Kism. The segments are just okay, with the highlight being the Scopes Trial, presided over by a puppet-like Judge Wapner. Still, it’s fairly solid stuff.

BEST RIFF:

(Pepe sees a security guard coming around the corner. He turns the corner and playfully skips toward the guard.)
(JOEL AND THE BOTS make multiple gunshot sounds as Pepe makes his appearance known.)
GUARD: Hey! What are you doing here?
JOEL (as PEPE): I’m a traitor to my species!
PEPE: I’m here to see my father!
GUARD: Your father is stationed HERE?
PEPE: Yes, he’s an officer!
SERVO (as PEPE): …and a gentle-monkey!
GUARD: I see, well go on! You shouldn’t be hanging around here!
(PEPE skips off.)
PEPE: Good-bye! Nice meeting you!
CROW: Well, there’s some good “security”…what is this, Watergate?!

 

71) 519 – Outlaw

The second Golan/Globus attempt at MST3K and it’s a doozy: two goofballs end up in another dimension in the middle of picking up women at a bar in present times. Nothing makes sense up until the two of them go back into time and, from there, it’s a series of really awkward T&A masquerading as some cross-dimensional socio-political epic complete with gratuitous shots of oiled up butts and bouncing boobs. The riffing is strong near the beginning, falters in the middle, then becomes gold near the end — especially during the film’s end credits when the guys compare it to some late-night 1990’s USA Network television movie. That, and the sketches FINALLY hit their stride with a priceless bit where the boys discover Jack Palance’s autobiography which has a chapter on the making of “Outlaw” (“Day Five. Missed call. After four days of shooting, I got the script today and guess what? I’m NOT playing Thomas Aquinis! I’m supposed to be SOME kind *DEEP INHALE* of freakin’ WIZARD!”). I just wish this material was more consistent.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE (as beer commercial narrator): “Wouldn’t it be great if you were stuck in another dimension with an annoying guy and he brought BEER?”

 

70) 704 – The Incredible Melting Man

There’s no getting around it. “The Incredible Melting Man” is the goriest film MST3K has ever featured. It’s surprising that the Brains ever allowed it here because it’s dark, depressing, and grim. You know, if the severed head floating down a river and then falling down a small waterfall, before exploding into a bloody mess on the rocks below wasn’t enough of a clue. ” ‘You give me a Firebird and a dilapidated building and I’ll give you drama,'” Dr. Forrester says, quoting late film director Hal Needham, in the opening sketch. Indeed, Mike and the Bots pull off the impossible, turning something awful into something watchable and fun with some acerbic wit and timing. This may or may not be due to the fact that the film was originally intended to be a horror parody but became a straight horror film when the director decided he wanted to play it straight and edit out all the comedy sequences. Still, some of the things he did leave in (the elderly couple that seems randomly inserted into the film; the cracker argument near the beginning of the movie) are perfect fodder for the guys. The amount of mileage they get out of the film’s hero (the wussy Dr. Ted Nelson, whose name they apply to the small bits of musical score) is stunning and hilarious. The sketch work here is brilliant as well, as Crow finally gets “Earth vs. Soup” made into a feature film — only to have the “studio” (made up of Dr. Forrester and Pearl) mess with him at every turn and eventually get the film made into “just a trailer”. The entire series of bits is the Brains’ exorcising the demons they faced during the making of “MST3K: The Movie” and you can feel the pain.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Careful! The paneling is out-acting you!

 

69) 301 – Cave Dwellers

The start of Season 3 began with an episode many MSTies consider to be one of the greatest ever. It’s not hard to see why. “Cave Dwellers” is actually the low budget sequel to “Ator, the Fighting Eagle”, a film the show would riff almost 30 years later during the Netflix era. It’s the story of “Ator”, played by Miles O’Keefe, (which gives us the simple, yet hilarious riff: “How much Keefe is IN this movie, anyway?” “MILES O’Keefe!”) as he attempts to defeat a goofy looking dude named “Zor” who wants “the Geometric Nucleus”, which has the capability of mass destruction. The film is a mess with a hero who looks like a personal trainer in an R-rated 80’s comedy, but who knows everything — including how to build a freakin’ modern hang glider in like five minutes, much to the dismay of Joel and the Bots who laugh their asses off. The sketches are just brilliant, too, with the guys doing their own version of the blurry opening credits sequence. (The sketch about “extraordinary names for ordinary things” is one of my all-time favorite conversational sketches simply for following exchange: CROW: “White Shadow”? You coulda called that “Haloed Hoop Honkey”! Or “Jake and the Fat Man”…you coulda called that, uh…uh…well… EVERYONE: …”Jake and the Fat Man”. SERVO: Yep, pretty much.) It’s one of those moments that makes you laugh so loudly, you might not hear the lines that follow the joke.

BEST RIFF:

(Akronos explains the Nucleus to his daugther, Mila, then turns away from her and faces the camera, almost like he’s looking right at the audience.)
CROW: What do you, the viewers at home, think?

 

68) 1107 – The Land That Time Forgot

(Available on Netflix)

“The Land That Time Forgot” is actually a pretty decent. I first saw the film one late Friday night when I was much younger. All these years later, yeah, it’s pretty dated and silly but there was conviction in the cheese that was this film. The reason Jonah and the Bots’ jokes work on something this silly but are agonizingly and frustratingly wasted on films like “Starcrash” at times is because this movie took itself so seriously. And why shouldn’t it? The effects, even now, are pretty good. Take a look at the featured image up there. That’s quality stuff. In any case, Jonah and the Bots due a great job here. They don’t overplay their hand, they simply go with the flow and get their hits in and, over the course of the entire episode, the riffs are totally solid. The butt of their noise is, of course, the late Doug McClure (who is either a Western actor or the guy from “Out of This World” depending on your age) who plays the square-jawed hero in this thing. The problem is that McClure is actually a decent leading man so they end up defaulting, mostly, to the German and British cast antics which means you’re bound to get a “Sound of Music” riff and several jokes about submarines (brilliant are the bits about finding Spongebob and the Yellow Submarine parody) which are funny even as predictable as they may be.

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: This is my fourth favorite submarine movie…well, I only know of three others, so this is also my least favorite submarine movie.

 

67) 604 – Zombie Nightmare

A weird 80’s horror flick set in Canada about a young kid who is run over and killed by a bunch of psychotic teens — and then is resurrected by one of Canada’s many Voodoo priestesses so that he can commit cold-blooded gruesome revenge. “The Crow”, this isn’t, especially with Adam West as a cigar-chomping cop in on the entire Canadian Zombie Conspiracy. Come to think of it, that sounds like a great rock band name…I digress. Several things don’t make sense here. The least of which is how the hell a film this low-budget obtained the rights to Motorhead’s mega-hit “Ace of Spades”. The riffing is great here, poking fun at how silly the premise is and how it paints Canada in an unflattering light.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: You know, John Goodman on Hume Cronyn’s BACK could outrun this guy!

 

66) 505 – The Magic Voyage of Sinbad

Another handsome Russian production, this time with “Sinbad”, which isn’t really Sinbad. This is one of those MST3K episodes where the film is entertaining and sumptuous (the underwater and palace sequences are beautiful), but goofy, campy and cheap (my god, that laughing horse, right out of “Evil Dead 2” and “Santa Claus” is nightmare fuel) — and, therefore, right in the show’s wheelhouse. “Sinbad” is actually “Sadko”, but that’s the way America rolls with their translations. The riffing is right on with Joel and the Bots going right after Sinbad’s waffling and terrible planning. It’s great stuff. Not “Manos” or even “Mitchell” great, but it’s right there in one of the best episodes produced on the show.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO (as Sinbad): I’ve been all around the world and I’ve NEVER seen something as stupid as THIS.

 

65) 509 – The Girl in Lover’s Lane

“The Girl in Lover’s Lane” is another example of the show’s versatility. It’s a sad little melodrama and not bad at all despite the ridiculously low rating on IMDB (2.6 if memory serves). It’s a real movie with compelling characters and a heartbreaking ending. If one were to watch it without the MST3K treatment, they might be taken in by it. It doesn’t deserve to be here…yet, the boys SOMEHOW pull a fantastic riffing session from it, lampooning the film’s hero, “Bix Dugan”, dubbing him “Big Stupid” due to the way he first mumbles his name to Danny. It’s a running joke which sounds like it might get old quick due to the childish nature of the name, but it’s executed perfectly because the characters look the way Joel and the Bots envision them with Bix, the big dog, and Danny, the little mutt Bix cares for. Throw in Crow’s classic “I’m Jack Elam sketch” (his eyeballs are moved slightly to resemble Elam’s cross-eyed leering and it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious) and the episode is welcome in any Top Episode list.

BEST RIFF:

JOEL (as Carrie): This is a great date! I’ve always wanted to be nuzzled by a hobo.

 

64) 807 – Terror From the Year 5000

After some murky Universal adventures and a Corman dud, “Terror From the Year 5000” is just what the show needed. Yes, we’re still in black-and-white territory (we won’t see a color episode until the 10th episode) but this one is steadily-riffed from beginning to end (Servo acting as a liaison between the audience and the film and checking on “the terror” when it doesn’t materialize is a great running joke) and it feels more “loose”. Of note, one of the sketches is the brilliant, “When I Held Your Brain in My Arms” sketch, sung by The Observers. It’s one of the greatest moments of the eighth season and the show. Bravo.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Filmed in glorious black and…slightly LESS black…

 

63) 812 – The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

The man responsible for some of the cinematography in Season 5’s “Eegah”, Ray Dennis Steckler, comes at us with an ugly, surreal film about carnies and strippers and death and murder. To say the film is strange doesn’t do it justice. Picture “Eegah” or “Manos”, only slightly more dirty and less structured. A week’s worth of showers can’t get the smell of the film off anyone. It’s insanely hard to take in spots and the blows are only softened, somewhat, by odd, random musical numbers which the guys riff beautifully. The real good riffing, however, doesn’t happen until the last third of the film and that’s a tragedy because this episode could have been a true classic. That said, it isn’t bad at all.

BEST RIFF:

(Women dance around in skimpy clothing but don’t do much of anything sexy.)
MIKE: You know, the 14-year-olds who snuck in with fake IDs, they gotta be feeling profoundly ripped off at this point.

 

62) 705 – Escape 2000

Somewhere between “The Warriors” and “Escape from New York” lies “Escape 2000”, a film about a major conglomerate who is forcing everyone who they believe to be “undesirable” from “The Bronx” which is, in reality, Italy where the film is shot with some 2nd unit stuff based in ACTUAL New York. Whether or not you consider the riffing to be solid depends largely on how many “leave the Bronx” jokes you can handle as they’re peppered into the proceedings about every three minutes — though the bits about reporter Moon Grey being Nosferatu are great (Mike’s payoff riff about “needing a wooden stake” to finish her off after she’s shot gets a good belly laugh from me every single time) as is the confusion over Dablone’s name (the guys dub him “Toblerone”). Sketches are uneven, bordering on annoying as Dr. Forrester attempts to put his Mom in a “home” because he truly can’t stand her. So, Mary Jo Pehl is reduced to yelling “Clayton” every so often like she did in the “Deathstalker” sketches and I really can’t believe the writing was that lazy.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: The ultimate showdown between “vaguely evil” and “somewhat ambiguous”.

 

61) 817 – Horror of Party Beach

If “Catalina Caper” had decided to feature a monster instead of a robbery, you’d have “Horror of Party Beach”, a film with a creature so ridiculous, it makes “Revenge of the Creature” look like “Alien”. Forgiving the fact that there are about a jillion musical numbers and sequences where teens just make out for no reason, the main monster looks like it’s auditioning for “The Muppet Show”. The riffing is ultra-solid here as Mike and the Bots practically beg for relief from the tedium of non-stop songs and dance numbers which have absolutely nothing to do with the plot. This extends to a great sketch where Mike’s swim trunks don’t fit and he shows up to the SOL Dance Party completely nude.

BEST RIFF:

(People dance on the beach. Again.)
MIKE: I’m sure there’s some perfectly nice Tiger Sharks just off-shore who’d be willing to eat these people.

 

60) 422 – The Day the Earth Froze (w/ short: Here Comes the Circus)

Ah, a Russo-Finnish production, one of a few MST3K took on. To me, this is MST3K. This episode always makes me think of Thanksgiving because it aired during one of the Turkey Day Marathons. Whenever I do my yearly “Best of” in November, it’s an all-timer for so many reasons. The entire “SAMPO!” debate (another piece of established MST3K lore) not withstanding, the riffing is right on, with some great zingers concerning the Finnish actors and their accents. The bit with the flaming moose boat sliding down a hill and into the water is hilarious. The jokes during the Circus short are perfection, especially during the clown sequences when two gymnast clowns spank one another with brooms while hanging upside down on parallel bars (CROW: More! More! I’m a BAD clown!). The sketches are funny, depending on your taste with the stand-out being “Gypsy, Me”, Gypsy’s one-woman show. It’s one of the only times Gypsy has been allowed to shine and it’s wonderful.

BEST RIFF:

(Louhi’s people sleep in a giant cavern.)
SERVO (in a low, relaxing voice): And that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. Butch Thompson’s gonna come out with the band, they’re gonna do a medley of songs about cats; then Jim Ed Poole will do some cat sounds and then another episode of ‘Watching Paint Dry’, then Claudia Schmidt’ll come out and try to fill the gap in her teeth, and Pat Donohue and Peter Ostroushko are going to favor us with the story of ‘The Swede Who Didn’t Like Meatballs.'”

 

59) 608 – Code Name: Diamond Head (w/ short: A Day at the Fair)

If “Mitchell” was set in Hawaii and Joe Don Baker lost 100 pounds, you’d have Roy Thinnes as “Diamond Head”, an American spy going up against his equal played by the great Ian McShane(!). This failed 70’s TV pilot is perfect fodder for Mike and the Bots as they lampoon the show’s weird penchant for not showcasing the island’s culture or locales. The “Hawaii Five-O” jokes are chuckle-worthy as are the constant Code Name changes for “Diamondhead”. The sketches are repetitive bordering on clever depending on your patience level as Magic Voice finally gets another starring role, showing Crow and Servo how their lives would be different living with somebody else other than Mike on the SOL. All in all, it’s a fun episode with steady riffing.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Code Name: Cubic Zirconia Head!

 

58) 511 – Gunslinger

Roger Corman strikes again with a western action piece…but I can’t stay mad. It has Beverly Garland in a strong female role as a Marshall who runs things her way. It’s easily watchable just for this aspect. It’s also the perfect companion piece to “The Painted Hills” with its weird colorization and theme. It’s not as well-riffed as the thick tide of pearls Season 5 had to offer but it’s up there as Joel and the Bots go after Corman’s horrible editing and the fact that he actually had choreographers to teach the female actresses playing the saloon prostitutes how to dance. Adding to the characters’ inner monologues and their external dialogue is also hilarious. It’s just too bad the sketches aren’t on the same level.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Well, THERE’S a switch: someone’s shooting a postal worker!

 

57) 906 – The Space Children (w/ short: Century 21 Calling)

Somewhere between “Invaders From Mars” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still” lies “The Space Children”, a film about an alien blob which controls the minds of the children of Earth’s greatest atomic scientists and uses them to sabotage their parents’ work. It’s a strange, creepy, and sometimes, unpleasant film (the “Professor” from Gilligan’s Island practically abuses his son in a cringe-worthy scene) which is saved by some great riffing. Additionally, it’s nice to see a short here, the first in the SyFy era. It’s not the greatest short (about phones and telecommunication set in Seattle’s World’s Fair) but Mike and the Bots manage to get some great zingers in (the “How Do Animals Learn” exhibit sees Crow replying with “Well, as long as they learn to be delicious…”) and it’s a nice set-up for the dusty main feature.

BEST RIFF:

MOM: Children, will you stop chattering?!
CROW: Stop trying to form a BOND with us! We HAD you! Isn’t that ENOUGH?!

 

56) 516 – Alien from L.A.

The first of two features from producers Golan/Globus who also produced #519, “Outlaw” (of Gor, if you prefer). This was my first time ever viewing this episode, to be honest, and I had always heard that it was so-so. The first half of the thing is riffed VERY well. It’s a terrible, yet stylish film, evoking David Fincher’s early Gothic music videos before he finally found his groove. The show gets a LOT (and I mean a LOT) of mileage out of Kathy Ireland’s inexplicable Minnie Mouse voice while the rest of it focuses on the terrible acting and Ireland’s daftness. The sketches are pretty decent, my favorite being where Mike is forced by the Bots to judge what Ireland was feeling based on hand-picked stills from the film. Another solid Season 5 episode.

BEST RIFF:

WANDA: Why’d you even go out with me in the first place if I’m such a geek?!
MIKE (as Wanda’s boyfriend): Because I’m turned on by squeeze toys!

 

55) 814 – Riding With Death

Here, we have two episodes of the show “The Gemini Man” glued together. The last time we were in this situation was Season 3 and “Master Ninja”. This time, we get a couple yokels who know how to drive really well and who work with a secret agency who gives them the ability to turn invisible. The difference between “Riding With Death” and “Master Ninja” is the tighter, more veteran riffing. Being that the two main characters are total yokels, it’s not difficult. Kinda like a lighter version of “The Giant Spider Invasion”. It’s a fun episode.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE (during credits): Is there such a thing as “Starring Ben Murphy”? Isn’t it more honest to say that, most of the time, the camera’s “POINTED at Ben Murphy”?

 

54) 905 – The Deadly Bees

Another stuffy British film. This one’s about a singer who ends up on a bee farm where murderous hijinks involving bees ensues. The guys do a fairly good job riffing the thing, but the good stuff doesn’t come until about halfway through when it’s obvious just how convoluted the plot gets (“Mike, I’m just gonna look down at your shoes because that makes about as much sense as the movie,” Crow says at one point.) until it eventually trips over itself and ends weird with a random guy in a bowler cap walking from all the way into the background of the final shot to the foreground, which Mike and the Bots cannot even begin to comprehend. There’s some good stuff here. It’s not a perfect episode but a hell of a lot more zingers than some of the more popular episodes, if only the movie didn’t weigh things down so much.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Look at her go! I didn’t cigarettes had so many vitamins!

 

53) 1006 – Boggy Creek II: and the Legend Continues…

If you thought “The Giant Spider Invasion” exposed America’s hicks, then have I got a movie for you. “Boggy Creek II” (which is actually the third film in the Boggy Creek franchise) features a bunch of university students (who Crow says must be majoring in “Boggy Creek Studies”) who waltz out to the middle of nowhere in order to catch a glimpse of a Bigfoot-like creature. The movie is unforgivably terrible, with a two whiny female leads who don’t amount to much (though one tries to chew tobacco for reasons that are still unclear to me) and a young student named Tim whose shirt just won’t stay on throughout much of the movie. And in case you thought you were getting out of Boggy Creek without any mental scars, that all changes with the introduction of “Crenshaw”, a gigantic blob of a man with a fuzzy beard poured into denim overalls. You have to see him to believe him…and I can’t believe I’m saying that about THAT guy and not the titular creature.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: God bless you, half-man, half-pig!

 

52) 1106 – Starcrash

{Available on Netflix)

I had never heard of “Starcrash” until I saw it featured on MST3K. When I first reviewed the episode on The Workprint, I was amazed how many of my colleageus recognized it and told me I should watch it on its own. What I’ve seen here is just fun. An Italian import (with supporting roles from Christopher Plummer and David Hasselhoff of all people), it might evoke memories of “Space Mutiny” but it’s  not. It’s like if “Star Wars” and MAD Magazine had a baby and put it on a movie screen. it’s absolutely ridiculous stuff, a film that knows it’s a complete rip-off of the the galaxy far, far away with Force-like powers which are convenient to the plot (Akton suddenly has the power to thaw a human being after they’ve been trapped in ice forever) and some familiar weapons (check out that laser sword thingee!). It’s hard to judge the jokes here because the film is fairly self-aware and, as a result, it’s fairly silly on its own. Crow calling it “a community theater production of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy'” is spot-on as his sketch where he creates a massive science-fiction epic of his own with “world building” and “so much pew, pew, pew, pew!”

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: Filmed over the weekend at Rick’s parents’ house.

 

51) 909 – Gorgo

Ever since the loss of the Sandy Frank properties (Godzilla, Gamera, et al), we’ve had to put up with badly rear-projected “giant insect” films. Finally, like a blessing from the heavens, “Gorgo” arrives…and it’s a British take on Godzilla, as we move away from Japan, a trend we’d see continue with “Reptilicus” (Denmark) and “Yongary” (South Korea). The great news is that it’s still just as riffable and it feels like old times with a really relaxed, go-with-the-flow feel. The guys have been here before and it shows as they spend most of the film taking shots at our good neighbors across the pond, mocking UK slang and making fun of their traditions (Mike’s line about “keeping the beer warm” is RIGHT ON) and the “Dorkin” jokes NEVER get old. There’s a lot of the UK in Season 9 and this is the best of their films featured here on the show. It’s also nice to see film critic Leonard Maltin make an appearance here. A longtime fan of the show, he fits right in and his back-and-forth with Pearl is so natural, it feels real.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE (as Gorgo): MCROAR! O’GROWL!

 

50) 912 – The Screaming Skull (w/ short: Gumby – Robot Rumpus)

There’s a lot of screaming and a lot of skulls in this film but we don’t actually witness a “screaming skull”, per se, something Mike dutifully points out: “I think the title was supposed to be ‘Screaming SEMICOLON Skull’.” It’s actually not a terrible film (if you can get by the abusive, asshole husband angle). It’s just marred, somewhat, by the hokey special effects sequences and a sub-plot where the cast endlessly chases Mickey, the crazy gardener, around the property for half the film, something which fuels the riffing engine for the episode. It’s preceded by the short, “Gumby: Robot Rumpus” which is cute and charming, but also borderline creepy, ending with one of the robot’s heads torn off and placed above Gumby’s garage like a trophy, causing Crow and Servo some severe emotional trauma. “This is worse than SEVEN!” Servo exclaims before he and Crow attempt to engage in “therapy” involving blocks of clay smashing small likenesses of them on a playset with Mike. Solid episode.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: The movie that DARES to graphically depict sometimes seeing peacocks and sometimes not seeing peacocks.

 

49) 1113 – The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t

(Available on Netflix)

We’ve seen Santa Claus fight martians, work with Merlin, crank up horrifying robotic reindeer and employ children as his labor force. Here, Santa’s on the rocks and needs some rent money to stay afloat up at the North Pole. Yep. Santa rents his place at the North Pole. AND he has a sniveling evil landlord who looks like the real life embodiment of Snidely Whiplash who will pretty much own Santa, lock, stock, and barrel somehow. So, it’s only fitting that Santa’s team assembles like the Avengers to help him! I was GONE when Jonah and the Bots started yelling the kids’ superhero names as they got out of bed to help Santa, one after the other. Riffs like that make episodes magical. The entire premise is just outrageously silly but, considering the other Christmas films we’ve gotten on this show, this is par for the course, as unpleasant as the premise sounds. Some of the best bits come from the weird, arbitrary musical numbers and when Jonah and the Bots pick at the fact that Santa seems so strangely unfamiliar with how to actually be Santa Claus. This is good stuff.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: How did we end up with a Santa with such extreme generalized anxiety disorder?

 

48) 1202 – Atlantic Rim

(Available on Netflix)

RiffTrax (Mike Nelson’s off-shoot of MST3K with Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy) did a great job with Sharknado and Sharknado 2. After that, any other Asylum feature RiffTrax covered felt gratuitous. So, I really had mixed feelings about MST3K covering Atlantic Rim. You could almost hear Mike Nelson and company assuring Joel that covering an Asylum feature would be a blast. And I suppose it’s fun watching Joel’s company giving it the ol’ heave-ho. It’s not that this movie doesn’t deserve the MST3K treatment…it’s that The Asylum is basically making cheap, shitty movies on purpose and, essentially, this is free advertising for them. It’s not that the other five films aren’t shitty, it’s that films like “Mac and Me” and “Lords of the Deep” had conviction and you could tell some effort was put into the concept of those films. By comparison, the inclusion of “Atlantic Rim” is a bit too corporate for my taste and goes against the charm MST3K offers. That said, the riffing works, though not every joke hits here. The riffs are the funniest when the action is hot. Jonah and the Bots’ treatment of Red’s machismo and veteran actor Graham Greene’s penchant for overusing the phrase “get on the horn” every ten minutes is a riot. If “Mac and Me” had “pretty nice” as the newest addition to MST3K’s ongoing vernacular, you can add Red’s “Ba-boom” and Graham Greene’s “Bull Butter” to the mix. The biggest issue with this episode is that the movie is a brainless, rapid fire mess, something that Crow points out near the end, so the movie really almost ends up making fun of itself and there are moments where the jokes fall flat because they’re less jokes and more casual observations.

The episode also takes a slight step down in quality in terms of the sketches which, while funny, are not as well-conceived as the ones we saw in the first episode: in the first sketch, we get Kinga and Max forcing Jonah and the Bots to produce an impromptu song that’s on par with Season 11’s “Every Country Has a Monster”. What follows is a mess of impromptu lyrics reminiscent of Joel and the Bots’ attempt at the mockery of the song from “Pod People”. The self-deprecation is quite good. The second sketch has the boys on the SOL comparing medal stories in true Broski fashion, a’la the film’s main character Red, and it’s cute but nothing terribly special. I might get beat up for this, but “Atlantic Rim” is not as good as the Season 12 opener, “Mac and Me”. Where the last episode was more composted, “Atlantic Rim” is controlled chaos. — though don’t let that fool you. It’s just a SLIGHT step down from the last episode. The show is still amusing and I had to stop recording some of the best lines purely because there were so many.

BEST RIFF:

(A robot suit fights a CGI monster.)
JONAH: Fun fact: Andy Serkis is playing BOTH of those characters.

 

47) 1206 – Ator, the Fighting Eagle

(Available on Netflix)

The cast and crew of MST3K has always had balls in that they constantly strive to top themselves. In Season 3, they topped Santa Claus Conquers the Martians with Season 5’s Santa Claus — only to falter when attempting to top the brilliant Mitchell with Final Justice in Season 10. MST3K alumni Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett have attempted to cover some of their older material with new riffs — and mixed results. When Joel Hodgson and company announced they were going to riff the Ator film that came before Season 3’s immortal Cave Dwellers, I was excited…but only cautiously. I’m not saying I am disappointed in “sequel riffing” or attempts at riffing similar material. It’s just that the sophomore efforts are rarely as good as the first attempts.The verdict for Ator, the Fighting Eagle? I can tell you that the riffs are spot on. If Jonah and the Bots were boxers, they come out of the first round, swinging and hitting so many riffs, I actually had to stop recording gems. The humor does have a slight lull near the middle but picks up again moments later. The riffing centers on the ludicrous plotting and tiny budget the filmmakers were working with. The first third of the film is an A+ riff session, especially with the treatment of the weird angle where Ator marries his “sister” who really isn’t his sister. The whole thing is creepy — especially the way Miles O’Keefe leers at the actress playing Sunya. It makes your skin crawl. Anyway, I cannot and will not spoil the rest of the riffing. The absolute classic is Crow’s riff on the Spider God puppet which he dubs “Snufflelantula”, a line so hilarious, I had to pause the show a couple minutes so that I could stop laughing. Ator, the Fighting Eagle is a joy to watch. The riffing is on par with Cave Dwellers (come at me, bros) and proves that the show is timeless.

BEST RIFF:

(A woman breast feeds her baby.)
CROW: Eh…we shouldn’t be watching this…
JONAH: You mean the movie?
CROW: YES!

 

46) 801 – Revenge of the Creature

This was the debut of MST3K on The SyFy Channel and it’s a decent start to that era, if a little awkward due to the massive amount of changes. First, the Brains had to deal with the loss of Trace Beaulieu who had moved on after the final episode on Comedy Central. That meant that there was no more Dr. Forrester and that the voice of Crow had to be re-cast. As such, Mary Jo Pehl became the new villain, reprising the role of Pearl Forrester, Clayton’s mother, who vows to continue her son’s cheesy movie experiment. Pearl was thankfully (and deservedly) more fleshed out here. Rather than the whiny, annoying mother figure we saw in Season 7, her character was funnier, even sweet at times — but no less evil. She was also given a more sarcastic bite, too, which was most welcome. The Brains also dubbed writer Bill Corbett the new voice of Crow. Corbett played Crow as more intense, sarcastic, and gruff and, in the beginning, there’s a noticeable lack of puppeteering skills in that the dialogue doesn’t match his mouth movements and he’s a lot more stiff. The color scheme on the SOL stayed largely the same except that the bridge was given a slightly more industrial look. Ambient blue lighting now flooded down onto the performers and a reddish accent was added. Kevin Murphy was cast as “Professor Bobo”, a sentient ape a’la “Planet of the Apes” and Pearl’s second banana. The “Nanites”, microscopic beings who perform various tasks and maintenance on the ship also make their debut here. As for the storyline, it’s revealed that 500 years have passed since “Laserblast”. Mike and the Bots have returned to the SOL from the Edge of the Universe. Crow has changed and doesn’t recognize Mike, yet knows Servo and Gypsy, and Pearl Forrester runs things on Earth with Bobo and his ape colleagues. It’s all very strange…but, then, the show was always aloof in some way. It was also weird that SyFy demanded two things: that Season 8 have a soap opera-esque running storyline (something that was ditched by the beginning of Season 9) and that every single film had to fall within the sci-fi/fantasy genre (something that had been ditched by Season 10). Gone, at this point, were the shorts. We didn’t see another one until Season 9 and, even at that point, we only saw two the entire SyFy run. No more fan letters were read, either, which took away part of the homespun charm of the show. Riff-wise, it’s like old times. While “Revenge of the Creature” (the sequel to the far superior “Creature From the Black Lagoon”) may not be the greatest experiment the show has seen, watching Mike and the Bots take on the movie is like slipping into an old, comfortable pair of shoes. It does take awhile to get going and doesn’t get truly great until about the middle of the film when the Creature escapes and goes after the woman he adores. The bits about “Chris the Dog” are hilarious and I laughed heartily during a sequence where the Creature tosses an adult man ten feet into a tree (it’s painfully obvious that the victim is suspended by wires and seems to float upward) which draws genuine laughter from the guys and makes Crow remark that the Creature has “a nice rising fastball”. It’s a fun film to start the SyFy era with and it would get better from here.

BEST RIFF:

(During the film’s climax)
CROW: The disorganized, short-lived, badly-botched, and thoroughly ineffectual “Revenge of the Creature”!

 

45) 702 – The Brute Man (w/ short: Chicken of Tomorrow)

I had never seen “The Brute Man” up until this project and I’d seen most of the episodes in this series. I thought it would just be another standard episode but it’s far funnier than that. Starting with “Chicken of Tomorrow”, a short about raising chickens so that they can lay eggs — or be cooked and put on a dinner plate for your enjoyment. The bit where one of the female chickens suddenly talks to the short’s narrator is laugh-out-loud hilarious because it’s so unexpected and arbitrary and it produces some genuine laughter from the guys who can’t seem to understand the placement of it, either. This leads right into “The Brute Man” which is about a man named “The Creeper”. He’s huge and deformed and kills people but has a soft spot for a blind girl who can’t see who he is. Again, there’s more genuine laughter to be had here as the guys have a field day with the “creeper” and “creeping” jokes as well as Brute’s own mental thoughts. The general store sequence with the angry old man is priceless. There’s greatness to be had in Season 7 and this is one of the great ones.

BEST RIFF:

(The Brute Man smiles and barely has a mouth opening.)
CROW: Whoa! Does he strain KRILL through his mouth?!

 

44) 610 – The Violent Years (w/ short: A Young Man’s Fancy)

An Ed Wood-scripted film about a gang of females who terrorize their community. It includes a fairly famous implied rape scene where the gang of girls takes a guy into the woods after tying up his girlfriend and then attempts to have their way with him. All the mayhem (which includes an unintentionally laugh-out-loud hilarious scene where after one of the female gang members shoots at the cops, she actually expresses surprise when the cops actually shoot back — to which Servo remarks, “Those BASTARDS!”) culminates in an extremely hypocritical message about the degradation of societal morals. It’s the perfect companion to the episode’s opening short, “A Young Man’s Fancy” which oozes with subtle undercurrents of sex. The riffing is spot on with both the short and feature even if the sketches aren’t great (Servo’s imitation of Barbra Streisand in “A Star Is Born” is painful to watch, as artsy as it tries to be) but the episode, overall, is a blast.

BEST RIFF:

(Women surround a guy and tie up his girlfriend with the intent on having their way with him.)
CROW: Dr. Forrester has sent us a truly GREAT movie!

 

43) 609 – The Skydivers

When “The Skydivers” was first advertised on MST3K, Trace Beaulieu said that it was “worse than Manos”. It’s not that, really. Manos was an entity of sheer filmmaking evil. This is like “The Amazing Colossal Man” without Glenn. It’s a Coleman Francis film and probably the “best” of the few that were showcased on the show, involving murderous happenings at a skydiving school. The guys spend a ton of time making fun of the impossibly dweeby Frankie, the weird promiscuous Suzy and the coffee-happy Beth as well as the cute little prop plane Beth owns, who Mike and the Bots dub “Petey the Plane” and make up a goofy voice for him. The film is wildly uneven and horribly dark and edited shoddily (“Somebody with Attention Deficit Disorder edited this film!” says Crow) and it’s just a strange little movie but not the worst of all-time. The “Industrial Arts” short that comes before it results in some fantastic riffing as well. The sketches are near perfection (the opening “Uranus” jokes are funny despite the sophomoric nature of them) and this is just a great episode.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE (as Frankie): I feel like a cheesburger…would you go have sex with the guy at the Jack-in-the-Box?

 

42) 612 – The Starfighters

“The Starfighters” is nothing more than a commercial for the Air Force, starring such dazzling actors as Senator Bob Dornan. Remember “Crash of Moons” and the endless sequences of rockets taking off and landing? Get ready for endless sequences of stock footage of planes bombing objects in the desert and planes re-fueling in mid-flight along with puzzling, surreal sequences of the pilots’ dating lives which actually features an in-depth conversation about the benefits of corn de-tasseling. Many of the jokes revolve around sex and it’s not difficult to see why. The constant shots of fuel hoses trying to enter fueling baskets (and premature shots of fuel shooting out when a hose doesn’t make it) is so unintentionally funny, one might make the same comparison. The real genius is in the sketch work, which features Crow attempting to get his brand-new PC on the Internet, only to have it fight him every single step of the way, the great sketch where Mike and the Bots try to sell “Cowboy Mike’s Own Original Red Hot Ricochet BBQ Sauce” and the supremely beautiful “Servo Academy Men’s Choir” featuring a half dozen Tom Servos singing a gorgeous song that, even as gibberish, is something to behold.

BEST RIFF:

COLONEL: Did you know that flying a plane is like making love?
CROW: Uh, you have to pay?

 

41) 521 – Santa Claus

I didn’t honestly think it was possible for things to get weirder than the first Santa Claus episode we saw on MST3K. The Brains found a way to prove me wrong. Santa faces off against the Devil. The ACTUAL DEVIL. Santa also has a spy network that rivals Russia in terms of complexity. And Merlin (Yes, THAT Merlin) is one of Santa’s allies. This is as weird as it sounds. Yeah, this is gonna draw comparisons to “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” — but that episode, despite the fame associated with its name and its popularity which is generally associated to the legendary “Patrick Swayze Christmas” sketch. “Santa Claus” has what “Martians” didn’t: consistently funny riffing. It’s not difficult when the guys are given this much ammunition, from Santa’s weird underage (and racist) toy factory to his creepy, wind-up reindeer to the fact that Santa employs child labor to spy on people whenever he wants (with weird-looking gadgets to boot; a giant eye on an extending metal tube?!) to the weird nightmares Pitch, the Devil, makes children have. This movie makes “Martians” look normal.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Why does he have an Air Force Star above his door?!
SERVO: Well, Santa flew 23 missions over North Korea.
MIKE: You don’t say…

 

40) 1112 – Carnival Magic

(Available on Netflix)

Like “Cry Wilderness” before it, “Carnival Magic” is just one of those films that makes you wonder how far down the IMDB rabbit hole the producers of MST3K are willing to go. It’s not the strangest film the show’s ever featured but it’s certainly an odd film about a carnival in the middle of nowhere and the people who run it and the story revolves around a monkey who can talk and drive and nearly undergoes a procedure where he’s ripped open by a weird doctor who looks like your English professor but sounds like Thurl Ravenscroft. It’s just a goofy production and one that the guys seem at home with. It’s pretty much summed up by Jonah when he sees the director credit during the film’s opening: a great opening joke from Jonah: “Al Adamson is the name Alan Smithee uses when he doesn’t want his name on a film.”

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: Is it me or is this scene supposed to feel like a hopeful autopsy?

 

39) 904 – Werewolf

In a way, MST3K’s 9th season felt like they were choosing some low-hanging fruit with films like “The Pumaman”, “Hobgoblins”, and “Werewolf”. That isn’t to say “Werewolf” isn’t howlingly funny (see what I did there?), it’s just so ridiculous (a man with the werewolf curse inside him drives WHILE he’s a wolf in a scene where you just laugh your ass off), one almost wonders if it was made this bad on purpose. It’s the story of the discovery of a werewolf skull and the absolute chaos it manages to create with the small Arizona town where this is supposed to take place. Mike and the Bots have a field day with actress Adrianna Miles who has a thick accent and says things like, “Paul…you is a war-wilf?” and it doesn’t even need to be riffed. It wouldn’t be so bad if she would put some conviction behind her lines but she plays Natalie like a wide-eyed zombie who occasionally says something dull. The sketch work is decent with a great opening where Mike think he’s James Lipton from “Inside the Actor’s Studio” and culiminates with “Where O Werewolf”, a song where Mike and the Bots dress in 50’s drag and sing about Mike (or Suzie’s) werewolf beau. It hearkens back to the old MST3K days and that’s most welcome.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: This is very moving…in that I want to MOVE out of the theater IMMEDIATELY.

 

38) 1204 – The Day Time Ended

(Available on Netflix)

The last time we saw a Charles Band production was the 7th Season Finale, “Laserblast”. And, despite throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the audience If you want evidence that the riffing is a little tighter, look no further than this experiment. The entire light switch sequence is beautifully riffed with Jonah and the Bots taking the pain in stride, sarcastically clapping at the end of the scene, one that, appropriate to the film, has gone absolutely nowhere. Servo’s line about the film’s seemingly lazy nature just before the cut sums it up beautifully: “This whole movie is like the cold open to a Columbo episode.” It is that and more. Other riffs play on Grant’s gruff, somewhat grizzled nature, inventing a running joke in his imaginary love of “Steak Milk” (Grant loves grilling steaks and the joke is that he craves it all the time, infusing it into his night-time glass of milk; it’s funnier than it sounds) and several jokes are made about Jenny, the annoying kid who knows everything but who the adults ignore all the time despite the fact that she keeps saving their butts at every turn. This episode is notable for revealing the fate of Dr. Erhardt who, we were told, went missing at the beginning of Season 2. He’s back to scatter the ashes of (and close the door on) TV’s Frank and Dr. Clayton Forrester, Max’s dad and Kinga’s dad, respectively. Season 12 (and the modern era) really found its rhythm here.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: This whole movie is like the cold open of a Columbo episode.

 

37) 903 – The Pumaman

The first time I heard the Brains were going to take this movie on, I knew nothing about it other than it sounded like absolute garbage. The funny thing was, in my mind, I pictured some guy in a lame puma costume. How in the hell do you come in below even THOSE expectations? The actual “Puma Man” (pronounced “pew-muh man” by just about everyone in the cast which wimps it down even further) is a dweeby-looking guy wearing a black shirt and Jim Harbaugh-style khaki slacks with a short red cape that only goes down to the middle of his back because I guess they didn’t have the budget for a full cape. Not that it matters anyhow. There’s no improving on the costume, like, at all. And what’s even more amusing are his powers which includes things pumas can do like…fly…and walk through walls. That first one is just tragic because it’s obviously Puma Man against a rear projection screen showing city scapes that move back and forth and not in one specific direction. Picture a child toying around with the dial and you have an idea of what watching it is like. The riffing is strong throughout the episode but gets better by the second half, especially when Puma Man’s hero theme (which sounds like background music for a cable access TV commercial) begins playing and the guys begin singing random things like “We…have got…selection and savings” or “If…you love…the great taste of bacon”. It’s just awesome stuff.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: You know, I have almost no respect for pumas now. I now know that if I ever run into a puma, I could just push it the hell over.

 

36) 1001 – Soultaker

Ah, “Soultaker”. Not to go Joe Buck on everyone, but HERE’S an episode where you had it all. The SOL is in trouble. Mechanical systems are failing all over the place, Gypsy’s behavior chip is bad and the ship is on its way to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere…all while a mysterious ship monitors the SOL’s status from afar. Things down at Castle Forrester are just as bad: an evil, soul-stealing wraith has descended upon Pearl and her minions and all hope seems lost. How fitting is it that the film in question is “Soultaker”, an 80’s fantasy/horror romp written by the star of the film, Vivian Schilling? It’s not too terrible, but it’s not very good and most of the jokes seem to come at Vivian’s expense. One of my favorite moments is where Zack questions the logic of one of the characters and Natalie (Schilling, in character) acts shocked. Mike’s response is perfect: “Hey, look, you WROTE this crap!” It’s a decently-riffed film, though not wholly memorable in terms of the jokes and there isn’t really a line that produces a good belly laugh. The main attraction is the set of sketches…the ship monitoring the SOL is piloted by none other than Joel Robinson, the original host of the show. And the wraith is none other than TV’s Frank. The banter between Pearl and Frank is wonderful and the first meeting between Mike and Joel warms your heart and feels like a handshake between two enemy superpowers. It just doesn’t get any better than that. My ONLY gripe is that this wasn’t the series finale on SyFy with an ending which saw Joel rescuing Mike and the Bots from their captivity. But you can’t have it all.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO (as Vivian/Natalie writing this moment in the script): “INT: Bedroom. ME, draped across the bed, tousled and tawny. I lay there, hand on my taut tummy, still pretty in a worried sort of way.”

 

35) 1003 – Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders

If The Hallmark Channel began airing flicks about witchcraft and Satan instead of 1000 Christmas flicks, you’d probably have “Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders”, a film about a grandfather who tells bedtime stories to his grandson that involve horrible, evil toy monkeys that spread death and destruction across whole suburban areas. I’m not kidding. The thing kills flies, starts garage fires and then murders the family pet…and this story is something a child should hear? This is something Mike and the Bots point out throughout the film and they SHOULD, for crying outloud. This is one dark story. I mean, a severely depressed and powerless Merlin walking around the city asking people if they’ve “seen his monkey” doesn’t even bring comfort to the proceedings. I couldn’t even make up that last bit if I were on shrooms. A hilarious episode, though. Quite underrated.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO (as little kid): “No, Grandpa Borgnine, leave light and hope for me, please!”
CROW (as Borgnine): “Get out from behind that cushion, Billy, it gets worse!”

 

34) 706 – Laserblast

The Comedy Central era of MST3K comes to an end with “Laserblast”, a terrible piece of “science fiction” about a kid who finds an alien gun because the aliens who own it are too stupid to simply retrieve it for some reason. Like every other episode in the reduced Season 7, the riffing is solid, taking multiple shots at the fat sheriff with a resemblance to Hank Williams, Jr. (they take turns shouting variations of “ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL” nearly every single time he’s on screen) as well as the pacing of the film which is so unbelievably lazy and apathetic, Servo declares that the endless shots of Kathy waiting for Billy is “like watching an aquarium”. But, of course, the reason to watch the episode is to see how the show almost ended. At the time, this was considered “the end” of MST3K as SyFy hadn’t stepped in to save the show just yet. The sketches aren’t wonderful. Mike and the Bots escape burning up in Earth’s atmosphere after Dr. Forrester disconnects the Umbilicus. Due to the ship’s lack of directional capabilities, the SOL is shot into deep space. Along the way, they confront an angry, sentient satellite, run into a field of Space Children (and change one of their diapers) and nearly meet their ends due to a black hole…until Mike, dressed as Captain Janeway, saves them in a hilarious sketch (in which Mike declares that he’s responsible for the “148 crew members aboard this ship…144 of which, we never see”). The show ultimately ends with Mike and the Bots arriving at “The Edge of the Universe” and becoming pure energy while, on Earth, in a homage to “2001: a space odyssey”, Clayton grows older and older and becomes a star child who Pearl has to raise. This would be Trace Beaulieu’s last show as he wouldn’t make the leap to SyFy. From here on out, Bill Corbett, a writer with the show, became the new Crow,

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: These credits give you a chance to finish your popcorn, talk a little…decide to see another movie…

 

33) 1013 – Diabolik

Here it is, the final episode of the SyFy Channel era, the end of the 10th season and, for all intents and purposes, the show as well, before it was finally brought back to us almost two decades later. The film is Italian and is based on the comic book character of the same name. It’s a fun film, full of energy and silliness and the guys have a fun final romp as they make fun of just how silly the main character is (Mike dubs him “Reverse Racoon Man”) and how over-the-top his hideout is (Servo’s remark about thinking he only needed a nice stereo to get some tail in the 60’s is classic) but the most important thing was how the show ended, especially after fans griped, somewhat, about the pseudo-ending we got with Season 7. Here, Pearl breaks the SOL’s manual control device (a cheap 80’s joystick from Radio Shack) while messing with the ship and inadvertently activates their manual re-entry system, meaning the SOL is coming back to Earth one way or the other. Ultimately, Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy all move out of Castle Forrester, Pearl disconnects the feed to the castle one last time, and the ship crash-lands on Earth…only to find that things haven’t changed much: Mike, Crow and Servo have all moved into an apartment together and watch bad movies on the couch on Saturdays. It’s a wonderful conclusion even if the episode isn’t perfect.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE (singing to the 1966 Batman Theme): Dun, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, THIS GUY!!!

 

32) 1203 – Lords of the Deep

(Available on Netflix)

Before there was The Asylum…there was Roger Corman. Corman, bless his heart, is still alive, 92 years young. He built his entire career on films like this. More than a few of them have been featured on this show. As Max notes, “Lords of the Deep” is NOT, in fact, a rip-off of “The Abyss”. “Deep Star Six” and “Leviathan” ripped off “The Abyss” — and “Lords of the Deep” ripped off those films. So, everything’s all right, guys! What’s more, Corman shamelessly rips off 2001 while he’s at it with the Malevolent AI Computer trope. All while giving us so…many…shots of the high-tech underwater base. MST3K was made for this kind of sci-fi cheese. The riffing on this movie does take some time to get going and really takes off once Claire and O’Neill are established as lovers. The two have absolutely zero chemistry being that Claire is driven and O’Neill is such a beta. That doesn’t stop Jonah and the Bots from unloading on poor O’Neill’s naivete when it comes to their sex lives. The endless and, at times, oddly-placed establishing shots of the underwater base (it’s even on the goddamn POSTER for crying outloud, so the thing is as immortal as The Vampire Lestat) is met in clever fashion: constant references to sitcoms where establishing shots are the norm during transitions. Overall, it’s another solid 12th season outing.

BEST RIFF:

(CLAIRE and O’NEILL get comfortable. CLAIRE lays on top of O’NEILL’S chest and the two attempt to sleep.)
JONAH: You know, in the Kama Sutra, this position goes by a number of names: “The Sleepy Arm”…
CROW: The “No, This Is Fine”…
SERVO: The “What Happened To Us?”…
JONAH: The “Excuse Me While I Get My Phone And Go Into The Bathroom For, Like, Ten Minutes”…

 

31) 515 – The Wild Wild World of Batwoman (w/ short: Cheating)

Easily, one of the most goofy films MST3K ever did. “The Wild Wild World of Batwoman” attempted to hack off a piece of that sweet Adam West Batman money. There’s some sort of plot involving a “hearing aid” that will allow “Ratfink” (that’s actually the villain’s name; I guess they didn’t want to be TOO subtle here) to listen in on every conversation on the planet. Only “Batwoman” stands in his way. “Batwoman”, by the way, looks like someone’s tried soccer mom (wearing a really weird Dracula/Batperson hybrid costume with a late 80’s Cher-at-the-Oscars peacock headdress) who (VERY) passively makes strange, calm diplomatic deals with her enemies instead of fighting. Be prepared for endless sequences where her “Batgirls” dance, beyond their control, because of a formula which has been specifically invented by the villains to make girls go-go dance. It makes the “Cheating” short that comes before the film look normal. I’m really trying to avoid writing large capsules for each episode…for this one, that isn’t possible. The movie is batshit insane — and it drives Mike and the Bots batshit insane the longer it goes. Most of the humor comes from their weariness and impatience with the film, an act we rarely see because they’re usually not THIS affected by a movie. Servo finally snapping and screaming “EEEEEEEEND!!!” at the movie during the umpteenth go-go dancing scene is as therapeutic as it is well-deserved. What a movie…

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Oh, stop pretending there’s a PLOT! Don’t cheapen yourself further!

 

30) 907 – Hobgoblins

This is, without a doubt, the dumbest film ever shown on MST3K. I know the show’s concept is to show bad movies but did we have to get into “USA Up All Night” territory? I mean, watching this film (a bunch of Gremlin/Critter hybrids escape a film set and make idiot teenagers’s fantasies come to life in murderous ways), it’s easy to see that it’s schlock cinema and that he wasn’t into making a serious film here. The riffing is near-perfect as Mike and the Bots range anywhere from complete exasperation (Servo counts at least 30 parking scenes throughout the film) to free-wheeling and relaxed to the point of directly insulting a cardboard cut-out of director Rick Sloane during the end credits. Apparently, Sloane was mostly pleased with the show’s treatment of his film but didn’t like them personally attacking him. To me, the insults directed at him are about as aggressive as a roast and come with the territory. When you produce a film this bad, what else would you expect? It’s all in good fun.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Can we have a law, that in the future, films have to be made by filmmakers?!

 

29) 1105 – The Beast of Hollow Mountain

(Available on Netflix)

“The Beast of Hollow Mountain” holds the distinction of being 1) the first film to feature stop-motion special effects in color widescreen format and 2) the first film to ever showcase dinosaurs and cowboys in the same movie — all because the effects artist wanted to do a film about cowboys and dinosaurs. The creature (an Allosaurus) is charming with a long, forked tongue that whips around like a pin flag at Pebble Beach. He’s the best part of an otherwise dull film — and his appearance isn’t until the last 20 minutes of the film. So enjoy an hour or so of cattle negotiations and familial alcoholism. Guy Madison and Patricia Medina end up overplaying their parts, coming across as a manly stereotype and a swooning female stereotype. So, it’s no wonder that the trio have fun going after Jimmy’s deep, manly voice or Sarita’s beauty (which, in the minds of Jonah and the Bots, causes Jimmy to stammer and say stupid things to “impress” her) and the various Mexican characters who are obviously what Americans think Mexicans are and what Mexico is. The movie is lighthearted and fun for the most part so that makes the episode flow well, too.

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: Ah! A Gene Simmons-osaurus!

 

28) 822 – Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

It’s nice to see the late Raul Julia here. He was a great actor. He had an Oscar-worthy supporting role in “Presumed Innocent” with Harrison Ford and brought a smoldering romantic charm to Gomez Addams in “The Addams Family”. This was obviously one of his lesser films, yet you can see how much he tries to bring something to the role of “Aran Fingal” (which Mike points out is so NOT a Puerto Rican name), a man who just wants to enjoy a simple life and not die a workplace drone. This ranking project was the first time I had seen this episode, though I’d heard that it wasn’t a great one due to how tedious and confusing the film was. Imagine my surprise when I found out just how solid this episode was. The sketches are basically crap (the one standout is Pearl singing in a duet with Brain Guy) but the riffing is spot on as Mike and the Bots spare no firepower aiming at the terrible visual effects and a story which, while paying homage to “Casablanca”, makes no sense despite the fact that the intended idea was actually fairly clever and way ahead of its time,

BEST RIFF:

FINGAL: Genius…pure genius…
CROW: …couldn’t save this film.

 

27) 414 – Tormented

Bert I. Gordon resurfaces yet again with “Tormented”, a film about a guy who sleeps with anything that moves and then murders one of them, only to be haunted by her. The film is dark and the premise is actually fairly spooky. The film is beautifully riffed with the guys hitting dingers over the fence left and right, touching everything from Vi’s goofy haunting bits to Tom’s sleazy, secretive nature to Sandy, Meg’s “little sister” to the beatnik who shows up to find out how Tom and Vi are linked. This is one of the triumphs of an incredibly mixed Season 4 which seems to have seen more duds than hits.

BEST RIFF:

TOM (to his fiance’s little sister): From now on, you’re the only other woman in my life.
JOEL: Put her DOWN, Jerry Lee!

 

26) 1103 – The Time Travelers

(Available on Netflix)

Ever wanted to go forward in time to an era where mankind has survived the apocalypse and progressed to living in a swag cave with a bunch of nightmarish android slaves, a spa full of naked women and “love machines”? Then “The Time Travelers” is the flick for you! Unfortunately, the halfway compelling nature of the movie serves as a bit of a hindrance to Jonah and the ‘Bots and their riffing. That’s not to say the jokes don’t land or that the episode isn’t funny. It’s fairly solid humor from end to end. The boys get some great belly laughs at the expense of “Danny”, the dorky lab assistant and point out that the movie is considerably upbeat for a post-apocalyptic epic (in the future, there are ORANGES) This may sound like an odd complaint, but I feel like there were too many jokes here. I don’t know how much caffeine the writers and performers ingested before and during filming, but Jonah, Hampton, and Baron are so manic here, it’s like listening to a trio of Robin Williams shouting odd jokes at the screen and it’s slightly off-putting to the point of being annoying. Still, this is funny stuff and Season 11 was really rolling at this point.

BEST RIFF:

STEVE: Date…five, July…’64…time…
JONAH: MILLER!

 

25) 613 – The Sinister Urge (w/ short: Keeping Clean and Neat)

Had Ed Wood directed “Boogie Nights”, we might have gotten this, His take on the porn industry rivals “Reefer Madness” in terms of ridiculous hyperbole. The riffing is solid here, starting with the perfect companion short in “Keeping Clean and Neat”. What “Young Man’s Fancy” was to “The Violent Years”, this short is to “The Sinister Urge”, poking fun at the highly uncomfortable subject matter of keeping clean. One of the funniest and priceless moments of the episode comes near the end when Gloria attempts to explain to the cops how a dead guy ran away from the scene of the crime. Mike and the Bots’ just lose it here, genuinely laughing at how ridiculous the plotting is and it’s SO good.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: This is the hottest “Petticoat Junction” EVER!

 

24) 513 – The Brain That Wouldn’t Die

Good-bye, Joel. Hello, Mike. Changes to the show included an entirely new intro sequence, a new hallway sequence before the theater segments and the SOL (and the Mad’s lair which is now officially just “Deep 13”) was altered to kill any reference to “Gizmonics Institute” because of Joel’s ownership of the term. It’s odd not to see Joel greeting us at the beginning of the show but Mike is so easy-going and so effortlessly facetious at times, you can’t help but be taken by him. In other words, the show didn’t suffer from Joel’s departure. In fact, the show had years of laughs left in it at this point. Mike’s maiden voyage into riffing has him crossing paths with “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”, a staple of midnight B-movie creature features. It’s sufficiently horrible and gruesome, about a man who somehow keeps his wife alive after she’s decapitated following a horrific (and fairly random) car accident by placing her re-animated head in a pan full of fluid and promising her a new, sexier body. Just yuck. The superlative riffing offsets the dark tone of the film and the opening sketch featuring Mike being trained by the ‘Bots to riff on bad movies sets things up rather nicely, giving us one of the funniest non-theater riffs ever: SERVO: Marc Singer walks out in a loin cloth…what do you say? MIKE: “Now I know why the show’s called ‘V’!” So good. The problem is that the rest of the sketches, while clever, aren’t totally great until show writer (and eventual host) Mary Jo Pehl visits the SOL, playing Jan in the Pan, something that even made my Mom laugh — and she isn’t a fan of the show.

BEST RIFF:

(Jan, now without a body, wakes up in the pan and attempts to talk.)
MIKE: Doesn’t she need LUNGS?!
SERVO: No! She’s got neck juice!

 

23) 319 – War of the Colossal Beast (w/ short: Mr. B Natural)

Ten episodes after “The Amazing Colossal Man”, we get the sequel, also directed by Burt I. Gordon. The riffing isn’t as sharp as on the original film but the episode is buoyed by the legendary short, “Mr. B Natural”, a weird little film about a musically-inclined, seemingly androgynous sprite who visits/haunts (depending on your point of view) a young boy and tries to get him into playing live music. It’s well-meaning but as horrifying as it actually sounds. The episode, overall, is still very good, but not the classic that was the original. Using Mr. B to fix that seems like a cheap win.

BEST RIFF:

(Bert I. Gordon’s name appears in the credits. Joel & the Bots cheer.)
SERVO: What does the “I” stand for?
CROW: “I am ashamed.”

 

22) 418 – Attack of the Eye Creatures

Not to be confused with “The Crawling Eye”, “Attack of the Eye Creatures” is about a bunch of young morons as they deal with an alien creature which is literally made of eyeballs. The film is goofy as hell in the “Catalina Caper” vein and you’d think Joel and the Bots couldn’t add much to it. But, they do. A slew of jokes make fun of the supposed “night” shots where it’s pure daylight outside with foleyed-in crickets which supplies the riff, “I sure hope they don’t get a MOONburn!” The constant creepiness that permeates the flick just adds to a bizarrely funny experience. And it’s not even “creepy” as in “scary creepy”. This is low-budget “Eegah” creepy. Aside from some weak sketch work, it’s so much fun to watch.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: David Lynch only ASPIRES to make something this creepy.

 

21) 603 – The Dead Talk Back (w/ short: The Selling Wizard)

Imagine a film so goofy, it demands dueling narrators to tell the audience what’s happening. One of them is “Krasker”, a dude who tries to get the murder victims to talk to the living (via a cheap-looking Jiffy Pop container) so that they can tell everyone who murdered them while the other sounds like a hard-boiled detective who just talks whenever he feels like it. It’s so overacted, it removes any sense of creepiness the film attempts to generate. Precursor to this, Mike and the Bots riff on “The Selling Wizard”, a film about the process of selling items people really want. It’s so stone-cold boring, even the riffing can’t save it. Still, it’s all about the main feature which reminds me of the insanely goofy “Attack of the Eye Creatures”. The sketches also have a lot to offer even if you’re not buying the feature, with Crow playing his Jerry Garcia-esque guitar solo throughout the show and the Bots invent a machine which talks to the dead, summoning the likes of Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln…who both call in to argue about whether or not the Bills are returning to the Super Bowl.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Look, we’ve been married for 25 years…at LEAST let me get to second base.

 

20) 1101 – Reptilicus

(Available on Netflix)

Imagine the glee heard from every MSTie on the planet when Joel Hodgson announced that a new version of MST3K would be in the works — provided his Kickstarter campaign received enough funding. Two months later, Hodgson had nearly $6 million dollars and the fans got a new season. From that moment on, it felt like forever. It only started to become real during Turkey Day 2016 when it was announced that Patton Oswalt would be cast as “TV’s Son of TV’s Frank” and we got to meet the remainder of the cast. Then the release date was announced…then the teaser trailer. It was all coming together. And when it premiered, I felt like a kid at Christmas. Yes, the first episode of the 11th season isn’t without its flaws. Yes, it’s different. Joel may be behind the scenes but the show has been completely overhauled. First, and foremost, the cast is completely different. Jonah Ray plays the new guy, “Jonah Heston” (an obvious nod to Charlton Heston who the cast has referenced more than once with regard to his part in “Planet of the Apes”) while Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn play Crow and Tom Servo, respectively. Gypsy is played by an actual female voice this time around (Rebecca Hanson) and we have two new mads in Kinga Forrester (Felicia Day), the daughter of Clayton Forrester (and granddaughter of Pearl) while Patton Oswalt rounds out everyone by playing “TV’s Son of TV’s Frank”. It’s not hard to get used to the newbies or the situation. This is the same song done a different way with some upgrades: the hallway sequence is beautifully detailed, the Bots’ arms work (sadly eliminating a long-standing running joke on the show) and the movie now takes up your entire screen and is completely remastered and gorgeous. What’s more, Joel’s fingerprints are all over the show what with the return of the Gizmonics Institute backdrop, the Invention Exchanges, and talky, analytical sketches. The film leading off our Netflix journey is “Reptilicus”, a Danish Kaiju-style monster movie, if you’d believe that. The riffs come hard and fast and Jonah and the Bots are over-the-top in their snarkiness, shooting jokes at the screen, rapid-fire. It feels less natural and more rehearsed and acted out. There’s little breathing time between them (something that gets better as the season progresses) but it has quite a few gems. This is just total fun, the guys just messing around and taking their shots. The sketches are decent. The highlight of the thing is the song “Every Country Has a Monster” which is just a slice of pure brilliance in that it’s the best sketch produced in the new generation AND is one of the greatest songs ever written for the show. The whole thing is like putting on an old piece of clothing you’re comfy with. After all this time, it feels like no time passed.

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: They’re obviously dubbing in those screams.
CROW: Why do you say that?
JONAH: The Danes are too polite to scream.

 

19) 1109 – Yongary

(Available on Netflix)

There’s always something so comfortable about watching a giant monster flick on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the feel of it: the stilted dubbing, the strangely edited audio and sound effects, the silly musical scoring, the sound of the Monster Children yapping at the monster in the film…everything about giant monster films is just so silly that it melds incredibly well with everything MST3K is. Both are made on the cheap and have conviction in their campy attitude. They’re like brethren, two sides of the same coin where the only difference is that one takes itself semi-seriously and the other has dropped all pretense about being serious. It’s just “home” to me. “Yongary” is everything that was great about MST3K’s treatment of the Sandy Frank films and it’s one of the best episodes of the 11th season of “Mystery Science Theater 3000”. If the monster didn’t already give Jonah and the Bots plenty of ammunition, Icho, the Monster Child, does in spades. From aggravating newlyweds with an “itching gun” (yes, this is a thing that exists in this movie) to shaming single adults into not being married, Icho is this season’s “Johnny” from “Time of the Apes”: he just doesn’t care. There’s also a running riff using popular songs from nearly every decade which just shows the range of intelligence of the writers when it comes to pop culture.

BEST RIFF:

JONAH: You know, whereas GODZILLA was a parable about the ravages of nuclear war, YONGARY is a parable about copyright infringement.

 

18) 703 – Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell

“This is one of the most ambitiously bad films we’ve ever done,” says Mike about three quarters of the way through “Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell”, a film in the MST3K roster that’s been compared to “Cave Dwellers” (but is really “Outlaw” with better, tighter riffing), which it rivals in terms of pure incredulousness from the guys. The film has some great riffing, mocking the horrible 80’s-style sword-and-sorcery which includes some awful miscasting and pretentious accents. “Let’s see how long THOSE last”, Crow says of their alleged “native tongue”, in a line that grabs you right off the bat and primes you for a great time the rest of the film. And that’s a good thing because the sketch work, involving an ailing, bed-ridden Pearl shouting “CLAYTON” repeatedly just grates.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: This movie is like playing “Doom” when there’s no monsters or opponents.

 

17) 1104 – Avalanche

(Available on Netflix)

The first Roger Corman experiment of the 11th season is a piece of 70’s disaster porn that barely has a disaster and doesn’t have the 70’s porn to fall back on. There’s just a love triangle storyline which you’d think would be kinkier than it is, considering the time period…but, no, it’s between an air-headed Mia Farrow, a lecherous, overweight, elderly Rock Hudson (he’d seen MUCH better days than this) and a somehow sexy, yet dull, Robert Forster. I also feel compelled to mention that Steven Franken (“Danny” from “The Time Travelers”) returns here as “McDade”, a character who sounds like he should be sliding across car hoods and jumping into the air firing twin nines with explosions raging in the background. In any case, it takes far too long for the actual “avalanche” to actually happen and, when it does, it’s just footage of emergency services vehicles slipping on icy roads and crashing into nearby buildings while people die horribly out at the ski resort where this whole thing takes place. Many of the jokes tackle the tacky 70’s backdrop (“Is everything BROWN or do I have retina damage?” asks Jonah when he sees the insane amount of wood paneling on walls and lack of color in everyone’s clothing) and the complete lack of any action (“You know, not like I’m complaining but, at this point, Gene Hackman was already halfway through the Poseidon,” Crow complains about halfway through the movie when we get another romantic interlude). The addition of some choice sketches (Neil Patrick Harris cameos as Kinga’s long-distance boyfriend and it’s here we learn that Max has a thing for Kinga as well), this is a fairly solid episode.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: This is like if ‘The Shining’ was booked on Priceline.

 

16) 908 – The Touch of Satan

I don’t even know how to quantify “The Touch of Satan” (which Servo says “softens your hands while you do the dishes” in a hilarious opening riff) other than to say that it’s strange, hypnotic film that resides somewhere between “The Exorcist” without the shock factor and a 70’s TV drama. The dialogue is so slow and wooden (“This is where the fish lives” is, possibly, one of the strangest, most arbitrary lines ever to be uttered by an actor in the entire history of film) and I’m curious as to who in the hell thought of a “walnut farm” as a suitable horror film setting — if that’s what this was supposed to be. Nonetheless, the guys manage to pull out their best, perfectly timing jokes in between the big rig-sized pauses, riffing on everything from the obtuse and obnoxious use of “Amazing Grace” during horrific shots of women being burned alive (“PublicDomanWeDon’tHaveToPayAThingHaHaHaHa!” Servo quickly sings as the song drones on) to the walnut farming dad’s penchant for putting “peanuts” in his moonshine — but slurring the word “peanuts” juuuust enough to the point where Crow uncomfortably remarks, “Boy, I HOPE he just said ‘peanuts'”, a line that made one of my good friends laugh for so long, we needed to pause the episode so he could catch his breath. This is such an amazing episode and it’s only brought down by weak sketch work that only ever sees its bright spots when Beez McKeever is on-screen as the nanny Pearl hires to watch Bobo and Brain Guy while she’s gone.

BEST RIFF:

(An angry mob carries torches and shouts “BURN THE WITCH” over and over.)
MIKE: Oh, and also, “Go Packers” but, mostly, “Burn the witch”.

 

15) 1102 – Cry Wilderness

(Available on Netflix)

One of these days, when I write my article about the oddest films MST3K ever riffed, this will be on it. Try to keep up here: a cute little boy named Paul lives in some sort of school/palace/museum for boys. Paul has some sort of weird connection with a Bigfoot (WHICH IS SOMEHOW AN EXHIBIT AT A MUSEUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL NATURE  STUDIES even though the guy running the place thinks Bigfoot is phony), who actually wanders by the place, while Paul is sleeping, TO TELL HIM THAT HIS DAD IS IN GREAT DANGER. Yes, Bigfoot (who, incidentally, loves to swill several 24-packs of Coca-Cola at a time) yells arbitrary, creepy shit at Paul in the middle of the night. Still with me? Good. Paul wanders into the woods to find his Dad and his friend, Jim, a Native American man, as they walk through the forest aiming shotguns at anything with four legs and fur, threatening it’s life — only to let it go and promising to “come back for it later”. Seriously. This happens at least a dozen times throughout the movie. And , if you think THAT’S weird…it gets even weirder and, at times, just plain horrifying. In my initial review for the episode, I said that the film was “like ‘Pod People’, ‘Boggy Creek II’ and ‘The Final Sacrifice’ all had a weird little baby and had it wander into Leonard Nimoy’s ‘In Search of Bigfoot’ documentary.” Yep. That’s still a fair assessment. The riffing is out-of-control wonderful here (though the pace and spacing of the jokes are still an issue) as Jonah and the Bots do an admirable job of picking apart the movie on every level from the absurdity of Bigfoot’s weird stalking of a minor to the constant use of stock footage of the animals to the fact that foleyed-in “ricochet” sound effects don’t apply to tranquilizer darts. This is proof that it didn’t take long for the new generation of MST3K to produce something great.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: Paul’s been out of school six months now, so he’ll probably have to repeat, like, three grades?

 

14) 510 – The Painted Hills (w/ short: Body Care and Grooming)

MST3K does a western starring Lassie (you remember that dog) as “Shep”, a canine who must protect a boy from a grizzled, murderous prospector. The riffing pokes a lot of fun at the entire Lassie angle, giving an exhausted voice to the famous dog (though the “Snausages” joke wears thin after the first few times; not everything is “Big Stupid”, guys) as well as the kid, which is always a welcome thing to do. There’s also a great short about taking care of one’s body and it’s disturbing as hell — though the riffing is fantastic and attacks the outdated outlook of young boys growing up and maturing. Crow’s sketch about President Hayes is an absolute gem. But that was Season 5: one solid episode after the next, with about a half dozen crown jewels.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Now, is this the REAL “Old West” or the Roy Rogers “Old West” where they electricity and cars?

 

13) 813 – Jack Frost

“Jack Frost” is, easily, the best of the Russo-Finnish co-productions. In fact, when one watches it, one might wonder if it’s just as crazy as all the others we’ve seen (“Sinbad”, “The Day the Earth Froze”, to name a couple) or if it’s an insane parody. It’s balls-out bonkers crazy to the point where Crow just says, “So, the entire premise is that everyone is nutty as all get-out.” Truer words have never been spoken. The riffing here is pure reactionary at one point, driving Mike and the Bots to fits of laughter as even they can’t find the words for what they’re seeing. That’s the only reason why it might not hold a higher rating on my list. It’s hard to find a good solid foundation from which to work. That’s still not a bad thing. It’s easily one of the best episodes of the show.

BEST RIFF:

(Trees are being frosted over.)
CROW: Smilla’s Sense of CRAP.

 

12) 624 – Samson vs. The Vampire Women

Vampires led by a fierce female vampire threaten to corrupt and enslave a rich professor’s daughter. And the only one who can stop it…is Samson, a Luchadore. It sounds ridiculous and it IS. The moment where Samson busts into the professor’s office declaring that he “came as soon as he could”, Mike and the Bots just laugh. No joke, no riff, no comment, just laughter. That’s the style of riffing on display here. But forget that for a second. This is the 6th season finale — and the final episode we’ll get to see TV’s Frank up until a cameo during the 10th season opener. The sketches are much improved here as Frank is taken away to “Second Banana Heaven” by “Torgo the White”, which gives us a wonderful number called “Who Will I Kill” sung by a distraught Dr. Forrester. This episode is a fitting end to the year and to Frank’s final turn on the show. The show’s second bananas would evolve over time but nothing was as good as Frank.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: Which one is Brad Pitt?

 

11) 303 – Pod People

An alien with an elephant-like snout befriends a little boy while the alien’s parents systematically murder everyone in the little boy’s cabin. If this sounds fairly uneven to you, that’s because it was meant to be a horror film until E.T. convinced the filmmakers to add the story of the little boy. The riffing on this is perfection as there are plenty of moments Joel and the Bots aim for hit with precision. The movie is weird, borderline incomprehensible and foggy to the point where Servo says, “Even the movie The Fog didn’t have this much fog!” Crow’s running Trumpy voice is gut-bustingly funny. The sketches are ALL brilliant with the centerpiece being a full reproduction of the pop number the band in the film sings complete with Frank playing the effeminate guy in the studio and Joel yelling “IT STINKS!” at the end, a line which is fully ingrained in the MST3K lexicon. The entire episode is. It’s almost perfection.

BEST RIFF:

(We’re moving backwards in space to open the film.)
SERVO (chuckling to himself): Whoa! Boldly backing AWAY from where no man has gone before!

 

10) 309 – The Amazing Colossal Man

Born of the paranoia which permeated the public during the beginning of the Atomic Age, The Amazing Colossal Man (courtesy of MST3K repeat offender, Bert I. Gordon) is insanely goofy, despite the serious subject matter and heartbreaking storyline. This is because Joel and the Bots are as loose as they’ve ever been and they rarely miss with the jokes which range from gleefully insensitive to Glenn’s plight (CAROL: He still ribs me about my driving… JOEL (as man listening): RIBS! That’s what I’m hungry for!) to elegantly simple (MAN: Do you see anything? CROW (as CAROL): Well, there’s a 50-foot guy, but he’s got hair…that can’t be Glenn…). The sketches are pure awesome and clever with Joel being put in his place after attempting to come up with a lame lesson for the Bots on how to treat a nuclear burn victim, Joel assuming the role of Glenn, and the crown jewel: Mike Nelson playing Glenn and visiting the SOL. This is, easily, one of MST3K’s top episodes.

BEST RIFF:

(The camera is on Glen’s fiance as she drives.)
CROW (in Public Service Announcement voice): Susie doesn’t think she NEEDS a seatbelt! Watch Susie go ballistic through the windshield!

 

9) 701 – Night of the Blood Beast (w/ short: Once Upon a Honeymoon)

(Non-Turkey Day version is here.)

We get a Corman-produced venture (both Roger and his brother, Gene, were in on this one) to start a very truncated Season 7 of MST3K as an astronaut crash-lands and dies — but comes back to life much to shock of his cohorts at “NASA” which is comprised of a small office and about a half dozen workers. Season 7 (the final season of the Comedy Central era) is infamous for only having six episodes but it’s still a solid season and it starts with a bang here. The film (which Mike Nelson credits Mary Jo Pehl for “rescuing” from MST3K’s writer scrap heap) has conviction in its camp but is so awful in execution, it ruins any goodwill it intended to have. The riffing is perfection, starting with the hilarious short “Once Upon a Honeymoon”, a musical about a man who just wants to go on his honeymoon but can’t because he needs to finish writing a musical for his boss — and can’t even do that because of writer’s block. Crow’s line, “Let’s see, what rhymes with ‘blue balls'” gets me every single time and the guys just have fun with the rest of it, making up their own lyrics to the surprisingly catchy musical score. The fun carries right over into “Blood Beast” which seems so effortless and natural due to the soft chuckling shared, every so often, between the riffers, giving the audience a sense of genuine camaraderie. This doesn’t feel scripted. It feels more like three guys who have had a couple drinks and they’re just letting loose. The running jokes work because they’re spaced out beautifully (the bits about shrimp living inside John are great — and has a great payoff at the end when one of the scientists dies, Servo asks, “Should we split him open and scoop out the roux?”) and the episode is just too much fun. A couple things to note: Mary Jo Pehl became Dr. Forrester’s new second-hand, reprising her role as Clayton’s mom, Pearl. She would be the main villain on the show for the next three seasons following this one. She’s NOT Frank — but there’s only one Frank, so trying to imitate that is pointless. She is, however, very good as Pearl, bringing a salty/sarcastic demeanor that only Pehl can deliver. There are also two versions of the episode. I posted the Turkey Day version, which only aired once. The only difference between the two is the sketch work. Personally, I like the Turkey Day version better as it fits the overall continuity of the show better and features a great set of sketches involving Dr. Forrester’s Thanksgiving Day dinner which is attended by Jack Perkins, Mr. B Natural, Pitch, Kitten With a Whip and pianist Michael Feinstein. The execution of these sketches is genius because the cast members have so many roles to fill. Mike plays two of them and Trace plays two of them and it works seamlessly. You can find the other version here.

BEST RIFF:

SERVO: This was back when NASA was family-owned and operated.

 

8) 810 – The Giant Spider Invasion

The first color feature of the SyFy era lands in the form of “The Giant Spider Invasion”, a giant insect film set in the mid-west portion of America and the guys give it the “Mitchell” treatment, absolutely destroying it. It’s not like the film doesn’t deserve it. It’s ugly, dusty, dirty, sleazy, and sweaty. Whoever thought it was a great idea to cast a bunch of country yokels as the heroes of this film needs to resign and leave the movie business forever. The film not only features Alan Hale as a moronic sheriff who thinks he’s hilarious, but it moves so slowly, Crow dubs the film “a Minor Spider Unrest” rather than a “GIant Spider Invasion”. And, then, there’s the great “PACKERS” running joke. And I haven’t even mentioned the “giant spider” which is a big set of legs welded to a car, which is beyond laughable. Easily, one of the best episodes of the 8th season and the series.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: And the movie ramps up the repulsion…
CROW: This movie HATES us, doesn’t it?

 

7) 424 – Manos, the Hands of Fate (w/ short: Hired!, Part 2)

I’m not sure I can even add anything to what’s already been said about this insane film. Every single time I watch the episode, though, I’m just a little peeved that there’s a short that comes before it because this movie deserves the entire spotlight (even though the short is perfectly riffed). It’s so weird and awkward and terrible. It’s everything you’ve come to expect from this show…and SO much more. It’s so bad, the Mads can’t even celebrate the pain it’s causing. Fu Manchu, Cave Dwellers, Pod People, Monster A-Go-Go…those may have left a mark which eventually healed…Manos leaves a life-long scar that is still felt today, even if the riffing on the film is spectacularly good..

BEST RIFF:

(ANOTHER scene showing fields full of lettuce crops from the POV of a car going by.)
SERVO: So, what are we, a half hour into this movie?
JOEL: No, I’m afraid not, it’s more like a…minute…
(Pause)
SERVO (almost silently): No…
JOEL: Yeah.
SERVO: Huh…

 

6) 506 – Eegah!

Actors, actresses, and directors sometimes have their “moments” on the show. For director Bert I. Gordon, it was probably “The Amazing Colossal Man”. For actor Joe Don Baker, it was “Mitchell”. For actor Richard Kiel, it was THIS movie. The last time we saw Kiel was in “Human Duplicators”. In that capsule review, I wrote that Joel and the Bots pounced on the poor guy and that the showrunners must have felt bad about it because they give him the hero’s rub in “Eegah”, a schlocky, icky, ugly film about a young girl who stumbles upon a caveman in the California desert — and her dorky boyfriend and father who puff their chests to go look for him. “Eegah” shares the same painful “what-the-fuck” feeling as films like “Manos”, “Monster A-Go-Go” and “Pod People”. It feels barely strung together with tears and angst. It feels greasy and cheap and, like the Bots at the end of the film, you feel like you need a shower after it’s finished. That said, the riffing on the film is GOLD, presenting us with so many jokes at the expense of the dweeby Arch Hall, Jr. who squeals and howls out a couple musical numbers (which is just what this film needs, lemme tell ya’) and who the Bots dub “a Cabbage Patch Elvis”. The episode also gave birth to yet another MST3Kism in the phrase “Watch out for snakes!” which is not only badly dubbed into the film, it’s just so arbitrary and weird, just like the rest of the film.

BEST RIFF:

(During the scene where Roxy shaves her own Dad’s face.)
JOEL & THE BOTS: EEEWWWW!!! UGH!!!
SERVO: Joel, I’m gonna slap this movie SO hard…

 

5) 512 – Mitchell

“Mitchell’ stars Joe Don Baker as an overweight, beer-swilling cop (who has a sex scene with LINDA FREAKIN’ EVANS for crying outloud) who is assigned to investigate a gangster played by Martin Balsam. If you read that sentence and said “What the fuck”, you’re not alone. It’s as awful as it sounds. And if you thought the treatment the guys gave Richard Kiel was terrible, they absolutely CRUSH Joe Don Baker to the point where you almost feel bad about laughing…if only that sex scene set to Mitchell’s weird, bouncy hick waltz “Mah, Mah, Mah, Mah Mitchell” wasn’t a thing…and that brief shot of the baby oil at the side of the bed–nope. Crow’s frustrated, grossed-out reaction is EVERYTHING: “Why would anyone wanna DO this with Mitchell, Joel?!” Even though the riffs do lose their steam in the third act, it’s still the perfect swan song for Joel as this is his last episode as he leaves the SOL for greener pastures. The sketches featuring Gypsy planning Joel’s escape are absolutely brilliant featuring some inside baseball you’ll get a kick out of if you’re a Stanley Kubrick fan. Head writer Mike Nelson, who had been playing arbitrary characters visiting the SOL, would take over and things would slowly change and evolve in the next few years but this episode is a great send-off of the Joel Era.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: I can’t imagine why “Mitchell 2” never came out.

 

4) 820 – Space Mutiny

It’s always nice to get 80’s sci-fi cheese. It’s even better when it has conviction in its awfulness. At first, Mike and the Bots start jabbing at the film, making fun of the visual effects by imitating Strauss’s “Blue Danube”. “Duh, duh, duh, duh, CRAP, duh, duh…duh, duh…”, then there’s Captain Santa Claus and his “daughter” who looks just as old as her “Dad”. But, when Dave Ryder shows up, THAT’S when the guys start swinging with everything they have. The episode is famous for all the Meathead Hero names the guys bestow upon Ryder. Even without that running gag, the episode is raucously funny due to how straight-faced the film tries to be. It wants to serve up a great adventure for its audience and you still can’t help but chuckle at action/chase scenes that involve battery-powered electric cars that have a top speed of 5 miles an hour. It doesn’t let up. Not during the lame climax or stinger ending or even during the credits. The riffing here is pure art. Even the host segments feel right, with a great opening where the Bots mock Mike for his aged set of encyclopedias which are so out-of-date, Servo remarks that a photo of Stonehenge includes a sign that reads “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”. It’s even better when Mike updates the books: “27 pages on Gwen Stefani alone!” says an impressed Crow. Lastly, this episode marks the end of the “Ancient Rome” sketches and thank the gods for that. There were more than a few good episodes in Season 8, but this was the first “great” episode of that season as well as the SyFy era.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Special Effects by Industrial Light and Morons.

 

3) 507 – I Accuse My Parents (w/ short: The Truck Farmer)

“I Accuse My Parents” is one of those films one might look at and think, “There’s nothing here for us to mock.” It’s about a guy named Jimmy who’s supposed to be in high school but looks 25. He lives in a dysfunctional home with an alcoholic mother and abusive father. He lies more than Donald Trump in order to keep up the appearance of being clean-cut. Then, he gets mixed up with the mob and ends up in court…where he accuses his parents of making him the way he is. It’s meant to be preachy…if only Jimmy wasn’t such a moron. It’s preceded by the “Truck Farmer” short which isn’t as funny as I remember it being (though Crow’s snarky comment about “carrots being made flavorless so people will buy steak” ALWAYS gets a good laugh from me) but the riffing on the feature is spectacularly great. Dare I say, perfect. Nearly every single joke lands. There really isn’t a moment in the film where you aren’t laughing because everything from Jimmy’s gullibility to his dishonesty is fair game.

BEST RIFF:

(Kitty and Jimmy talk and talk. The clock on the wall goes from 6:20 PM to 8:20 PM.)
JOEL: 1700 LIES LATER…
SERVO (as Jimmy): …and, of course, I was the last one out of Saigon!

 

2) 910 – The Final Sacrifice

If ever there was a film made for MST3K’s treatment, it’s the Canadian import, “The Final Sacrifice”. It’s almost the amalgam of everything we’ve experienced on the show up until this point: puzzling casting (a severely wimpy kid and a beer-swilling yokel are the heroes), unintentionally funny antagonists, goofy supporting characters (the grizzled archaeologist sounds like Jim Henson doing Yosemite Sam), an agonizingly low budget, and the sense that it’s taking itself seriously despite all its flaws. It’s the fat, hanging curveball of MST3K features, about a wussy kid named Troy who attempts to learn the fate of his father and, in doing so, runs afoul of a weird cult full of hooded figures who are lead by a guy who looks like the front man for an 80’s rock group who sounds like Jesse “The Body” Ventura. As Troy’s pursuit thickens, he befriends an older guy with Canadian hockey hair named “Zap Rowsdower” (forever part of the MST3K lore and lexicon and, yes, that’s his real name and isn’t a leftover from “Space Mutiny”) who was once a member of the cult, but has seen the light. There are SO many great lines in this episode as the crew savages poor Rowsdower (Servo remarking that Rowsdower’s hair can sense things; Crow, as Rowsdower, wondering if there’s beer on the sun as he peers at the horizon, and the constant imitation of Troy simply saying “Rowsdower” are all gems) if only the sketches didn’t get progressively weaker after the superb sketch where Servo dresses up as a Canadian Mountie and tries to sing a song, praising Canada — only to have Crow and Mike sabotage the song by mocking Canada and its culture — which corrupts Servo completely, leading him to singing a verse where he describes violently destroying the country, its people, and their culture before Mike and Crow are able to rein the sobbing Servo in. You just can’t top that, I suppose.

BEST RIFF:

MIKE: Children and pregnant women should not watch this scene…you know, in fact, nobody should watch any of these scenes…

 

It’s time to reveal the #1 MST3K episode of all-time…but first, let’s review the rankings leading up to #1:

196) 410 – Hercules Against the Moon Men
195) 211 – First Spaceship to Venus
194) 317 – The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (w/ short: Home Economics Story)
193) 617 – The Sword of the Dragon
192) 902 – The Phantom Planet
191) 107 – Robot Monster (w/ short: Commando Cody – Radar Men From the Moon, Chapters 4 & 5)
190) 103 – Mad Monster (w/ short: Commando Cody – Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 2)
189) 209 – The Hellcats
188) 111 – Moon Zero Two
187) 616 – Racket Girls (w/ short: Are You Ready for Marriage?)
186) 806 – The She-Creature
185) 101 – The Crawling Eye
184) 105 – The Corpse Vanishes (w/ short: Commando Cody – Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 3)
183) 411 – The Magic Sword
182) 102 – The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy (w/ short: Commando Cody – Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 1)
181) 104 – Women of the Prehistoric Planet
180) 205 – Rocket Attack U.S.A. (w/ Phantom Creeps, Chapter 2)
179) 110 – Robot Holocaust (w/ short: Commando Cody – Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 9)
178) 203 – Jungle Goddess (w/ Phantom Creeps, Chapter 1)
177) 607 – Bloodlust! (w/ short: Uncle Jim’s Dairy Farm)
176) 818 – Devil Doll
175) 615 – Kitten With a Whip
174) 412 – Hercules and the Captive Women
173) 605 – Colossus and the Headhunters
172) 1111 – Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II
171) 202 – The Sidehackers
170) 1005 – Blood Waters of Dr. Z
169) 811 – Parts: The Clonus Horror
168) 508 – Operation Double 007
167) 305 – Stranded in Space
166) 323 – Castle of Fu Manchu
165) 1114 – At the Earth’s Core
164) 322 – Master Ninja I
163) 324 – Master Ninja II
162) 614 – San Francisco International
161) 308 – Gamera vs. Gaos
160) 213 – Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster
159) 310 – Fugitive Alien
158) 312 – Gamera vs. Guiron
157) 1110 – Wizards of the Lost Kingdom
156) 1008 – Final Justice
155) 314 – Mighty Jack
154) 502 – Hercules
153) 401 – Space Travelers
152) 405 – Being From Another Planet
151) 106 – The Crawling Hand
150) 803 – The Mole People
149) 805 – The Thing That Couldn’t Die
148) 623 – The Amazing Transparent Man (w/ short: The Days of Our Years)
147) 204 – Catalina Caper
146) 304 – Gamera vs. Barugon
145) 307 – Daddy-O (w/ short: Alphabet Antics)
144) 416 – Fire Maidens of Outer Space
143) 1011 – Horrors of Spider Island
142) 606 – The Creeping Terror
141) 406 – Attack of the Giant Leeches (w/ short: The Undersea Kingdom, Chapter 1)
140) 611 – Last of the Wild Horses
139) 315 – Teenage Caveman
138) 1007 – Track of the Moon Beast
137) 403 – City Limits
136) 408 – Hercules Unchained
135) 804 – The Deadly Mantis
134) 108 – The Slime People (w/ short: Commando Cody – Radar Men From the Moon, Chapter 6)
133) 313 – Earth vs. the Spider (w/ short: Speech – Using Your Voice)
132) 802 – The Leech Woman
131) 402 – The Giant Gila Monster
130) 420 – The Human Duplicators
129) 1205 – Killer Fish
128) 602 – Invasion U.S.A. (w/ short A Date With Your Family)
127) 522 – Teenage Crime Wave
126) 901 – The Projected Man
125) 1004 – Future War
124) 806 – The Undead
123) 1009 – Hamlet
122) 1010 – It Lives By Night
121) 311 – It Conquered the World (w/ short: Snow Thrills)
120) 407 – The Killer Shrews (w/ short: Junior Rodeo Daredevils)
119) 503 – Swamp Diamonds (w/ short: What to Do on a Date)
118) 320 – The Unearthly (w/ shorts: Posture Pals & Appreciating Our Parents)
117) 318 – Star Force: Fugitive Alien II
116) 113 – The Black Scorpion
115) 417 – Crash of Moons (w/ short: General Hospital, Part 3)
114) 413 – Manhunt in Space (w short: General Hospital, Part 1)
113) 109 – Project Moonbase (w/ short: Commando Cody – Radar Men From the Moon, Chapters 7 & 8)
112) 112 – Untamed Youth
111) 415 – The Beatniks (w/ short: General Hospital, Part 2)
110) 523 – Village of the Giants
109) 421 – Monster A-Go-Go (w/ short: Circus on Ice)
108) 601 – Girls Town
107) 622 – Angels Revenge
106) 816 – Prince of Space
105) 819 – Invasion of the Neptune Men
104) 201 – Rocketship X-M
103) 208 – Lost Continent
102) 212 – Godzilla vs. Megalon
101) 302 – Gamera
100) 514 – Teenage Strangler (w/ short: Is This Love?)
99) 404 – Teenagers From Outer Space
98) 1108 – The Loves of Hercules
97) 618 – High School Big Shot (w/ short: Out of This World)
96) 524 – 12 to the Moon (w/ short: Design for Dreaming)
95) 518 – The Atomic Brain (w/ short: What About Juvenile Delinquency?)
94) 620 – Danger! Death Ray!
93) 517 – The Beginning of the End
92) 423 – Bride of the Monster (w/ short: Hired!, Part 1)
91) 419 – The Rebel Set (w/ short: Johnny at the Fair)
90) 619 – Red Zone Cuba (w/ short: Platform, Posture, and Apperance)
89) 520 – Radar Secret Service (w/ short: Last Clear Chance)
88) 409 – Indestructible Man (w/ short: The Undersea Kingdom, Chapter 2)
87) 504 – Secret Agent Super Dragon
86) 501 – Warrior of the Lost World
85) 913 – Quest of the Delta Knights
84) 621 – The Beast of Yucca Flats (w/ shorts: Money Talks / Progress Island U.S.A.)
83) 316 – Gamera vs. Zigra
82) 809 – I Was a Teenage Werewolf
81) 1012 – Squirm (w/ short: A Case of Spring Fever)
80) 206 – Ring of Terror (w/ Phantom Creeps, Chapter 3)
79) 207 – Wild Rebels
78) 821 – Time Chasers
77) 1002 – The Girl in Gold Boots
76) 210 – King Dinosaur
75) 815 – Agent for h.a.r.m.
74) 911 – Devil Fish
73) 321 – Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
72) 306 – Time of the Apes
71) 519 – Outlaw (of Gor)
70) 704 – The Incredible Melting Man
69) 301 – Cave Dwellers
68) 1107 – The Land That Time Forgot
67) 604 – Zombie Nightmare
66) 505 – The Magic Voyage of Sinbad
65) 509 – The Girl in Lover’s Lane
64) 807 – Terror From the Year 5000
63) 812 – The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies
62) 705 – Escape 2000
61) 817 – Horror of Party Beach
60) 422 – The Day the Earth Froze (w/ short: Here Comes the Circus)
59) 608 – Code Name: Diamond Head (w/ short: A Day at the Fair)
58) 511 – Gunslinger
57) 906 – The Space Children (w/ short: Century 21 Calling)
56) 516 – Alien from L.A.
55) 814 – Riding With Death
54) 905 – The Deadly Bees
53) 1006 – Boggy Creek II: …and the Legend Continues
52) 1106 – Starcrash
51) 909 – Gorgo
50) 912 – The Screaming Skull
49) 1113 – The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t
48) 1202 – Atlantic Rim
47) 1206 – Ator, the Fighting Eagle
46) 801 – Revenge of the Creature
45) 702 – The Brute Man
44) 610 – The Violent Years (w/ short: A Young Man’s Fancy)
43) 609 – The Skydivers (w/ short: Why Industrial Arts?)
42) 612 – The Starfighters
41) 521 – Santa Claus
40) 1112 – Carnival Magic
39) 904 – Werewolf
38) 1204 – The Day Time Ended
37) 903 – The Pumaman
36) 1001 – Soultaker
35) 1003 – Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders
34) 706 – Laserblast
33) 1013 – Diabolik
32) 1203 – Lords of the Deep
31) 515 – The Wild Wild World of Batwoman (w/ short: Cheating)
30) 907 – Hobgoblins
29) 1105 – The Beast of Hollow Mountain
28) 822 – Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
27) 414 – Tormented
26) 1103 – The Time Travelers
25) 613 – The Sinister Urge (w/ Keeping Clean and Neat)
24) 513 – The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
23) 319 – War of the Colossal Beast (w/ short: Mr. B Natural)
22) 418 – Attack of the Eye Creatures
21) 603 – The Dead Talk Back (w/ short: The Selling Wizard)
20) 1101 – Reptilicus
19) 1109 – Yongary
18) 703 – Deathstalker and the Warriors From Hell
17) 1104 – Avalanche
16) 908 – The Touch of Satan
15) 1102 – Cry Wilderness
14) 510 – The Painted Hills (w/ short: Body Care and Grooming)
13) 813 – Jack Frost
12) 624 – Samson vs. The Vampire Women
11) 303 – Pod People
10) 309 – The Amazing Colossal Man
9) 701 – Night of the Blood Beast (w/ short: Once Upon a Honeymoon)
8) 810 – The Giant Spider Invasion
7) 424 – Manos, the Hands of Fate (w/ short: Hired!, Part 2)
6) 506 – Eegah!
5) 512 – Mitchell
4) 820 – Space Mutiny
3) 507 – I Accuse My Parents (w/ short: The Truck Farmer)
2) 910 – The Final Sacrifice

And, the number one episode is…

 

 

1) 1201 – Mac and Me

(Available on Netflix)

“Mac & Me” is the best MST3K episode of all-time. It’s the film that “turns E.T. to B.S.” according to Kinga Forrester. And, ho boy, she’s right. It’s widely considered to be one of the worst movies ever made, a cynical cash-in on Spielberg’s success. The first time I saw this movie…was pretty much when I wrote my review for this episode. The only bit of the movie I ever saw was the bit made famous by Paul Rudd’s running joke on Conan when he’d “show a clip of his new movie” — only to roll the part of Mac and Me where Eric loses control of his wheelchair and flies off the cliff to a certain death. Sadly, that’s not even the worst part of this film. In fact, I can’t decide whether the worst part is the surreal dance number inside of McDonald’s (a sequence so bad, it makes the creepy Ronald McDonald looks benign) or the horrifying, climatic scene where the authorities blow a local supermarket to kingdom come, straight up murdering Eric in cold blood. And if you’re saying, “This doesn’t sound at all like a movie for children”, the original ending was worse. A LOT worse. While the film is all kinds of awful, the episode is sheer brilliance. Nearly every single riff is an absolute hit (add “Pretty NIIIICE!” to the MST3K lexicon) as the guys go after the insanely disturbing alien costumes and the rampant product placement…and the sketches are AWESOME. The latter sketch (Jonah and the Bots at a McDonald’s style birthday party where Servo’s dressed like the little girl from the film and Gypsy oversees all as “The Grimace” who sends unhappy kids to “The ball pit”). It’s SO delightfully screwed up and that’s what makes it so ridiculously funny. I don’t have any disrespect for any of the other Top Ten staples who have been in this spot. They’re in my Top Ten, as a matter of fact. The thing that separates “Mac and Me” from the rest of the pack is that it’s a complete package from the perfect riffing to the outstanding (and accessible) sketch work. This is MST3K at the top of its game.

BEST RIFF:

CROW: I wanna see the movie this composer THOUGHT he was scoring.

 

SPECIAL THANKS

A lot of work went into this project which began in late August/early September and went on for three months into late November. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the following:

Jim Vorel of Paste Magazine and “Adam Smasher” of Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review – Adam’s website has been the holy grail of MST3K review websites. I’ve been consulting it for years for advice on which episodes I should include in my yearly marathons as well as to compare and contrast my opinions with his. Jim Vorel’s awesome ranking project stands out as possibly the greatest attempt to ever make an official “worst to best” list. He directly inspired me to create my own after I began reviewing the Netflix episodes for The Workprint. I’m not half the writer Jim is but it was nice to compare lists as I went along.

Club MST3K – A virtual library where you can find every single full episode of the show, plus mingle with other MSTies as you watch. This was also an invaluable source for me as it created a one-stop shop for all the video links provided here.

MST3K Satellite News – One of the greatest MST3K fan sites ever created, with reviews, interviews, loads of trivia, and an extension of the MST3K Amazing Colossal Episode Guide for Seasons 7 through 10!

The MST3K Amazing Colossal Episode Guide – I’ve had this sucker in paperback form for 20 years. It’s a comprehensive diary of the making of each episode through Season 6, written by the cast and crew of the show. It features some great reflections from each of them.

The past and present cast and crew of MST3K – This TV show has endured through three decades. It’s timeless. I believe it was on a list of shows that never jumped the shark. I think Doctor Who and the original Magnum P.I. were on that list. There are so many who still haven’t heard of this show but the ones who have know just how special it is and that’s due to the men and women who are behind it, including the great Joel Hodgson who has such a wonderful sense of humor and knowledge of pop culture, it’s insane.

My editors at The Workprint – Jen Stayrook and Bilal Mian. They’ve been incredible supporters throughout my off-again, on-again thing with the site. And it’s always fun watching Bilal ask “You’re gonna do WHAT now?!” before giving me realistic suggestions and advice so I don’t bite off more than I can chew or bore my readers to death. Thanks, guys, so much, for the support.

My readers and my friends who read my stuff – Thanks for the readership and the feedback. It takes me forever to make a point. My stuff is always about 4,000 words long on average and this sucker is the biggest thing I’ve ever written in my life at just over ten times that amount. Thanks for sticking around and reading. I try to make it fun for the reader. 🙂

And last, but not least…

My wife, Danielle – When I started this thing, she had no idea why I was watching this show again. When I do my “marathons”, as it were, leading up to November, it’s usually me watching the show by myself, but only the ones I considered to be worth watching. My wife had to sit through nearly each and every episode with me and would curse the theme song and beg to watch something else. I felt awful about it but kept it going for the sake of entertaining everyone. As I was getting close to the finish line, she really began to cheer me on because she was excited for me and wanted me to make it as much as I did. I know I put her through hell by watching nearly 200 episodes of a show totaling nearly 300 hours of viewing time which equates roughly to 12 days of straight viewership. When you break it down like that, it doesn’t seem like a lot…but it is. It isn’t 12 days and a few episodes per day…no. That “12 days” means it would take you 12 days to watch the show if you went 196 episodes straight with no breaks, no job, no sleep, no nothing. As such, I had to break it down to a few eps per day over the course of a few months and I would fall behind more than a few times. It’s unavoidable, especially having a high-stress job which wears you down and being a parent. As such, Danielle made sure certain things I usually did around the house were done and would also keep our son distracted so I could finish this project. I couldn’t have a more supportive wife. Thank you, honey. I’ll never do this again…I think.

Thank you, everyone.

Please have a wonderful and safe Turkey Day and I love you. You knuckleknobs…NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Push the button, Frank…