602 - Invaison U.S.A.

Are you for or against the universal draft?

The part of "Invasion" will be played by Stock Footage.

MST3K and the past go together like wine and cheese: erudite and savory wit along with  aged…cheesiness. I think people in the 50s were desperate for a return to normalcy, which is why you got so much all-American, family friendly stuff from that era, like the family bonding educational short A Date with Your Family. You also got red fever schlock like Invasion, U.S.A.  And boy, is MST3K ready for these, to skewer cartoonishly strict 50s values, and to mock the paranoid, and certainly long-past times, when we were worried about Russia.

Taking place at the height of the Cold War, Invasion follows a cadre of Americans like a drunken senator, a big Texan rancher, a TV reporter and a super hot woman who has a job I suppose, in a bar discussing the possibility of war being declared when, surprise, war were declared. We follow them as they watch “Him” aka The Reds launch surprise attack after surprise attack, A-bomb after A-bomb, unleashing their deadliest WWII stock footage on poor, unsuspecting America. As the cities fall and our nonspecific president can’t keep morale up, the message is driven home that the only way to fight an enemy government that ransacks private businesses to fuel war is to submit private business to fuel war. Alas, words fall on deaf ears as our main characters die in everything from floods after Hoover Dam is bombed, to New York becoming Nuked York, or are are shot resisting stereotyped Russian troops. Also, it was all a dream! Yes, a British hypnotist in the bar hypnotized them all as a warning of the dire consequences of their complacency. Ta da! 

What 45% of the movie is like: watching people watching people watching a war.

 

There are several things that can make for a great MST3K movie: goofy monsters, terrible acting, and so on. But one of the best factors is how dated a movie is. 80s and 70s are fine, but man, movies set in the 50s, when Ike was president, rock n' roll was dangerous, and beatniks were sprouting out, seem to bring out something special in the SOL crew. And in Invasion, U.S.A.’s case, the Cold War gives it even more material to riff on. From the paranoia of being invaded and nuked, to the chintzy production values using WWII stock footage to convey the war, to the like five guys in American army uniforms pretending to be Russians in disguise with thick accents, and of course the whole uber-patriotic, submit to the potential war-effort message that’s sledgehammered in, this thing is ridiculous even without the riffing.

And Lord, from frame one, are Mike and the Bots rarin’ to go on this baby. The joke-a-minute ratio is high, from silly jokes like “Ow, why does my back hurt?” from Crow upon seeing Lee Lawrie’s Atlas sculpture in NYC  to obscure refs like, when the movie shows stock footage and exploding miniatures, Mike says, “The Guns of Navarone versus Demonic Toys, and Dollman is there.”  But they get the most material out of the movie’s time, tone, and message. After the main characters have been unknowingly hypnotized, and they stare silently, Mike and the Bots give each of them new internal thoughts: “Castro’s an okay guy. Dalton Trumbo is a great screenwriter. Roy Cohn is our greatest obstacle.” Oh, and the stock footage gets plenty of incredulous roasting too. “At least anyone who lived through the Blitz can appreciate its been immortalized as filler for this movie,” Mike says. And then, as news reporters list cities that have been attacked, he adds, “All public and parochial schools…” like its snow closings!

Tonight on KWAR: 7pm: War (rerun)

  

What also helps is the short shown before the movie. A Date with Your Family is the kind of pro-nuclear family, super-conservative 50s ethics enforcing short that, a few decades removed, feels like a parody of itself. But it certainly sets the tone for the whole episode with the similar Eisenhower era movie that follows. In fact, it’s kind of a detriment, as the short, with its forced messages of conformity and politeness, is far funnier than the movie. But I mean, how could it not be? It has actual lines like, “Pleasant, unemotional conversation helps digestion”. They can have real fun with these shorts, but this one has to be an all time great. When “Father” is talking at dinner, Crow says, “I’m moving to Fire Island, dear.” When the “Daughter” is talking, Servo says, “Dad, I’m dating a negro.” And, as the narrator says, “The family sits down to dinner,” Mike adds in, “Their stomachs knotted like fists!” Nearly every line is hilarious, and it’s the highlight of the episode. Shorts like this have been parodied to death since the 50s became retro sometime in the 70s, but there’s something special about MST’s approach of actually watching the things and either leaning hard into them or subverting them, and doing it with just a hint of the superiority that comes from mocking these kinds of things, without being deluged with smug condescension that would poison the experience.

Pictured: Unbelievable Tension.

 

The host segments shine, too, for the most part. There’s a kind-of clunker where Mike and the Bots offer life-affirming advice to a talking A Bomb, but the others are great. Following the short, Mike and the Bots sit down to a cartoonishly pleasant dinner, talking about their experiences of the day in the most banal and nondescript way: “Recently I was taken by a particular article of literature, the author used sentences and paragraphs to express his point of view,” Mike says. And then there’s the beginning, where Mike tries to make his own robot, and it goes far differently, and more hilariously, than you’d expect. This episode was also near the beginning of Mike’s first full season captaining the SOL, and they have fun in the host segments differentiating him from Joel. 

Pleasant, polite, totally-not-chatoic times on the SOL.

 

So even though the short is the star, the movie itself is still pretty good, and the episode itself is a joy. It’s not an all time classic, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s very much worth checking out. 

Episode in a Riff

I hate it when wars are re-run- Mike

Random Asides:

-Thank God the Cold War is over and we don’t have to worry about nuclear war or any kind of shennaigans from the Russians anymore!

-Crow:“Mike, what have we learned?

Mike: “Well, I think, er…”

Crow: “You can’t. Build. Robots. Say it.”

Tom: “Say it!”

Mike: “I can’t build robots.”

Crow: “Good. Now, say it a million times!”

-Dr. Forrester’s self worth and self delusion in a nutshell: “Fact: in addition to my huge greatness, I’m quite a guy. Everybody likes me!”

-The Robot Mom that Crow immediately latches onto is pretty weird. Crow's screech when Mike near shim as he feeds is hilarious.

-The short does have some solid advice: let Mom eat first (I’m Texan, damnit)  and don’t make rude remarks about other peoples’ standards of living.

-That said, it can’t seem to even comprehend the idea of a brother and sister hating each other, chalking up any potential arguments to being about friends! Haha.

-I love how, after they ditch any preamble of manners, Mike and the Bots just pig out on their food. Especially Crow, who rears back and slams into his plate!

-Crow makes the joke, upon seeing the Washington Lawn, “It’s a long par five leading to the nation’s capitol.” He makes that joke later in MST3K: The Movie.

-“Hey porcupine, wanna watch me make Crow look like an idiot?”

“No, but if you’re going to anyway…”

-The scene where the characters try to book a flight is an interesting and weird insight into how airports used to work.

-According to MST3KInfo.com, The A-Bomb in the third host segment is played by writer Mike Dodge, in his only appearance on the show. I feel bad for not liking it more.

-“Say Mike, did we just do something horribly wrong?”

“Haha, yeah, I think so!”

-I like this exchange from the letter: “Not missing much on earth.” Crow: “Good!” I love the idea of them just hanging out on the SOL; and the drawing from the fan is really nice addition to that.

-The bonus documentary Zugsmith Confidential is one of the best supplementary features Shout! Has put on an MST3K disc. Turns out Albert Zugsmith, the producer of this movie, went on to not only produce movies from other episodes like Girl’s Town, he also produced The Incredible Shrinking Man and A Touch of Evil!

Additional Links:
Satellite News review