1109 - Yongary

Go, Yongary, go!

And I've had the time of my life...

               

When I was a young Godzilla fan, there weren’t a lot of the Big G’s flicks to go around. Heck, back then in the late 80s, there were only a paltry 16 movies to choose from. I barely needed all my thumbs and toes to count them all! So, I devoured all the giant monster movies I could at any video rental store I could. In the best cases, this lead to the original King Kong, the Gamera series, and Gorgo. 

In my most desperate searching? It led to movies like Yongary, a South Korean Godzilla knock-off with special effects more apropos of when other movies make fun of old Godzilla movies.  I remember it for having a goofy scene where the titular Yongary dances with a kid to rock n’ roll music on a radio, and the ending where Yongary horribly bleeds to death in a river due to a chemical attack. It has those, plus tons of padding, beyond cheap special effects, some of the worst composite shots you’ve ever seen, more padding, and possibly the most annoying kid ever featured in a giant monster movie.

He just wants Gypsy Danger's attention.

 

In other words, it could only be more perfect for MST3K if the song Yongary dances to was sung by the kid and there were more nonsensical moments scattered throughout. And Jonah and the Bots have an absolute blast riffing on this movie. They are into it from scene one, and the sense of joy they have at ridiculing this movie only tapers slightly near the end. The movie just gives them a ton to work with. When the movie shows a miniature effects shot of a rocketship launch pad, Tom calls it,  “Shining Time Station’s space industrial complex.” When the camera pans over a typical South Korean street, Crow says, “The DMZ is surprisingly mellow.” When an actor is composited terribly next to a model earthquake scene, Jonah says, “If this wasn’t such a crummy matte shot, I’d be worried for that guy.” And then there’s the fun they have with the movie’s space program, which mainly seems to consist of yelling “Capsule.” Jonah and the Bots practically turn yelling “Capsule!” into a musical number. Or a drinking game.  They make each other laugh a lot in this, and I’m not sure if that’s a sign that all the performers were growing more comfortable in their roles, or if they changed how they recorded and produced it, or what. Doesn’t matter, the results laugh for themselves.

Michael Meyers wasn't this evil as a child.

But the two things they have the most fun with are the movie’s evil monster himself, and Yongary, the giant fire breathing reptile. Yes, the real monster in this movie is Icho. There’s a term called “Kenny” used to describe the annoying kid who befriends the giant monster in movies like these, and Ichio may be the most annoying, evil, repellent Kenny to ever Kenny. He starts the moving using an itch ray to annoy his sister and new brother in law. To repeat, the lil’ bastard starts the moving using an invention made to annoy people to annoy people. Is he present throughout the movie? You bet. Does he jeapordize others to get a peak at the deadly giant mosnters? Of course! The only thing he doesn’t do is boss the adults at military strategy meetings around and come up with a solution. When Icho plays with some toy robots, Jonahs notes, “Soo toy robots and shooting family members with an experimental weapon are equally entertaining to him, Good to know. [under his breath] Psychopath.” When Icho watches Yongary die, he says, “No stop, don’t do it any more,” and Crow adds, “I want to deal the death blow.” Tom practically prays near the end, “Please let this be the scene where Yongary finally kills Icho.” Even Gypsy gets in on the action, saying “Wait, his name is Icho and he makes people itch? Glad his name isn’t ‘Pooh-O’.” It’s fantastic.

Oh, and the more likable monster of the movie gets some jokes, too. “Yongary’s the kinda monster you get at the 99 Cent store,” Crow says. And after a fire breathing rampage, Tom gives out the PSA, “Smokes weed once, destroys city. Don’t be a Yongary.” And, in possibly my favorite reference to a movie reverencing Godzilla, Jonah says he’s, “Just waiting for Pee-Wee Herman to ride through on his bike.” Love it.

Too bad only one of the host segments really rises to match the movie. The skit about thanking the monsters that have impacted them ends way too soon before it can go somewhere, as is the song skit at the end. That said, Jonah’s invention exchange of a tiny desk to topple over in anger at work is a fun idea. And if the worst that happens is they save their A-material for the movie riffs, it’s a minor complaint.

Tiny Desk: Making you feel like a corporate giant.

  

I was ecstatic to see that Yongary would be covered by the show, and I was not disappointed. With a movie that’s perfect for them, great jokes, and great delivery, it’s a new personal favorite. Now, let’s see them cover the Godzilla ‘98 timed remake, 1999’s Yonggary!

Episode in a Riff:

Y’know, whereas Godzilla was parable for nuclear war, Yongary is a parable for copyright infringement. -Jonah

And nuclear war! -Crow

Random Asides

-North Korea made it’s own Godzilla rip-off called Pulgasari. And by “made’, I mean Kim Jong Il kidnapped a Japanese director and his wife and forced them to make him a Godzilla movie. This is a true story.

-If Godzilla is Coke and Gamera is Pepsi, Yongary isn't even RC Cola, it's one of those store-brand generic sodas you buy to mix really cheap liquor with.

-Other daikaiju flicks I’m still waiting to see on the (now actually named) Mystery Science Theater: Monster from the Prehistoric Planet aka Gappa, The X from Outer Space, and of course, the two original Gamera movies they didn’t cover. A fella can dream….

-“Crow, what did you dream about?”

“Electric sheep, same ol’, same ol’.”

-”Remember when I tasked you to tell me me your innermost hopes and dreams??

“No!”

“Exactly.”

I love Kinga and Max.

-Jonah’s tiny desk for toppling is a pretty solid idea. I could see every desk in America having a tinier desk on top. And on top of that, a tinier desk. Ad infinitum.

-“Coffee; workers love it, everybody drinks it, even people who don’t.” Right on, Max..

-”But if there’s one thing the world hates, it’s Hitler.” Aaand swerve!

-I love the line in the Hitler Coffee bit about “Hidden Argentinian bean fields.”

-”It makes Gamera look like a movie...that’s...a billion times better than Gamera.”

-Max, underselling the movie’s quality.

-Okay, were the dub voices for this movie recorded in a room made of hollow wood and metal? I can hear every echo.

-“I just wish I had the opportunity to thank Frankenberry for everything he’s given me.” -Crow

-The Yongary Bar scene idea is just bizarre, a very Tom idea. 

-The end of this movie is so GD weird! It’s a goofy mosnter movie then the monster dances and kinda bonds with the kid, then it dies horribly in a chemical weapon a ttaack, and at a reception for the scientist the kid teases them about not being married, then talks about his bond with Yongary and wishes y hadn’t been killed! WTF!

-“Nice bait n switch movie. Get us to fall in love with him and then pour out  the reddest blood I’ve ever seen!” Tom, I saw this movie when I was under the age of 10, and I still remember that scene. You’ll never unsee it. 

Additional Links

Satellite News Discussion

 MST3K Wiki Entry

1012 - Squirm

Now...you gon’ be da worm face!

 

This movie ranks an 8/10 on the Grody Scale

Ah, the South; banjos, racism, inbreeding...what doesn’t it have? Not much, according to MST3K, and it’s one those Minnesotan’s favorite, easiest, and most productive punching bags. If the 70s is their favorite decade to riff on, the South may be their favorite geographic area, or at least in the top three (see: Boggy Creek II, Attack of the Giant Leeches). But, does an episode featuring one of their favorite targets mean the episode will be a non-stop, laugh filled classic? 

I should also mention I’m from Texas (which is really the west, but to Yankees is practically the south with more horses) so I joke on the South with love.

Squirm is a movie about killer worms. An electrical storm tears up a small town in Georgia, trashing buildings and downing power lines. Unfortunately, the power lines continue spewing electricity into the ground, mutating the worms...somehow! Bad timing for local girl Geri, who has invited her friend Mick out to visit, after meeting him at an antiquing event in New York. Can they wander around town looking for people killed offscreen by the worms and fill up the run time before realizing it’s worms?

A lesson for filmmakers, television show writers, and storytellers in general: if your main characters pend the majority of a movie trying to uncover something you’ve already revealed early on, that’s not a mystery: that’s the audience waiting for the characters to catch up to them. And that’s pretty much what Squirm is, sprinkled with heavy dashes of southern spice. There really aren’t any scary scenes or a building sense mystery or anything, mainly characters wandering around, trying to figure out what we already know after finding some human bones here and there, and in the last 30 minutes some worm attacks happen. 

The Lord of the Rings has less walking around.

But like I said, it’s set in the South, and Mike and the Bots latch onto that like lampreys. When a bus driver is telling Yankee Mick what he’ll need to make it to town, Mike adds, “Oh, and you’ll need a conical hate with eye-holes cut into it.” When Geri and Mick come up to a person’s house and see a pile of junk, Crow notices, “He’s got fewer rusty appliances in his yard than most southern people.” And after Geri has a long scene of accent-thick dialogue, Tom just says, “C’mon, no one’s that southern!” Then there’s the scene where it’s a bunch of country folk in a diner, and the three of them just start yelling out country gibberish for a solid minute. It’s glorious.

There are also doofy characters they have fun with. Mike gets plenty of use of his weakling whiny sound effects for the scrawny antiquing main character, and then there’s Roger, a dim-witted and kind of creepy local who has an eye for Geri. That means plenty of backwoods killer jokes, like when Mick invites Roger to join he and Geri for fishing, Crow says, “I’ll pack a picnic of hands and skins!” And of course, they do make a few worm themed jokes, like when Mick finds a worm in his drink, Tom says, “I ordered a millipede!” There’s some solid, workmanlike riffing throughout, but nothing consistently hilarious. It takes them a while to get into it, and they have fun for about the middle hour, but by the end their mood is generally ours: ready for the movie to be over.

Then, there’s the short.

The Sci-Fi Channel era of the show had far fewer shorts than the Comedy Central years, so when they popped up, it was noticeable. And when the short is something like A Case of Spring Fever,  it becomes an all-time classic. Spring Fever is about Gilbert, a middle-aged fart who hates having to repair his couch, and curses the invention of springs. “I hope I never see another spring as long as I live!” he complains. But, this summons Coily the Spring Sprite from the ether of the unreal, a dark being as old as time who alters the very fabric of reality for it’s own sick, twisted concept of spiteful retribution centered around coiled pieces of metal. He makes all springs disappear, so now the poor sap has to experience what everyday objects, like rotary phones, are without them: useless! Thankfully, Coily is also a forgiving eldritch being, and the second poor Gilbert repents, springs are returned to this realm of reality. And so, Gilbert becomes a devoted acolyte of Coily’s, spreading the good news of coils and coil mechanics to his beleaguered golf buddies.

Based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft

 

Few shorts are as perfectly odd and weird as Spring Fever is. Coily is a weird little cartoon spring that torments a guy for like half a minute and then we watch the guy become a vocal proponent of springs. They have a ball with this little bit of madness, getting to be dark, weird, and just plain goofy. “I’ll fix it so you get that wish!” Coily says after hearing Gilbert’s complaint, to which Crow adds, “In Hell!” After Coily leaves, Mike says, “From then on, Coily visited him nightly, driving him mad.” And when Coily laughs, Tom says, “You’ll be the first to die!” It’s 8 minutes of riffing bliss.

The host segments are also representative of the disparity between the short and the movie (lotta big words in that sentence for some reason). Crow and Tom wish Mike wasn’t around, summoning Mikey the Mike Sprite. Mike disappears, and the Bots don’t care. It’s gold. But the Squirm inspired shorts are just okay. Tom is acting way, way too Southern in one, and in another Mike tries to create a race of super worms using electricity, and ends up making a tasty snack instead. They’re fine, but it feels like the writers are just going with what they can for the episode.

Mikey, reflecting the universe's general antipathy toward Mike

This was the penultimate episode of the show’s original run. It had already been canceled, so the Best Brains new the next episode would be the last. And while the final episode (at the time), Diabolik, is a lot of fun, this one is just okay. I wish the episodes leading up to it had been better, and had more riff-able movies to use. And maybe my inner fanboy is just really nitpicking. This is far from a bad episode. But there are better episodes like it, such as Boggy Creek II, where the movie gives them more to work with and they’re far more invested. That said, this one’s worth a revisit if you haven’t sen it in a while. But it’s mainly great because of the short, and the SOL gives out southern hospitality better in other episodes.

Episode in a Riff:

Y’know, this movie deftly proves one unshakable principle: never go to the South for any reason. -Crow, beginning his unhinged rant against the South.

Random Asides

-Considering this movie is also made in the 70s, it’s surprising they don’t have more 70s themed riffs for this one. I guess the South trumps the 70s, and the movie does have that weird late 70s / early 80s feel movies around that time did, so it does feel just slightly  more 80s.

-Squirm is a bit of a flip to The Incredible Melting Man, which was turned from a comedy spoof of horror movies half-way through into a straight one. Only here, the movie is an almost too-straight horror film that seems intended to have been a spoof, or at least tongue-in-cheek salute to. They also both feature special effects by Rick Baker.

“There, the Satellite of Love is completely unsafe!” What a shock, said nobody.

-Mike: “We have a silage?”

Crow: “...you’re not very observant are you, Miike?”

-“Come to the Fair!” I love Pearl.

-Brain Guy: “Our grandstand act is this cardboard cutout of Mr. Ben Murphy himself!” What an act!

-I love how extremely fine with their choice Tom and Crow are with ‘no mike’

-About 15 minutes in, I remember why I haven’t rewatched this episode a lot: worms are gross. This ranks an 8 out of 10 on the grody meter.

-Crow may dress up a lot, but Tom makes the cutest girls of them all.

-The main nerdy guy’s reaction to worms is mine

- If your movie ends with characters just waiting things out, with a random person showing up to explain away an unseen resolution….yeah, no.

-They never say what happens to Geri’s mom. Guess she got et up.

-The hell is up with the sad romantic movie music at the end?

“Copyright 1976 by the Squirm Company” Yes, really.

-Pearl throwing Brain Guy off a short step as a bungie jump is great!

"Come to the fair!"

-I like Mike using spice to make his fried “rice of verms” tastier. Yum!

-According to the DVD, this is the only movie MST watched that Joel paid to see in a theater.

-In an exchange Mike has with Roger, the deranged local boy wonders about the killer worms, “Mayybe they come from New York,”, which he pronounces “Yew-ork” in a real thick accent. Tom replies, “Or Mass-ass-chusats.” I have never pronounced that state the same way since. 

Additional Links

Satellite News Review

Annotations

MST3K Wiki entry

301 - Cave Dwellers

To protect a thing of such import there is only one man...Ator.

"What's with those nine guys climbing the mountain? Didn't they see the Parks Services' path?"

Season 3 begins MST3K’s ascent into cult favorite territory. They’d signed a three season, 72 episode deal with Comedy Central, guaranteeing them job security and plenty of movies to riff. It’s the season where the show hit its stride, as the writers and performers fine-tuned their jokes and delivery. But, while the season would soon churn out classics, it doesn’t start off with one, at least for me.

Made along with ten million other movies to cash in on Conan the Barbarian’s success, Cave Dwellers is the story of Ator, a mighty warrior and scholar, and champion of justice by way of slashing people with swords. His mentor, Akronas, has created a powerful new plot device I mean...power source? Weapon? Object? It’s something called “the Geometric Nucleus”, and it’s shiny and….yeah, it’s a plot device. Anyway, a warlord named Zor has captured Akronas, who sends his daughter Mila off to fetch Ator and his aide Thong (yes, seriously) to keep the shiny thing out of the hands of evil. Along the way they encounter henchmen, ronin, and the eponymous cave-dwelling cannibals on the way to rescue Akronas and save civilization maybe probably. Basically, it boils down to: heroes fight guys on their way to a place. 

"My eyes are up here, ma'am."

Cave Dwellers has a lot going for it as a riffable movie. It’s fantasy story, done on the cheap, with lots of fights and ridiculous moments, so, there’s more than a few opportunities for good jokes. “Use the handrails, I invented them for a reason,” Crow says as Akronas leads characters up a flight of stairs. Then there’s the scene where, no joke, Ator and Thong fight invisible monsters, causing Joel to say, “I can’t believe it, they were too cheap to hire villains in the movie!” And they even get some smart swipes in at the dragging script, when after a long bit of drawn out dialogue, Tom says, “This has more pauses than a Pinter play.” 

Star Miles O'Keefe and his massive...weapons.

 

Unfortunately, the movie can also be slow and plodding, there’s quite a lot of padding, and the fights with variously garbed extras tends to blend together thanks to lame fight choreography and weak music. So Joel and the Bots aren’t really involved in  the movie, they’re just amiably incredulous at it. Not saying there aren’t a few laughs, it’s just that the riffs aren’t as consistenly good as they will be. That, ad the cast and crew also still coming into their own here, and the riffing still has a little of Season 1-2’s weaknesses. Crow does the nervous laugh he did early on when it felt like Trace wasn’t sure a joke would work, while cute and endearing, is far from the witty lil’ robot who laughs at his own stuff because it’s so dang funny. And there’s still a little of the early goofiness, where Joel and the Bots will just be silly in place of well timed riffs. Not saying it’s not enjoyable, like them naming cavemen like they’re announcing a football game (“Playing center spear, Oog!”) But once the episode gets going, some solid riffing does take place.

That said, the host segments are on fire. Joel and the Mads produce two classic inventions, Joel’s Smoking Jacket and the Mads’ Robotic Arm Wrestling. The segment where Joel and the Bots parody the movie’s awkward opening title sequence and its graphics are a hoot. And, the skit where Joel explains various foley sound effects, such as meat slappers for punches and cracking celery to make the sound of bones, is something that has stuck with me for decades. Good stuff.

Community theater-level authenticity at it's finest.

For some, Cave Dwellers is an all time classic. It ranked #9 in the Top 100 Episodes list voted by fans during Season 11’s Kickstarter run. For me, though, it’s just a fun appetizer for the main course that is Season 3 and the show as a whole. The movie’s pacing and the fact that the riffing takes a while to get going personally keep this one from being a personal fave for me. But towards the end the riffing does improve, and I did still have fun with this one. For long time MSTies, this one’s far from a bad choice to revisit. But for me, it gets better.

Episode in a riff:

Tom: "So, let's recap the action so far."

Joel: "Uh, nothing, really."

Tom: "You're right, let's move on."

Random Asides

-Cave Dwellers is, as most know by now, actually the second Ator movie. This is especially obvious since it begins with Akronas spending five minutes doing a clip-show recap of the first movie. Ator fights a spider. Rifftrax covered it in 2017.

-From Mike’s tribute to star Miles O’Keefe in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide: “Every inch of Miles is a mile we’d like to travel.” Well said, Mike. Mancrush-y, but well said.

-It’s insane to think that, even if MST3K had only lasted those five guaranteed seasons, that would add up to 98 episodes. That’s almost 100 bad movies watched in just five years, an insane amount of content. The show has lasted more than twice that now. Few fans are as blessed as MSTies.

-“Smoking: scientists have known for well over a decade that it’s bad for you.”

-I love Joel and the bots cheering on Frank and Dr. F as they robotic arm wrestle.

-This is another movie released by Film Ventures International, who re-edit the title sequences of the movie with these ugly sequences where half the screen is black save for letters, and the top features grainy, low framerate scenes from other movies. It’s unbelievably lame and lazy, and a welcome sight for fans.

-“OH, I get is. White Shadow could’ve been Haloed Hoop Honkey, and Jake and the Fatman could’ve been...well Jake and the Fatman.”

-“Joel, isn’t this kind of fruity?” And the scene where they dress up and play swords and fantasy b rings out the “let’s put on a show” aspect of MST we all love.

-“Herd of buffalo? That’s easy, box full of hamsters!”

-I love the death glare Joel and the Bots give the Mads at the end over how bad the movie is. There are much, much worse movies covered on the show. 

Additional Links:

Satellite News review

Annotations

MST3K Wiki entry