206 - Ring of Terror

One Ring to bore them all. 

“Weird. Yeah, I guess that is the word for it. Weird.” So (awkwardly) says one of the 30-ish college students populating the campus setting of Ring of Terror, and this one is weird in a few ways. The episode falls halfway into the show’s second season, a time when the writers and performers were still fine-tuning their craft, the movie itself isn’t memorably or entertainingly bad, and then there’s the short, which is shown at the end of the movie instead of before. Maybe “weird” isn’t the right word for this episode; maybe it’s just “awkward.”

The movie does the show no favors. As Mary Jo Pehl describes in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, it’s “...completely inert. There’s no ring and there’s even less terror.” The story, about med student facing his fear of death, is more like a long, boring character study, full of bland characters and an unnecessary gravekeeper narrator, padding out the thin plot. The movie’s title, referring to the main character being dared to steal a ring off a corpse, is the actual finale of the movie, and considering this similar and superior The Twilight Zone episode The Grave, you see why the story works better as a short there.

As ever with their movies, the best character is the animal. 

But a lack of real story or plot urgency never hurt MST3K, right? Well, maybe not the show in it’s prime, but even then it takes work to make boring movies where little happens into even good episodes, like The Touch of Satan. Here though, their delivery and joke caliber still need work. Joel, Tom, and Crow still tell jokes that are often too goofy or basic, like Tom just asking if a random guy is Don DeFoe from TV’s Hazel?, or when they pretend they’re gonna bump into a gate as the camera zooms into it. Tom also just reads the movie’s entry in the Video Watchdog book early on. That said, I do enjoy quite a bit of the early Joel-era goofiness, charming in a Muppets kinda way, so it’s more a taste thing than anything.

They're laughing because they're about to retire. 

The movie also just does not give them a lot to work with, being tedious and uneventful, but they do try with what it gives. The most obvious source of riffing are the middle-aged actors playing college students. When main character Lewis ends a phone call with his girlfriend, Joel says, “She’s the ginchiest! Life does begin at 40!” There’s also a fat couple who are the movie’s constant source of fat-shaming comic relief, which Joel and the Bots mostly call out the movie for, though also getting in a few jokes: “An interpretive dance of how plate tectonics work,” Tom says during their dance scene. And of course there’s corpse humor, some of my dark favorite, including some inspired corpse-cooking humor during the students’ examination scene. “Well not very pleasant to look at,” says the doc, which Crow follows with, “But with rice and a nice seasoning, you’ve got a wonderful meal.” Throw in some smart references, like Crow saying a character is writing Tropic of Cancer, to dumb ones, like when he has a character opine how fine Irene Ryan is, and you’ve got quite a few solid laughs. Their timing and delivery is still just a little slight, and they haven’t quite learned yet to make a great running joke out of how boring the movie is, instead of just suffering through it. It’s not bad at all, just a little tame and meandering, and not as great as it will become.

Maybe I should go and major in napping!

The movie does give the some inspired host segments, the best of which is them, inspired by the older-playing-younger cast, making an ad for “The Old School”, where the school song is “It’s a Good Day for a BM!” and classes include Napping 101. The Invention Exchange is also fun, especially the Mads’ evil version of the game Operation, with Frank as the living, tortured, board.

As ever, the Mads improve something with evil. 

All in all, this episode is a little awkward, due to the movie’s lackluster nature and the show still perfecting itself. But I actually found on rewatch there’s a good amount of decent riffs, and for an episode of a show about to turn 30 years old, it holds up, mainly due that ol’ MST3K charm showing through.

Oh wait, I forgot to mention the short! Yes, now that the review is done, let’s talk about the short, because the short shows up after the movie is over. It’s awkward as hell, and I’m pretty sure the only time the show did this. Going from such a boring movie to an almost-as-boring piece of Republic Serial schlock like The Phantom Creeps is like being rewarded after doing homework with more homework. It feels like they have a little more fun with the short; having Bela Lugosi in it doesn’t hurt, and anything with trans-atlantic accents can provide a handful of good riffs. That said, I’m glad this is the only time they watched a short after a movie.

Episode in a Riff:

“What about the Ring of Terror? What about the plot, Joel? Am I the only one who cares?” -Tom

“I think the only plot was back in the cemetery, Tom.” -Crow

Random Asides

-This movie does make one big contribution to MST history: the narrator searching for his cat in the graveyard gives us the line, “Puma? Puma...”

-The much-better TZ episode The Grave came out the same year as this, 1961. Go watch that instead of t his movie. It has Lee Marvin and Lee Van Cleef!

Tis is a weird ass movie. It’s like part college story, part lame and tame 50s thriller. Who is the audience for this? Why the semi-wacky fat people and teacher? Why the tepid love story?

-We actually see Joel going into the porthole to the theater in the beginning.

-Tom’s head is a weird, slender shape in this one. I remember reading somewhere, probably Satellite News, they wanted it to be less intrusive. Bad idea, and glad they reverted back to his normal round shape.

-While I appreciate the effort made in the revival episodes, I always prefer the bots not working well as puppets.

-I love Crow pretending to move the clock forward to simulate time passing in the “robot anatomy” skit.

-The theater shadows sit really high in this one for some reason.

-Even with a subpar episode, I was house-sitting alone when I watched this, and it provided just the soul lifting I needed. MST3K can almost always do no wrong.

Additional Links
Satellite News Review
Annotations
MST3K Wiki Entry

The Great Cheesy Movie CIrcus Tour!

The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour Write-Up!

So, it's been a while since I posted anything. Life has been crazy this year, and has only settled down recently. But, I also saw the latest MST3K live show this past weekend, and since I never did a write-up on last year's, I figured this was a perfect time to get the blog going again, and a way to have some much-needed fun.

The show's set up was very different from the 30th Anniversary show's, with the movie screen above  an in-set host desk in shadow, allowing the puppeteers more freedom, but hiding them kind of behind and off the stage. Also, instead of riffing in silhouette in front of the screen, this time Joel and the Bots watched from a smaller desk on stage looking up at it. It was weird, and didn't feel as fleshed out as last year's set. But, the increased range of motion for the bots was fun, especially as the circus theme had them playing with fire and weightlifting, much to the chagrin of the very safety conscious Crow.

Speaking of, I loved Crow's safety speeches and ditties, especially when he would smile awkwardly and freeze looking at the audience like in a TV PSA. Him giving up on it, and then joining in on the hijinks, was a nice touch too. As for other changes, we got Emily, a new character acting as, according to the show's site, "circus rigger and maintenance worker", was a fun new addition, as was Mega-Synthia, a clone of Pearl and Synthia who has all the stature and crazy of both. And if the show isn't BSing, we might be seeing more of both in the future.

But c'mon, we're here for the movie riffing! Our showing in Dallas only had one, 80s Karate Kid knock-off No Retreat, No Surrender. I wish I'd been able to see the more thematically appropriate Circus of Horror, but considering NR, NS was about a young, bullied boy befriending the ghost of Bruce Lee to eventually fight a young Jean-Claude Van Damme to stop his mafia-backed karate school takeover scheme...yeah, the movie was a damn fine fit for MST: wacky side characters, parental figures who are bullied and saved by their son, and a finale that barely involved the main character until the end.

The main character spends time hanging out at Bruce Lee's grave, and when the camera cuts to his picture on the tombstone, I think Joel yells "Leave me alone!" Then, at the obligatory dance scene, we have the nerdy DJ wonderfully referred to as "Normal Al Yankovic." This was hilarious and, as I felt after watching The Brain last year, I HATE I probably won't be able to re-watch this show again. That said, I'm glad I went to see it, and hope another showing isn't too far away. And more importantly, it's good to watch some MST after a while.

Also, when Joel threw in a pause for the "la-la-la" in the theme song sing-a-long, I too was tricked into putting one where there wasn't. How dare he!

Show in a riff:
"When two bad guys fight in the ring, it's hard to know who to fight for when your main character is in the audience!" -Joel (I belive)

1103 - The Time Travelers

We’re caught in some kind of…time trap!

They're waiting for Chell to pop out.

 

Movies with bogus, BS science can be some of the best for MST3K experiments. What can be more fitting for entertaining ridicule than heads being kept alive in pans or people and animals embiggened by radiation? Well, The Time Travelers has people who time travel via a machine that looks into the past like a TV and then, somehow, creates a portal. And while it’s nothing as cheesy as a Bert I. Gordon movie, Time Travelers does have scientists who can’t pronounce “lasers” correctly, so it’s ripe for riffing. 

 

Where Doc Brown did his internship.

Said people are four scientists (well, three scientists and their electrician, Danny) who, in the basement of a fancy university, are using an experimental machine to peer backwards in time. But, they push things too far, and soon the machine isn’t merely gazing into the past, but creating a portal there. Idiot electrician Danny wanders in, and the rest of them follow him, only for the portal to close after them. Finding themselves over a hundred years in the future, the world is a radioactive wasteland and most people are mutants, fighting for scraps to survive, as you’re wont to do in any proper post apocalypse. But, they’re soon rescued by civilized survivors, who live in underground bunkers and are planning to leave on a rocket to the nearest star system because the neighborhood has gone downhill and they need better schools and a place with a Whole Foods and such.

I don't even want to know what Vault-Tec was up to here.

The whole thing is taken about as seriously, and is similar tonally, with an original Trek episode. That said, a George Pal effects bonanza this ain’t, as while it’s colorful and creative, more than a few special effects are based on stage magician techniques, and it’s also one of those 50s-60s sci-fi movies where a lot of time is taken up explaining the futuristic technology in ways that prove the film’s writers actually don’t understand it. So, as far as riffing material goes, it’s about an 8 out of 10; nothing too dopey or terrible, but with more than enough delicious goofy cheese for Jonah and the Bots to feed on. Jonah has fun with the time travel concept itself, saying, after the character end up trapped in the future, “Now we wait for future version of ourselves to solve the problem and pop in and rescue us, it’s a snap! Yep, any minute now...” There’s the colorful yet still dated special effects, such as the time portal itself, which Crow notes, in the tone of the dilweed Danny, “Is almost like there’s a couple of Styrofoam rocks in front of a rear projection screen or something!” Oh, and don’t think the bots don’t have fun with the presence of androids. As two workers finish making one, Tom wonders, “Say, Bob, ever feel like you can never touch a human being again because it just reminds you of the horrible fleshoids we handle here?” The riffs are a mile a minute, maybe too many as is the case of early Season 11 episodes, but when the majority are hilarious, and you can tell the performers are having a ball, it’s hard to complain.

Pictured: an important plot point.

The thing oddly going against the movie’s riffing factor is it’s quality. Even though it’s from the director of Reptilicus, this is a miles better movie, far more entertaining and with a higher production quality. So, it can be hard finding things to joke on aside from the subject matter and self-serious tone. Thankfully there’s Danny, the dopey electrician who accidentally gets the characters in the future in the first place. He’s the kind of comic relief who has a plot purpose in a story that would otherwise just cast him aside or be killed off in a better movie, but here he’s around to lighten things up. That said, the actor, Steve Franken (also in Avalanche), is far from very annoying, and Danny is likeable and dumb enough without being a load. So Jonah and the bots get to have fun at his expense, and he doesn’t make the movie worse. This can be a bad thing, as characters who are worse and make the movie more painful can result in better episodes; but here, Danny’s just fine for the purposes of the movie and riffing material. As one of the future scientists showcases their teleportation technology, Servo says, “It’s like a People TV. That sounds stupid, but I’m just trying to dumb it down for you, Danny.” As the main characters mill around, Jonah says, “Remember everyone, if we avoid eye contact long enough, Danny will go away.” They even get in on it on Danny’s first appearance, as he wanders into the lab and Crow bleats out in a dopey voice, “Whatta ya guys doing, some science?” Danny is far, far from even the mildest annoying character they’ve had in a movie, but he’s good for jovial joke fodder.

Danny's reaction to himself is the same as Jonah and the Bots'.

 

The host segments surprisingly don’t go as far with the concept as possible though. Gypsy’s T.I.M.E. safety procedure is kinda cute, and writer Elliott Kalan and Joel are fun as the skeevy party guys from the future, but they’re not nearly as memorable as the main feature.Jonah making fake bots for Tom and Crow to take out their aggression on is pretty funny, though.

There’s a part during the android repair factory tour where Servo says, “When did this start to feel like a training video for a job that doesn’t exist?” And that’s what a lot of the movie feels like: touring a futuristic job. Which means you’re hanging out at work with Jonah and the bots as extremely funny coworkers. And considering how close MST’s special effects are to this movies (okay, they’re worse, but similar in spirit anyway), it just gives the episode a ton of fun times with coworkers and some nice synchronicity. It’s a hilarious episode and the first one of Season 11 that really assuaged my fears of the new version of the show, letting me know the show would, indeed, be well. 

Servo: making things weirder since 1988.

Episode in a riff

It’s just like Mad Max, but without all the cool driving -Crow

Random asides

-Including the original KTMA proto-season, this was MST3K’s 200^th episode. Congratulations! To even live in a world with 100 comedy gems.

-Jonah and the Bots playing “Never Did I Ever” as a way of getting to know one another is pretty funny. Crow: “Never did I ever...have to confront my own mortality.”

-The show starts to find its footing with this episode. Shots of the SOL bridge are better framed, and the flow of riffs, while still rushed and a little too many, is much smoother.

-The Mads’ invention is pretty cool: After Life Alert! “I’ve fallen into the sixth level of Purgatory and I can’t get up.”

-”It’s a tale of mutants, androids, and really icky future nooky.”

-Vilmos Zsigmond did the cinematography to this! No wonder it looks so snazzy.

-Remember the T.I.M.E. system for avoiding time travel paradoxes:

Tell Someone

Identify When

Make a Plan

Enter the Portal, Not!

-35 minutes in, as Danny prepares to hit on a future girl, Crow says, “I don’t know that I’m ready to see Danny ‘do his thing’.” Netflix even has “do his thing” in quotation marks. Love it.

-”Do you guys like to party?” Anytime anybody asks you that, walk away from them.

-That really is Forrest J. Ackerman at the 44 minute mark! Uncle Forry!

-”A lifestyle like ours demands a ready source of Vitamin C. Plus, orange is the grooviest color.”

-There is not a single Fallout reference in this episode. Disappointing. 

Additional Links

Satellite News Review

MST3K Wiki entry

605 - Colossus and the Headhunters

They cut off the heads of their enemies, and used them to decorate their village.

Sorry, not featuring Peter Rasputin from the X-Men.

As I’ve said before, the Italian Hercules / peplum movies make some of my favorite MST3k episodes. Like the best lasagna, a combination of ingredients that makes for a delicious time of riffing: layers of color sets and action; beefy guys and tasty babes; and perhaps most importantly, heaps of cheese for Joel, Mike, and the Bots to feast on.  But, not every Italian meal is a perfect dish from a 4 star, authentic restaurant: some you pull the plastic wrapping off, microwave on high for four minutes, and they just do the job, but that’s it. But even those have a little bit of cheesy goodness to enjoy.

Colossus and the Headhunters is something like that as far as MST episodes go: not one of the best, but it does the trick. Unlike other sword and sandals movies featured on the show, and in spite of the title, this time the main character is actually dubbed correctly as Maciste, instead of being renamed “Hercules” or “Colossus” or “Samson.”. Here, Maciste is out sailing the seas and comes upon and island. No sooner has he landed, though, that the volcano comprising most of the island explodes, and Maciste takes all the survivors he can to his raft and sets sail on an unsure sea to save them. Or, actually, the movie starts with the island exploding, and then Maciste pops up out of some shrubs, and we’re later told he arrived there a....y’know what? Let’s just keep going, because soon he and the survivors land on another island, but are captured. It turns out this island full of other people who also need saving from a rival group, the title-mentioned headhunters, led by a scheming advisor names Kermit (actually Kermes, but I’m not passing up this chance up!). So Maciste has to save two groups of survivors from violent headhunters and stop a war. He does this mainly by romancing the queen, letting other characters do most of the fighting, and occasionally lifting some heavy objects.

Just because there's action doesn't really mean things happen, though.

 

So I googled this movie when researching for the review, and one of the reviews for it derided it as bad even for a peplum movie. And it is pretty bargain basement. There’s hunky guys and some cute women and lots of fights and that’s about it. There’ aren’t any fun monsters or lavish sets, just cheaply painted tents and a quarry doubling as the headhunter’s HQ, unless you count the abandoned castle used as...an abandoned castle. Wow. At least the fights, repetitious as they are, are done with some gusto and feel more bone crunching and harsh than some lighter, modern action movie fare.

But if it sounds like there’s not a lot to this movie, it’s because there isn’t. And that makes for a sparse meal for Mike and the Bots. There’s the usual peplum stuff they have fun with, like when the buff Maciste walks around, and Crow says, “I’m gonna atrophy if I don’t lift! Can I bench press one of you guys?” Oh and don’t forget the typical goofy costumes, like when an extra in a silly hat shows up, and Tom says, in his best lazy teenager voice, “Welcome to Trojan Burger, may I take your order?” It’s nothing bad or terribly unfunny by any means, and they remain in a good mood throughout, but just okay for the majority of the movie, and nothing consistently hilarious.

I still like this movie better than Wedding Crashers.

Until the wedding, that is, when Queen Amoha is forced into a wedding with the evil Kermes. Then, the wedding jokes come out and Mike and the Bots have a blast! When the Queen’s kidnapped and blackmailed father consents to the wedding, Crow says, “But the children can’t be raised headhunters.” And as Maciste leads a battle to stop the wedding, Tom notes, “Isn’t this typical, best man gets in a fight.” Mike follows that up with, “Small town Wisconsin wedding.” For anyone who’s been stuck at a wedding to people they’re not particularly close to, it rings home, and the episode really comes alive during the wedding. They also have fun with how Queen Amoha stalls at the wedding to pad out the run time I mean give Maciste time to rescue her. After one of the Queen’s friends dances for like five straight minutes, Kermes says, “The gods thank you,” followed by Tome screaming, “Now, GET OUT!” And then Mike follows that up with, “And now for the traditional viewing of Berlin Alexanderplatz.” 

The life of a pet owner.

But the adage that how involved the writers are in the movie shows in the host segments rings true, since not a one features anything relating to the movie. Instead, this episode introduces Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter, the Mads’ attempt to create the world’s most adorable pet, and thus rule through its cuteness. It is cute enough, for a pink fuzzy puppet, and it’s fun seeing Mike go gaga for him, and Frank’s son as he pines for Nummy’s return is great. Even better are the Bots’ exasperation at Mike’s adoration of him. They’re skits that help the episode stand out.

I watched this one on a rainy Sunday, and that’s a pretty apt summation of this one. It’s not an all-time classic or personal favorite like Hercules Againstthe Moon Men, but on a lazy rainy afternoon, it’s a good episode to revisit.

Episode In a Riff

It’s not a plot point, it’s not an action scene, what is it? -Mike

Random Asides.

-The episode really does get good during the wedding, and makes me wish there was a wedding themed movie for them to riff through. I mean, c’mon, who hasn’t sat through a boring wedding and just joked to get through it? Imagine doing that with Bots!

-To be honest, Crow deserves what he gets for hiring Tom to do his taxes.

-”Wait a minute, 8 times 7 isn’t 200?”

“Fair enough.”

“6 times 3 isn’t 200 either!”

“Do your own taxes!”

-Frank’s childish tantrums over wanting Nummy Muffin back kill me. 

-Usually, it’s the Bots acting silly and childish about something, so it’s fun seeing Mike being the irrational one.

-Mike: “I miss Nummy already.”

Tome: “He slobbers and he smells bad.”

-I was really surprised he’s called Maciste in this movie, after being redubbed as Hercules in Against the Moon Men. But what kind of Italian peplum hero doesn’t have a beard?!

-So, the movie starts with Maciste rescuing a group of people from a volcanic island that’s erupting, only to take them to an island where another group of people need rescuing from the headhunters. Why not just start the movie there and skip the first group of people?

-Even by Italian sword and sandal movies, this one feels cheap. The volcano is just a miniature and styrofoam boulders, the sets are mainly tents, fields, and quarries, and there's not a monster to be seen. That said, there is an old castle standing in as....an old castle.

-The special feature on the DVD is Mike by Joel, as Joel discusses the transition from him to Mike as host. It’s fascinating because you see how much they all did early on, from writers making the sets and hanging the lights. And according to Joel, J. Elvis Weinstein picked out Mike for the show from open mic in Minneapolis, which is how they often found other writers. Mike brought in Bridget Jones, who brought in Mary Jo Pehl! It’s interesting seeing Joel’s take on the who Joel vs Mike controversy, and how he hoped they’d have picked a woman or person of color instead of “just another doughy midwestern guy,” and some of the ideas tossed around included a sex change ray turning Joel into Bridget! That said, Mike was of course a great choice.

-Joel compares him and the Bots to Dave Seville and the Chipmunks. Very apropos. And, as he said Kevin and Trace had seniority over Mike at the time, that’s how Mike’s relationship with the Bots came to be. Fun!

Additional Links

Satellite News review

Annotations

MST3K wiki entry