MST3K: 106 - The Crawling Hand

Joel Robinson is trapped in space and forced to watch bad movies by a pair of mad scientists.  His only companions are the robots he made from some of the spare parts.  A cult classic of the 90's, this is Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Original air date: December 16, 1989

The weather's started getting rough, let's get home.

Now this show is starting to look like it's maturing a little.  Sure, it's only five (yes, I said five) episodes in, but now the show begins with a short scene with Joel instead of the Mads.  There are buttons on the desk, and unless I am mistaken, this is the first appearance of Magic Voice!  In the opening, Joel explains just what the heck is going on here.  It's straight and to the point, and not particularly funny.  We will see this happen a few more times this season before they decide they don't really need to explain the concept of the show.

Joel cheats during the invention exchange!  I've watched this episode several times in the past, and it never occurred to me until now.  Instead of actually investing anything, Joel pulls a prank on the Mads by pretending to cut off his fingers.  Cheeky!   The Mads invention, the Arm Extender, is cute, but it's rather easy to see that Trace's hand is what is coming out of the end of the tube.

The experiment is The Crawling Hand, a 1963 sci-fi movie.  It is long enough that there is no time for a Radar Men from the Moon short.  In the film, an astronaut on is way back from the moon appears to go insane.  In reality, he has been infected with some sort of extraterrestrial life.  He begs for his ship to be set to self-destruct, and NASA physician Dr. Max Weltzberg (Kent Taylor) obliges.  However, the disembodied hand of the dead astronaut is found by college student Paul Lawrence (Rod Lauren).  The hand kills Mrs. Hotchkiss (Paul's landlady) and then possesses Paul, who begins attacking others.  Steve Curan (Peter Breck), chief of the NASA mission, and Dr. Weltzberg  are tasked with stopping the attacks.  Joel and the Bots see Peter again in the season 4 experiment The Beatniks.

Alan Hale Jr., who played the Skipper in Gilligan's Island, has a role as the town's sheriff.  Hale appears in two more movies shown in the show. Tristam Coffin, who was just in the previous experiment, plays NASA's security chief.  While Coffin's character is mentioned, we never see him on screen, which leads me to believe his scenes were cut for time in the episode.  The voluptuous Allison Hayes (of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman fame and appears in three other films in the show) plays Donna, Steve's secretary.

The first host segment is rather weak.  Joel and the Bots are bowling, but Joel decides he wants to play Murder Ball (did he really mean wheelchair rugby or something else?).  When the Bots balk on that idea, Joel suggests rock-paper-scissors (which is intrinsically unfair based on the bots inability to move their fingers).  There really wasn't much more to the bit that than.

The second host segment, in which Joel and the Bots imitate William Shatner getting choked, is rather funny.  My only problem is that I don't recall an episode of Star Trek where Kirk gets choked almost to death.  I'm sure there is one, it just doesn't come to mind.

"Dames like her always keep beer around." is a line from this movie and becomes a recurring riff through the rest of the series.  The line is originally uttered by an EMT, when they decide to have a drink before transporting Mrs. Hotchkiss's body .  You are a poor excuse for an EMT (and/or an alcoholic) if you think it's OK to drink a dead woman's beer.  On top of that, when they find Paul unconscious, the same man tries to weasel out of helping him.  That dude should be fired (I bet he was, and ended up being the surgeon that screwed up my gall bladder surgery).

There is one riff about Steve working on"O-rings", and it was quite harsh.  This was late 1989, the Challenger disaster was only about four years earlier.  Too soon, J. Elvis, too soon.  It's not something that younger audiences now would necessarily catch, but I was in fifth grade when the Challenger exploded and remember the day distinctly.

The third segment is a bit weak.  Joel does bring some humor to the situation with his explanation about how a disembodied hand could potentially be dangerous.  But, in general, the bit just falls flat.  Gypsy dressed as a giant hand in the end is just... strange.

The final host segment contains a letter, which is the first time we hear a letter read during season one.  This is also the first time Servo reads the address for the fan club (is it sad I have it memorized?).  This becomes a normal part of the show for at least several seasons.

Beside having The Skipper and the origin of "Dames like her always have beer around," this was not really a memorable episode.  The riffs was decent, but the host segments were weak.  An average episode for season one.

Favorite Riffs:  "Hey, Joel, did they do these titles on a typewriter?  No, that's the Helvetica Constellation we're looking at here.", "Sure wish I had that amount of command of my arms." (poor Servo).  "Oh, and I suppose next you'll tell me there's rings around Uranus.", "Look, it's Ed Begley Sr.", "Did he just offer his hand in marriage?", "I don't think it's freezer wrap, I think it's a hand bag.", "I recognize him, he used to be with Def Leppard.", "Hey, wait a minute!  Stop, or I'll say 'Hey!' again.", "If he sings Maria right now, I'm going to lose it, you guys", "You will believe a hand can crawl.", "Cats can't resist the cosmic treat.  They're eating right out of his hand.", "This was no boating accident."

This episode can be bought on DVD from Rhino, and is also available on YouTube and the Digital Archive Project.

MST3K: 105 - The Corpse Vanishes

Hey, Lon Chaney, watch me jam!

Joel Robinson is trapped in space and forced to watch bad movies by a pair of mad scientists.  His only companions are the robots he made from some of the spare parts.  A cult classic of the 90's, this is Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Original air date: December 9, 1989

Hey, what happened to 104?  There's a funny story behind that.  The episode with production number 104 is Women of the Prehistoric Planet.  It was actually the last episode of season one produced and originally aired in February of 1990.  So, I'll come back to that episode later.

The episode begins with Dr. Forrester returning from the Mad Scientist Convention with a gift for Dr. Erhardt. Later in the series, this kind of story detail goes out the window, but it's one of the things I like about the first season.  Dr. Erhardt gets the go-ahead to put the call in to Joel, and insults him with being a "tree rotating skanky boy."  I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one.  Joel's invention is the Chiro-Gyro, which is about as safe and effective as a regular chiropractor, if you ask me.  The Mads present the Flaming Boutonniere.  It seems those two have a bit of the pyromaniac in them.

Before the movie, Joel and the Bots have to suffer through Radar Men from the Moon Chapter 3:  "The Bridge of Death."  The shadowrama (silhouettes) is tinted slightly green this episode.  Best Brains is still trying to tweak the details of the show, obviously.  As Joel enters the theater, he oddly calls the Mads "the professors."  Tom is in a singing mood during the credits.  While not particularly funny, he does seem to be keeping himself entertained.  Cody and his gang return to Earth, only to be attacked by guns for hire.  The two men try to escape, only to be chased by Cody.  By car.  CAR.  Why are you in a car, Cody, you have a rocket suit?  If the car is faster, why did you invent the suit to begin with?  On the bright side, it was a pretty impressive car chase for 1952.

"7 Input Moves to Get Her Disc Spinning..."

In the first host segment, Tom is reading Tiger-Bot magazine.  Notice that Tom beak is now silver, and his arms work!  Tiger-Bot interviewed Data, and Tom and Crow seem very interested.  "Favorite Scotch:  James Doohan."  Nicely done,

The feature is The Corpse Vanishes, a horror movie from 1942.  Bela Lugosi stars as mad scientist Dr. Lorenz, who poisons \young brides, putting them into a coma.  Lorenz uses the brides' bodily fluids in order to return youth and health to his wife (Elizabeth Russel).  Reporter Patricia Hunter (Luna Walters) investigates the "corpses"of the missing brides, with help from local physician Dr. Foster (Tristam Coffin).  The character of Miss Hunter reminds me a lot of the 50's TV show version of Lois Lane (the hair, the clothes, the feisty attitude).

Little trivia:  Tris Coffin played Jeff King, the main character in the Republic serial King of the Rocket Men.  Radar Men from the Moon uses the same basic character, although changes his name to Commando Cody.  Coffin also played Captain Reid, the older brother of The Lone Ranger, in the first episode of The Lone Ranger.  The Lone Ranger, of course, was Clayton Moore, who had a part in Radar Men from the Moon.  So our little trivia comes (pretty much) full circle.  Neat-o.

As for the riffing, Joel is much more active in the movie scenes during this episode.  He gets up several times in an attempt to interact with the set and actors.  There seemed to be a lot more pop cultural references (like the SNL Landshark bit) this time around.  Joel does a pretty decent Bela Lugosi impersonation (although, granted, it's not that difficult).

The second host segment is a little awkward.  Joel and the Bots don't seem to be able to play tag around the console very well.  The strange way in which they are running (especially Joel) might be part of the joke, but honestly it's hard to tell.  The segment ends with Joel running down the main doors, which isn't something seen at all often in the series.

The third host segment is another early classic, as well as a rehash from the KTMA days -- Crow cuts Joel's hair.  You can really hear the midwestern influence of the show during the gossip.  I like how Crow tells Joel to lean left, which Joel does, and Crows says "No, your other left."  I'm not sure if Joel screwed that up by leaning left first instead of right, or if it's just an indication that Crow doesn't know which is which.  The final story of the segment about the clowns rolling over a fire engine during a parade was hysterical.  I feel bad for laughing even now.

Near the end of the movie, Joel gets out a little hand brush to clean up Dr. Foster.  He follows this up with a large push broom.  It's one of the more surreal things I've seen happen in the theater during this show.

The plot of the movie runs very slowly until the last 13 minutes when Patricia comes up with the idea of creating a fake wedding with a decoy bride to catch Dr. Lorenz.  While plodding, the movie was watchable, especially with the provided commentary.  The gang was in pretty good form for being the first season.

After the movie, Joel give ram chips for stating a good thing and bad thing about the film.  Unfortunately, Tom hates the movie so much he is unable to say anything nice and blows his top.  This becomes a recurring scene in the show.  You can see the top of J. Elvis's head peak out from the table right before Tom goes ka-bloey.

Favorite Riffs:  "Try not to look like Mr. Peanut."  "And that's guy's speaking into a cruller.  Maybe he's Danish.  Well, it's the moon, it's a cheese danish.", "Nipple, nipple, tweak, tweak!  Fly, fly fly!", "Looks like the Macy's Parade gone awry.", "Hey, wait!  Didn't you see the 'Bridge of Death' sign back there?", "You should have discussed that with your daughter earlier.", (Singing) "I'm getting buried in the morning.", 'Hey, it's a hot rod!", "Oh, that must be Stanley, their garage door opener. Always trying to help people do things right.", "Free ear piercing with death.", "Usually, the out of gas things comes later in the relationship.", "These kooks are coming out of the woodwork.", "He'd been injecting her with 'young and pretty', now he should be injecting her with 'smart and nice'.", "You have a hunch, too?  I guess it's contagious.", "She's just my type:  B-positive.", "That's the price you pay for being a sideshow pass-around."

This episode was included in the Vol 16 DVD set, and is also available on Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, and the Digital Archive Project.

MST3K: 103 - The Mad Monster

Joel Robinson is trapped in space and forced to watch bad movies by a pair of mad scientists.  His only companions are the robots he made from some of the spare parts.  A cult classic of the 90's, this is Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Original air date: December 2, 1989

Once again we start the episode in Deep 13.  Dr. Erhardt  and Dr. Forrester tell the stories of how they went mad.  Joel begins with his invention exchange, a classic from Hodgson's prop-comedy days -- Hell in a Handbag.  I'd love to know how blowing into it actually lights the fire.  As for the Mads' offering this episode, Godzilla with real fire breath would be an awesome present, but the "slant eye"glasses are incredibly racist.

The Mads start this week's torture with Radar Men from the Moon Chapter 2:  "Molten Terror".  Just a bit of trivia:  the "tank" that Retik's men use on the moon to chase after Cody was actually a re-purposed prop from another Republic serial, Undersea Kingdom (the first two chapters of which were shown in season 4).  Servo shows some real disdain for the heroes in the film, who don't ever realize they are carrying a large atomic ray gun.

The blue screen used to film the movie riffing scenes in this episode was a lower quality.  Tom Servo looks just a little odd once again as a silhouette.

So, do you juice?

The first host segment is a classic:  Tom Servo hits on a blender.  This is actually a redo of a segment from the show's days at KTMA.  I love that Servo recognizes the physical similarities between himself and the blender, but it never occurs to him that the blender is not sentient.  And the payoff at the end is just great.

The Mad Monster is an American made b-movie horror film from 1942.  It is directed by Sam Newfield and produced by his brother Sigmund Neufeld  (Sam changed his last name).  Newfield is also responsible for three other movies The Mads subjected the inhabitants of the Satellite of Love to throughout the years.

In the film, mad scientist Dr. Lorenzo Cameron (George Zucco) creates a werewolf by transferring wolf blood to his gardener Petro (Glenn Strange).  Dr.  Cameron uses his creature to attack and kill other scientists who discredited him (of course!).  "Newspaper Man" Tom Gregory (Johnny Downs), who just happens to be in a relationship with Dr. Cameron's daughter Lenora (Anne Nagel), investigates the deaths of these scientists.  The plot is rather standard for a 30's-40's horror movie, and not that bad, all things considered.  The production quality, however, leaves a lot to be desired.  The sound, especially, is atrocious.

This episode seems to have as few riffs as the first two of this season.  The movie is passable, so it's not as torturous to watch as, say, The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy was.

I put Algernon's body in a cheese box and buried him in the
backyard. I cried.

At one point, Servo asks "Is this Of Mice and Men or Flowers for Algernon, Joel?"  This is exactly how I felt about it.  Petro reminds me of both Lennie Small and Charlie Gordon.  On a side note, Joel's reaction ("Neither, just keep watching.") seemed out of character when compared to later seasons.

When Servo sings a parody of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song, Joel accidentally calls him Servo.  I guess during Season 1, they didn't believe in retakes.

During the second host segment, Crow and Servo question the logistics of being a werewolf.  The segment was not funny per se, but was rather clever and somewhat witty.

The third host segment starts a little weak and creepy, as Joel switches Servo and Crow's heads.  But when the two Bots start to speak in unison to mess with Joel's head, it becomes amusing.  In the end, Joel turns them off!  I don't think we ever see that happen again in the show.

The movie's ending is very contrived, although I suppose that goes with the territory.  The monster kills Dr. Cameron, and then is killed himself as their home burns.  Sounds familiar.  Meanwhile, Joel and Bots don't even stay through the credits; they walk out and let the audience alone in the theatre.  That's not a normal occurrence in this show.  Gypsy's mouth is once again too loud, her dialogue is not intelligible, and her light isn't on.  In the end, they get a little metta when they admit to why Gypsy actually exists in context of the show.

All in all, The Mad Monster was a perfectly adequate episode of the first season.  Aside from Tom's romantic entanglement with a blender and the Mad's stories of how they went mad, there was nothing overly memorable about this episode.  It was not the worst of the season, but there were no stand out moments.

Favorite Riffs:  "How comes they have Groucho Marx mustaches on their helmets?", "Oh, Constant Heat!  I love her films!", "Hey, it's Bill Bixby as Lou Ferigno!", "My God, he's turned him into Abe Lincoln!", "Now he's his own best friend.", "Republicans?", "Do not disobey Ape Law.", "I'll have a Shirley Temple to go, please.", "I think it's the kid in him.", "Oh, he was the one out of five doctors who didn't chose Bayer, Crow.", "Tell that to the NFL!", "Jim never drinks coffee at home!", "He's looking for his favorite tree.", "He'll never be a show dog at this rate.",  "Zelda drove me."  "A ComfoRest adjustable bed with safety belts. Dad’s doing research for Art Linkletter!"

This episode was included in the Vol 14 DVD set, and is also available on Amazon Instant Video and YouTube.

MST3K: 102 - The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy

Robot:  Yah!  Aztec Mummy:  Booo!

Joel Robinson is trapped in space and forced to watch bad movies by a pair of mad scientists.  His only companions are the robots he made from some of the spare parts.  A cult classic of the 90's, this is Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Original air date: November 18, 1989

This was the second episode produced for season one, but was shown before the first episode, The Crawling Eye.  I prefer to watch and review this show in production order, so this episode is coming second.

Again we start the episode with Dr. Erhardt and Dr. Forrester.  I really actually like their interaction here, as they talk about Dr. Forrester wanting to win first prize at the National Mad Scientists Competition.  This is the kind of thing that gets a little lost when J. Elvis Weinstein leaves at the end of this season.

Joel's invention, the air bag helmet, would actually prove quite useful.  Assuming, you know, motorcyclists actually bother to wear helmets (I'm looking at you Ben Roethlesberger, or, as Dr. Forrester mentions, Gary Busey).  It wouldn't prevent lacerations, broken bones, or torn flesh.  Maybe a air bag full body suit would be better.  As for the Mad's invention, the Chalk Man is quite evil, and the sound made me cringe even though I knew it was coming.

Pumpkin Boy!

This week, not only do the Mads give Joel and the Bots a movie, but they also include a short:  the first part of the 1952 Republic serial Radar Men from the Moon (entitled "Moon Rocket").  Movie serials (along with cartoons) is something I wish still existed in today's theaters.  My father grew up in the 40's and 50's and used to tell me how he would go the local movie house every Saturday to watch serials, cartoons and a feature.  Sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday!

Clayton Moore, who had become famous at that time for playing The Lone Ranger on TV, plays Graber, a human criminal hired to help the moon men while they are on Earth.

Now, this might be asking a bit much from a 50's movie that thinks "atomic rays" are a thing, but who in their right mind would just try to fly to the moon in a rocketship without testing the ship first?  And it takes off horizontally from the ground?  Plus, space apparently is the same color as the afternoon sky!

Radar Men from the Moon is an obvious Red Scare allegory - aliens from a different culture with atomic weapons want to invade our home.  They have learned English so they can work easily within the United States -- just like commie spies!

The first part of the serial wasn't that bad, as far as bad movies go, and there were a good number of funny riffs.  The first host segment, on the other hand, is rather weak.  "Demon dogs" infest the ship and Tom Servo tries to order them to leave with this äuthoritarian tone.  He ends up getting peed on, which looks like silly string.  It occurred to me while Joel took some of the silly string off that he is touching demon dog pee with his bare hands.  Ick.  The entire first sketch builds to the obvious joke that Tom looks like a fire hydrant.

The feature, The Robot vs The Aztec Mummy is a Mexican made film from 1958 dubbed into English.  It is actually the third movie in a trilogy, although it spends a lot of time recapping the first two movies.  At the start of the movie, Crow says "My legs are old. My teeth are gray", as a paraphrase from Monty Python's Life of Brian.  It becomes a recurring riff for older characters in movies.

The second host segment tries to tie the Demon Dogs to Commando Cody.  The leader of the Demon Dogs, Enoch appears and acts somewhat like Retik from the Commando Cody short.  Unfortunately, it wasn't that funny and didn't make a lot of sense.

Why did the makers of this movie think it was acceptable to spend at least half of its length recapping the first two movies?  Why do mummies hate crosses?  Bruno hitting the gravekeeper was just hysterical.  The movie was so incredibly bad, it was hard to make sense of everything.  The production quality of the whole thing was atrocious.

At one point, the silhouettes completely disappear due to the film being dark.  Also, Crow's got quite a Midwest accent in this episode.  I hadn't noticed it in The Crawling Eye.  A section in the middle of the episode felt very slow.  Not only was the movie's plot not really moving, but the riffs were also very bland and far between.  Part of the problem, I'm sure, was the lack of material.  The riffs picked up again once Dr. Almada went to the graveyard to investigate, but then slowly fell back down to it's previous poor quality.

The third host segment was just a rehash of the first.  Crow dresses up like the Demon Dog leader Enoch and goes outside to convince the dogs to leave.  He fails, and is peed on.  Not funny when Tom was peed on.  Still not funny this time.

This movie was just so awful I could see why the writers found it hard to make it funny.  With about 21 minutes left in the episode, which would be about 18 minutes left in the movie, the movie finally stopped recapping the previous stories.  That's insulting to the audience.  I can't comprehend how the production team of this movie thought that was acceptable.  The title fight between the mummy and the robot was maybe a minute or two long.  The mummy literally ripped the robot apart, and then the police just watched as the mummy killed The Bat and Bruno.  Flora tells the mummy to go back where he came from, and BAM!  movie's over.  Wow.  That was just bad.

Overall, there was some great riffs, especially during Commando Cody, but the entire episode went downhill after that.  This is definitely one of weaker episodes in the show's run.  I don't recommend starting with this episode.  Leave it until you feel compelled to be a completist and watch every episode.

Favorite Riffs:  "Nice shooting, Lionel.  Thanks, Tyco.",  "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.  We are cruising at approximately 50 feet.  The captain has turned off the No Screaming sign, and we just emptied the wash room.", "Hey, it matches my helmet and everything!  All I need is the Sparkmaster playset, and I'm done!"  "Oh, I hate to shoot a butt like that!"  "Yeah, a guy in a leather jacket with his butt on fire.  They're never notice that."  "Kinda looks like Dirty Dancing, doesn't it?  I've reached the end of my life, and I’m waiting for the knife to fall.", "The other people used the door.", "Do it Edward, do it!", "Mummy's home!  Now you're going to get it.", "Hey, it's your movie.", "The beer barrel Popoca?", "And the snappy Coco Chanel pantsuit."

This episode was included in the Vol 15 DVD set, and is also available on Amazon Instant Video and YouTube.

MST3K: 101 - The Crawling Eye

Eye eye eye!

Joel Robinson is trapped in space and forced to watch bad movies by a pair of mad scientists.  His only companions are the robots he made from some of the spare parts.  A cult classic of the 90's, this is Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Original air date: November 28, 1989

The opening starts with Dr. Clay Forrester and Dr. Larry Erhardt (The Mads) and includes a little actual backstory, which is unusual for the series.  The show is really in its infancy, and it is evident here as the formula changes a little in the early seasons.

Joel and the Mads have their invention exchange, and Joel presents an "electric bagpipe".  The first time I watched this, it seemed like a ridiculous and irritating idea.  Almost 15 years later, when I first saw a live performance by the Celtic band Gaelic Storm, I learned that electric bagpipes actually exist.  Also, I know I am being a stickler here, but the way Joel's electric bagpipe worked is inconsistent with real bagpipes.  With real bagpipes, you blow into the bag to fill it with air.  You then squeeze the bag to release the air and make notes.  Joel's version makes music by blowing air into the bag.  Music becomes a staple of host segments in later seasons, but early on the musicality in the show was rather weak.   Joel and Bots singing in this sketch was quite atrocious.

The ominous organ music that plays as the Mads give Joel and the Bots the movie is just... out of place.  As Joel gets Movie Sign, he hits the table.  In the early days at KTMA, as well as in later episodes, there is a set of three buttons on the table, but during the early episodes of season 1 the buttons are missing.

The film, The Crawling Eyes, is a 1958 movie from the United Kingdom starring Forrest Tucker (of F-Troop fame).  It is based on a 1956 UK television serial called The Trollenberg Terror.  The movie begins when a British mountain climber is attacked on a mountain in Trollenberg, Switzerland by some sort of creature and is decapitated.  United Nations "troubleshooter" Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker) is on vacation and is asked by a local scientist to investigate the mysterious deaths and disappearances.   I never watched F-Troop, since it was before my time.  In this movie, Forrest Tucker reminds me of the 50's era TV Superman, George Reeves.  Must be the glasses, suit, and hairstyle.

The silhouette effect used in this episode shows some poor production quality.  The bluescreen was apparently "thinner" (whatever that means), and there is a strange gap that can bee seen in Tom Servo.  Crow also looks different (apparently they used an older puppet for the theater scenes in the first few episodes).  The silhouettes themselves are a dark gray, and it just doesn't look right.  These just a few bits of evidence indicating that the show was in its infancy.

There is a lot of dead space in this episode.  The riffs are few and far between.  There were only a few laugh out loud funny moments.  The funniest lines in this episode come from the first host segment, when Joel has to explain to Crow and Tom Servo why humans need their heads.  This exchange is rather witty:

Crow: Well, then why do people say that they're always, uh like, “I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on”?
Tom: Yeah, people often say their heads aren't in the right places.
Crow: Yeah, and Joel once I heard the scientists talking and they said you had your head up your a..
Joel: Uh, well uh Crow, that was just a figure of speech. Alright?
Crow: “Figure of speech”? Now what’s that supposed to mean?
Tom: Oh, like a “body of a paragraph”, perhaps?
Crow: I think that’s a “literary figure”.
Tom:  Oh, maybe like Edna St. Vincent Millay?
Crow: Now there’s a body!

In the second host segment, not only can you see the shadows of the puppeteers, but it is also very difficult to hear Gypsy due to her jaw being very squeaky.

As far as the movie goes, it was quite a stinkburger.  Unfortunately, the lack of riffs make it hard to get through the movie.  We don't see the Crawling Eye itself until over an hour in.  While saving the monster reveal can be a good thing, when the movie is called The Crawling Eye, you'd expect to see an eye.  Also, what kind of bad parent will evacuate without having her child with her?  And in the end (spoilers), the eyes are killed by molotov cocktails and bombs.  What a let down!

The final host segment is Good Thing/Bad Thing for RAM chips.  While this was cute and worked as an ending for the first few episodes, it was something that would get old after awhile. Tom's Good Thing/Band Thing was wittier and more insightful than Crow's, which is early evidence of how the two Bots personality differ.  Crow loses his ram chip when he says "Well, hindsight is 20/20."

Favorite Riffs:  "Oh, hey, nice reel change!", "Hey buddy, it won't get better if you pick at it.", "Oh, now they're gonna have to wait all day for the cable guy to show up.", "Hans across the letter opener.",  "Eye, eye, eye eye.", "That eye is lashing out at society.", "Joel's getting really irate.", "I don't think outside is a place to get fresh air right now".

The only real reason to watch MST3K in order is in order to catch all of the callback references in future episodes.  As long as you don't care about this, do not make this your first episode of the show.  It's certainly interesting from a historical perspective, but is one of the weakest episodes of the series.

This episode was included in the Vol 17 DVD set and is also available to stream at Amazon Instant Video, YouTube and can be downloaded from the Digital Archive Project.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 1: Prologue

Dr. Larry Erhardt and Dr. Clayton Forrester

In 1989, Joel Hodgson and Jim Mallon took to New York City to market the show they had worked on for a year at KTMA-TV23 to Ha! and The Comedy Channel (later known as Comedy Central).  While Ha! passed on the show, The Comedy Channel signed the show to a one year deal.  Joel, Jim, Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy, and J. Elvis Weinstein then parted ways with KTMA and created Best Brains Inc.  MST3K benefited from a bigger budget by building new sets, creating new Bots, new credits, and filming a new door sequence (the six doors that open and close when Joel and the Bots enter or exit the theater).

You can read more about the history of the show at mst3kinfo.com

If you are reading these chronologically, I should inform you I decided to start with MST3K's first season on The Comedy Channel.  I will at some point go back and watch the KTMA episodes, but I am starting here.  And yes, this was actually the second episode that aired, but it was the first episode shot, so I am watching it first.

The first season of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, is, in my opinion the weakest of the show's run.  There are obvious reasons for this, which I will get into details in my end-of-season wrap up post.  But, if you are going to be watching along with me, please understand these are far from the greatest episodes of a really spectacular show.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: An Introduction

Gypsy, Crow T. Robot, Joel Robinson, and Tom Servo

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) was the brainchild of stand up prop-comedian Joel Hodgson.  It started on KTMA-TV23 in Minneapolis, MN in 1988.  Joel teamed up employees at KTMA (Trace Beaulieu, Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy, and others) to begin a rather ambitious TV experiment -- Joel would host a sci-fi movie show, but instead of just showing the movie, he would add his own sarcastic commentary (aka "riffing").  Throw in prop-comedy, some puppets, and a lot of pulp culture reference, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 was born.

In 1989, Joel and Jim were able to get a contract with The Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) and began producing MST3K for cable.  After one season, J. Elvis Weinstein, who played Dr. Larry Erhardt and voice Tom Servo left the show.  Dr. Erhardt was replaced with TV's Frank and Kevin Murphy took over the voice duties for Tom Servo.

The first KTMA and Comedy Channel seasons were rocky as the team was finalizing their vision for the show, but by the start of the second season MST3K was running on all cylinders.  During the fifth season, Joel Hodgson decided to leave the show, and was replaced as host by head writer Mike Nelson, who continued as host for another four and a half years.  After the seventh season, Comedy Central decided to drop MST3K from its lineup, but the show was able to move to SciFi for three more seasons.

The premise is simple, if not silly:  Mad scientists launch a man into space and force him to watch bad movies while monitoring his reactions.  That man is Joel Robinson, a former janitor at the Gizmonic Institute.  Joel has enough technical know-how to keep the Satellite of Love running while building four robots to keep him company -- the child-like Crow T. Robot, the intellectual (to the point of occasional pomposity) Tom Servo, the  sweet but sassy Gypsy, and Cambot, the camera.

The show itself doesn't have much of a back-story, and that is on purpose.  As the theme song  says, "If you wonder how he eats and breathes, and other science facts, just repeat to yourself it's just a show, you should really just relax."  What's important is the interaction between Joel and the Bots and their ability to make light of any bad situation.

I stumbled across MST3K at the age of 14 in the fall of 1990.  I don't remember my first episode, but I do remember that the first episode I recorded was the first episode of the second season, Rocketship X-M.  I watched the series religiously, taping each episode, until I entered college in the fall of 1994.  Unfortunately, time commitments had me miss most of the episodes of the last three seasons, which is one of the reasons why I am rewatching the show now.

Joel, Trace, and some of the other original members went on to found Cinematic Titanic, a live movie riffing experience. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett went on to form the direct-to-consumer via MP3 riffing company RiffTrax.

I hope you will join me (Join Us!) as I watch ten seasons of one of the best TV shows of the 1990's.  Learn when it's appropriate to yell "hi-keeba!", why Gypsy loves Richard Basehart, why chili peppers burn Crow's gut, and who Sandy Frank is, and why is he someone to be cursed to the highest heaven.