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.