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| Hey, Lon Chaney, watch me jam! |
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.
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| "7 Input Moves to Get Her Disc Spinning..." |
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.
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