701T-Night of the Blood Beast (Turkey Day Version)

Film Year:  1958
Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror
Director:  Bernard L. Kowalski
Starring:  Michael Emmet, Angela Greene, John Baer, Ed Nelson
MST Season:  7
Featured Short:  "Once Upon a Honeymoon"

The Short

Strange, strange, STRANGE short about a housewife constantly daydreaming of kitchen appliances and telephones while her husband is forced to postpone their honeymoon until he is done writing a song.  An angel pushes the plot along by sprinkling confetti all over the place.

Promotional shorts like this weren’t uncommon, but I’m not quite sure what this one is selling.  Maybe the kitchen appliances or the telephones, but let’s be honest, I wouldn’t be in a buying spirit after watching this because I don’t really know what it was trying to sell me.  The short feels as if it’s a bit too concerned with entertaining than selling.  If you like random breaking out into song and dance, this short will have your attention.

That’s kind of a pro in this short’s favor; that it almost has the flavor of an old MGM musical short from the 1930’s, only done much, much cheaper.  But it doesn’t have much of a narrative hook to engage its audience, and doesn’t effectively sell the product it’s showcasing.  That unfortunately makes Once Upon a Honeymoon useless.

The Movie

Corman produced cheapie (is there any other kind?) has an astronaut crashing back down to Earth impregnated by the spawn of an alien beast (because the Alien franchise had to get its ideas from somewhere).  When his comrades decide to destroy the creatures inside of him, they are thwarted by both the astronaut in question and the murderous creature from outer space that followed him.

Blood Beast has a lot of shortcomings, but to be brutally honest it’s quite a fun little movie.  It has a quite competent pace, acting isn’t too bad, and the premise is goofy but interesting.  Plus it’s just plain amusing watching our macho astronaut blunder around trying to save his alien lover and its babies.

The movie’s ending is fairly inept in a heavy-handed and clumsy commentary on the human condition and lack of enlightenment (or something like that).  The script doesn’t have the effort put into it to genuinely make a judgment like that, and really just kind of dwindles off into a knuckleheaded direction.  But it adds to the goofy fun of the piece, and it’s time well spent for B-movie lovers everywhere.

The Episode

Night of the Blood Beast was on two episodes of the show and, unlike other movies that were featured more than once, both episodes featured the exact same riffing.  Why exactly they decided to make two separate host segments, I’m not sure.  Maybe to make a “special” holiday episode whenever Thanksgiving comes around while keeping the episode in a regular rotation without giving it the holiday baggage.  In either case, the episode is a winner because the riffing is the unquestionable star.

We start off with an exquisite short, which Mike and the bots embrace for all its oddities.  After that rousing start, we’re given a goofy monster movie that has pretty much everything they could ask for and more.  Probably the most noteworthy aspect in the early movie segments is our latest running gag.  Now we all know that once the boys get a gag they can milk in their head it’s impossible to get them to stop.  Some are good ("Big McLargeHuge!"), and some…not so (“Chief?”  “McCloud!”).  In this case they start off on the idea that everybody in this movie is named “Steve.”  I have to admit, even though it’s clear in the movie that this isn’t the case in the movie, this bit cracks me up (“This is no ordinary Steve!”).  As the film goes on they start to have fun with the concept of a man impregnated by alien spawn, playing it up with common pregnancy symptoms.  Having lived with a pregnant woman for the better part of a year, I can safely say a lot of these riffs are really on target and hilarious.

Nothin’ better than a fat turkey on Thanksgiving, and that’s what Night of the Blood Beast gives us!  This particular version of the episode has host segments which tie into the bumpers Best Brains Inc. made for Comedy Central for their 1995 Turkey Day Marathon, which featured Dr. Forrester inviting his mother, Pearl, over for Thanksgiving dinner but is bombarded with guests that Frank invited over before ascending into Second Banana Heaven in Samson vs. the Vampire Women.  Our guests include Jack Perkins (from Fugitive Alien and the Mystery Science Theater Hour bumpers), Mr. B Natural (War of the Colossal Beast), Pitch (Santa Claus), Kitten with the Whip (Kitten with a Whip), and Michael Feinstein (Gamera vs. Guiron).  With these people in set for Thanksgiving goodies, our episode starts, and this particular one is a bit more fun than the regular episode that would go into rotation later.  Skits on the Satellite are sparse, as the episode mostly concentrates on Dr. Forrester, however Mike and the bots do deliver a great football based opening and a delicious Stuffing vs. Potatoes argument.  The Thanksgiving in Deep 13 segments are delightful, with such a colorful cast of characters taking our minds off the loss of Frank.  I was always fairly fond of a drunk Jack Perkins confused feelings toward the oddly gendered Mr. B Natural (let’s call it It’s Pat, only funny).  We also get the first time Pearl references Crow as “Art,” an obscure callback to a segment in Jungle Goddess that resulted in a confused letter from a child in The Giant Gila Monster.

Whichever version you choose, Night of the Blood Beast is a winner of an episode that will never fail to make you laugh, though this Turkey Day episode is my version of preference.  But the movie is the main course and it delivers a daffy dish that delights so much that you may want to watch this episode twice anyway!

Classic

The DVD

Night of the Blood Beast was released on DVD by Shout Factory in their Volume XVI set.  Awesomely enough, Shout managed to squeeze both versions of the episode onto a single disc, so you can choose which one you like.  Picture was slightly flawed at minor points, but the episode itself remained intact fairly well.  Audio is exceptional.

Also included are the bumpers for the 1995 Turkey Day marathon that led up to the episodes debut.  They certainly come in handy in giving the Turkey Day version context (plus you can add in the missing episodes for your own marathon!).  These bumpers come with a brief intro by Kevin Murphy.  There’s also a trailer for the movie.

Once Upon a Honeymoon was released in Rhino's Shorts Volume 3 collection, an online exclusive disc with Rhino's Essentials set.

312-Gamera vs. Guiron

Film Year:  1969
Genre:  Kaiju, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Director:  Noriaki Yuasa
Starring:  Nobuhiro Kajima, Christopher Murphy, Miyuki Akiyama, Yuko Hamada
MST Season:  3

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

“Brother!  You are naughty!  Mother will scold you!” – Little Tomoko as her brother highjacks a space ship

Our latest Gamera flick has a couple of brats sneak aboard a space ship and highjack it so they can get away from all the wars and traffic accidents on Earth.  They land on a distant star…er, planet where they meet two space babes who want to eat their brains.  Our favorite giant turtle flies to the rescue (because obviously he has a sixth sense whenever children leave the stratosphere…why wouldn’t he?), but first he needs to get past massive guard dog Guiron!

This is definitely the funniest of the Gamera movies, not just on the show, but outside of it (save perhaps Super Monster Gamera, with its flipping superheroine alien chicks).  Not only is the story mind numbingly stupid, but it has quite possibly the worst dub job in the history of film adding to the cheese factor.

And what to say about Guiron?  Guiron is pure acid trip in monster form.  He’s a living butcher knife with ninja stars that shoot out of his head.  You can’t tell me you don’t want to see that after reading it.

Let’s face it, this movie is a MSTie fan favorite for a reason.  I’m not inclined to disagree, though I’m forced to give it a low rating due to the amount of brain cells I lose while watching it.

The Episode

“THE TURTLE’S PLAYING CHICKEN!”

Gamera vs. Guiron is certainly a sizable improvement over Gamera vs. Gaos in the riffing department.  The question is how good is it?  I always felt this was a funny episode, but I never really thought it was anything special (at least I’ve enjoyed Gamera and Gamera vs. Barugon more).  One thing that should be noted about my previous experience with this episode is that it was usually in the middle of watching all the third season Gamera episodes in a sitting (which I did when I first saw them, and a second time when the Gamera DVD set came out).  Viewing the episodes like this, I find myself tuckered out on Gamera at this point, especially after the limp note of Gamera vs. Gaos.  When watching this episode for this review, separate from the other episodes, I find myself laughing pretty damn hysterically.  So color me converted!

The movie just simply gives them so much to play with.  The wonky theme music for the children forces our crew to come up with their own lyrics, which they ride for quite a while at the beginning, but are incredibly creative nonetheless.  And what can be said about our Japanese equivalent of Harold Lloyd (not quite) Cornjob?  Nothing needs to be, because he speaks for himself!  The dubbing is atrocious, with stilted voice acting that pauses in the oddest of places, which they are all keen on noticing.  When the plot gets out there, so do Joel and the bots, who are ready for anything this movie shoots at them.

“You know guys, it just dawned on me how weird this film is.  It’s kinda goofy.”

And of course, we have the introduction to Gamera’s theme song, which they immediately come up with their own lyrics to in their first host segment.  Gamera is really neat!  Gamera is filled with meat!  We all love you, Gamera!

Speaking of host segments, they’re serviceable, but not really impressionable.  I enjoy the lunch box opening and Joel’s magic act, but I don’t really find a laugh in either of them.  The Richard Burton segment has highs and lows (I like Crow’s Burton impression if nothing else), but it goes on too long and really just bores me.  The invention exchange is cute, with the better of the two being the Mads’ pretty hilarious Rorschach Centerfolds.

Even in the sparser KTMA season, Gamera vs. Guiron was a movie that delivered the crew pretty much everything we could have asked for in an MSTed movie.  Back in that season the episode stood out, so updating it when the show was in full swing should have been a home run.  It is.  Though I could knock off points due to weak host segments, there’s too much going right in the theater segments for me to justify it.

Plus it has:  “I’m Tom!  Spank me!”

Classic

The DVD

Another entry from Shout Factory’s excellent Volume XXI:  MST3K vs. Gamera set, and another solid video and audio presentation.  Having exhausted just about everything that could be discussed from the Gamera series on the previous discs, this disc primarily hosts a group of MST Hour wraps featuring Mike as Jack Perkins.  A Japanese trailer for the film is also included.

103-The Mad Monster

Film Year:  1942
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Sam Newfield
Starring:  Johnny Downs, George Zucco, Anne Bagel, Reginald Barlow
MST Season:  1
Featured Short:  "Radar Men from the Moon:  Chapter Two - Molten Terror"

The Short

After narrowly escaping the Moon Men’s base, Commando Cody immediately goes back because he’s stupid.  This time he successfully escapes with the diabolical ray gun that threatens humanity, but the Moon Men are on his tail.

Second verse same as the first.  If you’ve seen one serial, you’ve seen them all.  There might be little tweaks to the costumes and set design between each, but not in format.  And if you’ve seen the first chapter of any serial, you might as well skip to the last because you really aren’t missing much of anything in between.  In the case of Molten Terror, it definitely feels as if little plot progression has been made.  Cody escapes from the evil aliens, as a brief chat with his comrades, then just waltzes back because they had to fill time for twelve of these suckers.  The rest of the short is just small pieces of people punching each other and a prolonged chase scene thrown in for good measure.

So yeah, that’s about twenty minutes of my time I’ll never get back.  It must have been boring being a kid in the 40s and 50s if this was considered entertainment.  I can only imagine paying my hard earned allowance to see a serial and realizing walking out that nothing really happened.  Sure, I got my repetitive plot lines out of shows like Transformers and Power Rangers, but at least on television those were free.

The Movie

Mad scientist experiments on a handyman, transfusing his blood with that of a wolf, turning him into a wolf monster.  After this scientific breakthrough that will advance the study of…stuff…he decides to use his creature to kill his rivals.

Poverty Row production was obviously made to cash in on the success of Universal’s The Wolf Man the previous year has none of the production value or the talent of its inspiration.  In this film the monster is actually played by Glenn Strange, who wound up taking the mantel of Frankenstein’s Monster for the final films in Universal’s Frankenstein series (including the legendary Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein).  It’s a fairly standard rush job monster movie, with very little to distinguish it from other movies of its ilk, though everything to distinguish it from the best monster movies of the period.

The movie doesn’t waste time into getting to our title monster, as the opening scenes are dedicated to its first transformation.  Then it goes for lengthy exposition, before setting the monster loose immediately afterward.  This is good, because there is no substance to the human drama, which is typical mad-scientist-revenge-on-those-who-mock-him nonsense.  Maybe the movie realizes this and feeds an audience’s desire to cut to the chase, which it does.  The set pieces aren’t extraordinary, but they’re serviceable.  Sometimes even a bit dark, as the film implies that the monster’s first victim is a little girl no older than five.

Mad Monster lacks creativity, but the movie wasn’t made to be creative.  It was made to appeal to that monster movie crowd that just wants a hairy fiend and a fog machine.  They get what they pay for.

The Episode

Riffing Mad Monster is pretty much child’s play.  While the movie itself isn’t unwatchable (poor print aside), the movie opens itself up to being made fun of in many ways, such as an early sequence in which our mad scientist has an argument with a condescending group of imaginary pupils (which Servo points out that if he was imagining them they could have at least been afraid of him).  I found myself laughing quite a bit here, as our boys take a liking to mocking the science scenes, which includes a hearty laugh at the werewolf’s expense when they claim that our lycanthrope was created as a cure for baldness (and some people say the first season isn’t funny.  Nuts to that, I say!).  As the film goes on we’re treated to quite a few bits that put on the giggles, such as Servo’s interestingly enough on-point sitcom references during werewolf scenes, Joel’s wonderful telephone conversation with a movie character, and of course the pre-requisite treating the wolf monster like a pet puppy.  Servo also does a few Of Mice and Men references to our simple-minded monster, which may or may not be a conscious reference to Wolf Man Lon Cheney Jr. (whose other claim to fame was a film adaptation of said novel).

Unfortunately the riffing on Commando Cody is a brick wall. There’s so little happening combining with similar beats with the first chapter that they seem utterly lost with it.  They do introduce the “Nipple tweak” joke, which they run on throughout the serial, though the rest of the short is a bummer.

Like Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, the tint on the silhouettes shifts constantly in this episode.  Unlike the previous, the shifts aren’t nearly as subtle.  It feels like somebody did a painful frame by frame re-coloring of the Shadow-Rama depending on the point of the film they’re watching, so they’re constantly changing color.  When watching this episode, it’s best to keep your eyes on the movie because glaring at Joel and the bots will hurt your eyes like an eclipse.  Unfortunately the movie has quite possibly the worst print any film has ever had on the show, so that’s of little comfort.

Fun is the best word to describe the host segments.  Top prize is a quality remake of Humanoid Woman's host segment where Tom Servo hits on a blender.  There’s also a cute segment where Joel switches the heads of the bots, and the Mads give off one of my favorite closing lines (“Of course we’re not pleased, can’t you see that a mad scientist has just DIED?!”).  Theme of the invention exchange is fire, which provides a safety system for stolen purses and a flamethrowing Godzilla toy.

Poopie!:  Joel accidentally calls Servo Crow at one point in the theater.  Josh and Trace cover this up pretty well.

The Commando Cody short is such a lull that I hesitate to recommend this episode.  But the truth of the matter is that when the ball gets rolling it’s pretty funny.  Mad Monster is another first season episode I enjoy.

Good

The DVD

When Shout Factory announced Volume XIV, MSTies around the country were stunned to see a first season episode listed among the episode list.  Rhino had only bothered to release two during their entire run, and then Shout tapped into that well almost instantly.  Not that I’m complaining.  All episodes deserve their fair shot.  Presentation is as good as these early episodes could ask for, with clear picture and sound.  The only special feature is a trailer to the film itself.

The short is featured with all the other Commando Cody chapters on Shout Factory’s website exclusive DVD paired up with Volume XXV.

308-Gamera vs. Gaos

Film Year:  1967
Genre:  Kaiju, Fantasy
Director:  Noriaki Yuasa
Starring:  Kojiro Hongo, Kichijiro Uses, Naoyuki Ape
MST Season:  3

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Yay.  More Gamera.

This week a giant bat/reptile thing is unleashed and begins eating people.  Unfortunately Gemera butts in before he can eat our new Kenny, Itchy (no Scratchy?).  Can Gamera stop the rampage of this bloodthirsty beast?

I don’t care.  Just eat me now and get it over with.

Of the three seen on the show so far, this is the most painful yet.  The first two Gamera films at least took themselves seriously.  With this one the series degrades into child pandering.  The monster scenes become self-aware to the point that all that’s missing is Gamera turning to the audience and winking.

I guess this movie is noteworthy for introducing Gamera’s most prominent foe, Gayos (Sandy Frank spells it Gaos), who would later appear in Gamera vs. Guiron, Super Monster Gamera (via stock footage), Gamera:  Guardian of the Universe, Gamera:  Revenge of Iris, and Gamera the Brave.  He’s actually the only monster Gamera has fought more than once.  I always preferred Guiron myself, though.

The Episode

It becomes fairly clear from the get-go that Joel and the bots are going through the motions with this one.  They know they have another Gamera movie, they know what to expect (especially since they’ve seen them before), and if riffing were a dance they’re trying to let the movie lead.  It’s a poor approach, because the movie trudges, and it feels like they’re dragging their feet waiting for something inspiring to happen.  There are a few wonderful moments where the movie does spark their humor creativity, such as a scene where a meeting is held to discuss Gayos appearance and anatomy, which is hands down the funniest sequence in the episode (drunk Gayos is a close second).  The monster scenes give the boys pep in their step as well, which is par for the course with kaiju features on the show.  However, for the most part one can’t help but feel that they’re bored with this particular movie.

Host segments are creative but not very funny.  Coming off the best is the Johnny Carson sketch, which at least gives off a few chuckles.  Meanwhile, Joel’s Gayos crafts project and Gameradamerung both drown and the opening Lucille Ball/Harvey Fierstein impressions are more shrill than amusing.  Invention exchange is fun, however, with the Mads’ Self Image Printers being the better of the two.

It’s always easy to recommend a third season revisit to their KTMA counterpart.  Gamera vs. Gaos is no exception as there are more than several instances where you’ll be laughing harder than you would have in the earlier episode.  For the most part, though, I find the episodes about even in quality.  They never really riffed this movie to its full potential, which is sad because its asking for it.

Average

The DVD

This was the third episode featured on Shout Factory’s Volume XXI:  MST3K vs. Gamera set.  Solid video and audio highlight the disc, as well as an interview with August Ragone, author of Eiji Tsuburaya:  Master of Monsters.  This interview, called Gamera Obscuria, runs a half an hour and covers Gamera’s entire history in Japan.  His enthusiasm for the genre is commended, though in my opinion he overpraises the 90’s Gamera films quite a bit.  I do share positive feelings for the third film, but always felt Guardian of the Universe to be mediocre and Attack of Legion to be laughable garbage (though as a kaiju fan I have to accept that I am alone in that opinion).  But it’s nice that he contributed to the set, because from e-mails and messages I have had with him in the past I have the impression that he is not a fan of Mystery Science Theater.  He has, however, expressed enthusiasm to come back to Shout for special features if they ever ask him to.

Also included is a Japanese trailer for the film in anamorphic widescreen (no subtitles).

616-Racket Girls

Film Year:  1951
Genre:  Drama, Sports, Crime
Director:  Robert C. Dertano
Starring:  Peaches Page, Timothy Farrell, Clara Mortenson, Rita Martinez
MST Season:  6
Featured Short:  "Are You Ready for Marriage?"

The Short

BOING!

This educational short evaluates the relationships between man and woman and what it takes to build a successful marriage (my sister should have taken tips from it, as she was on her third husband by age thirty).  Larry and Sue plan to get married right after high school, but after their parents scoff at the idea they decide to elope.  Discussing it with marriage counselor Reuben Hall, they discover they might have a lot to learn about marriage compatibility.

Almost a companion piece for Is This Love?, Are You Ready for Marriage? isn’t nearly as melodramatic, a bit goofier, and features a moral hammered into the heads of all that watch it instead of acting as a discussion piece.  Like Is This Love?, the material here is to sway youngsters from getting married too soon, and likely didn’t work because nothing can overwhelm the power of a 50’s teenager who is squishy.  This particular short lends itself to riffing far better than Is This Love?, given the bad acting, lackluster “Just rappin’ with the kids” lecture, and overall overstaged oddness of the production.

The Movie

Many, many hours of wrestling footage is used as a front for a gangster making money off of gambling, drugs, and prostitution.  Soon he gets in trouble with mob boss Mr. Big (possibly the same Mr. Big from Sex and the City), and tries to make a getaway with the money.  But it doesn’t matter, because WOMEN WRESTLING!

Racket Girls stars real life women wrestlers Peaches Page, Clara Mortensen, and Rita Martinez (who is forced to bear an absurd Mexican accent because the director found the Mexican champion sounded “Too American”).  I can’t find much about Page online, as this movie seems to be her only claim to fame, but Mortensen and Martinez apparently had quite a few real life bouts which they reenact for the climax of the film.  Like in the film, Mortensen won most of them.

There is not much story here.  I’d say the gangster plot is supposed to be the important point, but it’s padded out with the endless wrestling scenes that have very little to do with it.  Breasts and asses are the star of the show, I reckon.  I can only imagine this was supposed to be an exploitation film.  There are many prolonged scenes of women in tights and undergarments exorcising, jumping up and down, and crawling all over each other.  It’s not really sexy though.  Sure Peaches Page’s bust takes up ninety percent of her body, but I’d be hardpressed to say I find her attractive.  Specifically since she seems to only have one facial expression, which amounts to “guh?”

The most I can say about Racket Girls is that it led to the epiphany that this movie was ahead of its time.  Yawn worthy sequences of choreographed wrestling?  Padded out with nonsensical drama that nobody cares about?  Correct me if I’m wrong but this sounds a lot like what pro wrestling is today.  I think it’s time to critically reevaluate this forgotten masterpiece.

The Episode

This episode opens up with what is hands down one of the best shorts of the series.  Are You Ready for Marriage? (“Yeah, I’m sick of sex anyway.”) is a likable lunkhead of a film, and the boys hold nothing back on it.  They go after just about every aspect of it, specifically our two leads, enhancing their boneheaded peabrains into two of the most memorable characters ever featured Oon the show.  Plus the short gave us one of the best stingers the show ever had…

“IT’S GONE!”

“WHERE’D IT GO?!”

When it gets down to the movie, for the most part it’s a hard takedown.  While the movie might be bad, there’s not really a lot you can do with it.  Ultimately I’m of the same opinion on this one as I am The Starfighters, where the riffing is an admirable effort but the movie itself makes the episode a beast of an experience.  If you laugh, it’s unlikely you’ll remember.  It’s also unlikely you’ll remember much of any riffs, as your brain will be clouded with images of musclebound female butts being slammed into a mat (“It’s kind of looking at an erotic cave painting.”).  What riffs are there?  A lot of talk about a filmmaker’s visualized sexual fantasies and pointing out that the women featured look like really large grandmothers.  Technically they’re on point, but hearing these riffs nonstop for three theater segments makes me a little bored.  They go a bit broader when the shady gym owners come into play, which results in the best material (“That’s the spirit we need in our hookers!”).

Highlighting the host segments is Tom Servo and Crow being inspired by the short into getting married…to each other.  Theoretically they have known each other for six years, so they wouldn’t be rushing into it.  It’s an odd series of segments that are mildly funny in premise alone, but they just kind of labor it on until it fizzles.  The other segments tickle my fancy a little more.  When commenting on the opening segment, I’ll have to admit I know very little about Lisa Loeb, and can’t speak for how well Bridget Jones portrays her.  My only real subjection to Loeb is hearing her voice as Mary Jane in that (pretty sucky) animated Spider-Man show that MTV used to air, tying in to the 2002 Sam Raimi film.  I will say I do react the way Mike and the bots do to several other musicians, so I get the joke.  All of these taken into consideration, I think the most enjoyable segments this week belonged to the Mads, who have a security breach and try to fix it.  Dr. Forrester’s attempts to communicate with Mike over a radio are hilarious, and I bust a gut when he started using flags.

I laughed fairly loud in portions of Racket Girls.  There are even lines I’d say rank among my all-time favorites (“And how long have you been my doppelganger?”).  It opens more brilliantly than most of my favorite episodes with one of the greatest shorts they’ve ever done.  I’m just perplexed by the nose dive they take.  This episode is a wonderful take off, engines sputtering, a threat of a crash landing, but making it to its destination relatively smoothly.  I wish I could give it marks for promising to be amazing, though.

Average

The DVD

Racket Girls was released in Shout Factory’s Volume XV set, with excellent video and audio.  Special features were scarce but present.

First up is a brief excerpt from what appears to be a very low budget independent comedy film called Hamlet ADD, a humorous retelling of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with a sci-fi twist.  The scene depicted is The Mousetrap play, where Hamlet studies the reaction of Claudius to a reenactment of the supposed murder of the king.  The reenactment is portrayed by three robots, who are voiced by Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu, and the late Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (of Star Trek fame).  Not as funny as the parody scene seen on The Simpsons (“Hey, I didn’t use THAT much poison!”), but it’s an interesting piece.

The only other extra is a promo for the film, under the title of “Blonde Pickup.”  Hilariously the ad prominently features what looks like a still of a pinup girl who isn’t even in the movie, trying to sell sex appeal where there isn’t any.

The short, Are You Ready for Marriage?, was the final short on Mr. B’s Lost Shorts, which was featured on Rhino’s Volume 6 set.  Wonderful way to close out that collection, I might add.

102-The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy

Film Year:  1958
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Rafael Portillo
Starring:  Ramon Gay, Rosa Arenas, Luis Acevez Castaneda
MST Season:  1
Featured Short:  "Radar Men from the Moon:  Chapter One - Moon Rocket"

The Short

Serials.  They sound like as delicious as a bowl of Trix, but not quite.  Nowadays they’re best known for inspiring George Lucas to make Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the dark reality is they aren’t very interesting or exciting.

The short follows Commando Cody, a super-scientist with a jet-pack (who also may or may not be the inspiration for the 1980’s retro-styled comic character The Rocketeer).  He investigates atomic energy on the moon and discovers a plot by the evil civilization of moon men to conquer the Earth.

I don’t think one can adequately review a serial, so I don’t think I should try.  Given what serials are, Radar Men from the Moon seems par for the course.  My soft spot for superheroics enjoys parts of it, while my enjoyment of storytelling makes me yearn for something more ambitious.  Since it’s only the first chapter, I’m not grunting in frustration yet, but I do know that day will come.

The Movie

Believe it or not Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy is actually the THIRD film of an ongoing Mexican horror series based around the Aztec Mummy, being a sequel to Attack of the Aztec Mummy and The Curse of the Aztec Mummy.  Or maybe this is blatantly obvious, because two thirds of this movie is a damn flashback to these movies.  This extensive setup from the previous films establishes the mad scientist Dr. Krup who desires the treasure of Popoca, a cursed Aztec mummy who will rise and kill anybody who takes it.  His latest scheme involves building a cyborg to defend them and destroy Popoca.

Low rent foreign cash grab inspired by Universal’s The Mummy series, but once you get past that this Aztec Mummy schlock is a doofus time-waster that’s harmless.  The movie is slow and honestly has no actual story until the third act (if you can call only having one act of event a story at all), but seeing how I have never seen the other Aztec Mummy movies I’m particularly unscathed from it.  I’m sure if I had these scenes would be torture, much like that ten minute recap that opens Universal’s The Mummy’s Tomb, but right now I can live with it.

But I can’t in good conscience recommend the movie.  It’s a certain kind of bad that only certain types of weirdoes like me will enjoy.  And let’s face it, with forty minutes of recap and a pitiful twenty minutes of story, what exactly is there about this movie to recommend?  It could possibly be climactic fight between a robot and a mummy, but unfortunately it only lasts less than a minute (and the mummy pretty much plows through the robot with ease…oh spoiler alert, by the way).

Whether you like it or not, there was also a fourth entry entitled Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy, a crossover with another popular Mexican series of female wrestlers.  Why oh why wasn’t this featured on the show too?  I would have loved to see women wrestling an undead corpse to the ground.

The Episode

According to legend, The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy was the very first episode of MST aired nationally.  And thus, MST as we know it started to bloom.

The riffing starts out with the very first short seen on the program, a chapter of the Commando Cody serial.  Shorts would of course become a mainstay in the series, however they soon discovered industrial and educational films were better suited for the format than serials.  However, the idea of riffing a serial is intriguing, offering up sort of mini-cliffhangers to try and keep viewers invested enough to watch each week.  But the nature of a serial is that they were catering to a youth culture that’s out of date, and didn’t mind/notice that what they were watching was the same each and every week.  Commando Cody is a failed experiment, but you wouldn’t know it here.  With the serial so fresh and the production so goofy, the SOL crew is firing on all cylinders.  They especially have fun poking at the logic holes at hand (“Isn’t ANY atomic activity on the moon unusual?”).  It would definitely seem like a match made in heaven.

“The Robot?”

“YAAAAAAAAY!”

“Versus the Aztec Mummy?”

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Moving on to the movie, which is a different beast.  We have a dreary and less spunky import from Mexico, a far cry from the lighthearted superhero antics of Commando Cody.  They struggle to keep pace with their fun opener, but mostly the movie kind of makes the episode.  It’s so bizarre and nutty that it kind of becomes required viewing for crap cinema lovers like myself.  The crew gets a respectable amount of zingers at the movies expense, and one also notes that they’re further experimenting with what kind of jokes can be made.  They play with the sound mix in this particular episode, as Joel stands up and muffles a singer’s mouth with his hand, muting the audio.  They also add the sound of streaming water in another scene, giving off the idea that a group of men are relieving themselves.  I find these instances amusing, because there’s a sort of interesting fourth wall break being made with them (hell, that might even be them breaking a fifth wall somewhere), but it’s easy to see why they never did it again.

Interestingly enough, the theaters seat tint is played around with in this episode, no doubt in trying to make the crew more visible against a black and white movie.  In The Crawling Eye they went all grey, this week they’re adjusting the tint based upon the darkness of any particular scene.  In instances where there is a lot of black, they switch to a grey tint like the previous episode, but for the majority of the movie they keep the theater seats black.  In future episodes they’d become more obnoxious with tinting the theater seats, so this one is definitely not the worst of their experiments with it.

The host segments are given a story arc this time around, and the crew is wrestling around with toys in the form of “Demon Dogs” this week.  There are highs and lows, and a lot of “marking territory” jokes being made.  It’s passable.  The invention exchange is a treat.  The Motorcycle Helmet Airbag is fun and the Chalk Man is delightfully annoying.

I enjoy this episode.  But one’s enjoyment of the movie will definitely affect the episode as a whole.  If you don’t watch the series partially to dip into the bowels of cinema, then proceed with caution.  I, on the other hand, had fun.

Good

The DVD

Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy was released in Shout Factory’s Volume XV set with solid presentation of the episode itself.

While not quite related to the episode in question, the first feature are host segments taken from the MST3K Scrapbook, showing off glimpses of the KTMA era of the series, which is unfortunately as close as we’ll get to seeing these episodes on DVD.

Also included are promos for the series and the movie itself.  Interestingly, the movie is advertised in a double feature with a movie called The Vampire’s Coffin.  Not so surprisingly, the other movie looks better.

The Commando Cody short was included on a DVD that was paired up with Shout Factory’s Volume XXV set, which featured all nine Commando Cody shorts.  This disc was only available by purchasing the set through Shout Factory’s website.

101-The Crawling Eye

Film Year:  1956
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Quentin Lawrence
Starring:  Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Jennifer Jayne
MST Season:  1

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

A group of people in an observatory in Switzerland are shaken up by people being decapitated while hiking the mountains.  With a radioactive mist hovering around the mountains, rumors of extraterrestrial monsters begin to spread.  Could these monsters by giant eyes?  Why wouldn’t they be?

Delightful monster movie began as a British television serial called The Trollenberg Terror, and was edited together for theatrical release as The Crawling Eye.  The movie, while unevenly paced and with hit and miss special effects work, has a lot of brilliant atmosphere.  Not only that, but it never hesitates to get a little dark in its tone.

The monsters themselves look sensational.  They admittedly look better in certain shots than others, but the design is wickedly cool.  The monster scenes have a knack of hitting the gas in this movie, which is lucky when some of the human scenes drag on.  Despite this there is some cool intrigue to what is actually going on before the big reveal.  This monster movie delivers the goods.

The Episode

And with The Crawling Eye, MST went national (though some speculate that Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy was actually aired first, even though this episode was the first produced).  The riffs are no longer improvised, and while the humor isn’t perfect there is definitely a better flow to these episodes than the KTMA ones.  This first national season also benefits from better movie selections.  I’ve already gushed about my enjoyment of The Crawling Eye, but this season was littered with cool little black and white goodies.  Quality is debatable, but I love ‘em.  And because of my love for the types of films that season one chose to show, I can be pretty easy on it.

The riffing in Crawling Eye is a sizable improvement over the riffing at KTMA.  That’s not to say it sets the standard that all MST must be judged, but more like the standard that this season must be.  Crawling Eye is one of the better ones, even if there is a bit of desperation to find the show’s identity underlining it.  Some of the jokes seem like they were made to fill the gaps, or a joke for the sake of one.  Every once in a while there’s a really good chuckle that breaks any awkwardness, and there are still a lot of smiles in between.  It’s true that the episode benefits from a really fun monster movie, but I like to think that the theater segments are a solid success in this one.

The host segments are just as experimental.  None of them are bad, but the best ones are just kind of witty, with Joel explaining why humans can’t survive decapitation highlighting.  There’s also a swell host segment discussing the viability of the monster itself, which is something I like about these early episodes because they have a tendency to discuss the film itself, giving off that horror movie host flavor.  Gypsy getting all tangled up is hit and miss, as is the very first Invention Exchange which offers Joel’s creative electric bagpipes and the Mads’ funny concept/lacking execution canine antiperspirant.

Poopie!:  At the opening of the first theater segment, Servo just sits at the right side of the screen before entering.  They must have thought he was off camera, but the Shadow-Rama caught it!
Poopie!:  During the second host segment, you can clearly see a puppeteer’s shadow on the wall.  I’m assuming it belongs to Jim Mallon, who voices Gypsy here for the first time.  There’s a second human shadow on the wall, but I’m pretty sure it belongs to Joel.

Season one episodes may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but we all have to start somewhere.  If one continues down this season, one can only hope future episodes are as good as this one.  The Crawling Eye entertains, even if it is spotty.

Good

The DVD

Shout Factory released this episode as a part of Volume XVII.  Picture and sound are pretty rock solid, definitely a sight for sore eyes, as older MST episodes tend to be in much softer condition in the Tape Trading circuit.  An official DVD taken from the actual master of this important episode is definitely welcome.

There are two special features, the first of which is an introduction by Joel Hodgson.  He talks about the transition between KTMA and national TV and why they decided to go scripted instead of improvised, as well as the movie itself.  It’s a great companion piece to the episode.

The second is a trailer for the film.

812-The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

Film Year:  1964
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Ray Dennis Steckler
Starring:  Ray Dennis Steckler, Carolyn Brandt, Brett O'Hara, Atlas King, Sharon Walsh, Madison Clarke, Jack Brady
MST Season:  8

The Movie

Schlock-master and future porn director Ray Dennis Steckler brings us this tale of a douchebag named Jerry (played by Steckler himself) who shuns his perfectly good girlfriend in order to see a trashy burlesque show that wasn’t worth the dime he spent to get in.  Receiving a note from a stripper to meet her backstage, he is taken by a gypsy fortune teller who hypnotizes him into doing her bidding, including MURDER!

I find this movie difficult to have a genuine opinion of.  I mean, sure I can say some particularly nasty things about it (and most of my fellow MSTies will), but it always felt to me like just some terminally strange movie that happened to exist for some reason.  It’s ineptly made, but it was also made for no money so I could give it a pass (but then again, films like The Evil Dead and El Mariachi were made for little money as well).  Steckler himself is tenacious, if nothing else.  It takes determination to make a movie with no money, and, even if you hate the result, it’s kind of hard to claim he didn’t have a vision.

Personally I don’t enjoy the movie.  It’s the film equivalent of a hallucination brought upon by the worst fever of your life.  It’s attempts at being sexy are putrid, it’s attempts at being scary are laughable, and it doesn’t really try much else to help save it.  The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies is unquestionably a bad movie, this much is to be sure.  Mileage may vary on just how much you hate it.  I know a lot of MSTies do, but I don’t get very worked up over it.

The Episode

Incredibly Strange Creatures is arguably the roughest movie they’ve contended with at that point during their Sci-Fi run (which had mostly consisted of easy 50’s Universal and AIP fare).  I was pretty new to the show when this episode debuted (it might have been the second episode I watched, after The Deadly Mantis) and such a different kind of movie could have been a bit jarring…if the SOL crew didn’t have a talent of taking a movie’s weakness and turning it into a strength.  It’s nothing short of amazing the way they work with such a crazy movie and play up the insanity to bring golden comedy.  This episode could have easily been a disaster, and if they had this movie during season two it might have, but they are so good at their craft right now that failure isn’t an option.  The riffing is bloody hysterical, making Incredibly Strange Creatures a highlight of not just the eighth season, but the entire series.

The host segments struggle to match the brilliant theater work, but they do manage to take Ortega and turn him into a classic movie character.  Our gypsy woman’s foul little henchman has his own catering business, of which Crow and Servo are eager to try, and Mike is disgusted by.  The segment is hands down the highlight outside of the theater, and successfully turns Ortega into the Torgo of the Sci-Fi run.  The other segments struggle to catch up, while offer up moderate amusement:  Mike gets a massive beehive haircut, Crow and Servo put on a fortune telling scam, and they all go on a walk-a-thon for noble charities W.A.L.K.A.T.H.O.N. and H.E.L.P.I.N.G.C.H.I.L.D.R.E.N.T.H.R.O.U.G.H.R.E.S.E.A.R.C.H.A.N.D.D.E.V.E.L.O.P.M.E.N.T.  On the Mads’ side, Pearl is taking the Space Children home after the chaos they pulled in Parts:  The Clonus Horror.  It’s a fulfilling payoff to the classic segments of the previous episode.

Poopie!:  Look carefully on the left hand side of the screen when Mike and the bots enter the theater in the first theater segment.  There seems to be something moving around.  Is somebody in the shot?

I hear that some people struggle through Incredibly Strange Creatures due to the vile movie they selected.  While I cannot deny the movie is gross filth, I have to say it’s their loss.  This episode features some of the most brilliant and consistent work the show has ever featured.

Classic

The DVD

Rhino released this episode as a part of their Volume 9 set, featuring decent video and audio.  There were no special features.

Shout Factory also released the episode as an online exclusive Shout Select disc.  There also were no special features.

407-The Killer Shrews

Film Year:  1959
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Ray Kellogg
Starring:  James Best, Ingrid Goude, Gordon McLendon, Baruch Lumet
MST Season:  4
Featured Short:  "Junior Rodeo Daredevils"

The Short

Two juvenile delinquents decide to be idiots and vandalize a horse’s rear end.  Instead of doing the sane thing and letting the horse kick them, old cowpoke Billy Slater convinces them to use their energy by organizing a junior rodeo, because these kids are obviously focused enough to do such a thing.

I hate rodeos.  I grew up with them, because my mother and sister were horse riders and both had been part of them several times (my mother was a barrel racer while my sister just marched through them with the US flag).  However, I just could never get into the sport.  I was constantly told that the only real men were bull riders.  I’m sorry that not tying up a bull’s testicles and being stupid enough to climb on its back makes me not a “real man,” but personally I can live with that.

Rodeos feel like animal cruelty for entertainment, which just doesn’t gel with me.  Needless to say, this short bugs the hell out of me.  Not just the rodeos, but the obnoxious kids and shameless western drawl narrator just makes me want to burn this thing.  Rodeos can go to hell.  And this junior rodeo can rot right beside it.

The Movie

I love myself a crappy monster movie.  The Killer Shrews, however, might just be that one monster movie that is crappy in all the wrong ways.  Our story is about a group of people trapped on an island by a hurricane, where a scientist has been conducting experiments on making human beings smaller in an attempt to prevent overpopulation.  Unfortunately his experiments also create a giant breed of shrew, who can kill with a single bite!

Originally a quickly filmed second half of a double feature with The Giant Gila Monster, The Killer Shrews fares fairly poorly as a movie on its own.  Gila Monster may not be a great movie, but it has some base competencies that Shrews lacks, which means you’re probably better off bailing on this double feature after the first movie is over.

Killer Shrews mostly takes place inside of a single set, which makes the majority of the film seem like a play.  It’s not a terribly exciting play, because the exposition being hammered into our heads is hardly compelling drama and the characters exist to provide a very base relationship with each other (there’s a love triangle because of course there is).  The film becomes a bit dull as we wait endlessly for some shrew action.

When we finally get to some promised shrew action, the movie doesn’t disappoint.  Well…it will disappoint those who were hoping it would be exciting.  Those hoping it would be hilarious will get their money’s worth.  The shrews look ridiculous, as the crew opts to put silly shaggy costumes on a group of dogs and have them chase our actors.  They look kooky, and the movie is dead set on making them come off as a threat.  It’s funny to see them try so hard with so little.

Finale is a hoot.  The rest of the movie stinks.

The Episode

One of my least favorite experiments starts with what could be my least favorite short.  Not only is the short annoying, but the riffing doesn’t cut it.  It gets off to a bad start after the title is announced in a thick country accent, “Junior Rodeo Daredevils,” and Joel pipes up “Smothered in gravy, TEXAS STYLE!”  I understand what this is a reference to, and to a lesser extent I understand why he made the riff.  The problem is it isn’t funny.  And when I say I don’t find it funny, I mean that I don’t find it funny at all.  The short is littered with similar riffs, where I get them but don’t find them funny.  As the short goes on there seems like there should be a lot that can be done with the material, but at times Joel and the bots become content with repeating the same lame jokes over and over.  It grows tiresome hearing “And the crowd goes wild!” “Yaaaaaaaaaaay.” repeatedly over the short’s brief runtime. Junior Rodeo Daredevils is a tiresome chore.

The episode would be worth watching if the movie picked up the slack, but it never does.  With the self-seriousness goofiness of the movie, one would think this episode would be a slam dunk.  While they’re sharper than they were with the short, this episode falls short of greatness by a good margin.  The first thing you realize about their work here is that the print of the movie they’re working with is really bad, which makes making out the dialogue a bit difficult.  The boys quickly making a running gag out of this, as they try to make out lines of dialogue as being something entirely different because they can’t make it out.  It’s amusing, but wears out its welcome.  They also try to play to the play-like nature of the movie, which is mostly shot on one set.  The results are mixed, skewing slightly disappointing.  The crew does have some fun with pointing out that the “shrews” are really dressed up dogs, and there are one or two good drunk jokes too.

As for the host segments, they’re passable but don’t really improve the episode.  I like that Killer Shrews board game Servo and Crow make (it’s not as funny as the one they did for The Unearthly though), but the segment drowns when they start breaking down over the movie.  The Killer Shrew cocktail they invent is kind of neat also.  I dig the Invention Exchange, which has Dr. Forrester almost destroying the world, but finds his invention is no match for Joel’s Jim Henson’s Edgar Winter Babies.

This episode just doesn’t rise to the occasion.  It’s sad that they couldn’t do better with this particular movie, but you win some, you lose some.  This one just happened to be a loser.

Not Recommended

The DVD

Killer Shrews was released by Rhino Home Video on their Volume 7 set.  While the video and audio were both fine, original discs that were sold were accidentally edited, and the opening narration of the film was lost.  The issue was corrected, replacement discs were sent, and the sets Rhino made since featured the corrected disc.  The one I purchased was the corrected version, so I never had this problem, but in this fanbase…man that was a shit storm.

The disc features three bonus shorts.  The first is an unreleased short called Assignment:  Venezuela, which was created as an exclusive for a CD-ROM version of the series (unfortunately it was cancelled, though this and a lost second short were both filmed), making this an awesome feature to have.  The short is pretty funny, as well, though the other shorts might just be funnier.  Taken from the Sci-Fi era, we also have Century 21 Calling (from Space Children) and A Case of Spring Fever (from Squirm).  The latter is my favorite of the group, personally.

The short featured on the episode, Junior Rodeo Daredevils, was featured on the Shorts Volume 1 compilation featured on Rhino’s Volume 2 collection.  Here the short enjoyed an introduction by Tom Servo.  This compilation was re-released by Shout Factory in their re-release of Volume 2, and also featured the intro by Tom Servo.

213-Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster

Film Year:  1966
Genre:  Kaiju, Science Fiction, Adventure
Director:  Jun Fukuda
Starring:  Akira Takarada, Kumi Mizuno, Chotaro Togin, Hideo Sunazuka
MST Season:  2

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

One of my least favorite Godzilla flicks, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster tells the tale of three nitwits who steal a boat and claim it’s “a gift from God.”  The irony is that they unknowingly steal it from a criminal, who also tags along because he’s stuck with these clowns.  Their mission:  to find one of their lost kin, who had vanished at sea without a trace.  Attacked by a sea monster, they wash ashore of an island which is taken over by soldiers bent on world domination.  On the run for their lives they find that Godzilla is slumbering on their island and decide to awaken him to scare off the soldiers and the giant sea creature that’s keeping them on the island.

1960’s Godzilla productions are usually a gas, but Sea Monster is the exception, not the rule.  This film offers some colorful sets and neat monster battles, but the script is sorely lacking.  Plot is confused with coincidence and it struggles to skip from one scene to the next as quickly as possible without genuine flow to get from point A to point B.  The idea that the criminal would let these morons spend the night on the boat with him is ludicrous.  The main character’s brother is lost, and he eventually finds him by snagging his damn foot on a balloon, floating away helplessly, and landing on a separate island landing right in front of his brother.  The script to this movie is bizarrely stupid.

That said, virtues of the production are present.  Production values are beautiful, and the characters are likable enough.  Godzilla himself is fairly well realized, better than he was in Godzilla vs. Megalon at any rate.  There are moments where the weakness of suitimation sinks in (there is more than one moment where we can see water plugs in the Godzilla suit’s air holes), but for the most part the monster scenes couldn’t be more fun.  And while the plotting is terrible, the story is breezy and diverting.

What it boils down to is that while it has its fun elements, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster is by no means a good movie, even if you’re looking at it by Godzilla standards (in other words, down with the kaiju crowd and fully embracing the rubber costumes).  It could have been great, but instead it just kind of dwindles its bright moments.

The Episode

I know I’m in the minority, but I enjoy this episode more than Godzilla vs. Megalon.  I found Megalon a bit too lopsided, with all the best riffs being made during the finale while the first few theater segments kind of drag on.  There’s a much steadier riff-pace in this one, plus Sea Monster just in general is a more enjoyable movie.

To an extent, it feels as if Joel and the bots are enjoying the movie much more as well.  They needed the monsters to be present to kick into high gear with Megalon, but with Sea Monster they pick up the cornball tone and settle into a cornball groove.  Because of this they play off the human cast much more successfully, which makes for a more glorious whole instead of just one glorious segment.  The movie itself blends well with the riffing, and it never really comes off the worse for it.  You’ll definitely not be reeling in pain based on the movie selection this week.

There’s a fairly cute running gag where our crew doesn’t know the title of the movie, because they missed the opening credits.  It’s a fairly odd beginning because we spend about a minute with empty theater seats when the movie first starts.  I remember hearing rumors on this site that this might have been because they didn’t have proper rights to riff on the credits, since they took footage from Son of Godzilla.  As time goes on I find this unlikely for several reasons.  First, it’s so early on in the series that I don’t believe that they looked deeply enough into film rights that they questioned whether or not they had the right to riff an [i]opening credit sequence.[/i]  Second, it’s been documented since then that Comedy Central secured the rights and the folks on the show just went through screener copies and told the channel what movies they wanted.  Third, Toho Company Ltd, who own the rights to Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla (as well as Godzilla vs. Megalon), didn’t have as much control over US distribution as they do now, and the show would have only had to do business with an American distributor, which explains why these movies appeared on the show at all given how protective Toho is with their Godzilla character.

Ultimately, I believe the reason they missed the opening credits was because they thought it would be funny.  And it is pretty funny, to be honest.  It’s a riff on getting to a movie late for whatever reason.

The host segments add a hint of flavor to an already delicious dish.  The best segment is the catchy Godzilla Genealogy Bop, which chronicles the thunder lizard’s family tree.  The space madness sketch has some laughs, and there are a lot of cool drawings in the final sketch.  The Invention Exchange is a simple delight, as Joel and the Mads invent new types of guitars that look really neat (Joel’s is mind controlled while the Mads’ are made of squeak toys).  Probably the closest to a dud is the visit from Mothra, which is neat but never really takes off.  Mike does the voice of the giant moth, but his turn as Gamera next season is much more memorable.

All things considered, I have to go against the grain on this one.  Not only is it the better of the two Godzilla episodes, I think it’s kind of obviously better.  I guess there’s something to Godzilla vs. Megalon that I’m just missing, but as it stands I’m very happy with my opinion on Sea Monster.  But given that these two episodes are both high points of both the season and the series, it’s a shame they were never able to tap into this well again (the closest we received was a Rifftrax for the 1998 Hollywood Godzilla film, which is hilarious but just not the same as these early movies).

Classic

The DVD

Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster is one of the eleven episodes that weren't released on DVD.  As a consolation the episode's host segments were released on the "Satellite Dishes" disc of Shout Factory's Volume XXXIX.  It looks like the video on this one is in lackluster shape.

412-Hercules and the Captive Women

Film Year:  1961
Genre:  Adventure, Fantasy
Director:  Vittorio Cottafavi
Starring:  Reg Park, Fay Spain, Ettore Manni, Luciano Marin, Laura Efrikian
MST Season:  4

The Movie

“Today is dedicated to Uranus!”

Utterly confusing Hercules caper.  Admittedly watching it through this particular series isn’t doing the film any favors, as it has undoubtedly been edited down and the riffing talks over much of the dialogue.  What can be deciphered is that we have Hercules hitting the high seas and heading into random misadventures, including saving a woman from being eaten by an island, fighting a chameleon monster, and escaping the lost city of Atlantis.  But can he conquer his greatest foe, sleep apnea?

Of what can be said about these foreign sword and sandal movies, they’re some of the more interesting productions ever featured on the show.  They’re colorful and ambitious.  As for the movie itself, it’s probably the least interesting Hercules movie featured on the show.  It’s not as entertaining as Hercules and Hercules Unchained, nor as boobish as Hercules Against the Moon Men.  Hercules and the Captive Women offers some fairly cool albeit wonky set-pieces.  The shapeshifting monster in particular is a gas.

It’s not good, but I can think of worse ways to spend my time.

The Episode

The gimmick in the theater for this particular episode is that Gypsy is invited to watch the movie.  How fun is it?  Not very.  Gypsy has about two real riffs, and the rest of the time she either stares blankly at the screen or starts questioning the idea of MST in general, to which Servo and Crow dismiss her while Joel tries to support her.  Gypsy’s presence is a distraction.  Not only is she larger than the others, which means she covers a good chunk of the movie, but attention is drawn away from the movie as the jokes start spending a good amount of time at her expense.  Maybe if they played it for less awkwardness it might have been funnier, and while I get why they display Gypsy as not being very good in the theater, it’s pretty much just not the funniest skit they could have pulled together.  Luckily Gypsy doesn’t even last until the first commercial break, when she begins to realize the movie isn’t very good.  Then she bails.

The rest of the riffing is hit and miss.  There are some highs, sometimes unintentional hilarity from the film itself (I laughed hysterically at the sequence where Herc fights a shapeshifting monster), but then there are lulls of quips that just don’t spark much of a reaction.  It might not be their fault, as the movie itself is probably the least noteworthy Hercules movie they’ve tackled, but there seems to be less of an effort to rise to the occasion.

The host segments don’t do much for me.  Things like the Hercules action figure and the good natured brawl are cute, but I never really laughed during them.  The invention exchange is a swing and a miss.  The theme is babies, and while the props are creative, the Deep 13 invention of a lawn mower baby buggy looks jumbled together without a real joke while Joel’s womb headphones are more clever than they are funny.

What Hercules and the Captive Women boils down to is a cubic zirconia in the crown jewels of Hercules episodes that just feels run of the mill instead of fun.  Add in the opening gimmick that kind of backfires, and this one just doesn’t deliver.  But Hercules movies are never boring, and often just lavish and/or goofy enough to keep interest in the audience all by themselves.  If the theater work is on autopilot, at least the movie picks up the slack.  Hell, the many conversations in this movie about Uranus alone make it worth at least a gander.  Joel and the bots reacting to the statement “The Blood of Uranus” alone is a treat.

Average

The DVD and Blu-Ray

Shout Factory released this Hercules not-so-classic on their Volume XXIX set, which included a solid print of the episode itself as good audio.  On the extras side we start out with an intro by Joel, who claims admiration for the Hercules films as well as reflecting on the experiment itself.  Interestingly enough he also gives an explanation why Gypsy is in the theater for a brief period, as the crew felt the opening narration of the film was too difficult to work with and felt they needed a gimmick to keep the episode fun until it was over.

Up next is a featurette on Steve Vance, who does the poster artwork for Shout Factory’s DVD sets.  It’s a trip through the interesting process he takes to create such neat treats for MST fans to hang on their wall.  Also included is a gallery of posters that Vance has made, up to this volume of course (he has made more since).  There are seventy in total.

The episode was also released on blu-ray, believe it or not!  It was featured as a bonus feature on Film Detective's Blu-ray release of the uncut film.  The presentation is soft and fuzzy, leading me to side with the DVD as the superior version of the episode, though the uncut movie looks great.  Other bonus features include an introduction by Frank Conniff (which is actually ported over from Shout's release of the original Hercules), a documentary on the influence of the Italian Hercules films called Hercules and the Conquest of Cinema, and a dry audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas, which has interesting tidbits but is kinda boring.  There are more features on this blu-ray, but the DVD has the superior episode presentation.