109-Project Moon Base

Film Year:  1953
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  Richard Talmadge
Starring:  Ross Ford, Donna Martell, Hayden Rorke, Larry Johns
MST Season:  1
Featured Shorts:  “Radar Men from the Moon:  Chapter Seven – Camouflaged Destruction” and “Radar Men from the Moon:  Chapter Eight – The Enemy Planet”

The Shorts

As if the double trouble from Robot Monster wasn’t enough, here is another Commando Cody double feature to assault us!

When we last left Commando Cody he was flung off of a cliff!  Talk about an actual CLIFFHANGER!  Stupid us forgot he has a rocket pack, which he just turns on and flies to safety!  He soon discovers the bad guys have a new ray gun and goes in pursuit with his pilot Ted.  But the bad guys shoot down their plane with said ray gun.

TO BE CONTINUED…RIGHT NOW!

Commando Cody and Ted eject in the nick of time.  In the aftermath Cody returns to the moon and disguises himself as one of the Radar Men guards, and drives off in one of their lunarmobiles.

Two Cody shorts, and mostly they kind of blend in together.  At least the second has some outer space action in it, but that’s about all I can do to set them apart.  There’s not much that’s stimulating in watching two of these in a row.   I’m just kind of numb right now.

The Movie

Intended to be the pilot for a TV series called Ring Around the Moon (and beefed up to feature length when they dropped the idea and released to theaters), Project Moon Base is the story of Major Moore and Colonel Briteis (read:  Bright Eyes) unknowingly lugging around a saboteur along with them during their moon expedition.  Bearing more than a few similarities to Lost in Space, only done much cheesier (I didn’t even know such a thing was possible).

Usually when I hear Project Moon Base mentioned in casual conversation (which isn’t very often, if at all), the word “sexist” is used to describe it.  It’s understandable, given the attitude toward women male characters seem to have in this film (I just about died laughing when Colonel Briteis was threatened with a spanking by a superior officer), one thing worth noting is that it’s something of a “progressive” sexism if nothing else.  Here we have a depiction of the future projected from 1953 that featured a woman in a position of authority holding equal rank with male officers, long before Lieutenant Uhura broke down female and African American barriers on Star Trek over a decade later.  Hell, the film even depicts a female President of the United States (I type this right after the 2016 election, where Hillary Clinton actually failed to become the first female President).  The film’s Wikipedia article boasts that this is the first depiction of a female President on film and while I don’t know how true that is, knowing this movie the Vice President is probably slapping her on the ass and saying “Good work, toots.”

The film’s story was written (and reportedly disowned) by Robert Heinlein, author of Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers.  Project Moon Base is probably most notable for this aspect alone, though even with it if it weren’t for Mystery Science Theater I doubt many people would know about it at all.  It’s one of those films with a ludicrous depiction of space travel made back when there was little to no science to really refer to.  Space uniforms look goofy, consisting of a shower cap, tight t-shirt, and short-shorts.  While this aspect elicits laughter by itself, the special effects are really the icing on the cake, which are about as fakey and goofy looking as we’ve ever seen on MST (and that includes anything featured in the host segments).

Project Moon Base mostly charms with spunk, spirit, and how cute our lead actress looks in those degrading shorts (all the better to spank her in).  It’s slow on the accelerator, and even when it gets going nothing happens, but it’s an adorable outlook on a future passed.  One thing’s for sure, if you’re looking for a movie with a slow-motion space acceleration sequence that makes Star Trek:  The Motion Picture’s wormhole sequence look downright artful by comparison, this is it.

The Episode

We start off this experiment by anticipating the monotonous with two Commando Cody chapters, as if one wasn’t hard enough.  I don’t really know how they managed to riff more than one per episode not once but twice on MST.  In season one no less.  They deserve some form of applause for that alone.  These shorts are a bit funnier than usual, due to the cast’s increased confidence in the format, but that doesn’t stop them from slipping into familiar riffs along the way.  The second short is the better of the two, with the moon setting giving them more material to work with.  We have a fun and creative “Theme Song” they sing during the opening credits, and the climax is a gas, with the cliffhanger showcasing someone’s oxygen tank getting hit only to have Joel make the claim that the helium valve was released instead!  Servo exits the theater with high-pitched screams of “Help me!” that had me giggling quite a bit.

The movie portion mostly runs with exactly what’s happening on screen.  The talky scenes tend to drag, but once the silly special effects come into play the theater lights up.  In fact, this episode features some of the most rapid fire quips of the first season, making this funny movie even funnier.  The episode isn’t perfect, hitting a good many early day snags along the way, but you’ll be laughing more than once during this pleasure of an episode.

Host segments are mostly highlighted by the Spacom segment, inspired by the odd name the agency of the film has.  The crew puts on a funny infomercial with a product of the same name, which looks like Gak and gives off an unhealthy glow effect.  “And boy can it catch fish!”  Other than that, Servo pretends to be Commando Cody and the crew model neckties.  The Invention Exchange has a neat trick with Joel juggling water, though the Insect-a-Sketch falls a bit flat.

Poopie!:  The Insect-a-Sketch claims to have been erased and have featured a new drawing on it, but Dr. Erhardt’s name is still clearly on it at the end of the sketch.
Poopie!:  Joel seems to re-enter the theater at the end of the film to pick something up.

None of the episodes in this season are really worthy of me bestowing “classic” status on, but I heavily considered this one.  In the end the dry moments kind of bog down the rating, though the laugh ratio is certainly high enough to make it the best of its respective season.  It might even be the best episode featuring Josh Weinstein, though I’d have to review further KTMA episodes to make that claim.  In the meantime this episode is a keeper.

Good

The DVD

Shout Factory released Project Moon Base in Volume XX with the standard solid video and audio presentation.

Two features kick off with Exploring the Look of MST3K with Director of Photography Jeff Stonehouse.  If it didn’t take you too long to read that title, go ahead and watch it.  Interestingly, you don’t think much about the camera work in such a small scale show like this, but Stonehouse’s words will help you appreciate it more.  The only downside is that since he was the DP during the Mike era of the series, so pairing him up with a Joel episode (let alone one from the first season) seems odd.  But then again, all the episodes on Volume XX were Joel episodes, so there really wasn’t a “better” place to put him.  The second featurette is a trailer for the film that brings us up…UP…to a new world of adventure!

The Commando Cody shorts were shown as a part of a Commando Cody compilation featured as an online exclusive with Shout Factory’s Volume XXV release.