K04-Gamers vs. Barugon

Film Year:  1966
Genre:  Kaiju, Adventure
Director:  Shigeo Tanaka
Starring:  Kyoko Enami, Kojiro Hongo, Akira Natsuki
MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED!*

I’m a Godzilla fan, but the appeal of Gamera has pretty much eluded me.  I saw the original film (Sandy Frank dub) at about age 12 and thought it was beyond lame (a turtle that turns into a flying saucer?  Pfft).  I saw the critically praised Guardian of the Universe a few months later, and wasn’t impressed with it either (special effects were good, but the story was as uninteresting as they come).  Ultimately I guess I just don’t care for the turtle.  I did love Revenge of Iris and enjoyed Gamera the Brave though, so I’m not a total Grinch.

As far as Gamera movies go, Gamera vs. Barugon isn’t that bad.  Of the ones featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, I think it’s clearly the best (the only one of the early series I’d probably say I liked just as much was Gamera vs. Jiger).  It has a more serious tone, and the main characters are actually adults instead of little children.  The premise follows a group of treasure hunters who uncover a giant opal from a native island.  Taking it back ashore, the opal turns out to be an egg that hatches into Barugon, a giant gecko with a killer rainbow and a freezing tongue.

Yeah, the anatomy behind these Gamera monsters is pretty stupid.  This one at least looks kind of cool, even if it is a pretty stiff costume he’s wearing.  Mankind’s only hope to save them from this threat is Gamera, a giant turtle they tried to shoot off into space for some reason.  Since we watched this sequel before the original, we’re not all that familiar with Gamera yet.  Speaking of, Gamera’s hardly in the movie, and his brawls with Barugon are very brief.  I guess this bored the target audience of children, so all future productions brought in more turtle showboating.

As an adult, however, the plot of this movie is pretty strong for its type.  But Deiei’s shortcomings in the kaiju genre make it feel stiff and long.  However, if I’m going to watch a Gamera movie unriffed, I’d more than likely watch this one.

The Episode

The earliest broadcast episode taped by fans, this episode benefits best while trying to look at it through the eyes of someone who had just watched the show for the first time in 1988.  It seems like a very fun take on the old idea of horror hosts and such, and I for one would have stuck around for more.

Of course, I was 4 at the time, so it doesn’t really matter what I would have thought.

The riffing is still in its earliest stages of development.  At this point it was improvised, so there’s more dead air than most MSTies would be comfortable with.  The first movie segment in particular drags, but once the monsters show up, the comedy starts to pick up.  As Barugon wags his tail while standing next to a giant building, Crow pipes up “Uh oh, he thinks it’s a fire hydrant!”  I laughed.  Reaching this point in my first viewing of a KTMA episode, I started to relax a little bit.  Sure, it wasn’t the show I had grown up watching on the Sci-Fi Channel, but it was still my show.  And that was what I needed.

The host segments cater to phone calls they had received for the previous week’s episode, Star Force:  Fugitive Alien II.  Two callers really loved it (I imagine the one who demanded “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!” is the one that taped all of these KTMAs) and one caller hated it, even going so far to tell them that he hopes they get cancelled (this was back before changing the channel was invented, I assume).  Another wants more “chapstick” on the show.  Presumably he meant to say “slapstick,” but it’s true that he clearly says “chapstick.”  How the hell do you make that mistake?  The segments that accompany it are pretty clever, but with refinement it probably could have been funnier.

A lot has been stated about Servo’s original voice, which is much higher and more infantile.  Yeah, it’s not very good.  I think they were wise to change it.  It doesn’t really lend itself well to the format of the show, and Josh seems uncomfortable talking in it.

Maybe I’m being generous, but I’m going to give this episode good marks.  The movie was watchable and I got my chuckles.  That’s all I can ask for.

Good