201-Rocketship X-M

Film Year:  1950
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  Kurt Neumann
Starring:  Lloyd Bridges, Osa Madsen, John Emery, Noah Beery Jr., Hugh O'Brien, Morris Ankrum
MST Season:  2

The Movie

So a bunch of astronauts fly to the moon and wind up on Mars.  A mix-up only topped by Abbot and Costello winding up on Venus in a movie called Abbot and Costello Go to Mars!  But that's the premise in a nutshell for this early outer space sci-fi, which sees a group of scientists overshooting their destination and winding up further than they could have dreamed.  They land on Mars, go exploring, and are chased off by a native with a rock.  They decide this sucks, head home, crash, and die.  The end.

Hastily made in an attempt to ride the hype coattails of the much more expensive Destination Moon, this space travel yarn forgets to make itself interesting.  But perhaps the idea of space travel was interesting in of itself back in 1950, what with the space race budding and about to bloom.  But for a film to have staying power it needs to have actual content, which Rocketship X-M is sorely lacking.  It's not without merit, posing "What if...?" ideas toward the end about what we may find without going into too much detail, though it takes a while to get there and the payoff doesn't quite make the journey worth it.

For a fairly low budget cash grab, I will say Rocketship X-M is a pretty well made movie.  It features decent acting, moderately fine direction, and an enthusiasm for its subject matter.  Unfortunately it's stuck in a limbo between seriousness and camp, as if the crew of Lost in Space were hired to make an episode of Star Trek.  I cherish both shows, but they're worlds apart.  X-M feels like the work of a crew that doesn't quite understand the forward thinking film they've been asked to make, and they just create a ponderous bore trying to be insightful.

The most lasting scene in the film is the final one, where the RX-M crashes and the mission is deemed a "failure," though it then retracts that and states that there is no such thing.  This should be a stepping stone to more successful missions in the future.  This is a fairly smart way of justifying the grim fate of our main characters, and points out that failure is the path to success.  That's pretty philosophical for a film made just to leech off the profits of another.

The Episode

Cut one off, two shall take its place.  One cast member is replaced by two, as Josh Weinstein bids farewell to the series to forge his own destiny, while Kevin Murphy picks up the Tom Servo puppet and Frank Conniff takes over evil henchman duties.  This episode is most often considered to be the start of what most people think of when they think of Mystery Science Theater 3000, because we get the status quo lineup of Joel, Kevin, Trace, and Frank and that status quo would last for a good 73 episodes, longer than any other lineup in the series (challenged only by Mike, Kevin, Bill, and Mary Jo, which still didn't even come close at 48).  Kevin alone has the longest riffing run of any comedian on the series, having riffed in 163 episodes as well as the movie (he would also appear as Bobo in three episodes of The Return).

There are a lot of fans who flat out refuse to watch all episodes before this one (those people suck), because the episodes before this just aren't as funny.  But watching Rocketship X-M after seeing season one...I gotta say, it's not really that much of an improvement.  In fact I'd make the argument that about half of the KTMA and season one episodes are actually quite a bit funnier than this one.

One thing that can be said about Rocketship X-M's riffing is that it's a lot smoother in delivery than previously seen on the show.  In previous seasons, jokes seemed rather subdued and repressed, not delivered with a lot of color.  One can tell with this one they've decided to be a bit more animated in the theater and engage with the film as if they're actually conversing with it and not talking toward it.  This would do them well in the future, even if the riffing here is a mixed bag.  There's a lot of stale and repetitive jokes in this one.  They ride on the "By this time my lungs were aching for air." Lloyd Bridges reference a lot.  And I mean a lot.  And quite a few other jokes fail to land, tuning into season one's pitfall of often saying a joke just to make a joke.  Crow doing a Lucille Ball impression isn't funny if there's no real contextual reason it's being referenced, and that kinda goes for quite a few jokes here.  Then there are other times where they are just reduced to just yelling "SHUT UP!"

I find myself reflecting on the movie a bit during this episode and wonder if maybe it's the film's fault.  Rocketship X-M is not a good movie, not by a long shot, but it's very wordy and uneventful for about a good hour of it's runtime.  Perhaps the comments get lackluster because there isn't really anything to comment on.  While old space travel movies are sometimes perfect for the show, this one proves to be an exception.

For the most part I laughed more often during the host segments, which introduce us to Tom Servo's new voice and TV's Frank, replacing the now MIA Dr. Erhardt.  Frank in particular is quite hilarious here, as he plays the role of an awkward trainee at a fast food restaurant who doesn't quite know what he's doing.  The biggest laugh of the episode is the very end in which the very first "Push the button, Frank" happens, and Frank can't quite figure it out.  This bit actually is probably funnier now than it was then, since Frank wound up pushing that button many times in his career and seeing him learn it for the first time is quite a treat.  On the Satellite, we're given one treasure of a host segment as Joel quizzes the Bots on things that are funny floating in space, meanwhile the salute to reporters segment is quite fun too.  The big loser to single out is Mike's cameo as Valaria from Robot Holocaust, which starts nowhere and somehow gets lost along the way.

This is an important episode that every fan should watch, however it's probably best to keep expectations in check.  The learning curve of how to approach this artform they've created is still in effect and while new techniques are being practiced, new lessons are still being learned.  But it has its moments and provides us with this curious case of foreshadowing...

"Why didn't you just show us Marooned?"

"We couldn't get it!"

Oh give it a couple of seasons.

Average

The DVD

Rocketship X-M has never graced home video, however Shout Factory saw fit to release the host segments on the Satellite Dishes DVD of their Volume XXXIX collection.