Film Year: 1980
Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller
Director: James L. Conway
Starring: Darren McGavin, Robert Vaughn, Gary Collins, James Hampton, Pamela Bellwood
MST Season: KTMA
The Movie
This conspiracy thriller has astronauts who find their space mission gone horribly wrong as an encounter with a U.F.O. kills a member of their crew before it lands in Arizona. Returning to Earth they find that they've been blamed for the accident and all traces of the U.F.O. have been covered up. Desperate to clear their names they go on the run to find the evidence the government is trying to hide.
Hanger 18 stretches credibility at times, though it has a halfway interesting concept at its core. Those who want to be taken for a ride on it's paranoia trip may very well get a few thrills out of it, though it's not a very strong example of the genre. I myself didn't dislike the film, but I hardly thought anything about it either. For the most part it just felt like one of those movies that was on TV one afternoon that you sat through but didn't remember the next day.
It feels like the movie needed to be a little showier. A little more money for some razzmatazz would have gone a long way in making the film more interesting watch. While the third act offers up some decent chase sequences, they're very plain and hardly worth talking about, while the rest of the movie is mostly political discussion and pondering. The movie itself is fine if underwhelming, but there's a more compelling movie that's begging to come out of this thing.
The Episode
"The movie's called Hangar 18. MOVIE SIGN!"
By this point I think it's safe to say things aren't entirely improvised. They aren't scripted either, but there seems to be beats that they have ideas of what they want to do with. Seeing aliens that remind them of Uncle Fester on The Addams Family, Joel and the Bots go into a fairly well in sync mimic of the theme song singing the title of the movie along with it. It's hard for me to believe this wasn't planned out. They do very much seem to be thinking a lot about sitcoms this week since references are not limited to The Addams Family. Probably my favorite of the bunch comes when an astronaut yells for his fallen companion "LOU!" causing Joel to imitate Ted Baxter and say "C'mon, Lou!" Speaking of classic television, Robert Vaughn causes Servo to reference Man from U.N.C.L.E. at one point.
The riffing is fairly rapid in general, but they lose steam. They seem a bit caught up in the climax (or tuckered out maybe) as there is a period toward the end where they go several minutes without making any sort of comment. Finally Servo breaks the tension in the room by stuttering out a middling riff that may or may not be an attempt at a wake-up call to remind everyone why they're there. It didn't quite seem to work since the silence continues after that, while Servo attempts to put out another riff about once every thirty seconds or so. Joel and Crow don't start commenting again until after the commercial break, and maybe during the cutaway someone finally woke them up and said "SAY SOMETHING!" I'm not sure if this is a sign that they were invested in the movie, but they do seem to be paying attention to the film at any rate. After a "breaks cut" runaway car scene, one character remarks to another that he "messed up the seat." Joel later comments that the character never went to the bathroom the entire movie, to which Crow responded "He did in the car," causing Joel to laugh and respond "Oh yeah."
The host segments mostly circle Crow, including a pair of segments devoted to his memory. One has Joel and Servo going through it and wiping out what they deem unnecessary (most of it is what he's watched on TV-23, AKA KTMA), while another uncovers his first memory. It turns out "Crow" is an acronym that stands for Cybernetic Remotely Operated Woman, which Crow embraces before finding out Joel was just kidding. It's kind of a weird joke that doesn't go anywhere. Another Crow related segment has Crow bugging Joel with childlike questions of "Whyyyyyyyy?"
Featuring a so-so movie and mostly rapid riffing (for a while at least), Hangar 18 held my attention which is a good sign for KTMA's style of movie riffing. It's not the first episode I'd recommend to KTMA beginners, but it's a definite step toward the show it would evolve into once the series went national.
By this point I think it's safe to say things aren't entirely improvised. They aren't scripted either, but there seems to be beats that they have ideas of what they want to do with. Seeing aliens that remind them of Uncle Fester on The Addams Family, Joel and the Bots go into a fairly well in sync mimic of the theme song singing the title of the movie along with it. It's hard for me to believe this wasn't planned out. They do very much seem to be thinking a lot about sitcoms this week since references are not limited to The Addams Family. Probably my favorite of the bunch comes when an astronaut yells for his fallen companion "LOU!" causing Joel to imitate Ted Baxter and say "C'mon, Lou!" Speaking of classic television, Robert Vaughn causes Servo to reference Man from U.N.C.L.E. at one point.
The riffing is fairly rapid in general, but they lose steam. They seem a bit caught up in the climax (or tuckered out maybe) as there is a period toward the end where they go several minutes without making any sort of comment. Finally Servo breaks the tension in the room by stuttering out a middling riff that may or may not be an attempt at a wake-up call to remind everyone why they're there. It didn't quite seem to work since the silence continues after that, while Servo attempts to put out another riff about once every thirty seconds or so. Joel and Crow don't start commenting again until after the commercial break, and maybe during the cutaway someone finally woke them up and said "SAY SOMETHING!" I'm not sure if this is a sign that they were invested in the movie, but they do seem to be paying attention to the film at any rate. After a "breaks cut" runaway car scene, one character remarks to another that he "messed up the seat." Joel later comments that the character never went to the bathroom the entire movie, to which Crow responded "He did in the car," causing Joel to laugh and respond "Oh yeah."
The host segments mostly circle Crow, including a pair of segments devoted to his memory. One has Joel and Servo going through it and wiping out what they deem unnecessary (most of it is what he's watched on TV-23, AKA KTMA), while another uncovers his first memory. It turns out "Crow" is an acronym that stands for Cybernetic Remotely Operated Woman, which Crow embraces before finding out Joel was just kidding. It's kind of a weird joke that doesn't go anywhere. Another Crow related segment has Crow bugging Joel with childlike questions of "Whyyyyyyyy?"
Featuring a so-so movie and mostly rapid riffing (for a while at least), Hangar 18 held my attention which is a good sign for KTMA's style of movie riffing. It's not the first episode I'd recommend to KTMA beginners, but it's a definite step toward the show it would evolve into once the series went national.
Good
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