K15-Superdome

Film Year:  1978
Genre:  Drama, Thriller
Director:  Jerry Jameson
Starring:  David Janssen, Edie Adams, Ken Howard, Clifton Davis
MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

This TV movie aired in January of 1978 as a promotional tie-in to Super Bowl XII, which was held at the real life Superdome in New Orleans (which has held the Super Bowl as recently as 2013) and saw the Dallas Cowboys beat the Denver Broncos 27 to 10.  Superdome is a drama about shenanigans leading up to the big game, as a quarterback finds himself unable to tend to his wife's needs, another is caught up in a management deal, gamblers try to fix the game, and a killer is on the loose.

Probably the most interesting thing about this movie is the sports trivia behind it, and I'm admitting this while not being much of a sports guy (I like watching games, but am no buff by any stretch).  Also mildly interesting is that it's directed by Jerry Jameson, who MSTies will see down the road as the director of It Lives by Night.  Superdome was directed after that film, which saw Jameson's career spiral into more television projects and less theatrical films.

But this movie itself?  It's a fucking chore.  I can't even watch this movie through my beloved MST3K without my attention drifting.  It's a meandering bit of nonsense that only exists to fill two hours easily and piggy back on the hype of a much more exciting sporting event.  The plots are a bore of labored drama and the murder mystery isn't involving in the slightest, because it's constantly being brushed to the side.

I can't say a bad word about the movie's cast though, which is led by The Fugitive's David Janssen (who MSTies will see again in Space Travelers).  Everybody is fine in the movie, but they're given nothing to work with.  Every scene in this movie is just an excuse to scowl.  The film then constantly reminds us with a text crawl every other scene to tell us the Super Bowl is coming, assuring us that there is something exciting on the horizon.  Then the movie doesn't bother to show us an actual game, probably alluding that the game that followed a week later was it.  Well...I guess something exciting did actually happen.  It just happened seven days later and wasn't in the actual movie.

The Episode

Really the most noteworthy aspect of this episode is that for many years the final host segment to this episode was lost.  Then on a fateful day in 2004, a MSTie named Teresa Dietzinger popped up on the MST3K Discussion Board asking about the segment and wondering if anybody had a better copy, as her's was in worn condition.  Considering that back then we had some major gaps in MST's KTMA legacy (which have mostly been filled in the years since, save for K03), this was HUGE news for us.  So a huge thank you to Ms. Dietzinger for giving us a more complete set, as we were five years post-cancellation and any new material was more than welcome, no matter how small.

The host segment in question is rather simple, as it's just a plug for the MST fan club.  Ms. Dietzinger had it recorded becasue it showcased some fan art she sent to the show (her's was the first one featured).  It's actually a bit of an outlier to the rest of the host segments, which are presented almost as a clip show, which is probably a joke because the series is only on it's fifteenth episode (a similar joke episode was done for the animated Clerks series, which presented a clip show on the second episode).  In these segments, Servo is typing a memoir (with his "feet") and is recalling previous events.  The only full-on host segment reairing is one from SST- Death Flight, though there is a conclusive montage late in the episode.  Interestingly, two of his flashbacks are actually new host segments, one in which Servo almost talks Dr. Forrester and Dr. Erhardt into bringing the Satellite of Love back down to Earth before Crow screws it up (which oddly sets up the movie), and the mid-segment features an off-screen Joel being kind of a dick.

If I haven't talked about the movie segments yet, that's because I don't really have much to say.  This movie is boring as fuck and the KTMA improv riffing has a few fun moments, but isn't spicy enough to make this thing anything more than a total snooze.  There's even a period in the third segment in which the theater seats go quiet for a very long time and you can just feel their tiredness in the air.  It very much feels to me like this movie was selected based on its football-based premise and without having watched it, and they're realizing they made a mistake in real time in the theater.  And considering that in these KTMA days a lot of an episode's appeal rides on the movie, Superdome becomes one of the season lowlights.

Poopie!:  Josh also, at one point, coughs in the theater.  Joel hugs the Servo puppet's shoulders and asks him if he's okay.

There are a few moments in the episode that I enjoy, as there is an almost-fight between Servo and Crow in the final theater segment that got a laugh out of me, while a few of the zingers delight, but are drowned out in an experience that is dull as dirt.  I'd probably call Superdome one of the weakest episodes of the series, because I have pretty much no desire to watch it again, outside of a full-fledged series rewatch.  Even when it hit my rotation just now, I was tempted to just jump over it to the next episode, but this review had to be written eventually.  There is not much I can say about something that inspires so little, so I might choose to talk about the fan art instead.

Not Recommended