"Pipeline to the Clouds" & A Tribute to Manos (MST3K Special)

The Short

It's finally happened!  The new Mystery Science Theater 3000 is finally tackling shorts!  They're just not a part of the episodes themswlves...bummer.  Instead they'll be featured at the beginning of special Gizmoplex livestream events, so...better than nothing?  The intent was always to show these off in between new episodes to tide fans over as each episode was being edited, though a part of my soul was hoping they'd be in the episodes as warm-up appetizers.  That was part of the fun of shorts back in the day.  Hell, when I watch a RiffTrax I always pop a short in just to get that experience.  But using these as introductions to live events is fun because it does whet our appetite for the next episode.  And Emily's crew did well with her short in 2020, so it's good to see this is going to be a regular thing.

Our first short to these live events is untitled in the actual short itself, though Pearl identifies it as being called "Pipeline to the Clouds."  This is an industrial short made to show the important everyday uses people use water for in their general lives while also acknowledging what it takes for our workers to bring water into everyday homes all across the country.  That stuff doesn't just come out of the faucet like magic, ya know!

This short's a bit haphazard as it shows off the importance of water by showing what a drought can cause and scratches the surface of how we can prevent it.  Unfortunately it only scratches that surface and not much else.  The short doesn't bother to explain how really any of this works and just comes off as a whirlwind of water related imagery.  It's a bit irritating really.  I'm being shown lots of things but I'm not exactly learning anything from them.

Likewise for the riffing, this short is like water itself:  It's there but it's not solid enough to latch onto.  The short has actual content but not enough to work with in any sort of meaningful way.  Jonah's crew is in the theater seats for this one and honestly they seem a little stumped on how to make this funny.  They do jump at what imagery they can however they can though it tends to stay tricky.  They take a few establishing shots of a dam and use them to sass call "DAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYUUUUUUUUUM!"  There are also points where we see pretty women bathing yet all they can do is catcall, which is a little lazy.  But occasionally they'll come out with something great, and Jonah gets the most killer potshot of the entire short as he targets the anti-mask/vaxx movement:

"If there is one thing Americans can be counted on to do it's to selflessly accept mild personal inconvenience for the betterment of society as a whole."

But unfortunately the first short of the Gizmoplex is a disappointment.  It's mostly subpar material aimed at a short that seems like it's an uphill battle to contend with.  This one is a sinker.

Thumbs Down

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The Livestream

Something I didn't expect these live streams to have is host segments.  Apparently the theme is that Pearl and Synthia are subjecting viewers to classic experiments against our will, while Jonah and the Bots are along for the ride suffering through the previous experiment with us.  It's pretty fun to see these host segments wrap around the classic episode, blending the old with the new into a glorious whole.

Our stream opens with Pearl and Synthia introducing us to the "Short of the Month Club," as Pearl picks a random short for Jonah and the Bots to tackle before starting the classic experiment.  As Jonah's crew finishes up, Pearl throws us into the most infamous episode of the show by ensuring us "Nothing in your TV is broken.  This movie just looks like that."  You guessed it, it's "Manos" The Hands of Fate (review of classic episode here)!  Jonah and the Bots are apprehensive about getting into the grind with an "MST Legend," and even spend the middle segment about to break (and wanting a granola bar).  But they get through it like troopers.

Also of note, classic commercial breaks are put to use with the new MST commercial ads in the Gizmoplex, featuring Jonah and the Bots putting on amusing little ad-skits for ad revenue for the series.  Normally I'd be irritated to pay for a streaming service with commercial breaks but I'm loving the way the breaks are put to use again.  Brings back glorious memories of sitting in front of the TV and watching the latest episode live!  More MST as a part of these breaks is just a bonus, even if it's a commercial I've already seen on the previous stream.

We are then treated to a post-stream Q&A with Joel Hodgson, Matt McGinnis, Mary Jo Pehl, and special guest Jackie Neyman Jones, who most will know played Debbie in the film at the tender age of 6.  We might also remember her from a guest spot a few months ago on the Mads stream where they did their own riff of Manos.  The Q&A starts off with Joel and Mary Jo reminiscing about working on the fourth season of MST, discovering this movie, and the trial of making it work.  They also discuss working on the new material for this live stream, as Joel compliments Mary Jo's chemistry with Rebecca Hansen in their Pearl and Synthia skits, to which Mary Jo gives Rebecca all the credit.

Things really rev up when Jackie enters the chat, as she is bursting with stories relating to the film, about how Hal Warren was a salesman and never set out to make a "good" movie but a film that would show off the locale and blossom the film industry in the area (I don't think that panned out).  She talks about seeing the movie at the premiere as a little girl and crying because of how bad it was, while also saying that finding a copy of the film was a goal in her adult life because of her memories making it.  She relates the story about how her father, Tom Neyman (who played the Master in the movie), was a fan of MST and called his daughter up when he saw it on the show and she called the HBO offices to see if she could get a personal copy.  I think it's cool that Jackie seems to watch MST to this day, even mentioning that she watched the Santo livestream a few weeks ago.

Jackie brings a lot of energy into the room, relating such colorful and unique tidbits about the film to light, such as how a good deal of the names in the end credits are fake because Hal Warren wanted to make it seem like more people worked on the movie than actually had.  She also states that Warren made up most of the names of the actresses/models that played the Master's wives because he didn't bother to learn their names.  One interesting note I found was that Jackie suspects the movie used just about all the footage Warren had shot, because he needed the film to be feature length, which certainly explains all the extended driving scenes in the film.

There are several questions regarding the relative quality of the film, including one that asks everyone if there's anything about it that they think is objectively good.  Mary Jo really likes the ending song and Joel likes the unique end credit font.  They are also asked if they've ever seen any film that's worse than Manos, to which Jackie responds instantly with another film she wound up in called Curse of Bigfoot, which actually wound up on RiffTrax in 2012.  Joel claims he thinks this season's The Bubble is just as bad, and Matt nods his head in agreement.

If I may chime in, RiffTrax just did Things.  Imagine Manos, but it couldn't relate any sort of plot.

While I will confess disappointment in the short tonight, it was followed up by an absolute banger of an episode (you can't argue with Manos, you just can't) and a quality post show Q&A with an excellent guest.  This whole experience was well worth it, even if the appetizer didn't quite work out.