1303-Beyond Atlantis

Film Year:  1973

Genre:  Adventure, Fantasy

Director:  Eddie Romeo

Starring:  Patrick Wayne, John Ashley, Leigh Christian, Sid Haig, Lenore Stevens, George Nader, Vic Diaz

MST Season:  13

Host:  Emily

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

From one of the directors of Danger on Tiki Island, this flick from the Philippines has a group of pearl hunters setting sail for a mysterious island for the chance to find some easy white gold.  Once there they encounter a group of natives that can live both on the surface and under the ocean.  Most of these natives are mutated, with the exception of the beautiful and scantily-clad Syriana.  Syriana is also the only one of the tribe who is still able to bear children and has been ordered by her tribe chief and father to mate with one of the outsiders and conceive.

Beyond Atlantis stars the son of legendary actor John Wayne, Patrick Wayne, as the lead, who reportedly negotiated the idea that if he were to star in the film then it would have to be rated PG.  The production then had to scale back its exploitation quite a bit to accommodate this (apparently all the tribe women in this film were supposed to be topless in the early vision for it).  You can tell by watching the film that exploiting the female form is very much on the mind of this movie but it's refraining from going the full nine yards.  Instead it takes a note from the playbook of One Million Years B.C., where part of what made that movie a success was blossoming teenage boys discovering sex through Raquel Welch's animal skin bikini while dads may very feel like sitting through the movie too.  The idea is admittedly timeless, as it has been utilized many times since.  My personal blossoming experience was either Halle Berry in the Flintstones movie or Jennifer O'Dell in the crappy syndicated series The Lost World, pick your poison.

Because it feels like it would be more interesting if it were exploitive, Beyond Atlantis is a bit flaccid.  The bikinis are nice and everything, and we get some nice 360 degree angles of Leigh Christian during her underwater scenes, but its a very inert film.  It feels a bit too casually paced, and if the movie were giving us something...how should I put this...more visual to admire than just a pretty island scenery, then the slow pace may not slog as much.

Or it could potentially fling it in a different direction and make it too sexually deviant.  This is a very rapey flick.  Not only does the premise somewhat hinge on a woman raping outsiders, the movie has a very primate-like look on sex in general.  There is a scene early on in which John Ashley attempts to seduce Lenore Stephens' character, which is just a notch above him grunting at her and dragging her to bed.  It's a film that's obviously written by men for men to watch and nod their heads at.

Not helping the lack of momentum in the plot is the acting, which is stiff and wooden and reading from a script full of jive talk.  The actors look mostly bored, with the most lively performance coming from the late character actor Sid Haig, who is just colorful enough to make the best of this movie in his scenes.  Also clogging up the movie is the majority of underwater scenes, which pad out the movie so much that even Thunderball would be envious of it.  The photography is beautiful, and its often used to show off shapely female bodies, but it rarely helps the narrative.  The film is also underlined by a synth score by Ed Norton (Honeymooners Ed Norton or American History X Ed Norton?).  All I can say is John Carpenter he is not.

Beyond Atlantis isn't quite a bad time but it does get dry and dull.  It's a movie with a batch of ideas on how to make itself appealing that doesn't really form any of them fully.  But there are some kicks to be had if you dig deep enough into its silliness.

The Episode

Well hello, fresh meat!  Are you ready for the grinder?

It's been several years in the making and the day is finally here:  Emily Marsh, Conor McGiffin, and Yvonne Ingrid Freese have made their in-theater debut on Mystery Science Theater 3000 as Emily Connor, Tom Servo, and GPC/GPC2.  We've been seeing them pop up in fan events for the series since 2019, and it wasn't always clear what the intent was for them. But now they are official canon to the series, serving as a second host and group of Bots being experimented alongside Jonah and his Bots.

But there is a bit of an elephant in the room with this debut, and that's the outing of Nate Begle as Emily's Crow T. Robot, who has been with the group through two live tours and several Turkey Days, while also riffing a short with Emily and Conor during Turkey Day 2020 and was also promised to be Emily's Crow in the upcoming series as he, his fedora, and Ed Wynn impression were with us all throughout the Kickstarter.  Nate very quietly left the series after the last tour ended and official statements from the project have been light and vague.  Whatever the reason for Nate's departure, I wish him the best.  It's clear that he is a very funny and talented guy.

How they worked around Nate's departure was a bit of a question mark.  We had no real way of knowing whether or not his performances in the episodes he had already filmed would be left intact, and I was working under the assumption that they would be because dubbing over a comedy performance is a dangerous game to play.  Besides, even if Nate only had four episodes under his belt, he'd still only have the second shortest stint as the Bot on the series (following Josh Weinstein, who picked up the Crow puppet for Invaders of the Deep and Gamera during the KTMA season).  But this was not to be, and it looks like we have a dubbed performance by Crow's new performer, Kelsey Ann Brady.  Kelsey is a puppeteer who seemed to join the last live tour as an understudy for various performers and jumped in during various tour dates while Nate bowed out as his wife gave birth.  Following the end of the tour, it seems she was hired to take over for him and dub over his performance on previously filmed episodes, making her the first woman to play the role.

And I know what you're thinking, "Crow's a dude!  MST3K has gone woke!"  First of all, it dates back to the KTMA season that his name is an acronym for Cybernetic Remote Operated Woman, so the idea that Crow is female has precedent, and secondly Crow is a robot/puppet and has no sex organs to speak of.  I'm sure if you were to ask him today what gender he identifies with he'd say "Mr. B Natural" while adding that his pronouns are "Lick/Me."  If it means that much to you, go cry to the Quartering to make a whiney YouTube video about it while fishing for SuperChats.  Personally I think there is no real reason why Crow can't be a woman, because he has no defining traits that are distinctly male.  He's just a bit of a spitfire that likes to start trouble, with an artistic side.  It seems to me that Tom Servo is the one that probably should always be played by a male performer, as his sense of self-confidence should always be played with a hint of toxic masculinity.

Okay, enough digression.  The new cast is here, how do they do?  I must say, they are quite excellent.  Emily adds such an fun and distinct flavor to the host role that really livens it up, while Conor does some excellent work with Tom Servo that puts him up there with Kevin Murphy in his energy (though I prefer Baron Vaughn's take on the theme song, myself).  Kelsey is a bit of an odd duck to grade, because there is that sense of a slight detachment to the episode because of how she's worked in.  Certain things feel like they were written specifically for Nate that she's trying her hardest to adapt to, with mixed results.  I want to see more of her Crow outside of talking over a previous performance, though she does show promise.  Her take on Crow is a bit like a mischievous child who always sounds like they have a bad idea they want to try in the back of their head, while vocally she seems to take influence from the vocal work of Nancy Cartwright and Pamela Hayden on The Simpsons as her Crow voice sounds like a mixture between Nelson Muntz and Milhouse Van Houten.  Giving Kelsey her own material would probably help her evolve the character to her advantage.  That said, she seems more confident with Crow than Bill did during his first appearance, so Kelsey certainly can take her distinctive version of Crow and run with it in the future.

I'm not going to lie, I'm very curious to hear the original Nate audio of this episode.  I can easily picture the riffs and host segments playing out with his voice and I'd have much rather have heard all of this in their natural state (I especially want to hear Nate's game show host in the second segment).  That's not a knock against Kelsey, I just think Nate's strengths aren't necessarily her strengths and I think it does Kelsey a disservice to shoehorn her into material that is written for someone else.

Interestingly, the entire episode doesn't take place on the Satellite of Love at all, as Emily is finishing work on Kinga's new "Simulator of Love" in which Kinga traps her new stooge inside with a pair of freshly programed Bots of her own, including her own GPC, which Emily off-handedly upgrades to a GPC2 model in the final segment, which is really just the live tour puppet.  Interestingly enough, Emily's Tom Servo has a head that glows off and on that I don't believe we've seen in Jonah's.  It's kind of a neat effect and I dig it.  Other segments include everyone busting out their best Sid Haig impression at EddieCon (Emily's beard helmet is hilarious), a Pyramid/Password style gameshow featuring killer crabs, Emily reading from East Eddie's SAT Prep (70's Dirtbag Edition), and a wonderful closing rap of "Mother Crabber" (based on a line of vernacular Sig Haig drops in the film), of which the entire cast completely hits a home run with.  There is also a cameo of encouragement by Jonah, who communicates with his fellow space castaway via a viewing screen and they have a nice gab session.  Emily does question how Jonah hasn't outsmarted Kinga and Max yet as they don't seem that bright, though personally I'd say Jonah gave them a good workaround at the end of last season.  But Emily didn't see that.  The Invention Exchange features Emily showing off the Simulator of Love's giant mech hands, while the Mads have a toothpaste for houseplants called "Plantsodyne," which is just an excuse to show off a houseplant prop with chattering teeth (which would likely have made more sense as a lead-in to the next episode's movie, Munchie, which you'll see why once you see the opening credits).

"Can't we just get BEYOND Atlantis?"  (We all knew this quip was coming)

Getting inside the theater, it was early on that I just started to feel in my gut that I was going to really enjoy this riff, as our leading lady does her soft ascent onto the island's beach, only to have Emily and the Bots pretend the natives are environmentalists encouraging her to leave because it's a "protected beach" and her presence is disrupting hatching turtle eggs.  I laughed, and I continued laughing throughout the movie.  The riffing on Beyond Atlantis is easily the best we've seen yet this season.  I had some reservations about this movie considering how stationary it is, but the best aspect of it is that even when it's still there is always something intriguing about it to point out.  The movie is increasingly sexist fueled by the toxic masculinity of the main characters.  All the jive talk sets a fire under Emily and the Bots, who run with the cringe testosterone of the flick in many different directions, as they mock the "romance" scenes and the male bonding between greedy pirates.  One riff I greatly enjoyed in this area is just a reaction from Tom Servo, after one of our leads mentions he's going to use his share to buy some "fighting cocks."  There are also plenty of riffs that seem specifically to target my generation, such as the line "I killed their Smurfette," which made me laugh harder than it had any right to.  I've also now lived long enough to see an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 make references to Dino-Riders, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and Are You Afraid of the Dark?  I think I'm officially an old man.  Is this what it was like for boomers to hear references to Supercar during the original series?

"And you talk to me in English!"

"That's why American tourists are beloved the world over!"

Beyond Atlantis is an absolute blast from start to finish and easily the best episode of the season thus far.  Unfortunately it takes that title with a little bit of an asterisk in knowing that there is an alternate version of this episode that we will likely never see that might have a better flow to it because it's how it was originally filmed (#ReleaseTheBegleCut?) and knowing that we have a few more episodes that are going to be exactly like this.  But accepting the cards where they lie, it definitely leaves the last two episodes in the dust and is an impressive debut for Emily, Conor, Kelsey, and Yvonne.  One might even say it could arguably be the best cast-debut on the show, as it's easily equal to the likes of The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Revenge of the Creature, and Reptilicus.  Whether it's better than all of them is something I'm not prepared to answer at this time, but what I know in this moment is that I laughed a lot and plan on enjoying this episode many times over down the road.  Great job, rookies.  Now I just need the veterans to give me one this good.

Good

The Backer Livestream

Everything is much more straightforward in this livestream, as they throw the pleasantries out the window and just jump right into the episode, only to greet us at the end for a little roundtable with producer Matt McGinnis, creator Joel Hodgson, and the "new guys" Emily Marsh, Conor McGiffin, and Kelsey Ann Brady (Yvonne Ingrid Freese was unable to attend, but she wasn't in much of the episode anyway).  Joel actually bows out early, so this largely becomes a celebration of the noobs, as they discuss the episode, how they got hired, and compare live performance against studio work (which they all seem to agree are both stressful for different reasons).

This is also the first time Kelsey has joined us during these Zoom discussions (at least that I recall).  She's very bubbly, and she is a performer at heart, because she playacts for the camera in reaction and is constantly playing with little props she has around her, which include Funko Pops of Crow and Bart Simpson and little tiny plastic hands (that freak Matt out at one point).  Kelsey's fidgety handplay seems to rub off on Emily, who is constantly playing with her own prop that she has in reach...a recorder.  So if you're watching with earbuds, now would be a good time to turn down the volume, because she will play it.  You have been warned.  Conor is a bit more calmer than his handsy co-stars, though he does play with sunglasses and a pair of scissors at one point.

The Q&A has more questions specifically for Kelsey than Emily and Conor, which is natural because she's largely an enigma to us.  I found her discussion on how she came up with her Crow voice and how it's different from those who came before her interesting.  They do spend a lot of time discussing the episode at hand (which is more than we got last week), as they talk about filming the instant classic "Mother Crabber" host segment and have a back and forth about their favorite riffs.  Matt also gives Kelsey shit about her Seinfeld impression, and Emily relates an embarrassing moment from the live tour where she had a brain fart and didn't recognize the word "whom" on her riff script while onstage.  Speaking of farts, we also get a little too personal about how well they know each other from their time on the road.

And the answer is no, they never mention the word that begins with "N" and ends with "-ate."  The do seem to be tiptoeing around it, especially when they talk about getting cast on the series and Kelsey doesn't talk very specifically about how she got upgraded to a full castmember while Emily and Conor are both fairly thorough, though she does relate she wasn't the original pick for the job.

It's a fun livestream accompanying a wildly enjoyable episode.  It was definitely a step-up from the all-business, very rehearsed discussion they had for Robot Wars.  And it's revealed that once the finalized versions of Santo, Robot Wars, and Beyond Atlantis stream next week, we'll have some new livestreams to accompany them.

Great.  Give me more shit to type out, why don't ya?

The Premiere Livestream

If you were worried about this livestream having less talk about farts, worry no longer because there is plenty to go around.  Also mixed with the smell of pee and feet too!  It's easily what Matt calls the "Worst Craigslist ad ever" or what Kelsey calls "The BEST!"

This stream largely has the same participants as the backer stream.  The only inclusion we have here that we didn't get for the previous one is Yvonne Freese was able to attend this time.  Otherwise, it's Matt McGinnis, Emily Marsh, Conor McGiffin, and Kelsey Ann Brady are back to talk about how much their bus stinks and how much Emily doesn't want to watch Making Contact again.  Joel also pops in briefly and leaves early on after telling everyone how great they are.  That's two streams with this cast in a row that he bails on.  What did Kelsey do to you, Joel?

Taking in all of that, my big fear for this stream is that it would feel exactly the same as the backer stream.  Luckily maybe forty percent of all the material here feels like it was covered in that one, so it felt mostly fresh to me.  Matt deserves a lot of credit here for picking a batch of questions that weren't asked in the last stream, which covers a lot of new bases like the origin of Emily's surname in the series (which we all guessed came from Terminator, though she said she favored Norris after everyone's favorite Chuck) and the differences between puppeteering Servo and Crow.  I liked the puppeteering questions quite a bit, because Conor goes into detail about not being a trained puppeteer and learning all these different moves he could do with the Servo puppet, while Kelsey talks about how top-heavy Crow is but claims he is a less frustrating puppet than several she worked with when she worked for Disney.  Emily and Yvonne also talk about writing the episode and how they thought the writer's room was exceptional for this episode as well as the odd things about the movie they found funny (Emily is obsessed with the Atlantean eyes).

Well-trodden ground has us covering the audition process for this group again, which we had already covered previously and Kelsey is notably silent for, as she wasn't the original choice for Crow (and no, Nate isn't brought up during this stream either, and I wouldn't expect them to at this point, honestly).  But we do get to hear from Yvonne about what she went through, which includes a funny story about someone trying to steal the seat she was sleeping in at the airport.  They also again talk about the origins of the Mother Crabber rap.

Probably the key thing to this livestream is that it's very funny.  Everyone is in great spirits during it and they're all playing around, likely because they talked about this episode a week ago and are just trying to keep things fun.  And when the sunglasses come out, you know they mean business.  This is a another fun night with the best episode yet this season, and this one deserves it because it sells us on this cast hard and it stands tall with a lot of the most sturdy episodes of the series.  And now that these three episodes are out there for everyone to see, the countdown is on to Munchie, which we all get to suffer through together.

War of the Insects (Cinematic Titanic Live)

Onscreen Title:  "Genocide"

Film Year:  1968

Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror

Director:  Kazui Nihonmatsu

Starring:  Keisuke Sonoi, Yusuke Kawazu, Emi Shindo, Reiko Hitomi, Kathy Horan, Chiko Roland, Ralph Jesser

CT Number:  11

The Movie

Note:  The official title for this movie is  Genocide, and it's even the title of the print featured here.  War of the Insects seems to be a title the US used in the 60's, though I'm not entirely sure why Cinematic Titanic changed that title for promotion, though in cases like The Oozing Skull, Blood of the Vampires, East Meets Watts, and Danger on Tiki Island it was done at the request of the copyright owners.  It's possible there was a similar issue here too.  Or perhaps they thought nobody would want to see a comedy show called "Genocide."

As if Japan didn't have enough bug problems with Mothra on the loose, now a bunch of killer bees want everybody dead too!  An outbreak of killer bugs causes an H-bomb to be lost in transit.  Agents from the US and communists battle over the lost nuke to take back to their country or detonate where they please.  They just have to avoid all the deadly insects with a venom that drives humans and animals insane before dropping dead.

This movie is almost The Happening, only convoluted as fuck and it has a personality.  The film has so many plotlines that it tries to keep relevant that it loses focus on most of them at any given time and it's hard to tell what the primary story is supposed to be.  One would think for a killer critter movie that the insects themselves might be central to the movie but they almost seem to exist by happenstance and are just present while the director makes a spygames movie.

Once we get to the bottom of what is happening with the insects, the movie completely gives up on trying to latch onto any type of coherence.  The finale is a lot of people bumbling around, many things happening at once, before the movie just gives up and says "There.  We're done."  The movie does try to end on a harrowing note with the intended purpose of making the viewer feel uneasy about everything they just saw, but they're more likely to feel unease because everything they've witnessed up until this point was hectic and haphazard.  The movie just collapsing and self-destructing probably was the only way it could have ended.

Of interest to cinephiles, this is one of a fair few riffed films that was released by the Criterion Collection (others include Night of the Living Dead, Carnival of Souls, Armageddon, and the Godzilla films), albeit in one of their Eclipse series box sets grouping movies that they have the rights to but don't want to release individually.  In this case the box was called When Horror Came to Shochiku, which collected genre films by Shochicku studios in the late 60's.

The Live Show

It's pretty easy to get me excited about watching a Japanese genre picture, and if it was featured on Mystery Science Theater, RiffTrax, or, as the case may be this week, Cinematic Titanic, then I'd obviously label it a must-see.  They can get more "out there" than any other film in the industry, and if one wants a hearty experience with craziness, Japan is the best place to look.  For that alone I might be quite biased when it comes to recommending things like War of the Insects because I personally love them so much.  It's possible that not everybody will (Invasion of the Neptune Men is one of my favorite MST episodes, but that's not the case for everyone), so buyer beware on that I suppose.  I do consider War of the Insects to be the best of the live Cinematic Titanic offerings, so make of that what you will.

War of the Insects isn't the most endearing nor the cheesiest Japanese movie any of these riffing projects have tackled.  If anything it's the most dramatic failure at what it's trying to accomplish (yes, I'd argue this movie has more narrative collapse than any given Gamera movie, fight me).  Everything about this movie is nonsense, the movie is so self-serious, and collides various plots in search of something with artistic value.  Cinematic Titanic always seemed to feed of these weird oddities that look and felt they were found under a rock, and War of the Insects fits right in.

The commentary tries to maintain momentum with the film, which is damn near impossible.  They're a bit winded, confused, and curious about this film, and the riffing feels like it's just slightly endeared to it.  They'll make little jabs of intrigue like "Why is the American actor dubbed?" or just playful little humor like dubbing someone "The Japanese Clint Howard."  Most of it is funny because a lot of this movie is noise, and if we don't laugh through the noise we might get overwhelmed by it.  I appreciate their attempts to keep us grounded at least.  As always with Live shows, there is flubbing and lines that they trip over, but this movie is such nonsense that it almost works in its vibe.  In fact, in the heat of the moment it feels natural that we should blame the movie for their screwing up.

While I get a lot of laughs from this offering, one thing I think holds me back from fully saying this is a must-see is that there is so much going on in the movie and it's almost wall-to-wall chaos.  Add in a layer of comedic commentary and audience laughter over it and the experience can be a whirlwind of incoherence.  It's a dangerous game we play and that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.  The fact remains that this Live show does have the laughs and entertainment is through the roof.

Good

The DVD

Like all of Cinematic Titanic's offerings, War of the Insects was initially sold through their website with solid audio and video but no bonus features.  Years later, Shout Factory collected all of Cinematic Titanic for a Complete Collection box set, where it shared a disc with Rattlers.  This disc also houses a bonus feature called Between the Riffs showcasing the behind the scenes of Cinematic Titanic.  This bonus feature was originally on Cinematic Titanic's original Danger on Tiki Island disc.

Billy's Helicopter Ride (RiffTrax Shorts)

RiffTrax Year:  2011

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Billy likes helicopters.  Billy's Uncle Joe flies helicopters.  Coincidence?  You decide.  Whatever the case, Billy's Uncle Joe is here to explain how helicopters work to Billy and will even take him on a helicopter ride where they can see all the thrilling sights, such as freeways, roofs, building tops, and a forest that may or may not be on fire.

I imagine most kids are like Billy and think helicopters are pretty neat.  Coronet arguably does kids a service by making this short about how helicopters work and operate.  And credit where credit is due, they do so without getting too technical or too boring.  Kids want to know how a helicopter flies without wings, and the short more or less answers that question.  Not thoroughly mind you, but enough for them to not answer any more questions.  And of course this short ends with areal views from a helicopter, which will assure some kids that they are afraid of heights at a young age.

"Uncle Joe has something special that he wants to show Billy."

"Oh god!"

This short is kind of fun and while the guys kinda lean a bit into "This is boring" territory, luckily they aren't too reliant on that other than a few jokes that more or less state that Billy wishes he were back at math class.  The riffs do get very playful with types of gags helicopters might be known for, such as mowing down a flock of birds as it takes off, and Mike, Kevin, and Bill do spice up the mundane sightseeing at the end.  Probably the best thing they do for the short is that they give Uncle Joe a personality, a bit grumpier and more ranty than seen in the short but it's funny to see what they do with the character.

The short is enjoyable and so is the ribbing.  This helicopter ride is worth taking.

Thumbs Up

👍

Zombie Nightmare (RiffTrax)

Film Year:  1986
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Jack Bravman
Starring:  Adam West, Tia Carrere, Jon Mikl Thor, Frank Deitz
RiffTrax Year:  2022

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

A boy witnesses his father’s murder then grows up to be a beefcake with a baseball bat.  History repeats itself and he himself is murdered as well.  His mother is unable to cope with the loss of her son, so she takes him to the local voodoo witch (because every town has one) to extract brutal revenge by reanimating his corpse to kill those who took away her family.

Think of it as I Know What You Did Last Summer, only somehow it’s even dumber.  But this one at least stars Adam West as a corrupt cop, so that patented West annunciation is at hand.  Former bodybuilder and music superstar (HAHAHAHAHA, that’s a good one) Jon Mikl Thor plays our titular zombie, at least he does when he’s human.  In Zombie form, Thor wanders off set and a stunt man is regulated to the role.  Tia Carrere is also here, in what may have been her non-True Lies career high point.  Let’s face it, I’d rather be in a crappy 80s horror movie than General Hospital, Wayne’s World, and Jury Duty, but that’s just me.

Why waste an all-star cast like this?  Zombie Nightmare makes the most of it, with cheapie locations in Canada, lackluster special effect, and barely audible dialogue.  It goes for the gold in grindhouse mood and often flunks, with hilarious scenes featuring victim’s running away at top speed while the zombie stumbles in slow motion.  Victim stupidity is at a high point as they just seem to stand around and wait for the zombie to catch up, with my personal favorite going to Tia Carrere’s bizarre escape plan of hiding behind a window and staring out of it.

Worse horror movies have been made, especially in the 80s.  I can’t give Zombie Nightmare points for not sucking as hard as it could have, but at least the unintentional laughs are aplenty.  Plus it has a zombie killing people with a baseball bat, how can you not love that?

The Trax

As a general rule, I don't have much enthusiasm for re-riffs.  When Zombie Nightmare was announced as the latest RiffTrax however, I was enthused.  Not because I felt the Mystery Science Theater episode needed to be improved, as I think it's an all-time classic, but it also suffered from being horrendously edited for television.  That version of the movie comes close to incoherency, as entire plot points are just excised from the movie because they would have been too graphic.  RiffTrax taking on the film gives the opportunity for a more cohesive edit now that they aren't slaves to time frames and TV censorship.

Ultimately that's about all this riff has to offer.  It's a more coherent film experience than the MST episode (even though ten minutes have been shaved off), but the worst experience of a re-riff is always the sensation that they're essentially making the same joke the previous riff had done, only it's not nearly as funny.  Zombie Nightmare is one of those experiences, where Mike, Kevin, or Bill will say something and I instantly recall the riff from the MST episode that it echoes and find myself wishing I were watching that instead because it was much funnier then.  If anything in Zombie Nightmare feels on-target, that's because they've done most of these jokes before from "Hank Peters, Italian Grocer" to the CSI with the oddly exaggerated accent.

Though credit where credit is due, they do riff Frank Deitz a bit more in this version, which might make the noted MST fan happy.  Adam West jokes are a bit lighter here, and they don't ride on Batman references as hard as they had when they first watched this film.  There is a pretty smart Seth MacFarlane jab in his first scene though.  Oddly they don't note Tia Carrere in this riff like they did in the previous one, likely because Carrere's star status has fallen since the 90's.  Still, it's Tia Carrere.  I don't care if she is in her 50's now, anybody who lived through Wayne's World and True Lies should snap to instant attention when she's present.  To not do so is disrespectful to the queen.

There are a few odd esoteric riffs in the commentary that underline how underwhelming the experience is.  In the climax, there are lines of "It's quiet, a little too quiet" which leads to Mike saying "A little too Raph," which is a reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II:  The Secret of the Ooze, which isn't a terrible reference to make except you just know deep down someone much younger than Mike wrote that line and it doesn't feel like he relates to it.  There is also a line about the zombie belching like "Eudora Welty," which is a very odd riff to make because it's a very specific reference to a random one-off joke on the Simpsons about Eudora Welty in a burping contest.  But since Welty isn't best known for The Simpsons (this is like saying Stephen Hawking is primarily a Simpsons character), this is kind of a bad joke to make, especially since the Simpsons has no shortage of characters who burp constantly.

The RiffTrax version of Zombie Nightmare is not a harsh experience due to the film being so perfect for the format, and the version of the film seen here is much more to the film's advantage.  It's probably worth checking out for that, or if you haven't seen the MST version then you might find this much funnier.  And yeah, there are a couple of laughs (I lolled at Bill questioning why the voodoo witch would cross herself during her ritual).  But alas, what it boils down to is that there is a riff out there for this film that is a home run while this riff is just a pretender that fails to clone it.  It's too bad that such a classic can be turned into such a dud.

Not Recommended

Glasses for Susan: A New Day (RiffTrax Shorts)

RiffTrax Year:  2018

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Susan has been having trouble lately.  She has been misreading signs, overlooking details, and can't seem to see the chalkboard in class.  Her teacher suggests that she gets her eyes checked and, sure enough, Susan needs glasses!  After getting her new glasses she can see everything much clearer, and finds life is much cooler with 20/20!

This short is actually kind of well made in ways I didn't expect.  It's done completely pantomime and it relates its story quite clearly even while striking out one of film's communication techniques.  That earns Glasses for Susan some sort of kudos, because it portrays itself visually, while other shorts like this would be content to just lecture.  The fact that it portrays easy to relate to scenarios is a clever way of helping children or their families maybe recognize some of the signs of poor vision.

The one drawback is that if a child has poor vision, they might not be able to even see the short to identify what the short is trying to tell them visually.  Oops.

Despite the short being fairly competent and cute, the riff is a fairly consistent ribbing.  The main draw to riffing a pantomime short is that they can project any kind of voice onto it and it will normally stick.  With Glasses for Susan they have no problem doing so, as most of the characters are so simple that practically anything can work as dialogue for them, like Susan getting her eyes tested and wondering if with perfect vision that 70's fashion will look less garish and hideous.  More expressive moments in the pantomime also come under fire, like the clueless look on Susan's teacher's face or some weird chicken like dance Susan's friend performs.  Glasses for Susan is a charming delight, but that doesn't mean it can't be hilarious.

Thumbs Up

👍

The Devil's Hand (The Mads)

Film Year:  1961

Genre:  Thriller

Director:  William J. Hole Jr.

Starring:  Robert Alda, Linda Christian, Ariadna Welter, Neil Hamilton, Gere Craft

Special Guest:  Dave Hill

The Movie

The Devil's Hand is the story of Robert Alda having dreams of the lovely Linda Christian, which amount to just imagery of her dancing around in a nighty.  So, of course, he wants to tap that.  Making his dreams even weirder is that he sees a doll resembling the mystery woman in the window of a doll shop, and the doll shop owner (played by Neil Hamilton of TV's Batman) informs Alda that he was the one who ordered it made.  Alda has no recollection of this, but soon he meets the woman of his dreams in real life.  She turns out to be a witch member of a voodoo devil worshiping cult, which the doll shop is a front for.  As Alda falls madly for her spell, he becomes intertwined in the satanic rituals.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans might be interested in knowing that The Devil's Hand was a movie that was quickly made for a double feature, in which its co-feature was Bloodlust, which is a film that feels similarly in how it has an engaging premise that it hasn't quite thought out that well.  Apparently The Devil's Hand was shot very fast as the very young distributor Crown International Pictures had little money (Bloodlust and The Devil's Hand were among its first films) and wanted the movie done and making revenue as soon as possible.  Crown was so short on cash that they wound up stiffing some of the actors on their paychecks, including lead actresses and sisters in real life Linda Christian and Ariadna Welter.

It comes as no surprise that the film was filmed in a hurry.  It feels padded to reach a bare minimum for feature film length while actual moments where the plot actually moves are few and far between as the film seemingly contemplates where it should take this nonsense next.  It all too often decides to do something that might seem cool in concept but lackluster in execution, such as a wheel of blades where some are real and some are paper and spinning it to decree that survivors are chosen as true believers of their cause.  This idea falls flat as all the blades look fake and when one strikes it's hard to tell if you're supposed to react to it as if someone got killed or not until the movie tells you.

Credit where credit is due, The Devil's Hand has half an idea here that could make a pretty solid movie.  It doesn't even need to change its cast even, as everyone plays their roles fine with special marks to the sisterly-duo-playing-romantic-rivals Christian and Welter, who I enjoyed in the film quite a lot.  Christian in particular is an excellent femme fatale villain.  There are things here that are promising, such as playing with the voodoo dolls for various effects on characters which make for some effective sequences.  One of the cooler ones involves Neil Hamilton using a doll to have a man wreck his car and then he lights the doll on fire to set it ablaze.  The Devil's Hand never lives up to its best moments, which is too bad because it makes me want to like it.

The Riff

In the pre-show to The Devil's Hand, Frank claimed that while watching it he thought there was no way this movie would work for them.  My response:  Frank, dude, I love ya but you pushed to get Red Zone Cuba on MST3K.  The Devil's Hand is child's play by comparison.  At any rate, the movie was already featured by RiffTrax over a decade ago and had already proven itself to be good fodder, so I don't really see a reason to be apprehensive about this movie.  But Frank had eventually seen the light and admitted it seemed like a "classic Mystery Science Theater type of movie," which it is.  There are some light Leech Woman or Violent Years vibes that this movie gives off, and it does work about as well as its double feature partner Bloodlust (which is one of my favorite MST episodes ever).

And like RiffTrax, the Mads do pretty well with the film.  In fact, they seem to be vibing with RiffTrax pretty hard here because they hit a good number of the same jokes that the other riffing project put forth.  I doubt that the Mads had seen the RiffTrax version because they never really acknowledge its existence throughout the stream (and they likely didn't know that the movie was featured on RiffTrax), so I'm inclined to believe this is all a coincidence.  But if you have the RiffTrax version in your head, the Mads version does seem a bit like an echo.  They mock things like the voodoo bongo player only knowing one tune, the logic of the voodoo doll witchcraft, and even acknowledge the name "William J. Hole Jr."

But there is a bit of fresh material to keep us occupied.  Trace constantly questions the pronunciation of "Gamba" as they tend to switch throughout the film.  Frank is feeling fairly political (which, if you've seen his Twitter, is par for the course for Frank) taking a ton of shots at political figures like Melina Trump and Lauren Boebert.  In addition to that, there are even a few current references that will likely not age well, including Frank referencing the "Feather in My Cap" puzzle that stumped contestants on Wheel of Fortune a few weeks ago.  Trace also gets topical in his own way by making a killer joke about a Dick Van Dyke commercial he, Frank, Chris, and guest Dave Hill were discussing in the pre-show, which I'm sure was an improv line (and Frank's laughter at it is infectious).  But my favorite line of the entire thing:

"You have Proven yourself well!"

"Now put on your bunny costume and start serving cocktails!"

As mentioned above, our Q&A guest tonight is Dave Hill, a musician who actually came up with the intro theme to these Mads shows.  He's a less witty commentator than most of the guests the Mads have on, but he's fun and interesting.  He gets a few questions geared toward him about music, including live performances he loved and he also tours us through a bunch of guitars he owns.  The Mads answer a question about uncomfortable costumes, where Frank trash talks his hand-me-down chauffeur uniform that was originally worn by Josh Weinstein and they both reminisce about a death trap prop which involved Trace putting his head in a saxophone.  Current media talk asks what everyone is watching on TV, to which Trace gushes about Peacemaker, Frank talks about Euphoria, and Dave Hill looks forward to Tokyo Vice.  One question that fizzles is a question about films that are poorly received that everyone enjoyed, which turns into Frank talking about how traditional film criticism is becoming archaic to a degree.  The only person who really answers the question is Chris who uses the time to say that he enjoyed the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Netflix (I disagree, so far it's the worst movie I've seen this year and a new low for its franchise), claiming Wonder Woman 1984 got better reviews despite being worse (also disagree, I had fun with that one).  Nothing immediately springs to mind for me (Uncharted or Death on the Nile maybe, but I don't feel all that passionately about either), though I might go the safe route and say critics were unjustly harsh on Godzilla:  King of the Monsters, which is the weakest MonsterVerse movie but a ton of fun.  Similarly, I thought The Meg was a monster movie blast, but it got pretty smoked when it was released.  But if we're on the subject of serial killer movies, Halloween Kills is both better than it's reputation and a far better watch than the bullshit overrated 2018 film.

While this riff tends to fly a bit too close for comfort to the RiffTrax version than I think most will be comfortable with, personally I appreciate the vibe of the Mads show a little more.  It's a bit lighter and breezier (and not just because they cut ten minutes out of the movie), while RiffTrax tended to be a bit harder and meaner.  The downside with the Mads version is that the more topical riffs will tend to age it harshly as time goes on.  Both are pretty good, mind you, and they're both similar experiences.  It's a case of "pick your poison" that is hard to give a wrong answer to.

Good

Santa Claus' Workshop (RiffTrax Shorts)

RiffTrax Year:  2017

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

This rather generic Christmas short is just a really cheap holiday "treat" for good little boys and girls who want to see Santa Claus in action.  Here we get to see him work with his full workforce of...::counts:: three elves, then he jumps into a cardboard box shaped like a sleigh, and delivers presents on Christmas Eve to the children of the world.  Well, specifically one family.

There's nothing really to say about Santa Claus' Workshop because it's just a self-evident bit of fairly tale hokum to keep kids eyes wide way back in the day.  Considering kids could go to serials on Saturdays with budgets just as low and stay enraptured in that, I imagine it might have went down well.  It just ages like milk spilled under the fridge.

Likewise there isn't a huge lot I can say about the riffing here, which is solidly funny, if a bit workmanlike.  The jovial nature of the short keeps their spirits up and their quips are a fun bit of turnabout, but I wouldn't blame one for finding it all a bit a well-treaded path.  We've seen a lot of Christmas shorts by now, and a lot of them feature Santa Claus doing his Santa thing.  One wonders just how much more they can mine from that.  A musical carol of Pretty Woman is cute, but is it fresh?

Fresh might be beside the point though.  Will you get laughs for the dollar you pay?  Yes.  Just know a lot of it will seem familiar.

Thumbs Up

👍

1302-Robot Wars

Film Year:  1993

Genre:  Science Fiction

Director:  Albert Band

Starring:  Don Michael Paul, Barbara Crampton, James Staley, Lisa Rinna

MST Season:  13

Host:  Jonah

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

In the year 2041, North America has been turned into a barren wasteland by a cataclysmic event.  Warring factions the North Hemi and the Eastern Alliance are in the middle of negotiations for the North Hemi to construct smaller versions of their giant robot vehicles for the Eastern Alliance in hopes of boosting their own economy and building better relations between the two sides.  But the Eastern Alliance representative General Wa-Lee betrays the North Hemi and seizes the opportunity to steal the giant mech MRAS-2.  It's up to hotshot robot pilot Captain Drake, his co-pilot Stumpy, and archeologist Lena Faning to uncover the remains of an older robot, MEGA-1, and stop Wa-Lee from stealing the MRAS-2 and taking a group of hostages with him.

Full Moon features usually have their own distinctive look and feel to them, flavored by their producer Charles Band.  Mystery Science Theater has already seen a couple of Band productions on their show in Laserblast and The Day Time Ended, both of which featured cheap film stock, clumsy acting, and stop motion effects.  Band went full speed ahead on these concepts with the direct-to-video market which was Full Moon's target audience.  I haven't seen a ton of Full Moon features, as I'm mostly familiar with their children's line of Moonbeam from when I was a tyke (which resulted in movies like Prehysteria and Dragonworld).  Though of course, most will know Full Moon from it's long-running horror franchise, Puppet Master, which this film pokes fun at with a theater in 2041 playing the film Puppet Master 54.

I'm sure they snickered to themselves at this absurd joke at the time because there were only three Puppet Master movies at the time while a fourth and a fifth were being filmed back to back.  As of this writing, Puppet Master is preparing to release its fifteenth film (a spin-off of its Doktor Death character), so who's laughing now?

Robot Wars is very much a Full Moon film, looking excessively cheap throughout its runtime with a couple of shots that you can tell they blew their entire budget on.  One thing the Puppet Master movies had going for them, and that first film in particular, it that it knew how to scale back and ration out its money to what it needed and what effects they can afford.  Robot Wars is almost embarrassingly ambitious by comparison.  Hell, the title promises two things:  Robots and wars.  Living up to that is probably more money than Charles Band has ever thrown at a movie.  That being said, the movie is very light on both robots and wars.  Atlantic Rim had more robots and wars than this movie.

Why the fuck am I even here?

Robot Wars is 70 minutes long, and with a runtime like that it should be brisk and action packed.  It's not.  The movie's first act takes 45 minutes to play out, and it plays it as if the film is two hours long.  After that, the movie just kind of mushes its second and third acts into some sort of payoff pudding for the final half-hour.  When we do finally get to see some robot action, the sequence is about four minutes long, featuring some awesome stop motion animation and some silly model bumping edited in.

The film doesn't really have much of a human plot.  The lead is played by future Tremors 5, 6, and 7 director Don Michael Paul who is pretty much playing Big McLargeHuge from Space Mutiny if he were a bit unhinged like Gary Busey.  Cult icon (and woman who got her head blown up in Chopping Mall) Barbara Crampton plays his love interest, though the screenplay seems to be written by someone who had seen one too many episodes of Moonlighting and felt the only way to express sexual tension is for the two leads to get increasingly irritated at each other.  The romantic angle is two-dimensional and even a little bit creepy in how Paul treats Crampton's character, but I think the filmmakers knew more men would be renting this movie than women so they didn't worry about her coming off as a sexual reward for his character.  Just as offensive are the films take on Asian villains.  The stereotype stretching is one thing, though the movie crosses a line when they communicate in a language that is Asian-influenced but obviously off-the-cuff gibberish.

How are the robots?  If I'm being honest...they're really fucking cool.  That's what's painful about this movie, it looks like shit for most of the time then it tosses in some cool designs and becomes fun briefly to tease you before becoming flat again.  MRAS-2 has a badass scorpion influenced design while MEGA-1 is a charming and huggable rock-em-sock-em.  The movie springs to life when they're onscreen, but it's always refraining from using them and thrusting us into cheap sets and stock locations on backlots, which makes Robot Wars a bit of a pain in the ass.

The Episode

Welcome back to another episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000!  One might initially think four weeks is too long to wait for another episode, but hey it's shorter than the three years we waited for the last one!

Today we're settling down with a nice viewing of Robot Wars, a movie that does remind one of the good ol' selection we used to face on the Sci-Fi Channel, though it's a fairly uneven flick that isn't quite bolstered by its commentary.  Robot Wars is an episode that mostly passes inspection for simulating the vibe of a good MST3K episode, even if it doesn't quite achieve a frequency of its own.  It's a movie that feels like it should work but the comedy doesn't feel all that inspired by it.  Jabs are present and can make for a laugh or two, and I did quite enjoy barbs like answering the question of "What would John Wayne do?" with "Say something racist." ("Remember the Alamo!"  "Yep, like that!")  I feel like the episode tends to tread water a lot though, as it struggles to find a correct joke so it just tosses one out to fill dead air.  When MEGA-1 is introduced in the climax of the episode, the best Jonah can do is pretend it's Alpha 5 from Power Rangers and recite Zordon's opening lines at it, but the robot doesn't really look all that much like Alpha 5 so the line falls flat (EDIT:  I'm realizing in retrospect that he might be comparing the MEGA-1 to the Megazord, but even if that were the case that specific "teenagers with attitude" line doesn't fit the scene).  There are also a few token references to previous episodes, such as a Space Mutiny "BLAST HARDCHEESE!" name drop (to be fair, I knew this had to be in the cards considering how similar our hero is to Dave Ryder), and early on there are a few odd recycled riffs from This Island Earth that I don't think quite landed.  Robot Wars is full of scattered odds and ends like this, which feel present for the sake of being present.

I can't be negative about the experience as a whole because of the doofus amusement that a film like Robot Wars provides by its lonesome and when Jonah and the Bots hit, they do score a hit.  I got some quality laughs from the observation that Don Michael Paul is obviously all in on the simulation of being in a robot brawling with another robot by bobbing up and down conveying turbulence, meanwhile passenger Barbara Crampton is just sitting stationary (and now I can't unsee it).  Even earlier is a dig at Crampton's sleuthing preparation, to which she says she's been working on her investigation for weeks and Crow chimes in that she has "Two whole pictures and some dirt!"  It's easy to stay in love what Mystery Science Theater has to offer us, even if the whole isn't the sum of its parts.

One noteworthy aspect of the riffing for this episode is that Robot Wars brings back riffing during the end credits of the movie, which is something lost during the Netflix seasons that I was fully in support of bringing back.  To an extent it feels like the folks making the show don't understand why fans wanted this, as a lot of Robot Wars's credits is filled with just reading names and making jokes off of them paired with awkward silence, so there is an aura of "Are you sure this is what you want?"  The answer to that question is yes, though I'd always advocate filling that time in more creative ways, like Mike's forced perspective presentation in Future War, the Final Sacrifice TV series pitch, or "TUSK" in Werewolf.  At any rate, it's a nice wind-down from the movie and it does help set up Servo and Crow having their own "Robot War" in the following host segment.

Now that we bring up those host segments, Robot Wars is mostly full of costume skits inspired by the film, as a lot of them are excuses to put Jonah and his little companions in funny little outfits and play oddball characters.  This is very much the show embracing a variety show format, as one saw them doing this quite a bit in the previous episode too.  The closing Robot War between Servo and Crow is a treat, while I also enjoyed the bit where the trio were playing "flight attendants" on MRAS-2.  By contrast, the whole 90's vibe sales pitch is just okay, while I wasn't too into the segment devoted to comedic stooge Stumpy from the film, but there was a cameo by Kinga and Max during it that slayed me.  On the subject of Kinga and Max, there are adjustments to the coloring of their Moon 1 backdrop that adds more violet to it so that the duo looks less disconnected to their surrounding and it's much easier on the eyes (I'm assuming that this is going to be added to the previous episode for the final version).  Their segments are highlighted by a cold open where Baron Vaughn graduates from Bot voicing to live character portrayal like other Bot handling predecessors and portrays a character named Dr. Kabahl, the Mysterious Financier from the Future, who is the one bankrolling the Gizmoplex for Kinga.  Baron's really fun in the role, and it's stated in the livestream that we'll see more of him and I'm excited for that.  The segment sets up some new remodeling for the Gizmoplex and the Satellite of Love, and Cabal states that the experiment should have more than one test subject.  As Kinga and Max fret about this, they send for a Gizmonic technician who just happens to be... 

Pre-Release Version:

Premiere Version:

So probably the big talk of this episode will be that it's the debut of Emily Marsh as the new MST co-host Emily Connor (at least in the show proper, as Emily has been built up through Live Shows, Turkey Days, and livestreams since 2019).  Not a whole lot is known about her at this point except that she's presented like an upselling mechanic during her one scene, where she talks Synthia's ear off during the shuttle ride to the moon.  There is a hint of things to come as Kinga says to Max "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" which has echoes of Dr. Forrester's ominous "Say Mike, what size jumpsuit do you wear?" at the end of Mitchell.  Where things go from here is a bit left in the dark.  That final line might indicate that Beyond Atlantis could be Emily's first episode, but I think it's more likely we won't see her riff until Munchie as the next episode builds up her being hijacked by Kinga a bit more (Editor's Note:  I was wrong).  It's titillating to see new blood this close to being unleashed on the series and I have high hopes for the character and her Bot team of Conor McGiffin and Nate Begle. (Editor's Note:  Nate Begle actually left this project very quietly and I along with many other fans were surprised to find he was overdubbed by Kelsey Ann Brady in the Beyond Atlantis and future episodes.)

I do ask myself whether or not I'm over-scrutinizing at times.  In the case of the previous episode, I thought it was half a good episode and half an okay one, so I rounded down to keep myself restrained from being a gushing fanboy.  Robot Wars I feel is a bit more inconsistent, though bright spots that shine in the rough patches, so by comparison to the grading curve I started with the premiere, this season is off to a fairly middling start.  Is this too harsh?  I dunno.  One thing that needs to be noted is that I don't do this.  Not "talk about MST3K," I do that all the time (some might wish I talk about it less).  When I started writing these, this blog was about episodes I had seen many times over and already had established opinions of.  I even took time with the Netflix seasons to resonate with me before I wrote about those episodes, especially since I was still in the middle of creating entries for the classic series.  I'm done with that and I have no excuse to not cover these as they come out except that I'm lazy.  Forming a full opinion of an episode overnight is something I haven't really done for this blog, only precedented by off-the-cuff RiffTrax and Mads reviews.  But with MST I've always been a bit more careful and guided by things I already think.  Bearing that in mind, episodes like Robot Wars might grow on me over time, we'll have to wait and see.  Until then I'm inclined to say it's toward the middle of the pack.

Average

The Backer Livestream

This livestream was a bit different than the previous ones.  Just about all the extra content in it was pre-recorded, as opposed to the live presentations they gave us for Santo in The Treasure of Dracula or the Tribute to Manos.  I imagine a lot of this has to do with production deadlines and it might also have been easier to work with already filmed material than doing everything in the moment.  The entire stream isn't exactly smooth sailing, as there are less tech issues but it has less of a flow to it than previous ones.  For example, this stream has two intros:  one with Joel Hodgson through a webcam and one with writers Matt McGinnis and Gabe Castro on set with some (intentionally?) cringe rehearsed material.  Concluding the stream is a roundtable discussion with Joel, Matt, Ivan Askwith, and Leslie Kinzel, which feels more like a shareholder meeting than a fun sitdown.

It's not a non-worthwhile experience, as they get a bit creatively playful with some fun winks to the last live show.  They pretend the stream breaks during the opening theme song as the video just freezes and we see the all-powerful White Dot.  However, this stream went live on April 1st so we get the message of APRIL FOOLS soon after.  What a glorious cameo!  And the roundtable discussion does hit home a lot of points that people might have questions about, such as what the Gizmoplex has to offer the series and what might shape a potential season 14.

One apt comparison that I don't think they hit on is that the show is sold through the Gizmoplex similarly to the way RiffTrax offers their video-on-demand content as pay-per-selection options (this is outside the relatively new RiffTrax Friends subscription model), which might be the most simplistic way to describe how MST content is being housed on the website.  The live events take things a step further than that with offering sort of "group gab" sessions with the fans to work the crowd and create community experiences.  A lot about what they talk about is sort of a long road to conclusions that I've found pretty easy to read, though I found some of the insight about struggles finding a home for the show on network and streaming fairly interesting as it gives more context for why MST didn't quite land on its feet during the streaming era like it should have.

Whether the Gizmoplex is a sustainable model for the series is up in the air, though I think it's a healthy environment for it to develop its personality.  Joel admits there is a possibility that this could be the last season for the show.  I hope it isn't, as I'm invested in seeing it evolve further, especially in a realm outside of corporate influence.  Our indie puppet show is taking its "indie" cred back.

Ultimately what's lacking from this stream is discussion of the episode itself.  They do briefly address it by praising Baron's new role as Dr. Kabahl (which they damn well should, because he's great) but they really don't go further than that other than a cute pun during the intro asking how it compares to the old television robot fighting competition series BattleBots (because there was a competing show that was also called Robot Wars, you see).  Not much is talked about here, nor is there any discussion of Emily's debut on the show, which is a sad oversight even if her role is brief.

And if I were to bring up one last note of disappointment, the livestream that was supposed to happen on April 15th was postponed to May 12th, which means our next stream will be the Beyond Atlantis premiere in four weeks.  Bummer.  But we'll get three straight weeks of live content, so we have that to look forward to.

This whole event is like having your teacher sit down in a backwards chair and trying to talk to you on your level about things that aren't really that hard to deduce.  There are tidbits worth picking up from it, and Leslie is a glowing gem in the conversation as she really approaches the scenario as a fan of the series.  Joel even relates an amusing situation where a woman on Facebook told him he should just "Give up." (I think I know about the person he's talking about, though I won't make assumptions so I'll say no more).  They all laugh it off, as they should.  Giving up would bring no rewards, and even if the series were to die here, the reward then becomes giving it your best shot and standing on your own two feet when it's over.

You aren't breaking us, Apollo.  We're the Italian Stallion.

The Premiere Livestream

The participants of the Gizmoplex grand opening livestream are dropping like flies this time around.  It all starts ominously as the feed breaks and the episode started about twenty minutes late, with less White Dot than the original Santo stream.  Things continue to fritz out as Matt McGinnis tries to introduce writer Matt Oswalt, brother of Patton, to help introduce the festivities, but Matt O. can't get his sound to work.  As the non-TV's-Son-of-TV's-Frank Oswalt brother bows out to try and fix it (spoiler alert:  He is absent for almost the entire stream), Matt McG. introduces us to the rest of our guests tonight:  Jonah Ray, Joel Hodgson (who both have dropped feeds at different points, joining Matt O. in limbo), and special guest Robot Wars star Barbara Crampton!  Barbara is actually a guest that Matt Oswalt is friends with and helped book for this special event, but unfortunately Barbara flies without Matt for the majority of the stream.  But she seems to be happy to talking about a movie that isn't Chopping Mall.  Though Jonah and Matt McG. are both huge fans of Chopping Mall.

I'll be honest, I don't trust people who don't love Chopping Mall, so Jonah and Matt are now in my circle of trust.

As always, I have nothing but love for Barbara.  She's a fun presence, and she knows she has some bad movies under her belt.  Robot Wars is one she seems to have mostly gone on with her life without having thought twice about, and she says watching it through Mystery Science Theater was the first time she's seen it in ages.  She does remember a bit about making it, relating just how hard Charles Band pitched the movie to her and how much the film itself doesn't live up to that.  She also talks about how she was able to bring one of her friends on to play her galpal in the film, which was how Lisa Rinna was cast, and lets the secret slip that Lisa and lead Don Michael Paul had a fling while filming the movie.  Jonah asks for some "hot goss" on who Stumpy hooked up with, to which Barbara is nearly speechless.  She's stumped on Stumpy.  There are a few production questions Joel has for her, such as how long the shoots were and whether the movie was direct to video (Full Moon was mostly a direct to video label, so her confirming Robot Wars was a DTV movie is not really a surprise).  A lot of this sparks Barbara reminiscing about doing work for Charles Band under Empire Pictures with films like Re-Animator and how it evolved into Full Moon with Puppet Master.

They ask her about movies that she has done that might be good for the show, and she hypes up a vampire movie called The Sisterhood which she thinks would be great for the series because "It has a lot of sex in it," until they remind her that this is a family show (that didn't stop us from seeing Mitchell's baby oil, let me tell you).  Barbara then brings up a TV movie called Lightning:  Fire from the Sky, which was actually directed by Time Chasers director David Giancola.  The discussion then turns to Giancola for a bit as Barbara tries to remember a movie that he made with "a pin-up girl who died early," which turned out to be Anna Nicole Smith.  She eventually settles on a movie called Addicted to Fame, which may or may not be the movie she's thinking of but but is actually a documentary made by Giancola after Anna Nicole had passed away on the making of her final film Illegal Aliens, which he also directed.  Finally Barbara's husband suggests Cold Harvest, which they don't really discuss at all.  (Someone on the Mystery Discourse forum suggested Space Truckers, which I haven't seen in decades but from memory would probably suit the show well).

Matt Oswalt finally gets a moment where he can get at least some audio in.  It's enough for him to ask Barbara if she can do a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" with her career, to which Barbara is a bit perplexed on, though she does relate a story about how she saw Kevin Bacon at a restaurant one time, which ends with her dropping the F-bomb on this stream targeting families.  Oops!  But the deed is done, and everyone takes it in stride.  We just need to remind her that she's not on Shudder talking about Castle Freak with Joe Bob Briggs anymore.  Matt's feed gets garbled soon after that and is kicked out of the discussion for the rest of the stream.

One minor note, the crew seems to have come up with a method for delivering names of backers intermittently throughout the stream rather than all at once.  I guess Joel had a talk with them about spending ten minutes at the end of the last stream doing it, since he seemed really taken aback by it.  Barbara even gets to list a few names (those lucky people!) and there Jonah sounds off the name Tiffany Fricke, who is a MSTie that I know from Twitter and is one of the nicest fans you'll ever meet.  If you're on that app, give her a follow.  She's a sweetheart.

Some minor nitpicks about this stream, the episode itself is given very little discussion, notably the appearances of Dr. Kabahl and Emily are not discussed.  The spotlight is squarely on Barbara and her recalling the production of this movie, which is not a raw deal as special guests with insights to the film itself are always a treat, like Frank Deitz (who is namedropped in this stream) and Jackie Neyman Jones.  It's a bit unfortunate since the previous livestream burned itself on a sitdown with less patient fans, though it did touch briefly on Baron's new role.  That being said, this stream was a lot better than the backer stream and it was infinitely more fun.  I hope they get to do more interviews with cast and crew from these films.  I imagine that Demon Squad director/co-writer Thomas Smith and co-writer/star Erin Lilley Smith would definitely be game for this and Christmas Dragon co-writer Shylah Addante has shown enthusiasm for the show featuring the film and interest in talking about her experience on the movie as well.  And sex-be-damned, let's get Sisterhood on this show and ask Barbara Crampton back.  She's a treat for every stream she's on.