"Sleep for Health" & A Tribute to Gamera vs. Guiron

The Short

This short was initially written partially by Kickstarter backers as a riffing seminar reward tier for the 2015 Kickstarter for season eleven, but due to some undisclosed "legal reason" (per Kickstarter update) they weren't allowed to release it.  I'm not sure what this legal reason is, but it doesn't seem normal.  The idea that this short could possibly be under some copyright seems almost asinine, as it's older than the other shorts we've seen so far and is in much worse shape.  If I were to speculate, I'd say it might not have meant to have been released at all, but they decided to produce it as one of the shorts for this season to acknowledge all the backers past and present.

Either way, I didn't care for it.

Sleep for Health is a bit of a silly film about the importance of sleep to the human body, displaying sleep practices and what sleeping looks like, even detouring a bit into the subconsciousness for dreams.  I don't know if I learned anything from this short, though I imagine it's for young children who don't understand why bedtime is so important.

The short is a bit of a snoozer, but the riffing doesn't exactly wake me up.  Riffed by Joel Hodgson with Conor McGiffin and Kelsey Ann Brady, riffs feel barren and without a large comedic push behind them.  Revealing that the script was partially written by amateurs doesn't come as a surprise, because a lot of jokes lack power or precision.  And there are patches where nothing is happening and a joke can easily fit into a space but Joel and the Bots offer nothing.  What makes it even worse is the audio of the short is very soft, which makes dead air feel even more startling.  The short is consistent in feeling like a missed opportunity.

Now, I don't want to be completely down on this short because I'm betting the riffing seminar was a lot of fun for those who participated and the existence of this short feels like the fruit of everyone's efforts.  Because of that, I'm going to say it has value and I'm glad it exists.  And I did get a couple of laughs at some good lines, such as Crow's growing concern for the family's baby which was seemingly erased from existence as the short went on.  It's cool that this happened, but it's just not up to the standards I'm used to setting for this show.

Thumbs Down

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The Livestream

It's been a while since we had a Tribute event.  We didn't even have one last month, as the Gixmoplex came in hot with three straight new episode premiere events, likely to drive customers to it.  But it's funny to think that our "Short of the Month" selection skipped last month entirely.  But we're back to these small appetizers again.  The intro tickled me this month, as Pearl lumbers onscreen, clearly exhausted, and is seemingly irritated that she picked out a short about sleep.

Post short, we are celebrating the triumphant return of Gamera to Mystery Science Theater in two weeks by paying tribute to the fan favorite Gamera entry, Gamera vs. Guiron (review here).  We have some small delightful host segments as Jonah and Emily make their way through the lumbering beast of a kids' kaiju flick.  Jonah and his Bots take some time to learn Japanese in the event of a monster attack before discussing what their counterparts would be like on the counter-planet Terra (setting up a Mirror Universe parody where everyone has facial hair).  Meanwhile, Emily tries to prep up a monster emergency kit just in case of an attack, though the Bots derail Emily's attempts at kaiju safety.

This event was supposed to be paired up with a brand new Jackbox competition billed as "Crow vs. Servo," which I'm assuming was meant to be a team of Hampton and Kelsey (and maybe Bill?) pitted against a team of Baron and Conor (and maybe J. Elvis?) in another live comedy video game competition similar to what we saw during the 2021 Kickstarter livestreams.  Soon after they started branding this event as such, they cancelled it, claiming it would have made the event too long.  Fair, I guess, as the last Jackbox was very extensive.  But it was also hilarious, so I'm bummed about that.

Instead of anything live, they last minute replaced the event with a bonus feature from the Volume XXI:  MST3K vs. Gamera box set, which was called So Happy Together:  A Look Back at MST3K and Gamera, which was an overview of MST's history with the Gamera franchise featuring discussions with Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, and J. Elvis Weinstein.  It's a very good featurette and it's a solid opportunity for people who don't own that box set to see it, but it's also only twenty minutes long and that's all they're offering.  It's a bit of an anti-climax to what could have been a wildly entertaining evening, but I suppose we have to understand why it should be this way.

Anyway the Jackbox event is being rescheduled for later this month as a bonus for people who purchased this ticket.  I'll likely add that onto this review when that is released.  Unfortunately I don't have anything more substantial to add about this event, but there was hardly any substance to it.  The short was lacking, but at least we had a great episode and the new bonus segments were fun.  It's not their finest hour in these Gizmoplex events, though.