"Balance Beam for Girls" & A Tribute to Devil Doll

The Short

The glory of gymnastics is one that has been adored by many, most of which were wee ones who watched Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the 90's who thought Kimberly's gymnast abilities were equal to a form of martial arts.  Here we have an old training film that shows off a gymnast working some moves on a balance beam, likely so students could study it and then try it themselves so if putty monsters attack they could kick them in the face.

I'm assuming all of this is accurate to gymnastics.  It would be pretty fucked up for this film to exist if it weren't.  The film doesn't really walk us through the steps of proper routines, opting instead just to show them performed with some slight commentary.  Balance Beam for Girls plays out like one of those "How To..." Goofy cartoons, only done with a straight face and less pratfalling.

In fact, I think there is a gymnastics Goofy cartoon.  Maybe I should watch that instead.

But before I do that, this short is given to Emily's crew, who do an adequate job.  There are a bit too many soft jabs like "Well, this is an unfortunate angle." and the like.  Y'know, commentary that points out things that might be humorous if they played it up.  Instead, we get jokes that are like "Think of how funny this would be if we made fun of it."  The pullback gags like this are a bit of a downer.  They can push a little further with lines commenting on the sexual nature of certain positions, such as the "straddle," which Emily has the narrator defend with "Stop snickering!  I didn't name these!"  It's still a bit of a pullback joke, but it works better.  They tend to get funnier when they throw in some silly pop culture references, like a gratuitous slow motion scene causing Crow to wonder if they're watching the Snyder Cut, or a rather perfect Saturday Night Live reference to "SUPERSTAR!"  Balance Beam for Girls is a bit of a rebound with jokes like that, which makes it a fun one.

Thumbs Up

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The Livestream (The Stinger?)

Hey, guess what?  I have a new laptop so I'm not as bitter as I was for the last two events.  However, similar to the Secret Agent Super Dragon event, I wasn't able to watch this one live, but that was because of a work scheduling issue and not internet woes.  Things wound up being so busy that I didn't get to watch the event in full until a week later, but all things considered I'm in pretty good spirits this for this one because I'm not typing this on a tiny screen with hand cramps.

After our brand new short, we get a special presentation of the episode Devil Doll (review here), which is a very rock-solid season eight entertainer.  I was very happy with this as the October tribute selection and was very engaged in watching it again because I laughed the whole way through.  We also get a few extra bonus sketches from the modern crews.  Emily's Bots are very in tune with what the Great Vorelli is all about, as they have a pair of segments where they tell Emily of how many things they've transferred souls into and even put Emily under a hypnotic trance.  Jonah and his Bots are more into the Halloween spirit, but Jonah ruins the mood showing up as a "bloodsucking umpire."

The aftershow, or what Tim Ryder is now name-trialing as "The Stinger," has Tim, Rebecca Hanson, Jonah Ray, and Hampton Yount participating in a few rounds of a Jackbox game called Trivia Murder Party 2, which is a trivia and minigame competition that takes about fifteen minutes a round.  While the game is kinda cute, the big issue I have is that there is very little interactivity in this stream.  There is some joking around and a couple of laughs, but a good portion of it is concentrated silence, which isn't all that entertaining to watch.  But some of their reactions are fun so I'll give it a slight pass.

Discussion topics are light, though they discuss some of their favorite Halloween movies.  Tim shares his latest tradition, which is watching the Adam Sandler vehicle Hubie Halloween on Netflix every October because he's not a horror guy (I'm wondering if we can convince him that Barbarian is a sequel to Hubie Halloween so we can get him to watch that for lulz), though he does have a slight fondness for The Blair Witch Project.  Hampton has just watched The Gate and Jonah praises Deadstream on Shudder (which I've heard good things about and may have to watch in the near future) while saying he was weirded out by Men (which...yeah, of course he was).  Jonah also talks about a few horror projects he's participated in recently, including his own feature Destroy All Neighbors.

Speaking of horror featuring MST alums, Baron Vaughn directed a segment of a movie called Scare Package a few years ago and that's totally worth watching.  Last Drive-In version if you can.

Festivities are light outside of all of this and there seems to be an acknowledgement that there isn't too much meat on the bones of tonight's stream, so they showcase the DVD bonus feature The Puppet Master, which is an interview with Devil Doll producer Richard Gordon on the making of the film.  The whole stream is an overall okay experience wrapped around a fun episode, but it didn't quite engage me like I hoped it would.