1306-Demon Squad

Film Year:  2019

Genre:  Noir, Horror, Fantasy

Director:  Thomas Smith

Starring:  Khristian Fulmer, Erin Lilley, Leah Christine Johnson

MST Season:  13

Host:  Joel

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

There's this Jack Black movie from a while back called Be Kind Rewind where he and Mos Def are video store employees (remember those?) who accidentally erase every tape in their store.  To try and save the impending disaster of customer service they decide to "home brew" remake every movie they have starring themselves using a home camcorder.  The results of their "remakes" are about what you would expect, but the people of their little community absolutely love them and they become an unexpected hit.  To be blunt, I always thought that movie was kinda dumb.  In some weird way however, Demon Squad made me appreciate its premise a bit more.

Demon Squad in several ways reminds me of the type of movie Jack Black and Mos Def would make in Be Kind Rewind, only maybe by people who look to be a bit more professional.  This movie certainly wasn't made by two dipshits with a VHS tape, though by the standards of indie filmmaking by 2019 standards this film is very low tech.  Like lower than the cost of an episode of Mystery Science Theater (even original series...maybe not KTMA).  For low-budget filmmaking, this movie is more ambitious than something like Clerks so it stretches its money pretty thin.  If I were to compare Demon Squad to any film featured previously on Mystery Science Theater it would be Final Sacrifice, and I mean that as a favorable comparison, mind you.  That movie was made by film students who had access to some equipment and went out and made something.  Demon Squad has that same vibe, as if they could be filming on their local street and the director is telling all the actors "Okay, say your lines quick and let's beat it before the cops come."  In spirit I'd say it's also close to Time Chasers, where it's clear the filmmakers have a very specific movie they want to make, don't have a lot of money to do it, but decided "Fuck it, we'll do it anyway, and have fun making it."

The film's story does come off like it was adapted from fan fiction lying around for the TV show Angel or the comic series John Constantine:  Hellblazer that has been reformatted with original characters to avoid getting sued, while also paying homage to established film noir tropes that most audiences would likely be familiar with ("A mysterious woman walks into the cynical detective's office..." ect).  Demon Squad tells the tale of supernatural detective Nick Moon and his assistant Daisy who are recently visited by the beautiful heiress Lilah Fontaine, who hires them to search for her missing father.  As the duo dig deeper into the mystery, things become more nefarious and complicated than they initially appear.

Surface level, there is a lot that can be dismissed about Demon Squad.  The cinematography is soft looking, the music is barren, the sound quality is both inconsistent and often trashy, and its story feels more like a riff on pop entertainment than anything with high artistic merit.  But that's only if I approach this movie like a film critic, which I pride myself in not being because fuck that noise.  Demon Squad isn't a normal movie and I feel shouldn't be judged like it is.  It's a movie with certain limitations and resources made by people who got their hands dirty and took the time to put together something with what little they had.  They even had the audacity to put in make-up, puppets, and special effects, sometimes crude ones, but this is an example when bonus points for effort should be awarded.  This is a movie where it seems like its own existence is a reward for the people who made it.

What probably crosses Demon Squad over into its own level of enjoyability is its cheekiness.  Everyone involved in the production knows this whole thing looks and feels kind of silly, so there is a level of taking it just serious enough to make it feel like a narrative but goofing around just enough for them to feel like they're admitting to the audience "We know what this is, just play along."  And for a movie this low on the totem pole of cinema, I'd actually say that there's a good argument that can be made that the acting in this movie is pretty solid.  It's community theater style acting, but it's charismatic community theater style acting.  The big drawback to the actors is that they feel like they're at war with the sound equipment, which drains out their line delivery to the point where sometimes it sounds garbled up.  Some of the make-up effects might have ate up the boom mic budget, not sure.

The worst thing I can say about Demon Squad is that it's a movie that will provoke a cynical reaction from cynical viewers who will dismiss it immediately.  However, and I cannot stress this enough, it is not a cynical film itself, which is something I can't say for a lot of films on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  It's people with a camera having fun, and they can't guarantee that the audience that stumbles upon their creation has a good time but they're clearly of the attitude "If you get it, you get it."  There is something innocent and pure about that, and I'm personally in favor of it.

The Episode

It seems hard to believe.  Nearly thirty years after it aired on Comedy Central, Mitchell is no longer Joel Hodgson's final episode.  I'm still processing this information, but the Father of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is back in the driver's seat.  He no longer has Kevin Murphy or Trace Beaulieu at his side, but this is an event nonetheless.

Was it worth it?  Was it worth taking away his classic final episode for the nostalgia sell on the new season?  I'm going to say yes.  I laughed a lot during this episode and I enjoyed seeing him back in his classic role, which he makes it feel like he had never left.  It doesn't scratch my list of top ten Joel era episodes, but Joel has a lot of solid heavy hitters under his belt and that was always unlikely.  The downside?  Now my nostalgia is weeping for a new Mike episode.

So, how is Joel back?  I believe last we checked in on him he was managing a hot fish shop.  But at the end of Doctor Mordrid we saw Dr. Erhardt travel through time to pick up an old host from the series and it was either Joel or Mike.  Judging by the surprise on Kinga and Synthia's expressions, they must have been expecting Mike.  Unfortunately while Erhardt succeeded in bringing an old host onboard, he botched going to the past and snatched Joel up in the year 3000 instead, because Joel is living a thousand years in the future?  And he's trapped on the Satellite of Love again in this time?  I don't know what's up with any of this and it's a bit convoluted and odd, but considering Dr. Kabahl is a character from the future as well, maybe all of this is going to tie up in a neat little package by the end.

But whatever reason Joel has for being over a millennia old, it's fun to see him back, even without his Bots, so the Mads just steal Emily's and give them to him.  They are certainly showing the strengths of the flatimation format with this episode, because the green screen allows them to change their Satellite of Love set in an instant.  They created a new flatimation set based on Joel's second through fifth season SOL bridge design and it looks adorable.  They even created a new version of Joel's doorway sequence, which looks far more charming than the reformatted hallway from the Netflix seasons.  Joel's host segments feel like they're ripped out of a classic episode of the series, as they use the bar from the movie to set up a Cheers parody, play improv comedy for the Mads, and have a fun Invention Exchange where he turns Tom Servo's head into a mood ring inspired light (while Max has drill gun lassos or something).  He also gets to meet Pearl for the first time, which absolutely blew my mind because I don't think I've ever realized these two characters never crossed paths (not even in Soultaker).  Also he tweaks Servo to his factory voice setting.

Factory voice setting?  Oh, did I not mention this?  J. Elvis Weinstein returns to the series, not only as Erhardt, but he also voices Tom Servo for half the episode.

If you're nerding out right now, you're my kind of MSTie.

This isn't exactly a surprise really.  Jonah let it slip last year that they were looking to get J. Elvis and Bill Corbett to play Servo and Crow in Joel's episodes last year before Bill publicly said he had been approached but turned down the offer.  A few livestreams back Joel talked about riffing with both J. Elvis and Conor McGiffin in his theater segments, which was an odd combo to throw out since they were both Servos (J. Elvis had played Crow in two episodes of KTMA, but honestly it would have been weird if they had brought him back to voice Crow.  I mean, I know Kelsey Ann Brady's Crow is divisive, but no thanks).  J. Elvis riffs the second half of the movie, while Conor riffs the first half, and the role of Crow is relegated to Kelsey Ann Brady throughout the entire episode.  Since Joel's episodes were filmed after Nate Begle departed the series, Kelsey doesn't appear to be dubbed in this episode.  Oddly enough, despite being a puppeteer who has handled Crow, she isn't listed as his puppeteer in the credits, which cites Grant Baciocco (who plays Waverly and handles Hampton Yaunt's Crow).  I'm assuming Kelsey voiced Crow similarly to how Hampton Yaunt voices him, with a mouth controlling trigger while she watches from off-camera.  At any rate, I think Kelsey's riff delivery is a vast improvement on her previous episodes, because she's allowed to play him as she would play him instead of retrofitting herself over someone else's performance in post.  Her riffing delivery in this episode is fabulous and it definitely has me more excited for the future of her on this series.

Speaking of riffing, it's about time we discussed the movie portion.  Now, I have no idea how it was decided who was hosting what episode this season.  Someone could have read all the titles out loud and Joel, Jonah, and Emily could have yelled "DIBS!" at any moment, or they could have picked them out of a hat.  But whatever the case may be, Demon Squad is a very interesting film to give Joel.  This movie is a bit different than the types of films he has riffed in the past, even taking Cinematic Titanic and the live tours into consideration.  If you were to sort every Mystery Science Theater film by release date (which I have done because boredom and curiosity), the most recent film that Joel had tackled before Demon Squad was 1987's Robot Holocaust, which he riffed all the way back in the first season.  Skipping two whole decades of film, now he has Demon Squad on his riffing resume, which is currently the most recent film on the series (taking that title from last season's Atlantic Rim).  When he announced he was coming back for this season and they later announced the films for the year, I would have assumed he would have wanted to take films that would call back to his time on the show, like Gamera vs. Jiger and The Million Eyes of Sumuru.  Instead he threw us a curve ball to keep us on our toes.

I'm on the record saying I get a kick out of this movie.  This is my third time watching it and I still think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen (I even own it on DVD at this point).  But when you have a movie that looks like it's held together by duct tape and superglue, then there is a lot to make fun of.  The movie has a lot of dramatic pausing, allowing the riffers to get their little additions in, while the somewhat tacky production value can provide some reliable fodder.  They add their quips to the movie's own quips, as Nick Moon does his badass one-liner over a bad guy and says "The doctor is in," and Joel continues "And there's a copay!"  His assistant Daisy sasses him about her being the only applicant for her job, to which Joel responds "Another LinkedIn success story!"  I adore the riffs on Daisy's premonition power, where her eyes turn white as she reads people, which prompts up Crow's quick prophecy "WINTER IS COMING!"  One of the biggest laughs of the episode for me was a romantic scene between Nick and Lilah where they're about to kiss, but Nick hands her a gun instead, causing Crow to lay out the most perfect line "I brought protection!"  Sometimes the most on-the-nose thing you can say is still the funniest.

And of course, one of my favorite lines of the season:  "It's the Men's Warehouse repo men!"

A part of me wants to play it cautious about overrating this episode.  I have several unique factors that are inclining me to love it, the first of which is that I think the movie is an absolute joy, which not everyone else will see it that way so buyer beware.  I thought Doctor Mordrid was a blast too, though I was more refrained on my enthusiasm for that one because the commentary was weaker.  Also this episode plays with an obvious nostalgia toybox by bringing Joel Hodgson and J. Elvis Weinstein out of riffing retirement and playing out the episode like the golden days.  I was smiling ear to ear for ninety minutes straight.  Will others?

But the hell with it, I throw caution to the wind because I AM the wind, baby!  A good MST episode is partially about its mojo and whether you can groove with it and Demon Squad is full mojo and I am fully in sync with the tune.  This is an episode I'll be giving full marks to, because a fun movie and a lot of laughs are too good for me to pass up.  I see this becoming a favorite comfort episode in the future.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Classic

The Livestream

Hello darkness, my old friend...tech issues are back in the Gizmoplex, knocking this stream back a good solid eighty minutes after it was supposed to start.  This time we didn't even have White Dot to entertain us!  I want my money back just for that alone!

Nah.  As far as I'm concerned I've already gotten my money's worth.  This season has been steadily improving after it's middling first two episodes and it got to a point where I got an episode I consider S-tier.  Beyond Atlantis and Munchie were close but each had at least one aspect that tempered them for me.  Demon Squad isn't a perfect episode either, but I'm on top of the world when I watch it and I roll with laughter.  This Kickstarter has already paid off.

Still, don't stop making those remaining seven episodes, dammit.

But while everything is off to a late start, our folks at the livestream make it worthwhile to stick through it.  Our stream tonight is cut into halves, one to talk about the show and one to talk about the movie.  It's understandable, because they're in a situation where they have an episode that has a lot to talk about on their end while they once again managed to score special guests involved in the film itself.  The first half has host Matt McGinnis bring out returning original castmembers Joel Hodgson and J. Elvis Weinstein to discuss returning to the theater after all these years.  Emily Marsh is here too, who only has a slight cameo in the episode but wrote for it as well.  They have some questions for J. Elvis about reprising his roles as Servo and Dr. Erhardt after all these years.  J. Elvis doesn't seem to think it's that big of a stretch, claiming Erhardt isn't that deep of a character so it was pretty easy.  They also talk about Servo's voice tinkering in this episode, which Joel claims was a callback to the early days when J. Elvis would change Servo's voice and they'd write it out as Joel messing with his voicebox.  

Joel also gives some insight as to why Demon Squad was selected as his big return movie, which is not an overly complicated answer, where it just came down to film selection scheduling and they thought the riff script would work for Joel.  Slight peek behind the curtain, this question was asked by someone named "Thomas," but that Thomas was actually Demon Squad's director Thomas Smith who posted the question on the Discourse's Q&A forum.  That's fun that they had his question picked and they slyly played coy about who asked it (or Matt didn't notice, either or).

But J. Elvis kicks off after a half hour, and Matt wheels out the special guests for the night (not that J. Elvis isn't special...oh you know what I mean!), who are the filmmakers responsible for Demon Squad:  director/co-writer Thomas Smith and his wife and co-writer/co-star ("Daisy") Erin Lilley Smith!  I was excited to see them tonight, because I've had pleasant interactions with them on social media for the last few months and they are absolutely lovely people who have a ton of interesting tidbits on this movie.  They have done interviews about how it came together (here is another one made last year after they found out it was going to be on the show, unfortunately Erin didn't get a song in the episode like she wanted) and have shared some photos and factoids on Twitter that were fun to see.  It was great to see them discuss this movie with this group of wonderful people who brought their film to a new audience!

Thomas and Erin have so many fun facts about this movie, as I hoped there would be because it's such an interesting and scrappy production.  There is a bit of discussion about how they came up with the concept, claiming Nick Moon was a side character in an abandoned story that they decided to set an entire movie around.  They discuss their inspiration, which ranges from The Maltese Falcon to John Constantine to Kolchak the Night Stalker.  A lot of excellent tidbits come from special effects work, as they confirm that some of the make-up did come from a Spirit Halloween store like Max claimed in the episode, and also talked about their Frankendemon prosthetic, which they called a budget buster.  They also point out that this creature was also used in Star Raiders, which was a RiffTrax Live event a few years ago and now I totally have to rewatch it.

Joel can't help but admire what they were able to do with so little, especially the green smoke effects.  Thomas and Erin even point out an effect that nobody noticed (including myself) where they weren't allowed on the upper story of the house that was used as Lilah's mansion, but cheated a shot where one of the villainous Stitchers was looking down from above by green screening the actress and compositing her into the image.  It's totally seamless and this info actually floored me.

They talk a bit about the locations they worked at and Joel can't help but ask if a riff was correct about them filming in a Burger King basement.  They say no, but another riff about the bar previously being a Pizza Hut is right on the money (which is amazing that they hit a bullseye on that, if you think about it).  Speaking of locations, one of the Discourse members brings up that he was a regular patron of that bar and offered photo evidence to back it up, which brought some spectacular reactions from Thomas, Erin, and even Emily.

Emily can't mask her joy during this livestream, because she is like me and is a fan of this movie.  She talks about how she enjoyed watching a movie that was her generation of cheesy movies and even Conor McGiffin texts her to tell Thomas and Erin "Thank you for making a movie that was actually fun to watch."  Full agreement here.  TEAM NICK MOON!  You can tell Emily is touched by Thomas and Erin talking about how they met and not only became a couple but started making zero-budget films together.  She also excitedly looks up Thomas and Erin's first film, The Night Shift (no not the Ron Howard directed Henry Winkler/Michael Keaton/Shelley Long movie), after the duo casually mention it and claims she's going to find it ASAP.

I think Emily is one of those people who I would just crash on the couch with, find some garbage on Tubi, and just shit talk an entire night away with.  This is my entire vibe, man.

I had so much fun tonight.  This episode is already a favorite of mine and sitting down with the cast and crew of both the show and the movie and see them get into a delightful roundtable discussing all facets of the show that make me love it so much.  I'm almost disappointed we have to wait a full month for another episode, but they've been spoiling us with the biweekly scheduling lately.  Maybe I need the tribute event and accompanying short to cool down.

But even considering that, all I can say after this livestream is "Demon Squad 2 when?"

#RestoreTheNickMoonVerse

Oops, wrong screenshot!

1305-Doctor Mordrid

Film Year:  1992

Genre:  Fantasy, Superhero

Director:  Albert Band, Charles Band

Starring:  Jeffery Combs, Jay Acovone, Brian Thompson, Yvette Nipar

MST Season:  13

Host:  Emily

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

"Based on an original idea by Charles Band."

lol.

Doctor Mordrid is probably a more interesting movie today than it was when it was released.  As of this writing, the Marvel Cinematic Universe under Disney has become the indisputable king of the blockbuster of the last decade, with their latest release at this point in time being a sequel to their magical sorcerer superhero Doctor Strange.  What does this have to do with Doctor Mordrid?  Hold on to your capes, we're getting there.

Since the first Avengers film broke box office records in 2012, it's hard to remember a time in which the yearly top grossers didn't feature at least one property based on a Marvel comic, but there was a time in which Marvel was pawning off its movie rights to bargain bin studios.  Their first feature film, Howard the Duck, had huge pedigree in producer George Lucas and distributor Universal Studios, but alas the film wound up a box office disaster while chief competitor DC Comics had already had hits in a handful of Superman films and were about to unleash the pop culture phenomenon of Tim Burton's Batman upon the world.  It was hard to convince the big studios to take a leap with their properties after this, but they managed to pay a few bills by making a few low budget films based on The Punisher and Captain America with not so picky producers who just wanted the title more than the property.  Hell, at this point there was production by Roger Corman on an ultra-cheap Fantastic Four movie which (unbeknownst to the crew filming it) was never going to see official release.  Marvel's most popular character, Spider-Man, was languished in development hell with legendary crap factory Cannon Group, who tried unsuccessfully to make a movie in the 80's before complicating the rights of Terminator director James Cameron's attempt to adapt the property in the 90's before washing his hands of it and making Titanic instead (which was probably the best decision ever made in history).  Eventually that film would get made to Marvel's first massive box office success (no, Blade and X-Men don't compare to the money this pulled in) under Evil Dead director Sam Raimi, who incidentally directed this year's Doctor Strange sequel.

Still with me?  Okay, here we have Doctor Mordrid.  It might not shock for anybody to learn that Doctor Mordrid originally was being set up as a Doctor Strange adaptation when Charles Band initially showed interest in doing a film adaptation of the property.  For whatever reason, a deal was not made, though a film that was heavily influenced by the character and was stylized after comics in general was put into production as "Doctor Mortalis" with, get this, comic book legend Jack Kirby on board as a concept artist.  Eventually the project settled at Band's Full Moon studio and was turned into Doctor Mordrid, a film that rips off Doctor Strange in many, many ways but legally can't be Doctor Strange.

This film has Jeffery Combs playing the totally-not-Stephen-Strange wizard Anton Mordrid, who has spent the past century trying to subdue his totally-not-Baron-Mordo fellow wizard Kabal from unleashing hell on Earth.  Mordrid's hunt for Kabal leads him into the path of a tough but lovely police consultant who happens to live in the building Mordrid resides at and the two connect as they hunt for the deadly wizard while Mordrid keeps his unearthly secrets from her sight.  Kabal's power begins to rise with the aid of punk cultists and Mordrid finds that his final battle with Kabal might happen sooner rather than later.

The question at large is exactly how copyright infringing is this movie?  Since no legal action seems to have been taken against it, I guess just enough of it is different from the source it's derivitave of to not be worth a court case.  But if you're a fan of comics at all, you can definitely see Doctor Strange's DNA in this movie.  You can tell what characters are supposed to represent comic counterparts and see the playful stuff added to the film to try and make Mordrid his own character, but how successful that is would be arguable.  There are more similarities to Marvel's lore in Doctor Mordrid than there are between Pacific Rim and Atlantic Rim, the latter only really taking the robots vs. monsters concept and running with it.

As a movie without knowledge of its ties to any source material, Doctor Mordrid is charming trash.  Doctor Mordrid is a playful, low budget, good vs. evil fantasy that clearly thinks all fantasy should be marketed towards children but denies that audience the pleasure by shooting straight for an R rating with a scene of full frontal nudity (which was cut from the MST version).  Instead it aims straight at that cult audience that just wants a good time.  Doctor Mordrid, despite its childishness, is indeed a good time.

A lot of the heavy lifting in this movie is done by the cast, who play this movie straighter and with more effort than the movie probably deserves.  Cult icon Jeffery Combs is fabulous as our mystical hero, giving Mordrid the mischievous mystique that only Jeffery Combs can provide.  Bit character actor and Highlander baddie Brian Thompson rocks a blonde mullet and tries his best to resemble Fabio and this is probably one of the most suited-to-him roles I've ever seen him play.  I also need to give a shout out to our female lead Yvette Nipar, who is tragically given little to do other than to be the audience's surrogate eyes-of-discovery in the film and be the token love interest, but she does all of this with grace and excellent screen presence that made me yearn for more of her character.  Richard Band also needs to be mentioned for his score to the picture, which is actually a quite a good riff on the types of scores Danny Elfman would produce for a movie like this.  In fact, there are more than a few cues that sound like Elfman himself lifted for his score for Spider-Man in 2002.

That being said, the movie does feel a bit scant.  It runs barely longer than 70 minutes and I was disappointed to see it end.  The movie could have used a bigger finale, though I'm not sure how you could top stop-motion dinosaur skeletons wrestling.  Maybe it's just me, but it feels like the fact that Doctor Mordrid is only present in this conflict as an astral projection slightly cheapens it, as to while there is peril to reality there is no immediate mortal danger to Mordrid himself.  When Kabal is defeated, it feels a bit unearned, as heroic showdowns would have more weight if Mordrid were present in person to deliver the final blow himself.  Instead Kabal is knocked the hell over by a mastodon tusk.  The movie's most pleasurable climax then comes when Mordrid's lady friend kicks a man frozen in time square in the testicles.  Now that's how you should win the day!

However this movie came about, and whether you consider it an honorary Marvel movie or not, Doctor Mordrid is fun for fans of low budget silliness and is well worth watching if names like "Charles Band" or "Jeffery Combs" tied to a movie excite you.  I know they do excite me, personally.  Doctor Mordrid is a flick that does the bare minimum of what a hero movie should do:  entertains for an hour then disappears into the night.

The Episode

Offering a peak behind the curtain, when the line-up of films was announced for MST's new season, I watched a most (but not all) of the films in preparation for this blog so I could at least get the film reviews in the tank and ready to go.  Doctor Mordrid was a film selection that I fell in love with, because it was such a stupidly fun movie on its own and my gut told me that it would make for a great episode.  But my gut also told me both Beyond Atlantis and Munchie were going to be difficult to make funny, so I'm not sure we should be putting stock into that anymore.  I need to just lay back and trust this team to do their jobs.  But those high expectations remained and Doctor Mordrid does fail to meet them.

Kinda.

Let's just say "I wasn't laughing as much as the last two episodes" is a disappointing assessment, but it's not a damning opinion.

The thing about Doctor Mordrid is that the movie can be more fun than the simple act of making fun of it.  Because of that, the riffing does struggle to overcome the doofus charisma of the film that they're trying to make more entertaining.  That being said, while the episode can coast on the entertainment value of the film itself, the riffing can be quite funny.  I love the commentary on how Mordrid has lived in New York for hundreds of years only to have Emily respond "And thanks to rent control laws I still only pay four bucks a month for this apartment!"  As someone summons the villain of the film they suddenly shout out "Jesus Christ!" only to have Servo call out (commentating on his appearance) "No, Rick Flair!  WOO!"  GPC2 gets a few good shots in during her brief theater appearances, as she does a fairly perfect Aladdin reference to the reanimated dinosaur at the end claiming "Ten million years can give you such a crick in the neck!"  The end credit riffing is fun, as Emily and the Bots debate whether or not Doctor Mordrid is a Christmas movie (ala the Die Hard is a Christmas Movie debate).  There are also riffs in this episode that I feel are destined to become underrated but secretly the most hilarious lines for the moment, such as Kabal's "Communist Manifest-Stone" and a well placed reference to the musical Cats that had me laughing for days.

This is another one of those episodes where just about every host segment is a recreation of a scene in a movie, which can be fun, though Doctor Mordrid starts weak and gets stronger.  Tom Servo parodies Mordrid's lecture early in the film evolving it into a crappy stand-up act, which reminded me of Servo's locust stand-up from Beginning of the End and was about as funny (read:  not very).  A bit more successful is Emily playing Mordrid as a landlord, but even that wears thin.  Continuing to get better, there is a bit where Crow parodies the hypnosis story from the film on Emily and Servo, which is pretty solid.  The episode ends on a fair high when the Bots form their own super team and Emily is enlisted to be their easily defeated opponent, who's power is losing.

Over on Moon 1, Kinga and Max get another visit from Dr. Kabahl, the Strange Financier from the Future.  They note that his name is similar to the name of the villain in this movie and wonder if it's a coincidence.  Time will tell if that goes anywhere, but in the meantime Kabahl asks them to bring one of the original hosts back to host new episodes.  Apparently Kinga and Max need to time travel to do this, which makes little sense but whatever.  This sets up a new Mad appearance by the great J. Elvis Weinstein as Dr. Erhardt, who travels to fetch either Joel or Mike, Kinga and Max don't care because they're both doughy white guys from the midwest.  This is to set up Joel's return to the series as he hosts the next episode, Demon Squad, and has another to be determined episode later this season before joining Jonah and Emily in the theater for the all-host special The Christmas Dragon.

Man it's hard to believe in two weeks we'll have a new Joel episode.  That's absolutely wild.

To an extent the riff of Doctor Mordrid feels like it's a little too content to stay afloat with the watchability of the movie and take it easy, saving gutbusters for harder movies like Munchie.  I would have wished for a little more stamina during this movie though just to push it over the top.  I still think Doctor Mordrid could have been the best episode of the season, but I will settle for it just being a fun episode.  Laughs are laughs, and I had a good time.

Good

The Livestream

I was happier when this livestream didn't exist.  I want to thank Doctor Mordrid screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner for joining in on the conversation and providing insight to the film.  But his debunking that this flick was not originally written as a Doctor Strange film meant I had to alter my review of the film, and I had that in the bag for months!  I had watched a bunch of this season's films to prep up my reviews for them, and I did discuss this being a Doctor Strange adaptation.  Then Joyner, this blessed man who wrote this fun movie, dropped this bombshell on my life and my heart sank because I almost felt like I needed to start from scratch.  Luckily he did confirm that the film was Doctor Strange influenced and stemmed from an attempt from Band trying to get the license in the 80's, so I didn't need to change it as much as I initially thought I'd have to.  In the end I had to rewrite an entire paragraph with updated info and make wording corrections.

In addition to our special guest, our panel includes producer Matt McGinnis, host Emily Marsh, Crow voice Kelsey Ann Brady, and writer Tim Ryder.  A lot of discussion tonight is about the film itself, which is probably understandable because they have a gateway to some insight on the production.  Not only that, Matt notes that the fanbase response to this movie after it was announced was through the roof.  I can vouch for that, because I was one of the fans who was really excited!  He also claims the writers were really excited for this particular movie and they all claim writing the episode was a fun experience.  They have questions for Joyner, who happily answers them and praises the production as exceeding his expectations, as his initial expectations were more based on what Charles Band normally produces.  I'd definitely agree with him here.  Doctor Mordrid has exceptional looking production value compared to the type of films Full Moon normally produced.  Just comparing the film to the other Full Moon production of this season, Robot Wars, Doctor Mordrid is a much more smartly crafted movie that knows what's it's capable of.  Tim's primary question for Jayner comes from writer Tammy Golden, who is convinced that Jeffery Combs and Brian Thompson have never met each other because they don't share a scene where they're both in the same frame and facing the camera (if the characters are together in frame, one normally has their back turned).  Jayner just says they were on set together and that's that.

I'm siding with Tim and Tammy on this, because this movie is suspiciously framed.  When I did my screenshots I was hoping for a good one with both Combs and Thompson, but I couldn't find one in the entire bloody film.  Eventually I settled on the one above, and just silently wondered the same thing they did.  Coincidentally this echoes a talking point on modern filmmaking, specifically this year's Doctor Strange film, where Elizabeth Olsen and John Krasinski share a scene together in the film but were never onset at the same time.

Interestingly enough, during this livestream I had felt like I had seen C. Courtney Joyner before but I couldn't quite place his face.  It turns out he was a regular contributor to Daniel Griffith's documentaries for the Mystery Science Theater DVD sets, and I did that meme from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where Leonardo DiCaprio points at the TV in real time.  He talks about being involved in the process and his love for the films and even his love for the MST series.  He thinks that this show is a fun work of film preservation in it's own way, where it introduces almost forgotten films to new audiences.  Tim Ryder then brings up a discussion on the Discourse forums about fans that collect films unriffed.  I'm happy to report I am one of those fans, and I have a list of my films in that very thread.  And yes, Doctor Mordrid is one that I own (on blu-ray!).

Almost as a "Prove it!" question, Joyner is asked what his favorite episode is.  He then goes to the early, early days of the series and cites he loved how fresh the show seemed at the time and names Robot Monster as his favorite episode, which is fair enough.  He also cites Cat Women of the Moon, which was never on the show (but it was on RiffTrax).  He might be thinking of Women of the Prehistoric Planet though and got titles confused because they sound so similar.

There is not a lot of talk about the episode itself, so Emily and Kelsey sometimes feel like they're taking a backseat in this stream (Kelsey is pretty quiet for most of it).  Emily does have interjections about what she loved in the movie, including her love for the character Gunner.  But there are also points where they discuss their favorite roles of Jeffery Combs, of which Emily just says "Star Trek" (in which Jeffery Combs has played about a hundred different characters for, so which one?) and Kelsey just responds "I'm NOT looking at IMDB!"  It almost seems like Emily and Kelsey are here just as a requisite of on-screen talent reading the backer names throughout the stream, which they do well.  For this particular episode it seems appropriate, because the movie is unquestioningly the star of the hour.  But it's a shame because one would like to see them integrated into the festivities more.

But this was a fun stream because I love learning about these curiosities at the center of the series, and Joyner is a splendid storyteller, and even discusses calming Jeffrey Combs' nerves over an audition for The Frighteners by showing him Meet the Feebles, which was also a Peter Jackson film.  And I do love everyone coming up with their own superhero knockoff, as Kelsey rips on Mystique with "Mistook" and Emily brings up Arm-Fall-Off-Boy, to which Matt pitches his idea for a movie starring the character.  Interestingly, Arm-Fall-Off-Boy has already been in a movie, as he was played by Nathan Fillion in last year's The Suicide Squad.  He was renamed TDK (short for The Detachable Kid), but he still had those arms fall off!

And as far as I'm concerned, any stream that brings up Arm-Fall-Off-Boy is a success.

1304-Munchie

Film Year:  1992

Genre:  Comedy, Fantasy

Director:  Jim Wynorski

Starring:  Loni Anderson, Andrew Stevens, (Jennifer) Love Hewitt, and Dom DeLuise as MUNCHIE!

MST Season:  13

Host:  Jonah

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Despite the waves it made when it landed, cinephiles may have preferred Gremlins wasn't as impactful as it was as the knock-offs soon began.  But the cult fans got a little something for every corner when that happened, including MSTies who would go on to get a fan favorite episode out of the movie Hobgoblins.  Personally, while I don't have any nostalgic fondness for Gremlins myself (I watched it once as a lad and didn't care for it, haven't seen it since), I can't imagine my life without Critters.  Knock-offs would continue with the likes of Ghoulies and, more relevant, a film produced by Roger Corman called Munchies.

Munchies is a goofy little movie about a little creature found in a Peruvian temple who is taken back to the States by an archeologist looking for links between the ancient civilization and aliens.  The creature is put in the care of his care-free, aspirational comedian son and his attractive, independent girlfriend.  Shenanigans ensue, resulting in the creature getting kidnapped and chopped up into little pieces, which regenerate Reptilicus style into multiple little hungry and horny creatures who burst onto the town and wreck havoc.

I have no real information as to how successful Munchies was considered as a movie, but the film was pretty low budget and it did spawn a franchise...of sorts.  Five years later this movie happened.  I don't know what to think about that.

Doing the whole Alien/Aliens thing backwards, this movie scales back to just one Munchie.  Well...I guess he's a Munchie.  He says his name is "Munchie," even though "Munchie" was just a name that was made up on the spot for a nameless creature in the original and never brought up again.  His relationship to the Munchies in the previous movie is a huge mystery, as he seemed to be loose in civilization as early as 1970 (in a prologue that is cut out of the MST version), while the primary Munchie from the previous movie was trapped in a temple in the late 80's.  This Munchie does seem to have some ties to the Peruvian origins of the other Munchies, which is kept pretty vague.

But I digress, the story of this particular movie has a kid stumbling upon this Munchie, who is less a crazy hungry animal and more of a mischievous magical imp.  The boy befriends Munchie, who promises him that with his powers he can change his life for the better, from getting rid of his mom's scummy boyfriend, to dealing with school bullies, to getting the girl of his dreams, even down to just eating pizza for dinner.  But as Munchie tries to help out, he begins causing even more chaos.

How we got from Munchies to this movie, I'm not certain.  I don't understand it and I'm not sure I want to understand it.  Munchies is rated PG, but it's a pretty raunchy PG.  Throughout the movie, the young leads have sex, many lewd comments are made and innuendos are referenced, while there's also a very lengthy scene in which the Munchies watch a pair of girls playing miniatrure golf, bend over repeatedly, have their skirts raise up above their behinds and expose their underwear clad booties to the world.  I mean...if I heard this movie was a hit with kids, I wouldn't be surprised, but to scale back to a movie only meant for kids seems to destroy why they liked it.

Not to mention the fact is the idea of this being a sequel is a huge question mark in general.  The Munchie of this film kinda looks like the original Munchies, just bulked up, made cuter, and given a stupid Dick York haircut, but to say they're the same thing is a bit of a stretch.  The original Munchies were small creatures that just tore shit up because it was in front of them.  This Munchie is a bit more sentient and has magical powers.  They're both mischievous, but in different ways.  If I were to come up with some sort of convoluted headcanon for this movie, it would be maybe this Munchie is a fully grown adult with formed skills while the other Munchies were just adolescents.  But that's thinking about this too hard.

Getting away from trying to figure out what makes the Munchies franchise tick, Munchie kinda bites.  It's an oddball kids comedy made for cheap laughs.  I'll admit I did enjoy certain scenes, as there's a fantasy funeral scene early on in the film that I actually thought was pretty funny on its own merits, but for the most part the movie plays out like a schlocky version of The Wonder Years with the Great Gazoo as a side character.  It's not entirely charmless, it's just devoid of wit.

Munchie himself is voiced by Dom DeLuise, replacing the 80's voice acting legends of Frank Welker and Fred Newman who voiced the characters in the first film.  On paper this seems like a lateral decision, but Dom DeLuise without good material is just a large voice coming out of a little puppet.  80's sex symbol Loni Anderson is here as well playing the worried mother of the piece, with her primary storyline being that she's dating a scumbag and slowly learns she's dating a scumbag.  Said scumbag is shown to "get his comeuppance" at the end of the movie as he gets arrested by some cops after trying to capture Munchie for some reason .  I do feel like pointing out that while this guy is a dick, for most of the movie the only actual thing he does to annoy anybody in this movie is try to get into Loni Anderson's pants, and if you could get arrested for that then 98% of the fanbase to WKRP in Cincinnati would be in jail right now.  Rounding out this curious cast is a very young Jennifer Love Hewitt playing the young lead's romantic interest.  Having grown up in the 90's, it's hard to not have formed crushes on the cast of Party of Five.  This kid was just ahead of the curb.

Believe it or not, Munchie has a direct sequel called Munchie Strikes Back, which came out two years later.  For whatever reason this was the more successful version of the Munchies franchise and actually formed a direct continuation featuring the same Munchie character from this film.  That movie couldn't get Dom DeLuise back to voice Munchie, but it did manage to keep director Jim Wynorski.  It's probably hard to lose Wynorski once you get him (he has also directed sequels to cult classics like Deathstalker, Swamp Thing, Sorority House Massacre, and 976-EVIL), though he does win some points for being the helmer of the film Chopping Mall.  Munchie is no Chopping Mall.  It's not even Munchies.

The Episode

Way back when I reviewed Carnival Magic in season 11 I remarked how I felt that particular riff suffered from Netflix's rapid joke pace because the movie demands reaction in addition to scripted commentary.  Pleasantly Munchie seems to be a course correction on this, because the movie seems to be selected to provoke a reaction.  Munchie is an off-putting puppet, and Jonah and the Bots don't like him.  He pops up at random periods and they always jump at the sight, because they just want him to go away.  In a way, Munchie is almost like a feature length Mr. B Natural, if Mr. B were less gender-identity-questioning and more of a horrifying hellbeast.  On the flip side, I was also a bit hard on the Mr. B Natural short when I reviewed it because it never really amped up its riffing outside of reacting to Mr. B jumping around.  It's a fan favorite short so I know I'm in the minority on that, but I'd rather find a balance between the two when dealing with something bizarre and out of left field.  I always felt Design for Dreaming should be the template over Mr. B Natural.

So where does Munchie lie?  I think it comes really close to achieving that balance that I hope for.  The introduction to Munchie terrifies Jonah and the Bots, who don't understand what they're seeing.  GPC jumps in and sees their expression and orders them to abandon the theater.  My one problem with this bit is that it threatens to be an endless string of noise for the sake of noise, when a slower build-up through layers of terror might have been more effective.  It might have been funnier if they had an unsure reaction of unease when he's introduced, only to ramp up their screaming when he bursts out in his number of "Hello My Baby!"  Instead they just jump into screaming and they do it through the entire scene, which is a little tiring.

The entire episode doesn't suffer because of this, though.  It's actually a bit of a minor victory because this movie could easily be a disaster for the show if it wasn't approached properly.  Treating it like a horror movie in the guise of comedy is inspired, because comedy is traditionally hard on this format.  And Munchie is an aggressively cringe one of random catchphrase parroting and pratfalls, so I wasn't anticipating much to work with here.  Jonah's crew works hard to enunciate lame gags and punctuate them with their own jokes that are far more clever and funny.  They hit at a surprisingly high rate, taking gags like lead character Gage's award show fantasy where the winner is "La La Land!  Oh not again!" to just hearing the random nonsense coming out of Munchie's mouth, where Servo asks "Is that a joke, Jonah?" only to have Jonah respond "I don't know."  Crow at one point notes how strange the preppy school bully is in this movie, remarking "Wait, he dresses like that and he's eager to get to class?  How is Gage considered the nerd in this movie?"

And of course there is Munchie.  He's the ace in the hole.  Their resentment of this character is always good for a laugh or two.

That resentment leads to one of the best host segments of any of the Jonah episodes, where Jonah and the Bots evacuate the theater at the sight of Munchie and are trying to collect their bearings, asking themselves if it's worth finishing this movie.  Kinga interrupts, ordering them back in the theater.  Jonah hesitates for a moment, then just flat out refuses, leading to golden interplay between the two where Kinga threatens to shut off the oxygen to the Satellite of Love and Jonah calls her bluff.  The whole idea of oxygen being shut off to the Satellite if they refuse to enter the theater isn't a new one, as Dr. Forrester shut off Mike's oxygen to make him bow during the opening to This Island Earth while Pearl had it shut off while Mike tried to take a break during Invasion of the Neptune Men.  Kinga's method is simple but effective, as she just grabs a hose and squeezes it, leading to Jonah immediately suffocating (How little air is there on the SOL?  And how does he eat?  And other science facts?).  It's such a delightful delivery of a classic concept, and the entire cast is in top form throughout.

Another golden segment is the return of Dr. Donna St. Phibes, played by the returning Deanna Rooney, who I'm so happy they've asked back as she was a Gauntlet highlight.  Here she explains the evolutionary history of a Munchie, though sadly she never brings up the Munchies from the previous Munchies film (instead opting for Gremlins, Ghoulies, Critters, Hobgoblins, and even Leprechaun).  Also returning is Waverly and Growler, who we also haven't seen since last season.  They've actually applied for Bonehead positions in Moon 1.  I do wonder if this is setting something up, but it's a slight skit which is fun.  Mega Synthia also gets her first line in the series, then is quickly shooed off.  Yvonne Freese has barely been featured so far and we're four episodes in!  The Invention Exchange involves a zombie treadmill and Jonah coming up with ways for rock musicians to be less wasteful with their instruments.

Munchie is a blemished product that sits a bit on the edge of greatness.  The positive is I think this is probably the funniest episode with Jonah's crew since Wizards of the Lost Kingdom.  I also think that it's the best episode of the season yet, taking that crown from Beyond Atlantis, which was an on-fire debut for Emily's cast but Munchie feels more like a polished achievement.  What's holding me back a little bit on Munchie are mostly little moments where they sit a bit restrained and don't hit an opening or do it in a way that isn't the kill shot it could be.  But I didn't have Munchie pegged as being a choice that would have inspired an episode that is this funny and the fact that I laughed as much as I did is a testament to just how great the new cast and crew is.  I hope there are many more seasons so they can cement themselves in its legacy like they deserve.

Good

The Livestream

Munchie is the first episode to fully debut after the opening of the Gizmoplex to the public, which means no pre-release screenings and  it's available to all MSTies, fully finished, right now.  There is only one livestream event to cover for this one (thank god), and it plays out a little bit differently than what we had seen previously.  The first thing to notice is that the stream has little bookend host segments wrapped around the episode where we get to see what Emily and her Bots are up to on the Simulator of Love.  They don't have anything to do with the episode itself, mind you, they're just funny little bonus skits featuring our new cast that are exclusive to the livestream.  The first has Tom Servo and Crow hunting down a "critter" on board the Simulator, which predictably turns out to be Emily.  The second has Emily and Servo discovering Crow's lifeless husk and being distraught because they assume their friend is dead.  The second is better than the first, though I'd contend it would have been better to save this one until a latter live stream as Emily would have more than one episode of history with Crow.  They're both highlighted with some solid writing and both are very funny, especially as the weeping Emily and Servo eulogize their friend and Emily cries "He was the best of all of us!" and Servo's choked response is "Debatable!"  Kelsey Ann Brady's Crow at one point gets a potshot at those who criticize her voice as she responds to Servo's voice change to allergies with "I sound different in a way that's noticeable but you get used to it really quickly!"

Also included is a new preview trailer to the next episode, Doctor Mordrid, which has new footage of host segments and riffing.  It also confirms it will be Emily's next episode, and this is my favorite movie selection of the season so I'm hoping it's a great one!

The post-episode livestream begins as producer Matt McGinnis puts together a "support group" of writers/stars who claim that this movie broke them.  These folks include Jonah Ray, Hampton Yount, Rebecca Hanson, Deanna Rooney (making her livestream debut), and Matt Oswalt (who is sharing a space with Jonah, Rebecca, and Deanna, so he isn't completely crashed from the stream this time).  Absent from the festivities is Felicia Day, who also wrote on this episode and everyone on stream claims also hates this movie.  There are no issues with muting or crashing feeds this stream, but like always there has to be something wrong.  That tech issue turns out to be hot mics, as Jonah, Rebecca, Deanna, and Matt O all enter the stream holding mics too close to their face, causing an earful of throbbing bass.  They try to compensate for it by holding the mics further away, to mixed results.  Matt O has the most problems, because it's hard to hear what he is saying half the time.  The guy can't catch a break!

Matt McG then goes on to say this movie is bad, but he thinks the worst movie of the season is The Bubble (which is the movie Joel has been touting as "The New Manos" for over a year now).  Nobody present wrote on that episode, but Jonah claims he was present when they recorded riffs for the episode (I believe he directed all the episodes he didn't star in) and says he thought the movie looked "fun."  The Bubble is one of the few movies this season I haven't seen outside the series, so I can't comment on what Joel and Matt see in it, but what reactions I can find online state the movie isn't great but nobody really claims it's "Manos bad."  But while Joel is not present for this stream, he does message a little potshot to Matt McG saying "I don't get all the bellyaching for Munchie, but then again I had to write for Castle of Fu Manchu."  The man has a point.

But talk does often turn to how much these people hate this movie.  To be fair, this is nowhere close to being the worst movie I've ever seen, but then again I never had to write comedy over it.  Everyone talks about what specifically they hated about it, and it does seem to always fall back on writing for it was tough.  It's revealed that it was one of the last episodes they had to write, everyone was drained, and they were given this comedy movie to do, which isn't a great format for layering another comedy on top of.  And then there is Hampton, who just hates Dom DeLuise and how he never shuts up.  This does lead into Jonah discussing the difficulty of riffing the film also falls on the fact that the film has so much dialogue, especially when DeLuise is onscreen.  Jonah also professes his disappointment on hearing the title of this movie and thinking they were riffing the original Munchies only to find out it was this movie instead.  Matt McG does reveal that he screened Munchies right before this movie but chose Munchie because he thought the puppet would get better reactions.  He also neither confirms nor denies whether or not they're considering Munchie Strikes Back for next season, to which Jonah implores him to just "Say no!"

Streaming questions do get more playful, as everyone is asked what they would do if they found a Munchie puppet in their house, which leads to a colorful story of Jonah receiving a promotional Chucky doll for the new Chucky TV series and how it spooked his wife Deanna (this Chucky doll can be seen in previous livestreams).  They also discuss their favorite Gremlins knock-offs, of which Jonah talks about enjoying Ghoulies before the conversation is completely derailed by the greatest Gremlins knock-off of all time, Critters, which also evolves into talking about Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  Deanna also talks a bit about her role as Donna St. Phibes, while Matt O has a hilarious story about a birthday cake with Munchie's face on it that they happily sliced up (at a restaurant Loni Anderson is a regular at to boot).

This is a pretty rowdy stream full of people venting pain.  We need to understand them and let them express their sorrow and rage.  And as long as they keep it entertaining, I'm happy to hear it!  This was a fun stream, hot mics aside.  I can hardly wait for Doctor Mordrid in two weeks just to experience another one!

"Court Case" & A Tribute to Hobgoblins (MST3K Special)

The Short

Another Short of the Month already?  Why it feels like we had one just yesterday!  And oh boy!  I love legal dramas!  I can't wait to see what Court Case has in store!

Oh.  It's about tennis.  Wrong court.  Fine, I guess.

This is an industrial short made by Penn Racquet Sports to show off how they make tennis balls and how they pop them into that tube and seal them up like Pringles.  Yes, they actually give a reason for that in the short, to avoid cutting fingers or something.  Though if your pack is severing customer fingers, you might need to rethink it.  But the majority of it is about ball manufacturing, and how important that Penn name is!

I never really thought about how tennis balls are made, so some of this stuff is actually interesting.  I do wonder about the differences between manufacturing tennis balls compared to baseballs to basketballs to footballs, hell maybe throw in a bowling ball in there too.  As someone who has worked in a factory setting like this, I also recognized some of the rush rush rush techniques people are imprinted with by management while they just kind of drone in their head "Eventually it will be five o'clock" over and over again.  That is not so pleasing, but I imagine most of these people's jobs have been replaced by machines since then, so yay?

Court Case is Emily's crew's second short (except Kelsey, it's her first) following the short the riffed for Turkey Day 2020, and they do a solid job.  It's a fun, low pressure short that mostly gets by with factory gizmos, of which Emily's team is always playful enough to meet.  They also have fun at the expense of the narrator and some quality barbs float in his direction, especially the hilarious reaction to his mentioning a "Threeway proposition."  They also have some fun at the odd shapes off the various pieces of a ball, as Crow notes that discarded pieces of the interior will be turned into "Muppet eyes" while the narrator notes that the green outer layer comes in shapes like a "dog bone," to which Emily responds "I was going to say Maxipad, but sure, let's go with dog bone."  First Maxipad reference on the show?  It's a joke that wouldn't hit as hard coming out of the mouths of the other hosts, so kudos to Emily for stepping into that territory.

This whole short can be perfectly summed up by Servo's line:  "This is a lot of work for something your dog will chew on."

This short doesn't list specific puppeteers for the Bots in the end credits, but it feels to me as if Kelsey Ann Brady's Crow has a more natural dialogue flow in this short than was featured in her first full episode.  I'm not going to presume Nate Begle didn't perform Crow in this (he is listed as a writer on it at the very least), but I'm leaning toward believing Kelsey is the one under the puppet here because it doesn't sound like a strange overdub.  If that's the case, I'm more confident with her playing the role here than I was in Beyond Atlantis as it feels as if she's allowed to perform Crow her own way by not trying to match his lip movements in post and she does seem to have a solid footing with the character. (That being said, there are still more episodes where she has to dub over Nate in the future, so let's brace for those too.)

So far none of the shorts have been a home run, but this one is decently funny and is probably the best of the lot so far.  At the same time, it kind of washed over me.  I laughed, but a lot of it left my head as soon as it was over.  That's unfortunate, but I'm having fun in the moment and that counts as a success.

Thumbs Up

👍

The Livestream

"I've almost got my flea infestation under control!  The pill is great, it tastes like beef!"

Pearl and Synthia are looking for the most foul little critters to sick on Jonah and the bots in tonight's tribute experiment, so of course they settle on Hobgoblins (my original review here).  This was always a torture-favorite of Pearl's, so it makes sense she'd want to make Jonah watch her torment of Mike and his Bots.  Jonah takes the time to prattle off some knowledge of the 80's punk rock scene and gives us some info on what happened to Club Scum, though the Bots are not having it ("I don't remember asking to hear any of this," Crow observes).  We also close with a hilarious bit where the Bots can't tell the difference between Mike and Jonah.

Matt McGinnis is in luck because all the mics are working tonight!  That doesn't stop Mary Jo from screwing with him a bit when she's introduced.

Tonight's live stream has several special guests, including original series Crow Bill Corbett and original series holdover Mary Jo Pehl.  Not only that, but we also have somebody who worked on the film itself, Kenneth J. Hall, the man who designed the Hobgoblins themselves!  Kenneth happens to be a MSTie himself and reflects on seeing the episode on TV for the first time and how elated he was.  Notable absences tonight are Joel Hodgson, who was scheduled to attend but wasn't feeling well, and Emily Marsh, who was never stated to be attending but has often stated her fondness for this episode.  Oh well, the show must go on!  But having such a Sci-Fi era centric live stream is a joy for me, because that's my era of the show and am happy to see Bill and Mary Jo discussing the episode with someone who worked on the film.

Not to shortchange her, but Rebecca Hanson is here too.  But she also shuns Eegah and I feel I need to shun her in return.

Nah, I'm kidding.  As someone who doesn't care for Pod People or Final Sacrifice, it's perfectly fine to not respond fully to a popular episode.  Just not that one.  SHUN!

Discussion on this one is more episode centric than it was for Future War, likely because the participants are less rowdy than Emily and her team, leading to a calmer presentation overall.  Mary Joe reflects on the evolution of Pearl and how diverse a character she is, of which Bill states he loved writing for her.  Bill and Mary Jo discuss the things they remember about the episode, as well as the movie itself.  A question does ask if they were hesitant about using Hobgoblins since it's raunchier than your average MST3K movie, to which Bill doesn't feel the had any hesitancy to it at all, since the attitude toward sex is what he calls "juvenile," like it was made by somebody who has "heard of sex but doesn't understand it" (Bill can't fathom "Donkey Mud Wrestling").  Another question asks if they consider it the Manos of the Sci-Fi era, to which Bill and Mary Jo think it's incompatible with Manos because Manos was a more serious attempt at filmmaking than Hobgoblins was.  In my opinion, it's hard to find a movie from the Sci-Fi era that's as bad as Hobgoblins.  Overdrawn at the Memory Bank maybe, or Horrors of Spider Island.  Hobgoblins is a bit of a next-level find that they seemed to have mostly avoided during those seasons, as they tended to shy away from films like Manos, Monster A-Go Go, or Red Zone Cuba.  It's probably most comparable to The Wild Wild World of Batwoman, an aggressive attempt at goofball filmmaking that isn't really all that fun or funny.

In terms of popularity, since Matt brings it up but it's not discussed, Hobgoblins is an episode brought up a lot from the Sci-Fi seasons, but it's likely trumped by Space Mutiny or The Final Sacrifice.

Questions directed at Kenneth range from his work on the film, to which he says they just hired him to make the Hobgoblins because they couldn't afford to hire him as a puppeteer (he describes the puppeteering in the film as "doll waving," which made me fall in love with the guy).  He also says the same dolls were used for the legacy sequel Hobgoblins 2, and Sloane wanted him to patch them up so he could make a Hobgoblins 3 but he turned it down (I'm always rooting for the underdog filmmaker no matter how bad, so I hope Sloane does get to make a Hobgoblins 3 someday).  His one experience on the set was during the sequence where Nick lights himself on fire at Club Scum, where he describes the surroundings for such a scene not being ideal.  He also talks about his other work, including puppets for the new Nicolas Cage film Willy's Wonderland and a pair of burlesque puppets he's made that he says he's very proud of, as well as his directorial effort The Halfway House.  Discussions also turn to other people who worked on the films that reacted positively to MST tackling their stuff, like Kim Cattrall from City Limits, Arch Hall Jr. from Eegah, Reb Brown from Space Mutiny, Jackie Nayman Jones from Manos, and the entire crew of Time Chasers.

As this stream comes to a close, as well as a full week of Gizmoplex coverage that I've been doing here that has knocked the wind out of me, we are reminded there will be no live event next week to my near relief (and then I realize I have RiffTrax and the Mads to catch up on).  Our next stream will be two weeks from tonight for a new episode, which will be followed up by two more episode premieres as the next short and tribute event will be in July.  It's weird to think how the Short of the Month concept hasn't exactly worked out as monthly, but I'll ride with new MST content no matter how I get it.  Even if it is Munchie, which is our next movie.  Bill seems tickled by the magical imp voiced by Dom DeLuise movie that he hasn't heard of, but Mary Jo leaves us on the most horrifying joke of the night as she casually drops the title "50 Shades of Munchie."  I can't top that sign-off, so I'm not going to try.

"Let's Make a Meal in 20 Minutes" & A Tribute to Future War (MST3K Special)

The Short

Well, you can't say there isn't truth in advertising.  Shorts are what we wanted, and what we got was very short indeed.  Let's Make a Meal in 20 Minutes only runs a scant four minutes, and while I'm not sure if that makes it the shortest short MST3K ever tackled (the show's timing with commercial breaks makes things complicated), the closest I can think of for comparison is when RiffTrax did a combo of Why Doesn't Cathy Eat Breakfast and paired it up with Petaluma Chicken because neither by themselves reached their normal ten minute threshold for short content.  On MST3K, maybe the last Commando Cody short is comparable, which cut itself short for time.  But still, just as we're in the swing of things, Let's Cook a Meal in 20 Minutes is already over.

Maybe comedy is like a good meal.  Leave them wanting more.  Let's just make sure we don't leave them starving either.

Let's Make a Meal in 20 Minutes has a narrator micromanaging Sally, a young 50's gal who looks like she'd rather be out with her friends than stuck at home cooking a meal for daddy and brother.  But here she is, and she has only twenty minutes to get the meal done or it's the basement for her again like the time they caught her with a boy at the soda shop.  The narrator lists all the steps for her to cook a good, nutritious meal straight out of the can and onto the stove, hot and ready to eat for the men who control her life.

I'd hesitate to call this instructional, because the instructions featured in the short are not very helpful.  The short exists to tell us the steps to prepare a meal are:  Figure out what you want, cook it, put it on a plate.  End.  I mean...it could be worse.  They could have just instructed us to tear open a bag of ramen and boil it for three minutes and just drink water from the tap.  That's the bachelor pad version of this film.  The ending meal doesn't look very inspired, as it's just a slab of chopped up corned beef with corn and green beans on the side.  Or maybe it's just that I don't like corned beef weighing me down.  The corn and green beans look fine though.

I think this short exists mostly to mansplain to women how they can be more efficient in the kitchen.  Yes ma'am, you too can save time on dinner and have plenty of time to do the rest of the household chores if you follow our simple guidance.  Get your buns in the kitchen and give it a try, won't you?

There is not much momentum to the riffing of this short because there is no time to build up any, so Jonah and the Bots just come in and fire whatever they got at it.  This short can cause some flashbacks to Michael Winslow in Police Academy, because a lot of their default humor is just adding sound effects to the film.  I'd normally wouldn't be very thrilled by this, but considering the constraints they're under here, it's actually pretty fun.  Crow dips into this type of riff quite a bit and even goes on quite the noise spree during a sequence where Sally is checking everything on her stove.

It's not all down to such gags, as the show's trademark sarcasm is still here.  It's a bit haphazard, because there is very little here to comment on when it comes to imagery, which is just a girl cooking.  They latch onto the one thing they can:  the narrator, adding in narration dialogue to make sure he comes off as judgmental and pushy.  I think Crow says it best as the narrator states that now we've learned it's possible for anybody to cook a meal in twenty minutes if you have the right techniques and tools as the Bot adds "...and you're a woman."  That's probably the unspoken theme of the short, he's just saying the quiet part loud.

It's not a great short, but it is a funny one.  It's just a brief little sample of Mystery Science Theater fun and I found it tasty, but am craving more.

Thumbs Up

👍

The Livestream

This stream was supposed to come out last month in between Robot Wars and Beyond Atlantis and it was supposed to coincide with the Vault Picks theme of dystopian futures as it offered episodes like Time Chasers, Warrior of the Lost World, and City Limits up for all who had Vault access.  Unfortunately they decided to bump this stream until after the Gizmoplex launched and that monthly theme had already went away.  It's just as well.  Technically Future War isn't about a future dystopia.  Like Crow says "This isn't the future and it's not a war."  Future War is a pretty solid episode though (read my review here), and it deserves to be celebrated.

The new segments wrapping around the episode are pretty cute.  Jonah and the Bots spend a bit of time discussing dystopian scenarios, and the Bots' let it be known that they intend to Logan's Run him as soon as he hits 30 (if anyone asks, Jonah is 27) while they also discuss their preferred mutations should any occur after the apocalypse.  They also do a fun riff on the Droppy the Water Droplet segment, where they discuss being spokesmen for the elements of the Periodic Table (part of me wishes Pipeline to the Clouds was the opening short to this stream, because that would have been perfect).  There is a bit of talk about the 90's culture, whether at the expense of the 90's movie or the 90's episode of the series, I'm not sure.  What I do know is that the most it amounts to is a lot of long dead catchphrases like "Talk to the hand" and "Peace out!"  The phrase "WHAZUUUUUUUUUAH!" (thank you for this, Scary Movie, hate you forever) gets Synthia and Pearl a scolding by Dr. Kabahl, who insists it's not coming back.  Speaking of the clonee/clone dynamic duo, Pearl notes the irony of the short presented as the Mads don't allow him to cook up there, then starts to ponder how he eats...or breathes.  Cute callback.

Still...if they don't get a food supply from the Mads...how is Jonah not dead by now?  Don't make me ask the science facts questions, show!

As always, tonight's livestream is headed by producer Matt McGinnis, who clearly hates this movie and even misidentifies it as "Future Wars."  He's seems bewildered and enraged by what he saw tonight, so welcome to the depths of 90's crap, Matt.  Some of us have been here for a while, lol.  C'mon Matt, you work on this show and you can't even handle Future War?  Amateur.

One thing working in Matt's favor is that his mic is working perfectly tonight.  The bad news is that he seems to have infected Conor McGiffin and Yvonne Freese.  He tries to introduce Conor, who does a skit reading fan mail with Servo, unaware that nobody can hear him.  It's both unfortunate and really funny at the same time.  While they work on getting Conor back in play, he introduces Yvonne to the stream, who is muted as well.  Matt's wondering if this is a bit, but it's actually happening.

I think Matt's playing dumb and is actually the evil mastermind behind this.  For once everyone else will experience technical difficulties and he'll be the normal one!  IT'S MATT'S TIME!

But everything starts to smooth out once they introduce Kelsey Ann Brady into the room, who successfully can be heard.  The hero of the stream!  But Emily Marsh decides to fuck with him a little bit and pretend to be muted, though her bit loses impact because we can hear her whispering what she's saying through her mic.  Jonah Ray gets a better reaction out of Matt, as he actually rides the bit of his mic being muted, then starts playing "Heaven is a Place on Earth," which really heats Matt up because they don't have the rights to use that song.

Torturing Matt aside, discussion rounds begin with tales about filming the series and how Emily has to stand on a trail of apple boxes behind the desk because she's much shorter than Joel or Jonah.  They then are asked about how they spent their downtime during tours, but since the last one was during Covid there wasn't much time outside the bus to speak of.  Emily, Conor, Kelsey, and Yvonne do relate stories of Covid testing by someone named Jordan that they speak fondly of, and Emily prods Conor quite a bit because of his habit of sleeping in.  Jonah ends the discussion with a sweet story about how he spent most of his tours by himself, but got a call from Kevin Murphy while in Minneapolis who took him fishing.

On the subject of tonight's movie, they're asked by someone what Future War "ruined" for them, which is probably instantly a worthwhile question as Yvonne's answer is "dinosaur puppets," then proceeds to demonstrate how she controls a dinosaur puppet from one of her non-MST gigs (one could say she "walks the dinosaur").  "This opens the mouth, this does the tongue" she claims to her hand-gestures, which absolutely sends Emily into hysterics.  They also talk about plaid outfits inspired by the movie.  Kelsey even has a plaid hat at the ready, which she says makes her feel like a 90's DJ (and her Jurassic Park shirt is helping complete the image).  Jonah has a special plaid shirt with a Necronomicon from Evil Dead imprinted on it.  They then discuss what action hero they would want to combat the Future War, and the names thrown out include Chuck Norris, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt (which inspires a debate over the title of Edge of Tomorrow out of nowhere), Mulan, Uma Thurman, and Bruce Campbell.

Guys...the correct answer is clearly John Wick.  Get it together.  Or the Power Rangers.  The Power Rangers would probably annihilate the Future War.

This is the first stream since the Gizmoplex soft-launched that Joel hasn't participated in at all.  Probably because it's a no-good, stinkin' Mike episode and who cares.  It's probably for the best, because as broken as this stream was, it probably would have crashed from too many people.  But it's another round of laughs with the new cast who certainly look like they're being driven insane by all the livestream material they have filmed over the last two weeks.  Kelsey is sent into a laughing fit for almost no reason toward the end, which starts to get infectious.  "It's the Witchin' Hour!"  This leads into the big finish where everyone impersonates each other, which predictably ends with everyone doing their best Joel imitation simultaneously (and even Matt joins in).  It's Joel Fest 2022, which means our head honcho is here with us in spirit.