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.