The Short
Pearl is in a very Mean Girls mood when she introduces today's short, probably because it's school related and she's channeling her inner high school bully and resisting the urge to shove Joel in a locker. Speaking of our hapless host, this is very likely the last bit of riffing we'll ever hear Joel do on the show, so Doing Things for Ourselves in School will probably earn a place in Mystery Science Theater history that was formerly taken by Mitchell.
The next episode to honor is the one, the only (and we prefer it that way) I Accuse My Parents (review here). One could not ask for a more upbeat, good vibes episode to end our Tribute streams with, and the enthusiasm for this episode is through the roof. Matt McGinnis loves it, Emily Marsh loves it, Tim Ryder loves it, I love it, and I'm assuming Yvonne Freese loves it too, but she's relatively quiet during this livestream. Series creator Joel Hodgson also loves it, and while he isn't here tonight, he sends a letter about the episode that Matt reads aloud, encouraged by everyone around him to say it in a Joel impression (that sounds like Kermit the Frog). Fellow participant Kelsey Ann Brady has not seen it, which is great news because she gets to watch it for the first time. What's her final verdict on the episode?
For those keeping track at home, this is another watch-a-long event, like Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. Unlike that stream, everyone seems much better prepared for this particular event. Everyone is chatty and interactive with the episode itself, discussing the fine details of it to just guffawing at the things they love (they especially get the giggles every time one of the riffers quacks at the sight of the duck painting). Emily is enamored with the movie in general, bringing up her upbringing of watching older movies like Bringing Up Baby (an excellent screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn), and she especially loves the mother in this movie. There is a lot of discussion about 1940's hairstyling because the ladies don't know how Kitty gets her hair to look like that. Kelsey kindly explains "The longer the bangs, the bigger the loaf!" There is proper discussion on how old everyone is supposed to be in this movie and just how Jimmy is able to do everything he does in this movie at just seventeen. They do discuss how they dislike being "helped" in shoe stores like they did back then, preferring not to have strangers touching their feet. Kelsey does get one of the best zingers during this discussion when she points out "You can't show this kind of feet content today." They also have a lot of love for the sketches, as everyone howls at the Invention Exchange, and Tom Servo's "nude" scene gets a lot of feedback.
There are also personal stories abound. Everyone has experience with swing dancing and they all compare notes. Emily tells a story about being in court and winning. Tim compares a scene in the film to the video game Powerwash Simulator, which Kelsey thinks is a joke premise until both he and Emily take a deal of time explaining that it's an actual game. Emily says she's getting into Star Trek with Strange New Worlds (which featured Patton Oswalt in its third season!), which Tim piggybacks off of by saying his friend Tawny Newsome headlines Lower Decks, which he misidentifies as "Below Decks," proving he's a poser (Baron Vaughn has a guest role in that show's third season, as well!). Tim also offers us some insight into his relationship with one of the show's sponsors, claiming the Bendy games are too scary for him.
Other questions involve where the best hamburger sammich and french fried potatoes come from. Tim hates In-n-Out, which Matt must defend the honor of, while Emily is a Five Guys girl. I like burgers at dine-in restaurants that are so thick that they are served with a steak knife stabbed in the top, personally. However, the question is stolen by Matt, who tells a story of finding a brewery that served a burger in between two Krispy Kreme donuts, which he ordered because he just had to know. He says it was delicious, but Emily wants to know how his poops were afterward. No comment. They also discuss what kind of movies they'd watch with their own parents. Emily says she and her mother love Talladega Nights, Tim says he and his dad would watch Hoosiers, and Yvonne says dad loves Lord of the Rings and mom loves Lifetime movies. Kelsey's answer is It's a Wonderful Life, which spawns Tim's own story of a disagreement with his father, where Tim claimed the night life in Pottersville looked fun, which offended his father greatly. I think both sides are right. Personally, my dad mostly just rewatched John Wayne movies, which weren't really my thing, so I don't think we ever had like a go-to comfort movie, but we did normally watch the sitcom Titus together. On my mother's side, I remember the first time she took me to the movies to see a non-kids movie that she wanted to see was City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold. Because of that, I kinda attribute the City Slickers movies as movies I'd watch with her.
The short itself is a very basic learning film for children. The idea is basically showing examples of self-reliance so they will stop bugging their teacher every time they need their pencil sharpened. They say the Millennial generation was the lazy one, but if Boomers need a short like this to show them how to get off their asses and do productive actions, I'm wondering how true that actually is. I didn't need a training video to show me how to put things in the trash.
"He thought of asking for help."
"But that's would show weakness."
As mentioned above, the final short of Season 13 belongs to Joel. And instead of being accompanied by Conor and Kelsey like he has normally been all season, he is joined by Jonah's sidekicks Baron and Hampton. Taking into account the charity shorts he did with J. Elvis and Bill, this means he has performed a riffing combination with every Servo and Crow performer on the show. Hell, taking The Christmas Dragon into account, the only main riffing performer he has never riffed alongside in the MST theater is Mike (Joel did perform next to him during the RiffTrax Live: MST3K Reunion show, however). Additionally, like Joel's previous short this season, Sleep for Health, the riff script for this short was written by fans. Sleep for Health was written by backers of the 2015 Kickstarter, and Doing Things for Ourselves in School was written by the 2021 Kickstarter backers. I had my expectations in the toilet after learning this would be the case, but I didn't need to. Doing Things for Ourselves in School is much funnier than Sleep for Health.
"And then he knew."
"He couldn't read."
There are a lot of openings in this short, because we're basically making fun of children who lack knowledge of doing basic tasks. As mean as that sounds, the same basic principle of mocking ineptitude stands. We have a cast of ignorant characters and we shall mock their ignorance, such as a couple of boys who can't open a jar, only for their girl classmate to find a way to help them, cuing the line "Their masculinity in tatters." This also sets up an oxymoron in the short itself, which presents itself as being about independence but also offers examples of when children need to ask for help. Knowing when you need to ask for help is an important lesson, but Servo also has to point out "Doing things for ourselves involves a lot of people." The short is quite a bit of fun and the riffers have fun with it. They also take the correct message from the short: "It was about me! I'm the hero!"
Thumbs Up
👍
The Livestream
And we're at the end of the road with the final main Gizmoplex livestream. The entire Gixmoplex experience was both powerful and exhausting. By the time I got to this point I was working overtime and still trying to make room for all the new MST3K content that was being thrown at me. So, forgive me if things just kinda got swept under the rug for a while afterward. I spent several years sleeping.
The next episode to honor is the one, the only (and we prefer it that way) I Accuse My Parents (review here). One could not ask for a more upbeat, good vibes episode to end our Tribute streams with, and the enthusiasm for this episode is through the roof. Matt McGinnis loves it, Emily Marsh loves it, Tim Ryder loves it, I love it, and I'm assuming Yvonne Freese loves it too, but she's relatively quiet during this livestream. Series creator Joel Hodgson also loves it, and while he isn't here tonight, he sends a letter about the episode that Matt reads aloud, encouraged by everyone around him to say it in a Joel impression (that sounds like Kermit the Frog). Fellow participant Kelsey Ann Brady has not seen it, which is great news because she gets to watch it for the first time. What's her final verdict on the episode?
"I have no idea what happened."
For those keeping track at home, this is another watch-a-long event, like Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. Unlike that stream, everyone seems much better prepared for this particular event. Everyone is chatty and interactive with the episode itself, discussing the fine details of it to just guffawing at the things they love (they especially get the giggles every time one of the riffers quacks at the sight of the duck painting). Emily is enamored with the movie in general, bringing up her upbringing of watching older movies like Bringing Up Baby (an excellent screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn), and she especially loves the mother in this movie. There is a lot of discussion about 1940's hairstyling because the ladies don't know how Kitty gets her hair to look like that. Kelsey kindly explains "The longer the bangs, the bigger the loaf!" There is proper discussion on how old everyone is supposed to be in this movie and just how Jimmy is able to do everything he does in this movie at just seventeen. They do discuss how they dislike being "helped" in shoe stores like they did back then, preferring not to have strangers touching their feet. Kelsey does get one of the best zingers during this discussion when she points out "You can't show this kind of feet content today." They also have a lot of love for the sketches, as everyone howls at the Invention Exchange, and Tom Servo's "nude" scene gets a lot of feedback.
"My nude is different from his nude."
"Everybody's nude is different. That's what make us special."
There are also personal stories abound. Everyone has experience with swing dancing and they all compare notes. Emily tells a story about being in court and winning. Tim compares a scene in the film to the video game Powerwash Simulator, which Kelsey thinks is a joke premise until both he and Emily take a deal of time explaining that it's an actual game. Emily says she's getting into Star Trek with Strange New Worlds (which featured Patton Oswalt in its third season!), which Tim piggybacks off of by saying his friend Tawny Newsome headlines Lower Decks, which he misidentifies as "Below Decks," proving he's a poser (Baron Vaughn has a guest role in that show's third season, as well!). Tim also offers us some insight into his relationship with one of the show's sponsors, claiming the Bendy games are too scary for him.
Of course, the Q&A portion of the stream can only start one way...ACCUSATIONS! What do they all accuse their parents of? Tim says his parents are too supportive, but Emily goes into a very detailed story of an argument between her and her dad over an interview between Leonard Maltin and George Lucas where both of them disagreed on which one Lucas was. The argument got so heated that little Emily was sent to time-out, only to find out she was correct afterward. They then ask that who of the cast they would accuse should they find themselves in court. Emily claims Yvonne is easy to accuse because she would probably accept that maybe she did do it. Kelsey asks if the accusation is about farting because the easy accusation is Conor, who is not here to defend himself (but is watching the stream at home and in the chat). Yvonne accuses Joel, which makes sense because, without him, none of us would be here. Tim says you can probably pin anything on Hampton, and I would honestly agree with that.
Other questions involve where the best hamburger sammich and french fried potatoes come from. Tim hates In-n-Out, which Matt must defend the honor of, while Emily is a Five Guys girl. I like burgers at dine-in restaurants that are so thick that they are served with a steak knife stabbed in the top, personally. However, the question is stolen by Matt, who tells a story of finding a brewery that served a burger in between two Krispy Kreme donuts, which he ordered because he just had to know. He says it was delicious, but Emily wants to know how his poops were afterward. No comment. They also discuss what kind of movies they'd watch with their own parents. Emily says she and her mother love Talladega Nights, Tim says he and his dad would watch Hoosiers, and Yvonne says dad loves Lord of the Rings and mom loves Lifetime movies. Kelsey's answer is It's a Wonderful Life, which spawns Tim's own story of a disagreement with his father, where Tim claimed the night life in Pottersville looked fun, which offended his father greatly. I think both sides are right. Personally, my dad mostly just rewatched John Wayne movies, which weren't really my thing, so I don't think we ever had like a go-to comfort movie, but we did normally watch the sitcom Titus together. On my mother's side, I remember the first time she took me to the movies to see a non-kids movie that she wanted to see was City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold. Because of that, I kinda attribute the City Slickers movies as movies I'd watch with her.
We close the stream with essays! What would be our chosen essay topics? This brings a lot of strange answers that are all over the map, starting with Tim declaring surprisingly quickly that his essay would be about how Ross: Dress for Less "should be either 'Ress: Dress for Less' or 'Ross: Dross for Loss.'" I think this idea lives rent free inside his head. Emily has a strange pitch for an essay about being a fake Italian-American, while Kelsey just throws out the title "Laundry! Not Just For Clothes!" I don't think Yvonne really knew what to do with this question, so she just goes on a stream-of-consciousness ramble of "If you need something transported, I'm a tall white blonde and probably won't get arrested," which Matt rightfully points out sounds more like a classified ad.
And I just throw out the essay pitch that I always threaten to write, which is about how Sliders is the greatest show ever made that is also the worst show ever made all rolled into one.
This was a very fun stream. Good short, amazing episode, and wild comradery reminding us of what made the Gizmoplex special. It's a shame that it's the end of the road for these streams, but they ended on a high. There is nobody to accuse here. Everyone should be commended.
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