"Better Breakfasts, U.S.A." & A Tribute to Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (MST3K Special)

The Short

We've received quite a few tips and tidbits on food with this season's shorts, even more on that than bicycle safety!  But hey, at least they didn't crowd the series with shorts on reproduction.  I think we've had one too many on that.

Better Breakfasts, U.S.A. specifically singles out the most important meal of the day, breakfast! ("Lunch and dinner can pound sand!  Brunch, you're on thin ice!")  It leads a group of children through a TV station, which is doing a show on...breakfast cereal.  Sure to be a smash hit.  Watch out M*A*S*H, here come the T*R*I*X!  Here, the children learn of the various sorts of grains and wheats that create cereal and how it gets from the field into the milk and down to our stomachs!  We also learn about the rigorous testing that was put forth in showing just how important breakfast is to everyday function which doesn't come off as staged at all and is certainly not a propaganda piece to help boost cereal sales.

Kids are definitely the target of this one, hoping to implant the idea that they need to keep buying cereal or consequences shall incur.  Do you want to become a lifeless drone throughout your day?  Do you want to put thousands of people out of work?  Better buy those Fruit Loops and save not just yourself, but an entire industry!  Get invested in your breakfast!  A BETTER breakfast, in this U.S.A!

I like this one a bit.  This short definitely vibes with the most loveable of industrial shorts we've seen from classic MST.  And Emily's crew do a superb job with it, which would be their last short of the season.  Emily, in particular, has some witty barbs in the chamber for this one, as the short discusses the wide area in which wheat is grown, to which she responds "Eat too much wheat and you'll have a wide area!"  And I love her little grumble for a lady production worker:  "I was supposed to be a poet."

This one of my favorite shorts this season, and I think it's Emily's highlight for her lengthy run with the shorts over the period.  This is a breakfast of champions!

Thumbs Up

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The Livestream

Things get switched up with this live event, where two alternative versions were streamed.  The first was the basic tribute event, which played the basic version of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (review here) and followed with a Q&A session featuring Matt McGinnis, Jonah Ray, Baron Vaughn, Hampton Yaunt, and Rebecca Hansen.  The second was a special watch-a-long presentation, which featured the episode playing along with additional commentary from Jonah, Baron, Hampton, and Rebecca.  This was a format we hadn't seen since the Mindless Summer Festival on YouTube and I'm happy to see it back, though this wasn't one of their more fun attempts at one.

There are several things that gnawed at me during this particular special.  It feels like the live hosts aren't sure what to do when there are new bumper segments and ads.  There are long portions where they sit around and stay silent, waiting for the bit to finish, though occasionally there will be a tidbit that they throw in about filming a particular segment that is pretty fun.  There also seems to be some confusion as to whether or not they're supposed to sit in during the intermission, as Rebecca repeatedly asks what they're supposed to do when it starts.

Another little hurdle to it is that the episode seems to be new to most of our live-watchers.  Jonah and Baron say that this is their first time watching it, while Rebecca says she's seen it but not for a good long while.  It is fun watching the episode with fresh eyes, especially with Baron, who is laughing up a storm during the episode.  The main issue with the watch-a-long format is that they settle in and watch the episode for a decent amount of time.  It gets to a point where those who went to the basic stream probably didn't miss much.  It's still a hoot watching the show with these people.  As mentioned above, Baron is having a blast.  He especially loves the Public Pearl host segments, bending over with laughter at hearing the programmer "Are You Being Served?"  And he has some colorful reactions to some of the episodes most memorable lines, including disbelief at hearing the words "Is it...sexy?"  When it comes to discussing the episode afterwards, most of the talk is in praise of Mary Jo Pehl, who they all agree stole the episode.

The questions also get into the nitty gritty of the movie when it comes to subject of doppling, with light confusion as to how it's portrayed in the movie.  This comes at the expense of a question wondering what movie the cast would want to be injected into, but Jonah believes the way it works is that you go into the last movie you watched, so the question as asked was answered only with some off-kilter, unexplained answers, such as Meteor Man and Meet the Parents.  The question then gets turned into what they all watched most recently, as Baron turns some heads by saying The Menu (which is a great movie, but a very bad one to be inserted into), Jonah says The Road to Wellville (which is a movie that I've never heard of that has a stacked cast), and Rebecca gets the most pity because she says Munchie, while Hampton's internet goes out and he doesn't answer the question.  They also get into the subject of doppling into their animals of choice, and Hampton wins the night by saying "A CROW!"  Jonah like penguins, Rebecca wants to be a koala, and Baron is torn between a boa constrictor and a marmont, which are two very specific animals on the opposite side of the spectrum.  He also wants Matt McGinnis to become Rat McGinnis, while Rebecca prefers Wombat McGinnis.

Other questions ask what the best movie featured on the show is.  Baron gets universal rejection for his joke answer of Munchie.  Rebecca likes The Mask (agreed), Hampton has fondness for Santo, and Matt says he legitimately enjoys The Beast of Hollow Mountain.  Probably the most surprising answer is Jonah having a long list of discussion points for The Christmas That Almost Wasn't.  For me, I'm a Universal Monster nerd, so it's easily Revenge of the Creature.  From the relaunch seasons, I'd echo The Mask, but would also profess love for Doctor Mordrid and Demon Squad.  An interesting question is brought up about recognizable locations in MST movies, which Rebecca chimes in with being familiar with a lot of the locations in The Home Economics Story.  I drive through most of the locations of Last Clear Chance on a daily basis, so I know how she feels.  They're also asked what their "catchphrase" would be, which I think was supposed to be an opening for funny one-liners like "You know you want me, baby!"  Instead, Jonah and Rebecca bring up lines that have been quoted to them by fans, like "Pretty nice!" and "Mr. Filing Cabinet."  Hampton, again, steals the show by just doing an Alex Jones impression.

This is an okay live event.  The short is pretty great, while the watch-a-long event doesn't really take off, and while the Q&A is good enough, it's not particularly memorable.  I'd probably consider the raw tribute with just the episode the superior experience, but it's also just fun to sit down with friends and watch an episode you've seen a hundred times, so the watch-a-long isn't a total bust.