MST3K #108: The Slime People

Next up, it's #108. After another adventure with pumpkin boy, there are some slimy underground monsters in LA. (Insert cheap shot about, say, Hollywood agents here.)

Commando Cody is still fighting with those dang ol' moon men. This time, the hired earth goons drop an atomic bomb from a tiny single-engine plane. ("The Cessna Skyhawk is usually your best choice for bombardiering missions.") Cody has to run down the goons in some hills and... I'm bored with Cody. I'm just kind of surprised Joel and the fellas (at least in the episodes I've heard) didn't even MENTION "Hot Rod Lincoln." There are enough car chases to inspire it, and they hadn't banned obvious ("state park") jokes quite yet.

Our main picture doesn't make too much sense. We start in the aftermath of some kinda fogpocalypse, though we don't know what happened until our jowly hero finds a convenient TV news compilation (luckily, he's a sportscaster so he's incredibly skilled at using the equipment). The scientist who picks him up from the airport reminds us that there is much we don't know about science, so slime people are just as believable as any other durnfool thing the producers could've come up with.

Sidebar:  Just last week, I was talking about Stephen King's "The Mist" with my friends. As in that story, our plucky survivors hole up in a butcher shop, making a quick excursion out into the low-vis surroundings and nearly getting killed. The Slime People have also built a giant fog-dome over LA, and I can't help but be reminded of Under The Dome. Even all the way through to the struggle to destroy the machine producing the fog-dome, I kept wondering if Stephen King had ever seen this one. (Apparently I'm not alone.)

Did I mention there's a lot of fog in this movie? I skipped to a random part near the end to take this screenshot. Not only is it hard to like this film, it's impossible even to see it. ("Boy, I bet that'd be scary if we could make out what it was.")

Some stray observations: I'll see the newsreel reporter again in The Giant Mantis from Season 8.
I like Joel's midpoint thoughts on the virtue (or at least, honesty) of making a bad movie, and this time I like Tom's followup metajoke about MST.
Who's doing that Pee Wee Herman voice? Is it Josh maybe?
This is the second episode in a row where I've heard "You'll believe a man can fly," or in this instance, "You'll believe a Marine can drive a car." (This is also two in a row where Joel calls Tom "Crow," though it was deliberate this time.)
I like this early run of jokes, the first time (in my binge at least) they clearly wrote multiples for the same setup: "Right in the kidney beans." "Right in the creamed corn." "Right in the liver and onions." "Right in the Salisbury steak."

Bonus feature note: the DVD has a shortish interview with the film's ingenue, Judee Morton, about her memories of the cheapass production and her costars.
Two timely jokes that, as of last year, were relevant again: "Zsa Zsa is guilty." and "Must be that new Hi-C Ecto-Cooler."
My favorite joke: "Yeah, you can usually find a blonde hair in a field of wheat." "At night." "In a fog."

Odds I'll watch this one again: 6/10. The show is so well-oiled by this point that the only thing clearly placing this in season one is Josh as Larry and Tom. (No slight intended, Josh! I love your Tom in so many ways.)
Overall, I rate this one 6/10. The monsters are goofy, and the jokes are diverse and largely funny. They haven't quite reached the dizzying heights of absurdism and obscurity I fell in love with, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Up next is #109, Project Moonbase, also featuring my final bout with Commando Cody.