MST3K #510: The Painted Hills

It's #510, so we get to learn about good grooming, and then Lassie's out to get revenge.

They're cops.

First, a condescending narrator tells all us college kids about the importance of personal cleanliness, obsessive grooming rituals, and conformity. Like all the great educational shorts on this show, the riffing gets dark and dirty, and deservedly so. I love that Joel and the bots call out the narrator for his narrow-minded shaming, and in the following host segment both Crow and Tom champion individuality. Before, you know, the debate descends into chaos.

And our feature film is a dark, gritty Lassie movie (decades before dark, gritty reboots were even a thing). Lassie plays Shep, a dog who looks just like Lassie but with murderous vengeance in her heart. Her owner has been murdered over a gold claim, the villain nearly kills a kid, and Shep survives poisoning and eventually runs the guy over a cliff. It's half Treasure of the Sierra Madre, half family adventure movie. It's too serious to be fun, and has too much Lassie to be a suitable movie for grownups.

Sidebar: Speaking of surprisingly brutal sequels, I saw Logan this week. It's amazing, and unexpected. I nearly mentioned it in my previous episode writeup (as another reason I was sad). I figured it was maybe too personal, but closer in tone to this Lassie movie. I can't imagine how many thousands of tiny kids were taken to see this movie, just like I was surprised to see that seven-year-old girl in my theater, dancing to the Johnny Cash song playing during Logan's credits. And, like The Girl In Lover's Lane, this movie is darker than I like for a MST episode.

Crow slaughters Jay.

And since the movie is so dark, it's lucky that the riffs are so good. Running gags about Snausages and the irregular Pete piling-on are consistently good, and several of the host segments are perfection. I like Crow playing Leno, and his report on Rutherford B. Hayes ("Pornograph?") is classic.

I can't believe I've already made it to my last Joel episode of the binge. For me, Joel is not just the creator/writer/original host of the show, he's the progenitor. I know that, for legal reasons, Mallon gets to claim some credit, but Joel is the creative person who made it all happen. I tweeted an earlier post at Joel, though I can't imagine he read it, and he probably won't ever see this. But he's brought me literally hundreds of hours of joy, and I know there are millions of other people out there who can say the same thing.

This is the second episode in a row to mention: Jethro Tull, Perfect Strangers, Paul Revere's ride, Groucho (now retired), and Abraham Lincoln. It's the third to reference: Kenny Rogers and It's A Wonderful Life (also now retired). Since I've been tracking all the Muppet references, I also laughed out loud at the joke on Big Bird's "ABC-DEF-GHI".

Bonus feature alert: I haven't been mentioning all of these, but this disc has nearly an hour of host segments from Turkey Days past, with appearances from all our friends and Jack Perkins too.

A joke that aged so poorly, it was already cancelled: "Remember to tape Delta."
A joke I had to look up: "Call her what you will: a Scoop Jackson Democrat or a Jacob Javits Republican."
My favorite joke from this one: I loved "Arf-keeba! Gym-collie!," but the prize goes to "Well, looks like the montage finally blew over."
Overall, I rate this one 6/10. It's just too serious to make good MST fodder. It might sound silly, but I really liked the characters and didn't feel like laughing when Shep nearly died from poison.

Up next, I greet Mike in #519, Outlaw of Gor.