MST3K #519: Outlaw (Of Gor)

It's #519, with a parallel-universe jerk of a hero.

Don't get your hopes up.

Our movie this time is a tiresome fantasy slog, based (loosely) on a notoriously misogynistic series of fantasy novels. And it's a sequel to something. Tarl Cabot (sure, that's believable as the name of a mid-80s American college professor) is a fella from Earth who found himself drawn to another planet, where he had some kind of adventures, though the flashbacks don't tell us much at all. It doesn't matter though, since he's quickly pulled back (along with an irritating sidekick character). And immediately, he has to save the kingdom from evil.

Jack Palance, showing the depths he fell to before City Slickers.

An ambitious woman has seduced the kind, beloved king (whose daughter is Cabot's true love). A priest-king (why would anyone cast Palance as a religious leader??) is colluding with her to overthrow the king, take over the kingdom, and undo all the progressive freedom and justice and stuff. (Nope, no political sidebars from me today. You can write it yourself -- seems pretty obvious.)

Cabot's earthman sidekick betrays him at the first scent of sex, the queen murders the king and frames Cabot, and the princess is imprisoned. Oh, and we see a LOT of body parts. Like, a lot. Thighs and calves, buttcheeks and sideboobs, and plenty of greasy oily sweat. In the end, Cabot is spurred into action by the queen's slaving policies, and manages to defeat her, marrying his princess and becoming king. (It seems the original novels took a different approach to slavery, and spent a lot of time on pretty backwards gender relations. The DVD bonus features include a short documentary about the original novels [they were written by an American college professor -- wishful thinking much?], along with the revelation that this film was shot in South Africa, during Apartheid. Ick, double ick, and damn humanity in general.)

Big, buttery slabs of Fabio! (feat. Crow's Leno chin)

It's my first Mike episode of the binge (his seventh as host overall), and he's already in full-flow. The episode first shows him rough-housing with Tom and Crow (and, naturally, it ends badly.). This episode's "invention exchange" is one in name only, since Mike and the bots are presenting Fabio kits. Clay and Frank present a totally-real time machine. This would be the final invention exchange, and I'm kind of glad they decided to abandon the concept. Mike wasn't that maker guy; he was a song-writing guy. And boy, does this episode have a great song. "Tubular, Boobular Joy" is a masterpiece of pop-novelty music-craft, properly beloved in the fandom.

The quality of the riffs is pretty indistinguishable from my last Joel episode. The obscurest riffs are slightly less avant-garde and slightly more 70s TV, but that's a first, unscientific impression, so take it with a grain of salt. There were an awful lot of jokes I wanted to specifically mention here, so here's just a few:

• "It's time for The Brutal Gourmet."
• "Here you go, Socrates."
• "Honey, I shrunk the Nelson."
• "He dislocated his mandible!"

This is my second episode to mention: Dilly Bars, Cosmo, Marlene Deitrich, a song by The Who, Cliffhanger, The Lambada, and "Sampo!" It's the third in a row to mention Jethro Tull, and the third out of the last four to reference Mr. Ed. Four out of my last five have mentioned The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and five out of the last seven referenced Indiana Jones (both now retired).

A joke I had to look up: "Joe Namath!"
A joke that didn't age well: "Kathie Lee had her baby." (Honorable mention: the reference to Ted Danson's notorious blackface appearance.)
My favorite joke: "This is the life." "For you maybe, not for the women."
Overall, I rate this one 6/10. The movie has a lot of things happen, but it's just so dull. I can't fault the in-theater riffs, but (song notwithstanding) the host segments aren't perfect.

Up next, it's #523, Village of the Giants.

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.

MST3K #509: The Girl In Lover's Lane

It's Episode 509, wherein two drifters visit a small town, sowing unhappiness among the townsfolk AND the audience.

Ah, the romance of the open rail! And the soul-crushing depression of the closed heart!

Our movie this week is a sad little slab of teen-crime drama.  Bix is a rough-and-tumble drifter, riding the rails, hopping freights from town to town, after his drunken slob of a father dies. Spoiled rich-boy Danny is running from his home too, though it's just a broken one. After Danny gets rolled and knocked out, they hop off a train near Sherman, a little town with about four women (and two of the four are prostitutes). Carrie (a waitress) falls for Bix, while one of the prostitutes gets Danny drunk and steals his wallet. Carrie gets the pair hired at her dad's diner (where they have to shoo off her stalker), and takes Bix out for night-time walks near the local pond. He pushes her away, since he's determined to drift on.

Sidebar: I couldn't help but be reminded of a similar -- though more recent -- potboiler by Lawrence Block, one of my favorite crime writers. His Resume Speed is about a similar drifter, who gets a job in a diner and falls for a woman. And he has to decide, does he deserve the happiness of settling down, or should he keep punishing himself? The ending of that isn't as manipulative as this one, and treats the subject with more emotion and adult seriousness. 

"Are we gonna hustle these guys, Big Stupid?"

Then Danny makes the mistake of changing a $50 in the local poolhall, and the local gang gives them an alley-fight to remember. And Carrie's stalker keeps creeping by, and before you know it, Bix has broken Carrie's heart, and then the stalker kills her, and her dad is beating Bix nearly to death. Just a really uplifting ending all around.

I dunno, maybe I'm just bummed out because I'm still hurting a little from Resume Speed. (On the other hand, the final host segment is just Tom and Crow coming up with alternate endings to the film, so I know I'm not alone in my response.)

Let's move on to more pleasant things. This episode has one of my favorite original songs from the show, which prompted me to embed a video for the first time in this binge. It's a brilliant train-song pastiche and, thanks to the lyrics from Frank, takes a really dark, real-life turn in the last verse. (The movie's opening "song," too, has a nice set of lyrics courtesy of our funny friends.)

All of these episodes have what I'm starting to think of as "reference clumps". This one has a LOT of references to painters: Picasso, Lichtenstein, Gainsborough, Whistler, and Munch all get mentioned along with Andrew Wyeth. 

This is the second episode in a row to reference: Garrison Keillor, Mr. Ed, Unforgiven, David Crosby, It's A Wonderful Life, Foster Brooks, "Jim Dandy To The Rescue," a Kenny Rogers song, Siddhartha, and Peter Lawford. It's the third to mention The Mary Tyler Moore Show and I Dream of Jeannie.

A joke I had to look up: "I am Xenon. Play me."

A joke that didn't age well: "It's Larry and Balki's apartment."

My favorite joke: I love the whole run of Danny's alternate dialogue. In addition to the one quoted above, there's "What about that guy I groined in the knee?"

Overall, I rate this one: 5/10. The ending of the movie, even with the constant jokes, is too close to sadmaking for me. 

Speaking of sadmaking things, next, I'm bidding farewell to Joel with #510, The Painted Hills.

MST3K #505: The Magic Voyage of Sinbad (sic)

And now, #505, as a Russian folk hero pretends to be Sinbad.

Vikings be different from Persians, you see.

A 1953 award-winning film, based on a classic opera. Seems like a perfect film for Roger Corman to buy and adapt, right? Except for one problem -- it's Russian, and we're at the height of the First Cold War. So his screenwriter (some guy named Francis Something-or-Other Coppola) renamed the hero "Sinbad," and changed the setting to Arabia. The original film is fantastic, imaginative, and has great production value. The reworked, commie-free version has bad dubbing and doesn't make a lot of sense. (The message still retains a little anti-capitalist flavor, though in an inoffensive kiddie-movie way.)

Skinbag discovers the snack that smiles back

Sinbad ... um, I mean Sadko, sells his hat to free a slave, catches a golden fish (with some help from Neptune's daughter), kidnaps a horse, beats up a lot of guys, plays human chess, kidnaps a bird-lady, sacrifices himself to Neptune, and fails to find the bluebird of happiness ("It's the Grackle of Weltschmerz"). 

I've seen two of the Russo-Finnish quadrilogy before (I saw The Day The Earth Froze and Jack Frost more or less upon their original airings, and adored them both), and I'm looking forward to The Sword and The Dragon before the end of March. They're always huge, goofy, perfect fodder for our friends to watch. 

Jestering is grueling!

And speaking of winning awards, let's talk host segments. For the first time in this binge, I've really enjoyed every single host segment. We first see Crow and Gypsy presenting a S.O.L.tie award (Tom: "Get Pricewaterhouse on the phone! I demand a recount!"), and then two classic inventions (chinderwear and the Rat Pack chess set). The jestering sketch is followed by a great town council, then Joel's bewildering catfish puppet, and topped off by Dr. F's friend Mr. Fistie.

The riffing is, of course, top-notch too. Besides the obligatory reference to Sinbad, they also mention Brad Garrett, Foster Brooks, Carrot Top, and Gilbert Gottfried. There's a questionable string of unrelated references to "Take Back The Night," the Rodney King jury, and even Stonewall.

This is my second episode in a row to mention: Dean Martin (now retired), I Dream of Jeannie, Jack Nicholson, Arby's, "Don't eat refrozen ice cream," The B-52s, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It's the third of four to mention Captain Crunch, The Marx Brothers, and Indiana Jones. And four of my last five episodes have mentioned: Blazing Saddles and The Flintstones (which join Martin and Lewis, The Wizard of Oz, Python, Beatles and Stones, and 1960s TV Batman in the ranks of references I've stopped counting).

A joke I had to look up: "It's Steve Martin's World of Birds."
A joke that just became relevant again: "They're test-marketing Crystal Pepsi."
My favorite joke: I loved "Man, I never knew Arabia was so Russian!" but I also have a soft spot in my heart for Joel's take on a really obvious model shot: "I've glued you all to the boats and put rods in your limbs for a reason!"
Overall, I rate this episode 10/10. Just flawless in most every respect.

Up next, I'm watching #509: The Girl in Lover's Lane.

Christmas With Dave Foley #4: KITH "Santa Claus"

I can imagine how this came to be written, and I bet you can too. I haven't done any research about it, but I KNOW it: one too many holidays was ruined by parents hectoring for grandchildren. I just know it. And like with our parents, we all love Santa, even if we don't want to get pushed around by them.

There's not much Dave in this, but it's so seasonal I can't NOT write about it. I love Mark's version of Santa, with hints of Jim Backus and a perfect childlike tantrum when he hears a "dirty" word. I would've liked to see Santa come back for more sketches, where he had to react to real life, but I'm pretty sure Mark already had enough iconic recurring characters.

As a Christmas sketch, I rate this one 9/10. It's a perfect juxtaposition of Santa's holiday idealism with reality, and the problems in that intersection.
As a KITH sketch, I rate this 7/10. It's short, and simple, and the premise is everything. It could work almost as well on SNL or Laugh-In, though the twist at the end is wonderfully KITH-y.
As a spotlight for Dave, I rate this 3/10. He's onscreen for less than a minute, but one of his three lines has a nice twist in the delivery.

The Twelve Days of Christmas (1993)

Since it was cheapish, I bought a DVD containing a bunch of holiday specials. This is the one I bought it for, since it stars Phil Hartman as a weedy, bumbling squire.

This special is based on a story idea from Romeo Muller, the legendary writer of Rudolph and Frosty and a lot of other, less beloved Christmas specials. The actual writing, though, fell to another fella who mostly wrote for Smurfs, and this special's idea of both humor and tension feel very 1983 Saturday morning -- lots of sound-effect-enhanced pratfalls throughout. For some reason, all the main characters are bears, looking a lot like the Disney Gummi Bears characters to me, though your mileage might vary.

Sidebar: I know this is my pet peeve, and most people won't care, but a show that focuses so much on music shouldn't have every instrument in the score portrayed by a 1993 synthesizer. (Sure, every other possible corner was cut, from the cheap animation to the lack of brand-name voice actors [apart from Phil, the only other "name" in this special is the voice of Lion-O from Thundercats]. Still, it's named after a song. It's based on a song. Hire some people that own real instruments, and pay for some studio time.)

But even after all that, there are a few bright spots to this special, It's fun to see Phil Hartman do his brief impression of Maurice Chevalier, and the best parts of the special are different musical spoofs. The titular song itself can be interminable, but I enjoy the conceit here, where each verse is done in a different style, from doo wop and Dylan to Michael Jackson and Elvis. The basic idea of the story, wherein a crossword puzzle and a Christmas wishlist get confused, is vaguely clever, so much so that I can imagine a truly enjoyable version of this story.

More Christmas Phil coming up. Stay tuned.

You have two choices of buy link today -- either by itself, or you can spend two bucks more and get other specials too (including TWO with Ernest Borgnine!)

25 Days of Christmas #13: "Night of the Dead Living"

Hoo boy, am I behind! I'll try to write up all three Christmas Homicides today. Here's the first one, my favorite Homicide of all time: "Night of the Dead Living."

Let's start off on the right foot: this isn't technically a Christmas episode. In fact, it's the hottest night of the year, September in Baltimore. The A/C in the squadroom is broken, of course, and Lt. Al Giardello is trying to get it fixed, to no avail.

There's a mysterious candle, which is lit every night by... someone, we know not who. The night is punishingly slow, and no calls are coming in, so Felton and Lewis appoint themselves to investigate who might be lighting it.

Well, it's not fair to say the phone isn't ringing. There might not be any new homicides to solve, but a man dressed as Santa Claus is on a roof, threatening to jump. And he has a gun. Detective Howard (big-deal movie star Melissa Leo) is handling the calls about Santa and calls from her sister.

"I liked him when I first met him ... I was just showing him my gun."

Crosetti's family is on the phone, too -- his teenaged daughter and her boyfriend want to spend the night together, and his ex-wife is going to let them. Felton's wife calls too -- they're still together, kind of, but it's rough going.

Speaking of rough going, John Munch and his girlfriend have broken up. More specifically, she's broken up with him, and he goes off on a patented Munch speed-rant about relationships in general and her in particular. Bolander, meanwhile, is trying to decide if he wants to try dating again. This just sets Munch off even further. Finally, Santa is rounded up (he shot the gun into the crowd in an attempt to hit his wife, though it should be pointed out it was just a watergun), and as he's brought in, he and Munch have a chat:

MUNCH: So what is it, Kringle? One of the elves kiss Mrs Claus's mistletoe? Ozone layer thin over the North Pole? Is Rudolph's nose red 'cause of alcohol?
SANTA: People don't know how to give any more.
MUNCH: I understand. On December 24th, you're the most popular guy in the world. On December 26th, you're just another fat man in a bad suit. Happy Hanukkah.

Gee goes down to the basement to turn on the air hisownself, and discovers a baby in a cage. As they wait for social services to come pick up the baby, most of the detectives coo and attempt to make him comfortable in the hot, hard-edged squadroom. Turns out the baby belongs to the beautiful janitorial lady who's filling in that night, and her finances don't stretch to hiring babysitters. Santa escapes, but they think he's still in the building somewhere.

Bayliss is still chin-deep in the Adena Watson investigation, and he's found a new clue: fingerprints on her library book, which lead him to ... a 12-year old kid, who'd checked the book out years prior. (Much like the episode as a whole, this plot-point comes from David Simon's nonfiction book about the BPD Homicide division: Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.) Pembleton, who's been drinking hot tea comfortably while everyone else sweats, chastises Bayliss for his flaws, most notably his inability to understand the criminal mind.

Then, Santa crashes down through the ceiling, inspiring Bayliss to have a breakthrough about Adena: the placement of her body makes no sense, except from above. Only the fire escape leads there easily. He starts to follow up on leads, and we finally learn that the self-same John Munch is the one who lights the candle each night, in memoriam of all those who have been killed. Gee invites the squad up to the roof, and they share a brief moment of camaraderie and hilarious joy.

As an episode of Homicide, I rate this 10/10. It's an atypical episode, granted, but we get to just hang out with all the characters and hear what they think about... everything. This show always lets us see the detectives' personal lives, and this episode is almost nothing but that. On the rare occasions I've evangelized about this show to someone, I'd pick this and "Three Men and Adena" to sum up the greatness of the series.
As a Christmas episode, I rate this 6/10. It's September, and hot, and there aren't any gifts or songs, but to quote the show: "Santa Claus, mystery babies: it feels like Christmas." When Santa falls through the ceiling, there's even a flurry of white insulation that comes with him.

I must apologize: the single-season sets of Homicide are apparently now out-of-print, so this buy link goes to the whole thing:

Homicide: Life on the Street - The Complete Series

25 Days of Christmas #12: MST3K "Santa Claus"

So here's the second Christmas Mystery Science Theater: a 1959 Mexican film entitled Santa Claus.

Santa lives in his enormous workshop on a cloud high above the North Pole, with dozens of international children (who make all the toys) and his wondrous array of surveillance gadgets, made for him by Merlin. Yes, that Merlin. It's nearly Christmas, so it's time for Santa to finish setting up his nativity scene and sing a song urging his child laborers to finish that year's toy manufacturing. Then, evil rears its ugly head...

Satan really doesn't want Santa to succeed, so he sends Pitch, one of his lesser demons, to defeat Santa. Pitch tries to get our adorable little heroine, Lupita, to steal her only Christmas desire, a beautiful dolly, as Santa watches and listens helplessly (he can spy on us all the time, but only visit in person on the night of the 24th),

Santa and the narrator urge Lupita to resist Pitch's wheedling, and she repeatedly tells Pitch that stealing is bad and she wants to be good. And then it's the night of the 24th, and Santa has to wind up his clockwork magic reindeer:

Good, old-fashioned, nightmare fuel.

And we, the audience, are scarred for life. And that's only the first half of the film: After that, Santa and Pitch have several weird slapstick fights and Santa helps another good child, a poor little rich boy who only wants his parents to love him (Santa doses their drinks with a magical remembering potion). Pitch cuts a hole in Santa's bag of magical sleeping powders, and Santa loses his invisibility rose, and gets treed by a dog. Did I mention that Santa and Pitch have weird slapstick fights? Because they do. A lot. This is truly strange, and inexplicable. And, like Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, I can't imagine any Hollywood studio would make anything this damned weird.

The previous MST Christmas episode was a Joel-era one, and this is only about the tenth episode Mike hosted. The writing is, at this point, indistinguishable from the earlier part of this season, and Mike's in-theater riffing is already perfectly in-character and has a great flow. I watch both these Christmas episodes almost every December, and I think I've seen them more than any other MST3K, even Manos and Pod People and Mitchell. The two episodes, I noticed this week, do a few similar things in each:

1) Frank and Clay re-enact "Gift of the Magi."
2) In the riffs, Santa has Vietnam flashbacks.
3) A bot makes reference to "Carmen Miranda rights."
4) They make a reference to The Dick Van Dyke Show.
5) "Diarrhea is like a storm raging inside you."

If you care to read more about the riffs, there's an incomplete roundup here.

Coming up next, I have three Christmas-related episodes of Homicide: Life On The Street...

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus   Mystery Science Theater 3000: XVI