MST3K #102: The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy

In my MST3K binge this year, #102 is the first episode I've seen before. In fact, I taped it off Comedy Central waaaaay back in the day. (Not from The Comedy Channel, mind you -- I have a vague recollection that at the time, the season one shows weren't rerun at the request of Best Brains, and CC's decision to reair the rare early shows was met with some skepticism from the fandom, possibly because of CC's tonedeaf promos.) It's got a lot of great early jokes, like Joel explaining serials to the bots ("Why would someone go see part of a movie?") and some reused stuff from KTMA host segments. Let's dig in.

After Joel reuses an invention exchange from the first episode (and a staple of his standup act, and also a real thing apparently), it's time for the first-ever MST'd short. Commando Cody fights Radar Men from the Moon, or something. This also sees our first example of "New Petitions Against Tax." This is the second episode in a row where I've heard a joke about Jackie Gleason's face on the moon, and also "Jane, stop this crazy thing!"

The feature film is only about a third of a movie, really. It's nearly all talky framing scenes with flashbacks from the first two movies in its series, and the titular fight takes about two minutes. It's kind of a dull slog, honestly. I know this is at least the third time I've seen this episode, but my brain simply won't retain this film. (Maybe it's a self-protective mechanism.)

A few stray observations: This episode has a few jokes the crew apologized for later, where they messed with the film's audio. Joel covers a singer's mouth, and the sound is muffled. They also dubbed in the sound of micturation.

Why on earth would the mummy fear a cross? Unless he died in the last decade of the Aztec era, he would have no conception of the symbol. It's almost like the filmmakers cared for historical accuracy as little as they cared for effective storytelling.

I'm a little tired of Jerry Lewis impressions (maybe because I can't imagine a better one than Paul Rugg on Animaniacs), but I adore the time Trace spent doing Dean Martin here.

The other reused host segment idea is the demon dogs from K02, who have an expanded role in this show (giving us our second and third urine jokes in 90 minutes). One dog even shows up in the theater, becoming the first of many guests to appear in silhouette form. (If you want your own demon dog, there are plenty of the toys Joel used as the basis available.)

Bonus alert: The DVD includes a bonus feature of some short host segments from KTMA, including a short scene with Beeper, Tom Servo's ill-fated predecessor.

Coming up next, #103: The Mad Monster!

A joke that didn't age particularly well: "The evil judge Robert Bork." (I can't imagine it being phrased that way later, especially not in the new season.)
My favorite joke in this episode: "This is the city. Mexico. My name’s Friday. I carry a badge. I don’t need no stinking badge."
The odds I'll watch this one again: 2/10. It's not bad, but I haven't seen half of season one even once.
Overall, I rate this one 5/10. Sure, it's early, but the show is nearly fully-formed at this point. The worst part about this episode is the dullness of the movie.

A Spoopy Month #14: Mad Monster Party?

Well, I made it 13 days before running out of pre-written posts. This post is going up late in the day, not my usual schedule at all, but I've watched a lot of stuff I'm excited to write about, so I hope to get a few more posts in the pipeline today. Here's another Karloff movie, 1967's Mad Monster Party?

As you can see, it's stop-motion, and it's another Rankin-Bass spectacular. What you can't see, and might not guess, is why that word "Mad" is in the title. It was produced by Mad Magazine's publisher, and the characters were mostly designed by Mad artist Jack Davis. The movie was also co-written by Mad creator Harvey Kurtzman. (It's not important to this movie, but pretty important to me, that around the time Kurtzman was working on this movie, he'd just finished several years as Terry Gilliam's boss at Help! Magazine.)

I don't feel like this movie reaches the dizzying absurdist heights of humor that Mad could go to, though there are plenty of familiar touches (the characters are named things like Yetch and Felix Flanken). It's consistently amusing, though most people agree it's too long. (Apparently the producer/distributor wanted it to be 90 minutes, so a handful of extraneous scenes were added and filmed. This would benefit greatly from removal of those scenes, and a general tightening of atmosphere and chase scenes.) And while we're on the subject of the script, my DVD contains a special feature in which Arthur Rankin himself takes credit for my favorite joke in the movie: our hero and his lady are running from the monsters, trying to escape off the island, and she's unable to run any more. She begs the hero to save himself: "Go on, Felix. Just leave me something to read."

Karloff plays Dr. Frankenstein for a change in this one, and Phyllis Diller is immediately recognizable as herself (they even renamed Frankenstein's Monster to "Fang," in honor of her act). Most of the voice duties, though, fall to Allen Swift, who plays Felix as Jimmy Stewart (his job is as a pharmacist's assistant, and frankly I can't NOT think of It's A Wonderful Life in those scenes). Swift also makes The Invisible Man into Sydney Greenstreet and Yetch into Peter Lorre (what, no one could sound like Bogart?).

There are songs, too, which I personally didn't care for at all, since they had almost no jokes in them, though apparently the cult following for this film is at least partly due to the soundtrack. One person's meat, and all that.

You can find this on DVD most anywhere this time of year, and I'm honestly surprised I hadn't ever bothered to watch it before now. I doubt I'll see it every year, but it's a pleasant way to spend 90 minutes and has a handful of really funny monster jokes.