So I was watching HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND and I noticed something for the first time. When you first go into the castle, Brain Guy is moving boxes. The topmost box just to the left of him is labeled “Pandora’s (NO NOT OPEN!)”. It made me giggle.
Anyone else notice some little visual gags hiding in plain sight?
One of my favorites is the The Mads’ foosball table in episode 205- ROCKET ATTACK USA. If you look at the player figures closely, they’re little Dr. Forresters and Franks.
What have you spotted?
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The driving footage from Nanos in the first during-the-movie host segment goes to the left if I recall, but the sketch is set up so that Joel is driving his imaginary car to the right. It’s one of those little things that’s just there and I’m sure not accidentally, but it’s never mentioned. You either notice it and get a chuckle from it or you don’t. Then of course, there’s the feet instead of hands on Joel’s robe when he is The Master later on.
The 5,000 piece Fightin’ Men and Monster set is nothing but a montage of great visual gags, many of them made funnier by the fact that Servo’s narration does not match the look at all of some of the toys we’re seeing as he’s verbally announcing them.
There’s something I saw on MASTER NINJA I that I still wonder about. There is a scene just after Timothy Van Patten’s first day of training where they are walking along. Leah Van Cleef is carrying his sword (No, the one you fight with) and it looks like the sword knocks Crow’s net right off of his head. I look for it every time I play the episode. Anybody else noticed that?
Also in FUTURE WAR, Mike’s eating a Milky Way candy bar but suddenly it’s a Snickers. . .that can’t be right, can it? No way! I can’t handle that! I’m Freaking out!!!
I like the moment in Hobgoblins, when Mike & the Bots escape during the movie, and Mike brings in cardboard cutouts to replace them. Mike’s outstretched hand is positioned perfectly so that his finger is sticking right up Daphne’s nose. Lovely!
At the end of Jack Frost, the beer Bobo and Brain Guy drink as they talk about ape movies is Simian Adams.
Joel doing the censor’s work in City Limits.
Joel adding Batman-style sound effects for the hearing-impaired in the Commando Cody short in Project Moonbase.
In ‘Devil Fish’, when Pearl ‘n Co. are serving up the Captain’s Dinner, it’s ‘Marshmallow Mateys’. Not a handmade subtlety, but a nice touch.
In Space Mutiny, the “Railings, Ballistrades & Bannisters” faux catalog is an amusing detail.
In the movie one can clearly see “Manos” on the manipulator arm, along with the theme going in the background.
One’s I’ve noticed are the types of lunchboxes used in 312 – Gamera vs Guiron.
On The Touch of Satan when Steffi has “Brian” Guy playing with the blocks, they are arranged so that facing the camera they spell out the word ‘BUM’.
-In SWAMP DIAMONDS, Frank and Forrester’s arms are ridiculously long while watching the U-View (a behind the scenes photo I saw later revealed Patrick Brantseg was their arm double)
-In the same episode, when Servo and Gypsy go on their date, Joel is making a sammich. When they pan away and pan back to him the sandwich has gotten ridiculously large.
It bugs me when they insert the host bits out of order, as with Spider Island (first the web, THEN the audition). Also with War of the Colassal Beast, which really affects the gag when Joel does the announcer bit. It’s almost as annoying as missing Chet in Parts, or the BSG footage in Space Mutiny. But to stay on topic, I love the Border Pop / Border Meat (Meat?) in Oversrawn, during the Nature of Bobo.
These details are truly one of the reasons I love the show. I forget which ep, but Crow is holding a sammich that’s missing a bite which is shaped exactly like his beak.
Many come to mind but a good one is the giant check book in “Fire Maidens of Outer Space.” Miami Pro Am… Dr. F or Frank can really play!
During the opening segment on Eegah!, Crow is in a box with the temperature turned waaaay down. Did anyone notice that when Joel put on the glove to reach in the box to rescue Crow, the glove was already on the table next to the Crow-in-the-box?
At the end of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, I love how Frank’s gift comes in a box featuring the MST3K silhouettes. I don’t think I noticed that the first time around.
Anytime there is an unspoken or whispered riff in the theater. There are several of these in the movie, where one of the characters will make some odd comment and Crow will shake his head or Tom will mouth the line again without actually saying outloud.
And the numerous unexplained appearances of a “Join us” sign in the early seasons…
Great discussion!
It’s always a fun time watching the host segments while keeping a close eye on the background, particularly on the walls and the many things used to decorate them. Each time I look, I find something new. A toy trumpet, Millenium Falcon, ice cube trays. Awesome!
I love all the ones listed here, the first one listed is one of my faves, with the fighting scene.
Also love when Crow blows a rasberry on the woman’s stomach in Angel’s Revenge. That’s one I noticed not too long ago, even though I’ve seen it countless times. MST3k, the gift that keeps giving.
Also love puppet Mike and whenever Joel or Mike “run” from a car.
Oh, so many….
I like the 502 Hercules host segment where Joel is eating a bowl of “Cap’n Ron” cereal.
Off hand, I can’t recall any of the injokes that the guys put in the backgrounds, so I think I’ll just focus on a couple of visual things that got the guys going:
I Accuse My Parents – The duck picture outside the apartment. I never noticed it until all the guys started quacking. After that, it remains one of my favourite gags.
The next one is from Rifftrax:
Little Lost Scent: whenever the short shows mama skunk and her brood, the way the guys just start babbling “Mom! Mom! Mom!” like annoying children gets me everytime.
I’ve noticed that when there is food in the movie near the proximity of Crow, he will actually make motions that he is eating it. At least once I remember Servo asking “How is it, Crow?” and Crow replies “Delicious”.
@#1: You typed “Nanos” instead of “Manos.” —-Made me laugh. HA!
I always get a chuckle at the way Gypsy and Tom have their arms around each other during the first skit from “Track of the Moon Beast” when they’re rushing the Halloween season.
Crow’s big British teeth in the pub sketch from “Devil Doll” is also a favorite.
Back to missing Chet the Fireman in Parts: The Clonus Horror.
I think the strangest thing about them missing that it was Chet who played ‘Richard the Clone’, is that the opening host segment has Mike getting a mustache and then shaving it off. And it seems like the reason they missed Chet was because he didn’t have his trademark mustache that he always had in ‘Emergency’. That’s weird!
One that made me stop the film and go back is in “Jungle Goddess” when Joel and the bots are talking to the ‘Imperialistic Aliens’ (A.K.A. Mike and Jim) Joel makes a subtle but rather rude gesture with his hand right after Mike mentions the “magic fire stick”.
I laughed but I was really kind of shocked both because it got past the censors and because it seemed… well… uncharictaristically rude and kind of coarse for Joel.
If memory serves me correctly when they impersonate Bela at the end of Bride of the Monster with re-editing it with Cambot there’s a sight gag of Crow with his hand doing (as best possible for the puppet) the vein-tapping-for-shooting-up thing.
Another hilarious thing I noticed is that when Crow and Servo are battling over turf in Teenage Strangler, you can see that Crow is wearing a pair of high-top sneakers.
I’ve always noticed that during the “Vacuum autopsy” sketch from The Ring of Terror, the lab coat that Joel is wearing has the MST3K globe logo on it.
I like in “Mitchell,” when Dr. F and Frank are going through the box looking for a movie, there’s about three or four Unhappy Meals in there.
Oh by the way, 12, that was in “Pod People.”
The random stuff in Servo’s head is always great. The Christmas snow globe is inspired, but my favorite is the baby doll head and random shapes stuffed in when he gets high off the glue…
In ‘Track of the Moon Beast’, when showcasing SoL’s Legends of Rock: The Band That Played California Lady the television set has a “Stony” brand name instead of Sony.
One that I missed the first few times I saw it was in “Last of the Wild Horses”. If you look closely at MirrorCrow, he’s got a scar on his beak just like MirrorSulu.
Another one is in MST3K-TM. The “hard copy” on ship’s status that mike is reading is actually an issue of the Info Club’s newsletter. I’ll have to look closely to see if it’s one that I got.
The ‘Stony’ TV is in Final Justice too when they are showing the guy get shot and slide down the wall twice.
Another form of visual gag is in the movies themselves. Whenever someone uses body language to communicate something, the riffers purposely take it to convey other valid communications.
For example, when someone shrugs their shouders to make a statement. Shrugging one’s shoulders can mean lots of different things, but we usually understand it by whatever the context of the conversation is. But the riffers have fun with it.
In Future War, Captain Polaris asks the female EMT who the person was that got mutilated by the animal in the hills. The girl shrugs her shoulders to say “I don’t know” but Mike takes it to say “Who Cares?” (which a shoulder shrug could mean as well).
Another time it’s done is in The Touch of Satan, when Melissa’s sister is tied to the stake being burned, and as the fire starts to creep up and touch her, she rolls her eyes in pain, but Mike says
“oh, this is so gauche!” (which is another valid way to take someone rolling their eyes).
Yet another example is in The Girl In Gold Boots, when Leo asks Critter, “How you Doin?” he shrugs his shoulders to say “okay, I guess” but Mike says “How should I know?” (another valid way to take a sholder shrug).
Those are always some of my favorite moments and you have to be watching constantly or you miss them because they happen so quickly.
Episode during the Sci-fi Channel era (which one escapes me), where Pearl stages a party at Castle Forester and is dressed in a ballroom gown. She has a mole on her face, and when the shot returns to her after a cutaway to MOTB, the mole is somewhere different on her face. Subtle but a nice touch.
Randy
One of my favorite visual gags comes from The Undead. After Bobo fails his IQ test, he starts stacking boxes in the background and climbing on them. When he gets to the top, you can hear him scream “Hey! Where are the bananas?”. A great reference to a famous psychology test.
I like the Moai/Easter Island Head or whatever it is thats in the “rock” wall of the old Deep 13 set. It’s not necessary but a fun little touch.
It’s a pop culture joke that’s waaaaaaayyyy dated now, but I loved when Tom had the Kid ‘N Play “haircut”. No idea what episode that was in off the top of my head. Great topic, you guys have definitely paid better attention than me.
I’m blanking on which episode at the moment, but I always liked the bit where Dr. Forrester is getting his laundry together and it’s a whole basket of bright green lab coats.
I’m surprised this one hasn’t been mentioned yet: In episode 810: Giant Spider Invasion, when they’re trying to stay awake to avoid being replaced by pods, the coffee they’re drinking is Nelstone.
I just noticed the other day that, in the episode where Dr. F gets beaten up by the mob, and is covered in head-to-toe bandages, he’s still wearing his Deep 13 patch on his chest.
I know in many episodes, if you watch Crow during the riffing, he’ll try to bite something on the screen. When I catch those, they always make me laugh.
@15 I love that gift box. What’s great is Dr. Forrester’s gift to Frank has been tied with barbed wire.
@39 – JCC
I’ve never noticed that! Where on the set is it located?
@41: I believe that would be The Creeping Terror.
re #32: When Tom gets high on the pain fumes (in EEGAH) his dome is full of little doll’s heads!
I like when Dr. F and Frank have the Deep 13 patch tattoos when we see them shirtless in SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL. The next time I have money for a tattoo I’m going to replicate one of those.
I just watched The Skydivers again and was pleasantly suprised to see that Dr. Forrester’s victory dance was exactly the same as Captain Spaulding’s dance in Animal Crackers.
To#37: That was the episode “Pumaman”.
I’m not sure of this one; I’m hoping somebody can confirm this:
During the opening titles of Seasons 2-5, when we see Joel jumping into the hatchway (a la “UFO”), is he wearing a Joel Hodgson Pocket Mohawk? From the back, it looks like he is.