* episode 210- KING DINOSAUR (with short: X MARKS THE SPOT)
* episode 323- THE CASTLE OF FU-MANCHU
* episode 608- CODE NAME: DIAMOND HEAD (with short: A DAY AT THE FAIR) and
* episode 611- LAST OF THE WILD HORSES
Extras:
New Introduction By Frank Conniff
The Incredible Mr. Lippert (a Ballyhoo Production)
Vintage MST3K Promos
Life After MST3K: Kevin Murphy (this is the first installment of a new series)
Code Name: Quinn Martin
DARKSTAR: Robots Don’t Need SAG Cards
Original Trailers
4 Exclusive Mini-Posters By Artist Steve Vance
If you want to pre-order it at Amazon, we would appreciate it if you would use this link.
Here’s the Shout! press release
On March 27, Shout! Factory will launch into orbit Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXIII, a 4-Disc collection of four Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes previously unreleased on DVD. Featuring the episodes King Dinosaur, The Castle Of Fu Manchu, Code Name: Diamond Head, and Last Of The Wild Horses, Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXIII also features a MSTie-riffic collection of bonus features!
Much like the country that spawned it, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a melting pot. In every imaginable genre, Joel, Mike and their robot pals Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot have seen the promise of cinema mutilated by mediocrity. Nowhere is this highfalutin concept more hilariously exemplified than in this 23rd collection of episodes from the beloved cult comedy television series. You want a Western? It’s here. Space adventure? Look no further. We’ll even throw in a failed TV pilot and a barely coherent science fiction-horror-thriller. All genres are treated with equal disrespect by the luckless crew of the Satellite of Love. They pledge allegiance only to funny, with justice — SoL style — for all.
In King Dinosaur, two scientist couples are sent to investigate a mysterious new planet and are menaced by snakes, gators, giant bugs and other scary process shots. In the world of MST3K fodder, this unique collaboration between ultra-prolific suppliers Robert L. Lippert and Bert I. Gordon deserves a moment of silence. Truth is, 63 moments of silence might be more entertaining than King Dinosaur, but those intrepid SoL’ers come to the rescue yet again, bringin’ the funny with a delirious running commentary. This disc includes the 1944 short film X Marks The Spot. Bonus features include a new documentary featurette, The Incredible Mr. Lippert, and the original theatrical trailer.
It says something about a movie when the best thing about it is a mustache, as is the case with The Castle Of Fu Manchu. Christopher Lee takes climate change into his own hands in this 1969 installment of the Fu Manchu franchise. Determined to freeze the global water supply, the diabolical Fu Manchu heads to Istanbul for a castle, an opium reserve and a heart-to-heart with an ailing scientist. Fear not: his archnemesis, the Interpol superstar Nayland Smith, is on the job. An alternate title for this movie is The Torture Chamber Of Fu Manchu and, judging by the convoluted plotting, it’s by far the more accurate one. As Dr. Forrester says, “This movie makes The Unearthly seem like Citizen Kane.” It’s a good thing Orson Welles wasn’t around to hear that. Bonus features include a new Introduction by Frank Conniff, behind the scenes of the video game Darkstar featuring many MST cast members, and the original theatrical trailer.
Counterintelligence takes on a new meaning in the barely coherent tale of Hawaiian espionage that takes place on movie sets meant to look like Hawaii in Code Name: Diamond Head. If only superspy “Diamond Head” had infiltrated some of his own script meetings before this deadly pilot from legendary TV producer Quinn Martin was released on an unsuspecting public. Fortunately for us, Mike, Crow and Tom manage to sneak some really funny wisecracks into the script, not only neutralizing its odor but actually converting the 1977 TV movie into a work of art. This episode includes the short film A Day At The Fair. Bonus features include Code Name: Quinn Martin and the first installment of Life After MST3K, where we spotlight a cast member and the work he or she has done since leaving the show.
The last, but not least, stop on this Satellite of Love ride is Last Of The Wild Horses, though a second helping from Producer Robert L. Lippert is probably more than most can keep down. In this 1948 Western, “Duke” (no, not “The Duke” — you should be so lucky) is a robber-turned-rancher who gets in the middle of a ranch foreman’s scheme to steal wild horses and is framed for murder in the bargain. Those B’hoys on the Satellite of Love cut dirt on the riffing until the movie is catawamptiously chawed up, but the real treasure lies in this episode’s host segments, featuring an utterly unforgettable parody of Star Trek’s celebrated “Mirror Mirror” episode. Vintage MST3K Promos are offered as bonus features.
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Sweet! Castle of Fu-Manchu!
Fortunately, X Marks the Spot already showed up on “Mr. B’s Lost Shorts” about eighteen boxes ago, so I can take a breather and skip this one.
Got stuck with a misspelled XX I still have to replace, and no chance of getting XXII any time soon.
(Still haven’t seen CN:DH, but have a feeling it’ll show up on Instant Netflix with the other Shout titles.)
X Marks the Spot: The Jon Corzine Story
(Really can’t help that. I think that EVERY time I see that short. I think you really need to live in Jersey to get it.) Seems like pretty strong episodes there. I still don’t get the hatred for “The Castle of Fu-Manchu.”
Aw, no Fugitive Alien? Nuts. Guess we’ll have to wait ’till July, or later. Perhaps they wanted to take a break from the Japanese films.
Good news about King Dinosaur, though. Perhaps the other Lippert films, Rocketship X-M and Jungle Goddess.
As for Last of the Wild Horses…great episode. Can’t wait!
Was expecting the rest of the Sandy Frank collections (Fugitive Alien I and II), but good to see more Lippert trickling into release as the four Lippert episodes from Season Two are among my favorite episodes ever.
I’m a fan of the Castle Of Fu Manchu episode and am definitely happy to see that one on the set. The other two were fun too, Wild Horses mostly for the Star Trek Mirror, Mirror running gag and seeing Frank and Forrester in the theater.
Movie sign!
Sweet! Definitely getting this one. When is the release date?
Wow, three of my top ten least favorite episodes… I’m totally underwhelmed. And Code Name: Diamond Head is merely OK. Still, the extras alone mean I’ll be picking this one up.
The release date is March 27th, 2012. Amazon.com is taking preorders.
Amazon is currently showing a release date of 3/27/2012… let the countdown begin…
Joel episodes: Woo! A damn good one from Season 2 (just four more to go like Season 10) and the incredibly underrated, funny as all hell and DREADED Castle of Fu Manchu (let the whining begin! :silly: It’s nice to see a few postive comments about it so far)! These two alone make this a great set despite…
Mike episodes: Bleh. Diamond Head is one of my least favorites of the entire series (I barely laughed) while Wild Horses is only really notable for Dr. F and Frank in the theater (although I don’t recall much of what they said) and the host segments. Oh well, at least they’re releasing more from Season 6 in general. Besides Season 8, it’s had the least amount of episodes released up to this point.
Sweet! I was a bit worried since Shout didn’t announce the release through their website, but good to see we got some solid episodes on the way. I hope they can get the rights to Fugitive Alien, though. That would be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
Great episodes. It’s time to sunset the Scifi Era antipathy, though – four consecutive sets (aka a year and a half) without one included is lame.
Have to agree with Jason, I love the old episodes as much as the next guy, but I would love some Sci-Fi episodes. Still, I’m looking forward to this set!
Love, love, love when Shout announces the new box set and two of the titles are episodes which I haven’t yet seen (and I’ve seen most of them.) It’s like an early Christmas present which I can’t open until, well, almost Easter.
Release date for this DVD set is March 27, 2012.
Another good set lineup. King Dinosaur and Castle of Fu Manchu are two of my favorites. Can’t go Wrong with Codename Diamond Head and Last of the Wild Horses either.
The lack of Sci-Fi makes it pretty clear that Shout just cannot touch Universal’s material. Not that I have a problem with that. Most Sci-Fi eps are in pretty good quality by fans. Unlike a lot of Comedy Channel/Comedy Central episodes that get fan traded in very poor quality.
Pre-ordered and waiting. I also would like to see the return of some Sci-Fi era episodes on box-sets but I’ll take anything they give.
Time to start saving my pennies again.
Looks to me that Last of the Wild Horses is the real star of this set, with King Dinosaur an excellent episode for support.
Castle of Fu Manchu would come in third, but it’s not one of my favorites and would come in last on most sets, if not for this one having one of my least favorite episodes ever, Codename Diamondhead on it.
Have never been able to enjoy this. It’s in my top 3 worst episodes.
It will be interesting to see how bad the sound mix for Wild Horses will be on the Shout version, since in my old days of trading and obtaining tapes, it was very hard to find a copy where you could hear the movie very well. The riffing was always loud enough though. I finally did find a good dvd from SKYRONITER in which the movie is nice and loud and the riffing is perfectly mixed to a loud level too.
Knowing the fact that the biggest drawback with the Shout dvd’s is their incompetent sound mixing…their inability to make the movies loud enough, I fear for how poor Wild Horses is going to be.
You’re all missing the big selling point: This set has both episodes containing Joey the Lemur!
I am soooo looking forward to this set. I missed all 4 episodes so they’ll be like brand new ones for me.
An interesting aspect to this set: King Dinosaur contains the Joey the Lemur sketch and Wild Horses contains the parody of it.
What?! No Rocket Attack USA excluded again?!
I’ve been studying recently The Cold War and I really need Rocket Attack USA to put it all into perspective!
Please, please, please, Shout Factory, help me!
Joey The Lemur FTW!
Not a bad set, to be sure. Code Name: Diamond Head is definitely not of particular interest, but King Dinosaur is a nice slice of Lippert cheese (as well as being Bert I. Gordon’s directorial debut!), and as a plus, we get two attempts at riffing from Dr. F and Frank – the final host segment of Castle of Fu Manchu as well as their segment in the theater in Last of the Wild Horses.
Wants for near-future DVDs (i.e. XXIV and XXV:
Fugitive Alien 1 & 2
Fire Maidens of Outer Space (Timmy!)
the Colossal Man movies (Free Glenn Manning!)
Oh, yeah, and Rocket Attack USA would be nice, sooner rather than later.
“Help me!”
King Dinosaur is one of my all time favorites, & the best episode form season 2. That said its too bad the rest of the set is so blah. I gues I don’t mind forking over $40 for one episode.
It always puzzles me when fans say they’re going to skip a set. I just do not get that. As a fan of the show, I always want everything available and as soon as it’s released. Perhaps someone who casually buys sets based soley on favorite episodes can explain this to me.
I was also expecting the Fugitive Alien movies but I think they will eventually come..
I am glad to see King Dinosaur and Wild Horses because they are Lippert films and are fun…
Castle of Fu Manchu is a bad bad movie, and the episode for many will be a struggle but its still entertaining, its not considered a highlight episode – I knew it was coming sooner or later
Code Name Diamondhead is ok, another TV movie ..I like it as much as other TV movies that MST3K did…
Good set
PreOrdered !! :D
PROMOS PROMOS PROMOS!!!!! Rejoice!!!! My Prayers have been answered!!!!!!
Life After MST3K: Kevin Murphy (this is the first installment of a new series)
Code Name: Quinn Martin
Believe I’m ACTUALLY pretty thrilled about these 2 Extras especially the one on Quinn Martin as I’m a fan of his work. I wonder if anybody from MST3K were interviewed about Quinn’s work.
I guess Kevin will be talking about his “A Year At The Movies” book and other things in his Doc?
Okay Sampo you’re going to have to help me with the DARKSTAR Extra here. Is it just a trailer for or a doc on Darkstar or something else?
Other that that I’m looking forward to March 27, 2012.
Wow I guess I really need to watch “Castle of Fu Manchu” again because I have only seen it once and I thought it was super boring, but since my fellow MiSTies seem to like it, I will keep an open mind.
@Sampo – another thing worth noting: Castle of Fu Manchu and Last of the Wild Horses, both feature Dr Forrester and Frank riffing part of the movie!
Oh and I love Code Name Diamond Head! And we did get the Making Of from 1997 on vol. 22, so there’s been a little Sci-Fi lately
I’m most interested in the promos. I want ALL OF THAT STUFF, especially the remaining Turkey Day bumpers. The problem, I thought, was that all of the promos mentioned Comedy Central, and Shout Factory couldn’t show that logo or mention the name….
Maybe they’ll blur and bleep? We’ll see.
@ #32 – well Castle of Fu Manchu was more of a spoof in a host segment to point out the movie wasnt any good, nothing compared to when Dr. F and Frank were in the theater
Fu Manchu had lots of bots and Joel crying segments since the movie was really the worst one they did that side of Cave Dwellers..
They claimed Being From Another Planet was just as bad but it wasnt , and Manos was worse than all of them…its too bad Fu Manchu didnt get the recognition of being a real stinkburger like Manos did..
Probably Christopher Lee’s worst picture he starred in
I will mention a funny part in King Dinosaur is *Bringing civilization to Planet Nova* via a nuclear bomb – how is that civilized ???
This was an early effort by Bert I Gordon
I think I may have been too rough on ‘Castle of Fu Manchu’ in my earlier post (#19).
It actually is pretty funny when all of the episode is considered. The beginning and host segs were good, and there’s some good riffing especially for what they had to work with.
I still can’t lighten up much for Codename Diamondhead, but again it’s still mst3k, and the short, though already long ago released, is excellent.
I’d also like to plea to anyone who has never watched the classic Star Trek Episode ‘Mirror, Mirror’ to get crackin’ on it quickly. I’d seen it surely 5 or more times and over many years before ever seeing Last of the Wild Horses. It really helps to have at least a few viewings of it and some time to process it before going into the mst episode.
Those old Star Trek episodes were the best syndicated after-school shows of my generation, so one couldn’t avoid seeing all the old Treks countless times. But ‘Mirror mirror’ was always a favorite. I love its memorable employment of the long known law that any evil version of a man (or vulcan) MUST have a goatee.
So having Mike play that role was very funny, and if you liked His ‘Brother Eddie’ character in ‘Time Chasers’, you’ll love his evil Mike.
I love when he sends Forrester & Frank the movie and tells them regarding the film, in that evil tone, “And it smells like the inside of John Goodman’s chaps!……Yippie DIE Yi Yo!” (vicious laughter).
Castle of Fu-ManBLEW.
Shame they couldn’t have gotten Fire Maidens of Outer Space for this one, for the “King Dinosaur! That’s from King Dinosaur! I’m leaving!” bit.
What a disappointing collection. What makes it especially weird is that volume 22 was so good (why didn’t they do some mixing of titles to even them out?).
I’m glad that most of you seem to be happy with it, but this is the first set that I’ve considered not buying. I’m glad to finally see a Lippert title (here’s hoping for R X-M soon!), but…bleech.
With 22 crawling its way across the Atlantic, I’m always glad that Shout make sure you know when the next box is due.
Testing my memory here, but isn’t Last of the Wild Horses TV Frank’s last episode?
Isn’t this the set from Lovejoy?
It always shocks me that people put Fu Manchu, Being and Cave Dwellers in the worst category. I can think of ten worse movies off the top of my head: Creeping Terror, Monster A-Go-Go, Rocket Attack, Starfighters (oh the pain), Radar Secret Service, Lost Continet, Slime People, Horrors Spider Island, Eegah and Giant Leaches. That’s right: Manos, Hobgoblins, Ed Wood and Coleman Francis don’t even make my bottom ten. (Skydivers is definitely waiting in the wings though.) That’s not counting the dull, but better produced films a la High School Bigshot.
But to get back on topic: I have to agree with some others that this might be the most Meh set ever. There’s nothing I love and there’s nothing I hate, though Wild Horses only slips through by having great host segments. And King Dinosaur is my favorite of the 1950’s scifi genre in a tie with Teenagers from Outer Space, but I am more of a spy, fantasy, modern sf kind of fan.
I am already used to not expecting my wish list to be fulfilled: Day Earth Froze, Outlaw, Double 007, Danger Death Ray and Riding with Death. Surprised they disappointed all the Sandy Frankers and also that there was no SciFi low hanging fruit (Party Beach, Moon Beast).
I am wrong – not frank’s last… (It’s early)… :-) I think the episode stuck in my head because of the Mads in the theater segment.
#27 — I agree with you. Heck, I’m buying this set and I already HAVE all MST3K episodes in really good condition (most broadcast quality). But it never hurts to have them on non-recordable media (not to mention the extras).
Overall, though, this set doesn’t excite me the way the last two or three have. Nothing too awful (DiamondHead comes close) but nothing too stellar, either. I’d give it a C (but even a C in MST3K is better than most TV’s “A” episode list).
If you bought absolutely every DVD, then this set represents the 100th (and 101st and 102nd) episode release. Huzzahhh!
KING DINOSAUR! Heck yeah! I think this is a fine selection of titles. I love the space flicks from the 50’s. Just watched last of the wild horses recently, a great episode. Now the castle of fu manchu is a different story. My copy is just so dark and the movie is just so painful to watch that I have played it only 3 times. Code name : diamond head that is one I have seen once so maybe a nice clean copy will reintroduce to this episode. Great job SHOUT!
It would be nice to get more sce-fi era shows.
happy happy! joy joy! happy happy! joy joy!
Ack! Fu-Manchu? Hard time getting excited about these, but pre-ordered anyway. The extras look great!
Another great set from Shout!
King Dinosaur is one of my all-time favorites. Hilarious short and vintage Lippert. Lost Continent and King Dinosaur have always been up there for me.
Castle of Fu Manchu….wow. Probably the worst film they ever did. Yes, even worse than Manos. And I love it for precisely that reason.
Code Name: Diamondhead….I’m a sucker for any TV movie (or failed TV pilot) MST3K episode. Master Ninja I and II are my favorite episodes ever. I love San Fran Intl. And Diamondhead cracks me up. “The jaunty Roy Thinnes theme.”
Last of the Wild Horses is a must b/c of the host segments and Frank and Dr. F in the theater. The film/riffing is just OK, but, it’s still an essential due to the “switcheroo.”
All in all, another great set from Shout!
Now, if I may….here’s my official suggestions for the next 2 box sets:
Volume 24:
Fugitive Alien
Star Force: Fugitive Alien II
San Francisco International
Puma Man
Volume 25:
Daddy-O
The Magic Sword
Village of the Giants
Riding With Death
Ah, hell with it…one more:
Volume 26:
Space Travelers (a man can dream)
Being From Another Planet
Alien From L.A.
Track of the Moonbeast