Short: (1951) A high school student is caught copying his test answers from another student.
Movie: (1966) Revealingly-clad crimefighter Batwoman is on the case after villains Ratfink and Professor Neon steal an atomic hearing aid.
First shown: 11/13/93
Opening: Mike is the dealer, the game is blackjack
Invention exchange: Frank has invented an atomic-powered hair dryer, Mike shows off his razor-back
Host segment 1: Mike assigns essays to answer the questions raised by the short
Host segment 2: The bots write essays, but Crow cheats!
Host segment 3: Mike, Tom & Gypsy meet to decide what to do about Crow
End: Crow responds to the charges against him, Mike reads a letter, Dr. F. likes his new atomic hair style
Stinger: A batgirl puts the bite on the wormy guy
(214 votes, average: 4.35 out of 5)
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• This is one of those episodes where people tend to say “not even the riffing made it bearable.” To them I say: Pah! Lightweights! :-) The movie IS crushingly horrible, though. Every scene is interminable, the séance scene in particular. The movie belongs in the top (or, rather, the bottom) five on the list of most awful movies. The pain is all the more unbearable because, like “Catalina Caper” and a few other experiments, there are moments when the movie wants to be funny. Ugh. Still, I think it brings out the best in the riffing. The segments are mostly one story line, but it leads up to a great finish, and a special moment for me.
• References.
• This title was originally released by Rhino as a single; and the original packaging had a goof: On the back was a photo of Joel. It was more recently re-released as a single by Shout.
• I think you can mark this episode as the point where the invention exchange concept begins its inevitable decline. As explained in the FAQ, there is both an “on-screen” reason and an “off-screen” reason why this happened. On-screen: the invention exchange was a form of greeting between Gizmonic Institute employees. Since both Dr. F. and Joel were both former Gizmonic Institute employees, it was the first thing they did each episode. But Mike never worked for Gizmonic (he was a temp hired directly by Dr. F.) and so he knows nothing of Gizmonic’s corporate culture. Mike would therefore not understand what an invention exchange was about and Dr. F. would see no point in exchanging inventions with him. Off-screen: the invention exchanges were mostly Joel’s doing. He was the gizmo guy. When he left, all the air went out of the concept. In this episode, the Mads’ invention is downright strange and Mike’s is only fair (although, to be fair, Joel had a lot of mediocre ones too).
• The short is a gem, SO serious and dark that it really brings out the riffing gold.
• Mike brings popcorn into the theater! I don’t think he ever did again.
• “You’re opening, Jeff’s middling and I’m the headliner,” is a car conversation the writers probably had in their standup days.
• There’s not much to say about the first segment, since it basically lays the groundwork for what’s to come, or the second one, which advances the story.
• Callbacks: “He didn’t steal no bike, neither!” (Teenage Strangler) “I am the north wind…” (Day the Earth Froze)
• Crow’s cheating causes some unusual meanness in the theater: Tom tells Crow to shut up a couple of times.
• I love all the Bob Hope-style jokes: “Toccata and WOW in D minor!”
• Are those scenes really from “The Mole People”? Are they in the version shown in season 8? I forget.
• The third segment contains a moment that is very important to me. It’s the moment Mike won me over. At this point, I still was not entirely sure about Mike. He was growing on me, but, well, I just didn’t know. But he does something in the third segment—and I’m not sure it’s even intentional—that just endeared him to me immediately. Watch Mike’s expression as a disguised Crow arrives, bearing soup, in the midst of the discussion. Mike sees Crow and puts on a completely guileless smile, warm and delighted at the prospect of a nice mustachioed gentleman offering soup. It’s just such a funny and genuine expression. It cracks me up every time I see it. It was at that moment that Mike completely won me over.
• Mike expresses a desire to hunt down Jerry Warren. Unfortunately, Jerry passed on in 1988.
• In the final segment, watch Mike sniff the Hostess Snowballs, make a face, and put them back on the plate.
• Cast and crew roundup: Cinematographer William Troiano also worked on “The Slime People.” In front of the camera, Steve Brodie is also in “Giant Spider Invasion.” And of course, the great Bruno VeSota is also in “Daddy-O,” “Gunslinger,” “Attack of the Giant Leeches” and “The Undead.”
• Creditswatch: Bridget Jones switches from writer to contributing writer for the next three episodes. Host segments directed by Jim Mallon.
• Fave riff from the short: “Oh, hi, Miss Granb–AHHHHHH!” Honorable mention: “That you, student counselor??”
• Fave riff from the movie: o/` “Yes, the devil made this movie for you.” o/` Honorable mention: “Tethered to the mob!”
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I have to admit that at first this is one of the small handful of eps that I actively disliked ( the movie is very hard to watch, and not in an edifying, educational way ). It is still not one of my favorites, but it has grown on me over the years. I watched it again last night.
Riffs on drugs and the pleasing aspects if the female anatomy always work for me, and there are plenty… lsd25 for you, lsd25 for you. And I too like the Bob Hope riffs.
Doomed though it may be, I think the invention exchange is still coherent at this point… especially since the 2 inventions are coordinated… both being beauty aids.
Message shorts are always good, but this one is a little dry and restrained. As a Red Meat fan, I like disembodied heads.
I also flipped the disk and watched the uncut version and it doesn’t look like they cut a second.
And my DVD box is a mess… it has Joel on the back and the quips printed on the front do not seem to be from the ep.
( I gave it 3/5 )
Perhaps others have seen this, but I came across a VERY interesting few frames of the movie last night and have posted a picture here —> http://www.geocities.com/secretboxoftoys/batwoman.jpg It looks like someone thinks this movie is #1!
I’ll come right out and say it, I HATE this episode. While I do sincerely believe that the cheating short is a very bright spot, the show is a a very dim one.
Please click on my name above for my full review!
ok, one more thing then I’ll try to shut up…
While wandering through IMDB the other day i developed the following information.
Lloyd Nelson played Heathcliff in W.W. Batwoman, the ratty sidekick, assistant, erstwhile financier to Dr. Neon.
He eventually went into script supervision.
Enter Clint Eastwood : Clint made ( acted in and or directed ) 17 films from about 1978 to about 1992 ( the man with no name, how about the man with no vacation ).
Anyway, Lloyd ‘Heathcliff’ Nelson was scipt supervisor on 15 of those films, and had small acting roles in 10 of those 15.
Coincidence… ? Clint didn’t direct each of those films… but he was a powerful star in the others… Did he and Lloyd know each other from the early days ? Was Lloyd his lucky charm ?
There may be a story here somewhere
Lloyd Nelson & Clint Eastwood
Lloyd was script supervisor on the following :
Every Which Way But Loose (1978) & actor
Escape from Alcatraz (1979) & actor
Any Which Way You Can (1980)
Bronco Billy (1980) & actor
Honkytonk Man (1982) & actor
Firefox (1982)
Sudden Impact (1983) & actor
Tightrope (1984) & actor
Pale Rider (1985) & actor
Heartbreak Ridge (1986) & actor
Bird (1988)
Dead Pool, The (1988) & actor
Pink Cadillac (1989)
Rookie, The (1990) & actor
Unforgiven (1992)
Clint without Lloyd, 1978 – 1992.
City Heat (1984)
White Hunter Black Heart (1990)
One of my favorite riffs occurs during the short in this episode. When a clock chimes in the dark, Mike intones “EBENEZER SCROOOOOGE!”
A difficult movie for anyone but the hardest of hardcore MSTies to get through. There are parts of this movie I like, though, and it’s worth putting up with the “wacky antics” to get to them.
I’d have to say that the scene at the end, with the multiple Ratfinks is one of my favorites. Just the sheer WTF-ness of that scene makes the movie almost watchable.
Still, it’s better than Hamlet.
Oops! You have to put another “W” in the link I provided above.
Medium #3 – You are an information machine, which got me thinking. Speaking of Lloyd Nelson, how about a Weekend Discussion Thread about others big names who got their start with Mstied movies? I’m not talking about Jack Palance who was already big before doing “Outlaw”, I’m talking about Lloyd Nelson and (oddly enough) Clint Eastwood himself in “Revenge of the Creature”. I can think of at least three others who I’m just DYING to mention!
Sampo – There were so many callbacks I lost count!
Moments where you think the movie’s trying to be funny? The movie’s trying pretty hard (maybe a bit too hard) to be funny throughout. That it doesn’t succeed is, well, why it’s experiment number 515, but there is a goofy loopiness to the whole thing that I find charming. Can you honestly say this is worse than The Maltese Bippy? All right, probably it is. Still.
Note that the invention exchanges of the razor-back and the atomic hair dryer also have a movie tie-in, since the macguffin setting off much of the plot is an atomic hearing-aid. Atomic hearing-aid, atomic hair-dryer: think about it, won’t you?
Also amusing me was the horrifying shadow of Doctor Forrester after his hair dry.
Somewhere in the late 80s Saturday Night Live (I think with Leslie Neilsen hosting) did a sketch called The Sixties Movie, showing off a stereotypically goofy movie where little made sense and it all ends with a gorilla. The Wild Wild World of Batwoman has a tone whch makes me think this might have been one of the movies The Sixties Movie was inspired by.
In grad school I had the same model chair that Batwoman sits on for her conferences. It’s comfortable but tips over way too easily if you lean back. (It’s possible my chair was just broken.)
A riff I find inexplicably funny: Ayjax Development Corporation? “Get me Perseus on the line!” I get the reference, it just plays funnier than it makes sense. Maybe the attempted pronouncing of Ay-yi-yi-jax primes me.
The Jack Benny Program gets a reference in the Cheating Short; do the Brains make any old-time radio references (in general) which aren’t Jack Benny or Fibber McGee And Molly? They would go on to miss some apt Lum and Abner riffs in the Depressing Southern Monster movies of season ten.
To answer your question, yes the scenes shown in Batwoman do show up in experiment 803 (though, uncommented upon, because M&tB had channel amnesia…) They both come from the first third of the movie (as the trio are first exploring after the cave in) When the doctor comes out of the cave, you can even see a tiny Load and John Agar at the bottom of the screen!
It’s always doubly bad when the movie tries to be funny and this one’s no exception, but still nowhere near are horrible as Hobgoblins.
W.W.of Batwoman is at least silly enough to lessen the pain of how incompetent the whole thing is and the jokes during the film are great. There are certainly no shortage of pretty girls to look at, but every scene is a cinematic disaster when it comes to acting, script and direction. It is so bad it’s funny in spots.
The host segments based on the cheating short are some of the best from the post-Joel era. I especially like it when Gypsy can’t take Crow’s lying any longer and yells, “he stole my friggin’ paper!” in an uncontrolled outburst of anger. It’s hilarious!
I’m not sure whether that guy is giving the camera the finger or holding up a joint. Does anyone know when the finger came into use as an insulting gesture?
Kouban #10: 1961.
Kouban #10: It was invented by a man from Indianapolis named Bill.
I don’t know if Mike every brought another snack into the theater, but his older brother Eddie drank beer and smoked during Time Chasers, does that count?
Kouban #10: He spent most of his life in prison. He was involved in a bank heist. He almost got away with it, but one of his accomplices fingered him.
Kouban #10 – It’s easier to see in motion, but it is very obviously a finger. In fact, the guy on the right is seen leaning in, possibly to issue a dare, right before the finger is shown.
While the true origin of “the bird” is unknown, my family agrees that it was already well established by the early 1900’s.
INAMIAP #11: It’s gotta be older than that. There’s an 1942 Warner Bros cartoon called “A Tale of Two Kitties” (it’s Tweety Bird’s 1st appearance) that features the following exchange,
1st cat (Babbitt): Give me the bird! Give me the bird!
2nd cat (Catstello): If da Hays Office would let me, I’d give him da boid, alright.
>> I’m not sure whether that guy is giving the camera the finger or holding up a joint. Does anyone know when the finger came into use as an insulting gesture?
The gesture is quite old, much older than the movie in question. So is the expletive it represents.
Oh, sorry, sarcasm….
Anyway my thoughts on Batwoman:
Unlike many of the fans here, this is one of my favorite episodes. It’s perfect for my short attention span. It’s one of the those movies where you can miss 3 – 45 minutes of it and still be able to follow the plot (though I’m still puzzling over the horseshoe). There are some certifiably goofy scenes, and, well, I like the scenery.
Fave riff: Now this is how the NRA wants the world to look. And frankly, hey!
underwoc #16 : stop stealing my thoughts ! I was going to name check A Tale of Two Kitties myself. It’s a great bit of business :)
The Cheating Short is possibly one of the funnist shorts Mike and the Bots did (Next to “Why Study Industrial Arts?”) it has some of the funniest riffs in a short I’ve heard.
Crow puts in the best riff at the end “RIDDLE ME THIS BATMAN!”
The Wild World of Batwoman… is a special movie. It’s campy, it’s schlocky, it’s unbridled exploitation and objectification of woman, it was cashing in on the 60’s Batman craze, and it was a painfull awful movie.
But, I love this movie. I love awful movies, and Wild World of Batwoman is a fun watch. Batwoman was like one of those beach movies… but with a super-hero in tights… and yowza yowza yowza…
The don’t make movies like this anymore.
• Mike brings a snack into the theater! I don’t think he ever did again.
==================================
Yes. But Mike’s rather boorish brother did have
TS bring him beer into the theater (and then litter the theater floor)!
The movie is curiously tolerable to watch,mostly because of the riffing, but also because of the hilarious built-up theme of Crow cheating drawing on the Short.
Most offensive/icky bit of the movie?
1)The Asian stereotype/ridicule on the phone
2)The pants of the junior bad guy on the beach, well, actually, anything involving him.
3)while it begs the question (“Is it sexy?”) the bondage bit with the girl being led by a rope.
4.The “dancing” anywhere in the movie
5.The “acting” anywhere in the movie.
Best short line: Jeez, this kid would freak out Jamie Gumm!
I’m a little surprised no one has mentioned the “seance” scene, which manages to be both quite offensive and unimaginably silly.
Cheating is bad. Richard Baseheart is good.
That’s pretty much the mantra around my house…
Joseph Nebus #7: Technically The Jack Benny Program was the name of the TV version. The radio version was called The Jell-O/Grape Nuts/Lucky Strike Program starring Jack Benny (depending on who was sponsoring the show at the time). Also Fibber McGee and Molly was The Johnson Wax Program with Fibber McGee and Molly.
underwoc #16: IIRC giving someone the bird back then simply meant showing someone disrespect. The phrase also appears in a Bullwinkle’s Corner segment when they did Sing a Song of Six Pence.
Maybe it’s because it was the first proper episode I had seen (my first exposure to MST3K was the movie), but this has always been one of my top favorites. While the movie is often tedious, it’s frequently punctuated with goofy moments. And at least it doesn’t induce soul-crushing despair the way Manos and Red Zone Cuba do.
this one belongs on the mt rushmore of bad films along with hobgoblins, manos and santa claus conquers the martians.
I reall find the short the funniest they did. Someof my favorite riffs were “was it doubt in ms johnson’s eyes and crow says or was it lust.” Sweet mary no. I will bring you down johnny. i see a cheating wing.
I always wonder what the making of this so called film was like.
I love this episode. (I love all the MSTs with really bad movies, since it gives them so much to work with. I think they’re far more entertaining than some of the more solid movies like Killer Shrews, which, while bad, is at least recognizable as a movie.)
How could you not appreciate the sheer oddness of Batwoman and her wild world, and what M&tBs do for it? This is a perfect 60s movie: sand, surf and stupidity in the guise of humor.
Think about it; what in the world was the target audience? It’s got elements of Gilligan’s Island, combined with some very disturbing ideas. For instance, chocolate milk and macaroons served by the villains? Uh huh. Dials painted on cardboard to look like a lab? Okay. But on the other hand you have lots of gun-waving half-dressed dancing babes, and the fact that Rat Fink has captured some of these babes to breed with Dr. Neon’s monsters….!!!?
Wow. Then there’s the lobotomized bimbo during the robbery/murder scene. The soup scene. The seance sequence.
And should Hugh Beaumont have sued the makers of this movie for defamation of character, when they gratuitously inserted him from The Mole People into this nonsense?
Crow sums the whole thing up nicely, in two comments. Early on, he says, “They just put a bunch of movies in a blender and pushed the mix button.” And toward the end, during the Rat Fink hoedown, he says, “You know a movie is bad bad bad when it makes the Monkees look good.”
Even this movie can’t make me dislike Bruno VeSota.
Sitting Duck #25 et al : giving someone the bird is synonymous with giving them the finger, at least in my distionary. And giving the finger goes way, way back.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_(gesture)
Mike did bring a form of snack food into the theater in season 10’s Track of the Moon Beast: Tom Servo’s fried head!
Meanwhile, back on the Satellite of Love :
Mike’s suggestion that the bots write papers about the cheating short strikes me as very Joelian… maybe it’s a left-over from the Joel era ?
Joel’s departure was planned well in advance and he would have on the job when this film was reviewed and selected, no ?
Medium (#28): And with regard to this cartoon, Michael Maltese makes it pretty clear on the DVD commentary track what the cat is referring to. It’s actually a wonder the Hays Office let them get away with the joke as is…
I’m one of those “not even the riffing made it bearable.” types and I have to say of all of Mike’s episodes, this is his worst. Either that or its tied with Hamlet.
Yet for some reason I bought the DVD. I’m a glutton for punishment I guess.
aside : geez, I like Hamlet very much. a lot more than Batwoman, and Batwoman isn’t even in my bottom 5. A terrible production of Shakespeare, what could be better… Where is Harold Hecuba when you need him ?
I remember reading somewheres that this movie was made with every intention of being as awful as it is. So…it’s a rousing success, i suppose.
This is one of those episodes, much like the Coleman Francis ones, that needs to be seen twice to really enjoy. The movie is so soul-crushingly bad that it’s hard to enjoy the riffing first time around. The second and third time around reveal how awesome this episode is. Plus, the Cheating short is near riffing perfection.
Joseph Nebus said: “The Jack Benny Program gets a reference in the Cheating Short; do the Brains make any old-time radio references (in general) which aren’t Jack Benny or Fibber McGee And Molly? They would go on to miss some apt Lum and Abner riffs in the Depressing Southern Monster movies of season ten.”
I doggies Lum, I believe you’re right. There is a reference to Arthur Godfrey in the Rifftrax of Transformers, prompting Mike to remark “the kids love the Arthur Godfrey jokes” (hey, I’m 30 and I was in stitches).
Sitting Duck#25 – at some point when Benny was transcribed in the 50s Don introduced the show as “the Jack Benny Program,” even though Lucky Strikes was still the sponsor. At any rate, it’s easier to refer to the show by its star rather than its sponsor-laden title (ditto for Charlie McCarthy and Bob Hope).
I sort of avoid this one at all costs, usually. The forced humor,wacky antics,and terrible acting are pretty hard to take. But Batwoman tops ’em all. She just creeps me out. I guess it’s her outfit…ich.
However, reading all the comments, I’d forgotten about how good the skits and the short are in this episode! It’s been a while, and I can’t remember specific riffs for him, but I LOVE the guy in the short who calls the cheater to tell him he’s out of student council. I think he grew up to be Ed Gein.
Back to WW of Batwoman (ich). It IS good to see Goober from HeeHaw playing the mute whatever he is with the patent papers. And it’s good to know that VvvvAAAANCE! from Giant Spider Invasion had work in the sixties…
This is off-topic, but I think “Tale of Two Kitties” was actually the second Tweety cartoon, not the first. That honor goes to “A Gruesome Twosome”, which featured a Jimmy Durante-esque cat, along the lines of the Babbit and Catstello characters from ATOTK. (Had Bob Clampett continued to direct the Tweety cartoons, might the titular bird have eventually battled every classic comedian from Hollywood in cat form?)
As for the episode under discussion, Batwoman is indeed depressingly awful, but the short has some delightful moments. My favorite being when the head of Johnny’s teacher comes to haunt him, while Servo intones, “I WILL BRING YOU DOWN, JOHNNY!” Also Crow’s (literally) hysterical Riddler impersonation at the end.
This was among the first episodes I bought (got it in a 3-pack VHS set) and was the first one I watched because the name itself was enough to sell me into watching it. And it may be the fact that I grew up listening to my parents’ oldies tapes/CDs, but this is one of my favorites because it takes all of those elements and beats the tar out of ’em. My brother and I also enjoy the host segments because we found out the source of several of Servo’s lines we had downloaded earlier as Windows sounds.
And on another note, I admire Steve Brodie as an actor and person. Even though he got stuck in two MST’d movies (this and Giant Spider Invasion), he’s in one of my all-time favorites: The Wizard of Speed and Time.
Oops! I just looked it up (as if anybody gives a ****), and Tale of 2 Kitties was the first Tweety cartoon! Well, shut my mouth!
This episode has always been a favourite of mine, and it is Trace’s performance as Crow in the host segments that impresses me every time I watch it. His final speech is especially hilarious and nuanced – I love the fluid little glide he does back to the desk after he’s done clearing his name.
Joseph Nebus said: “The Jack Benny Program gets a reference in the Cheating Short; do the Brains make any old-time radio references (in general) which aren’t Jack Benny or Fibber McGee And Molly? They would go on to miss some apt Lum and Abner riffs in the Depressing Southern Monster movies of season ten.”
I’m pretty sure there’re references to The Shadow and Amos ‘n Andy at some point. I think they also reference Gunsmoke and the Lone Ranger, but since those are more famous today as TV shows and movies, they might not count.
I think of this one as Mike’s trial by fire, getting one of those legendary “Maw of Hell” episodes for his mere third experiment.
I love this one, but something in ACEG gave me the impression that the Brains hated it perhaps more than any other. Friends I’ve talked to agree that it’s odd to see Dr. F and Frank doing this rather generic and forgattable atomic hair dryer bit instead of parodying the movie’s mad scientist and Heathcliff, since there was a definite resemblance. I’m just guessing they refused to allow the residents of Deep 13 to stoop to that level, although Crow nicely acknowledges it with the only bit in the host segments that so much as acknowledges the movie.
As I mentioned in the last Weekend thread, every woman I’ve watched this with has fallen asleep right after Segment 3, like clockwork. Anyone else notice this, or could it be a localized Michigan phenomenon due to the magnetic fields of the lakes?
As for the old radio show riffs, “I Accuse My Parents” had the most that I can remember, including one to The Shadow.
And as for the “60s Movie” SNL sketch, the gorilla at the end is probably a reference to a “guest appearance by Kogar the Ape” in our own beloved Ray Dennis Steckler’s superhero opus. The name of that movie? “Rat Pfink a Boo Boo”! Coincidence? Read the book!
The movie is so bad that I LOVE this episode. It’s an endurance test to see whether or not I’ll scream bloody murder during the séance or during the whacky chase at the end or during the entire movie. Really, it almost makes Manos look competent. I think the riffing is excellent, and a few of the women are grrrrrr, but everything is such a horrible mess that one must be a dedicated MSTie to endure the ten Gs of bad that is WWWoBW.
Is it me or are the host segments on cheating sort of hostile? I think the sheer badness of the main feature was getting to the cast.
Randy
I also love this episode, and didn’t realize that it was a hard one to make it through until I watched it with friends.
Oh, well. I love the riffing in this one, and nothing encapsulates the feeling of the movie more than the crazy chase-scene/hoedown at the very end.
In my opinion, this is among the top five worst movies they’ve ever done, along with Manos, Hobgoblins, Monster A-Go-Go, and Fu Manchu.
What makes an episode epically bad enough to acheive that joyous “Maw of Hell” caliber for me is when it’s so incoherent that riffs which would just be generic in most movies fit perfectly with the action. The best example her is one Servo makes right off the bat in the club: “Ummm…Okay, take our word for it folks, SOMETHING just happened…”
This is also the first one I’ve seen since Manos that nearly drove Tommy insane in the final reel. His infuriated “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDD!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDD!!!!” nicely foreshadows his total breakdown/contraction of
Ro-G-Panty complex in the second half of “Invasion of the Neptune Men”
INaMIaP,#33, I’m glad to see someone else likes Hamlet, which I thought was terrific. Of course, it’s no Wild Wild World of Batwoman, but you can’t have everything.
Hamlet WAS the epitome of badly done Shakespeare and so is a perfect MST ep.
And bravo for mentioning Harold Hecuba! The Gilligan’s Island theme song was already stuck in my head, and now I have the musical version of Hamlet to add to that.
The one thing I remember most vividly about this epiosode (apart from the many, many, many dancing girl scenes, and the horribly unfunny antics of Heathcliff) is the disembodied faux-Asian jabber from the infamous seance scene.
In fact, “Ching chong ching chong” has come to represent among my friends any offensive ethnic stereotype.
For all that, this has to be one my favorite episodes ever. My favorite riff: “END!!! END!!!”
One thing I have to bring up: watch Crow in Segment #1, right up to when he blurts out “the Beatles!” after Mike calls his name. He’s just sort of dancing around, not reacting to the rest of the dialogue at all, completely in his own little world until Mike jars him back to reality by saying his name. It’s one of the best bits of business Trace ever did as Crow, because it’s so subtle that you wouldn’t think to watch it on first viewing, but once you notice it, you can’t help but watch.
The sinister drug that makes people dance sounds like a description of Ecstasy to me. Was Ecstasy around back then? If not, this movie was WAY ahead of its time!
:wink:
Wild Wild World of Batwoman is a bad movie, but it’s strange enough to be interesting. It’s not like some movies that are bad and dull at the same time. This movie also has to two things that will be shown in the show’s Sci-Fi era. The Mole People movie and Steve Brodie, who we would later see in The Giant Spider Invasion.
The short on Cheating really is a dark one. The boy who lives on his own in a film noir house. It also makes a subtle, perhaps even unintended comment on politicians in general. The way the kid loves being on the student council but is also content to cheat on tests. This short helps support my, “Some people are meant to be old,” theory. I’m talking about that skinny guy who was going to tell the cheater the results of the meeting about him. He just looks like he’s meant to be someone’s grandpa.