With that thought in mind, let’s turn to alert and devoted fan Paul, who has a suggestion:
With Memorial Day weekend upon us, I thought up this discussion thread idea: Favorite armed soldier characters on MST3k.
My favorite would be the army soldiers in “Beginning of the End.”
They not only engage the giant grasshoppers in combat, but they also help Peter Graves capture one for scientific study. A good deal of them die throughout,
I’d have to pick Daphne’s Army boyfriend Nick in “Hobgoblins.” He’s responsible for the great rake fight in film history.
What’s yours?
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Lets give it up for Private Manuel Ortiz who bravely sacrificed his life fighting a giant cucumber! (It Conquered the World)
If commanding officers count, I would have to pick Colonel Hunt and Major Stevens, from “The Starfighters.” As boring as the movie was, one thing was for sure, Hunt knew how to run the base, and Stevens knew how to run his unit. And both men did their jobs very well.
i’ll say the private from ‘The Giant Mantis.’ I can definitely relate to the fact that he went uber spaz the second he was confronted by a reasonably attractive female. pretty much sums up most of my high school years in a demented package.
Sergeant Justine of Red Zone Cuba gets my vote. He was the most professional of his unit, he was wounded, survived the Bay of Pigs, endured Coleman Francis sniffing at his injured leg, and still managed to get back to Arizona in time to load his wife into a truck. Amazing work, Justine!
Speaking of RZC- wasn’t Coleman curly Francis a solider of sorts? After all, he went all the way to hell with a penny and a broken cigarette? That said, my favorites have to be the chicken men of Krankor. WE all thought they were crazy- but, hey- we need the eggs.
Let’s hear it for the beleagured members of the SDF from the Godzilla and Gamera films. While constantly being pestered by annoying brats named Kenny, they go up against hopeless odds fighting giant radioactive critters.
How about the newspaper man turned soldier in Attack of the Eye Creatures? He’s got budget rate Bilko for a CO, and the Sticky Keyboard Twins manning a security apparatus that would be state of the art today, but he doesn’t run run away shrieking, not even a little. That’s bravery under grossness.
How about Colonel Glenn Manning. He sacrifices himself trying to save others, and is a genuinely sympathetic character – rare in the MST3K cannon of films. Such a sweet guy.
I’d nominate Nick form Hobgoblins as worst soldier. We’ll all be under the Kremlin’s thumb should the Soviets get Garden Weasels
Nick in Hobgoblins is a hilarious choice and I happily second the nomination.
I’m going to cast my vote for the interrogating baseball fan in Invasion U.S.A.. After finding out that a suspicious soldier supposedly hails from a Chicago unit, he asks him “Did you ever go see the Cubs play?” When the guy can’t answer, our hero soldier promptly yells for help and shoots him (and of course gets shot himself, because after all, he was right). There is literally nothing more American than shooting someone for a lack of baseball knowledge.
Ed Grimley, trusted Enforcer captain for Kalgan.
Major Joe Nolan (Cesar Romero in Lost Continent) for his heroic rock climbing skills, and for having the courage & willpower to NOT push Sid Melton off the top of the mountain. Though maybe he shouldn’t be praised for the later…
Worthy candidates, all. I’ll have to chime in with my love (so to speak) for Les Soldats en Noir from “The Final Sacrifice.” Sure, Etienne, Gilles, Pierre, and the rest of the gang weren’t government-sanctioned, but they were mighty brave to take on a skinny kid and a redneck with a mullet.
I’m going to go with the Lipstick Lads from Invasion of the Neptune Men. They weren’t that good at invading, but at least they did it with style.
I would vote for the Army guys in The Deadly Mantis, keeping our northern borders safe from Soviet and Inuit invasion, always checking their antifreeze, and not asking, not telling, but having a great time.
On a more serious note, I’d like to remember a classmate of my daughter’s who gave his life for us in Afghanistan. Thank you and God bless you, Charlie.
The squad of soldiers who get killed by the Creeping Terror. They died bravely, on their backs with their legs in the air. And then the colonel, who suddenly gets a leg cramp and drops the grenade- WTF? But he recovers and frags the monster- he IS a good officer!
Thomas Browne Henry, who orders the men into the woods in THE BEGINNING OF THE END, and who also provided the Stinger. (I never thought it was the best choice for a Stinger, but I’ve never forgotten the line either, so I guess it did its job.)
And lets not forget all the silver guys who gave up their lives to disinfestate the Bronx. If only those people had just LEFT THE BRONX!!
The Minutemen from Time Chasers, especially the one who looked like a pirate.
Definitely Captain Joe of FUGITIVE ALIEN. Everyone’s favorite dysfunctional father figure complete with adorable chubby cheeks, dirty mustache, goofy hat, plunging neckline, and hard drinkin’ ways. One couldn’t imagine anyone else to serve in the wastelands of space when, “HAHAHAHAHAHA… You’re stuck here!!!”
Gonna go a little off-topic here, but Ed Wood really was a bonafide war hero. Of course, he later claimed he was wearing ladies’ undergarments the whole time, but still…
How about Harry and Joe from ‘Skydivers?’ They dropped on Korea together but now are struggling to put their lives back together amid some apparent PTSD issues that have left one an emotionless philanderer, the other a nomadic mechanic addicted to coffee. God bless Beth for her patience and understanding with both (though it sucks for poor Joe she doesn’t hook up with him after Harry’s out of the picture.)
@20
Was Captain Joe part of regular forces? I remember his equivalent in the original stories was a mercenary.
I liked those guys that wandered around outside town in It Conquered The World.
@#19- I liked the pissed minutemen.
Rick Hardcheese in Space Mutiny was excellent at instructing his
elderly girlfriend to “Move, move, move!” He also probably got a
medal for frying the disabled guy. And his strategic brilliance in
directing his troops in wiping out the incredibly bad shooting
villains was, well, okay.
Oh, and Calgan did not exactly take you away with his strategic brilliance in planning seizure
of the subbasement, I mean the giant spaceship.
As underwoc mentioned, we owe a proud salute to USMC corporal Edward D. Wood Jr, who heroically parachuted behind Japanese lines during WWII. I don’t know how he managed not to soil his satin panties. Truly a much braver man than I.
This has got me thinking about Sergeant Chapstick and his wife from Red Zone Cuba. That movie actually has a sort of happy ending, at least by Coleman Francis standards. I wonder if they ever got rich mining that mountain. Knowing Coleman, they probably both died horribly in a cave-in.
Since the Cubs-fan soldier has already been mentioned–and I don’t know any Sci-Fi lines to repeat as litany of holy worship any time any subject about anything is brought up–how about Phil Silvers’ lovably sardonic aide who blows up the spaceship in the the Eye Creatures?
Easily more sympathetic than the two oily voyeurs at the monitor station. (“Take a look at this guy…Go ahead, take a good, long look.”)
How about the soldiers who moved the fallen log out of the way in IT CONQUERED THE WORLD? Such an odd moment…
Crow (in his Das Boot influenced skit) as he’s tunneling out of the SOL in Mystery Science Theater 3000 : The Movie.
AGENT FOR H.A.R.M.
“In its final days, the Soviet Army reduced its army to one soldier.” (And he wasn’t even issued a proper-fitting helmet.)
And now for your downer post of the day (consider yourself warned):
WORST SOLDIERS: THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. Colonel Glen Manning disobeys orders and deliberately runs into a “live” nuclear testing zone to predictably fail to rescue x number of potentially-alive people from a plane crash. Very heroic and stupid, and if any of his men had followed him he’d be directly responsible for their deaths.
And he’s not even the worst soldier in the movie! When Giant Glen is confronted atop Boulder Dam–where he can do little/no harm whatsoever–he is told to release Carol. Regaining his lucidity for a moment, he follows those instructions–and the U.S. Army immediately shoots a dying, suffering war veteran in the face with a bazooka because he complied with orders.
BEST SOLDIERS: GODZILLA CANNON FODDER. When I was a child, watching those toy tanks get melted down with a blowtorch–I mean, Godzilla’s breath–was just too cool. Now I can only wonder what horror these nameless, faceless men felt in their final seconds. The Heisei series (1984-1995) upped the ante a little bit with occasional scenes of soldiers running around on fire. It wouldn’t be until Shusuke Kaneko’s GMK that the military casualties would actually be humanized…and in the end I was weeping like a little girl.
Do something for a living vet this weekend, huh?
The indestructible soldier from Red Zone Cuba. You know, the guy who gets executed and then shows up later patrolling the grounds. You can’t keep a good man down.
The National Guardsman from ‘Monster A Go-Go’ who asked if there was any other way into his pants.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ree220FiOEg
#32
Yeah, the indestructible soldier was impressive, but what about
Lt. Lamont in Space Mutiny. Whacked by the happy mutineer and she
still shows up for work without making any fuss about being killed and all.
No drama Lamont.
Actually I have to agree with you on this one, the first soldiers that popped into my mind were the grunts from Beginning of the End and the immortal riff, “One weekend a month my ASS!” It still cracks me up to this day.
Col. Glenn Manning was a trooper in my book as well. Trying to save folks, he ends up resembling the result of someone shipping the Jolly Green Giant and Mr Clean, and spends most of the rest of the movie flipping from morose to cuckoo. Still, his heart was in the right place.
Finally, a real salute to all the real soldiers whose actions were reduced to stock footage and shown in innumerable bad movies that ended up on MST3K. Those fellows didn’t even get paid for appearing in those turkeys.
How about Derek from “Teenagers from Outer Space”, a new age, sensitive type of soldier.
The soldiers who were ambushed by the babes in skimpy outfits in Agent Double 007 when they stole the nuclear device and then disguised it as some kind of circus on wheels caravan operated by skunks.
Rip McStudly, #7- Sticky Keyboard Twins made me guffaw. That’s a good band name if ever there was.
I would have to go with ‘Run-away’ from Future War. Noble as he is, he literally lost his shirt through the entire endeavor. And yet, he still has time for charitable events at the local VFW as well (Veterans of “Future War”)
“ATTENTION! CRAP IN HAND…!”
All right men- into the woods.
The Revolutionary War soldiers in Time Chasers. You gotta hand it to dumpy men who are willing to stand around in their wives’ blouses. “Someday, a bunch of dumpy losers will re-enact this war, men!” -Crow
If we’re being serious, the best MST3K soldiers are clearly the Theban forces from Hercules Unchained. They maintain good discipline against a superior force, employ solid tactics and win the day- with Herc’s help of course, but still. And this is after they have just watched their two prospective leaders, Eteocles and Polynices, fight to the death- a destabilizing event, and yet they still step up.
What about Keenan Wynn as Grandpa from Lazerblast?
“Operation Sand Dust….Operation Saaaaaand Dust…”
Was his character retired, shell-shocked or both? I forget…
Hush, hush as far as Colonel Keenan Wynn is concerned.
Good soldiers? The Steves from “Night of the Blood Beast,” knowing enough not to trust a rapist alien.
Captain Gideon Polk, exemplary Civil War veteran who went on to a post-war career as a public servant.
What Stoneman said. They bravely huddled together and slowly walked towards that human eating rug and gave it all they got. I’ll never forget when their point blank style attacks were actually doing some good when the rug started to step back. But when that rug came back, the soldiers did not retreat. They stood their ground. They held the line. They started as brothers, and they fell as brothers.
Crow: “What kind of memorial do we build for those guys?”
No memorial would ever do them justice Crow.
If you include Ed Wood in this discussion, Donald Pleasance also needs mentioning. He was a POW during WWII. Made The Great Escape that much more believable.
I’ll take a little Chapstick…
more of an astronaut, but their usually military.
*they’re
sorry. I fall victim to one of my pet peeves.