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Weekend Discussion Thread: Miserable Lives in MSTed MoviesAlert reader Tim (a different Tim) asks:
I’m going to go with Jan in the Pan. Even before she was in the accident, her boyfriend was no picnic. And after? Agony. What’s your pick? Also, keep those WDT ideas comin’! Send them to msampo at aol dot com. 55 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Miserable Lives in MSTed Movies”Commenting at Satellite News
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I would have to go with the classic choice and say TORGO. If ever there was a guy who was put on this earth to suffer it’s the goat-legged, hand-burned-off Manos: Hands Of Fate caretaker.
Kyle from Hobgoblins. He lost his car over a cliff, wears Peewee Herman casual, and the only time he gets lucky is over the phone.
i will go with a rarely considered choice, Helen, the spunky and alluring ichthyologist from ‘revenge of the creature.’
as i understand it, she loses one boyfriend in creat’s rampage, loses her canine BFF in another and then has to suffer hell on earth as the romantic interest of
John Agar. at least the ‘marked one’ in ‘mole people’ got the ‘get out of hell free’ card when that pillar whacked her.
Sandy from Tormented. She say Lou Reed killed.
Ted Nelson’s wife Judy, from Incredible Melting Man. She had a husband who got irritated when she forgot to buy crackers. He talked about her pregnancy in the same way he’d discuss an Ebola outbreak and shot her full of tranquilizers so she was often incoherent. Her lemon-stealing mother was killed by a melting spaceman. She had to put up with a cat who liked to haul milk bottles from the fridge to the middle of the kitchen, a general who hauled turkey legs outdoors, ugly macramé on the walls, and some godawful musical stings. Then, when she finally woke up from her latest husband-induced drugged sleep, she found out her husband was killed by a couple of nervous security guards who didn’t like his name. That woman did not have an easy life.
Carol from Earth vs the Spider:
Her father is killed on her birthday. Her boyfriend ignores her in favor of Bert I Gordon movies (continally insulting her dad, as well). After finding her dad’s corpse, she’s not even given a day off from school to grieve. And, oh yeah, on top of it all there’s this giant spider that keeps trying to kill her. Poor thing.
The Phantom of Krankor because he found out his weapons were useless against The Prince of Space time after time after timer time after time after time .…..
I’ll go with Depressing Dad in “I Was a Teenage Werewolf.” He’s widowed, lives in a dark miserable house, works the night shift, and is as homely as a hound dog. And, OK, even if your life is the pits, you always hope your children will shine and make you proud, have a better life than yours. Alas, DD — his only child becomes a werewolf and then is hunted down and killed. Even the riffers recognize Dad’s miserable life: “I’m off to my job at DismalCo!” “Brought to you by The Despair Council.”
…not to mention the complete lack of undergarments and microscopic batch…
Mr. O’Toole (aka Inspector Pratfall) from Catalina Caper. He suffers a parade of indignities (including getting slapped by a bikini babe he unintentionally rendered topless) during his investigation, only to have his case destroyed by a bunch of obnoxious teens.
Most anyone from the Coleman Francis Trilogy of Despair. I think that speaks for itself.
Definitely O’Toole! The poor guy even tries to save a girl’s life, only to be yelled at for his trouble.
the melting man in “The Incredible Melting Man”
Pretty much everyone in ‘The Days Of Our Years’. Apparently when you work in a railroad town, you resign yourself to a terrible fate.
How about Jenni from The Screaming Skull? She’s emotionally destroyed at a young age by the fiery death of her parents, and just when you think she might be recovering, her “caring new husband” turns out to be a psychopath who just wants to kill her for her money.
Now, if we’re talking ironically miserable characters, consider Mitchell. His coworkers drive him home, his suspects treat him to dinner and hookers, and the entire LA police force seems willing and able to assist him in his murder spree. But does he even crack a smile? No. What does it take to make this guy happy!?
Howsabout Billy from Laserblast?
He’s a complete loser throughout, doesn’t even seem to enjoy having Rainbeaux as his caring girlfriend, allows himself to be badgered by off his nut Keenan Wynn, the local deputies make his life hell, his mom ditches him whenever she can, he gets bullied by Eddie Deezen (?!), he finds a laser but it doesn’t really improve his existence, he kills Roddy who was one of the only characters that was sympathetic to him, he’s hunted by Bill Bixby-lite, he is also hunted by stop motion turtles, and he ultimately succumbs to the alien weapon without ever having gained the audience’s love or even mild caring since he’s just not a likeable character whatsoever.
Oh and he doesn’t even have a piece of cake at the pool.
The wife of the farmer in The Giant Spider Invasion. I mean, is it any wonder she drinks?
I can’t believe I didn’t remember the titular The Brute Man. Poor Rondo Hatton, both on screen and off.
It’s the dark, little seen world of Thomas the Tank Engine. All of these fragile humans I service to behemoths of steel and diesel fuel.
Darn right. The Eddie Deezen part is particularly infuriating to me.
Almost everyone from “Girl in Lovers Lane.” How is it even close? That’s one movie I always considered a bad fit for the show.
I think the most correct answer is the brides from Manos, the implication is they were sexually assaulted by Torgo.
If they were all kidnapped into the role, like Debbie and her mom, that’s even more disturbing.
And Debbie, yikes.
How about the morose gimpy guy in Space Mutiny? He has to walk with a cane, but he still has to walk for no reason from the boiler room to get a glimpse of some ancient dentistry, and then he’s immediately sent to hobble all the way back. Later, of course, Chunk Hardcheese makes the poor cripple into a “space fritter”.
I agree with Frank, Marv from “High School Big Shot” has a pretty miserable existence. Here is why:
He has a drunk for a dad who thinks nothing of guilt tripping Marv out of his date money.
He falls for a girl named Betty who tricks him into writing her school paper, only to be caught AND he loses his scholarship! Betty then dumps Marv and goes back to the old boyfriend revealing she was only using him!
When Marv overhears that a huge stash of cash is being stored at his work he plans a heist with some accomplices out of desperation to solve his problems. Though successful, his dad then commits suicide soon after.
Tensions rise in the aftermath of the heist leaving two dead, one of which is Betty. Marv is then arrested, thereby ending any hope left to live a better life.
In any time period, those kind of life experiences can make misery meat out of you.
Great choices, as usual! I nominate Trumpy in “Pod People”: brought to a hostile planet by his obtuse elders that provoke the locals; adopted by a really irritating little kid in a dysfunctional family of his own; has to share screen time with a host of really despicable humans; somewhere along in the process had to listen to “Idiot Control Now” (probably more than once, too); and then gets abandoned at the end of the movie by said elders.
Oh, and Eegah: it wasn’t his fault that he ran into Rahhhxieee!, her pervert dad, and Arch Hall, Jr. The last of his kind, and like Trumpy subjected to dreadful music, too.
Joanie. Sister to an icky, icky man, working for the icky, icky proprietor of the oiliest joint in oily Vegas. Said proprietor keeps her constantly plied up with drugs until the day she finally crunches under the weight of her beehive hairdo and her position gets handed to some other woman who has yet to become so sebaceous. Never even seen in the film again. To make matters worse, judging by her dance stylings, she was probably paralyzed.
Wouldn’t YOU be miserable if you looked in the mirror every morning only to see Joe Don Baker?
Margie Fisco, in the Atomic Brain. No one else comes close, except maybe Lanell Cado.
Uncredited, identified in imdb only as The Walking Corpse. What a resume builder: a lump of naked protoplasm held up by aluminum straps (how cold WAS it, Johnny?), a motionless lump of sheet-covered protoplasm on a marble slab (how cold WAS it, Johnny?), and, after a rather lovely stroll in the woods, victim of a savage attack by Stephen Stills.
So, other than the entire corps of financial backers of The Creeping Terror, whose reward was to get eaten by the Karastan Krawler, I’m just gonna have to go with Margie.
BTW, it gets weird. First, if you Google Image search “Margie Fisco” at work, you’ll probably get to have a chat with HR. ‘Nuff said. Second, anyone who works through imdb’s list of the entire cast and crew of The Atomic Brain/Monstrosity will be RICHLY rewarded. For instance, The Narrator was Bradford Dillman, who was already a 33-year-old established actor when he did this turkey. All of the top half of the cast list were veteran actors, and it was shot by the guy who shot Spider Baby and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. [Interestingly, Stephen Stills didn’t even get an “uncredited” credit.]
Linda Evans’ character in Mitchell. For obvious reasons.
I have to register a vote for Roger da Worm Face. Has a finger gnawed on by angry worms brought up by his abusive dad in an experiment with electricity (and if Roger cried or wailed his dad probably smacked him and told him to be a man). The underlying story being that Roger was no doubt abused all his life, and his reward was to work the worm farm, with a future contemplating taking over the worm farm when his dad died. Then, some schmuck from “New Yawk” arrives and “steals” his girl (and his dreams of possibly escaping his dreary future as a worm farmer to run her dad’s business). Hot on the heels of that rejection in the boat, his face is penetrated by electrically agitated “worms”, and ultimately he is devoured by an angry mob of said worms (after being physically bested by pansy-ass Mick!). Oh yeah, almost forgot the two lovebirds “lost” a truckload of worms when he borrowed her the truck, resulting in fresh abuse from his dad and the promise he would dig down to his toes to replace the worms.
Ah, life in 1970’s Georgia. Although, I had a couple vacations in Savannah in the late 70s, including seeing Eric Clapton at the Civic Center. It was very nice.
An AOL address in 2018, and we’re asked about the poor lives of fictional characters? ;)
The bottle of baby oil on Mitchell’s nightstand. Yes, it’s an inanimate object, but for MST3K fans it has practically acquired the attributes of a character, and who would want to be poured and slathered all over Mitchell’s flabby, buttery body?
The poor piano player from Red Zone Cuba. She went blind when her husband died in the war. Her dad’s once thriving frog leg restaurant is going out of business. Then, dad is thrown down the frog mine while she’s only a few feet away, none the wiser. Plus, the top doesn’t work on her convertable. In less than a minute of screen time, she somehow reached Job-level misery.
Joel and the Bots after hearing, there was no monster…
Wait, wait…also, Lucinda Crabtree, the younger sister burned at the stake in Touch of Satan. Played by Sharon Crabtree, young Lucinda is dragged out into the night by a mob led by ROBERT EASTON, for God’s sake, and turned into a Crispy Critter. THEN she gets preserved for a century, and, played by Jeanne Gerson, shows up again running up and down stairs and all around the farm on 100-year-old hips and knees, AND THEN GETS LIT UP AGAIN.
And for what? She never DID anything, except maybe kill that nosy deputy who chewed on matchsticks.
Meanwhile, her sister is running around having her way with the Maverick-driving young drifter, and ends up rolling around in the underbrush with him, right next to where the fish live (apparently they don’t have redbugs in California).
Unfair and unfeeling.
…only to go crazy at some point between 1967 and 1978, start calling himself Exidor, and eventually meet Mork from Ork. Okay, that last part’s pretty good, actually.
And then to have it bought out as part of Doc Hopper’s chain!…Oh, the final indignity.
Not to mention is son was a huge jerk with a hair-trigger temper even before the werewolf-ification.
And that’s not including the vile stuff that was cut for MST3K.
Great, great idea.
Possible posts could be either REALLY morose or funny. Think I’ll go with the latter.
“Brad” in “Soultaker”. He goes from literally cheating death, having his soul taken, fixing his car and getting the girl in the end, to poodle hair and rubber lips drive off into the sunset, and it’s sunshine and roses ever after eh?
Crow: *sigh*
Mike: Ah, You seem dubious.
Servo: Yeah, Mike. I am dubious. I’m dubious. My guess is that on the way home scrawny boy there leans over to rub his Carnauba-waxed lips on his little honey and ends up ditching that sweet ride of his. Crow, you with me on this?
Crow: Ohh, no doubt. Things don’t go near as smoothly as Mike would like us to think.
Mike: Oh Waait…*nervous laugh*…I didn’t say things are grea…
Crow: Ohh, Mike’s living in a fool’s paradise…Servo: Dreamer!…Crow: No happy endings for OUR hero though. After TeenBoy puts his ride in the ditch there he needs extra money to pay the insurance cost. And to buy a new disc sander and a couple of gallons of bondo… So! He takes a second job at Carl’s Junior.
Servo: Yep, yep. And about a week into his new job he comes to pick her up in his busted car wearing a big orange hat smelling of frying medium and she cools on the whole relationship immediately.
Crow: Only it drags out painfully for about another month ’cause she doesn’t have the guts to tell the second-rate Matt Lattanzi to take the train.
Servo: Yep, yep, yep, finally she gives him the news through the drive-up intercom that she just wants to be friends. And when the whole restaurant is finally done laughing a the poor clod he walks off the job and drives straight to the municipal liquor store to pick up a quart of lemon-flavored gin and a six-pack of red grape malt duck.
Crow: Ahhh…ehhhh…ahhh….hang on….Mike might think that was the happy ending.
Mike: *chuckle* So you guys really think I’m a naive Pollyanna, don’t ya?
Crow: Ahhhmmm…..Yes, we do.
Servo: Hang on, there’s more, Mr. Rose-Colored Glasses. So he drinks his way through the whole paper bag, drives a good 75 yards, and crashes into a pole.
Crow: Well, the car hangs on to the base of the light pole, so he can’t get out of there, he thumbs a ride back to his house, but the police arrive about 45 minutes later, wake him up, and give him the breathalyser!
Servo: He blows a 1.3, so it’s off to the crowbar motel for Mike’s little pal!
Crow: Well, of course, he calls his former girlfriend to come pick him up, but Mom answers the phone, and hangs up on ’em……
Servo: His one call spent, he stays the night at the place with the striped sunlight, courtesy of the county!
Crow: Soon, he’s straining rubbing alcohol through pieces of burnt toast he found out behind Zelma’s diner…….
Mike: *laughter* Now, hang on, wait a minute, I think that’s a touch bleak…..
Crow: Ohh, you know, maybe you’re right, Mike, maybe they have a wondrous frilly, wedding, in the fru-fru land of bunnies, where magical fairies blow kisses to the stars, and polka-dotted toadstools sing The Good Ship Lolly-Pop to the tiny mice in their little feety pajamas.
Mike: *laughter* And there’s nothing in between, it’s either grain-alcohol in back alleys, or a happy world of roses and feety pajamas?
Servo: Yes!
Crow: I mean, why is that so hard to accept?
Mike: You know, you guys need help. You really do.
Crow: What’s with Mike?
Mike: Grain alcohol through toast…….
So from cheating death to….grain alcohol through pieces of toast……
Griffin.
Crazed/cursed 100-plus-year-old Gramma/sister didn’t have it easy either.
And then there’s the cubicle drone who gets shot by Calgon & is immediately reincarnated as … a cubicle drone. How many times over the course of the ship’s mission did that happen, one wonders?
How about Derek, The Sensitive Spaceman from Teenagers from Outer Space? His dad is one of the Smith Brothers who is apparently a despot on his home planet, he has to fly around in a super small UFO with a homicidal maniac, Mr. Torcha and a bunch of lobsters. Plus when things are finally looking up for him and he meets Winona Ryder-lite he gets pursued by Thor and barely gets to plant one meek kiss on her before running for his life. Finally he has to immolate himself in a blaze of stock footage to save Earth. Not a great life!
The first and best choice has got to be Carrie from Girl in Lover’s Lane. She’s stuck in a tiny town, constantly creeped on, is girlfriend to a distant boyfriend, and ends up murdered. No part of her life was happy.
What about the hamster from Master Ninja 1/2? Admittedly, most hamsters don’t have much of a life, but they don’t get hauled around the country in a cramped, probably overheated van.
Good topic and good answers.
TOUCH OF SATAN has already been touched upon, so my runner-up in the misery competition would be Dr. Joseph Javorsky in THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. He was already Tor Johnson even before he suffered radiation burns that turned him (somehow) into a murderer/sex deviant. Or poor dumb Lobo of BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, having to deal with Varnoff’s madness and physical abuse; both Lobo and the old Willows place return (somehow) in Ed Wood’s NIGHT OF THE GHOULS, so once again even a nuclear explosion couldn’t end his suffering.
Great creepy husband analysis! Here’s my nomination, Dr. Phil Brewer of GH. Poor Jesse, he is in love and actively stalking another woman. Bad enough right? But NNNNNNOOOOOOO, he takes it to the next level by bullying Jesse into throwing an engagement party for her, home baked cake and all. During this party (4 people) Phil bitches at Jesse in the kitchen and then fawns over Cynthia. He then drives Cynthia home and starts pawing at her. Meanwhile poor Jesse is left at home feeling vulnerable and sad while she is throwing the cake she made in the garbage. Sniff sniff.
Jan in the Pan. At least Torgo could move.
Not very gracefully, true . . .
Hey, bad breath is better than no breath…
Whoa! I had never heard about that.