Movie: (1979) An unsuspecting family spend the night at their newly built solar-powered house and are confronted by concepts.
Open: J&tB are still hanging out in Moon 13. Jonah is still at work on the containment vessel and the bots are just making mischief. Max seeks assurances from Jonah, and gets them, giving Max a good feeling.
Back on the SOL, J&tB are having’ a cup o’ joe, while the Mads drink from empty mugs.
Invention exchange: J&tB present the Fortune Meal. Meanwhile, the Mads show off their spray-on mustard gas.
The Mads tell Ardy to flush the movie, but he is busy suiting up Bonesy the dog, so he can go walkies.
Segment 1: J&tB are rugged men of a certain age until interrupted by hill bikers.
Segment 2: Script writers Jonah and Crow get help from Prof. Harold Servo, along with Growler and M. Waverly and, later, Max and Kinga.
Close: J&tB are losing it. Meanwhile, Max & Kinga are visited by Dr. Lawrence Erhardt, who gives them a mission.
Stinger: The little green guy pleases Jenny.
Thoughts:
• Callbacks: “Pretty nice.” (Mac and Me). “Bah-boom!” (Atlantic Rim). “Knew your father I did.” (Mr. B Natural). The movie “Avalanche.”
• The great “concepts” song is another winner from Paul & Storm.
• Nice to hear a Flash Bazbo reference.
• Kinga’s mom was Kim Catrall? Of course! (That comment was meant to be sarcastic. There was a bit of a fan grumble by fans who noted that Dr. F never once mentioned Kim and that it was Crow who was in love with her.)
• The voice of Bonesy was the great Ivan Askwith. A commenter says Bonesy previously appeared in the first issue of the comic book series, though he did not talk.
• Cast and crew roundup: This one has many connections to “Laserblast.” Writer J. Larry Carroll was a producer on “Laserblast.” Steve Neill, a producer who was also credited with the original story, did the special effects makeup for “Laserblast” and played an alien. Producer Charles Band also produced “Laserblast.” Producer/director of visual effects Paul Gentry also did the laser effects and still photographer on “Laserblast.” Composer Richard Brand also did the music for “Laserblast. Makeup artist Ve Neil was also makeup artist on “Laserblast.” Sound mixer Joel Goldsmith also did music for “Laserblast.” David W. Allen, who did dimensional animation and was a technical advisor to the special visual effects unit, also did animation effects for “Laserblast.”
Also, director John “Bud” Cardos also directed “Outlaw of Gor.” Property master Michael F. Hoover was also special effects technician on “Cry Wilderness.” In front of the camera, Robert Contreras also appeared in “The Black Scorpion” and “The Beast of Hollow Mountain.
• Fave riff: “Don’t talk to the Lovecraftian obelisk, dear.” Honorable mention: “Uncle Owen, a Star Wars story.”
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Concepts!
The Day Time Ended passes the Bechdel Test. Beth and Jenny have multiple non-male conversations.
Dare I ask what that thing Crow swiped from Max’s room is?
Another invention from the Mads that evokes the maliciousness of the Tragic Moments Figurines, the Unhappy Meals, and the Hard to Swallow Pills. It doesn’t get much more evil than using WWI chemical weapons as hot dog condiments.
IMO Concepts is the best song of the season. I’m thinking Professor Harold Servo later visited Terence Dudley when he was writing the Doctor Who serial Four to Doomsday.
Favorite riffs
Come, partake in the peyote sacrament and our vision quest can begin.
Don’t talk to the Lovecraftian obelisk, dear.
Close the door. You’re letting all the bikers in.
Good Lord, Snoopy! What did you eat?
I knew it. Sky bikers.
We come from the planet Betamax. We’re technically a superior format.
It’s a gang of Tinkerbells, and they are pissed.
Bikers changed all my presets.
Michael, why am I a Subaru now?
I honestly don’t think he’s going to make it. What do you, the viewers at home, think?
Close Encounters of the Turd Kind.
That may have been a real accident. This movie can’t afford to wreck a car.
Meanwhile, back at Timothy Leary’s place.
The Whole Foods produce section is really picked over.
Don’t look back, but I think that moon is following us.
Lawrence Welk of Arabia.
Perfect time for a hill biker attack.
This is Radiator Springs? Boy, the Imagineers really phoned it in on this one.
Now this is more like it! I think I might have found my favorite episode of this season. A completely bonkers movie with that unforgettable 70s aesthetic, and one of the best host segments of Jonah’s time on the show. Just two episodes ago I was wincing a bit at the attempt to ‘ironically’ create a viral song and here we are with one that seems to come together almost effortlessly. And that’s not even before we get the big reveal at the end of the episode. It was cool to see Dr. Erhardt again, even if he didn’t flip the script and ask Max or Kinga to file something like I thought he might.
Fave riffs
Particle board wet bar? This house has everything!
Why is the bathroom in the closet?
This whole movie is the cold open to an episode of ‘Columbo’.
Come out or I’m going to go all Jonathan Winters on this gas station!
This stop-motion guy really cares, he’s animating stuff we can’t even see!
(Low-budget Mark Hamil crashes)
That might have been a real accident, this movie can’t afford to wreck a car!
If they run into the gas station attendent riding Jenny’s pony, I will legit burst into tears.
For me this is the numero uno episode of the season. It just speaks to me. What it’s saying is gibberish, but I like it. FYI – I have solar panels on my house, none of which I saw in the movie, and at no time have my lights ever spontaneously turned green nor have any tiny dudes been spotted dancing the Macarena there. Just sayin’.
This movie actually wasn’t that bad, I thought. Sure, it’s confusing and rather goofy. But it had some pretty decent stop-motion effects and they were at least trying for something profound, I guess. I wouldn’t mind seeing the full, uncut version of this one, if only to maybe get a better idea if what the heck was going on.
They did a great job on the riffing, and the “Concepts” song was very good. I was really surprised by the return of Larry Ehrhardt; I was hoping Josh would return to the show at some point. And, again, I still say those urns are actually filled with floor sweepings.
“Wise men still seek him.” That riff made feel a generational kinship with Jonah. I knew that riff was familiar, so I looked it up and, sure enough, it was from a TV ad for the Mormon church that ran during the 1980s.
This was a weird movie and a fun episode overall.
This movie has a tiny cast and a huge production crew. I stopped clicking through on some of those on IMDB. Hopefully I didn’t miss that someone handled catering on Manos, rather than the 50th “Key key handler” on Laserblast.
Director John Cardos, born Dec. 20, 1929
Writer J Larry Carroll, born Oct. 7, 1946
Writer David Schmoeller, born Dec. 8, 1947
Actor Jim Davis, born Aug. 26, 1909, died April 26, 1981
Actor Christopher Mitchum, born Oct. 16, 1943
Actor Dorothy Malone, born Jan. 29, 1924, died Jan. 19, 2018
Actor Scott Kolden, born Feb. 11, 1962
Actor Marcy Lafferty, born June 21, 1946
Actor Natasha Ryan, born May 14, 1970
Actor Roberto Contreras, born Dec. 12, 1928, died July 18, 2000
Producer Charles Band, born Dec. 27, 1951
Producer/director of visual effects Paul Gentry, born April 4, 1953
Composer Richard Brand, born Dec. 28, 1973
Cinematographer John Arthur Morrill, died Dec. 2, 2015 (no birth date listed)
MST3K connections
Writer J Larry Carroll was a producer on Laserblast.
Steve Neill, a producer who was credited with the original story, did the special effects makeup for Laserblast and played an alien in the film.
Actor Robert Contreras also appeared in The Black Scorpion and The Beast of Hollow Mountain
Producer Charles Band also produced Laserblast
Producer/director of visual effects Paul Gentry also did the laser effects and still photographer on Laserblast .
Composer Richard Brand also did the music for Laserblast
Makeup artist Ve Neil was also makeup artist on Laserblast.
Property master Michael F Hoover was also special effects technician on Cry Wilderness
Sound mixer Joel Goldsmith also did music for Laserblast.
Other dates
Oct. 20, 1973, Actress Marcy Lafferty married William Shatner.
Dec. 11, 1996, Actress Marcy Lafferty and William Shatner get divorced.
June 10, 1981, released in France
July 31, 1981, released in West Germany
May 1, 1978, filming began
Bonesy the dog?
That’s exactly how I was going to start my comments! For me, this is classic MST3K, updated for 2018: the movie is earnest and honest, but in its execution as dumb as a bag of hammers; there’s a fascinating story lurking in the shadows, but rendered all but incomprehensible; and the host segments are great. “Concepts” is terrific, the best host segment of the reboot: finally they make good use of Felicia Day’s musical talents and integrate the Mads into the action the way the classic MST did! Was never an enormous Josh fan, but I love the fact that they worked him in, too. When I finally start rewatching S12, I’m going to start with The Day Time Ended.
For those who didn’t get it, Bonesy previously appeared in the first issue of the comic book series. Though there was no indication there that he could talk.
Is anyone actually watching the new season? Who cares at this point? As long as unfunny Felicia and Fatton Oswalt are there, nope, I won’t waste my time.
Yes, but probably not as many as watched Season 11. Forum participation is down everywhere you look — here, Reddit, Forrestcrow, etc. It seems the reboot lost a large number of fans and didn’t make up for it with the addition of new ones. That’s not a winning formula, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of the show. I suspect if there’s to be a Season 13, it will feature a heavily re-tooled version of the show, if not a total reboot. There’s a chance Joel will release a collection of live-tour shows as Season 13, too, but otherwise I think this version of the show might be done.
Well, why do you think they call it a “water closet”? ;-)
(I miss one freakin’ quote-bracket, and we all pay for it…BRING BACK THE EDIT BUTTON!!)
I assume that part of the reason discussion has dropped off at Forrest Crow is that it’s no longer linked to on this page. I think that hurt traffic a lot.
Regarding Patton Oswalt, he’s fine as TV’s Son of TV’s Frank, but I don’t need to see him in anything else. I find his getting remarried just after his wife died to be strange. Had his wife not passed away from natural causes, Patton would like the prime suspect in an episode of Murder, She Wrote.
The only Season 12 episode that comes slightly above average, imo. The Day Time Ended is a perfect fit for the show, and for the most part, they did a good job with it. Quite a few clunkers though, like the Gwen Stefani riff.
But what this episode suffers from the most is the single worst attempt at concocting a “fan-fav-phrase” – Steak-Milk.
What.
The.
Bleep.
Were.
They.
Thinking.
Not only is it not funny in the slightest, it’s a clear rip-off of a bit from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” from a few seasons back. Except there it’s called Milk Steak, and it’s Charlie’s favorite food. That humor works in that bizarro world. Not in MST3K.
Possibly, this was a nod to “Sunny,” who mentioned MST3K on their show a season or two ago. Apparently Mac thinks he came up with the “concept” for MST3K (maybe I’m on to something here!), and Dennis basically has to tell Mac that turning the sound down on the tv then making funny comments is essentially MST3K, that he didn’t invent it.
And if Steak-Milk is not a nod to “Sunny,” then that makes it even sadder that they thought Steak-Milk would be funny on it’s own.
In positive outlook, it’s great to see J. Elvis back!
Oh, is the great Ivan Askwith the voice of Bonesy?
“Shoutouts to obscure Millennial cult-series” is a possible theory–That’s how we got Felicia Day, after all. Since I don’t watch Sunny, and was deprived of the early 00’s cultural-blip, I just took it to be one more of their running Burly Grey-Haired Southwestern Man of a Certain Age riff-motif, which took over once they lost interest in the movie.
And I still don’t understand the inherent giggles in “Hill bikers!”, but at that point, like the hilarious preoccupation with grilling, they were taking what they could get.
(And stop-motion creatures that look like the Star Wars holographic-chess monsters, and not ONE riff of Letting the Wookie Win?)
If we didn’t know it was J. Elvis’s return from cancer treatment, it would seem like just cleaning up old-series refs for the sake of it. But since we do, it’s good to see him back as himself, and…less shrill.
Although this means that instead of a gripping season-arc plot about a wedding, we now have three episodes about hoping the characters remember the words to a well-beaten fan-reference song from the CC series. Not counting the drive-by ref to Crow’s Kim Catrall song.
And coming from Producer Joel who doesn’t even watch the CC episodes, the harping on Idiot Control Now, Mr. B. Natural and MST3K: the Comic canon, it’s starting to feel as if MOI-chandising! the series as a cultural-fandom object is starting to take over for enthusiasm for keeping it going. Joel knows which references are sacred to fans pretty much through the fandom, which makes it seem almost the equivalent of RiffTrax trying to beat MST3K refs into the ground. For the old fans, it’s starting to feel like we’re the last ones at the party… :(
John “Bud” Cardos also directed Gor II, aka Outlaw of Gor, aka Outlaw.
“Kinga’s mom was Kim Catrall? Of course!”
No. No no no no no.
In universe, it was Crow who had the hots for Kim Catrall – Dr. F never mentioned her once, that I can recall. When she sent flowers to Best Brains after she saw the City Limits episode, she sent them to Crow, according to Trace. He and the rest of the cast became friends (Mike tells a pretty good story about an encounter with Kix Brooks of Brooks and Dunn while the cast was having lunch with Ms. Cattrall in Hollywood), but no, Clayton Forrester and Kim Cattrall getting together and Kinga being the result is a ridiculous bit of fan service to score nostalgia points. I think it’s a direct result of Joel knowing next to nothing about what actually happened on the show when he wasn’t involved. That’s the big problem with the new show for me; how badly Joel wants to have it both ways and have the new seasons be a continuation of where the show left off AND to ignore everything that happened post-Mitchell unless he needs it to serve an agenda. (As Mary Jo said, she knew as soon as she saw Rebecca in Synthia costume what purpose her own appearance on the new show was meant to serve.)
“She (Kim Cattrall) and the rest of the cast became friends…” Sorry.
He’s been cancer-free for over five years. I don’t think this would qualify as his return from it, given the two movie documentaries he’s produced in those five years and his many stand-up appearances, as well as his podcast with Andy Kindler. But sure, “we know”.
Hey, I watched Season 11 and Season 12 and enjoyed them both. I eagerly await Season 13, and I sincerely hope we don’t get yet another reboot of a beloved property. The current set-up is OK, in my opinion, and, if the cast is willing & able to continue, I’ll be quite happy.
Just thought I’d say that.
I love this episode. Fantastically goofy movie. Funny ongoing riffs (Wise men still seek him, the whole pizza place on the other end of the phone bit) the return of J. Elvis who I regard as the great unsung hero of MST3K with a great new mellow attitude thanks to his ongoing journey of self discovery, even a deliciously evil mustard gas invention.
And the movie itself is pretty watchable. There are some decent stop motion animation and space ship effects. The patriarch role is well acted even if it is a bit of a one note role. The ship graveyard scene gives a very compelling sense of displacement. And the film certainly keeps you guessing as to wtf is going on.
There are enough ideas (concepts) in this film to build half a dozen or more movies around. And yet none of them is given any explanation or context or connection to anything. Furthermore, although the characters try to take action, nothing they do has any discernible effect on events or each other. Nobody learns any life lessons or grow as characters. They are left to more or less bob about like garbage floating on the surface of a lake in choppy weather. The result is that even though the film is bursting at the seams with stuff, the overall effect is of it being full of nothing. Almost as if the movie were made on a dare to be overfull and empty at the same time.
Although the movie had elements of Close Encounters visually and thematically, I think that what it really wanted to be was a poor man’s 2001. With all the separated characters getting together at the end so Mom could tell everyone that things were indescribably cool in this awesome future, having to stand in for the Kubrick’s “stargate” sequence. And boy what a deus ex machina.
Favorite riff: “You’re in Red Shirt territory. Get the goddam doll and get your ass back up here now!”
Favorite bit of dialogue:
“Son, don’t you know what this is? It’s a space/time warp.
I’m not sure I know what a space/time warp is Dad.
I’m not sure anyone knows what a space/time warp is.”
At this point I wanted to know that if no one really knows what a space/time warp is, what makes you so confident in your identification that this is what’s going on. Particularly with the tone you are taking that that the answer should be obvious and the kid is being dense for not having figured that out himself. Maybe it’s being the son of a philosophy teacher that makes logical contradictions stand out.
FYI: The Mom character co-starred with William Shatner in Kingdom of the Spiders (alluded to in a riff), and was also married to him at the time.
red shirt
D’oh, I saw Gor II and forgot that wa Outlaw of Gor.
I mean, it’s about to tie Ozzie and Harriet as the longest-running live action sitcom in TV history, and it’s created, written and starring by a bunch of Gen Xers, but sure, “obscure Milennial cult-series.”
“I not familiar with something, so some garbage word salad.”
A while ago, someone made an astute comment on a WDT about how young people in 2019 are not going to laugh at inside jokes about 30-yr-old cereal commercials. You could add any number of things that Joel, et al., were obsessed with: old game shows, Billy Mumy’s acting resume, the “Hooterville Trilogy”, etc. People who worship Seasons 1-4 really have no business being snide about references to “obscure Millennial cult series” in the reboot. There is not going to be any new MST3K at all without references to what has happened in pop culture since 1999.
I believe you mean “solpals” (yes, I’ve been watching too much Birdemic lately).
Being from a somewhat older generation, I don’t really mind more current references I don’t immediately get. I just look at it the same way that I saw jokes about Reginald Maudlin on “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” back in the 1970s, pre-Internet. If I have some inkling of the context, and it sounds funny, I’ll laugh. In fact, today I have an advantage. A visit to Wikipedia and a couple of keystrokes and I’ll get the reference. Research is not a problem for me, and there will still be jokes about Pia Zadora and Dr. Smith for those of my generation.
There are still a few things around that I can be easygoing about.
(Yes, but we’re in the post-Simpsons cable/streaming era, where shows like Family Guy and the current SNL run for years not because of ratings, but because nobody ever gets around to cancelling them, and the network is worried it won’t have anything else to show if they did.
And yes, maybe someday, if they work hard, FX will come out with another hit show.)
OTOH, we have fans complaining, “Why did we need Kinga to waste our time singing a song with Neil Patrick Harris in S11?”…And the later Gen-X fans who answered, “But don’t you understand? It was a reunion!–Neil and Felicia were together in DR. HORRIBLE!!”
Oh, er….Oh.
Me like this episode.
It make me laugh.
TIME FOR GO TO BED!
I call them expensive SOBs that pay for my electricity and which will be paid for in twenty years even with a $10,000 break from Uncle Sam, but I just use “solar panels” for short.
Something that was fun in Season 11 that wore out it’s welcome in 12:
Classic songs.
On the original ten year run, songs were rarely played more than once. They were written for specific episodes, and left there.
What do you do instead? Write new songs. Which in some instances, they have. But this constant referencing of the old show, outside of riff call backs, is really unnecessary. We like the show, you don’t have to remind us why. It’s cute that they did this, but if there is another season, please don’t reuse old songs again.
It was self-referentially funny in Atlantic Rim when Kinga insisted “It’s the new season, you HAVE to give us another Instant Fan-Classic Song on the level of ‘Every Country Has a Monster’!” And Jonah&tB, of course, can barely wing it since they don’t have a clue for one–“C’mon, it was just one of those things that happened, the first time!”
Until you realize that’s exactly what the new show is doing: Trying to piece together scientific observations of “what worked” with the fans on CC, SciFi and S11, and trying to either artificially recreate it, or give it instant promotions to series immortality, so that fans will be quoting Netflix refs right next to Biff Hardcheese and “It stinks!”. We get one forced callback in the series when Jenny wanders off, and the guys riff “Again? What is she, Paul?” –Uh, that’s cause all the fans liked “Cry Wilderness” last season, y’see.
The quickest way to kill an underground cult-franchise is to start consciously marketing it, and with Producer Joel now playing Kinga’s role of paying more attention now to fan-marketing it than producing it, think even the old fans are ready for that “final” S13.
Honestly, I never cared that much about pop culture “back in my day”, so I didn’t get many of the references in the old show. So I’m not going to complain about the more current ones!
Ditto. A lot depends on clues you get from the reactions of the characters. Sometimes I understand enough from the context to get the point they’re trying to make: like when the assistant gets his arm ripped off by the monster in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and takes forever to die and Mike says “Jeez, Edmund Keane didn’t have death scenes like this!”, and you know right away he’s talking about a scenery-chewing actor.
Yeah, and it’s STILL better than Joel’s lecture on Billy Mumy’s career! I mean, I don’t want to watch either one, but at least Felicia Day has a nice voice.
I was forced to watch a lot of Dallas by my old girlfriend- always felt Jim Davis was the backbone of the show. Seeing Davis here, along with leftover Laserblast music, Ex-Shatner wife, and a watchable jigsaw of a movie, and, I favor this one for multiple viewings. The Concepts song is awesome.
And think for a moment that the Spielbergian and Lucas-knockoff sci-fi of our 80’s childhoods–the ET’s, the Last Starfighters, the Solarbabies, the Aliens sequels–have now been replaced by “mindbending” Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan entries, in the belief that Artistic and Philosophical Ambiguity is what will elevate the genre to Oscar-nominated “grownup” status. And the lyrics, which were only written for bad Charles Band plotting, and never even written for “Interstellar”, “Arrival”, “Gravity’, “Passengers”, or “Prometheus”, start becoming prophetic:
Yep, friends, leave ’em baffled and a-scratchin’–Throw an evolutionary theory, and you’ll have ’em by the curlies…Who needs Death Stars, Tauntauns, or can-tina shootings, put in a woman in a spacesuit, and you’ve got EM-powerment! Twenty-and-twenty, the year we RE-make “Contact”!…
I watch the new episodes, I don’t get every reference, but then I never did. And yes, Joel, the creator, is trying to get as much as he can out of the MST concept. More power to him I say. The show has kept me laughing (often quite heartily) for a long time and hopefully a while longer. I still think eight 90 minute episodes would be the sweet spot for a complete season. Of course, I would not mind some shorts thrown in either.
Yes, I would call this a funny episode with a watchable movie. Did anyone else get the feeling this was a PSA for cults? You know, “Hey dude cults have a bad reputation but if we show a movie where this little kid blindly follows this strange creature that seems friendly but won’t give any details and it ends up good, then people might trust us more.”
On reflection, the last shot of this movie reminds me of the last shot of the New Zealand-made sci-fi movie “The Quiet Earth” from five years later. Anyone else get that impression?
the monster in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and takes forever to die and Mike says “Jeez, Edmund Keane didn’t have death scenes like this!”,
One of my favorite riffs, I guess some of our younger viewers might not have got it but hey I remember me & Sam Coleridge walking out of the Drury Lane this one time & Sam says to me “Watching Ed play Shakespeare is like reading the play by flashes of lightning!”.
And then we split over to his place & did oh man way too much laudanum.
Those were the days!
Ha! Touche! Another moment when, shortly after I posted, I dimly realized that my comment was a bit . . . OFF: “Hey, that’s not really about contemporary pop culture, is it?? D-oh!” What can I say? It was kind of late, I was watching the hockey game, the Cubs had just won . . . Anyway, the point I was trying to make was still clear enough, wasn’t it? (WASN’T IT?? Please say it was . . . )
As for “Ahh, you kids today with your music and your . . . ahhh!”, check this out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpxN2VXPMLc
The music and history are interesting enough, if you’re into this kind of thing, but the comments are priceless! (AND actually more apropos to the topic at hand than my last post was . . .)
This brings to mind how Aum Shinrikyo (the doomsday cult behind the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway back in 1995) once produced an animated propaganda OVA.
And why is there an oven in the living room?
Not to mention the grill built into the outside wall. Good design there Frank Gehry.
Sorry to crash this thread, but Frank posted this tweet today.
https://mobile.twitter.com/FrankConniff/status/1139308125922762752
Let’s all send Frank our healing thoughts.
Another great episode. Might be my favorite of the season.
I have to second (or third) the comments on “steak-milk,” a terribly forced attempt to create a running joke/catch phrase, which wasn’t that funny the first time and only got worse with wear. If the film had beaten us up with the phrase then it would have sort of made sense, but this qualifies as laughing at your own joke; then repeating it endlessly.
Ditto for “pretty nice.”