My pick: The melodious “Starfighters” theme.
What’s yours?
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Weekend Discussion Thread: Favorite CallbackOne of the mainstays of MST3K is references to previous episodes. Which one(s) really tickle you?
125 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Favorite Callback”Commenting at Satellite News
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Man, there are so many callbacks I have a hard time not only picking a favorite, but remembering them. x_x; The one that’s sticking out in my head right now, though, is “Shut up, Iris”. I understand it came from The Beatniks, but me and my friends were watching Last of the Wild Horses and picked it up from there and just began using it feverishly in conversation. To hear it as a callback just made it infinitely more funny.
Also gotta love the Starfights melody…daaaaadadadaaaaa…
-When Valaria from “Robot Holocaust” showed up in the hexfield…
-“He hit big Jake!” (Sidehackers)
-“Is that… one of those… flying saucers… I’ve heard… so… much… about… late…ly?” (Gamera)
-I also liked when they would yell “Mitchell!” during fight/action sequences in the Mike era.
-The “Coleman Francis Mountain” riff in “Laserblast”
-and of course the “Crawling Eye” call out at the end of “Diabolik”…
Another good thread topic would be meta-riffs, ie:
Tom: Hey, the MST3K logo!
Joel: You’re not supposed to know about that! (413)
Watch out for snakes!
Oh, I hate to shoot a butt like that!
“Mr. Drysdale?”
“Chief?”
“McCloud!”
Luceeeele!!!!
I like the Starfighter’s theme as well.
Ahhh, uh uh ahhhh. Ahhhh, uh uh ahhhh uh, uh uh ahhhhh uh uh ahhhAAAahhhAHHHH!
“It stinks!”
“Mitchell!”
Do “Lucieeeeeeeeeele” and “Chief? McCloud!” count as callbacks? They were callbacks to riffs, not lines of dialogue from the movie. The question is not specific enough. Please outline all question parameters and resubmit in triplicate.
Does the closing of “Being from Another Planet” count, when they’re rattling off all the movies that (allegedly) BFAP is worse than?
I’ll also put in a good word for “It Stinks!” It works as a callback so well because it requires an actor to make a very distinctive action (the “ok” sign). Sometimes callbacks are tenuous to the point of being non-sequiturs (ex: “watch out for snakes!), but “It Stinks!” is always entirely justified.
Oh no, he went to the Torgo school of fondling!
mike as torgo and torgo the white…makes me laugh every time.
I disagree. “WATCH OUT FOR SNAKES!” is by far my favorite callback. I think it’s because it usually done with that poorly dubbed, hands cupped to mouth sort of way.
This one’s easy: SSSSLLLLEEEEEEEPPPPPP!
And I vote to include “Chief? McCloud!” as a call back.
“MEGAWEAPON!”
It only happens once, but the fact that I first saw San Francisco International for the right rime right after seeing Warrior of the Lost World for the first time really made that stick out.
My favorite, especially when Mike delivers it in a devastatingly snotty tone, “He’ll never touch you Terry. You’re dirt.”
Don’t get me wrong; I think “watch out for snakes” is really funny, because the delivery is great. I’m just not sure what they’re reacting to when they use it. Is it because a character looks like Arch Hall Jr/Sr, or because something about the current film reminds them of Eegah? Or is it a reaction to bad voiceovers? Maybe any of these three? I guess “It Stinks” is just more self-evident to me.
*first time
Wow, I really wasn’t awake.
At this point my lungs were aching for air.
“By this time” not “At this point”. Aw well, that isn’t my favorite one, anyway.
My favorite? Probably the the old man from Gamera. “I heard them talk…about…so…much…lately.”
Also the callback to the horrible song from Warrior of the Lost World in Outlaw.
I find the rare callbacks that happen long after they’ve watched an ep much funnier. Like Crow saying “Hangar 18” (from KTMA) during Warrior of the Lost World. Or the quick “Trumpy!” mention in Beginning of the End. You’re not expecting something so off-hand from an older ep and suddenly its there.
I only saw Starfighters for the first time when it came out on DVD, but I was already familiar with the incidental music because of the frequent call-backs. I had assumed they were singing background music from the original Star Trek series. I nearly fell off the couch when watching Starfighters and finally figuring out where it really came from.
Watch out for snakes!
“Starfighters” music
Megaweapon!
Was I the only one tickled to death to hear Crow do the “San Francisco International” music in “Codename: Diamondhead”?
I like it when they callback MST3K episodes during RiffTrax. For example, when a helicopter flies overhead during Cloverfield: “You are ordered to leave the Bronx!” As for MST3K itself, one callback I found particularly memorable was in Diabolik when the title character climbed aboard the villain’s plane: “Good morning, Dr. Meacham.”
“Torgo, you’re the laziest man on mars…” – Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
OH GOD HOW COULD I FORGET?!
“…they tried to kill him with a forklift!” – Fugitve Alien 1 & 2
“…There was no monster.”
There, that’s it: my favorite.
Schtemlo! called back in Teenage Strangler at the very end… i laugh so hard.
You and your friends are the only creeps in this place.
I don’t know why, but TV’s Frank putting his hands up and saying “you got me” in The Indestructible Man’s opening segment always cracks me up. :lol:
Puma?
Puma?
Puma!
I sing when I sing
a tried and true favorite:
“You’ve tried scrubbing it out…”
and another, for whenever someone is on a phone:
“Oh me? I’m still ugly.”
Speaking of callbacks to MST3K from Rifftrax, did anyone else love Kevin’s Coiley impression from “One Got Fat?”
I’m actually surprised there weren’t any callbacks from Time of the Apes (if you’ve seen it, you’ll know why).
Haikeba!
and later, Gymkata!
It’s an example of a unique callback, one with a twist.
In Red Zone Cuba, during the training montage, Mike yells out “Hi-Cuba!” A classic.
Also, “Watch out for snakes!” and “Shut up, Iris.”
Randy
“He tampered in God’s Domain.”
He learned almost too late that man is a feeling creature… and because of it, the greatest in the universe. He learned too late for himself that men have to find their own way, to make their own mistakes. There can’t be any gift of perfection from outside ourselves. And when men seek such perfection… they find only death… fire… loss… disillusionment… the end of everything that’s gone forward. Men have always sought an end to the toil and misery, but it can’t be given, it has to be achieved. There is hope, but it has to come from inside, from Man himself.
Oh yeah, and “Hooray for Santy Claus!”
:twisted: And every given “Sandy Frannnk, Sandy Frannnk” varient.
And “Shoes for Industry!” (from Firesign Theatre).
I remember laughing like hell at the “Red Zone Cuba III: The Destruction of Cherokee Jack” riff in “Laserblast.”
As I remember, “Laserblast” had other fun callbacks, such as the Max Keller “Master Ninja” reference.
Servo’s out-of-nowhere yell of “MITCHELL!” in “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” was great too, especially since it was the episode right after “Mitchell.”
Mike’s “Trumpy, you can do magic!” callback over the shot of the headlights in “The Atomic Brain” worked well.
“Daddy-O” is one of my absolute favorite episodes, so the “Rock Candy Baby” song reference in “The Beatniks” made my day.
“Village of the Giants” had a GREAT callback with the dreary “What sin could a duck commit in a single lifetime…” callback to “The Amazing Colossal Man.”
Anything involving “Monster A-Go-Go” had me laughing hard, especially Crow’s “Ted Nelson was found alive, and of normal size. There was no melting man” in “The Incredible Melting Man.”
I have to say, though, I was kind of disappointed that they didn’t make any blatantly obvious Torgo callbacks during “Gorgo.” The first thing I expected to hear when the title came up was “mY nAmE iS gOrGo, I tAkE cArE oF tHe PlAcE wHiLe ThE mAsTeR iS aWaY.”
And plenty of lip and tongue action!
Oh, and as a technicality, they did a couple of callbacks to MST3K in the Alien rifftrax, when Kevin suggested the tunnel scene and hexfield portals seemed familiar to Bill, with Bill feigning ignorance.
This nosewheel feels mushy.
and Watch out for snakes! of course.
Forgot ‘That square bugs me, he really bugs me!!’
From Godzilla vs. Megalon, in which Crow says in a shot of Megalon “He gets paid in scales.” and Tom Servo tells Crow “We’ve done that one last week!” and then Crow goes “Oops, last week’s script.”
Another great one, from Prince of Space, where Mike, I think, says “Here’s that shot again.” when the Hitler statue comes up, referring to the movie where they 1st seen it, Invasian of the Neptune Men, I think.
#21 – Hey, I never knew that they’d call back a KTMA episode as far down as Warrior of the Lost World! I always try to comb the Season 1 episodes and try to find if they would mention KTMA … they seem far more likely to do so, but that’s neat that they would!
Nearly 50 responses, and not one of them has mentioned “Hi-keeba”? (#104 Women of the Prehistoric Planet)
For me, that was THE catch phrase of the show during the early years.
“He tampered in Gods domain”
and
“It Stinks!”
MrMSTy, that’s what I was trying to say in #35, but I couldn’t remember how to spell it. I went with something kinda Japanesey.