Short: (1948) The many aspects of the modern chicken farming industry are shown.
Movie: (1946) A disfigured man takes revenge on the college pals he believes caused his condition.
First shown: 2/10/96
Opening: Tom is getting into real estate
Intro: Pearl is going out and puts Crow in charge
Host segment 1: Tom is inside an egg
Host segment 2: Mike calls his old girlfriend to ask her to help him escape
Host segment 3: Crow wants Mike and Tom to sing “Hang down your head, Tom Dewey”
End: Letters, Tom is not a good landlord, and Dr. F. turns Pearl’s date into a chicken of tomorrow
Stinger: “Creeper, Creeper, Creeper! YOU give me the creeps!”
(217 votes, average: 4.30 out of 5)
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• This is one of those episodes where the short really builds up a head of steam, but the riffing of the movie just can’t maintain the pace, so it starts to drag in the last half hour. But overall it’s a great episode, with mostly good host segments with Dr. F a bit less wimpy than last week.
• This episode is included in Shout’s “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Vol XXII.”
• You can read Paul’s comments on this episode here.
• In the opening, watch Mike think about Crow’s “cajones” remark for several moments before objecting. Nicely done.
• I had no memory of the bit in the intro where they seem to be extracting a portion of a stuffed animal from Gypsy’s teeth. Nice little random element.
• Why is Dr. F quietly sewing the head of piglet onto the body of a fish? Why not?
• Of course that’s Paul as the oily lothario Sandy. Poom!
• Pearl again calls Crow Art.
• Mike is pitch perfect as a pouting 7-year-old when told Crow will be his babysitter.
• Note for anyone seeking an unMSTed version of this short: There is a different short with same title at archive.org. It does include some of the same footage, but it’s definitely a different short.
• There is so much realty talk in this episode. Who on the writing staff was buying a house?
• Obscure reference: Mike mentions a painter named Susan Rothstein. I’ve googled her and there does appear to be such a person, but she’s pretty obscure.
• Only slightly less obscure: Mike’s reference to Alicia de Larrocha. Also pretty obscure: references to jazz musicians Terry Gibbs and Diane Schuur.
• In the short, the narrator claims there is no county in a America where somebody is not raising chickens (I assume he means commercially). That’s a remarkable thing, if true, and I bet that’s not true any more (again, at least not commercial chicken farming; raising a few chickens for personal use is, I think, on the increase).
• Sadly, this is the last short for more than 30 episodes.
• Season seven brings us a new non-spaghetti ball bumper: A shot of a movie projector with the name of the movie on a card nearby. Rather than the rotating series of bumpers we had in season six, either the projector or the spaghetti ball was used.
• Callbacks: “Oh, it’s true.” (The Dead Talk Back)
• This is one of the oldest movies MST3K did. Only “The Corpse Vanishes,” “The Mad Monster” and “I Accuse My Parents” are older. By the way, the woman playing Joan Bemish is Mickey Dolenz’s mom.
• Of course, an early highlight is the old grumpy shopkeeper Mr. Harkins, who seems to have cracked them up.
• In segment two, for the first time in a long time, we find Mike actively trying to escape the SOL. That’s not something that had really been on the front burner in the latter half of season six.
• That’s Bridget on the phone, and, I think, Paul as the little kid.
• Interesting line when Crow sees the “23” on the Creeper’s lair: “Hey. it’s KTMA!”
• Segment 3 is one of those sketches about a bad idea for a sketch. The brains seem to enjoy the meta-ness of them. But they’re not so much funny as kind of wry.
• Cast and crew roundup: Producer Ben Pivar had a story credit on “The Leech Woman.” Editor Philip Cahn also worked on “Lost Continent.” Makeup guy Jack Pierce also worked on “Amazing Transparent Man.” Set designer Russell A. Gausman also worked on “The Leech Woman” and “This Island Earth.” “Revenge of the Creature,” “The Mole People,” “The Deadly Mantis” and “The Thing That Couldn’t Die” (which I think is why you keep seeing that hamburger/map picture on people’s walls). Sound tech Joe Lapis worked on “The Leech Woman.” Score composer Hans J. Salter also worked on “This Island Earth” and “The Leech Woman.”
In front of the camera: Tom Neal was also in “Radar Secret Service.” Fred Coby was also in “Jungle Goddess.” Peggy Converse was also in “The Thing that Couldn’t Die.” Tristram Coffin was also in “Radar Secret Service,” “The Corpse Vanishes” and “The Crawling Hand.”
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Kevin Murphy. This was prop assistant Dean Trisko’s last episode and Beth McKeever’s last episode as an intern.
• Fave riff from the short: “I’ve seen the episode where the eggs are coming too fast and she puts them in her mouth!” Honorable mention: “You think I can wear these pants out tonight?”
• Fave riff from the movie: “Honey? My face is as big as ever and someone shot my sizzler off!” Honorable mention: “Clog dancers!”
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“Chicken Of Tomorrow” was one of the great shorts of the series. My favorite line from Mike: “Eggs are complicated. They should cost a hundred dollars each.” There was also the underlying, almost sinister homage to big oil in the short. As Mike also said “Did America really need to be sold on the auto industry at this point?”
The movie was okay, but my favorite character was the crabby old man. I just have a feeling thats how I’m going to be when I’m in my 80’s.
And poor Rondo Hatton, being cast because of his disfiguring disease and dying of the same disease before the movie is released. Makes it kind of hard to laugh at the guy.
My parents suggest that it might still be true that not a single county in the US doesn’t raise chickens. I find it kind of odd that Mike makes the comment of the “Susan Rothstein mural” before the picture fades in and we can see it. Must have been a little early on cue.
One of the worst episodes. The short is one of the unfunniest they ever did, with nary a giggle or smile on my part. “The Brute Man” is slow, slow, slow. Other than Paul as Sandy(“Poom!”), this is one of those Season 7 eps that really shows the lack of spark that haunts this year. And it only gets worse. Bring on Sci-Fi. :???:
Not to be a “fuddy-duddy” (as the old couple in The Incredible Melting Man would say)…but, I actually had a problem with the Brains doing this film. I was distracted by how bad I felt for Rondo Hatton. His story was genuinely tragic and I just couldn’t find the humor it.
For me, the highlight was Mike’s reaction to the shopkeeper. But, I never watch this episode. If I’m going to watch MST3K, I want it to be 100% about making me laugh.
I have personally verified that every county in the USA raises chickens. Well, several counties in central Kansas. Also, the short covers EVERY aspect of chicken raising, except how they actually get to the dinner table. Convenient.
This episode is sort of an end for me. Most of season 6 was kind of M’eh for me, and this is just a depressing movie. I need a good sword and sandal movie…
I forgot something. Anyone ever see the “Rough Cut” version of “Diabolik” when the crew is treeted to a montage of movie moments from throughout MST3K’s history? Kevin, Mike, and Bill start rolling when the grumpy shopkeeper from “Bruteman” appears.
Looks like the effect hadn’t worn off after all the years.
One of the two Season 7 episodes I haven’t seen, at least not in its entirety in this case. I’ve seen Chicken of Tomorrow courtesy of Shorts Vol. 1 and, sadly, it hasn’t really clicked for me yet. I can’t even name a favorite riff.
Maybe if I watch it without watching all of the others in the volume first…
SOME eggs don’t even exist.
I went 4 stars, I like it very much.
As was mentioned above, there is something touching or piquant about a doomed disfigured man playing a doomed disfigured man, his relationship with the blind woman, his abandonment by his friends. Touching, but still much to laugh about.
As for Chicken of the County question:
Are there any counties in the US where no-one lives ? Alaska was not yet a state when the short was made. As for today… well New York County ( aka Manhattan Island ) is the obvious first guess for a chicken free zone, but apparently, if the internet is to be belived it is happening.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-866&p=raising+chickens+manhattan&SpellState=n-3797034905_q-W8.tsJsn8rX89A18nC5r0QAAAA%40%40&fr2=sp-qrw-corr-top
so maybe it is true, where there are people there are chickens. So worship the Chicken farmer where you work and bank. Oops wrong short.
If Daddy-O is correct about the vintage, then the “every county in the U.S. raises chickens” sounds as if it would be accurate, as Alaska and Hawaii weren’t states at the time. Even if it were later, Alaska still wouldn’t count as it technically doesn’t have counties.
Out of curiosity, was the riff of “The Bill Clinton Story” when the title The Chicken of Tomorrow was on the screen meant to refer to his draft dodging in the Sixties or some other incident?
“Yes, chicken…sliced to the width of one electron!” :lol:
The short? Brilliant, one of my favorites. The movie, average at best. My favorite part of the movie was the old guy, so full of anger for no reason whatsoever. Chicken of Tomorrow was a lot of fun
Dressing plant? Sounds like fun
These chickens were smoking in bed
Yes chicken sliced to the width of one electron
Ah these must be model’s portions
“That’s what you think big boy” Wow that was weird!!
Given the horrible economy, if it wasn’t true in the past I’m sure it’s true today that everyone, everywhere, is raising chickens (heck, I’m going to go out right after this and get myself a whole mess of chicks. Or something).
I do love this episode — really cheesy which is why it works. Yep, it’s somewhat sad about Rondo, but at the very least he made some money from his condition, which is more than a lot of folks with health issues could say. And, let’s face it, Ted Cassidy, Richard Kiel, et. al all made a living just because of their… well, unusual conditions as well (and Ted suffered a great deal — don’t know about “Jaws”). We don’t tend to feel sorry for them in any way, and I doubt whether they would want us to (hey, I’m old and broken down and in pain all the time but don’t want any sympathy — if only I could parley it into a movie career — maybe a Grumpy Old Men remake? :>)
I find it hard to believe that San Francisco County raises chickens.;)
And it’s Mary Jo on the phone. Listen carefully. (Paul admitted to being the child.)
The Diabolik rough cut that GizmonicTemp mentioned is on Youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9oED6w1IAc
(starts at 2:41)
Creeper, creeper, creeper… YOU give ME the creeps!
I work in a crowded urban neighborhood in Cambridge MA, and I can look out my office window and see chickens being raised in the yard of a triple-decker across the street. So it is not inconceivable that chickens are being raised somewhere in Manhattan.
I love the opening host segment in which the leering Sandy (“Poom!”) appears, and I agree that Mike is spot on as the pouty kid having to have Crow as a baby-sitter. One of the funniest (and best performed) host segments ever, and a tour-de-force for Mary Jo as Pearl (cf. last weekends discussion thread).
As for the morality of casting the acromegalic Rondo Hatton as the Brute Man, I believe the BRains addressed this in the on-line Season 7 ACEG. If I remember correctly, the gist of it was that it might be expoitative, but it did give Mr. Hatton work, and there are lousier jobs than being a Hollywood actor (even a B-movie actor).
And of course Paul in the ACEG did state that Rondo Hatton made a great Brute Man. Not sure if it was because of his appearance, acting ability, or both. He never specifies.
Dr F with the pig-fish was great. That’s real mad science, right there. Why was he doing it? Well, it would take a scientist to explain, and he’s simply too mad!
Paul as Sandy was great. Lots of little touches that build a very memorable character.
I like the movie and the short and laugh throughout both.
And I agree on the Fave Riff; “Honey? My face is as big as ever and someone shot my sizzler off!”
Why is it that I find this movie so laugh out loud while others hate it? I’ll admit that Rondo’s story is tragic, which I discovered after loving this episode. But I still think it’s hilarious. The chicken short is weird, but they were able to find humor in it.
I can’t wait for our boxset XV to arrive!
Haven’te seen the episode, but “The Chicken of Tommorow” is one of those shorts that took a while for me to warm up to. When the narrator says something like, “You may ask yourself…” and Mike adds, “why am I watching this?” Well, that’s just how I felt the first couple times I saw it, especially as the finale episode of Shorts Vol 1. For me “Date with Your Family” was fall down hilarious the first time I saw it, and I didn’t know why that couldn’t have been the finale episode.
But over time I’ve actually found a lot to enjoy about it. Some of the riffs are great, and “cut to the width of one electron” gets used quite a bit in our house.
The first time I brought in MST3K to work as our monthly movie, was based around this short. It was around Thanksgiving, and I mentioned that I didn’t have a turkey themed film, but I had a chicken themed movie. It intrigued my co-workers so I brought it in and we watched it first. It got lots of laughs, so I jumped back to the “Cheating” short and just let the rest play. When the next month rolled around, they asked if I had any more of those “bad funny movie shows”. We’ve been watching episode a month ever since.
I love “The Chicken of Tomorrow” short. I worked a zoo where hens were utilized as broody hens or “foster moms” for rare bird species. Dependable, stable hens kept their jobs, and bad hens got a pink slip (actually they did got shipped out to someone’s “farm” to become pet chickens). Chickens can be wily, but they are pretty much rock-stupid. I showed this to my coworkers and they got a blast out of it. My curator said that she would use at an incubation workshop, I don’t know if she did really. Chickens!
I like all 6 season seven episodes- They’re like a little bonus, six extra episodes with Trace, after the disappointing movie and before he left the show. This one I initially didn’t like at first but upon repeat viewings I came to appreciate the film segments. If “Night of the Blood Beast” feels like it would’ve been at home in season 3, “The Brute Man” feels a lot like a season 2 film choice, what with it’s gloomy fortiesness. However, “Chicken of Tomorrow” is one of the few shorts that leaves me cold.
This also has perhaps my favorite Dr. F/Pearl scene with Paul Chaplin great as Sandy. “Mother, Noooooo-oh, well, he’s not the first oily man that’s taken mom to the mat!” Note that the stuffed animal they pull out of Gypsy’s gullet is half of Dr. F’s Double Butt-Graft experiment from “Mitchell”.
And now, my favorite lines from this episode:
Crow: Wow, these ‘No Brute Man’ laws are really starting to pinch!
“The man said murder!”
Tom: I may have to use my huge face on them!
Crow: Hey, it’s KTMA! (on the Creeper’s #23 address)
Crow: Objects on my face may be closer than they appear…
Tom: How about ‘Captain Flash’ or ‘Captain Rocket’? Captain M. J. Donnelly just doesn’t do it for a superhero…
Crow: God is Dead? Good!
Crow: He’s Big Head Todd AND The Monster!
Tom: Evenin’ Creeper!
Mike: Hi, Person.
Mike: That sex was very serviceable and reliable, thank you.
Crow: Man, I love cigs. I gotta get a carton of these for my pregnant wife!
Tom: Look, ‘Philanthropist Laid’. Always the Philanthropists. Rock stars and philanthropists…
“Hal, you’re hurt!”
Crow: I smell blood!
Mike: Why didn’t they just call this movie ‘The Creeper’!?
“You have that operation right away!”
Mike: Um, can it wait till morning?
“I’d like to get these jewels appraised…”
Tom: They came from a wounded guy with a hole in his groin who wouldn’t let me touch his face.
Tom: Boy, it’d be really awkward if he broke in there and she was entertaining another big ugly murderer guy…
“I knew he was in some sort of trouble but I didn’t know it was with the police!”
Mike: I thought he was pregnant!
Mike: We changed our plan at the last second and decided NOT to let him strangle you!
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Chicken of Tomorrow just might be my favorite short ever. I had never seen it until I got the 2nd boxset with this in the Shots collection, and it was fun then. What really sealed the deal for me was last December, when an animal science class I was taking hatched chickens. I watched this short addictingly and therefore have a fondness for it. I ended up burning a copy for my teacher, and we came this close to watching it in class…but alas, the semester ran short…I named my chicken Krankor. He was so awesome.
Anyways, the episode. I like this one, if because I enjoyed the movie. Whenever I can get attached to the characters – which happens very rarely with MST, but it does – I really enjoy the whole thing a lot more. I felt a bit sorry for Rondo in the end, since he had befriended (sorta) that blind girl and all, but well, yeah, that’s how it goes.
Let’s see, my favorite line from Brute Man…
As the Brute Man was running (slowly) from the police and in this dead end alley was a door to his right Tom Servo in his Snagglepuss voice says,
“Exit, stage right even.”
Chicken of Tomorrow is one of my very fave shorts (along with Once Upon a Honeymoon and Design for Dreaming). I laugh hard, out loud at something every time I watch those.
I remember when I was in elementary school we watched one episode of Reading Rainbow that showed one of those egg hatching videos set to a song called “I’m Breaking Out”. We thought it was the neatest thing ever. When I saw this short for the first time nearly 20 years later, I was laughing so hard at that part I couldn’t breathe :lol: .
I like the movie too but it does start to drag near the end. I love it when Mike finally yells “creep or get off the pot”.
Also Mike getting cracked up at the old man is funny every time :lol: .
Fave riffs:
Feed me then clean up my poops!
She’s laced up tighter than a catcher’s mitt.
After Rondo gets shot in the mess, “That’s not gonna help him with women” or something like that :wink:
“There’s no driver! The chickens are taking over!”
I agree with Sampo’s assessment: The movie really starts to drag in the last half hour. And the short overshadows the film, but any movie that brings us the sheer hilarity of the hateful storekeeper is okay in my book.
I can understand why some people are uncomfortable with this movie, but it doesn’t seem like Rondo had any problem capitalizing on his disease, so what’s the fuss?
If nothing else, I find the explanation for his disfigurement pretty hilarious. A chemical explosion made his face like that? Really?
That said, of all the season 7 episodes, this is easily the weakest. I’d give it a 6 out of 10. Or possibly 11. But probably 10.
I do soooooo love “Chicken of Tomorrow”!
“Oh, wait. Thats my silly putty”
“WHoa! Milton Berle there…”
“Sexing chickens is a highly specialized job” “Yeah, for pervs!”
“40 piece chicken nuggets to go!”
“Oh, the dressing plant! Sounds like fun! Im gonna get a new hat!”
“Ricky ‘The Bantam’ Chabbatello, Joey ‘Crazy Cock’ Cuccini!”
As great as those lines, I like Tom’s intro on the Shorts Volume 1 tape as well… “Highly intelligent, these ‘Dolphins of the Barnyard’ are the beloved stars of countless movies and TV shows”
As for “The Brute Man”, yeah… little sad about Rondo. A good Oscar-bait bio-pic could be made about Rondo’s sad life. But, regardless of that, the movie is well deserving of its razzing.
I love the short in this one (okay, I love *all* the shorts).
The movie is a bit hard to get through, although the scenes with the old man are gold.
These host segments, like the rest of the ones in season 6, don’t do much for me, but I love the tone of Mike’s voice when he objects to Art being his babysitter.
I like Zee’s idea that these eps are like a little bonus with Trace before he left. After he left, the slow decline of the show accelerated a bit, so I like to savor the Season 7 episodes.
#12, I believe the riff was referring to the big deal good old H Ross Perot made in one of his prime time half-hour ads during the 1992 elections about the fact that Clinton’s boasts of reducing unemployment in Arkansas while he was governor was based largely on increases in the size of its chicken industry. That is a very long sentence.
Anyway, I remember Perot’s comment along the lines of “now I like chicken farmers, they’re good, honest, hardworking people, but we can’t solve America’s economy by having everyone raise chickens.”
J. Master says:
#12, I believe the riff was referring to the big deal good old H Ross Perot made in one of his prime time half-hour ads during the 1992 elections about the fact that Clinton’s boasts of reducing unemployment in Arkansas while he was governor was based largely on increases in the size of its chicken industry.
____________________________
Is that true? If so, that’s one of the more obscure riffs in the show’s run…
A good episode. Season Seven is a rough one but this was good. Short is great, lots to choose from there. The movie, pretty average. I feel for Rondo Hatton but enjoy it all the same. The host segments are good as well, Paul as Sandy of course being a highlight.
It should be noted that Hatton was under contract to Universal during the last years of his life, and it was the studio who exploited his appearance for various interpretations of “The Creeper.” Due to Rondo’s passing before the release of this film, a guilt-ridden Universal sold it to “B” movie studio Producers Releasing Corporation (hence the lack of Universal’s name). So the notion that Hatton himself was willingly capitalizing on his acromegaly is completely unfair; he was under contract, and had no choice. He was allegedly very displeased at how Universal took advantage of his disfiguring disease.
And although I do have some issues with the Brains riffing on Hatton’s appearance, I still find this episode side-splitting. I love how Mike loses it during the scene with the shopkeeper. And the Chicken of Tomorrow is easily one of their best shorts.
“Everybody, Soylent Green is made from chickens!”
“They’re all wearing Rembrandt hats!”
“Et tu, Brute Man?”
“Dah! Midgets!”
“Ladies…and gentlemen…in the center ring…The Creeper will now attempt the high…thing!”
“Serial killers are wacky!”
#12
Out of curiosity, was the riff of “The Bill Clinton Story” when the title The Chicken of Tomorrow was on the screen meant to refer to his draft dodging in the Sixties or some other incident?
=================================
Of course, an even more relevant reference since the mst3000 version debuted would be
Dick “I had other priorities” Chaney and his
multiple deferments.
(spelling correction, the dark prince’s last name is, of course, Cheney).
Loved the host segments, with Paul as Pearl’s date and Pearl making Crow the babysitter, especially after he lays down the law and turns to Gypsy and says, “You…shall live.”
The short is among the best they’ve ever done, with so many great lines:
“The Bill Clinton story!”
“Dedicated to the chickens who lost their lives in the great chicken war”.
“The unholy alliance between Big Oil and Big Chicken”.
“Remember the old henhouse…” “The one with the rats?”
The movie itself was good, particularly the scenes with Rondo Hattan, but at times the riffing seemed to lag. It’s the host segments and the short which raises the level of this particular episode.
Four stars.
I dig this episode, mainly because I actually like the movie. There are a few episodes like that, but especially this one, and Rondo Hatton: tragic yet certainly immortal.
Hey, have you ever noticed when the short was compiled for one of the shorts compilations(Vol. I?) it cut off the line about the backwards jackass company when referring to the Texas Company?
“Why didn’t they just call this movie ‘The Creeper’?!”
I dunno. I think this episodes pretty good. The Chicken of Tomorrow short is darn funny (it’s a shame the shorts would take a back seat for the next few seasons) and The Brute Man is actually a fairly decent, if not plodding, movie. But the real highlight is obvious: crazy, old, explosive Mr. Harkins, whose performance is so believable that i can’t help but think that’s how the guy really acted in the real world. Trace’s riffing throughout the scene is icing on the cake.
“Creeper, creeper, creeper…YOU give me the creeps!”
“Oh, he zinged ya!”
Um…didn’t really laugh too much at the short or the movie, not terrible, but really draggy.
In the short, Crow makes a reference to the opening to the Partridge Family when they show the egg about to be hatched. *singing* “Come on down and meet everybody…”
I like Crow’s line when they show the “motor truck” (isn’t truck sufficient? Were motors that new when this was made?) the narrator says speed is essential and Crow says, “I said SPEED is ESSENTIAL!” since the truck doesn’t seem to be in any particular rush. :lol:
Something that made me laugh the other day, isn’t really chicken related, but it is duck related: Someone sent me an e-mail with really stupid news articles that were actually in papers (so it was claimed) and one article said that a couple of dogs attacked some ducks at a pond in a park, and when police were called to the scene, it said, “the duck refused medical attention and left the scene.” Can’t believe someone actually wrote that. How DOES a duck “refuse” medical attention? Had me cracking up. (Quacking up?) {sorry} Just had to share that.
The movie? It wasn’t so bad overall, but, just slow and there weren’t many memorable lines. Did like towards the beginning when during the “calling all cars” scene, Servo says, “That’s alot of cars.” They repeat “attention all cars” and Mike says, “Kill your owners.”
Other than that, eh.
Oh, yeah – the gas at the gas stations in Chicken of Tomorrow: 21 cents a gallon!
Why all the love for the “motor truck” in Chicken of Tomorrow? Methinks it was because the short’s primary financial backer was The Texas Company, a/k/a Texaco.
“Men and women breeding better poultry? What kind of sick experiment is going on here?”
“Normandy…”
“It’s more like a hotel…a pullet hotel…” Mike: “Rooms by the hour…”
“I’m in the incubator now.”
How I love The Chicken of Tomorrow.
My aunt and uncle still raise chickens. Hard work, let me tell you.
Favorite riff from the short:”Each square foot can house about fifty chickens.” “Or migrant workers.”
I’ve been meaning to bring this up for a while. This may set some of the more obsessive fans into a spin. A line, or some version of it, appears in this movie that crops up in many more movies. “Money. A lot of money.” Look for it in Red Zone Cuba and The Amazing Transparent Man just to name two. First one to find them all wins.
“He’s had several injuries that don’t help his chances with women AT ALL.”
This is a real depressing movie, but there’s enough fun to enjoy to keep it from pulling you under (like High School Big Shot pretty much did). I mentioned last week that I really enjoy when they laugh at the movie and their own jokes and that really seemed to pick up in Season 7. It completely spills out with the old shopkeeper scene. I remembering rewinding the VHS almost in shock that Mike really was losing it and then rolling in the floor as I realized not only how funny it actually was, but how funny they found it to be. I’ve always remembered this one fondly.
Another fun note, I love how the guys are constantly picking on Rondo’s seeming inability to open doors. I know he’s just trying to hide, but it does look like just can’t figure out how the darn knob works!
“That’s some big baleen!”
Oh – and then there’s this exchange:
“How much?”
“A $1 & a quarter.”
“Here’s a toe nail.”
I wasn’t much bothered by Rondo appearing in the film — heck, he was a contracted actor, that’s what they DO, isn’t it? — but I AM much bothered by the screenwriters’ treatment of the conclusion to Rondo and Blind Lady’s relationship. She is, after all, set up as the first person to treat Rondo humanely, and story concludes with her just-so-casually accepting Rondo’s fate at the hands of the cops, then going out on a date. That always bugged me. A better screenplay would have her more divided over it, and it would have made better drama, wouldn’t it?
Oh heck, I know it’s a bad movie. Still.
For me, this episode was certainly above-average grade, they could have been alot more active in making fun of scenes of the movie that did not have the Brute Man onscreen and the last two strangling attempts. The ending was unbelievable, both that the cops would pay for her eye surgery and that she’d date either of them. & I would have liked it if they went along and sung the Thomas Dewey song… I’m a little surprised they’d walk out on that one…
The other major thing I liked about this movie is that The Brute Man is thee only movie in Mystery Science Theater 3000’s history that was a lone perpetrator-centered murder noir -that- didn’t have a sci-fi or fantasy element to it, like The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Incredible Melting Man, or The Indestructible Man. It was actually a movie where the main character was the murderer, had a realistic reason for his disfigurement, and just went about strangling victims pasively, as the detectives try to hunt him down. It’s thee only time I know of that this happen on MST3K, so I hold it up to a higher pedestal. Although, like I said earlier, they could have done a much better job with non-Creeper scenes, and a few other places, but other than that, good job MST3K.
This. This episode has my favorite MST moment ever… Mike just completely losing it over the hypercranky shopkeeper. Watch his silhouette; he’s nearly doubled over, rocking with barely-contained laughter. And he’s doing it before Crow’s “Dear GOD I hate you! I HOPE YOU DIE!” line even starts. It’s beautiful and real.
See, I thought this was a strong episode. Gloomy as all hell movie, yes, but by now, the writers had developed their chops to properly handle something so plodding and dreary by going odd. The “pound meat” line is the kind of thing I mean… a lot more just surreal quipping, plus jumping on a running gag (“They should get KIDS going on these things!”) It actually reminds me a lot of what appealed to me about season 1’s riffing style, only much faster-paced.
#43 fathermushroom… yeah, the ending always bothered me on a completely different level than most MST movies do. You really get the feeling that it was an “oh crap, we gotta wrap this up fast” ending. There’s no real pathos and no real payoff, despite them building up to something using that for a good (over)long chunk of movie. It’s just… oh, we grabbed him and now he’s arrested and everything’s okay! Hooray!
Oh yes, also when Sandy met Pearl there in Deep 13, his quote: “Pearl you look…woooorrgghh!!” Love that line.
Narrator: “The temperature of an egg, when laid, is over 100 degrees. Every minute it’s left in a hot nest in a hot hen house, takes away some of it’s moisture and freshness.”
Mike: “So put you mouth under a chicken”
“The Chicken of Tomorrow” is one of my most favorite shorts.
5 stars!
favorite lines:
Short: “The dressing plant…sounds like fun! I want a new hat!”
Movie: “Let’s go out and be crotchety sometime!”