Movie: (1958) A scientist builds a time machine, allowing a scary woman from the future to appear.
First shown: 3/15/97
Opening: Tom “comfort rates” everything
Intro: The Observers make Pearl and Bobo fight, but the M&TB aren’t getting the message
Host segment 1: The Observers offer their superior food
Host segment 2: Mike sends Crow back in time, but soon regrets it
Host segment 3: The Observers croon “When I Held Your Brain in My Arms”
End: Mike sets Crow up with a blind date from the year 5000, while Pearl declares her humanity
Stinger: Observers
(228 votes, average: 4.26 out of 5)
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• Get Kevin’s take here.
• This ranks up there as one of the most incompetent movies they’ve ever done and, as you know, that’s saying something. An amateur cast playing unlikeable characters, a glacial pace to a plot that makes zero sense. Laughable special effects and a story with no payoff. Bleah. The segments are all pretty good, especially the song, but I think the riffing is a bit sub-par this time. There are still plenty of great riffs, but they seem a little thinner than usual. All in all a fair-to-good outing.
• This episode has not yet been released on DVD.
• This was the seventh new show in seven weeks. I remember the incredible feeling of being overwhelmed with new MST3K episodes with barely enough time to assimilate it all (a little like getting 14 new episodes at once). I was almost happy to have the two-week break that followed this show, just so I could catch my breath (figuratively speaking).
• Daleism: As the nurse/alien takes off her gloves, moist guy says “Your hands!” and of course the riff is: “I thought you were Dale!”
• For those who want a full list of the colors of Mike, Ward E has it.
• Mike once again channels “The Frugal Gourmet” Jeff Smith. Last time was in episode 608- CODE NAME: DIAMOND HEAD.
• Then-current riff: “I’m Jaye Davidson.” Davidson was still being talked about for his performance in “The Crying Game” five years earlier. “Suddenly Susan” then a popular sitcom starring Brooke Shields.
• Obscure references: The short-lived 1995 series “The Single Guy,” Mrs. Pynchon, a character in the TV series “Lou Grant.” Also: Servo sings the jingle for the long-defunct Northwest Orient airlines. Also: Nice obscure Beatles reference: “He’s a clean old man.” Classical music fans probably enjoyed the reference to the Brodski Quartet, a British classical string ensemble.
• Several Jimmy Carter references in this one, since the handyman vaguely resembles him. Of course, Carter’s administration was decades ago now. To a lot of this show’s young fans, they may as well be making Chester A. Arthur references.
• Kevin breaks out his great Flash Bazbo impression. The character was a creation of Chris Guest back when he was making records (and I do mean records, not CDs) for National Lampoon. “Hellooo?…Hellooo?”
• That’s Beez as the sparkly “Terror.” Not sure how I feel about uglying her up (if such a thing is even possible).
• “When I Held Your Brain in My Arms” was an immediate hit and the channel was nice enough to put the entire song on their web site. It was the first song since Trace bid farewell to Frank, and it really brightens up an otherwise rugged episode. Note that Mike lip synchs to Kevin’s vocals but Bill lip synchs himself.
• Annoying commercial: The special message from America Online boss Steve Case. To refresh your memory, AOL went to a flat-rate, unlimited-use pricing structure and, naturally, usage skyrocketed. Problem was: AOL’s system wasn’t ready to handle the jump in usage. For a couple of months, connecting (for you kids, we used to have to connect to the internet via telephone lines … and we liked it that way! We liked it just fine! Now get off my lawn!) was hit-and-miss at best and busy signals were the order of the day. Anyway, in this commercial Case strolls through what is ostensibly an AOL customer service call center and apologizes for failing to remember the first day of Business 101, when they explained that when you cut the price of something, there’s more demand for it.
• This is another movie in which all the sets seem to have filth covering the walls. Weird.
• For non-Trekkies, Pearl’s little speech about the nature of humanity is the sort of thing Captain Kirk would spout about once every third or fourth episode, usually after refusing to take part in some staged fight.
• The Observers steal the stinger again. What would you have picked? I think I would have gone with a shot of Angelo enjoying his magazines in his shack.
• Cast and crew roundup: No need to go through the Arkoff/Nicholson litany again. Producer/director/scriptwriter Robert J. Gurney Jr. (the guy you can blame for this mess) also wrote the script (i.e. ripped off somebody else’s script) for “Attack of the the Eye Creatures.” Production coordinator Mark Hanna also worked on “Gunslinger” and “The Undead” and wrote the script for “The Amazing Colossal Man.” In front of the camera, Ward Costello was also in “Code Name: Diamond Head.” Frederic Downs was also in “The Hellcats,” “The Skydivers” and “Red Zone Cuba.”
• CreditsWatch: Jim gets the produced and directed by credit. Kevin is associate producer. As noted last time, Lane Stiller and Steve Zocklein were interns for only two episodes, the last one and this one.
• Fave riff: Of all the plot holes to fill, they choose the scuba gear plot hole!” Honorable mention: “Do you have cartoon music playing in your head, too?” and “They are implying: POOM!”
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“• Lots of Jimmy Carter references in this one, since the handyman vaguely resembles him. Of course, Carter’s administration was more than 30 years ago. To a lot of this show’s young fans, they may as well be making Chester A. Arthur references.”
Good thing Carter got in the news last week, just in time for this episode guide. :grin:
Truly the only thing I remembered about this flick were the constant references to Jimmy Carter when the old caretaker appeared.
This movie does hurt. However the song in this episode is worth the pain. Favorite riff would have to be “healthcare worker without a face!” this episode also brings in the time machine that will get some use a little bit down the line.
when i get the chance to rate I’ll go 5.
The host segemnts are sooo good. Starting of course with the Observertones. I remember being stunned, amazed, speechless upon first seeing this broadcast. Runner Ups: Mike’s VERY low key ( almost respectful ) Frugal Gourmet and the Colors of Mike.
In fact the host segments were SO good that they may have made the movie funnier. I will have to re-watch to test Sampo’s opinion that the ep was lo-riff. I didn’t think so when i watched it last night, but ow that hementions it..
But I DID laugh a lot at the movie, for whatever reason.
As with The Undead, we have an interesting idea trapped in a terrible film.
Oh and appaerntly the actress that played the Terror / Nurse ( the Terror from the VIsiting Nurse Service ? ), one Salome Jens, will be known to fans of Star Trek Deep Space Nine as the female shapeshifter / founder character that gave a lot of grief to Odo ( Rene Auberj.. )
Love the riffs about the drill instructor/museum curator. The same actor was in “Code Name Diamond Head”.
“He should have followed his bliss and become a gym teacher”
For whatever reason, the Frank Sutton references killed me, my favorite being “Frank Sutton and Grace Kelly in “To Catch A PYLE!”
He’s trying to figure out the angle of his flattop.
For whatever reason, this episode hit me just right, when I viewed it last night for the first time in a couple of years. I was laughing aloud throughout.
Goofy, goofy movie. And I’m confused. How was the Terror killing people? Was it the radiation, or was she clawing them to death. It’s all rather vague. And her suit, she says, is to protect her from radiation. Well, wasn’t she highly radioactive? Was it really keeping it in?
And how did this device work, and did it start out doing what it did by design, or accident. I mean, did he accidentally start beaming crap to the future, and someone there started finding things on a table or something, so they began placing things in the spot, to see if they would vanish? How were the objects appearing right inside the face-level window, but when a person comes thru, they fit in the chamber? Was levitation involved. Either way, it begs the question, what was he trying to invent in the first place? Microwave?
Oh, whatever!
Spray painting over the naughty parts seems counter productive.
(House lights flashing) send…more…porn…
Oh, and one that I have referenced for years, when someone is at a loss for words:
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Ah, the good old DOS days.
I want to see the movie where we see the Terror going back to her year to fix whatever she preached about. This movie is like The Mole People where the idea introduced at the end of the film is way better than the actual film.
The part I remember most about this film other than the ending is the opening where the main character is talking to his gentle secretary about the artifact from the future. She doesn’t understand the pseudo-science so he gives her the smuggest look. Way to establish your character, movie.
Oh, and how could I forget, ‘Turns out the terror is a Ford with bad brakes.’
“That’s Beez as the sparkly “Terror.” Not sure how I feel about uglying her up (if such a thing is even possible)”.
Are you indicating that Beez is so unattractive that their is no possible way to make her less attractive?
That’s not very cool man!
By the way most people have herd of Jimmy Carter, it wasn’t that long ago he was President plus he is still in the news all the time.
See, I thought that they were pulling their punches on Carter in this one. From the time that they started, I was waiting for the “lust in my heart” riff, especially when he was peeping. Nuclear engineer, peanut farmer, naval officer, the hostage crisis, that guy is a comedy gold mine, especially for this episode.
Of course, it is entirely possible that I might have missed some riffs on those subjects, because I have a very hard time paying attention to/awake for this episode. As Sampo mentioned, the movie is horrible, truly one of the worst films ever made. The crew are game, but really are not any match for this one. To their credit though, the host segments are very good, by far the highlights of the episode. I especially love Mike’s lip synching in the Observer song. His facial expression are very in line with the genre of music, and he somehow manages to not cross over into chewing the scenery. In my opinion, anyway.
Easily in my top 10 favorite episodes. Even though, as I have mentioned many times, the whole Carbon Dating scene blinds me with rage.
I love all the Jimmy Carter jokes and do them quite often, also the “delay on terror” jokes. Oh and the subtlety of the “screaming my head off” joke.
The movie is just so painfully incompitent it’s delicious. And are we supposed to like the female lead who is clearly willing to wrap her legs around the next (relatively) best thing?
The host segments are pure gold. Pearl and Bobo consistantly getting more and more tired as they fight, Mike and the Bots obliterating an Observer, Tom getting upset over how stupid the Observers are regarding their food, all great.
And what did happen to the day ball?
Host segments were way great as the riffing. The movie was just painful (not in a good way) to endure although it had its moments. Clair was easy for those days judging by ole flat top’s ‘I just scored’ hallway skip. Loved Crows response. Victor was whiney and almost as insulting as the Leech Womans husband, no wonder Clair was easy!? Loved how highly radioactive objects were ‘nuetralized’ by dumping them in small cans of water at crotch level.
Classic host segments, Obervers top hit, great riffing, lame ‘Terror’ (Karl Muldan nose/Prince Charles teeth), whiney boyfriend, Ole flat top ‘hero’, Angelo’s suger shack, silly putty face paste, Time machine yard sales, Teenage Frankenstein mimed by ole flat top (jube-jube eyeballs I guess), disco lights, adds up to 4.3 for me.
Oh, this is an all-time favorite for me. I loved the soft-spoken secretary, and have used their riffs for her (“Why must you lash out?” “She needs to learn to control her rage.”) in real-life when applicable.
Loved the vocalized “Mission: Impossible” “intricate spy stuff going on” music as the disguise was prepared. An obscure reference that immediately touched something I didn’t realize I had lurking around in my subconscious, which had me in instant hysterics as a result. The perfect example of why I love this show. :grin: :grin:
And even though it was childish in the extreme, Crow’s delivery of, “Gleh-heh, I LIKE MILK” still makes me laugh. :mrgreen:
Well, the heroine sure makes the one in Space Mutiny look hot.. :smile:
Let’s see: riffs:
He’s like a slightly more manly Dan Quayle.
June 5th, 1944. I was early.
Augusta, National. Proud to be restricted!
He’s hitting him with jump cuts!
It’s been ten to three 12 times in this movie!
Is everyone peeping in this movie?
See, his peeping skills are paying off now!
Oh, poor Angelo is left to peep in an open house. It’s so sad.
And of course the haunting ballad: “When I held your brain in my (heart?), which rivals “Le3t’s Have a Patrick Swayse Christmas” and “Creepy Girl.”
Well, the heroine sure makes the one in Space Mutiny look hot.. :smile:
Let’s see: riffs:
He’s like a slightly more manly Dan Quayle.
June 5th, 1944. I was early.
Augusta, National. Proud to be restricted!
He’s hitting him with jump cuts!
It’s been ten to three 12 times in this movie!
Is everyone peeping in this movie?
See, his peeping skills are paying off now!
Oh, poor Angelo is left to peep in an open house. It’s so sad.
And of course the haunting ballad: “When I held your brain in my (heart?)”, which rivals “Le3t’s Have a Patrick Swayse Christmas” and “Creepy Girl.”
Oh yeah, and some speculations.
1) What was Crow’s major in college? Did he go for advanced degrees?
2)How hot an item were Crow and GingerSnap?
And their responses to the question:
“Throughout human history what has been the first activity of explorers of any new region?”
Genecide? Slavery? Diseased blankets?
Oops! Sorry! I forgot about the ratings thingy! It’s up now.
>“Suddenly Susan” then a popular sitcom starring Brooke Shields.
The world of 1997 was truly a terrifying time.
>Obscure references: The short-lived 1995 series “The Single Guy,”
It did last two seasons in NBC’s Thursday night programming; it might be forgettable, but it had a pretty high profile back in the day.
>Of course, Carter’s administration was more than 30 years ago. To a lot of this show’s young fans, they may as well be making Chester A. Arthur references.
Surely they would at least know him as that old guy from the PSAs? Unlike Arthur he was (and is) still alive and doing stuff.
Another thing – I like how Sgt. Carter is sleeping with his head down on the desk, about 4 inches away from something that pegs a Geiger counter for who knows how many hours!
Oh, I’m sure he’ll be fine…
“Are you ready for Ter-raaaaahhhh!”
A slightly better episode than the previous week’s offering, although I have to admit by this point in the series I was starting to get a little tired with all the B@W movies they were doing.
Still, once again the host segments were very good (loved Beez as Crow’s date from year 5000) and the Observers “When I held your brain in my arms” song ranks among the very best musical numbers they’ve ever done.
While I was growing weary of the B@W theme as I mentioned I still found this one pretty funny with some very good riffs centered around the hero’s soft spoken secretary (“Stop shouting at me!”), the creepy handyman, the ridiculous love triangle plot, and of course the “terror” being some ugly spangly chick from the future and her bizarre marching, shrieking attacks on her victims was prime riff fodder!
4.25 stars out of five for this one. “Any minute now, the terror will begin…I may have oversold the terror…”
“Terror from the Year 5000” was the nail in the coffin for me when it first aired. Back then, I had only been really entertained by “The Deadly Mantis” and was finding the whole update to MST3K to be something less than what I hoped. I wasn’t a big fan of the endless chase concept and found the riffing to be darker and more mean spirited than I felt it had been. On top of that the movies had been one black and white, dreary film after the other. I thought “The Undead” was so boring and slow that it provided little to work with. Than came this movie, one of the dullest of the bunch. If this was the direction they decided to take, I was going to stick to my older tapes. “Terror” was too slow, too boring and I think it was the first time I started to doze off during a new episode of MST3K. I didn’t return to the show until my girlfriends brother forced me to watch his tape of “Jack Frost”.
Needless to say, I wasn’t too excited to revisit this one. But I’ve come to appreciate “Leech Woman” and “The Undead”, and I hoped that my memories of “Terror” would be wiped clean by an episode that was more fun than I remembered. Well in a way, I was surprised, but not by the film. The host segments actually surpassed the film and had me laughing. But the movie was just as painful as I remembered it being.
And it’s not from lack of trying. I noticed that Mike and the bots really unleashed themselves from the first minute of the film on. They try to keep the energy going, and battle valiantly to keep things fun. But the movie is a true monster: duller than dirt and seemingly endless. While most of the movies in this first part of season 8 stay true to the mold of “interesting beginning, dull middle, interesting climax” – this one defies that mold and just goes for dull from opening to ending. There is no tension. The best moment is when the time traveler steals the nurse’s face. It’s almost creepy, but the execution is so limp that even the discovery of “nurse without a faaaace” didn’t have the impact the film makers hoped. And holding the camera on the monster’s face was a bad idea. Not only did she look goofy, but it made the make-up look even more obvious than normal. Nope, this movie was just a slog. Not nearly as bad as some of the worst (“Monster A Go-go), but something that required a stellar effort to pull off. Unfortunately it just doesn’t happen here. Maybe doing a Corman movie directly before it drained them? Who knows, but the film riffing just didn’t work, and I didn’t laugh much.
But the host segments really helped things. Bobo vs Pearl in the Star Trek death match was funny and silly. I also like Mike and the bots playing charades with the Observers. My favorite scenes would have to be the lovely song by the Observers and Crows time traveling craziness. In fact the best thing about the movie was the fact that it allowed for the time machine to be created on the SOL so we could not only hear Crow say “Ginger-snnnnnap!” but also travel back in time during “Time Chasers”. For that I’m thankful.
I hadn’t seen this “Terror from the Year 5000” in over a decade, and time did not change things. It was still as dull as I remembered it being. The host segments help the grade, but this one was a 2 star effort, one that is dangerously close to 1 star.
Thanks for mentioning Kevin’s Flash Bazbo imitation. I was never 100% sure that was who he was doing. Brings back youthful memories of the Nat Lamp Radio Hour.
# 8 I think what Sampo meant is Beez is so attractive, it’s impossible to make her unattractive.
I have also stayed away from these early Season 8 episodes for over a decade. I just did not like them the first time around and the movies stood out as boring, not bad or cheezy, just boring. Now lately, each Wednesday night I’ve pulled out and watched the episode we’ll discuss on Thursday. I have been pleasantly surprised, I’ve found them very entertaining, but this one is still BORING! I give this one 2.5
This is one of the hardest episodes in the series for me to get through. The movie is dull as dishwater. No, I take that back – it’s more entertaining to watch dishwater. I can’t stay interested in the movie long enough to figure out what’s going on, even with the riffs.
The host segments are pretty good in this one, maybe the best of the Sci-Fi years. The song is one of the best they ever did.
I’ll repeat what I said a few weeks ago – this stretch of the series is the bleakest since season 1. Things do pick up a bit, later in the season, but it was a veeeeery long wait.
This is one that never appealed to me upon its first airing. It took a while for me to re-discover the tape in my storage closet and pop it in the VCR. Apparently, the fine aging process worked wonders, and now Terror From the Year 5000 is one of my standby episodes on those dull winter evenings.
I agree with just about everyone that the host segments far overshadowed the theater segs. The Brains hit a really good streak this episode, and unlike The Undead, the segments didn’t feel like forced time padding.
“It appears that the ‘Terror’ is on backorder, I apologize!” A middling episode with really good host segments. Love the nod to the Ink Spots!
The “She’s Leaving Home” riff was my absolute favorite and leaves a warm spot in my heart for this episode.
I don’t know if Sampo is talking about kids watching the show when it first aired, or teenagers. If it’s the latter, then, speaking for myself, I did know of President Jimmy Carter. Jeez, the assumptions made by some older folk. :wink:
Anyway, I think the riffing is good in this episode, if only because it seems so lively. It’s like an early Mike episode.
The host segments are what this episode is really about. They are all good, with the best one being the song, “When I Held Your Brain in My Arms.”
Favorite riff: “I’m goin’ to the city to be a stud.” Said as the pasty guy is carrying that suitcase. It is completed by Mike remarking to Crow, “That is a horrible thought.”
I have to say that the cast/crews takes on these episodes are hilarious! Reading them along with Sampo’s review just before I re-view some of these shows really ads to the enjoyment for me–thanks to all involved!!
Well, it’s good to know that I’m not the only one who has problems with this episode. Mike and the bots try their best to riff away at this black hole of a movie but it never holds my interest. All three times i’ve watched this episode i’ve ended up drawing or on the computer by the end. I still keep the episode on…i’m just not fully engorged in it. This is probably my least favorite of Season 8, yet I still think it deserves 3 stars. They do get some good riffs in (i love the goofy noises the use for the snaggle-toothed terror) and the host segments are fun but the movie just crushes them. Like #20 Roman Martel, i feel I would probably be having the same problems as him if I were watching back when they first aired. It’s not that I don’t like the B&W films but the front loading of them is hard to take..even now as we do these guides. Specifically, the combo of The Undead, Terror, and She Creature is the hardest pill to swallow but luckily there is light at the end of the tunnel.
This is an awful, dull mess of a movie, with lots of absurd “science”…perfect MST fodder. I’m in the minority, I guess – I enjoyed the whole ep, from the great host segments to what I thought was pretty strong riffing. (Or maybe I just like pain.)
As for choosing a stinger from this little turd of a film, I’d opt for the hero’s little “poon!” moment as he leaves the woman’s room. A perfect summation!
a lot of variance on reactions to this one – as a genre, bad sci-fi movies are probably my favorite MSTed category, so i like it quite a bit – not a top ten but probably a top 25 for me.
adoptadog – i’d go for the “dazed angelo” as the stinger!
Solid but nothing special. Movie’s decent, a strain to get through but they make it and that’s good. Host segments are good, especially like Pearl’s little speech at the end. And I, personally, would have loved some Chester A. Arthur references. Who else would do them (until Futurama came along, that is)?
This one is elevated by the goofy characters and their bizarre actions. So much greatness: the angry assistant, the incompetent scientist/lackey/fiancee, the “hero” instantly moving in on an engaged woman, said woman not minding it, and the return of Red Zone Cuba’s TINSLEY!!! And I almost forgot the guaranteed comedy goldmine of the peeping tom loner, Angelo.
Like it a lot. Riffing is not as strong as She Creature but pretty good. I absolutely love Crow’s delivery of “No! Could it be? He had another pane of glass!” With the dramatic music blaring behind such a pointless moment in this pointless film it is just perfect. Any movie where Angelo the wacky sexual predator is perhaps the most likable character has some major problems. And I’ve found a myriad of uses for the lines “have you been freebasing again sir?” and “do you have cartoon music playing in your head too?”
805 to 822 was one of the great runs in MSTory. There were some mediocre eps like Clonus and Party Beach, but only two really unlikable shows: Neptune Men and Terror. Neptune Men fails in such an epic way that it almost transcends human understandings of entertainment and taste. Terror doesn’t even have that going for it. Definitely the bottom of the barrel for Season 8 and maybe the SciFi years period. Bad and boring, yech!
(In case people were wondering: 801-good intro to the new dynamic if a little bland; 802-the show gets it feet back under it, not bad at all; 803-dull but classic host segments; 804-even duller and not quite as classic host segments. 901 and 902 were kind of a body blow to start the new season, but then Puma Man carried us off to another classic season.)
My 2 cents on the Jimmy Carter debate – I’m sure that old farts like me remember him, and his administration. So we get the references to “malaise” and “killing a rabbit”. But some of you youngsters who are seeing the ep for maybe the first time, may know who is he, but may not know the details. But, I guess that’s what the net is for. That, and porn.
#5: “And her suit, she says, is to protect her from radiation. Well, wasn’t she highly radioactive? Was it really keeping it in?”
Protecting her from radiation wouldn’t necessarily stop the suit itself from being radioactive. It’s fine INSIDE the suit, but outside? Apparently not.
This site does its own riffing (well, sort of) of this movie and many others, including other MSTed movies:
http://www.agonybooth.com/categories/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000.aspx
A bit of pathos I forgot to add previously. It involves Crow’s transition from Trace to Bill. I loved Bill’s reaction to ole flat tops ‘I scored!’ hallway skip with a CTR “SIR, DONT EVER DO THAT AGAIN (SPUTTER)!” Had me rolling and was one incident that warmed me to Bill.
Later, when the three eyed horned cat was found I just expected to hear Trace’s CTR ‘Kitty!’ exclamation that never came. A tear came down my weathered cheek as I realized that I can no longer expect to hear this again.
It is at this moment I realized that warm expectations collide with warm memories and neither will survive the collision that we mere mortals call pathos.
Commonly heard when I show this episode to people:
“CARBON-14 DATING DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!!!”
Other than that, nothing to add, except my own favorite riff:
“What?! What about his LUGGAGE? How could they leave us HANGING like this?!”
I’m clearly in the minority here, because I love this episode! Everything clicks for me, even the bad movie itself. (This movie actually scared me when I was a little kid. In particular I remember being freaked out by the arm that comes out of the contraption. Remember, though: I was like seven or eight.)
I regularly find myself humming “When I Held Your Brain in My Arms.” Great stuff.
I remember enjoying this one (and even popping it in for a few repeat viewings), but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it and I’m afraid to watch it again.
Not because I don’t think it’ll be as good as I remember, but because my VCR has developed a habit of eating tapes and I don’t want to shell out for a new one right now. :)
I do remember the bit about “We have developed a plot leak, we’re putting the movie on standby” as killer, though.
This episode has the famous “reverse carbon-14 test” which we debated in detail several weeks ago.
One of the things I notice about these 1950’s Universal Pictures sci-fi movies is the utterly amoral nature of the romances. In Leech Woman, Neil felt no remorse for instantly ditching his fiancé for a sexier woman. In The Thing That Wouldn’t Die, Hank oscillates between Linda and Jessica without a second thought. And here in Terror from the Year 5000, Claire immediately moves to fool around with Drill-Sergeant Guy the moment they meet, and does so right in front of her fiancé. His response? He blandly suggests she may as well go all the way and add the creepy caretaker to her “list of conquests.” The jaded attitude displayed by all those folks goes a long way to making all the characters in these films so vile.
When faced with such dismal choices, I tend to go with the villain as my favorite character pick. So for this movie I pick “The Terror” herself. She’s ruthless, but at least it’s born of desperation, unlike the petty immorality demonstrated by the rest of the cast. Also, I really like the actress who plays her. It’s revealing my utter nerdiness, but the actress who play the Nurse/Terror is Salome Jens, who played the “female shapeshifter” in Star Trek: DS9, about 40 years later. She really performs well in that role, blending despotism and xenophobia. I’m not a huge Star Trek fan, but that storyline in DS9 was great.
Never begin a letter with, “Enclosed is proof that I am not insane”, especially if it’s a job aplication.
I’d never bash 807, but this is the one Observer ep that’s kind of ‘meh’ for me, achieving a completely generic B&W ’50s tone while the other 3 all managed to have their own unique and memorable feel. Not unwatchable, but I was always content with whenever I happened to catch it and never went out of my way for it.
Is carbon 14 dating really so misunderstood by the average joe? The only physics class I ever took was also the only class I ever flunked, and I still knew exactly what was wrong with that little premise the second I heard it.
Except for “The Butcher’s Wife”, I can’t think of any other movie where a woman dumps her husband/fiance/etc. for a character that I liked so much less and expected the audience to feel good about it. And was there a not too subtle message at the end that her obsessed ex deserved to be removed from the gene pool because he wanted to mate with a hideously deformed woman, even if it was potentially for the good of mankind? Yikes. Subconscious misrepresentation of Darwin’s theories to go along with an assault on our understanding of chemical dating? If this movie were made today, I might suspect some sort of agenda behind it…but then I have similar questions about all of Dick Tracy’s enemies having easily-summed-up disfigurements, so I could just be reading too much into this.
And that unpleasantness certainly paves the way for Angelo to take his place as most likeable character. The attitude toward his peeping was certainly interesting: after the initial panic, he never developed into a potential rapist, which is usually the case when a movie bothers to introduce a that sort of character (a similar guy in “Alligator People” springs to mind) so that the monster can kill him off later but be revealed as a nice monster in the end. Instead it’s, “Well, that’s just Angelo!”, no one treats him any differently, and his death is that of another innocent in the end. Given her easiness, my opinion of our heroine would’ve been elevated somewhat if they’d implied that her fiance’s neglect had led her to actually throw a little action Angelo’s way before Dr. Gym Coach came along and swept her off her feet with his flattop. Man, I did not realize how much I hated his character until rewatching this last April.
Perhaps this wretched love triangle inspired the Brains to have Crow make Ginger *SSSS-uh-NAP-uh* forget about Mike? Come to think of it, Crow always seemed to get involved with human women while Tom stuck to his fellow machines. Was that rule ever broken?
As for the other host segments, they were indeed strong, but didn’t flow quite as well as last eps, making it feel less like one solid event of an episode than all leftover Observer-World ideas from the writing room being crammed in. Don’t get me wrong, they’re GOOD ideas that really elevate the episode, but Undead’s host segments actually unified into more than the sum of their parts. Bear in mind, long host segments don’t easily bore me.
As for the pills, were they using some sort of recognizable candy? The ones the Observers actually ate looked like “Good’n’Plenty” or “Mike and Ike”, but the ones Mike fries could be plastic.
While not my favorite riff, “They whacked Toonces!” always stood out in my mind, because it really did look a lot like the actual puppet, he drove off so many cliffs that it makes sense he’s eventually meet a tragic end in some body of water, and my neighbors have a cat named in his honor who I think is pushin’ 20.
And about this Chester A. Arthur business: The Daily Show did a 10th anniversary clip ep where they proved that over the years they’d mentioned every single U.S. president except Zachary Taylor, who they immediately did some intentionally lame joke about. For that matter, I recall a Dexter’s Lab cartoon where it was ovserved that anyone can do a Jimmy Carter impression by turning their lips inside out, and Tiny Toons had at least one Nixon joke, so it’s hard to say just when any president becomes non-topical. But then I’m also astounded that so many kids today know so damn much about the Transformers of my youth: right after “Michael Bay’s Robotic Freak Show: Episode 1” came out, I heard a 5-year-old in a toy store remark, “…but the REAL Megatron turns into a gun…”
All I have to say is…
“When I Held Your Brain in My Arms” is the best-ever MST3K song. Ever ever ever. Better than “Patrick Swayze Christmas.” Better than “Creepy Girl.” Better than “Kim Cattrall.” And, yes, better than “When Loving Lovers Love.”
Hands down the cleverest, best-sung, best-arranged tune out of the show’s whole run.
Why, yes, it is on my mp3 player, why do you ask?
This is an episode I’ve had in my collection for a long time. I taped it during the SciFi channel mini marathon. I don’t remember if that was on Thanksgiving or not, but it was just as Alien Resurrection was being released and was prefaced with a fluff piece about that movie.
Anyway, I’ve seen it more times than I can count so I have a hard time rating it as most of the jokes aren’t surprises. But some of the riffs I like are:
“See, his peeping skills are paying off.”
“What other common recreational equipment has she been keeping from me?”
“Filmed in glorious black and slightly less black.” This one pops up from time to time using whatever color is applicable.
On the host segments: While I can see the Brains were trying to do something different by having a story line not only through the season but also through each episode, I find I don’t like a lot of the season 8 host segments. I’ve always preferred the ones that are born out of the movie itself. Of course Kevin has said they didn’t really like having to write in a story arc for their puppet show.
“This ranks up there as one of the most incompetent movies they’ve ever done”
Oh, come now. I could name thirty less-competently made MSTed movies without breaking a sweat. It’s boring as all get-out, sure, but it’s shot, lit, recorded, etc., with at least ordinary B-movie competence. Which may be part of the problem. This is no “Manos” or “Red Zone Cuba” or “Creeping Terror” that achieves a certain reverse greatness and fascination through its sheer depth of ineptitude.
I love “When I Held Your Brain in My Arms.” It reminds me of the simultaneously silly, clever, and literate songs from the 1910’s-30’s that Janet Klein covers (Google her or search on Amazon). Had they been born maybe 70 years earlier, the Brains would have absolutely ruled Tin Pan Alley.
#48…
“reverse greatness”
I LOVE that phrase! It’s a perfect term for the movies you mentioned.
The Bolem #45:
I agree that Angelo’s peeping wasn’t as horrible as the peeping of, say, that ranch hand in the The Thing the Couldn’t Die. Togo’s peeping is also worse because of the lascivious appearance of his face.
As for modern children’s knowledge of original Transformer, I’m sure their fathers have something to do with that. The children must taught from wrong you know.