Movie: (1960) A manager and his all-girl dance troupe survive a plane crash, only to find themselves on an island with a giant mutated spider.
First shown: July 25, 1999
Opening: Crow has a syndicated newspaper column, a la Larry King
Intro: Pearl has moved Castle Forrester to a new neighborhood
Host segment 1: Mike gets himself trapped in the giant spider web Crow and Tom have put up
Host segment 2: Mike is auditioning dancers, and Pearl, Brain Guy and Bobo try out
Host segment 3: M&tB want to know if it’s true that you become languid and sexy when you survive a crash — and there’s only one way to find out
End: Mike has become a giant spider — well, sort of; as Pearl calls in from a rest stop on the way to moving Castle Forrester back, Bobo finds some toys
Stinger: The girls scream from the void
(339 votes, average: 4.47 out of 5)
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• This one’s not super great, but I think it’s a bit better than “good-not-great.” You figure that one out. I just think the movie is SOO stupid, and the riffing is really strong and most of the host segments (though I contend they are in the wrong order) are pretty good. I laughed a lot watching it this time, and that’s what counts for me.
• Paul’s thoughts are here.
• References.
• This episode was included in Rhino’s “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Volume 11.”
• Larry King’s pointless and rambling column in USA Today was parodied by so many people over the years, so the opening doesn’t really tread any new ground. But their take on it is fun.
• I’m not really sure what the point of the “moving the castle” thing was. It never really gets any traction.
• Probably the biggest downside of this episode is the terribly dark print. I don’t know if it was intentionally shot this way or it’s just a terribly degraded print, but the watchability factor is WAAAY down for this one.
• Naughty lines: “Quit doing your Sharon Stone impression.” Also: “Try crossing your leg now, pal.”
• I believe that the three internal host segments are in the wrong order. I want to think it was a mistake in the editing room, because if this order was intentional, somebody took their eye off the ball. The biggest problem is segment 1, which includes a parody of the “shocking” man-in-a-spider-web image that the movie has NOT SHOWN US YET. I think the order should be segment 2, then 3, then 1.
• Callbacks: Crow mutters “MrXL” after Tom does a cheerleading bit. “He has Torgo area!” (Manos)
• In segment 2, Bill is a riot as the Flashdance girl; and Mary Jo is very funny too — and Beez made a great outfit for her!
• In the theater, Servo passes out twice from the sexiness.
• Segment 3 is silly and fun and doesn’t make a lick o’ sense.
• Late in the movie we get a nice example of “good-natured brawling,” a topic discussed by Joel and the bots way back during one of the Hercules movies. I guess there really is such a thing.
• Crow takes a brief “break” from watching the movie, but soon returns.
• No cast and crew roundup for this episode.
• CreditsWatch: Directed by Mike (his last episode as director). Interns Erin F. Erskine and Josh Huschke, who were interns for episodes 1001-1006, return for this one, which may mean that the Brains produced this one out of order. Rob Brantseg, obviously related to Patrick, is listed as an “art department assistant.” Mike did the music for “Those Little Audition Numbers.”
• Fave riff: “I’m not just wondering if there’s a point to the movie, anymore. I’m wondering if there’s a point to ANYTHING.” Honorable mention: “Settling: The Movie.”
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Aw, heck! This is one of my very most favorites. This is my go-to episode for a few chuckles because i love the scene where the ‘dancers’ are being auditioned. “This is Babs. I haven’t seen her dance but she comes from a great troupe.”
Sort of convenient how the ONLY people who survived the plane crash were Gary and ALL of his employees. Maybe the pilot, co-pilot, other passengers, whoever should have shown Gary their legs…
On the host segments out of order thing, I once thought this about some of the early Joel eps and came to the conclusion that it’s usually a writing error rather than an error in editing. I came to this conclusion because of the difference in the beginning and end of any host segments. #2 is always the one that starts after a commercial (no green screen with doors closing) and ends with Movie sign. #1 and #3 always start with green screen and doors then closes with commercial sign.
In this particular episode, would the order #3, #2, #1 work?
I agree it seems like the host segments are in the wrong order, although I think it’s just segments 1 and 3 which swapped. They wouldn’t typically return to Castle Forrester or Deep 13 for a segment 1 or 3 (yes, there are exceptions), but segment 2 is reasonably common. (Plus, there’s that segments 1 and 3 end with commercial sign, while segment 2 gives that “movie sign” cue.)
Deliberately crashing the Satellite of Love felt like a weird choice of things to do. Yeah, show, relax, and all that, but … they can steer the Satellite enough to ensure a flaming, firey death? And they didn’t do this for Hobgoblins? It feels out of place and makes the crashing of the Satellite two episodes later feel less perilous than it otherwise might have.
I didn’t realize until reading the episode guide that Horrors Of Spider Island didn’t bother explaining the amazing spider-menace beyond a half-line about uranium in a diary somewhere. Perhaps this sort of movie does have dimly-concealed minimally-threatening monsters so often that it really doesn’t need explaining, and it’s not even noticed when it’s not there. The movie’s all just scenes stitched together, no sense having to pay attention to them.
I lived in Singapore for years, so got an irrational kick of this episode attempting to bring dancers over there, even if they failed spectacularly at the attempt. There are fewer human-spider monstrosities over there than you might imagine, although they’ve had a lot of rain the past month so it’s probably good insect weather right now.
Coincidentally the Spider-Man comic strip right now has Spidey trying to deal with a hole in an airplane that a Puppet Master-controlled Iron Man has just punched through the fuselage, although if that sounds exciting don’t worry as it’ll collapse into dopey inaction soon enough, possibly with Spider-Man being hit in the head with a brick.
What the heck happened? Last week’s episode was entirely mediocre, before that we had the great divide that is Hamlet (which I love), and then BAM, high octane on all fronts.
The intro is just nice and silly, especially Crow’s inability to recognize negative criticism. The opening is also silly but great with Brain Guy groaning in pain at Pearl’s, “Home Alone,” joke. Plus Bobo being so incredibly proud of his new license is just adorable.
The dialogue of Segment 1 is brilliant with Crow’s constant berating of Mike getting caught in the very obvious web. It lasted just long enough to be great.
EVERYTHING about Segment 2 is fantastic and has such a great out of nowhere ending. I love Brain Guy and Bobo playing and then all of them just giving in immediately to the 100% impossible idea that Mike and the Bots are putting together a dance troop. And of course Brain Guy’s Flashdance imitation is thoroughly uncomfortable.
And then again everything about Segment 3 is fantastic. The question posed is entirely reasonable but their field experiment is absolutely insane. Shooting it exactly like the movie crash was brilliant as is Crow’s exclamation of, “Even guys like us.”
Mike as a .000001% spider and consequent ribbing by the bots is a classic Mike moment. And then Pearl flipping on her own plan for a silly reason is a classic Pearl moment.
I wonder how much this movie suffers from bad dubbing. I mean actual dialogue, not the insane, “Hello, take us with you,” stuff. Some of the things said are just unbelievably stupid, like the woman showing up for a dance audition not knowing how to dance and another asking if Uranium is edible. And of course the climatic chase starting with, “We can only kill him with fire!” comes completely out of nowhere suggesting bad translations, or at least I hope.
Oddly I really like the opening of the movie as Gary seems like a cool guy, completely able to just brush off a woman’s come-on, the fact that he recognizes the ballerina’s talent but is genuinely upset that he has to turn her away because the style doesn’t fit and then him openly just messing with Georgia by letting the stripper strip.
The whole Bobby wanting Gladys, and her being in love with him, yet he’s still all over every other woman and telling them he wants Gladys thing makes my head hurt.
But the whole thing leads to possibly the record number of dirty riffs.
Fav Riffs –
Tom & Crow panicking when the stripper is stripping and then later Tom’s fainting.
Crow: I see a tall Spaniard in a white suit with a midget.
Tom: They’re all dubbed by the same person.
Mike: So, Minnesota? That must be passive aggressive.
Crow: Finally the hundreds of STDs take their toll.
Joe: Better dead than continue living.
Crow: As a general rule I’m not sure I agree.
Brought to you by the National Garter Council, the Onan Foundation, & the Chubb Group.
Amongst many MST reviewers on the web, this is not a very popular episode, but I adore it if only for the acres of fine female flesh on display. Babs: Call me (…Oh, she’s dead now? Never mind). Personally, I found it awesome that she was a close friend of Freddie Mercury, as I am a big fan of 70’s-era Queen. Lead Alex D’Arcy even vaguely predicts Freddie’s look during the 80’s: weird circularity there.
I first learned of this film from the book Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies 1956-1984 by Cathall Tohill & Pete Tombs. They gave it an enthusiastic full-page review in the section on films from Germany, calling it a surreal collage of erotic and macabre motifs. “Spider Island is an infantile fantasy, where mundane reality is overthrown by the exotic and the deliciously fabulous.” They quote a French critic who wrote, “Here the fantastic and the soft porn unite…(leaving) us with unforgettable images… Involuntarily, (it) is a Dadaist film.’
The mutant spider, already transformed by the radioactivity of the island’s uranium, is inspired by the new arrival of the women to turn the man into a killer who seeks the objects of his lust. The “illuminating psychoanalytical torches” of the mob drive the were-spider into the quicksand, once again burying man’s bestial nature.
This is another Sci-Fi episode I caught many times in repeats during those final years of broadcast, and again it’s one that would have been riffed very differently if tackled during the Joel/Trace/Frank era. In my mind I can hear Joel’s trademarked, incredulous-yet-titillated exclamation “Oh WOW!” being said throughout.
Also, if the riffing had been done today, I can imagine quite a few references to LOST (plane crash/island survival/sexual tension/strange-goings-on-a-happenin’).
Sorry haters, but I like this flick and find the riffing funny, so it’s 4 stars from me.
Uhm, you’re in my writhing space…
I love this episode, particularly Babs :mrgreen: . BBI used what appears to be a bad VHS dupe (with missing credits, watch any PD version and you’ll see what I mean), it’s fuzzy even on the DVD release.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Fittingly, in the penultimate episode
(coming on next to closing)
The girls of Spider Island win easily the MST3000
pulchritude contest over the anorexic females
of the (Magnificent?) Seven Angels flick. :smile:
I love this one. Cheesy movie with bad dubbing, lots of sax and muted trumpet played to scenes of writhing, cooing, dancing and catfighting.
I also loved MJ’s ballerina outfit, particularly the strategically placed flowers ;-)
Favorite riff –
Joe: That was… a scream.
Crow: I mean it was really funny…
A very solid ‘4’. “Garrry-gary, Garrry-gary!” loved Mike’s musical appreciation of the sing songy search for Garrry-gary. What a great, dumb, easy on the orbs movie to riff. The puppet of the giant spider was hilarious. To me, the face sort of looked like Thomas the Train on crack. The relationship between Georgia and Gary is the type of relationship every guy (cad) wants; A beautiful, much smarter woman who when faced with my outright infidelity ACCEPTS my explanation for it, “it’s hot out”, promptly forgives me and _itch slaps the woman! So in closing, if any of you ladies out there are interested in being my Georgia…? Georrrgia-georgia!
This episode is a perfect example of a possible weekend discussion thread of episodes you love to watch when you’ve got nothing else to do and you want to watch something. My mom, my sis and I love watching this episode a lot!
This movie was recently shown on the Ned the Dead Show here in the Green Bay WI television martket. It is a show in the same vain as MST3K though at a much lower budget and not nearly as refined. The Ned the Dead Show features an introductory segment called Doc’s Movie Lore (hosted by sidekick Doc Moreau) in which he gives history and trivia on that week’s movie and stars. According to Doc this movie was originally released about 5 years prior to the Horrors of Spider Island release under a different title (which I don’t remember) as a German soft core porn movie. Then 5 years later the steamy stuff was edited out and re-released as Horrors of Spider Island in order to give the film new life and expose it (as it were) to a wider audience. My memory is fuzzy on the details but that’s the gist of it anyway.
Favorite Riffs:
Bob Boxbody (which I take as a de facto Space Mutiny callback)
Watch how a man screams in horror.
I forget the riff since it wasn’t the greatest, but still appreciate the Torgo callback one last time before the show comes to an end as well.
There’s a scene toward the end of the movie, during their little party, when one of the guys is on the porch talking to one of the girls… he’s holding a shot glass and doing some oddly absentminded things with it (Crow: “Ever eat glass?”). Then later, if you watch carefully, the guy puts the glass in his pocket– not casually, either, because his pants are ridiculously tight and he has to make a bit of effort to shove it in there. It’s such a weird little thing to do, it makes me burst out laughing every time; and yet M&TB apparently don’t notice it, which only adds to the humor of it.
Favorite riff- Gary: “Don’t you think I’d rather be in Singapore than on this miserable island… drinking this [horrible] stuff?”
Tom: “…’howerable??'”
This one starts out fine, until the excessive exploitation quality kicks in and it just becomes boring… until the one line:
“Take us WEEEEETH YOOOOOOO!!!!!”
One of my all-time favorites, 5 stars all the way.
And yes, the host segments are out of order and it’s bothered me for years.
A stupid, cheap, weird little German softcore horror movie? How could the Brains miss with raw material like this to work with? And they don’t, hitting riff after riff with gleeful abandon.
I have an uncut version of this on one of those public domain movie collections, and the only thing missing is more writhing.
Ya gotta love how Gary the big-city theatrical agent becomes a gritty jungle survival expert the minute they hit the island. With no explanation, no less, it’s just natural that men know this kind of stuff, I guess.
Bill’s Flashdance audition was hilariously disturbing and the culmination of the gaying-up of Observer.
The fact that not only Mike, but also Crow and Tom are turned languid, helpless and sexy must mean that all three of them are, in fact, many times A Lady. And the Castle Forrester bits seem like they had some random suburban jokes kicking around and wanted to use them up before the end of the show.
This turns out to be one of those episodes that I remember the movie much better than any of the riffing. I mean who could forget Babs! I’m always eager to watch it and then I’m disappointed in the riffing. I really feel that the energy in the theater in this one is way too low. There is a lot to work with and yet Mike and bots go through long stretches not commenting at all. It’s not deadly dull, but it feels like the whole episode drags, especially in the middle.
In the end that bugs me. If feels like this could have been the last great episode of the series, and instead we get a mediocre riffing session on a perfectly riffable film. Still I do love Babs, so I have to give it a better grade.
I give it two and a half chunks of edible Uranium out of five.
Click on my name for a full review.
This one has plenty of eye candy but like Sampo said, it’s rather grainy and dark. I usually dislike movies that are dubbed but the so-called dancers make up for it.
Fantastic episode, with great riffing, inspired host segments, and nice eye-candy to boot. Mike makes a fantastic Gary and his muttering to himself is a nice touch (Mmmm, Gary likes that…)
Am I the only one who thinks the roasted potato bug sounds yummy? It IS bubbling hot with cheese, after all.
Well, time to go get my body re-blocked.
I agree with Roman in that the riffs in this episode didn’t the ridiculous source material justice. This could’ve been a black & white cousin to “Angels’ Revenge” with rapid-fire jokes, but there’s just too many odd lulls in comments. It seems like their will to comment goes completely downhill once the ladies get situated on the island.
Continuity issues aside, though, I LOVE the host segments in this one. Even the inexplicable “moving the castle” framing device. I think it’s Bobo barking at the neighbors’ dogs.
I agree with anyone who complains that the quality of the source material makes this episode hard to watch. It just seems like they’re obviously watching a bad videotape transfer of the movie, so then my tape of the episode is two or more generations removed from that! I enjoy this episode a lot otherwise, but I really wish it looked better. The dancers deserve it!
Well, after a couple of Paul’s we finally get a monster named Gary. Urban legend had it that if you shout his name three times he appears and chokes you.
Anyway, a real turkey of a movie, that makes three straight okay episodes for me. Sorry, but watching half naked ladies can’t hold my interest. Gary is sporting a very early 70’s pornstache. I guess the Germans were ahead of the American porno industry.
Like the host segments, even if the order is questionable.
Fave riff: “They won’t come if I build it. Shut up!” Also, I am Protestant, so forgive me if I am wrong, but I love when Servo recites what I believe is Latin Mass.
I was expecting Gary’s assistant to break out into a Dr. Strangelove impersonation at any time. It’s hard to watch this episode knowing the end was nigh, and the condition of the print didn’t help. The plane crash did sort pf remind me of the opening of the Planet of Dinosaurs (don’t really know why).
I love the look on Bobo’s face in the beginning of segment 2. Just staring into the camera like this is the most important thing he has ever done.
Favorite riff “…just shake your dinners.”
FIVE STARS! Okay, this one isn’t a super-charged thrill ride but I’ve always been amused by this movie even without riffing and it’s sustained by a steady flow of cheescake. Babs is so gorgeous that it’s almost ridiculous. She was known as the Austrian Jayne Mansfield but I think she was hotter than Jayne. And the guy D’Arcy is a riff-magnet with his block suit, hiked-up pants, pencil mustache and pantomime performance.
Favorite riff:
Tom: Is he strong?
Crow (furiously): Listen, BUD! He’s got radioactive blood!
I never noticed that the Spider-Man theme song was so confrontational until Crow’s reading of the lyrics.
“Oh right, the quicksand – remember?”
This movie is just so insane, with stuff just randomly thrown in to vaguely resemble a movie so it wouldn’t look like a stag film. Jumbled movies like that tend to produce the best riffs, ’cause Mike and the bots can jump from topic to topic at a breakneck pace. (I always point to “The Starfighters” as a good example of a movie that just has scenes instead of an actual plot, and the riffing in that episode is some of the all-time best.) “Horrors” doesn’t disappoint, especially with the crappy dubbing adding a whole extra layer of riff fodder. “She went through three accents in one sentence.”
I love the occasional riffs when — during a moment completely devoid of danger — Mike yells out “THE HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND!” I think this is actually a riff on the trailer, which keeps repeating that phrase.
I note that after the debate about the Brain’s political philosophies, Mike mispronounces the name of Antonin Scalia.
I love the Dr. Strangelove looking guy. I wish he was in more of the movie. He’s one is one of those weird combinations of odd writing and bizarre actor decisions that only seem to crop up in these low budget B-movies. Drink. Now smoke! Quick, drink more!
There’s a great moment where Gary sees a hammer and instantly thinks “uranium”. Wow. I’m surprised they don’t riff on that. Of course, maybe they figured the line was funny enough on its own, but they usually chuckle to themselves when something is too stupid to even make fun of…
Burst seam problem. Mostly don’t even make the “wardrobe malfunctions” look natural. The producers just cut the legs out of the dresses… sometimes in right angle “rips”.
Two oil spill references in this episode jumped out considered the news of the day.
Did they switch dubbing actors every fifteen minutes? The voices (and even some of the actresses) keep seeming to change.
In all, this is a really fun one for me. (And yes, the host segments are clearly in the wrong order. I wonder how/why that happened…)
apropos various comments above and elsewhere… it seems that making fun of bad movies would be more fun if the bad movies themselves were better made. I think I’ve got it now.
The thought about the host segments being mixed up has occurred to me before as well (although it just may be that for me, having the “Satellite crash” segment near the end means “saving a good one for later”)… Anyway, for me the movie is entertainingly bad in a “you know what I’m talking about” sort of way, and the riffing adds a good deal to the episode as well.
#12
“He has Torgo area!”
#17 nails it…this could have been an awesome episode…but it just sort of lays there. The funny thing I see is that people give “Spider Island” a pass on quite a few things they slam “Hobgoblins” for???!?! The sleaze oozes off of this film, and lets face it, most of the characters from this film would feel quite at home at Club Scum. I personally think “Hobgoblins” was fantastic and wish Mike and the bots had given “Spider Island” a better thrashing.
I have the Something QWeird version of this and yes the picture is sharper but it’s widescreen so it kind of balances out. I think they probably used the same print blown up to full screen. I eagerly await the Blu Ray release.
Oh I absolutely LOVE this episode — five stars without a doubt.
And I don’t know why the complaints about the video quality — mine is just fine (was this not a commercial release? Either mine is or it’s one of my broadcast quality masters. In any case, it’s as good as anything Rhino or Shout has released).
And I find it very odd folks are critical of the riffs — there are plenty of great ones and I’m laughing so hard I usually miss one or two each time anyway.
Spiders and MST3K — can that combination EVER be wrong?
The riffing is good, especially the naughty riffs like, “Can you really do that through pants?” The host segments are great, but the three movie related host segments are out of order. This one mistake, or is it three, is the worst mistake ever made on MST3K. The lack of Battlestar Galactica riffs in Space Mutiny? Bah! That’s nothing to the mismatched host segments of this episode. They should be in this order.
1. Plane crash. This happens closest to the first segment, so it’s appropriate to start with this one.
2. Spider web. This segment is the throw-away of the three and it’s best when viewed in close proximity to the the scene in the movie.
3. Audition. This is a great host segment than has legs to stand on its own, so it’s okay to place it so far away from the scene in the movie that it is based on.
As for the movie, it’s another in the “I was scratched/bitten by something so now I will turn into whatever scratched/bit me,” genre of monster movies. This one has a little sprinkling of “atomic monster” too.
I like the “Gary, Gaaaryyy,” stuff in the movie and the riffing it causes. It actually spawns both movie riffing and jazz-style riffing. Of course, the calling out of “Gary” in this movie is later surpassed by the video game Fallout 3, where there are a bunch of clones named “Gary” and all they can say is “Gary” as they attack you.
#6- I am a long time fan of Barbara Valentin- going back to my first viewing of 1011 in 1999. I too discovered through the magic of the internet she was a long time companion of Freddie Mercury. She was breathtaking- what with her gorgeous, voluptuous figure- pouty lips, sparkling eyes and long flowing hair. She was only 62 when she died.
As far as the movie, this was another ***** effort. The monster was hideous, horrible dubbing, cheesy music and ridiculous situations contrived for more flesh, (not that there was anything wrong with this)-which led to top notch riffing. Also has one of the best stingers of the series.
The Spiders of Whore Island! (there’s one riff they missed)
I’m of the opinion that segment 2 should stay where it is, because going from the SOL’s panicking over having Observer’s leg to their panicking over having Movie Sign is a nice progression. the other two though, yeah, swap em so even though the web thing happens so late in the game, it’s still not foreshadowing a movie event (which I do believe happened in another spider-themed episode…)
Aside from that, this one is a lot of fun. The aimlessness of the movie, the sheer level of marginally-effective cheesecake, and of course the hilariously bad dub gives them a lot of fodder to work with, and they use it to great effect.
I dearly love Mike’s “Oooh, I dunno, let me see” when confronted with the question of whether or not he can produce web-dissolving spittle. And yes, Bobo’s dead serious expression when they instantly believe the whole “hiring dancers” bit… the understated stuff is the best.
Not much to add aside from a probably-unpopular view that the more misogynistic the movie is… the funnier it gets. No, really. It just seems to add an extra level of incompetence that Mike and the bots can sink their teeth (and beaks) into and tear to shreds by ramping it even further to ridiculous levels.
“Do you like my transition lenses?”
I love this one (five stars for me), although it does get progressively languid, which translates into my falling asleep at some point. (I especially like the whipping sounds they make while the guy is on the phone, as well as all the drinking jokes during said scene.)
Oh yeah, Happy Canada Day! :smile:
I have a coworker named Gary. I find it amusing to either do the “Gary, Garrry” song or “Enjoy, Gary” in a nasal voice. No, he doesn’t get it.
I’ve always described this film as ‘a porno made up of nothing but the parts you fast-forward through’. (Not that I watch a lot of…um…look never mind.)
Favorite lines…
Tom: (refering to Minnesota) “Their governor’s a huge, bald nazi.”
Mike: “It’s too bad we can’t grab this movie with a tissue and crumple it and flush it down the toilet.”
Crow: (while watching two women fight) “You usually have to go to a website to see this kind of thing like NakedWrestlingGiantesses.com”
Mike: (while watching the girls dancing) “This is how I view the world. Everyone else is out doing this while I’m sitting in my underwear eating a toasted cheese sandwich and drinking an Ice beer.”
Crow: “Should we get our filthy raincoats on to watch this?”
Tom: “My famous rubber-armed puss punch!”
Crow: “I’ve got a good mind to put this up my butt and entertain at Lolapalooza!”
Tom: “So. You want to end your movie that way huh? Okay. Get bent!”
Sampo: “Callback: Crow mutters ‘MrXL’ after Tom does a cheerleading bit.”
That’s “MRxL.” I love the riff and callback, by the way.
***
Sampo: “Literary reference: ‘I’ve got feet like Billy Pilgrim.'”
If I remember the movie correctly, it was one of Billy’s fellow POW’s who had problems with his boots/feet. Do I remember it incorrectly? Or is it different in the novel, which I read earlier and remember even less distinctly?
***
Sampo: “I think the order should be segment 2, then 3, then 1.”
I’ve always wondered about the sketch order, especially since one of the main points of Segment 1 is Mike sharing the Professor’s bizarre posture in the web, which we haven’t seen yet. But I think it should be 3, then 2, then 1, which as swh1939 (#3) points out, is the only other way they could have been put into the episode once they were shot.
***
Howard (#21): “It just seems like they’re obviously watching a bad videotape transfer of the movie”
To make it worse, there’s a lot of obvious analog tape damage (flashing and/or wavy horizontal bars, sometimes rolling down the screen). It never effects the Shadowramma, so it must be the movie master that the distributor gave BBI.
***
Son of Bobo (#22): “Gary is sporting a very early 70?s pornstache. I guess the Germans were ahead of the American porno industry.”
Alex D’Arcy (Gary) spent most of his career in America, and had that mustache at least as early as “The Awful Truth” (1937). I think, box-body notwithstanding, he looks pretty good in this movie for a fifty-something.
***
Ben (#26): “Crow (furiously): Listen, BUD! He’s got radioactive blood!
“I never noticed that the Spider-Man theme song was so confrontational until Crow’s reading of the lyrics.”
The odd part to me is that instead of “bud,” Crow clearly says “bub,” which a) is wrong, and b) doesn’t rhyme.
***
This isn’t one of my very favorite episodes, but it’s in the second tier. Part of it is just how engagingly silly the movie is by itself. I especially like how the point for the filmmakers was so obviously to have the women cavorting around in their underwear that they can barely be bothered to do anything with Spider-Gary at all.
My favorite riff: “I would pay eleven thousand dollars to be there right now.” I love the matter-of-fact way Mike says it, plus the oddly specific figure that suggests he’s given some careful thought to how much he can afford.
(re: Barbara Valentine) “It’s an anagram for ‘A Bra Bra Navel Nite’.”
“He’s supported by a generous grant from the Onan Foundation and the Chubb Group.”
“Babs played fullback for the Lions.”
“This is the way I see the world. Everyone else is out doing THIS, while I’m sitting at home in my underwear, eating a toasted cheese sandwich and drinking an ice beer.”
Georgia: Her parents are from Minnesota.
Crow (excitedly): Their governor’s a huge, bald Nazi.
I moved from L.A. to the quasi-suburban outskirts of Albuquerque a couple of years ago. Since then, I’ve had numerous opportunities to exclaim, “Oh, no! Not the chain-bark!”
“There’s no reason to fear the worst! All we know is that the plane caught fire and we lost radio contact!”
I love that line.
This one of my favorite ones of the Sci Fi era too. It tends to drag down a little during the writhing scenes. I think this is where Crow comments it’s too much, even for him and wants a scene with old English guys in lab coats droning incessantly. Favorite riffs: Mike calling out The Horrors of Spider Island periodically, Tom’s cheerleading, and Water! That’s what dry soup mix needs.
As to the out of order skits I think it happened during the Joel years too for Amazing Colossal Man? Anybody know which movie for sure? I wonder if it wasn’t switched by Sci Fi to better fit their advertising needs or at least ordered by them.
#22 That is a reference to the Tridentine Mass though I don’t know exactly what Tom is referencing. Possibly the consecration or the Agnus Dei. On a personal note I was a Third Order Carmelite for several years until I got married and became a dad and I always get a kick out the riff- Carmelite nuns- The true story as Babs wrestles one of the girls.
According to IMDB, Helga Franck, who played Georgia, died within a couple of years of making this movie, when she fell accidently out of her 5th floor apartment window. RIP
So spiders are actually big hairy bipeds with pants…
murmur murmur murmur
Girl: “…efbutgnvfnnen nsmsmwi!” Crow: “…I think she just did three languages in one sentence!”
Invasion of the Neptune Man (#45): “As to the out of order skits I think it happened during the Joel years too for Amazing Colossal Man? Anybody know which movie for sure?”
It happened for sure in “Legend of the Dinosaur” (K21) (as the entry in this site’s episode guide says, “in host segment 1, Joel refers to their ‘earlier’ segment about the dinosaur… it’s pretty obvious he’s referring to host segment 3. Oops.”). In other episodes, they accidentally did sketches about things that hadn’t happened yet. If I remember correctly, in “Earth vs. the Spider” (313), the custodian of the 7th galaxy appears in a sketch before the janitor appears in the movie, but Joel does say something to the effect of, “There hasn’t been a custodian in this movie.”
This was the best episode of the season. I love the Ventura gag they threw in. I still have the TV Guide where Mike was talking about his encounter with him at some Minnesota celebrity thing. I also liked how they just said the movie’s title whenever the girls were in their underwear and/or shaking it.
I loved this episode but it was after the credits rolled that it finally hit me that in two weeks the series was ending. I choked up after that. :cry:
One of my all time favorite episodes. Soo many amazing riffs from start to finish, and some excellent host segments. Favorite riff: Babs plays fullback for the Lions.