Short: (1941) A Chevrolet sales manager wonders why his team is having trouble selling their product door-to-door.
Movie: (1956) A mad scientist’s efforts to create a race of supermen attract the attention of a reporter and the police.
First shown: 1/23/93
Opening: Joel gets to see what Crow is dreaming … and soon regrets it
Invention exchange: The tough love seat, microwave Faith Popcorn
Host segment 1: “Hired!” the musical
Host segment 2: Joel, Tom and Crow’s discussion rambles from the lame octopus to food monsters
Host segment 3: Willy the Waffle returns to defend advertising
End: Cambot re-edits the ending of the movie, letter, the Mads are playing Bela and Tor
Stinger: Bela has looked better
(231 votes, average: 4.61 out of 5)
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• I try not to overuse the already-overused word “classic” but this is one. It’s got a wacky short, an Ed Wood movie (probably his most competent, which isn’t saying much) and we’ve all seen all that backstory in the “Ed Wood” film. The host segments are good to fair, but they’re certainly not awful, and the riffing is top-notch.
• This episode was included in Shout’s “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Vol. XIX.”
• This show first aired three days after the beginning of the Clinton administration. It was certainly made before then, but probably after Bubba’s election, which allows Crow to talk about “The Bush Administration” in the past tense early in the short.
• Joel’s horrified, slightly nauseated take to the camera at the end of the opening is great.
• Then-topical: Faith Popcorn (though she would probably disagree that she isn’t still topical; she’s still around).
• At what point were door-to-door car salesmen discontinued? I never knew they existed before this short.
• If you look carefully you’ll notice that one of the houses the salesman visits is the house where Gilbert the spring lover lived in “A Case of Spring Fever.”
• “Hired, the Musical” is a lot of fun. I especially like Joel’s pained takes to the camera when Gypsy sings.
• My old copy of this episode (before it was released on DVD) is from January, 1995, and it features some fairly hilarious commercials for The Sporting News, in which they attempt to sell you a subscription on the quaint notion of not being able to get out-of-town scores in your local paper. If only somebody would invent the internet!
• Segment 2 is what the kids today call “random.” I have a feeling it’s a slightly stylized version of a actual conversation among the Brains.
• In this movie, Bela does his classic “sleep” bit, complete with the hand gesture. And yet the cast have been referencing it for at least two seasons. Were they just making a reference to a movie they assumed we’d seen?
• Crow references two elements of the classic driver’s ed Smith System: “Hands at 10 and 2” and “watch your space cushion.” Can anybody name the other three?
• Tom Servo does a lovely Flash Bazbo impression.
• The scene where the captain goes to see the file lady who has a pencil behind her ear when shot from behind, and doesn’t have one when she’s shot from the front, brought back a great memory: I remember pointing it out to my daughter, who was about six at the time, and I remember she found it hilarious and asked me to rerun it over and over.
• The random segment 2 is followed by the complete non-sequitur of segment 3. What does advertising have to do with anything?
• As is often the case, you can often spot where BBI has made cuts for times: usually at the spots where the commercials have been inserted.
• Callbacks: Tom says: “Weird! That’s what it is. Weird.” (Ring of Terror); “Hi, Bavaro.” (Crash of Moons); Willy says “Knew your father I did!” (Mr B Natural); I’m a Grimault warrior!” (Viking Women)
• It’s pronounced REK-yah-veek! As in: “One day in Iceland can Reykjavik!”
• I wonder how many other military bases were showing eps on their TV stations?
• Cast and crew roundup: Of course, Eddie also directed “The Sinister Urge” and wrote the script for “The Violent Years.” Conrad Brooks was also in “The Sinister Urge,” and “The Beast of Yucca Flats.” Eddie Parker was one of the stuntmen who played the mutant monster in “This Island Earth” and had a bit part in “Undersea Kingdom.” Screenwriter Alex Gordon was the producer for “The She-Creature.” Cinematographer William C. Thompson also worked on “The Violent Years,” “The Sinister Urge,” “Project Moon Base” and “Racket Girls.” Make up guy Louis J. Haszillo also worked on “The Girl in Lovers Lane.” Make up guy Harry Thomas also worked on “Project Moonbase,” “Racket Girls,” “The Mad Monster,” “The Unearthly,” “Invasion USA,” “High School Big Shot” and “Night of the Blood Beast.” Sound guy Lyle Willey also worked on “Robot Monster.” Technical advisor Igo Kantor also worked on “Women of the Prehistoric Planet” and did music editing for “The Human Duplicators.” Score composer Frank Worth acted in “The Beatniks.”
In front of the camera, of course, Bela was in “The Corpse Vanishes” and “The Phantom Creeps.” Tor was also in “The Unearthly” and “The Beast of Yucca Flats. Harvey B. Dunn was in “The Sinister Urge” and “Teenagers From Outer Space.” George Becwar was also in “War of the Colossal Beast.”
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Kevin Murphy. Camera: John Finley. “Hired! Song” written and arranged by Micheal J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy. “This episode dedicated to the spirit of William A. Murphy. Thanks, Dad.”
• Fave line from short: “You’ve killed again, haven’t you, son?” Honorable mention: “…And I don’t have a car … HEY!”
• Fave riff from feature: “Nobody’s kissin’ the bird today…” Honorable mention: “Tor go to DeVry.”
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This was a great one, and a real fave of mine–had it on a tape with ‘Manos’ and ‘The Day the Earth Froze’, but I lent it out to someone and they never returned it. I have ‘Manos’ on DVD now, of course, but I still wait in hope for the day those other two will be released and I will be able to relive those memories.
“He’s caught in the Billy Barty trap!” Ah, such great riffs. Also, it’s worth mentioning that this ep is the source of the frequently referenced “He tampered in God’s domain…”
i think this episode is great but i would not call it a classic. hired part two was funnier. the other ed woods movies they would do were funnier. i did enjoy the hired the musical. my favorite riff was she skinned a hostess snowball. Because her hat looked like the outside of a hostess snowball.
“Hired! The Musical” for me is the series’ watershed moment. Many great moments are still to come, but none match this segment for sheer brilliance.
I agree that olive loaf is gross.
I thought the monitoring of Crow’s dreams was utterly hilarious. And the Hired Musical was one of the best song moments on the show ever.
It’s so weird seeing Tor in Stealth Mode.
Anyone know if “Hired” split into two pieces by Best Brains, or was that how it originally existed? The “Part II” in the next episode is an obvious overlay, and they could have added the “To Be Continued” here. Just doesn’t seem the type of short that would need to be split up.
I didnt even know this came between Day the Earth Froze and Manos at one point..for some reason it wouldnt air between those 2 shows.
I like this episode too..the hired shorts were fantastic, just fantastic
What a great episode!!! I always thought that Bela’s “sleep” guesture was a reference to Bela’s 1931 Universal horror classic “Dracula”. Joel’s acting during the Hired! Musical is priceless.
The riffing is great here too.
“Tor, close your mouth or you’ll drown.”
This is my all time favorite episode, bar none! It’s pure gold from beginning to end, minus the waffle sketch, and I found Hired part I much better than part II. My personal favorite Ed Wood trilogy is Plan 9 followed by Bride of the Monster followed by Johnny Depp’s Ed Wood. Ed Wood, how do you do it?
Sampo- I always assumed that Best Brains had screened this movie previously, but couldn’t get rights to do it, and that’s why they referenced “SLEEP” many times earlier. Case in point, “We wanted ‘Marooned’ but we couldn’t get it.”
Devin- They probably split “Hired” up because they didn’t want to trim 8 minutes of either “Bride…” or “Manos” and thank GOODNESS they didn’t!!
And let me just say that, starting with #422, this was an AMAZING string of episodes that really didn’t let up, for me, until #515. An outstanding swan song for Joel and a great introduction to Mike.
I think the reason “Hired!” was split in half like this is because they wanted to do it this season, but didn’t have any movies that were short enough to accommodate a two-reel short subject. So they just cut it in half and stuck one part in here and the other part in front of “Manos”.
Fortunately, both parts hold their own pretty well. I loaned “Manos” to a friend of mine and he didn’t even know that “Hired!” was supposed to have a part one.
that lady with the pencil on her ear when she faces the camera, and not when she faces away, i think the parts where she doesnt have the pencil on her ear may actually be ed wood filling in, as he was known to do, as well as being in drag…
Kiss the bird, Dick. He’s hurting!
Ah, what a truly brilliant episode. Yes, the waffle-advertising sketch makes no sense, but whatever. It’s made up for with some of the best all-around riffing the show has done. My favorite stuff comes in the conversation between Bela and the German guy. “My darling Doctor Lamb-chop.” And we get some great running gags out of it, like He tampered in God’s domain or, a rice of pipple! Which is referenced as late as season 10! Ooh, good stuff.
“Well, that’s my dream, you?”
Bride of the Monster is notable just for “rice of pipples” and “He tampered in God’s domain,” two lines that will live in infamy for many season to come. It’s not a bad episode either. Fairly middle-of-the-road, in my opinion.
The host segement that had me on the floor was Joel and the ‘Bots inserting themselves into the continuity of the film at the end, all of them playing Bela Lugosi simultaneously. Their recut makes every bit as much sense as the oddly edited ending sequence of the film.
This is truly a “classic”. I mean, this was the purest example of a perfect film for MST3k. An Ed Wood classic. This episode is always in competition as my favorite episode ever… and, Hired: The Musical is THE best musical moment in my opinion.
When Prof. Strowsky asks, “Are you mad Vornoff?” and Joel, as Bela, replies, “What the hell do you think?!” I double over with laughter. The end of the movie with the poor editing and Bela making nutty faces is priceless. What the hell was Ed Wood thinking?! The world will never know…
Dare I say that anyone that doesn’t at least LIKE this episode is NOT a true MSTie and never truly understood the concept of the show.
I don’t remember much about this episode but I do remember that I loved the “WAZZUP!” riff when it was revealed that one of the police officers was named Martin.
Okay, who’s the worse “director,” Ed Wood or Coleman Francis? At least Francis’s films seldom include faux brick laboratory walls and really stupid octopuses.
I really like this episode, though Bela Lugosi makes me a little sad…there’s something pathetic about the old guy, with his poor arthritic hands & terrible grimaces at the end. It always seems to me that maybe the MST writers felt something similar, since the riffs are not nearly as harsh as they could be about Bela’s acting.
Having said that, Hired is terrific, and their musical version is one of their best skits.
Favorite riffs: “Embrace death, Roy!”
“I’m going to make Plan 9…I’ll be right back.”
And, the absolute best, “Hey, cool, you can flush the fireplace!”
Ed Wood was far, far more skilled than Coleman Francis. Which reminds me, I read the book Ed Wood was based on, and one of the people interviewed for it was Tony Cardoza. Apparently, Ed was responsible for getting him into movies, meaning that Coleman is Ed’s cinematic grandchild.
I agree that the Braves probably really wanted to do “Hired”, and since it was the end of the season the only way to do it then would be to either break it up or make deep cuts in the movie. They made the right choice, though it’s caused a little pain in the DVD era.
adoptadog – Wow! Great question! I’d have to say that Coleman narrowly edges out Ed as the worse of the two. Ed’s movies were bad, but I don’t think there’s much he could’ve done about it. It also seems that he LIKED them that way. Coleman’s films were filled with spastic editing, which is just laziness. However, ALL of his movies are like that…
I guess I’m suggesting that both directors’ movies have unique and obvious yet identifiable flaws that, because of their prevalence, suggest something intentional. An art form, if you will.
Or am I just high?
About “SLEEEEP!”…
Guys, do you remember that the Brains are fans of old movies? These are cultural riffs, not just callbacks (or callforwards). People were spoofing and riffing on Karloff’s “SLEEP!” decades before MST3K came around. And Marooned was the classic “gonna die in space” film for folks the age of the writers. I seriously doubt they had to screen it as a future episode to think of it.
Sometimes the explanations are just that simple. :wink:
I liked “Hired: Part I” and the host segment version of it, those were the best parts of this episode for me. The movie was okay. It’s not one that I watch over and again too much. And I like to think I am as much a MSTie as anyone else here. :grin:
Jeff Q made a great point and eloquently pointed out exactly what I was thinking.
As far as who is the worst director between Francis and Wood, it isn’t even close. Coleman Francis was not a director… and by that, I mean, he simply shot some stuff and ineptly edited together into a mass of confusion. The closest he got to making an actual movie was Sky Divers, and THAT is even up for debate. Ed Wood truly loved film and believed what he was doing was something special. Both are failures in the art of good filmmaking, but Francis isn’t even remotely as competent a director as Wood. Thank God for both of these men, though… They produced some of the best fodder for MST3k…
I withdraw my (somewhat) facetious question – it’s true that Francis just threw things into a blender and marketed the results, whereas Wood is a real director – not at all a good director, but with a sense of what a movie is. Even Plan 9 fits that description. His films show lots of enthusiam and a fine, high glee. And I admire him for making an effort to utilize Lugosi and Tor Johnson, and his special effects, however lame.
Bride of the Monster is still a pretty awful movie.
Thanks, Mac, for the Ed Woods/Tony Cardoza/Francis Coleman connection – interesting stuff!
Glad to see somebody else gets-
the Flash Bazbo bits ! (from national lampoon-
radio hour)
No Advertising! :twisted:
I just want to say that for me, Hired 1 is a billion times funnier than Hired 2. Hired 1 is in my top 10 favorite shorts ever.
The movie could have been riffed better. It has some funny riff moments but it seemed to me that they missed alot of opportunities.
Its neat to watch this episode right after watching Ed Wood (the movie).
I absolutely love this episode, and I agree that “Hired!” is one of the best things the Brains ever did, ever.
Great episode. Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi and Ed Wood make a great combo. Harvey Dunn is as good in this as he was in Teenagers From Outer Space. In fact everyone tries hard and is very sincere, but the script and direction turn it into another Ed Wood laugh fest. Great job by MST3K exploiting a film that is fun and entertaining all on its own.
Hired the musical is a wonderful sketch. The re-edited end of movie sketch is also hilarious.
This was a really good episode. My favorite riff was when the two guys are out in the pouring rain at the beginning of the movie, “I still wanna have a picnic, dang it!” That one gets me every time.
Hired the Musical was funny, although I don’t see as great as some of you, apparently.
I liked the “No advertising!” sketch. Crow’s frustration over everyone’s joy at the elimination of advertising is great. It was great to see a reference to Springy, from one of my favorite shorts, and “Knew your father, I did.” referenced another, to clinch it as brilliant.
i think trying to figure out which director is worse, Ed Wood or Coleman Francis, is like two bald men fighting over a comb.
I’m not sure how to answer the Wood/Francis question. Wood’s films are usually more fun to watch. Still, I find Francis’ fims weirdly fascinating. I haven’t seen “Yucca Flats” yet, but “Cuba” and “Skydivers” are unusual for their time in that they don’t really have heroes. Both films present a universe in which essentially everyone is emotionally and morally stunted, seemingly weighed down with despair and crushed by life. In both, characters risk everything for pathetically small stakes, and lose (and in “Cuba,” these are the point-of-view characters, the default protagonists). I don’t know if this was a deliberate stylistic choice, or Francis being un-selfconsciously guided by a stunningly bleak worldview. His movies would be genuinely disturbing if he weren’t such a lousy director. As it is, that level of risibility sort of insulates the viewer from the full effect.
Martin Landau’s Legosi also did perform the Sleep! gesture in “Ed Wood,” following up with the classic line, “You must me double-jointed. And you must be Hungarian.”
Also, in the desert that is Ed Wood’s film career, I think the “rice of pipple” speech is an oasis of good movie mojo. Bela handles it well, and I would say that “I vill show the VURLD, dat I can be its master!” is a more iconic Bela line than anything from Dracula.
Ryan, I believe the evil sprite’s name was Coily, not Springy
There are some wonderful quips but the ones that got me big time were, ‘I’m gonna love him and feed him and call him mine”, “Hey, I’m following meee!”Augh! Gravity at work”, I’ll be up in my burlap teddy”, I’m going to deep fat fry something” and the one I’ve copied in real life many times when somebody asks the right question from this exchange, “Are you out of your mind? Nope! But thanks for askin’!” And as another person pointed out, a classic is, “I really don’t have time right now, I just bludgeoned my husband”.
Actually, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that it wasn’t Best Brains that split up the ‘Hired’ short, for a few reasons.
One, the overlay is obvious, but it still looks like it’s “on film” instead of “on video”, like Joel and the bots do down below. It looks like it’s on film stock, and that leads me to suspect that it was overlaid by the makers of ‘Hired’, not by the Brains.
Two, there’s a “recap” sequence right after the title card, leading into the main body of the short. I can’t really imagine the Brains feeling the need to compile a sequence like that, while the makers of the film certainly would.
Three, they riff both the title card and the recap. AIUI, they riff the “raw” film, and then do edits, so they wouldn’t have riffed it if it wasn’t already present. (I’ll admit, I don’t have ironclad proof of this, but it does seem in keeping with what I’ve read about their process.)
As to why the makers of ‘Hired’ would split up their own short, it could be that they, too, found the length unwieldy for presentations, so they cut it down after finishing it to allow for a break in the showing if needed. (I presume it was shown at Chevrolet sales conferences, that sort of thing.)
Truly one of the best MST’s ever. I’ve mentioned before that most of my favorite eps. are in the 400-500 area.
The riffing is relentless, and the movie deserves nothing less. Just as the bewildered stare of “what the hell are the people in this movie doing?” registers on your face, a perfect remark by our intrepid, silohuetted threesome restores balance to the MST universe. God I miss this show. :wink:
“That’s one unstable octopus”.
Great episode with ass-kicking riffing!!!
I always assumed they split the “Hired” short for time consideratrions.
All of those years ago, I would buy 6 1/2 hour tapes just so four commercial-free episodes of MST would fit. (I took the time of editing the advertisements out; kinda wish I hadn’t, just for memories’ sake.) But that led to me taping episodes 421-424 all on one VHS tape, so I have all these classic episodes in a row. Unfortuneately, due to age and excessive play they are showing their wear and tear. SHOUT!, please get the rights to these episodes (save for Manos) because they are worth adding to the dvd library!
Tim Burton did a good job emmulating this movie in “Ed Wood”; I actually played this episode and that film back-to-back one night to make the comparisons. I always wondered if Burton got some inspiration from MST to make that movie.
As for the episode itself, another winner! Granted, the segments weren’t as sharp as others, but otherwise another classic episode. “Hired! The Musical” is a great musical moment in the show’s history.
“Hired: The Musical” was terrific.
“Can’t you see I’m trying to tell you NO!”
In regards to the question of who split the short, I had originally thought like John Seavey, that it looked like Chevy had done it (not the Brains), but at archive.org it shows up intact (http://www.archive.org/details/Hired1940), and its Wikipedia.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hired!) and IMDB.com (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0282562/) entries make no mention of it being split outside of MST3K references.
Another of my all time favorites-SEE theUSA in a Chevrolet-is that Hired part I or II ?
erasmus hall:
They start singing “See the USA in Your Chevrolet” at the end of “Hired: the Musical” (after Hired:Part 1), but they stop before getting to the word “Chevrolet”.
The song isn’t in the short.
Does that help?
Callback: “Time for go to bed.” (As well as a few variations of the line.)
Favorite Riff
Policeman: “The one nice thing about birds, they never cause anybody any trouble.”
Crow: “Yeah, tell that to Tippie Hedren.”
What made the riff even funnier for me was when the policeman first said his line, my first thought was: “You obviously haven’t seen too many Hitchcock movies.”
Wizard of Oz References: 0.
The whole bird riff while on the phone throws me to the floor every time I see it. Makes me wonder how many other Police Chiefs out there have a bird on their shoulder telling them what to do?
Another classic, and the first Ed Wood movie the Brains riffed. My god, it’s amazing how many great episodes came out of this season! Another movie so bad that it provided rich riffing fodder. This was my first foray into the weird world of Ed Wood and I gotta say it leaves its mark to this day. What’s with the police chief with that bird? And an giant octopus in a freshwater swamp?? And that Marty Allen lookalike in the police station (Hello dere!)? And that weird woman in records with the pencil that kept disappearing and reappearing behind her ear? And poor, drug-addled Bela Lugosi, oh, how the might had fallen by that point. You’ll always be the definitive Dracula to me!
Anyway, just a wonderfully bad movie that gets the full, rich riffing treatment of Joel and the ‘Bots, along with that great short “Hired”. And I loved the musical segment in the host segment right after that! Priceless stuff. Another great episode from Season Four. If only I knew the wonderful horror that was to come in the next episode!
I’m replacing my VHS copies with new DVDs, season by season, and I just happen to be watching 423 now.
Looks to me like Ed Wood built the whole plot of this movie around (1) stock footage of an octopus and (2) an auto accident. Seems like he found a smashed-up car and decided to incorporate that into the movie. Pretty clever, actually, and a way to shoot some outdoor scenes instead of shooting more footage of people in dark offices.
I love it when you say what commercials were showing when you taped these episodes. It brings back so many memories long forgotten. :grin:
#31 A bit late but…Coleman Francis wishes he were as smooth as Ed Wood. At no time in CF’s three abortions does he exhibit a tiche of competence. EW, however, does showcase a clue or two in this film. My experience with ED is thus: first film I ever endured was Sinister Urge, then Plan 9, then this one. The contrast is startling. If Ed had ever gotten some serious backing, perhaps he might’ve made one decent film. Or maybe his cinematic blindness was born of having no clue that it was possible to make a bad film. That explains Coleman Francis more so that Ed Wood, however.
Randy
Isn’t Willy the Waffle doing Coily’s bit from “Spring Fever”? Ha-ha! No springs! (whoee-who)
Randy
I just noticed that Willy the Waffle is doing Coily which is interesting considering “A Case of Spring Fever” was not aried until season 10 on Sci-Fi. I wonder why they never riffed on it while it was on Comedy Central…any ideas?
Sampo’s Theroem time. For the most part this is the episode that breaks up the stretch drive for me. The riffing is just lackluster until the final movie segment and the host segments have little going on. I wanted to like this episode. But it just doesn’t have it.
Excellent use of the classic parenting line “this hurts me as much as it hurts you” as Dr. Forrester sits in the tough love seat with TV’s Frank.
One of Hollywood’s must famous cross-dressing directors: Penny Marshal. Good one Frank.
We have a “New Zoo Review” callback to “Teenagers from Outer Space.”
Favorite Riffs:
Grandma goes back in the house: Crow “I’ll be upstairs in my burlap teddy.”
Crow “Ah time for being in movie?”
All “Norm!”
Joel “and this is my forkball”
Joel “I must, I must, I must increase my bust…” as Bella does his arm motions
Bella “You have the advantage for the moment.” Joel “Until my stealthy giant appears.”
Crow “This is Bella’s best scene and he’s not even in it.”