Movie: (1980) Government officials try to cover up the crash of an alien spaceship, but two astronauts know the truth.
First shown: 5/14/89
Opening: Joel gives the name of the film, and immediately it’s movie sign!
Host segment 1: Crow, in 2-year-old mode, responds to every comment with “why?” and “so?” Joel is not amused
Host segment 2: Joel and Servo purge Crow’s memory. It’s mostly full of informercials
Host segment 3: Joel shows Crow his first memory, and explains how Crow got his name (but it’s just a practical joke)
End: Joel says the 1,000th fan club member will get a special prize
(123 votes, average: 4.28 out of 5)
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• Spring has definitely sprung. It was a balmy 76 degrees, then 75, then 73 as the sun set.
• I don’t really have much to say about the movie. It feels like very “Capricorn One”-ish (and that’s not a good thing). The IMDB notes that when it was shown on TV (the same year it came out in theaters!) it was titled “Invasion Force,” and had a different ending from the theatrical version. That new ending is the one we see in this episode. In the original ending, the news report says that everybody was killed when the plane crashes at the end of the movie. In our ending, the report indicates that the people inside the spacecraft were somehow shielded from the explosion and survived.
• In the first half hour, Servo derisively mocks one of Joel’s riffs. The comment is followed by an uncomfortable silence. It feels a little like the kind of thing that probably would be okay in the writing room, but it was a little awkward when he did it on TV.
• The opening is one the shortest host segments ever, right up there with “Waffles!”
• Segments 1 and 3 appear on the MST3K Scrapbook tape.
• References. Local reference not explained there: River Place. Also, weatherman Barry ZeVan is mentioned again.
• In segment one, after driving Joel crazy with childish questions, Crow asks: “Daddy, what’s Vietnam?” This is a reference to a Time-Life commercial in the ’80s for its “History of the Vietnam War” book series. In the commercial, a man and his son stand before the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. The son looks up, and asks “Daddy, what’s Vietnam?”. At which point, a voiceover somberly intones “A question a child might ask – but not a childish question.”
• Callback: City on Fire!
• Segment 2 seems to be a little case of biting the hand that feeds you: a subversive little dig at TV23’s apparent penchant for showing informercials. It should be noted that at this point, in the late spring of 1989, KTMA was already in a pretty deep financial trouble. The official bankruptcy filing happened in July, only a couple of months after this show aired. So they probably needed all the informercial revenue they could get.
• Does it feel to anybody else like a movie with this title should have been used in episode K18? Or am I just being OCD?
• It’s interesting that a demon dog pops up in the end segment, with no explanation of what a demon dog is or why it’s there. It appears in the opening theme, but you could be forgiven for never noticing it. Demon dogs would become a plot element in an episode in season one.
• Cast and crew roundup: special effects guy Harry Woolman also worked on “The Incredible Melting Man,” “Laserblast” and “Agent for H.A.R.M. 2nd unit director Henning Schellerup also worked on “Melting Man.” Sound guy Glen Glenn also worked on “The Corpse Vanishes” and “Master Ninjas I and II.” Sound mixer Rod Sutton also worked on “The Slime People,” “King Dinosaur” and “It Lives By Night.” Stunt coordinator Greg Brickman also appear on camera in “Parts: The Clonus Horror.” Stunts consultant Alan Gibbs was a performer in “Mitchell” (where a lot of stunt guys got small roles). Score composer John Cacavas also worked on “SST Death Flight” and “Superdome. In front of the camera, William Schallert also appeared in “Gunslinger” and “Invasion USA.” H.M. Wynant also appeared in “Stranded in Space.”
• CreditsWatch: As with K16, sound guy Todd Ziegler moved up to director and Alex Carr filled in at the audio board. This is the first episode where the “Camera: Kevin Murphy” credit is removed at “Cambot: Kevin Murphy” is added to the cast list.
• Fave riff: “Mine are more pouty.” Honorable mention: “I feel like I know more than I already do.”
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Such depth, such writing, such comedic genius in that opening/intro segment. Then after all that we get riffing on the super expensive title screens of the film. There is a certain amount of irony there don’t you think?
Hey, I didn’t know Teen Wolf’s dad moonlights as an astronaut. He must have also invented the artificial gravity that allowed the astronauts to walk around the space shuttle cabin.
Favorite Riffs:
While exploring the alien craft Joel says “scientists check in but the don’t check out.”
I loved how the Addams Family theme morphed into “Hanger 18”
Government guy “keep me briefed on what they are up to.” Crow “make those briefs short.”
Crow: “Daddy, what’s Vietnam?”
My memories of this one were pretty vague*, and this re-watch reminded me of why I forgot most of the details. Earth scientists explore an alien spaceship in a hangar. That’s it. For an hour and a half. X-Files meets UFO. Pretty boring. Clever, but unsatisfying, ending. This is the anti-Close Encounters: too much conspiracy, not enough wonder.
Only making things worse is the print: various shades of grey, green, and black. Despite the evidence of a theatrical release (see IMDb), no way is this not a made-for-TV production. I will not accept Gary Collins as the hero of my movie…
From Mighty Jack’s message board re. this episode, posted in 2005, MJ gives a good summation of this one, and KTMA episodes in general:
SOL ephemera:
• (27:45) Is this the first mention of RAM chips? And “mid-morning pleasure stimulation” – WTF?
• Between a riff about “load pan emptying” (45:45) and a host segment referring to “load pan training” (52:40) this is fairly obviously meant to be a robotic scatological function. Duh. Sorry it took this long for me to realize this.
• With the streaming fog as the hatch opens and a later mention of the ship having come from a “mothership” the guys missed a potential George Clinton mention. They went for Prince instead. OK, but not as right on.
Meh. 2 KTMA stars. The riffing is fine, so I can see how others could rank it higher, but I’m just not feelin’ the movie.
Joel: “Now they’re glad they have the rubber suits on.”
*First time I saw it, I mistook it for The Cat From Outer Space. If only…
I know the Apache was more lively in 1989, but by the time I moved to the neighborhood in the 2000s it was incredibly depressing. Just one clothing store kept it going, even if there was a post office and card/coin shop inside.
I believe the “What’s Vietnam?” joke was recycled a few times, specifically in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Re: “Daddy, What’s Vietnam?”
I trawled through YouTube to see if there was a copy of the ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgFX2ELtoo0
(Narrated by Martin Sheen, I believe. And check out the Award Movie!)
I still haven’t found a copy of the Mysteries of the Unknown ad featuring the guy insisting, “Read The Book!”
Oh I remember seeing that “What’s Vietnam?” commercial a few times. I think Martin Sheen did the voice over for it. Will this one ever see the light of DVD day then?
Log Book Entry:
http://www.thelogbook.com/logbook/mystery-science-theater-3000/experiment-k19-hangar-18/
I don’t watch this one very often mainly because the film annoys me so much. The host segments are solid as are most of the riffs, but I just can’t stomach this poor-man’s Capricorn One. (With a twist! One fakes a moon landing, the other covers up real aliens!) They both feature the same ludicrous “government assasinating people to cover up something embarrasing” nonsense and they both make me want to shout at the screen with how stupid everyone is.
Despite the solid job the guys did with this one, the film drags it down to a 3 out of 5.
Isn’t it that a giant modern-style Tom Servo ?
When they enter the space craft and open the space closet and this space suit or whatever appears ( and they empty their load pans in fright ). The space thingy looks like the modern Tom Servo,no ?
At least it does on my DAP version and the version on Youtube. check it out. starting around 8:15 of this clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WI97jtOQJc
A cheap rip-off of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with a much darker tone. What’s not to love?
One of the few KTMA episodes to get callbacks during the cable run of the show (Warrior of the Lost World where Crow exclaims “Hangar 18!” in a similar looking scene).
This is one of the movies I’d seen on TV before I’d seen the MST experiment. I agree that it is really slow moving and only a meh episode in my book. I did like the host segments very much. I was under the empression that the infomercial jab was more just a comment on how one day these things really didn’t play anywhere and by the late 80s they were on every channel every night. I can also see it as just a joke at KTMA’s programming.
I believe the guys were really jellin’ by this time and can see shades of Season 1.
3 stars on the KTMA scale.
I like this one as well but I like all of these KTMAs. I do agree thay are not the best efforts and watch these less then later seasons.
What I like most about this one is Darren McGavin! If he and TeenWolfs dad switched roles this movie would have been a much better movie and probably not be seen by us MSTIES.
As someone who saw this movie when it played in the the local dollar theater, I can vouch for how painful it was. Of all of the KTMA episodes, this is one of the ones that I really would like to see.
The original guide, and your guide say different things about what Segment 1 is about. The original one by Joe says they encounter a meteor shower.
Brandon: I’m right, Joe’s wrong. :-) Well, he’s not wrong, he just, for some reason, completely misread the segment. Joel very briefly mentions a meteor shower but that is not at all the focus of the segment. And Joe’s comment about a similarity to the MST3K movie deleted segment is just out there. Joe’s observations were mostly good, but sometimes he’s just high. :-)
A good one. I like the movie but that sort of thing is right up my alley, if you know what I mean. The segments are good too, a couple classics in there.
Pretty strong KTMA episode, though the movie, for me, just drags everything down. I’m pretty sure I saw this film before seeing it here – I know I had the tape, I got it from Best Buy’s $3 shelf in the summer of 1998 (I also found Space Mutiny there! Double the pain!), but maybe I never actually watched the film till I got this ep. Either way, just a dull, depressing movie. It’s got that late-70’s/early-80’s “look”, but not that certain something (writing, ideas, etc.) to make it somewhat captivating. Still, the riffing isn’t bad, and I’ve heard many claim these to be the best host segments of the season, though I wouldn’t go quite that far. Still, pretty good on the KTMA scale. I’d say 3 out of 5.
@ Sampo- I guess you’d have to be a “little” high to slog your way through all the available KTMAs just to take notes.
I saw this in the theater under Hangar 18 as a kid and I distinctly remember that it had the more upbeat ending. :alien:
I remember Tom playing with the “Daddy, what’s Vietnam?” infomercial in another KTMA or Season One episode, when he responds to a comment from Joel with “A humanist question, or a question a human would ask?” Too easy, really…
Then, of course, there was the cloudy sky in space between Earth and the Moon in the Commando Cody serial… “Why are there clouds in space?” “Why are we watching this?” “Daddy, what’s Vietnam?” :-P
I can’t believe Sampo you didn’t out down Crow full name. Some something Operated Woman. Which he responds his whole life has been a joke and now he know how someone feels like. (Sorry I saw this episode ages ago I can’t remember details very well.)
I remember the commercials for this movie when it was released. It had the same announcer as the ads for other Sun Classic Pictures releases, and it made the movie seem like a documentary, rather than a “thriller”.
Still, an OK episode for the KTMA era, though I don’t remember them doing a lot of Kolchak riffs. Given Darren McGavin’s presence in the movie, I thought that was odd.
Kismetgirl88: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7spWVNC0jn4#t=4m40s
@17 Castle Monster
I remember the same thing. I was really into anything about UFOs when i was a kid and bugged my parents to take me to see this at the theater. I remember the narration at the end saying the people in the UFO survived.
@kismetgirl88: Cybernetic Remotely Operated Woman, I think it is.
FinniasJones:
between a riff about “load pan emptying” (45:45) and a host segment referring to “load pan training” (52:40) this is fairly obviously meant to be a robotic scatological function. Duh. Sorry it took this long for me to realize this.
We’ve all been over here quietly snickering, waiting for the light to dawn… :-)
Castle and Migel: Interesting. Maybe the report in the IMDB is total crap.
Incidentally, Vincent Canby totally trashes this thing in his review: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C0CE0DF153BF933A25752C0A967948260
Sampo: Maybe there were two cuts for different regions. I can’t imagine why, but distributors used to do that from time to time.
Actually, it’s not the distributors. Sorry. Sometimes a cut doesn’t test well so the studios shoot a different ending after prints with the original ending have already been shipped.
This also looks like a pretty strange movie. I’d say a decent KTMA overall. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the only KTMA featuring a movie in the public domain?
Favorable comments on IMDB see this as a proto-XFiles, but that might be a bit of a stretch. Tne ending is so abrupt, even changed to be upbeat it seems like there’s another half hour of movie that could be told. The scene on the back of the tanker truck is hilarious,though.
For a while we saw a gradual progression upwards from episode to episode, now I feel like they’re at a bit of a plateau. Part of it is the movie selection, these all-star tv movies are bad, but not the endearing bad of most Season 1 movies. The move to cable came at a good time, otherwise I fear they would have run out of gas.
Re: the ending- You can’t see it in the KTMA copy but the ufo is shown intact in the burning ruins, implying that those inside survived. I have to assume that this wasn’t added later so until someone tracks down the alternate version I’d say that IMDB’s info is suspect.
CROW: Cybernetic Remote Operated Woman. Crow wasn’t happy.
The late 70’s/early 80’s movies riffed by The Brains during the national run of “MST3K” (“Laserblast,” “The Touch of Satan,” “Clonus,” etc.) are some of my favorites, and this one most closely mirrors those (“Phase IV” doesn’t count, I believe, because a lot more work and creativity went into that one than this typical-of-the-period conspiracy theory plot; other 70’s KTMA’s like “City on Fire” were disaster movies, a genre “MST3K” really didn’t tackle). “Hangar 18” takes itself way too seriously (Robert Vaughn makes an excellent heavy when he’s willing to blow-up the most incredible advance in world history to ensure a measly US Presidential re-election), which only makes it more funny that Gary freaking Collins is our hero! And you thought Nick Miller in “Time Chasers” was a mousy… I mean, lousy leading man. Teen Wolf’s dad as the sidekick is like a strawberry on top. :evilgrin: When someone calls Collins’ character on the phone and tells him he’s late for his morning show I laughed so hard my co-workers came to see if I was OK. Only Darren McGavin walks away from this turkey unharmed because, well, he’s Klochak damn it! Besides the obvious similarities to “Capricorn One” and “Close Encounters…” I couldn’t help but be reminded of Emmerich’s “Independence Day” when the scientist inside the ship uses the alien tech to tune into a local radio station (!). The ‘men in black’ in this movie obviously shopped at the same suit store where the Bill Bixby-lookalike dude from “Laserblast” bought all his clothes… or were these government issued back in the day? :evilgrin: And, when the hangar is blown to bits by the (neat for model work) explosion, you can tell the doors to the spaceship are open and a guy in a lab coat is engulfed in flames. The voice-over ‘happy’ ending is bulls***. It’s supposed to be a “Clonus”-type ending (i.e. the good guys win) but at least the reporter in that movie had videotaped proof; “Hangar 18” only has a fake news announcer and credits. :film:
Other than the slightly-awkward first few minutes when Josh/Joel/Trace keep running over each other’s lines the guys are seriously beginning to gel in-theater with palpable, though not perfect, riffing chemistry. Host segments range from the historic (in and out of the satellite in less than five seconds!) to the mundane (1,000th club member… big whoop! :clock: ) but not having the Mads on this episode must have been the same reason Joel just introduces the movie and hits ‘Movie Sign’: perfect length for the movie (back before they cut them down to fit alloted time). Ratio of joke-per-minute is improving but, unlike “SST Death Flight” (which they were clearly delighted to be riffing), they seem to not be as inspired to assault a movie with humor the least they like or care about it. Still, the prototype 70’s flick that would become a staple of the show during its national run begins here, IMHO.
THREE STARS (grading on the KTMA curve) for both the episode and the ridiculously-dated movie itself. FAVORITE RIFF: ‘It’s a surprisetory!’ (I love it when Joel cracks) :soldier:
#30 – I don’t think so… The whole movie was about a couple of astronauts trying to out that the government was hiding a UFO at Hangar 18. The fact that, at the end the announcer says something about a UFO existing implies that everybody on Earth will now know about it and that the astronauts’ efforts were not in vain. That wraps up the movie.
This is one of KTMA’s best episodes, along with The Million Eyes Of SuMuru and The Last Chase. Definately around Season 1 riffing. Very good episode over all.
Speak of the devil! Gary Collins arrest warrant issued for his fleeing the scene of an accident: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/11/04/tv.host.warrant/. Maybe he was being chased by more of those Bill Bixby-like MIB’s. :pill:
@4 – They were showing Kiss Meets the Phantom, you lucky @$@%(&’s??
(I miss the days of local station movies.) :(
@30+34 – Actually, as Joel points out, it was the last of the legendary Sunn Classic Pictures to show in theaters, which by 1980 had now been reduced to doing cheap narrative movies to stir up paranormal geek-interest rather than pretend to go In Search Of something…
It was the end of an era, although it wasn’t officially the end until they did that cheesy Bible-story show for NBC.
(A quick check of IMDb, however, also shows their hand in “Uncommon Valor” and “Cujo”. I, um…didn’t know that. :shock: )
@Kali: “CROW: Cybernetic Remote Operated Woman. Crow wasn’t happy.”
Actually he was thrilled: “Well, hear me roar! Who made this mess?”
He was only upset when it turned out to be a joke.
Mostly what I remember is how bad this movie was to watch. James Hampton is the only actor that stands out. He played “Dobbs” [?] on F troop and of course the dad on Teen Wolf….It’s apparent that I need to do a KTMA run through and at least get a better idea of how this season laid the foundation of the show.
Speaking of demon dogs, I just watched Robot Vs Aztec Mummy last night. (Or tried, anyway. I like season 1 but what a slog that ep is…) I’m looking forward to the discussion of just what the hell demon dogs are in a few weeks.
I’ve seen the movie unMstied. I’ve seen the version where everyone survives the blast. Which ending was used in the MST version?
I admit I haven’t been watching the KTMA episodes, but I always did wonder where that “What’s Vietnam?” line came from. They used it later in SCCTM and maybe some others; I can’t recall. Did parents in the 1980s need a series of Time-Life books to form the sentence “It’s a country in southeast Asia”?
This was the only KTMA episode I had seen up until recently. I got it back in the tape trading days, in the late ’90’s, as I was buying seasons 1 and 2 from a dude (three to a tape. Glorious, glorious VHS tape!) and I had space on a tape and I chose a random KTMA and this was the one I chose. Not sure why, but now that I’ve seen all the eps up until this one, I have to say that this one is part of the upswing of KTMA quality, but it really lacks from a dull, dull movie.
Gary Collins as our lead hero? Movie, I’m going to have to ask you for your credentials.
After the shortest intro ever, the rest of the Host Segments are top notch. In #1, Crow is acting like a little kid, asking “Why?” and So?” after everything Joel says. But Joel gets really angry, like, call-child-services-angry. This is the end of the exchange:
CROW: “Dad, what’s Vietnam?”
ANGRY JOEL: “That’s it! Go to my footlocker and get my belt!”
CROW: (sobbing) “I hate you forever..”
FED UP JOEL: “I don’t want to hear anymore about it.”
Segment ends and when we’re back in the theater, Servo asks Crow, “How’s it going, Spanky?”
Does Joel spank the bots?
Host Segments #2 and #3 are also pretty funny, #2 having a nice rim-shot at KTMA’s expense, while #3 reveals that Crow is a woman. :shock: Cybernetic Remote Operated Woman. Crow is into the idea, but it turns out to be a joke. He is upset. I find the whole idea upsetting, especially if Joel is spanking a girl-bot.
:shock:
RIFFS:
After the computer screens go all scrambled, Joel says, “They’re never gonna get the Disney Channel now.”
When the space ship is opening up for the first time, fog machine in full effect,
Joel: “Must be letting their dog out.”
Servo: “They’re letting their fog out.”
With the reveal of the bald alien dudes in the ship,
Servo: “Jackie Coogan!”
Crow: “It’s a Tor Johnson festival!”
At one point, Joel calls the spaceship a “Ding Dang Super Ship.” I laughed loud. Not sure why.
After an explosion and things are ablaze, some Callbacks to City on Fire,
Crow: “Hey look, Shelley Winters.”
Servo: “Movie on Fire.”
A callback to Cosmic Princess, when the dudes are peeking into the spaceship,
Joel: “Looks like the Land of Dairy Queen in there.”
Also, I have to mention that I recently bought the movie poster for Hangar 18 at a local second hand store (here in Portland) for $5.00, not because it is an interesting piece (it’s not) but merely because it was a MST movie.
Overall, a pretty good episode. You know, by KTMA standards. Only two more to go!
!
@ 41: This Guy
I’d joke that most Americans would need a book just to explain WHERE Vietnam is, let alone what happened there, but I wouldn’t really be joking, would I?
Daddy, what’s a boondoggle? “Well, it’s sort of like a quagmire.”
I noticed there was an unriffed copy of the film on Google that isn’t so murky as the KTMA version so I sort of multitasked around it. It’s a bad movie but it’s not as annoying and riffable as Capricorn One, I don’t think. I’m sure they could do it but there are a lot of better movies they could choose for Rifftrax or CT. It’s not total hogwash, though. The acting isn’t too bad. The dialogue could certainly be worse. The effects are rinky-dink but not as laughably hokey as the average MST3K movie. Gary Collins is miscast but we’re not talking *Arch Hall Junior* miscast. Darrin McGavin is always fun. Some funny things: the third astronaut is like seventy-five years old. The hitmen shoot at the fuel truck even though gas is spewing out all over them. After the rigged plane crashes you see a couple of the lab techs running around on fire, even though they would have been blown into several thousand smithereens by the explosion. A few opportunities for 80’s riffs. The silly sounding alien language would have made some good fodder. Meh…
You pretty much got all of my comments in your guide Sampo. Great minds think alike.
Sunn pictures did this film and I thought it was only a made for TV movie.
I had seen a lot of Sunn pictures in the 70s. These were almost always “In search of Noah’s ark,” “In Search of Historic Jesus,”
some big foot and ancient astronaut stuff, mainly narration and stock and re-enacted footage. They would interview the director of the “I can’t get a real job in education” institute to back up their claims, but they were watchable films.
James C. Conway was the director of this film and did the poor T.V. version of the Time Machine in the 70s. He has since done a lot of TV work like Smallville and Psych, so this film was not TOTALLY his fault.
A couple of cute riffs . . .
“I don’t recognize that guy. I’ll bet he dies” – Crow (sort of a “red shirt” warning)
You’ve got to have a hayseed farmer” – Crow They are the only Americans who can SEE UFOs when they first land. It must be all the hay.
“He empties cattle for a living” – historical reference to the cattle mutilations that were so common in the 1970s. I guess the aliens learned all the could from cattle insides because they stopped doing it in the 1980s.
Host segment 3 was a good idea, but like so many good ideas in the first year, they just never had a strong finish. No real punch line.
You must remember also that this film was made in the post Water-gate 70s when the government had to be badguys. It was the law.
If you worked for the government then you were power mad and could not be trusted. That is why the original ending. The bad, evil, government had to cover up the only hope for man’s future.
The only problem is that by now the stain of Billy-Jack had made these types of protest films box-office poison so that is why they changed the ending. Is was Sunn after all and they could do what they wanted.
I just discovered after reading this, by accident, that Hangar 18 is available on Netflix for streaming! (Not the MST version, of course) It’s full frame, and quite clean and bright looking!
Like most mst3k flicks you could drive a truck through the holes in the plot. The first and worst is how the astronouts land the shuttle and basicely walk to their cars and drive home!!I mean a little debriefing maybe some kind of medical check might be in order after a space flight?? I guess that’s why it’s on mst3k in the first place. James Hamptons best role was Caretaker in the original “The Longest Yard”. Always hate the scene where he gets burned to death locked in the cell by the pedophile.
@47-Great handle!
A favorite KTMA episode of mine. I saw this as a kid on HBO. It still makes no sense to me that the greatest scientific discovery perhaps of all time would embaress a president rather than give him a boost. Even if he had been an ardent skeptic of UFO’s. Who gave Robert Vaugn the authority to make the decisions he did? What was his job again? Undersecretary of covering up cover-ups of cover-ups of things he had no need to cover up in the first place? Chairman of pointless murders and mass destruction? Great episode.
Dickweed,
You have to remember that this film was made BEFORE the first shuttle flights.
NASA’s original plan was just as it was depicted in the film.
The shuttle would land, then the astronauts would descend down airline style stairs,
wearing Hawaiian print shirts, get into their cars and tell the flight manager that
they would have their reports on his desk by Monday morning.
So, that was the one point they got right.
8-) 8-)