Movie: (1969) In the fifth movie of the long-running Japanese monster series, two boys accidentally hijack an alien spaceship and fly to a dying planet, where they encounter two evil babes and knife-headed monster Guiron. Can Gamera save them?
First shown: 9/7/91
Opening: Crow and Tom are playing “school lunch”
Invention exchange: The Mads show off their racy Rorschachs, Joel has invented a collapsible trashcan
Host segment 1: J&tB sing the Gamera song (with English lyrics)
Host segment 2: Joel’s “sawing a robot in half” trick gets ruined
Host segment 3: J&tB do a pageant about Richard Burton, based on the kid in the movie’s vague resemblance
End: the Gamera song again (with fake Japanese lyrics); meanwhile, Michael Feinstein is headlining in Deep 13
Stinger: “What a monster!”
(148 votes, average: 4.79 out of 5)
Loading...
• Wow, this episode is so much fun. It’s my favorite Gamera outing for sure, and just a really fun MST3K episode all around. It has great riffing, and all the host segments are at least worth a smile. And then there’s the movie itself, a truly zany outing (featuring the inimitable Cornjob) made all the zanier by the hamfisted dubbing. Much fun, and no traffic accidents.
• This episode was included in Shout!Factory’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Gamera Vs. MST3K (aka Vol. XXI).
• Note the MST3K lunch boxes (now no longer available) in the opening segment … Frank has one too!
• I’m not sure what’s funny about Joel’s invention. Seems pretty useful, actually. Oh, and: call your lawyers, Joel.
• Did you notice the season one-style table slap! What happened to the buttons?
• The awful, awful dubbing in the press conference scene early on makes for a gaspingly funny few minutes of riffing.
• References to things completely forgotten: “The New Munsters” and “Superboy.” Sheesh.
• Crow gets roughed up by Joel in the theater after deploying several puns in a row.
• Callbacks: The space ship is “funny flying.” (Rocketship XM) “…so much…about…lately?” (Gamera) “And he’s givin’ it back to you!” (Sidehackers) “Rex Dart” (Godzilla vs. Megalon)
• There’s a funny in-joke when the bots point out a starfield created by putting “a bunch of Christmas light against a wall” and talk about how really cheesy that is. That, of course, is exactly how BBI did it.
• Joel rolls with the punches again: In the theater, as the Gamera song begins, Crow’s arm falls off. Joel just reattaches it and continues. Crow’s arm falls off again in the next segment and Joel pops it back on again. They keep going.
• The lyrics to the song in the first segment kind of restate the premise. I wonder if they were they getting notes from the network asking them to restate the premise more.
• One curious lyric in the song is when, explaining the kinds of riffs they do, J&tB sing: “So we hi-keeba all over the place and talk of a thousand wonderful days.” The first example is a pretty good description of a typical riff, but “talk of thousand wonderful days,” a callback to a line in “Rocketship XM,” has maybe been referenced twice since then. Did Mike (who, the credits say, wrote the song) really think that was a typical example of a movie riff?
• The whole notion of a twin earth on the opposite side of the sun (which we previously encountered in “Stranded in Space”) pops up for a moment in the movie and is then forgotten.
• Tom and Crow come into the theater still wearing their hats from the host segment 2; Joel removes them. Crow has no net for the entire theater segment.
• Another moment from this movie that always has me in stitches is the whole “Hello! Thank you!” routine. A classic case of taking something innocuous in the movie and exaggerating it for brilliant comic effect.
• During the flashback, we get a few minutes of a Gamera movie MST3K didn’t do. (A commenter tells us it’s “Gamera vs. Viras.”)
• One of the kids says, “wait a minute…” and Tom says “You’re not a cop!” Both Tom and Joel express their love of that joke. (A commenter explained that this is a reference to a scene from “High Anxiety” I’d completely forgotten about.)
• Zappa fans loved to hear “Weasels ripped my flesh! Rizzz!!”
• Instant catchphrase: “I’m feeling really good!”
• Vaguely dirty riff: “Wait, touch me here while you do that!”
• The Richard Burton sketch is pretty dumb, but it’s saved by Trace’s great impression. Also, it was definitely written in pre-internet days, when they could have easily looked up info on him (such as that he was born Richard Walter Jenkins).
• Is this the first time Crow has called himself “Crow T. Robot”? Joel seems surprised by it. Also, Joel amusingly refers to himself as “the sleepy-voiced narrator.”
• This is the episode with the memorable “Gamera on the high-bar” moment, later used in the opening. I am a little surprised it wasn’t used as the stinger.
• Toward the end of the movie, there’s a riff in which Tom rattles off a bunch of New York-area railway stations. Gotta figure that was provided by Frank.
• This is also the episode with the infamous “most obscure reference ever”: “Stop her! She’s got my keyboard!” (By the way, it’s often quoted — including by cast members — as “…Mike’s keyboard…” but that’s not what is said.)
• In the closing segment, J&tB sing the Gamera song AGAIN–this time in fake (and mildly racist, it seems to me) Japanese. I’m not sure I get the point, but it’s wacky!
• Mike is hilarious as Michael Feinstein, but wow does he ever hit a sour note at one point.
• Cast and crew roundup: Again, I am not going to repeat all the connections named in previous Gamera movie episode guide entries. Which narrows down the list a lot. The score was composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi (misspelled in the credits), who also gets a credit (though it was probably just a needle drop) in “Zigra.” Similarly, Kenjiro Hirose gets a credit for music and lyrics in both this movie and “Zigra,” when they probably just used the same music.
• CreditsWatch: Trace and Frank are still “guest villians” (misspelled) and Dr. F’s last name is still spelled “Forrestor.” Brian Wright returns for the first of five eps as audio guy. Someone named Carolyn Sloat was a prop assistant for this episode only. For Thomas Alphonso and Tom Henderson, this was their last show as interns. Also, a minor typo: “Gamera in ‘it’s’ [should be ‘its’] many forms.”
• Which brings us to a special treat, courtesy of a MSTie named Lisa Wakabayashi and her mom:
The Gamera Theme Song translated (the Japanese lyrics are, obviously, phonetic. The English lyrics are in parentheses after each line.)
Verse 1
Gamera, Gamera
(Gamera, Gamera)
Ikasuzo, Gamera! Ikasuzo, Gamera! Ikasuzo, Gamera!
(So cool, Gamera! So cool, Gamera! So cool, Gamera!)
Nichi, Getsu, Ka, Sui, Nichi, Getsu, Ka, Sui
(Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
Nikkoh saegiru, Akuma no niji da
(Shadow the sun, evil’s rainbow)
Reitoh kaiju, kurunara koi!
(Frozen monster, dare to march!)
Haneta-zo, tonda-zo. Go! Go! Go!
(Jumped, flew. Go! Go! Go!)
Kaen funsha de yattsukero
(Destroy with jet flame)
Ikasuzo, Gamera! Ikasuzo, Gamera! Ikasuzo, Gamera!
(So cool, Gamera! So cool, Gamera! So cool, Gamera!)Verse 2
Gamera, Gamera
(Gamera, Gamera)
Ganbare, Gamera! Ganbare, Gamera! Ganbare, Gamera!
(Hold out, Gamera! Hold out, Gamera! Hold out, Gamera!)
Getsu, Ka, Sui, Moku, Getsu, Ka, Sui, Moku?
(Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday)
Gekkoh yaburu, satsujin onpa
(Overcome the moonlight, super sonic)
Mach kaiju, itsudemo koi!
(Monster mach, come anytime!)
Hikatta, yoketa-zo. Go! Go! Go!
(Burning bright. Go! Go! Go!)
Kuwaete hanasuna, Fukitobase.
(Bite hard and blown away)
Ganbare, Gamera! Ganbare, Gamera! Ganbare, Gamera!
(Hold out, Gamera! Hold out, Gamera! Hold out, Gamera!)Verse 3
Gamera Gamera
(Gamera, Gamera)
Tsuyoi-zo, Gamera! Tsuyoi-zo, Gamera! Tsuyoi-zo, Gamera!
(So strong, Gamera! So strong, Gamera! So strong, Gamera!)
Ka, Sui, Moku, Kin, Ka, Sui, Moku, Kin?
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)
Kasei ka, Kinsei, dokokano hoshino
(Mars, Venus, any other stars)
Uchu kaiju, nandemo koi!
(Come monsters from the universe!)
Kitta-zo, Tsuita-zo. Go! Go! Go!
(Stabbed, shoved. Go! Go! Go!)
Kaiten jet de, taiatari
(Tackled with circling jet)
Tsuyoi-zo, Gamera! Tsuyoi-zo, Gamera! Tsuyoi-zo, Gamera!
(So strong, Gamera! So strong, Gamera! So strong, Gamera!)
• Fave riff: “We’re from the padding department! Where’s the plot hole?” Honorable mention: “You know, guys, it just dawned on me how weird this film is.”
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
Also, I love when Joel & The Bots make of fun of the two boys when they’re going on about Mach 33, Mach 50, etc. The way Joel sounds(he’s probably pinching his nose)is hilarious. Mocking the Mach Scene?
@Joe Klemm
I do know that at the very least Gamera vs. Jiger was dubbed into English and shown on American TV because I saw that one when I was a kid (and it stuck with me). Now whether it was done by Sandy Frank or someone else I can’t say but I would imagine it was done by Frank since he had done the other ones.
From the “So Happy Together” DVD extra it sounds like KTMA had only gotten the five Gamera films so that’s what the guys originally riffed and they chose to stick with just those five when they re-riffed them.
Besides which, doing five of the same type of movie, even when spreading them out across a season might have already been pushing things so the team decided not to tempt fate and add an extra two.
The best of all the Gamera movies on MST3K and one of my favorite episodes of any kind. Even the kids in this one add to the movie instead of annoy us like all the other “Kenny’s”. This kind of movie is why they created MST3K in the first place.
My fave of the Gamera eps.
I actually like some of the KTMA movie segments better than the Comedy Central ones. In particular, the head shaving and the Guiron slicing Gaos scenes. The honest, apparently first-time, reactions to those ridiculous scenes are great.
#43: What is with the traffic accidents?!
It’s called “characterization.” Sort of. ;-)
SAMPO: I’m not sure what’s funny about Joel’s invention. Seems pretty useful, actually.
Actually, I think the real concern is the fact that Joel said he created a port-a-potty using the same principle…
:giggle:
I own both the Shout Factory MST and NON Mst version of this and have watched it since I was a kid..The Sandy Frank dubbing is so awful compared to AIP ..except that the Sandy Frank version is uncut with Guiron slicing Space Gaos apart. I always though Space Gaos was gool and own the Marmit figure of it..
To add to the 2nd comment..Gamera vs. Viras has our turtle fighting a giant Squid in addition to the bumble bee spaceship…and more stock footage was used in that film too
Great episode with the Gamera tunes…lousy campy Gamera movie that is still fun if you dont take it too seriously
Joels Hair
Joes Knees
Kondo sure gives a great Cornjob
Ginsu Guiron
Therapy oh wonderful therapy
# 14: The song seems to refer to Baragon “evil rainbow, frozen monster” and all that
Yup…definitely my favorite Gamera episode. So wacky and off-kelter in every respect. And the icing on the cake is Mike’s tour-de-force performance in the last segment. He nailed that one right in the bullseye. I can tell that he probably detests Michael Feinstein’s prissy smugness just as much as I do.
“It sort of sneaks up on you. ‘Boo’, it says!”
In Japan the actor who played cornjob became a spokesperson for a popular soda.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB2u-p4jOHQ
I’d like to see Kon Oomura play the lead in a remake of In The Heat Of The Night.
“They call me *Mister* Cornjob!”
Hey, wait, didn’t we already discuss this movie? :)
Anyway, as I said before, I’m rather tickled by Tom, the American kid. He seems vaguely bemused throughout the entire movie; contrary to my original thought, his expression does indeed change from time to time, but I get the feeling the director had to tell him to do it.
And, again, I love when the kids have crashed on the alien planet and Tom, who’s supposedly been tossed around the ship and knocked unconscious, is lying flat on his back, arms at his sides like a robot.
I’m probably being a little too hard on Christopher Murphy, though. If I understand correctly, the Daiei people didn’t exactly have a huge pool of talent to choose from with Caucasian actors. If you were white and could speak passable Japanese, you’d pretty much do, and a lot of lawyers, businessmen and other professionals who happened to be working over there had second careers. I don’t even know if Mister Murphy was even a ‘real’ child actor or just someone a guy on the crew knew.
Also amused since Tom’s American, they try to give him the hep slang, at least in the dubbed version: “Groovy!”
On the other hand, his mother’s threat terrifies me: “If Tom ever comes back, I shall spank him! Thirty times!” It’s the exactness of it that chills me…
Finally got my review on this episode done.
312- Gamera Vs. Guiron
Memorable Riffs:
Servo: “Wait! I said lunch, not launch!”
Servo:
(During a long close-up of Gamera)
Crow:
“I’m done! There’s nothing more I can do! Pan off me!”
Crow:
(During a shot of an elaborate planet set)
“Well, here’s a hundred million yen well spent.
Crow:
“I know, I know. Don’t laugh. They made me in a hurry.”
Servo:
“I bet he listens to Mack the Knife!”
Servo:
“Hey, look! Her biological clock’s going off!”
Crow:
“Cops was filmed on location at the Winchell’s doughnut shop!”
Joel: “You can spank us now!”
Mother: “I’ll spank Tom! 30 times as punishment!”
Servo: “I’m Tom!”
“My legs!”
Crow: “They’re great!”
Favorite Riff:
Crow: “Boy, he had to go like Seabiscuit.”
Comments:
– Before the invention exchange starts, Joel is cleaning the inside of Servo’s head. A rarity to see Servo with the top red cap off.
-About 15 minutes into the first theater segment, Crow’s arm falls off, and Joel puts it back on. What’s interesting is they don’t miss a beat, and continue riffing, like nothing else is happening. I know this happened frequently during the host segments, but I don’t think anything like this ever happened during a theater segment.
-Whenever Joel dances, he seems to always do the monkey. Does he know any other dance moves?
-I’m hoping the constant referring to the alien planet, as “a star” is just a dubbing error. Otherwise, the filmmakers Fail Astrology Forever.
-In Segment 2, we see the other end of Gypsy’s body! Is this the first time they’ve shown it?
-I think this is also the first time (to my recollection) that Crow refers to his “net” as his “hair”
-Missed Riff Opportunity: You know all those triangles on the aliens’ spaceship wall? They remind me of the Triforce. J&TB could have made a “Legend of Zelda” reference, but they don’t.
-During the Richard Burton segment, Servo says, “You laughed your ass off!” I think that’s the most vulgar statement they’ve ever made at this point in the show. It sounds wildly out of place. Also, during this segment “Mannequin” is mentioned again!
Best Segment: The “sawing a robot in half” segment was great. I didn’t see the twist coming at all, really.
Worst Game: The Richard Burton segment goes on too long and is actually pretty boring.
Overall: A good episode. Fun, not great riffing, but a decent episode. Rating is **1/2
You missed a callback in your recap: One of the kids says “I see something funny flying,” to which Tom replies “Sebastian Cabot?” A reference to the “funny floating” sketch from Rocketship X-M.
This episode requires several viewings. Not at the same time though.
@52-From the second Gamera film through Gamera vs. Jiger (aka vs. Monster X) AIP released them direct-to-tv with a dub by Titra studios (who did most of the Godzilla films until about the mid-seventies). When their distribution rights lapsed, Sandy Frank, source of all Sandy Frank films, snapped them, the first film (which had been released previously as Gammera, the Invincible also with a Titra dub and inserted caucasian actors) and Gamera vs. Zigra up for his own distribution package. Why the MST3K crew never went after those other ones, I’ll never know, but Super Monster was out of the question, being comprised almost entirely of stock footage from the previous Gamera canon.
There’s a Hellcats callback in this episode, “Oh no, Akio cubed it; heeney heiney…”
You said the twin earth on the other side of the sun thing was dropped, but Terra is that planet.
This movie is just so damned wacky, and J&tB sink their teeth into it and get everything they can out of it. The Gamera theme song, the Richard Burton kid, stars/planets and traffic accidents, Southern-fried brain-eating space babes, and the inimitable Cornjob! If they missed anything, it’s a Ginsu knife reference to Guiron, but they may have deliberately avoided the obvious.
When Noriaki Yuasa came to G-FEST ’99, there was a toddler in a Guiron jumper costume his mom made for him, and they were both crawling around on the floor. Kawaii!
One more piece of information about Kon Oomura (aka Cornjob): he also appeared in the follow-up to this film, Gamera vs. Jiger, as the mini-submarine building father of film’s main Japanese boy.
@30: Another good example where a too-literal translation in this film makes things weird is the girl calling Akio “brother” all the time (the guys even mention it: “He really ought to tell his sister his name”). The thing is, in Japan, it’s not unusual to call your sibling “brother” or “sister”, but it sounds weird to do it in English. They really should have had her say “Akio”.
Is this the only time they made a “Space Nuts” reference? (the Bob Denver vehicle on the old Kroft Supershow, I think) When they said “Lunch, not ‘Launch!'” That was in the opening to every show, and made me crack up every time. Of course I was probably 6 at the time. Space Nuts reminded me a lot of MST3K: stranded in a spaceship, cheap sets… but only one was funny.
#63 – “You laughed your ass off” is a direct quote from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”. That’s why it’s there.
#71 – IIRC, they used the “Lunch, not launch” line a bunch of times, but I’m not 100% sure.
This is my favorite Gamera episode. Quite goofy.
This is probably the most watchable of the five and fresh in my mind since I watched it yesterday. For a long time I didn’t understand the reference when Crow used a certain voice to say “Don’t start with me Martha” or a similar line. I knew who Richard Burton was but hadn’t seen him in anything. My favorite bit is Gamera doing gymnastics on the horizontal bar.
#63 “Otherwise, the filmmakers Fail Astrology Forever.” I think you meant to say ASTRONOMY. Astrology isn’t science.
Brandon #63: Before the invention exchange starts, Joel is cleaning the inside of Servo’s head. A rarity to see Servo with the top red cap off.
On purpose anyway. :P
Re: Mike in Portland
The “lunch, not launch” riff turns up again during Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
In between Guiron and Zigra was another crazy Gamera movie called Gamera vs. Monster X / Gamera vs. Jiger which like Viras was not a Sandy Frank title..
Jiger is not unlike Baragon except he flies / floats and impregnates Gamera. Yes you read that right…
Its not as bad a Guiron or Zigra but thats not saying much
One thing that seems to be missed here in the discussion regarding translation and dubbing is that the people doing the work not only have to translate the dialogue they also have to try and make it match the mouth movements of the actors. If a direct translation would go on for too long or not last long enough or if the consonant sounds would be too obviously different than those being made by the actor’s lips, then the person dubbing, if they are good at their job, will choose words that make sense but don’t necessarily translate what was originally said. This often means choosing something that is not at all a direct translation of what the actor originally said. In a cheaply dubbed film, direct or poorly thought out translations often result in that syndrome we’ve all made fun of where the actors appear to be speaking out of synch with what is heard.
@30 – I’d always thought the dub Americanized Kondo into “Corndog”, and the Brains misheard it–But sounds like “Cornjob” was the Americanization of “Kon-chan” (as IMDB lists him).
And if there’s any argument, we can just look up the non-MSTed Shout disk of the Gamera series, like we did with the theme song. :)
I finally watched this one the whole way through on Wednesday, even though I’ve been high on Benadryl for my stupid hives (thanks local diner!). This is a rather enjoyable episode, despite it being probably the worst Gamera movie ever. The dubbing is beyond atrocious and one of the reasons why I don’t watched dubbed Japanese monster movies anymore. Just about my entire collection is original, subtitled Godzilla and Gamera (this episode and Zigra).
I have the original version of this movie and the speech given by Dr. Shiga is no less painful than in the MSTied version. He pretty much says the same thing. Akio is still obsessed with traffic accidents.
The monster Guiron looks like it was made by the director’s son. And, all of a sudden, there’s a Space Gaos? Really? Talk about not having any decent ideas. Was this one a Sandy Frank Production? I don’t remember seeing any mention in the credits. Also, I’m not surprised about the translated Gamera song being real lame. I’ll stick with the MST3K version. It’s a lot funnier.
Gamera is really lame here. He does his Mary Lou Retton (sp?) impression and always seems to end up on his back more times than a pro wrestler. I love city-destroying, fire-breathing, killing innocent civilians Gamera. Not the “protector of childern” that he is supposed to be in this movie.
By the way, who the heck are Richard Burton and Michael Feinstein??? I never heard of either of them before this episode.
#71
They made another refrence to Space Nuts in Santa Claus conquers the Martians.
@Laura (#79)
Richard Burton was a Welsh-born actor who gained much acclaim for his stage and film work, and was well-known for his powerful voice, well-suited for Shakespeare. He was also notorious for his hell-raising behavior off-stage and his stormy relationship with actress Elizabeth Taylor, whom he met while making “Cleopatra” and whom he married twice. They starred in several movies together; the one quoted in this episode is “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?”, which is usually regarded as their best work. You might also want to check out his work in “Where Eagles Dare” (a great action movie with Clint Eastwood), “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” (a bleak but powerful spy movie) and “1984” (a chilling turn in his last film appearance).
Michael Feinstein is a singer and musician primarily known for his nightclub and cabaret appearances, as well as his affinity for older American standards, particularly in the musical theater. I’m not as familiar with his career, so you might want to research this yourself.
Hope this helps…
In the wonderful Michael Feinstein bit, watch Frank and Forrester when Mike gets to “boo it says”. They are both working manfully to keep from busting up.
Fantastic piece.
I think the line ‘You’re not a cop’ is simply because the kids are eating donuts at the time. They made a bunch of cop/donut jokes in this episode.
As said earlier, Gamera on the bars was never in the opening credits. It should’ve been, though.
I’m running out of ways to say that I’m only “meh” about these Gamera episodes. This one is another 3/5 for me.
As I pointed out in the KTMA08 thread for this movie (and as others have pointed out above) this movie has the WORST. DUB. EVER. It is an awkward-pause-a-thon.
Yeah, this movie is goofy but it also has flashes of goofy violence. Guiron reflects a lazer beam off his noseknife which cuts off (not)Gaos’s leg and then Guiron CUTS OFF (not)GAOS’s HEAD before he finishes him off by SLICING UP HIS BODY. Wow. Pretty wacky gore, it’s not disturbing unless you’re upset at the sight of mangled rubber monsters.
This episode DOES have the “hello/thank you” section of the movie/riffing which is great, and there is also the infamous Cornjob, but other than that. . . .meh.
The Invention Exchange and Host Segments are very serviceable and workman-like, good but not great. I don’t care for the Michael Fienstein bit at the end; I don’t really know who he is nor do I care. I am glad The Mads decided the kill him though.
Lemme be clear that by no means do I dislike the GAMERA episodes of Season 3; they’re good and enjoyable but they don’t reach a level 4 (Fugitive Alien) or a 5 (Daddy-O) level for me. Still though, as has been said before, even a merely “good” episode of MST3K is WAAAAAY better than almost anything else of television right now.
RIFFS AND THINGS:
Crow: “I’ll show her. I’m gonna grow up and break up The Beatles.”
during the scene with the little boys awkward crotch touching,
ALL 3, (disapprovingly) : “Hheeeeyyyyyyyy!!”
Servo: “I’ll pick him up when he’s 21. Thank you.”
Joel: “Shut up and keep driving. And Thank You.”
Joel really, really grosses me out when he mentions the flavor combo of “soy milk and pineapple juice.” ICK!!
.
Let’s all try to have less traffic accidents out there, now. Hello, thank you.
Gamera is really neat, Gamera is filled with a good 3/5.
This was a favorite of myself and my best friend when we were roomates and watched MST together. I got in the habit of putting my hands on my hips and declaring, “My name is Cornjob”. My friend would finish by saying, “Master of Darkness”. In time he started calling me Cornjob (not all the time), and it became my nickname between the two of us.
We’re no longer friends, but when I had to pick a name to use for this site Cornjob was the obvious choice. I allways loved the dadaist absurdity of of the word Cornjob, and the idea of it being a name just adds to it. And Cornjob the man has a likable goofiness that I’m drawn to.
There’s so much to say about the movie and the episode, but I think most of us agree that this one hits on all cylinders and hits hard.
One observation about the whole planet/star confusion. I’m assuming that this is a translation issue where the dubber just learned the wrong meaning for the wrong word or looked it up wrong and then kept repeating the mistake. I wonder if this is an easy mistake to make when translating Japanese to English. If so, that would explain why in the Fugitive Alien films the homeworld of the Valnar Raiders is called ValnarSTAR instead of ValnarPLANET. Just a thought, but it always bugged me that their planet was called (name of dominant species)-star, and not planet. To quote Tom, “It’s a PLANET!!”
Cornjob, I always wondered the same thing. But check out Spalanzani’s comment @30; he discusses the whole “star” vs “planet” issue thoroughly, and it explains a lot.
Good to know how you chose your Satellite News name, too. Cornjob is one of my favorite MST characters, exactly because of his good-natured goofiness.
I think I’ve cracked the traffic accidents conundrum:
Akio is the reincarnation of Joe Doakes’s guardian angel.
In response to some comments here I feel I should point out that sometimes Joel and the ‘Bots are scripted to deliberately mishear things said in these movies for the sake of a joke. Whether or not they heard “Kon-chan” correctly or incorrectly is almost irrelevant, even if they heard it correctly if they thought they could get a good running gag out of it for the show then they are going to script themselves “mishearing” it the way that works best for jokes in the show. There are plenty of examples in other episodes where they hear something the way they want to or pretend to misunderstand dialogue, plot elements, etc. for a joke even though the audience and the writers both I’m sure are able to understand what was actually said or done with a little effort. They’re pretending to be confused to be funny, it’s a comedy show.
It’s like in Warrior Of The Lost World when they can’t “remember” the name of actor Robert Ginty throughout the entire episode. Of course they knew his correct name, it’s on the credits of the movie, they are making a joke out of feigned disinterest and ignorance. Though amusingly not all the fans watching the show understood that joke either. At a Conventio-Con someone stood up at the panel session and asked “what WAS the name of The Paper Chase Guy,” to which one of the cast members pointed out to them rhetorically, “Didn’t you watch the movie? It was on the credits.”
Remember, repeat to yourself it’s just a show…
Just to clear things up, “My name is Cornjob!”
I hate to admit it, but I have never seen Godzilla vs Megalon (don’t think I ever caught it on tv when it aired back in the day, never bought Vol 10, and its impossible to get this one on YouTube since it seems it is taken down instantly when people try to post it), so thank you for explaining that “Rex Dart Eskimo Spy” is a reference to that one, because its been driving me crazy every time J&TB say that and I am thinking “What the heck are they talking about?!?!”.
@Mr. B(ob): Well, I don’t think anyone was really complaining about the use of “Cornjob”. Personally I just wanted to point out what was actually being said, because I don’t think it’s particularly obvious. I know well enough that Joel/Mike and co’s reactions to things are largely scripted in advance and that they often feign ignorance for the sake of a joke. I’m sure they didn’t actually think the characters were saying “Cornjob”, but merely thought that would be a funny thing to call him. At the same time though, I doubt they knew what the characters were actually calling him or understood what the whole “don’t call him Kon-chan, his name is Kondou” conversation was about. Why would they? This was before you could just google stuff, and before the increased international popularity of manga and anime made stuff like “chan” more well-known in the US (not that it’s especially well-known even now). Heck, even knowing about “chan”, I never figured it out until someone told me. So I think there was probably genuine confusion there.
I recently got the box set and watched all of the movies. This one is by far the best, especially since the movie is the worst of the five. It has the worst dubbing of any movie I can remember seeing. Awkward mid-sentence pauses every five seconds for five mintues straight, plus most of the voice actors probably didn’t have any actual voice acting experience beyond: Hey I work at a dubbing studio, do you want to earn some money. Alot has been said about everything, so I’ll only make mention of one other thing: Guiron’s death. I know movies fudge the effects of explosions on human flesh, but the missile blowing up at Guiron’s head and then not harming his face of knife at all, but blows him in half. GOD MY BRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!
Late to the party, great set and I agree that Guiron is the best of the lot. Not much to add that has’nt been covered.
I do love to double feature this film with Godzilla vs Megalon. Zilla has its MOST anoying kid ‘Roxanne’ while Gams has the more tolerable kids. Zilla has ‘Rex Dart, Eskimo Spy’ and Gams has Cornjob. Zilla faces off with a goofy giant cockaroach, Gams throws down with a goofy giant hatchet faced pig. Zilla has the Jet Jaguar anthem and Gams the Gamers song, natch. Last but not least; Zilla has the running drop kick and Gams parael bar routine. Lots of fun.
All the nitpicking of the Richard Burton pageant seems to be missing the point of the segment, which (at least to me) is evoking a poorly-done and unresearched school presentation, hence Joel’s terrible delivery and lack of knowledge of Burton facts.
I wonder what the king is drinking tonight.
I wonder if the king will get stinking tonight.
One of the good dead ones.
Regarding Akio’s lumping traffic accidents in with the evils of the world, one question:
Where’s Akio’s father?
Question about the “Most Obscure Riff Ever”: They said it refers to an incident where Mike’s girlfriend left him and stole his keyboard on the way out. But did she steal the keyboard to his computer or steal his electric piano keyboard? I’ve got to assume it was an electric piano keyboard as stealing a computer keyboard isn’t very useful unless you steal the computer along with it.
Gamera Vs. Guiron passes the Bechdel Test. While conversations involving the two moms and/or Tomoko are about Akio and Tommy, the space chicks have multiple non-male conversations.
Talk about your sloppy dubs. Adjusting for the different sentence structure in Japanese is always tricky. But during the scientist’s spiel at the beginning, it’s like they weren’t even trying.
Geez, nary a, “Hai-Keeba!” when we see Cornjob practicing his kendo.
Tragically, the whole star/planet confusion over the translation of hoshi still occurs. The most recent I’ve encountered happened in the 2014 anime series Nobunaga the Fool, which involved one of those concepts (in this case, Oda Nobunaga teaming up with Joan of Arc and Leonardo da Vinci) that looks awesome on paper but falls flat in execution. Anyway, the setting involved two planets, one reminiscent of Sengoku era Japan and the other of (mostly) Renaissance era Europe. These planets were referred to as the Star of the East and the Star of the West. However, that was for the simulcast, where translations can be a bit rushed. It’s possible that it was corrected for the DVD/Blu-Ray release.
So can anyone who has seen the uncut version of this film tell us if they explain why Akio is so obsessed with traffic accidents?
I went and looked up Kon Ohmura (which is how it’s spelled on IMDB) and, though he’s well into his eighties, he still getting steady work, primarily in a TV movie series called Red Dead Wagon.
References to things completely forgotten: The New Munsters.
The weird thing is that it had a longer run than the original Munsters.
fish eye no miko #70: Another good example where a too-literal translation in this film makes things weird is the girl calling Akio “brother” all the time (the guys even mention it: “He really ought to tell his sister his name”). The thing is, in Japan, it’s not unusual to call your sibling “brother” or “sister”, but it sounds weird to do it in English.
It was even weirder in Fullmetal Alchemist, where they kept Alphonse calling Edward “brother” in the English dub, even though it’s set in an alternate Europe.
dsman71 #76: Jiger is not unlike Baragon except he flies/floats and impregnates Gamera.
Wait, so Gamera’s a girl?!?
David J #99: I’ve got to assume it was an electric piano keyboard as stealing a computer keyboard isn’t very useful unless you steal the computer along with it.
It is if you accidentally spilled Coke on your own.
Favorite riffs
It’s the goofy twisted man Mom said we shouldn’t talk to.
I think it’s beyond naughty.
I’ll show her, I’m gonna grow up to break the Beatles.
Another budget-minded plot twist here.
We cannot answer, because we do not exist.
“Where are the others, then?”
Dea- uh, downstairs.
Cops is filmed on location in the Winchell’s doughnut shop.
I’m gonna jump! Don’t try to stop me!
It’s okay. I planted a bomb on her.
Kids’ brains always taste better when they’ve been thinking about doughnuts.
Shave and lobotomy, two bits.
Something smells good… Oh, that’s me!
If they come back, I’ll spank Tom, thirty times as punishment.”
I’m Tom. Spank me.
You know, this is just like Hamlet. Everybody dies.
There are many parallels to… What are you talking about?
I saw Gamera kissing Santa Claus.