Short: (1955) A teen gang member sours on his life of delinquency after his dad is mugged.
Movie: (1963) A rich, elderly woman wants her doctor to transplant her brain into the body of one of her young captives.
First shown: 12/4/93
Opening: M&tB have their final dress rehearsal for “Love Letters”
Invention exchange: M&tB are The Mads, The Mads are Crow and Tom Servo
Host segment 1: Tom is Weather Servo 9
Host segment 2: Mike demonstrates chin puppetry
Host segment 3: Magic Voice chats with the film’s voice-over guy
End: Crow is Hank Kimball–The Fugitive, Mike reads letters, “Dr.” Frank “consults” with Dr. Fist
Stinger: Spanish for “AAAAAAAH!”
(212 votes, average: 4.14 out of 5)
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• Although the movie is icky, and slows to a crawl in places, there’s plenty to like about this episode: solid riffing and fun host segments. I’m going with “good, not great.”
• The original title of this movie was “Monstrosity.”
• This episode was included in Rhino’s The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 3. In 2011 Shout! Factory re-released it as a single.
• Bill wrote the ultimate sendup of “Love Letters,” called “Hate Mail.”
• Mike, Trace and Kevin (and the rest of the staff for that matter) have surely spent a lot of time around pretentious theater people. They parody them beautifully in the opening.
• This is an inspired invention exchange, as the show almost folds in on itself with self-parody.
• One of the notable mistakes in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide was in the listing of this episode, when they forgot to note that this episode has a short. And what a short it is!
• Incidentally, this short was riffed again by RiffTrax in 2009, and I don’t think Mike and Kevin even realized they’d done it before. Maybe it’s just that forgettable.
• The scenes in the short that take place in the teen hangout are eerily similar to the teen hangout scenes in “Teenage Strangler.”
• The Rhino version only contains one non-spaghetti ball bumper: a pan to the blackboard which gets hit by giant spitball. Maybe there were more in the original episode?
• Segment 1 is the first time Servo’s been in space since the Demon Dog incident, isn’t it? Note the nice sizzle sound effect as Mike touches Servo after he comes inside.
• There was a guy on a local kiddie show when I was growing up in the Philadelphia area that used to do a chin puppet routine, so I was familiar with the concept. Had anybody else encountered chin puppets before this?
• Returning to the theater from segment 2, Mike casually tosses Tom into his seat, much to his dismay. (I assume Kevin was on his back on the floor waiting to catch him.)
• The “old” jokes come fast and furious. My favorite: “Maybe you can take a real long time to write a check somewhere!”
• In segment 3, Magic Voice has her biggest part yet and her first commercial sign countdown in a while.
• Callbacks “So klandinctu!” (Crash of the Moons) Mike (hey how does HE know that?) says ”Trumpy you can do magic!” (Pod People) “Looking for the ‘Manos’ set.”
• At last we learn what the K in MST3K stands for.
• Dr. Fist, last seen in episode 505- MAGIC VOYAGE OF SINBAD, returns to punch Frank yet again.
• One of the biggest controversies between Rhino and the fans (and BBI) arose when this volume came out, without the stinger. Best Brains said they were certain that the master they sent to Rhino had the stinger. Rhino representatives were equally adamant that there was no stinger on the master. Somebody’s lying. We may never know who. In any case, the recent Shout re-release has the stinger.
• Cast and crew round up: Producer Jack Pollexfen also produced “The Indestructible Man.” Associate prod/screenwriter Vy Russell also worked on “The Indestructible Man, as did assoc producer/screenwriter Sue Dwiggens. Score composer Gene Kauer also composed the scores for “Agent for H.A.R.M.” and “The Beast of Yucca Flats.” In front of the camera, Frank Gerstle was also in “San Francisco International. Director Joseph V. Mascelli was cinematographer for “The Incredibly Strange Creatures…”
CreditsWatch: After three eps as a contributing writer, Bridget Jones returns to the list of writers for the rest of the season. Host segments directed by Jim Mallon.
• Fave riff from the short: “And the Suez Canal incident!” Honorable mention: “I’m too noodly!” and “You boys aren’t movin’ the stuff very well!”
• Fave riff from the movie: “The Cat Suite from ‘Carousel.’” Honorable mention: “Well, so much for the ‘landing on your feet’ theory.”
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Tom says ‘Well, there goes that thing.’ Apologies.
I too, love the Electric Company reference. That was a great little show.
As Sampo noted in previous entries, the Brains this season really started getting physical with the Bots in humorous ways. Tom getting struck by a meteor shower was hilarious.
I love Crow’s “Hank Kimball as the Fugitive” bit.
Mike: “Crow, you just set a stool down next to that premise and milked it for everything it was worth.”
One of the more geeky riffs I get a kick out of is just before the Weather Servo 9 skit: “God, I hate Michael Feldman.”
I’m an NPR nerd, and I also hate “What Do You Know”. Its anti-funny.
Dames Like Her #49, it was Bea who had the eye crater, not Nina. But yeah, it was pretty gross.
Considering the scenes featuring nude women held onto slabs with strategically placed straps, it seems doubtful this one was shown at any mainstream theaters when it was first released.
In the beginning of the movie, Crow does his Barney Fife impression as the Night Watchman follows a noise…sidesplitting!
The end credits feature the same classical music that forms the “score” to The Beast of Yucca Flats.
I’m not very well-versed in my classical music. Does anyone know what piece it is?
I rarely watch this episode, and I think it’s just the movie doesn’t move me. The riffing is sharp. That Barney Fife riff, which was a staple of late-CC era MST ads, is a stitch.
Sampo, regarding the single “spitball” bumper, (I’m basing this on nothing but hunch): I think it was removed, either by the Brains or Rhino, much in the same way that there are no inter-movie bumpers (that is, cuts to commercial from the theater, spaghetti logo ball, and back to the theater) in the VHS of Amazing Colossal Man. Whoever is doing the production work might have thought the bumpers were distracting. I could see either party cutting them. (Frankly, ACM is the only one I’ve noticed their absence, and that was a special circumstance… I know most Rhinos have them. A check of release order might help see if this was the original plan, or something that was experimented with. It was just a musing on your part, and I’m turning it into a blue-ribbon panel, fact-finding Truth Commission!)
I could dig out my old, off-air VHS copy and check for bumpers, but I’m positive they’re there.
For next week, Sampo, is your copy of “Outlaw” from the notorious “Radio-Active TV”* airing featuring those San Diego DJs?
*That’s what it was called, right?
Cubby (57) – I think the piece is called “Public Domain Suite” in D minor.
Cubby–oh yes. Skippy’s last stand.
This is quite an enjoyable episode, but the film itself makes “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” look cheerful and life-affirming.
Apologies. I never get my eye craters right! :oops:
Good episode. Not GREAT, but still funny enough to enjoy. Good short, ludicrous film, but hit-and-miss host segments, at least for me. Favorite riffs: “What about juvenille delinquincy? That’s a viable career option.” from the short and “Is there a way we could LIVE and still evade the police?” from the film. And #28 Jeff, I agree wholeheartedly. Those films are an abomination.
Oh, and Mike and Crow’s respective impressions of Laurel and Hardy are quite amusing as well.
Somebody mentioned Dave Coulier’s America’s Funniest People. I seem to recall seeing chin puppets on the Dave Coulier show on Nickelodeon from the 80’s, Turkey TV. Could have been fist puppets though, which were also creepy.
Darthdemona #60: Personally I think Brain That Wouldn’t Die is the more soul-crushing film. Then again, Atomic Brain does have the advantage of coming with the Juvenile Delinquency short.
Terrific ep. I have particular fondness for this one as it was one of the earlier ones I saw.
This is exactly the kind of film I wish they’d riffed more often. Sleazy, sardonic, salacious, but ultimately a snooze, you can’t not have fun riffing a movie this sick. And the Brains rise to the occasion.
The short is fine, too, but my highlights are anything with the cat lady, the mini-operettas, and one of my fav moments in the MSTie canon: Bea, the Brit running back for her eye. I laughed so hard the first time I saw this.
That said, Atomic Brain doesn’t really hold up on repeated viewings as well as, say, “Brain that Wouldn’t Die,” and “Manos.”
A
Not a favorite at all of mine. It’s ok, and I love the opening segment where Mike and the Bots invention exchange is mocking Forrester and Frank, but this was another movie that was just too dark and lacked any potential for good riffs. The Brains as always give it their best but there just isn’t much here to work with.
Stupid movie moment: When the doctor goes out to save No-Brain from Monstro, he grabs her hand, and then the film obviously reverses to show him ‘backing away’ from her.
Nice post! I?d like to wait for you next post.
One word, guys: “NORM!!”
Oh, I forgot to mention, my fave girl in the movie has to be that British bombshell Bea. I mean to quote her, she has the same measurements as Marilyn Monroe, for crying out loud!!
I actually kinda liked the movie. It was just so WEIRD. Doubtless the presence of Mike and the Bots elevated it for me, but any movie that has a woman in a white gown running around with the brain of a cat is okay in my book. Of course the short was awesome too.
One of my favorite riffs came on a close up of Bea (she was the one with the “English” accent, right?) and someone, I think Mike, says, with absolutely NO attempt to put on any kind of accent, “Blimey.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and indulge in
a theory that the three au pairs were not really from Europe.
Can’t put my finger on it but there’s something about the
the English girl’s Oxford accent that…
ah the 50’s.. how many people today would, in an effort to invoke forward movement, intentionally bump the car in front of them more than once? i don’t care how klandinctu your jackets are, you might just get shot. and you have to love the free and open use of an atomic pile and ‘creative’ science in this one. i don’t really know if Ms. March would have still had murderous revenge on her mind as a cat. seems to me her thoughts would have revolved around ‘eat, scratch, eat, sleep, hairball etc.’ but then again i never really probed into my cat’s mind so i guess…. AAAAAKKK!
Not a favorite, but lots of funny stuff going on on top of, honestly, one sick mama-jama of a movie. VERY reminiscent of the stalking scenes in The Brain ThAt Wouldn’t Die. Icky.
The theater sketch is spot on perfect, tho. I need to watch this every time I get wistful about being in plays.
Our of curiosity, does the Shout rerelease have the stinger?
@ #28: Seriously? Jackson’s take had its flaws, but surely does not compare to the rotoscoped Deep Hurting of Bakshi.
Favorite riffs:
“What’s the rush? There’s three hours of zoning stuff first.”
“You’re all from Nebraska. Cut it out!”
“The continental breakfast is at eight and if you hear screaming, don’t listen.”
Oh, and Mike and the bots’ reaction to the kid in the short with the dark beady eyes NEVER fails to crack me the hell up. “He had the blackest eyes….the devil’s eyes.”
Sitting Duck (76), I refer to this line from Sampo:
“any case, the recent Shout re-release has the stinger.” So there you go.
I gotta admit, I was stupidly wondering how this entry had 76 comments already in the span of the mere hours that this was (re)posted. And the fact that all of the early comments had no “likes” was even more confusing…until I realized that the comments were from 2008. OOPS.
I remember I showed this episode to my mom back when I was really getting into MST3K for the first time. I wanted to show her a Comedy Central episode, but all I really had was “Manos” and Volume 3 (The Unearthly, The Sidehackers, and this). And unfortunately, none of those episodes is really a good option to show to someone who’s never seen the show before. Naturally, my mom was bewildered and bored, and still doesn’t think much of MST3K to this day.
This episode is kind of a slog for me. It has its moments (“And she floats gently to her death”), but the movie really takes its sweet time. I admit, though, I do love the moment where it’s about three-quarters of the way through the movie and Servo asks “So where’s the atomic brain?” I kinda have to wonder what these movie producers were thinking when they re-titled some of these pictures. And I do remember practically falling on the floor when Mike barks “You’re all from Nebraska, knock it off!”
I found this movie on Comcast OnDemand once, under its original title, Monstrosity. I tried riffing it alone, but it was too dull even for me.
Shot in ten days in 1958, Monstrosity (as it is also called) wasn’t released until 1964. Producer Jack Pollexfen fired director Joseph V. Mascelli and finished directing the picture himself–uncredited. If some of the names in the credits look familiar, check out “The Indestructible Man. Born in 1901 in San Francisco, California and living 85 years, character actress Majorie Lee Eaton made a speciality of playing old ladies, even when she wasn’t. Another personal favorite movie of mine she appears in is “The Zombies of Mora Tau”. That little gem has a handful of MST3K regulars, including Gene Roth (he’s the sheriff of everything), and Allison Hayes (of Gunslinger, The Unearthly, and The Crawling Hand).
Favorite lines:
Do not adjust your dryer, we control your air fluff.
Hey, don’t tease the corpse.
When you get close to an accent, let us know.
Clara Peller in Rear Window.
Tonight on a very special Grandma Ironside.
It’s “Maggie the Cat” auditions.
[Mrs. March gets out of her wheelchair] Mein Fuhrer, I can walk.
Talia Shire is Squeaky Fromme.
Whoa, how’s the tumbler of scotch?
[Anita, with a cat brain, falls off the roof] Well so much for the landing on your feet theory.
I suggest they placate the old woman with a little Fancy Feast.
[end credits] I’m going to be charitable and just say I hope all these people were forced to do this movie at gun point.
Final Thought: This movie was creepy and disturbing. I give this one 3 out of 5 stars.
This whole episode is worth it just for the Love Letters segment. Boy, our love grows through the ages, doesn’t it? Now, I don’t have to go to Broadway to experience the theater. Thank you, Bots!
Good movie for riffing: barely acting (although the evil triad of Mrs March, Victor, and Dr Squarebody hold their own), really dark subject matter on top of goofy plot and effects. The villains are all really as hateful and perverse as the good characters are dumb; no one has really thought out their plans, because none will work. Press this button, and the house explodes in atomic cataclysm: that won’t draw a little unwanted attention?
And I have to say the gang members have a point: It’s not like they KNEW it was Jamie’s dad; they just beat up a random driver. Who wouldn’t, if he had a neat pen like that? He was taking it way too personally.
77 LanceCorbain (Are you Ricky from Better Off Dead?) I think they were channeling Captain Rbt Shaw from Jaws in his mumbling rant: “Shark’s eyes are like a doll’s eyes…” when they make fun of the teen’s unfortunate face.
If my psycho cat’s brain was transplanted into someone else’s body that person would be yakking all over the carpet, running and hiding under the bed whenever someone comes to the door, and going absolutely nutzoid with greed if offered a blade of grass.
I couldn’t really find where all three of the three “foreign” girls came from, but according to IMDb the “British” girl was from Ann Arbor Michigan. Not quite Nebraska.
I can’t help but wonder, for those that think this is a ‘good’ episode, then what in the holy heck do you think is a bad one? This is one of the worst episodes ever. The movie is terrible (sound/picture-wise) and the whole thing is soooo boring. This was really the nail in the coffin for me, so to speak. It was abundantly clear at this point that the MST3K I knew and loved was over, and not coming back.
I even stopped being anal retentive about recording everything (in ‘SP’ mode, I’m old) and actually missed the short the first time around on this one.
Put it this way – I’d rather watch Hamlet.
I’d rather watch Hamlet too, because at least…well…um, at least there’s…something? The dialogue? Yeah, that’s it.
This is one of the most difficult eps I had to sit through when I launched a (now somewhat stalled) project to watch every episode of every Rhino/Shout collection. Holy crap. I actually started paying bills during the viewing, that’s how excruciating I found it.
It’s hard for me to explicate why. I’d probably have to watch it again to do so, and that is not an experience I want to duplicate.
Trace is truly amazing here: Mocking both of characters he plays from the POV of the other character. The short is fun, but this is a dismal, unwatchable movie. I tried to watch it last night, but only made it to the second host segment. Apparently my brain isn’t atomic… merely coal powered.
I’ve got the Shout re-issue. Not only is the stinger intact, so is that “slate card” at the beginning (Mystery Science Theater 3000, Show 518, Reel 1). The missing non-spaghetti ball bumpers are:
2. Close up on film canister
3. Pan down to notebook
4. Pan over beakers
I haven’t seen this one since I bought the single, but I recall liking it the last time I saw it. Like others, I found it pretty boring at first, but something about it really clicked with me on that last viewing. Maybe it was having a nice, new copy of it from Shout Factory with everything intact, maybe it was because I was just in the mood for it. I think I’m just a weirdo who digs the dark/boring movies (The crime/delinquent ones in particular might actually be my favorites). The riffing over these movies just fits my sense of humor better than some of the more lighthearted ones (although I like plenty of those too). I’m not rating this one right now (I’m trying to watch the whole series in order), but I figure I’d give it a four, MAYBE even a five.
Mitchell “Rowsdower” Beardsley: A bad episode to me is Hercules Against the Moon Men. Dull, repetitive, relentlessly unfunny and irritating (“DEEP HURRRTING” is more painful to me than the actual sandstorm sequence which is made even worse since the riffing comes off as incredibly forced and phony). They must have either been totally uninspired by the film or were having an off week or something (burnout maybe?). Very lazy episode, not even remotely fun. Another one I find lame is The Projected Man. It’s a tad bit better than Moon Men (some better riffs, the Pearl host segments are actually preferable to what Mike and the Bots are up to for once), but the whole “Lembach is staying” (the host segment devoted to this line makes my skin crawl) thing is really just them grasping at straws since the movie clearly had nothing going for it. The movie is just TOO dry in this case. Moon Men was actually goofy enough and should have worked, but the riffing just sucks there.
For me, I’m almost always focusing on the riffs. I have a pretty short attention span as it is, and can only follow the movie if it’s really simplistic or not made incompetently. Atomic Brain is neither of these, so my attention has to go entirely to the riffing and it just works for me. But even this one has a few moments from the movie itself that are memorable and funny on their own (e.g. the initial scene with the three women and their terrible accents). I don’t know what else to say, I mean, we can’t all like and hate the same episodes can we?
Lee Harvey Osmond,
I agree with you about The Projected Man.
But not Hercules and the Moon Men!!
@49
“Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Sexually Aroused Gas Mask” is a Zappa song.
Fred Burroughs-no, I’m not actually Ricky Smith. It’s an avatar.
As to the quote, my friend Matt threw that out from Halloween (between breaths, he was laughing pretty hard) when we first saw this, and I always remember. Sorry.
she’s old…so old…she creaks…she pops…she’s old
In reference to October 2008 comment #49 above, “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask” was actually the title of a cut on “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. We know the Brains were/are big Zappa fans, and there was at least one direct reference to that specific album (followed by “Rrzzz!” apparently the noise a weasel makes when you use it as a razor and it rips your flesh) in the riffing of a film, although at the moment I can’t recall which film it was. But I’m pretty sure someone else will know.
The thing that always bothered me about “The Atomic Brain”/”Monstrosity” (apart from the depressing dullness of the whole thing and its thorough-going misogyny) is Mrs. March’s supposed motivation for the whole brain-transplant enterprise. Her whole life, she says, people have only loved her for her money, but after the brain transplant, people will love her for herself. Really? Isn’t it more likely that any men who “love” her will actually be lusting after the hot young body she inhabits, not for whatever interior qualities that might pass for Mrs. March’s “self”? The whole elaborate body-snatching, foreigner-kidnapping, brain-transplant project is based on a flawed premise! Think things through, you crazy old miser!
Of course, it’s just a show. I should really just relax.
I’m still trying to figure out, after Mike and the bots noted
it, how the atomic doc got a human brain into a cat’s cranium.
It always cracks me up when the old lady backs up out of frame and Servo adds in screaming and crashing down the stairs noises. Hilarious! Yes, I am a simple riff enjoying person.
I’ve always hated this episode, have always found it very very boring. That trend continues…
The Invention Exchange parodies are fun (but boy, are they running on fumes at this point…), the short is pretty good, but the movie itself and the Host Segments are really just bleh… HS#3 with Magic Voice has some chuckles, but the other two offer me nothing… the movie puts me to sleep, I can’t help but zone out. This might be in my bottom 5 Mike Episodes…
RIFFS:
from the short:
Servo: “They flattened him! Oh….”
movie: “Just where are you going?”
Crow: “Crackhouse. Why?
Crow (as old lady): “You boys haven’t been moving the stuff very well.”
–
from movie:
Mike: “Chug it! Finish it! All the way!!”
Mike: “She floats gently to her death.”
–
MST3k: the “k” stands for Karl.
–
bottom tier episode,
2/5
I remember chin puppets from the Sandy Becker show, a New York kids program in the 60’s. I believe one was named Oswald and he would lip-sync to pop songs. My siblings and I thought they were hilarious and we would perform our own little chin puppet songs. Fond memories.
This is one of my favorite shorts. The movie, blah.
Also, forgot to mention. Does anyone remember the old VHS of this episode not having the stinger? Ours didn’t.
Bob Denver did the “chin puppet” as a beatnik rap thing in a movie. I’m 98% sure it was a James Stewart/Sandra Dee film called “Take Her, She’s Mine”. Imagine that on the big screen.
It’s up on YouTube but I don’t have the time to search thru as I post this.
Not only does the Shout! Factory disc restore the missing stinger from the Rhino release, but it also restores the title card before the opening theme song.
The Rhino edition still has the outtakes that do not re-appear on the Shout! Factory release. There are outtakes (unfortunately these are just alternate takes, no poopie) of:
Weather Servo 9 Segment
Love Letter rehearsal
The SOL portion of “invention exchange”
Chin Puppet segment
Magic Voice segment (you can here Frank reading the narrator lines used from the movie)
Crow as Hank Kimbell and letters
Dr. Frank and Dr. Fist
Deep 13 portion of the “invention exchange”
Weather Servo 9 in space
I should like the Love Letters opening. The humor and delivery seem like they are right up my alley. Yet somehow this still falls a bit flat for me.
Okay the “invention exchange” was extremely lame but it does have an interesting meta element. We have Trace playing Forrester as Crow and vice versa. We also have Frank (who once played Servo during the bonus skit on the Gila Monster disc) as Tom Servo playing TV’s Frank. Though part of me would have loved to see the roles reversed and have Kevin play Forrester as Tom and Frank play Crow as TV’s Frank. I think I hurt my brain on this observation.
What about Juvenile Delinquency is the first (and I believe only) short to be revisited by either of the MST alumni groups. Rifftrax did it in 2009. Comparing them side-by-side I like the Rifftrax presentation better. The riffs come faster in their version and there really weren’t any weak ones either.
Missed callback riff during the city council scene of the short: Will somebody please get me some water.
Trace may not get the Hank Kimbell voice perfectly, but he has the mannerisms down.
This was a pretty weak episode. While parts are cute there are very few laugh out loud funny moments.
Favorite Riffs:
Short:
The Young American Films logo is on screen: Tom “Sam the Eagle presents.”
The very old teacher stares down the delinquent group. Crow “You boys haven’t been moving the stuff very well.”
The Weather Servo 9 segment was great. As good as Tom was, Gypsy steals this one with her little comments “don’t die” and “he’s dead meat”
Movie:
Narrator “Where were the live fresh bodies he’d been promised?” Tom “Fresh from your grocer’s freezer.”
Mike “Hey there’s a naked lady in this movie and she’s nude with no cloths on.”
Cat Anita eats the rodent. Mrs. March “she ate it.” Mike “I wanted it.”
Favorite Riffs from the Rifftrax rendition of What About Juvenile Delinquency
Mike upon seeing the delinquent’s emblem “It’s the fearsome electric fried egg gang.”
Mike as the delinquents threaten Jamie’s dad. “Don’t hurt me I have Mitch Miller tickets. Take them. They’re yours.”
Kevin as we here the Dixieland music “I really shouldn’t have let the Dukes of Dixieland rent the spare bedroom.”
Bill as the delinquents enter the diner “Imagine how much congealed gravy is stuck in those window blinds.”
Bill “what we need is a scapegoat”
The very old teacher stares down the delinquent group. Bill “don’t make me rain down on you like a thunderstorm of fists and roundhouse kicks because you will beg for your own death.”
Leo Artunian says:
September 6, 2012 at 5:03 pm
In reference to October 2008 comment #49 above, “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask” was actually the title of a cut on “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. We know the Brains were/are big Zappa fans, and there was at least one direct reference to that specific album (followed by “Rrzzz!” apparently the noise a weasel makes when you use it as a razor and it rips your flesh) in the riffing of a film, although at the moment I can’t recall which film it was. But I’m pretty sure someone else will know.
That was in Killer Shrews when one of the shrews bit the leg of Mario in the basement.