Movie: (1955) Delinquent teens on the run hold a farm family hostage.
First shown: 1/15/94
Opening: M&tB are escaping
Intro: Dr. has invented mace mousse, the escape plan fails
Host segment 1: M&tB salute the golden age of the “doughy guy”
Host segment 2: M&tB create the first deli in space
Host segment 3: M&tB present a commercial for Mystos
End: Tom delivers some letters; Frank is “Doughy Man” but Dr. F. sprays him again, again and again…
Stinger: “TURN IT OFF!”
(162 votes, average: 4.38 out of 5)
Loading...
• For those who missed the note last week, I am skipping episode 521- SANTA CLAUS for the time being. I will get to it around Christmas. (One alert reader noted that THIS episode is also a holiday movie — the events happen on Thanksgiving!)
• This episode is included in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. XXXIII.
• This movie has a great opening half hour and pretty exciting last 20 minutes. Unfortunately, it also has a deadly 40 minutes in the middle. The segments are hit and miss, with a wonderful finish. All in all, it’s in the fair-to-good range.
• Mike’s jumpsuit, which has been green since he became host, is suddenly tan in the opening segment, then reverts to green for the rest of the episode.
• Invention exchange fadeaway watch: The mace mousse seems to be a genuine invention. Frank is hilarious, by the way. Mike’s still busy escaping–though he does CALL it an invention!
• Non-spaghetti ball bumpers: pan to beaker; closeup on datebook.
• As the opening begins, Mike is pulling something off the wall that he says “we’re gonna need.”
• Movie observations: Why doesn’t Jane save herself and rat out the guys? She HATES them! They tricked her! What loyalty does she owe them? I don’t get it. Also, an example of stupid script writing: The matron asks the feuding inmates: “Who started this?” What real matron would bother? Has that EVER worked?
• Segment 1 was an instant hit and within hours the MSTie internet was bursting with tributes to doughy guys. And as a doughy guy myself, I enjoyed it. Mike really belts out his part.
• Segment 3, of course, riffs on Mentos commercials that had become a regular feature of the episodes of late. By the way, Trace, who famously has trouble carrying a tune, does pretty well singing the Mystos song.
• Callbacks: “Mitchell!” Of course, there are too many callbacks to count in segment 2. “Want some?” (Daddy-O) And “Thank God we have Radar!” and “Why don’t they look?” has already joined the rotation.
• Mike carries Servo by the neck when they enter the theater after segment 2. He doesn’t seem to mind.
• Of course this episode also gave us the classic line: “He’ll never touch you, Terry, you’re dirt.” The Brains apparently really liked because it was used many times thereafter.
• Somebody emailed me about this the last time around and I have still not been able to get a satisfactory answer. There is a quick shot of Ben and Jane sitting on the basement steps, and Mike’s riff is: “I like Wade, he’s just not a dancer.” What’s that from?
• The movie shows an obelisk and Mike (I think) says “The Roddy McDowall monument!” Um, huh? If they’d said “The Milton Berle monument” I’d get it. Was Roddy known for his, um, endowment? (Last time around, several commenters confirmed that he was.)
• Just like in 319- WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, this movie’s climax happens at L.A.’s Griffith Observatory — quite a remarkable jump, considering that the rest of the film supposedly takes place in the Midwest.
• The mace mousse bit at the end just gets funnier and funnier. It’s very reminiscent to the “Daddy-O” ending.
• Cast and crew roundup: Producer Sam Katzman also produced “The Corpse Vanishes.” In front of the camera: Sydney Mason was in “Revenge of the Creature.” Larry Blake was in “Beginning of the End.” Robert Bice was also in “Invasion USA,” George “doughy guy” Cisar is also in “Attack of the Giant Leeches” and Sydney Mason was also in “Revenge of the Creature.”
• Creditswatch: Host segments directed by Trace Beaulieu. Andrea DuCane returns to do hair and makeup for the final three eps of the season. The title of “Manager of Business Affairs,” which appeared on the credits at the beginning of the season, appears for the last time in this episode, along with the person who held the title, Heide A. LeClerc-Becker.
• Fave riff: “You’re gonna have to get in line. Couple o’ cows ahead of you.” Honorable mention: “I will not be ignored, Ben. Hold please.”
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
The mace Mousse IMHO “the” funniest host segment by the Mads. The relentless attacks on Frank are hilarious!
Just remembered another bit I liked…the fight in the observatory at the end and the odd reactions of the hero getting punched.
Booiii-iii-iiing!
One of my least favorite episodes. Other than the host segments and the line “He won’t touch you, Terri, you’re dirt”, this episode is just not watchable for me. Again, no fault of the Brains as they do their best with a crappy product, but this one was just too dark I guess, full of cliched dialogue and settings and a predictable plot.
*Riiing*
“THERE’S THAT SOUND AGAIN!”
“WHAT DOES IT MEAAAANNN??!”
Boring movie, but lots of great riffing in this one.
By the way, I quite enjoyed the cops who clearly have no regard whatsoever for the law – some guy selling chicken feed, so they start threatening him and demand he opens the trunk. Horray for illegal search and seizure.
Then again, this was supposed to be in California, so I guess that’s CHP at their best.
On the Roddy McDowall issue: I guess they couldn’t have got away with a Ron Jeremy reference here. :lol:
ah, shame shame, silver…
Just finished watching this one for the first time and though someone already pointed out the radar callback, though I believe there was also the infamous Daddy-O ‘Want some?’ when they’re in the house.
I found this one pretty amusing, especially with all the Bible riffs, probably my fav line of the movie would be ‘Try Deuteronomy, that’s always a hoot’. Also the bit from I believe Elijah that Tom mentions where he calls some bears out of the woods to kill some youth that were calling him Baldy. Also: ‘Just…one…page’.
Also of mention, the response to said famous dirt line — I’m more like topsoil :p It still seems odd that the girl would wig out like that over the tv report suddenly, as if someone might hear and come to her rescue?
The riffing is pretty amusing I guess, but man-oh-man…like “Kitten With A Whip”, I just CANNOT take this movie! Like someone else previously mentioned, I don’t like movies that make me feel “bullied”, and it annoys me to no end when perfectly sensible characters allow themselves to be victimized over and over again by a couple of mental midgets. Especially when, guns or no guns, they OUTNUMBER their captors by at least two-to-one, and are repeatedly presented again and again with the opportunity to gain the upper hand…but they just sit there. And while I SHOULDthe wildly over-the-top performance of the male hoodlum should
oops…accidentally hit “return”….anyways….
while I SHOULD find the wildly over-the-top performance of the male hoodlum amusing, instead, it just makes me want to hurl a brick through the screen.
Okay so the invention exchange is definitely half dead and that is a thought that makes me sad. I loved it. That said probably should have gone along with the Gizmonics name with Joel. (I guess I can understand an argument for phasing it out the way they did as a form of transition.) With that said, unlike the previous episode this escape attempt is well sold. The costumes on the Bots are great and Gypsy’s Swiss boarder contacts are a nice touch. Crow is lucky Mike didn’t really punish him for his mistake. Salmon filet indeed.
Meanwhile Forrester’s invention, and yes this is a full-fledged regular Mads invention (if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck), is great. This is yet another shining example of the chemistry Trace and Frank have. Forrester is in fine evil form and Frank is selling comic pain here. And I love the mace mousse “flavor” name: Satan’s Jockstrap
I wish Mike wouldn’t have cut off Crow’s Star Wars read of the opening crawl. I would have liked to seen where he would have went with it.
Did you catch MiSTie “favorite” and Comedy Central voice over guy Penn Jillette’s name in the list of doughy guys?
Mike doing the backing vocals/effects for the Dough Guy song is strange. There are definite Joel elements in that performance.
My favorite sandwich from the S.O.L.’s deli: the Manos Hand of Fate Ruben with extra zesty secret sauce.
I’m real surprised this movie never had a James Best riff or Killer Shrews callback. This Ben character is a dead ringer.
There’s not much more to say about the Mystos sketch. They really capture the spirit of the Mentos commercials. Saturday Night Live couldn’t do any better with one of their parody commercials.
So the discussion four years ago gave a lot of attention to the films layout of some action in the beginning, forty minutes of slower scenes in the farmhouse and action at the end. In fact it took a lot of flack for that. I say so what? The riffing was very solid throughout so who cares what type of scene the riffing is playing over. In fact the riffing and host segments were both so solid I’m putting this episode in my top 5 Mike episodes all time. There I said it and I’ll say it again if I have to. But again, I’ve always felt these black and whites provided more hits that misses for the Brains.
Not only do we get a Daddy-O callback in the movie riffing in this episode but also we get the callback to the interrupted credits from Daddy-O as we return to Deep 13 several times for repeated Satan’s Jockstrap attacks on Frank.
Favorite Riffs:
Grandma “Where were your parents?” Terry “Six feet under.” Mike “Oh they were miners.”
Terry “The only thing I read is the comics. I need laughs.” Crow as Grandma “Deuteronomy is a hoot.”
Ben “Somebody wanna get the door? I’m loaded down.” Crow as Terry “You do it, I’m holding a gun.”
Cop car pulls up. Crow “Relax they’ll never fit through the trellis.”
Terry tries to kiss Ben in the barn. Crow sings “workin’ on a Sex Farm.” [Best Spinal Tap riff yet in the history of the show.]
All sing the bunny hop song as everyone quickly file out the house.
Crow as cop during the action sequence “Uh-oh, something to see here.”
Crow as Mike Denton cries over Terry “Go ahead and let it out. Have a teenage cry-wave.”
Much like Jane the down trodden heroine of this movie i hope that if the police or other authorities are looking for me, they use my grainy b/w bikini picture for identification. Strange movie but definitly one of the better juvie delinquent genere.
and yes i AM a male, but why can’t a real guy have a artsy two piece swimsuit shot in his scrapbook?
“Luckily, I took a course in observatory maintenance!”
I wonder how many takes Trace blew when he was demonstrating the Mace Mousse. It certainly couldn’t have been easy keeping his lines straight as Frank carried on.
@ #38: Seeing the rights-acquiring magic Shout has worked since you posted that, it nows sounds overly pessimistic.
As far as the Wade line goes, I don’t think it’s a direct quote, more like a teenage girl lamenting that she and her date are the only ones not dancing at the sock hop? Sort of like when they’ll come into a scene of a lady on the phone and have her saying “So I told Marge, and that’s when my troubles at bridge club started…”
Great sketches on this one, but gah! this movie cheeses me off, as you pointed out, for Jane just going along with it all. Almost as irritating as John Forsythe in Kitten With A Whip. Open door right there, but just can’t leave. Very irritating, and probably why I haven’t watched this one very much.
But yes, the Mace Mousse just gets funnier and funnier. Great outtake on Poopie, too-“A package? For me? It’s not my birthday….”
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who has issues with these types of movies. Why do these people let themselves be pushed around? I’ll tell you something, if that farm was in Kansas, those punks would’ve gotten several shotgun blasts right to the face (I live in Kansas, by the way).
I used to think it was the injustice of threatening & hurting innocent people that bugged me about this movie (and especially Kitten with a Whip), but I think it’s more so the utter incompetence & stupidity of the innocents. Spending an hour of a movie enraged at fictional characters/events is just not entertaining.
That said, the host segments where FANTASTIC. I might have to edit a copy of my episode to just have the host segemnts.
Great episode but it really dies in the farmhouse! I won’t even get into all the times the hostages could have overwhelmed the kidnappers at said farmhouse. Reading the comments, I am now even more mad that Griffith Observatory was closed when I was in LA last year or else I could have seen the site of the exciting conclusion of this movie. My copy of this has an amusing Oops! moment from Comedy Central where one of Penn’s cursed voice overs that usually aired over the credits at the end of the show aired over the theme song. A lot of great lines in this episode, even now “What does it mean?” is still a good catch phrase for when the phone rings. Other favorites:
My favorite of the biblical riffs, when grandma is opening her bible, Servo reads the inscription “Lots of love, Moses.”
“Nice hinder.” “Thanks Dad.” “I mean the girl.”
“Youth is better, old is stupid!” The whole Mystos segment was hilarious as most MSTies were sick to death of those stupid commercials back in the day.
“Society didn’t give me enough bullets.”
The whole observatory maintenance routine.
Why doesn’t Jane do what makes sense? How many sheltered teenagers (remember, she’s supposed to be younger than the actress looks) caught up in a crisis do? She went along with the other two because she had absolutely no clue what to do on her own. Frankly, she gave the impression of someone who could be flummoxed by a revolving door. ;-)
But seriously, she was probably used to letting others run her life. Some people have that sort of reaction in crises. Plus Terry’s supposed to be her friend, sometimes people find that sort of attachment difficult to just cut, especially in movies and TV.
Anyway, Terry is obviously cagier and more streetwise than Jane and probably manipulated her fairly well in the OFFSCREEN sequences. ;-)
Although it might’ve been nice to have this as a sort-of explanatory note for why Jane escaped from the matron and car with Terry and Mike, from Terry: “The cops didn’t believe you before, what makes you think they’ll believe you now?!” OSLT.
As for why she didn’t tell the cops everything she knew the first time (Terry specifically says this during the “towel scene”), maybe that’s a holdover from how some kids think “squealing” is NEVER acceptable, like in that “Right or Wrong” (?) Rifftrax short.
#67 – Oh God the Mentos commercials. If you weren’t around or weren’t watching Comedy Central, you have NO IDEA how annoying those commercials were. Well, I’m sure you can YouTube a few, but for maximum effect, you need to watch them, oh, 30 or 40 times in a row. That should give the right effect. To this day I have never eaten a Mentos and I never will. Kind of the reverse effect intended by saturation marketing.
I recall really enjoying this movie. I like the guy who plays the lead hood – he’s a fun actor. You can tell he was a real little guy. Can’t remember his name and don’t want to bother to look it up. He’s in Missile to the Moon, also playing a violent hood, although he’s definitely more violent in this movie. Check out the Rifftraxed version of Missile for maximum enjoyment.
I also just really enjoy these 50s movies. It doesn’t matter that the hostages are so stupid. I just really love the gestalt of cheap 50s movies.
Oh, and I think this movie would easily win the “most phonily moralistic” award. Yes, quote all the Bible verses you like, you hypocritical filmmakers, but we ALL know just exactly how much you enjoyed pointing the camera at the numptious Terry. Come to to think of it, the only movie I’ve seen that’s even more phonily moralistic is Make Them Die Slowly.
This has some good riffs,but the movie itself could’ve been a lot better.I mean,what was the point of Ben being a war hero if he DIDN’T DO ANYTHING through the whole movie? He had a few chances and he even got outwitted by Terry in the barn.He couldn’t knock her out with something and then go after Mike?? Plus,why did Jan’s mom not believe her daughter? I know,maybe I’m reading too much into this,but it makes it frustrating for the viewer to watch characters acting stupid,especially when this is suppose to be a drama about juvenile delinquency.This is a bad movie and Mike and the bots do a good job with it.
I’m confused by people who say “this episode is unwatchable except for this one riff”. Really? You only liked one riff in the entire episode?
Great Ep. Yes, it spends a lot of time in a gray farmhouse, but we have M&TB to keep us company. And the plot is slowly developing tension, not like Radar SS where people are walking in and out of the same rooms over and over. I love the Bible riffs, I keep wondering if the passages read in the background by Pops were meant to be foreshadowing or ironic or something; I know at one point it’s the Love chapter (1 Cor. 13) where it says, “I thought, spoke like a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Implying the thugs are still just homicidal children.
I don’t get the excitement about the many phone riffs. The source of the tension when the phone rings is: it’s a party line (many houses sharing one line) and they have to listen to hear if it’s “their ring” pattern, then they must answer it. That’s why they are so attentive to the ringing and have to wait for the 4th or 5th ring to answer. As is demonstrated in Giant Gila Monster, when Chase eavesdrops on the Sheriffs call on their party line.
fave riff: Clara the ‘dream warrior’ sequence when Terry is napping. “I entered your MIND, child…”
Deuteronomy IS a hoot.
I actually think this was one of the better Season 5 Mike episodes. Outlaw, this one and Village of the Giants are about the only ones I thought were pretty funny. Doughy guy song and Frank as him were excellent. Actually wouldn’t mind this one on DVD.
>>>what was the point of Ben being a war hero if he DIDN’T DO ANYTHING through the whole movie?
It was biographical information. It didn’t NEED to have any deeper meaning. I’m sure there are several war heroes in real life in whose real lives their war hero status has no bearing whatsoever. Shrug.
#35
Trivia note: Sheriff T.J. Geronimo in “Final Justice” also drank milk for the same reason.
Incidentally, in case anyone’s interested, the guy who played Mike was also in “Missile to the Moon” (as a pretty much identical character), which was riffed by Rifftrax.
ADDENDUM:
In “Missile to the Moon,” the Mike character talked a fellow prisoner who was only WEEKS away from being released into joining him in a prison break, so maybe there’s just something about that actor that makes his co-stars play their characters as really, really stupid…
Mike was played by Tommy Cook, who was pretty well-known as a child actor in movies, and was all over TV.
Say what you will, but this movie is 40 Minutes of Hard-Driving Living Room Action! I think all of the host segments are brilliant in this episode!
“I lost my spot…now I’ve got to start over! In the beginning, God created…”
“Let me watch her die! I want to make faces at her as she writhes in pain!
Ah, “Teenage Crime Wave”–the teen exploitation flick that thinks it’s “Playhouse 90.” The second act in the farmhouse is a great example of a movie that overreaches itself–it’s supposed to be taut drama about a nice old farm couple terrorised by gun-wielding hoodlums, but it completely falls apart when Ben the War Hero shows up and is worse than useless. As Crow (I think) points out, he even missed hand-to-hand combat class in basic training–and this guy helped defeat the Nazis? For me, the wheels come off this movie completely during Terry’s attempted seduction scene in the barn–even without the cow commentary, it’s so clumsily written and shot that it deserves nothing but howls of derisive laughter.
Maybe this is another candidate for “most underrated episode”–the more I think about it, the more impressed I am with it. Although very little happens during the long second act, the riffs more than make up for it (the running phone and bible gags alone make this a top-tier episode). Plus, the whole observatory sequence is priceless. And, of course, the host segments are all great. I still find myself giggling in anticipation during the final credits–maybe *this* time is the last time we’ll see Frank maced–no?–next time?…
One other thing: IMDb lists the release date for “Rebel Without a Cause” at 27 October 1955, and “Teenage Crime Wave” as November 1955. Is it really possible that “Crime Wave” was rush-released–or the ending changed to Griffith Park Observatory–just to capitalise on the success of “Rebel” a few weeks earlier? I can’t imagine that anyone seeing this movie after seeing “Rebel” wouldn’t have taken it for a third-rate rip-off, but maybe that’s the point. All the more reason to tear it to shreds.
Schippers 69: I think TCW is one of the least exploitive teen movies as far as being moralistic while leering right along with you. True, the camera loves Terry but it’s not like she’s being shown off like cheap carpet remnants. She barely reveals her midriff.
BTW The “Wade’s not a dancer” comments, I always took to be a made-up catty small-talk remark. I love that line, and in my admittedly heavy MST viewing lately, I’ve heard it repeated in a good half-dozen other episodes. Do we have any numbers on that? whenever I hear “Wade,” I think of David Mirkin (producer of ‘Get a Life’ and ‘The Simpsons’) in his role as a rejected dancer in Julie Brown’s Medusa (Madonna spoof). He wears a horrifying tube-top and complains, “they’re prejudiced against people who can’t dance.”
Steak is my Ally; Butter does my bidding!
@74..I agree with what you said,but in a movie like this,what’s the point of making him anything if he’s not going to do anything through the whole movie,especially when his parent’s lives and even Jan’s life are threatened? That would be like having Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee in a movie and have them not do anything.From a movie standpoint,who are we suppose to root for? The father reading the Bible?? If Ben knew how to defend himself or knew what to do in these type of situations,he would do what he could to protect his family.He could outsmart Mike and Terry,considering they’re a couple of chowder heads to begin with..I know,it’s only a movie and I’m reading too much into it,but it makes it frustrating as a viewer and shows the writing was pretty lame.Still,I guess that’s what makes it such a good bad movie for some and why MST3K did it.I feel much better now.. :-D
In case it hasn’t already been brought up, way back in “The Crawling Hand,” Joel did a riff on Milton Berle and Roddy McDowall being on the same list in a supposed “book of lists” (supposedly the book the character on the screen was reading), so yeah, it seems the “it’s an endowment joke” votes have it.
Having nothing to do with anything, I’m reminded of an episode of “Mad About You” when it’s revealed Paul’s grandmother (or maybe aunt, I’m not sure) used to date showbiz guys in the 1950s.
Paul asks her if she ever dated Milton Berle.
After a moment’s pause, she declares “It’s true!”
#80 – I guess you’re right. This movie didn’t have Mamie van Doren’s breasts and Mamie van Doren in it, after all.
#81 Gary Bowden – With all the Bible in this movie, I think the real hero is the Holy Ghost.
“Hahaha, I TOO took a class in observatory maintenance!”
By the way, I’m claiming Observatory Maintenance as the name of my first band.
#85 schippers..That’s a good one.You’d figure with so many mentions of the Holy Ghost in the movie,he would at least be listed in the credits.Maybe he didn’t have a good agent.. :laugh:
Gary 87: Not nearly as good an agent as St Matthew had to get him that great gig on Space Children. Ugh.
*ring*
*beep*
Hi, this is Jim Rockford, I’m not in right now.
*beep*
Jimmy! This is Angel, I’m in REAL bad trouble!
Duh-da-dun-dun! DEE-DOO DIDDY-DO DOODLE-DO-DE-DO…
I like this episode. The mugshot of the good girl, when Servo says: BA-BA-BOOOM! Kills me, as much as Mike doing his Mysto’s face. Great stuff.
@#64: I now gladly retract my slightly pessimistic sounding comment. It is true SHOUT!Factory has done a wonderful job on the continuing box sets. You do have to remember though my comment was 4 years ago and only the 20th anniversary set was released at the time. “Teenage Crime Wave” has still to appear on a set. Let us hope.
I still like the episode a lot and I rate it in the 4 star range.
*BANG BANG*
That was a gun!
It was a cow!
@ #79: Maybe he’s like Captain Peacock of Are You Being Served?, in that he was actually in some non-combat position but has claimed otherwise to his post-war associates.
Do do do dooo, do waaaah!
It doesn’t matter what comes, fresh goes better in life,
With Mentos fresh and full of Life!
Nothing gets to you, stayin fresh, stayin cool,
With Mentos fresh and full of LIFE!!!
Fresh goes better! Mentos freshness!
Fresh goes better with Mentos, fresh and full of life!
Mentos! The Freshmaker!
Working on a Sex Farm! Yay, Spinal Tap riffs!
I love this episode. There is nothing to dislike about this episode. It was one of the last episodes of the entire series that I saw, and I’m glad I saved one of the best for last. This one’s easily in my top 30 episodes.
But I also absolutely adore Untamed Youth, Sidehackers, Daddy-O, Girl In Lovers Lane, Girls Town, Violent Years, Sinister Urge, Racket Girls and Kitten With A Whip. While others are screaming at the stupidity of the story/characters in these episodes, I’m loving and laughing at every minute in these episodes. Trying too hard to be bleak and coming off completely unserious is completely hysterical to me. These episodes are like comfort food for me, so I’m always surprised to see how much others despise them. But hey, to each their own.
It’s mildly interesting to contemplate that for every “juvenile delinquent” movie of this sort that MST3K tackled (other examples include High School Big Shoot and The Violent Years), there were dozens more which nobody ever brought back into the light (just as there are a near-infinite number of low-budget shlock directors, but it was only the likes of Coleman Francis and Ray Dennis Steckler who’ve received major MST3K attention). It was a whole genre back then.
My impression was that at first, Jane was in a bad position because she legitimately didn’t know anything; she’d only heard the guys’ first names, and when one person isn’t co-operating by saying, “I don’t know nuffin’, copper!”, then the other person’s claim of legitimate ignorance sounds a little shaky. And it didn’t help that her parents’ response was, “You went on a blind date! Clearly, you’re a criminal and a whore!”
Once the jailbreak happened, she was in a similar bind–sticking around and refusing to escape wouldn’t really earn her many points, even if the gang members didn’t just decide to shoot her out of hand rather than let her stay behind as a witness. She was assumed to be a member of the gang by the authorities, and it seemed unlikely (to her, given the information she had) that she would be treated fairly if she didn’t escape.
In any event, I liked this one. Good-not-great, but definitely good.
This was an ok movie. I agree with those who complain about the dragging and the stupidity of the characters. I like juvenile deliquent movies just fine, but they do sometimes bother me when the characters are too stupid to try to get out of the binds that they tend to find themselves in or when someone in a position of power (usually the adults) get morally outraged over relatively banal things. I know that that these movies were filmed in a much different time, but I’m still bothered by the obivious outrage that we get from certain characters. In this one, it’s Jane’s parents.
But all the segments were ace, and it’s been awhile since we’ve gotten that. The riffs were also very strong despite not having that much to work with in the middle 40. I found the phone bits both funny and annoying. I’m aware of the suspense that the filmakers were trying to create by having the cast wait to see if the ring was for the farmer’s line, but the music, acting and filming brought these sequences way over the top! The scenes wound up being more comical than anything else.
3 stars.
Things are starting to gel here at the end of Season 5, this is one of the better Mike episodes from his opening run.. I, for one, find this movie to be oddly watchable.. Not sure what that’s all about.. But anyway, the riffing is solid, holds the whole thing together, even through the dull middle portion.. The Host Segments are all really good, which is a big improvement from previous experiments, and the Mace Mousse opening is pretty great, and it sets up the closing bit over the end credits fantastically. I love when Dr. Forrester swings by on the swing and sprays Frank; it’s so random.
RIFFS:
Mike: “I’m afraid you’re going down, kitten. Hard.”
Crow: “I’m MOM now.”
Salisbury pulls out a smoke,
Servo: “Wanna get high?”
Mike: “I could help you get a Pell Grant!”
–
Overall, I like it.
4/5
For me, this is definitely one of those episodes where the host segments eclipsed the movie. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the movie had some great moments here and there. But I just remember loving the host segments, and only liking the movie. Mike’s Mystos face never fails to kill me. Same with Servo sputtering out “Butter” at the very end of the Doughy Guys segment.