I’d be interested in knowing what other MSTies think is the least successful attempt at humor in a MSTied movie. Personally, my money has to be on the 40-year-old frat guy from “Ring of Terror,” who kept trying to do… well, I guess you could call them impersonations. When your schtick is so noxious it makes even the normally laid back Joel chant for your death, you know you’re in over your head.
I’m going to have to go with Bruno’s Heathcliff’s head-conking bit at the end of “Wild World of Batwoman.” Oh my sides.
What’s your pick?
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Catalina Caper would be just a great thing to show film school students – it wants to be a breezy caper comedy, it has some idea what humor is like, but it’s just a total failure. Have the kids watch it & try to analyze why.
Fingers O’Toole (the name is supposed to be funny, right?) is unquestionably the most unsuccessfully comedic would-be comedic character in MST3K/CT/FC/RT history.
Nice try by Crayola Hat Guy though.
Agreed. I’m sure it was a cynical audience too, considering the they were in a night club at a scuzzy amusement park.
In ‘Village Of The Giants’, some of the jokes were kinda funny. Others just fell flat. The final scene, with all the little people entering the village to get the stuff, comes across as pretty offensive now.
Sid Melton in Lost Continent has been mentioned, but his attempts at humor in Radar Secret Service were much, much worse. Ugh.
From “This Island Earth” (although, in a scene cut from MST3K: The Movie):
Ruth: “This is our cat Neutron. We call him that because he’s so positive.”
There are so many, but I’m running with the sleazoid radar guys from …THE THE EYE CREATURES.
Just repulsive.
Farmer Kester in GIANT SPIDER INVASION has a few attempts at humor that just come across as grotesque (back brace anyone?) as well.
But I bring him up to ask a slightly off topic question: Robert Easton who played him was by all accounts one of the top dialect coaches in Hollywood for many years. So why, when he is playing a central Wisconsin (his home state as well as mine) dairy farmer does he speak like a southern redneck? And in TOUCH OF SATAN, which I’ve always assumed was set in California, he speaks with a north east Gortons of Gloucester style accent (I know these are flashbacks, so maybe some slack can be cut).
Anybody have any explanations?
Again, I apologize for straying so far from the topic. I’m just bitter.
Probably being aware of the quality of those movies, he decided to use the opportunity to perfect some dialects, not caring if they matched his character.
The “Mask Prank” in Track of the Moonbeast. Paul’s look of confusion (or perhaps bad acting?) completely killed something that really wasn’t that funny to begin with. And then the “Count Dracula at your service” line made me roll my eyes so much, they got stuck. And then Kathy’s constant explanation and continued laughter… Just STOP!
Oh, and there are too many to mention from Hobgoblins. Yikes.
The computer problems of Murray and Joe from Space Mutiny
Droppo, the laziest man on Mars has cringe worthy antics.
The playful cops playing a phone prank in The Sinister Urge.
Just letting in play out with the girls being frightened in Boggy Creek II, not to mention the outhouse story in the same movie. Ewwww.
The absolute worst kind of movie badness is comedy. Bad acting, dialog, editing, etc can make a movie dull, dreary, stupid or even laughable. But bad comedy? That’s just hurtful. Excruciatingly hurtful. And there is so much really, really bad comedy in the MST3K movies that it’s hard to pick which is the worst.
Not surprisingly, most of those I would consider to be the worst offenders are the ones that are not just unfunny, but disturbing or even sick in their failed attempts at humor.
One of the worst offenders is “Hobgoblins”. Most of this movie is apparently supposed to be funny in a sexually-suggestive way, but the “humor” is offensively non-funny and sub-juvenile.
“Outlaw of Gor” has the uber-annoying Watney Smith character as “comic relief”. Everything about this character is unfunny and the only relief he provides is when he’s not onscreen.
“Attack of the The Eye Creatures” also ranks up there with the rankest of the rank due to the frequent, imbecilic attempts at humor. In particular, the two Army guys peeping on the make-out teens are just plain revolting.
“Angels Revenge” is a cornucopia of cringe-worthy humor. And it wastes the talents of a few pretty decent character actors.
“The Horror of Party Beach” has several instances of painful “comedy”, including but not limited to, the “funny” drunks.
All of the “fatty” jokes in “Ring of Terror” are just awful. So is the guy who thinks he’s a hoot, and the creepy gag about sending the frat pledge out to snoop on couples and try to kiss the women, while dressed in what is essentially a diaper. Ick.
In ‘Violent Years’, the guy who brings the watch as Crow said, “There is an audible thud every time he tells a joke.’
1 word (or 2). Hi-keeba!
Jim Backus, Angels Revenge.
The Mask “joke” on Track of the Moon Beast. ‘Cause you know, I expected a HUGE reaction and I got so much more than I bargained for…rushing the Halloween season.” :pain: :pain: :pain:
Sure, I’ll buy that. It makes as much sense as anything I can come up with.
Thanks.
Reading the comments the one I agree with most is Angel’s Revenge. Dopey punch sounds. That horrendous scene at the Backus Compound sucks all the life out of the viewer. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank fits the question to a t. Grrr I hate that movie. Surprised nobody mentioned the Chucklehut middle act from Time Chasers who thought it was his big break. Eddie Deezan was a tour de force in Laser Blast. DeathStalker was quipping away like no ones business.Oh there are so many.
Despite the SOL crew’s disdain for Castle of Fu Manchu, I strongly believe Ring of Terror is the worst movie they’ve ever done on MST3K, just because it fails on every possible level. It’s not scary, every single character is painfully annoying to be around, and the torment is made even worse by the constant attempts (and failure) to pad out out of the dullest films imaginable with humor even your racist uncle wouldn’t find amusing.
As I said in the discussion starter, the 40-year old frat guy who kept trying to do impressions was the worst offender, but the demeaning fatty jokes and uncomfortable fraternity pranks make this an especially hard one to watch.
The next closest contender I can think of is The Starfighters, whose humor (especially the pay phone gag and the corn detassler date) is equally awkward, but fortunately, much less frequent.
The bowl cut waif in Future War with that gawd awful “penguin” joke!
How about The Starfighters? They actually wrote, rehearsed, and edited that 5 minute joke about Iowa corn detasseling.
Guess I’ll have to look, then.
Number five!!!
Every couple of months, there’s a topic that knocks the ball completely out of the park.
This is one of the best, as well as the most painful, topics EVER.
Having just rewatched The Indestructible Man, at the very end Lt. Chasen (a.k.a. Arthur Duval) cracks a
joke to Eva Martin words to the effect ” I just got you fired because being my wife will be your
fulltime job.” And Eva meekly submits to her lord and master. (50s sexism, eh?).
Of course the bots did have a point. Chasen should have been the one to resign (strippers making more
money than police lieutenants—unless you’re in the pay of Virgil Sollozo).
DEEP TRIVIA!
You knew when you saw it that there had to be a back story on the “Swedish” and uproariously unfunny butler (and maid) in She Creature. The character was ‘way too developed to be a throwaway bit in a crappy movie. El Brendel was kind of a big deal. He even has a Wiki article. He did that Swede routine for decades, and it’s easily possible that they used him in She Creature as a marquee draw. On YouTube, you can see him in an absolutely unbelievable big-budget 1930 “science fiction musical comedy” (!) called “Just Imagine,” AS THE MALE LEAD. So El Brendel was not only horribly unfunny in his MST appearance, he was horribly unfunny WITH THE SAME MATERIAL for years and years, with a great deal of success.
But it made for gripping cinema.
I know it’s already been said many times, but I’m going to go with Hobgoblins as the worst attempt at comedy. Well, that and Batman and Robin.
Hmmm…I don’t think anyone has mentioned the pee throwing Ba-doul the wizard from “Quest of the Delta Knights”, as well as the big chase scene at the tree village: “I’m Comiiinngg!” Otherwise ya’ll have covered the main targets.
I do agree with the seance scene from “Batwoman” as it was downright offensive in addition to unfunny. Dishonorable mentions include Heathcliff from the aforementioned “Batwoman”, Einstein from “Warrior”, and as I just watched “Dead Talk Back” the scene with the woman kvetching about her pictures, it was a lot of set up for zero payoff.
The latter isn’t funny, but the former is funny. It’s out of nowhere, and realistic for that time period, medieval something, and it is funny when he “accidentally” tosses that pee at the slave trader.
I only just read the Kickstarter page for Manos Returns, and I’m tentatively penciling it into this topic for future reference.
Let us never forget, the man, the myth the legend that is Cornjob.
Also, I’m pretty sure they thought they were being real cute with “Operation Kid Brother/O.K Connery/Operation Double 007) but man oh man does Neil Connery suck the life out of it.
Thanks for the mention… Hey wait a minute!!
The Giant Spider Invasion (Quotes – IMDb)
Vance: Hi!
Langer: Hello.
Vance: Hi, I’m Dr. J.R. Vance from N.A.S.A.
Langer: Oh, I’m so glad you’re here, Doctor. I’m Jenny Langer.
Vance: Nice to meet you. I have an appointment with your father.
Langer: Oh, no no. He passed away in 1962.
Vance: Oh, I’m so sorry, then the appointment must be with your husband.
Langer: I’m not married.
Vance: I’m NOT sorry. Then it’s probably with your brother.
Langer: No, my brother’s an interior decorator in Oshkosh. You see, Doctor… Vance. I’m afraid your appointment is with me.
Thanks to a David Cross bit, I’ve always believed that the redneck accent is everywhere.
The absolute WORST is Jim Stafford in Riding With Death! Just teeth grindingly awful.
All those slapstick sound effects in Angels’ Revenge.
The announcer Ted Husing in Catching Trouble. Every line he reads hurts more and more. And set to the backdrop of Ross and Emo tormenting the poor woodland creatures of South Florida. I’ve seen this short countless times and to this day I still hurl insults at Ross. I’m sure Emo was just trying to stay alive around Ross so he did what he was told to live to see another day.
During the catfight scene in “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”, we’re treated to a shot of a few paintings with CATS on them. AND THEN the sound of a human making a “Meow!” noise is heard.
PA-THE-TIC!
Agreed! You know a comedy bit really falls flat when people watching it have to assume it was supposed to be funny, simply because it was so pointless.
There’s a reason a failed joke is called a bomb.
lateral comment:
The whole problem with laugh tracks, so overused in sitcoms.
I don’t mind the live reactions of an audience being recorded in direct response to a given show… but adding pre-recorded laughter – operated in the manner of a dimmer turn knob for lights – is extremely bizarre!
If it’s damned FUNNY, Hollywood, we will GET IT. You don’t have to try to trigger the response with canned laughter.
Laugh tracks are an admission of failure or fear or laziness or all three.
But that’s just me. I have a very difficult time tuning them out.
Laugh tracks bug me less if it at least looks like a show that could be filmed live in front of an audience.
I remember a laugh track over the British version of the old Da Ali G Show and it was way annoying. Maybe it was some meta thing and I missed the setup but it seemed a lot like the painful laugh tracks of Red Dwarf.
The dinosaur extinction story courtship at the Dutch ambassador’s house…
but that’s how you make little puma men!
shudder
respect!
Sexist humor is some of the worst. Prime examples can be seen in “Wild World of Batwoman”, including the guy leading the girl by a rope around her neck — and then, of course, they “fall in love”. Another example, the “women are too stupid to go camping or drive a Jeep” nonsense from “Boggy Creek II”. Or the supposedly brainy, schoolteacher leader of the women in “Angel’s Revenge” who acts ditsy, can’t find important items in her purse, and sound like Olive Oyl. Or the “fashion model” from the same movie, who wails, “Oh no, my face!” when they add a smudge of lipstick to her cheek in a lame attempt to simulate an injury.
I’m late to the party as usual- and it’s already been mentioned before, but I gotta put another vote in for “Wild World of Batwoman”. The reason I say this is i think (and stress that word THINK) that this movie is supposed to be a comedy from start to finish. Yet the movie is so completely unfunny that it almost comes off as a serious movie with “gags” in it. But really, I think it is supposed to be very broad comedy making fun of the superhero genre of the time. But nothing in it is funny. NOTHING! Not the awful way the women are treated. Not Rat Fink, not the scientist who loses his memory. Not one eensy teensy piece of this movie is funny. I think it’s so bad it drags the riffing down with it.
So that’s my pick.
Turning it around – maybe a question for a different weekend – can anyone think of spots in a MST3K episode where a movie is trying to be funny and actually succeeds? (Not where the riffers make it funny.) Someplace you actually laugh WITH the movie instead of AT it. I was going through in my head and I just can’t come up with anything.
i’ll go with steve on this one; though not super-intentionally funny (one of those “that guy is such an a-hole/dickweed” funny thing), that is about the one first best example i can think of in the early run of mst. just the whole weird cutting-in-and-then-cutaway long setup of this stupid little recording session going on out in who-knows-where, with no plot precidence at all, and everybody thinking that that frilly-haired dork is such hot ****e; then he can only reply to them with something like that… more of a “snort” than a “funny,” but as far as a successfully built-up and timed joke, that is about it. (plus you’ve got the “i’m a virgin” guy in on it!)
Yeah, that was an incredibly bad attempt at humor: A lame, pointless prank that gets virtually no reaction at all from the person being pranked, followed by all the comments about how BIG the reaction was, interspersed with a long, dull, completely unnecessary explanation of the lame prank.
It’s like telling a joke that isn’t the least bit funny, and replacing the punch line with a thesis on why the joke is so funny.
One that comes to mind is in “Laserblast”, when the creep is making the weiner innuendo. The girl replies, “From what I’ve heard it’s not so hot.” Then Eddie Deezen has the one actually funny line in the whole movie, “He’s got affidavits”.
I mean, it’s not going to win any comedy awards or anything, but it’s at least slightly witty.
Go, wattle man!
Humor of the 1840s!
Going back to Alan Hale Jr.’s painfully unfunny routine, let us remember this little number:
“I used to take physics, but now I find…prunes do a better job for me.”
Ugh. And he takes such delight in the telling of it. So sad.
Some have nominated the drunks of “Horror of Party Beach.” I’m strangely fond of them and of all the victims only their final moments evoke sympathy in me. Like Hale, they clearly enjoy performing and demonstrate the chops to actually do funny comedy; they’re just saddled with stupid “look how drunk I am” roles.
No, the one I hate most in “Party” is the gum-chomping toothy “goil” with the horrifying phony accent who meets her end at Fingle’s Quarry (along with her two companions) after beguiling the gas station attendant with her Laverne DeFazio-esque wiles.
“Some kind of monsters! Killing people and drinking their blood!”
“Imagine! Bein’ THAT thirsty!!”
And that’s how a movie got me to cheer for sausage-mouthed artichoke-leaf vampire-zombies.