Movie: (1956) Pompous archaeologists find a lost civilization underground.
First shown: 2/15/97
Opening: Crow’s thinks his goofy eyes make him a “space child”
Intro: The space child is overthrown. While Bobo suffers through the 32nd Annual Lawgiver Daze, Tom offers baked goods and Crow takes a fall
Host segment 1: Mike tries an imitation of the gesture professor from the movie. It brings everyone down…down…down…
Host segment 2: Tom tries–and fails–to sing a ballad about his adventures in space
Host segment 3: Crow the archeologist, searching for evidence of a previous him, has a breakthrough
End: Crow believes there’s life beneath the floorboards…and he’s right. Meanwhile in Deep Ape, The Lawgiver is presented with a hunky gift
Stinger: “The Load” hits the wall
(252 votes, average: 4.32 out of 5)
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• We’ve had a number of examples where the riffing is good and the segments are good but the movie just drags everything down. Well, let’s also note when it’s other way around. I think this episode is a good one, but I think a lot of the credit goes to the wonderfully stupid movie. I mean, you got The Gesture Professor, Ward Cleaver, Alfred the Butler, John Agar and Nestor “The Load” Paiva. And you got ropes and asses, whipping the mole and all sorts of outlandish stuff. The segments are okay and the riffing is good, but I think it’s the movie itself that puts this one over the top.
• References here.
• Mike’s take on this episode can be found here.
• Pearl’s float is not very convincing — but, then, it’s pretty tough to approximate a full-scale parade in about 10 square feet of set space.
• The strange blue light still suffuses the set, and it’s especially strong in segment 2. Stonehouse was experimenting.
• The concept of “the sketch that never really gets started” is a long tradition on this show (see “The Emotional Scientist” or “The Life of Fu Manchu” or “Joel wants to be a soda jerk”). This episode has not one but TWO such segments—Mike’s attempt at being the gesture professor and Servo’s aborted folk song.
• Crow finally remembers who he is, and who Mike is. At last.
• Crow’s voice begins to settle down a bit in this episode.
• Robert Smith was the first actual guest star for the show.
• Ward E has a list of the pastries in the intro segment.
• That huge underground cavern and those Mole People should look familiar to you … they were briefly (and incongruously) seen in episode 515-THE WILD WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN.
• It’s been widely reported that this movie’s original ending had Dr. Bentley and Adal happily strolling off together. The studio insisted that a new ending be shot two weeks after filming was completed, because there was reluctance to imply an inter-racial relationship. After all, Adal was a Sumerian. So she got clobbered with a column instead. Sheesh.
• By the way, Dr. Baxter, the gesture professor, was a University of Southern California professor of ENGLISH, not science.
• That’s Paul and Patrick, of course, as “pale day players.”
• Cast and crew roundup: Producer William Alland also worked on “Revenge of the Creature,” “The Deadly Mantis,” “The Space Children” and “This Island Earth.” Screenwriter Laszlo Gorog also worked on “Earth vs. The Spider.” Cinematographer Ellis Carter also worked on “The Deadly Mantis” and “The Leech Woman.” Editor Irving Birnbaum also worked on “The Phantom Creeps.” Special effects guy Clifford Stine also worked on “This Island Earth,” “The Creeping Terror” and “The Thing That Couldn’t Die.” Costumer Jay A. Morley Jr. also whipped up some gowns for “Revenge of the Creature” and “The Deadly Mantis.” Makeup guy: Bud Westmore worked on lots of MSTed movies. Hairdresser Joan St. Oegger also worked on “Revenge of the Creature,” “This Island Earth and “The Amazing Colossal Man.” Art Director Alexander Golitzen, set designer Russell A. Gausman, sound person Leslie I. Carey and music supervisor Joseph Gershenson worked on a bunch of MSTed movies too. Score composer Hans J. Salter also worked on “The Brute Man” and “This Island Earth. Score composer Herman Stein also worked on “Revenge of the Creature and “This Island Earth. Score composer Henry Mancini worked on “Revenge of the Creature,” “The Deadly Mantis,” “The Thing that Couldn’t Die” and “This Island Earth.”
In front of the camera: John Agar also appeared in “Revenge of the Creature and “Women of the Prehistoric Planet.” Hugh Beaumont also appeared in “Lost Continent” and “The Human Duplicators.” Nestor Paiva also appeared in “Revenge of the Creature.” Robin Hughes also appeared in “The Thing that Couldn’t Die.” Marc Hamilton also appeared in “This Island Earth.” Patrick Whyte also appeared in “Kitten with a Whip.” Eddie Parker also appeared in “This Island Earth,” “Bride of the Monster” and “Undersea Kingdom.” Regis Parton also appeared in “This Island Earth.” Ben Chapman was production manager for “The Giant Gila Monster” and appeared in “The Killer Shrews.” Robert Hoy also appeared in “Revenge of the Creature” and “Master Ninja II.” Bob Herron also appeared in “The Slime People.”
• CreditsWatch: Jim gets the “produced and directed by” credit this week and Kevin gets the “associate producer” credit. This is the last episode, for the duration of the show’s run. for which Jim gets a “contributing writer” credit.
• Fave line: “Disney’s Dominatrix World!” Honorable mention: “Why, thank you! Oh, you mean the flashlight.”
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My favorite part of Host Segment 1 is how Mike first appears on the Hexfield, then turns out to be on the other side of the room. It’s a bit of meta-humor, picturing performer-Mike (as opposed to character-Mike) having to dash out of the viewscreen area, around the set, behind the camera, and back onto the set on the other side. (Or, now that I think of it, he could have gone in back, behind the doors.)
Also, I like Sampo’s description of the sketch.
Compared to Coleman Francis this was a Zucker Bros. film.
For me, John ‘Smug Smarty-Pants’ Agar, deserves to be in films like this. He’s probably a decent enough guy but the characters he plays remind me of that kid in class who tells the teacher, just before a holiday weekend, that they forgot to assign homework and smugly smiles when the teacher thanks them for the reminder!
This movie had much more riff potential if they had waited to do this one until after Brain Guys introduction. Still, I always enjoy Nestor Paiva for the name alone and they nailed him royally riff wise.
The diet of Portobella Shrooms only, faux albinos, Mr Cleaver as the ‘tough guy’ character, dance macabre, lots of whip action, brides of Manos wardrobe, King Puss (jaunty crown though), rubbery mole monsters, broken flashlight as a WMD and Profesor Gesture rate 3.5 stars but it could have been so much more.
Y’know, I always used to see something…I don’t know…poetic in the flow of the movie. Although the words in the chain of events end up ridiculous, the music that begins with Dr. Baxter’s allegories and ends with Adel dying the instant she sets foot in “heaven”/the modern world evokes a bittersweet feeling for the tragedy of timelost ancient wonder…
…but now that I know the truth behind that ending, it’s completely dissolved into disjointed scenes of hokey historical and scientific nonsense tied together by one man’s smugness, and I hereby flush my favorable opinion of it back down the Nike/Pontiac logo hole. It used to seem like the earthquake destroying the tablet because it was avoidably placed on that table was supposed to foreshadow Adel being killed by avoidably running under a column during yet another earthquake, but if that’s not the case, then salvage the original ending, draw and quarter Ultra Magnus, let that guy tell us we’re next on the body snatchers’ list and leave it at that, and have the magnificent Ambersons…also die upon setting foot in the modern world…or whatever Orson Welles originally shot.
Crow’s new eyes being a novelty item manufactured in Flint, Michigan also struck a chord with me. Sure that’s mostly because I live between Ann Arbor and Detroit (the “The Heart Of Rock’n’Roll Is Still Beatin'” theory), but maybe it’s also appropriate because Flint too may soon be a lost civilization whose existence future archeologists will have no evidence of except for “Roger And Me”…
(please note that I did not voice any actual opinion on Michael Moore; the last thing I want is to ‘Dennis Miller’ another thread)
The sketch where Crow gets his memory back always cracks me up, likely because at the time this aired, I’d just learned about Neolithic fertility symbols in 12th grade humanities class, and read the second “Ayla” book.
And for the record, I much enjoyed the confusion about how and if Crow had lost his memory. A month later, Toonami would resurrect “Voltron” so I could bask in that glorious back-story whose chain of events occur somewhere between 6 hours and 10,000 years before the first episode, leaving the viewer to decide what fell where in the middle. You can’t have “epic” without a touch of convoluded ambiguity, and MST3K’s 8th season was indeed the most epic.
And a few years ago, there was a Universal Monsters toyline that featured a Gill Man AND a Mole Man, giving 3 MSTed movies their own action figures thanks to the stock footage in Batwoman. Stan Winston did some figures for “She Creature”, “Earth vs. the Spider”, “War of the Colossal Beast”, and possibly others, but he just based them on his interpretation of the title rather than anything in the movies, so those don’t really count. If he’d actually done Glen Manning in a diaper with interchangable normal and skull-faced heads with giant srynge, I’d have bought a whole case! But instead he just pissed away a golden opportunity, just like what Will Ferrel did with “Land Of The Lost”.
Well, if Shout! doesn’t want to do movie-based figures once the ‘bots are all rendered in plastic, maybe CT or Rifftrax might try to expand their empires…
Oh, right! Gumby toys technically count at MST3K figures too! I’ve gotta’ put my Kubricks on the shelf next to my Crow immediately…
@ #44 Bill: I think they wrote the episode guide entries for the SciFi era shows shortly after they aired, so they hadn’t had Maltin do the show yet…I think.
This episode, for me, has Professor Bobo at his finest. Yes, he’s clearly a very stupid ape who is easily whipped into simpering submission (really, if the apes weren’t so stupid, Pearl’d have nothin’ on ’em)… but he’s just smart enough to be annoyed by Lawgiver Daiyze. I love his little forced laugh that blends perfectly into an exasperated “oh God”. As mentioned above the the SOL’s reactions to Tom’s folk song, the B crew was great at little rapid-fire asides.
I understand that without Peanut and the rest of Deep Ape (thanks to the whole “story mandate” deal), Bobo had no henches to be only slightly superior to later on, letting him slip easily into the role of buffoon, and accept it. It just means I’ll treasure his moments of clarity and minor victories all the more.
As for the rest of the episode, it didn’t have quite the same oomph as the previous two episodes, but was still pretty damn solid. I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get more John Agar films later on… two right up front then nothing seems like a cruel tease.
Let’s talk about the “cruelty” angle a bit. Honestly, it never bothered me, if only because it made sense. We are talking about people trapped for a long time in a (usually) small space. They’re gonna get on each other’s nerves. Hell, one of my favorite Red Dwarf episodes involves three of the main cast, who normally get along exceptionally well (mostly out of their combined dislike of the fourth crew member) forced to share a single quarantine bay. That didn’t go so well for them, but was hilarious nonetheless. Some of my favorite Joel-era skits were the ones where the bots would butt heads with him, refusing to play along with his little “life lessons”, or reminding him of just what his situation REALLY is. Just like letting the Mads “win” from time to time, it keeps the playing field level if nobody comes out ahead all the time.
They may have wanted to do more John Agar films, but there’s a little matter of securing the licensing beforehand.
Who can blame the studio wanting a different ending… imagine the beautiful human Adal (Adad according to IMDB) marrying whatever John Agar is? :mrgreen:
What I enjoy in this episode is all the stealth references to “alternate lifestyles.”
That strange, approving grunting that the high priest does (courtesy of Crow), the first time he sets eyes on the visitors — this kills me.
And “Oh, they’re evil…”
And “Get ’em, girls!….”
I love all that stuff.
I love this episode, really a lot of fun for me. The Gesture Professor part is kind of like a short to me. My wife and I use the “ropes and asses” line on a daily basis, but the line has caused some problems with me and one of my hobbies–I’m a mountain climber, and when I’m roped up to others I can’t help but start laughing at the guy or gal ahead of me looking all “rope and assy”. I also enjoy the scenes of Hillary’s Everest expedition.
Hell, imagine the beautiful Shirley Temple marrying whatever John Agar is.
@#5: Interesting idea about “The Time Machine”, but Mole People only has about as much in common with that as, say, H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Rats In The Walls”, where it’s discovered that some old European aristocrats kept slave labor underground for so many generations that they devolved into inbred human pigs which their masters butchered for food, though Wells’s story certainly shares more of Mole People’s feel.
And did calling a character/person a/the “load” really have that specific connotation back in the ’70s, or can The Brains be credited with adding that to pop culture’s lexicon of archetypes as #13 implied? Either way, it sure took root among anyone who saw 803: At a group showing of ‘Transformers: The Movie’ in college, as they’re running from Unicron’s internal defenses near the end and Daniel falls and cries for help, the instant the Autobots stop and turn around, all 4 of us declared, “(sigh) the LOAD…”, not only in unison, but roughly in Springer’s tone of voice, I swear. When I said it later while watching with a roommate who was no MSTie, he just gave me a puzzled look. I then assumed you “just hadta’ be there”, so it did my heart good just now to see that link, even if it’s not as clearly a term created by our favorite show as “Dull Surprise!” or “Rigid Grille Structure”. Was “doughy guy” a recognized archetype before J&TB started tossin’ it around?
• John Agar: hard to believe this is the guy who deflowered America’s sweetheart Shirley Temple. In his early career this dashing young stud made films with John Wayne (thus the “Pilgrim” riffs) before settling in to B-movies after divorcing Temple (and they did produce offspring).
• “The strange blue light” on the SOL set wreaks havoc on a multi-generational video dupe (like my DAP version). It will look better if Shout releases more of these Season 8 episodes. C’mon guys, make a package deal with Universal for a box set!
• Yeah, it’s sad how Professor Bobo loses his faculties the longer he is away from his kin. I’m fond of these early shows where he still has his smarts (he is a professor, after all). Maybe their time on the Observer Planet finally did him in…
• Riffs that got run into the ground: The repeated riffing on “The Load,” though funny, becomes a comedic crutch for the Brains. I feel the same way with “Ken” in Fugitive Alien, “Steve” in Blood Beast, and (to a lesser extent) “R.U. ready 4 Some Football” in Laserblast. It smacks of lazy writing, borne of the writers frustration with the film. Joel and the ‘Bots mantra of “Manos…the hands of fate” in Manos is similar but somehow achieves transcendence.
Oh yeah, and since we so recently discussed ‘The Incredible Melting Man’, I’m surprised no one has mentioned the Brains’ movie-making vindictiveness rearing its head again during “Rock-Climbing II”:
“They must’ve run this by a focus-group that wanted to know how that knot was actually tied.”
“Yeah, it kinda’ ruined the movie, not knowin’.”
I don’t know if I’ve quoted that correctly, or which riffers to attribute what to, but that counts as my favorite quip.
I thought this was a pretty good one. Movie’s good, host segments are ok. I enjoyed them having a guest star. It’s just so unexpected, and you could do worse than Robert Smith.
I agree this episode called for a return hexfield visit from Ward “Dad” Cleaver .. Mike’s stern impression has always been funny.
One factor major factor for me in rating episodes is repeat watchability. Mole People just doesn’t keep me interested .. the riffing is ok, the host segments are not so great and the movie is a bit boring. I gave it a 2.5
Highlights: Bobo’s line delivery at the start “I’m in a crappy mood … you wanna know why i’m in a crappy mood?” really carries a sense of exasperation.
and the opening of the film with Dr. Baxter professor is very sharply riffed (is it just me or does he sorta sound like Adam West when he talks?).
All of the hollow-Earth theories he discusses are actually real. Before I saw this episode I had a book called “Kooks” which mentioned Cyrus Reed Teed and some of the other hollow earthers.
Having seen “The Mole People” as a kid I was looking forward to this episode and while the Brains treatment was good this one somehow just kinda left me feel as though it could’ve been better. The riffing was good and the host segments were well done, especially Mike’s spoofing the professor in the opening of the film, but it just wasn’t one of their better efforts. 3.5 stars out of five….”down and down….”
I hate that ending. Hate hate hate it. It’s like they realized that Adal’s introduction into a world she never knew was far more interesting than the movie itself so they had to kill her.
(Plus it’s funny the studios chickened out after all the heavy-handed moralizing in the movie itself.)
The gesture professor appeared in other films. I found this film about how the earth was going to gobble us up in the late fifties. I liked how the part about him being an English professor was edited out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lgzz-L7GFg
Here’s another clip where he teaches a little girl about various dialects. Kind of a sinister title for what seems to be a short, cute educational film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu42bo6Mg1c
So I guess Prof. Frank C Baxter appeared in a number of films.
Oops, forgot a couple clips. Here’s him lecturing us on the sun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER-2dqd1h3I
And here’s him talking about smells.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BypR9joyOuI
Actually, just check out the entry about him on wiki. Maybe it was just Mole People that made him look so silly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_C._Baxter
Kudos to the reviews on here. I find it very interesting to read each persons take on the episode.
As many others do, I love the gesture professor, and attribute the cruelty of the bots to the fact the writers probably didn’t really have any particular direction to take that sketch, besides saying “down, down”. This is similar to how they would treat Mike’s imitation of the blonde kid in “Century 21 Calling” where he is just waving, pointing and smiling, and they crush him with the wrecking ball.
1) Agar is Shatner lite
2) The load, my man Nestor, did a lot of voices for the old Johny Quest series.
3) Love comment after first commercial, Mike to Crow when he pulls out the bot’s Space Child eyes,”J&B Novelty Company, Flint, MI”
#54 Bolem- I live and work in Flint. There are a ton of MSTIES here.I’m trying to work out a MST night at the Flint Institute of Arts, what with a U of M branch here, communter colleges and surviving and latent nerds and geeks. And while some of Flint haunts like David Simon’s “The Wire” things here aren’t as bad as people hear or see,(though I suspect archeologists will be diggin up more than just Michael Moore films-maybe they’ll find the boyhood home of Bob Eubanks) being a former company town the 430,000 or so who live in this county and city just need to adapt to the post industrial and post modern area.
Speaking of Michael Moore, the Brains get him by name at least once (Time Chsers) and make subtle riffs on him in The Black Scorpion and The Design for Dreaming short #524)Keep up the great comments my fellow Michigander.
“We gotta get down”
“We gotta get funky!”
Tork_110: Thanks very much for those clips! No matter what he does, Dr. Baxter brings fun to every subject!
I love the “load” jokes! And my favorite riff of the whole movie:
“Oh…we’ve GOT food, old man…”
And…I was surprised to read that Dr. Baxter actually has a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. How cool is that?
This is an odd one to me. From beginning to end, pound for pound, I find the episode good, but not great.
There are some genuinely hilarious moments… Bobo and his exasperated complaining, turning quickly to begging for death. The two sumerians showing up in the floor of the SOL at the end cracks me up.
Plus, this movie provides one of my favorite riffs in Season 8…
Gesture Professor: Now, go down to Mesopotamia.
Mike: No, YOU go down!
I’m not terribly sure why, but that line cracks me up every time.
And John Agar’s smarminess is unparalleled hilarity.
I’ve always loved this episode, but I find the Universal 1950s scifi movies ripe for loving MST treatment.
The skit starts off hilarious as Mike’s impersonation of the professor is pretty killer and his opening remarks get the biggest laugh of the whole episode from me. But it’s just ruined by the bots negativity towards it, making lines like “Where do I laugh, Mike? What makes it funny to ME?” pretty ironic because that stuff WAS funny. The negavity towards it isn’t.
To me, that bit has always been a glimpse into what went on in the writers’ room. I imagine one of the newer writers — Paul, say — hesitantly bringing up a bit he’s worked on for days and being cut to ribbons — gently, but still — by the old-timers like Mike and Kevin.
And this movie provided our household with a lifelong catch-phrase. My wife never asks me to get her something from a top shelf anymore. Instead she says she needs it down from Koo-ee-tara, high! High! High!
Regarding the War of 1812 veteran and his goofy theory and his funding request to Congress. I wonder if that was the first time Congress used the phrase, “Get the F#@$ out of here.”
As for this episode, I enjoy it, but I get sick of hearing those stupid Sumerian names, “Shari”, “Sharu”, and all of that other nonsense.
The host segments are good, especially down on the planet of the apes. I like that Pearl asserts herself and feels the need to dominate the apes. It’s a good expansion of her character that goes beyond how she treated Dr. F. It shows that’s just how she is.
I like that two of the host segments are very self-aware. Mike’s dumb little skit is stopped by Crow and Tom. You can tell that it was intentional by just how badly Mike plays the professor. Another painful skit is stopped by Servo’s lack of talent as a balladeer and guitar player. I love how mean Crow is when he calls Servo “Burl Ives.”
The Mole People appearing inside the SOL was a good sketch that makes fun of the movie. “Oh no! The fiery light if Ishtar!”
The movie itself has some good riffing. I enjoyed the, then current, reference to Blu Blocker sunglasses. The constant “load” riffs. Thank God Hugh Beaumont was in this movie. Between John Agar and “The Load”, his is the only likable surface dweller.
A hit & miss episode, mainly due to the flick being silly without quite touching entertainingly crazy.
However, The Gesture Professor (and Mike’s impression) is a gem.
The death of the female lead at the end always seemed odd and wrong somehow, now I know why.
In the movie Nightbreed there is a scene where John Agar plays a crusty old gas station owner who lives near a nest of enchanted monsters. When asked why he never joined them he says, ”They wouldn’t let me.”
I added, “They’d seen some of my movies, they nearly killed me for them.”
Although the riffing is great, the movie is so leaden and pasty that it makes the episode a little hard to watch. This is by far the most gray movie MST has featured that wasn’t directed by Coleman Francis
I still can’t believe that nonsense excuse for the death of the woman at the end of the movie. Why would the folks at Universal think a white woman from the surface world would make her and Agar’s character an interracial couple?
Maybe the real reason was this: They were sparing her the torment of a life with John Agar’s character.
I’ve got some annoying commercials on my tape:
-Psychic hotline where women gossip about their psychics. Enough said.
-The Pepto-Bismol commercial with the clairvoyant mom who predicts her husband’s and son’s bouts with indigestion.
And of course ScFi channels pimping of their Lost in Space episodes.
My tape is from a few years later when the show was only in reruns. There’s one commercial which I actually like, the one for the Cleveland Institute of Electronics. A former student named Douglas Garlinger got the confidence he needed to write the TV operators certification handbook thanks to CIE.
There’s also a commercial for Sci-Fi Channel’s new series, The Invisible Man.
There’s the Time Life commercial for Rockin’ Instrumentals, a CD collection of rock music from the 1950s.
A constant on many of my Sci-Fi era tapes is the commercial for the Contour Leg Pillow.
I forgot to ask, did anyone else notice that in the Tom Servo ‘Old Tyme guitar ballad’, the intro is actually a riff on a FireSign Theater skit?
I forget what FireSign album it was from, but the intro is just like Tom’s and with a similar delivery & the song goes something like “This land is full of trousers, this land is full of mousers … and pussycats who eat them when the sun goes down”
“Cruelty” on MST3K? I think you’ve been watching a little too much Oprah.
MIgelDotCom- the album you’re looking for is called “How can you be in two places in once when you’re not anywhere at all?”
Agar and Adal weren’t really an interracial couple because she was a “marked one”…or so i was thinking, it would be interracial if he walked off with one of the albino looking sumerians. but she got hit with a column so apparently Adal was marked mainly with bad luck. :P
i love this episode. the flatness of the host segments i think is a symptom of these guys getting used to the new setup, particularly Bill’s rendition of crow. the new improved Pearl is manic and hilarious to me but i know lots of people think different. She did such a great job with the bit learning to appreciate her gift and Smith had just the best looks on his face for that.
the gesture professor added to the front of the movie seems out of place to me, like the cartoon explanations of the history of Dune added to the expanded version of the original Dune movie…but that’s just one of a huge laundry list of things wrong with this movie that make for good riffing.
sorry to those who didnt “get” this one,
This is one of the all time best MST episodes.
I think that there is an age/era thing going on.
I grew up on most of the movies that we see ,especially from season 8 to 10.
I (used to) have/had the official space helmet that was released for the premiere of “phantom planet”.
The movie is so bad/good it could almost stand on its own!.
The “gesture professor” at the beginning of the movie (Dr. Frank Baxter) starred in a whole series of 60`s 16mm “educational” films that we all grew up with.
If you are serious film student (ie: you watch films prior to 1980) you KNOW that (DR.) Frank Baxter (despite his english degree) made films for both Disney and the phone company (our current generation cant comprehend that there was only one phone company before they were born)
his HITS included “Hemo the Magnificent’ (directed by Frank Capra) and “Our Mr. Sun”,
This episode hits a big home run with the over 40 crowd (those that are able to comprehend) especially with the “lady winter’ burl ives fest later on!
there is more to MST3K than the wonderful,intelligent (“and foxy”) gen X plus 20
understand! I love everybody who “gets” and love MST but ..there was a whole generation of us who were here here first..ask Kevin Murphy!
Hey. I’m one of those Gen X’ers that likes this episode. :grin:
However, I do not like the fact that these movies were chosen by the Brains, but for only one reason. It makes them a real pain to get the episodes on DVD.
mikek- you mean on DVD from Shout Factory or Rhino right? ’cause season 8-10 fan copies on DVD are of pretty high quality and easily obtainable.
If looking for commercial DVDs of eps 810-809 we’ll all likely be disapointed ’cause the rights are probably too expensive.
opps meant eps 801-809
Hey there Tim Servo. I’m one of those Gen Xers too.
I wasn’t attacking your love of this film. You can go ahead and love it. I’ve found that every episode I think is a winner just doesn’t work for some people. I love when MST3K makes fun of bad 80’s flicks because I grew up with that stuff. I imagine the same goes for those of you who grew up with bad 70’s, 60’s or 50’s movies. But just because I didn’t like “The Mole People” doesn’t mean that I’m not a “serious film student” or “can’t comprehend that there was only one phone company”.
I just didn’t find it funny. I thought the movie didn’t strike the right balance of riffs to film interest. In other words the movie wasn’t entertaining enough on it’s own and the riffs just didn’t connect. Therefore, I didn’t laugh as much.
Look, you may be a self proclaimed old timer. That’s fine. But don’t think that all of us who dislike the film do so because we are ignorant. I love movies, always have. I’ve watched and enjoyed plenty of movies made before 1980 and own quite few in my DVD collection. Some of my favorite MST3K experiments were made before 1980 (I Accuse My Parents, Hercules Against the Moonmen, The Incredible Melting Man). You’re dealing with a movie fan here, one that can appreciate the good and the bad. But sometimes the movie falls flat, the experiment doesn’t click, and it has nothing to do with me not knowing that Dr. Baxter was in educational films. But for the record, I’ve seen “Hemo the Magnificent” back in 7th grade health class… in the mid 80’s! And I also remember it as the movie shown in the film “Gremlins” when the teacher gets attacked. Do they include Mr. Baxter as voice credit on IMDB for “Gremlins”?
Anyway, just watch where you’re swinging that thing Tim. No need to attack us Gen Xers. But you can disagree with us all you want. :-)
Amen, Roman.
Re: the generation that was here first- Gen Xers are reminded of baby boomers every day. Like when we see that on the baby boomer’s watch social security, medicare, and medicaid are going bankrupt, and that Gen X and the Millenials will be stuck with massive budget deficits and declining physical and social infrastructure.
Not meaning to inject politics (baby boomers leadership in both parties are equally responsible), but I see no need to accept any claims of moral superiority over my generation by the generation whose motto is “don’t expect to inherit anything from us.”
No argument here please- the best thing about MST3k is the fact that its appeal is multi-generational- I am a “boomer”, my best friend and roommate is an “xer” and I have three kids who are echo boomers- all of us love the show and different riffs and movies make us laugh.
Hmmm…I was born in the last year of what would be considered a “boomer.” Boom, boom…Well, whatever.
I like this ep, but have to say that riffing only takes of in spots…that is this is a solid good ep but spotty. See Dick and Jane…
I saw this as a kid and was very disturbed by the quick glimpse we get of the withered corpses after they have been “sunburned.”
I have an original fifties lobby card (a gift)from the film that shows one of the nifty now postively iconic mole people posing for his close up.
Does anyone else feel repulsed when then think Agar/Temple Black? I know I do.
B+
yeah makes me think twice when I hear the “good ship lollipop”
To read my post, one must scroll down, down, down….
Sorry, I couldn’t resist!
Anyway, as I’m trying to catch up here, I’ll just add my overview. This episode was, imho, the first step in their road back to hitting the strides they made from seasons 4-7. This movie had two recognizable actors from previous MST experiments (Agar and Beaumont), a character that gains the nickname “Load” for totally the right reason, and many Mole Men, who already have their own niche in MST-dom. The riffing was very good – especially the remarks about Agar’s smugness and the running “Load” gag – and the host segments are chuckle-worthy. (Although I agree Mike’s bit on the professor from the movie would have been funnier had the ‘bots left him alone). Still, it’s a long way before these guys hit the gaspingly-funny stretch they would produce during the season.
Fave riff: “Way to throw the bucket of cold water, Clorox face!”
i realize Nestor Paiva is one of the ’50s ‘beautiful people’ but i really do wonder how he got into so many of these movies. and yes this movie is nothing but ropes and asses and it tends to bring me down, down, down…