Movie: (1975) A meteor crashes in Wisconsin, laden with the eggs of otherworldly spiders. Incompetent local officials try to respond.
First shown: 5/31/97
Opening: Tom shows spirit, but Mike and Crow only offer MRxL
Intro: The campers recall their trip, Tom portages and Pearl shares some pod-like “zucchini”
Host segment 1: Pod-Gypsy suggests sleep, but Mike is suspicious
Host segment 2: Mike and the bots try to stay awake, while Bobo is skeptical
Host segment 3: Pod-Servo seems convincing, until asked about his “collection”
End: Bobo saves the day, but Pearl declares movie sign … again!
Stinger: Pthpthpthp!
(326 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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• At last. With this episode you can sense that the channel begins to trust BBI more, and the result is a memorable gem. We get the first color movie of the Sci-Fi Channel era, and what a movie! A real departure from the sameness of the film choices up to this point. The segments playfully take on another classic sci-fi trope and the riffing is top-of-the-line. All-in-all a landmark, breakthrough episode.
• Get Paul’s rather dyspeptic take here, which includes some mild satirical slander to which director Bill Rebane himself, in humorless email to us, took personal offense, causing us to add a disclaimer on that page.
• References.
• This episode was included in Rhino’s The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 10
• Callback: “Down and down…” (The Mole People), “Somebody tampered in God’s domain,” (Bride of the Monster), “Did you beef?” (I Was a Teenage Werewolf).
• During the intro, Tom gets even for getting clobbered during the very similar “board routine” in episode 614- San Francisco International.
• Of course, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers'” (and other pod-based horror movies) have their turn at being parodied.
• Bill Williams, who played bar owner Dutch, and Barbara Hale, who played scientist Jenny Langer, were real-life husband and wife, and their son is William Katt, best remembered for his starring role in TV’s “The Greatest American Hero.”
• Daleism: As the we see the dying girl’s hand: “He thought I was Dale!”
• When amped-up Crow is in the theater, a heart beating sound effect continues for several minutes.
• The giant spider sat on a Volkswagen chassis; a driver and another eight men were inside to control each leg. That must have been fun.
• Those who’d never seen “MST3K: The Movie” were probably baffled by the host segment reference to Tom Servo’s underwear collection.
• Of course, the cry “PACKERS!!!!” became an immediate catchphrase.
In fact in February of 2011, on the night the Packers DID, in fact, win the Super Bowl, I was retweeted hundreds of times after I tweeted this Youtube video.
• In 2013, what was left of the giant spider, a rusting metal frame, was stolen from a field in Merrill.
• Cast and crew roundup: Producer-Director Bill Rebane also did “Monster A Go-Go.” Assistant director/unit manager Barbara Rebane did the costumes for “Monster A Go-Go.” In front of the camera, Steve Brodie was also in “Wild World of Batwoman.” Alan Hale Jr. was also in “The Crawling Hand” and “Angels Revenge.” Robert Easton (who also got a screenwriter credit for this movie) did the voices in the British 1965 TV series “Stingray,” episodes of which were included in the the TV-movie that was featured in episode K01-INVADERS FROM THE DEEP. He was also in “The Touch Of Satan.”
• CreditsWatch: Jim is listed as producer for the last time in the series. Kevin is director. He is also associate producer for the last time. Interns Tamara Melloy and Randy Smith begin a four-episode stint.
• Fave riff: “I hate it when a movie kills off a beloved character … this is great, though!” Honorable mention: “His Hagar slacks have a waistband with repressed memories.” “Admit it! You felt something when I rolled on you!”
• Oh, and remember: honor the umlaut!
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I can’t believe that I forgot Leslie Parrish was in The Manchurian Candidate! Good point about Trace would have remembered her in Star Trek. I bet Frank would have remembered her film history. She was (is?) a very pretty woman, and I have always been a little dismayed at her portraying such an icky character in this film. Actually, I think she still looks pretty good, even with them trying to make her look icky.
Ugh. This movie, this movie. Filled to the brim with loathsome characters, for once NOT southerners (my favorite riff “You know, I kind of wish the South would rise again and crush the North”) but this movie is almost unwatchable even with the riffing. I don’t think I’ve ever understood, upon watching, what the HECK the explanation for the spiders’ presence is supposed to be! A black hole in the middle of a field? Wouldn’t that be really noticable, what with the sucking in of all nearby objects? Did the filmmakers not understand what a black hole, in fact, was? Or am I the one who doesn’t understand what one is? It IS a singularity which attracts (or sucks) all nearby matter into itself right? So how could spiders (even GIANT ones) come OUT of one? Nonetheless, I LOVED the host segments. “Close your eyes, go to sleep, be absorbed by the collective…” I can’t tell you how that speaks to my own fears…
…and yes, I just realized that I misspelled “Wisconsinites”!
Sorry ’bout that! (what’dya expect?…I AM from a SMALL TOWN, ya know!)
WOOOO! PACKERS WON DER SUPERBOWL!! WHOOOOOOOO! PACKERS!!!
YEA! I just noticed that Sampo misspelled “Wisconsinites” too!
Whew!…I’m not alone!
GO PACKERS!!!
This Robert Easton fellow is a respected character actor with quite a long listing at IMDB. But, his portrayal of “white trash” was offensive and represents a type of human I have never met! It’s a bad stereotype. I think Alan Hale has some peculiar charm even when he’s doing something undignified, as his every frame in this movie; probably the ghost of The Skipper. This episode is one of my favorites.
Confession alpha- Some of my neurons locked together in an unholy chain and I had the idea (for a time) that Alan H and Barbara H were related. My bad.
Confession beta- I purchased the single DVD of “The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman” and took it back because it had a huge gnarly scratch. I should have kept it, damage and all.
This was the first Sci Fi channel-era ep I watched (on the DVD box set, years after the show’s cancellation), and it convinced me that they’d lost nothing in the jump from Comedy Central.
One of my favorite riffs is when the motorcyclist crashes in the beginning of the film, and Servo yells, “Albert Camus!” in his tragic voice. It cracks me up every time – such a little throwaway joke (but not really accurate, as Camus died in a car accident, but whatever).
Bill Rabane had the gall to complain about Paul’s mild reflections on a movie that is less a movie than a rucksack of meadow muffins stuffed to capacity. And this is the same turnip head who cobbled together four plotless movies into one blow to the head called “Monster A-Go-Go”. He should thank his lucky stars MST3K scraped these abortions out of the garbage heap for a verbal thrashing else he’d be the anonymous back alley drunk he deserves to be.
Randy
PACKERS WON THE SUPERBOWL! WOOOOO!
The scenes in the planetarium and “bio lab” were filmed in the science building (with planetarium) here on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. I’ve walked up those stairs that give El Doughy Scientist heart palpitations.
“Has anyone ever figured out exactly who the “twin brother of Dutch” is at the end? He literally comes out of nowhere.”
He seems to be a deputy – AFAICT the same one who’s doing crowd control earlier on, as everyone is riled up coming out of the bar.
Don3k@#2: I always thought Crow was implying that by so clearly showing the pickup rusting away in the front yard of these repulsive characters was a Ford, the movie may as well have done just the opposite of product-placement: encouraging viewers to buy a Chevy pickup instead.
For me, the line, “Wow, it’s such a nice day out…and they’re spending it making this movie”, sums up the whole appeal of this ep’s feel: Several outdoor scenes near the end just make it look like it must have been fun to run around with the spidey VW, breakin’ stuff, hitting the fair, whatever there was to do in that Wisconsin summer. The late RDS’s magnum opus 2 shows later holds a similar appeal.
The host segments come together beautifully, despite one unfortunate instance in the theater of Tom telling Mike to take no extreme measures to revive him if he lapses into a coma, immediately after a host segment that reaffirmed their need to stay awake. D’oh!
What more than makes up for that disconnect though, is the stinger complimenting the host story arc perfectly. M&TB just saved the universe, and their reward is…sitting through the movie again!?! NOOOOOOOOoooooooooo…
And what 3 seconds of the movie could compliment this sentiment better than Cousin Billy’s eloquent “THBBBB-B-B-B-B-B-B-BTH! He-he-heeee…” The perfect ending to a perfect summer evening.
Y’all are psychic! I just popped this one into the ol’ DVD player last night. Still get uncomfortable seeing Alan Hale’s waaaaaaay-too-unbuttoned uniform shirt. :sad: Still squirm when the woman hubby’s sleeping with gives him back his dirty, stinky ol’ truss! *blecch* :cry: Still get nauseated when Ev makes a ham-handed pass @ her sister’s boyfriend :oops: (& speaking of getting sick to one’s stomach, how ’bout his Quana shirt?). Leslie Parrish (who played Ev) surprised me one night while I was watching my favorite old TV drama series, Perry Mason (the early eps from the 1950s/60s). She’s on 3 eps, including http://tinyurl.com/ylc8mtb .
One of my all-time favorites. The return of Bill Rebane’s stupid synth (or whatever they are) sounds (The Brains make the same ELP Lucky Man riffs they did in Monster A-Go-Go!) and Steve Brodie from Wild World Of Batwoman (The Brains make the same Brodie Is Drunk In The Scene jokes!). I love this because you know they probably don’t remember the riffs they did in those episodes but it’s hilarious they made the same jokes, to me.
Yes, YES, YES! The episode we were all waiting for! In fact, I’m gonna go ahead and say that this episode started an AMAZING stretch of shows; the type of stretch not seen since late in season for that lasted until the middle of season five.
My favorite riffs are when the gang sing various love ballads immediatly after the Kesters yell at each other. Hilarious!!
I also love Crow’s highly caffeinated pre-theater cry of “SUUUURRRRGE!!!”
GIANT SPIDER INVASION is a personal favorite. The best episode in the Volume 10 pack. Either edition. Pure American white trash.
“Want a piece of milk?”
Re: #19. I always assumed Pearl was selling the experiment to whatever futuristic cable providers were picking it up. Likewise, when they were in Ancient Rome, she was sending the transmissions back through the wormhole.
“When the name Leslie Parrish came up in the opening credits, M&tBs didn’t know who she was. Didn’t they remember she was in one of the eps of Star Trek:TOS?
Wow, just looked this up. She was Lt. Palamas in “Who Mourns for Adonais?”. Yooowsa, she cleans up nice. Never would have spotted that without help.”
===========================
Yeah, that’s right. I guess Kester caught Bev on the rebound. Of course going from a Greek god to Kester would probably drive any woman to strong drink.
Is anyone else really grossed out when that spider falls into the blender and gets all mixed up in her vitamin shake or whatever it is she’s making?? ICK!! Makes me wanna hurl. Gross.
Oh, and PACKERRRRRRSSSSS!!!!
woo!
One of the best of the later episodes, without a doubt, one of my favorites.
First 5 star episode of the Sci-Fi era! Bad 1970’s scifi with nonsensical plot, bland characters & great riffing. Wow, and some really lame attempts at humor from Alan Hale. i can’t believe they (the movie writers, not the riffers) open the movie with a Gilligan’s Island reference! Alan Hale “Hi little buddy”
— “Not a joke, but an incredible simulation”
The host segments aren’t the funniest ever, but there are some good moments – ultra-caffeinated Crow is pretty funny and Tom’s proud description of his underwear collection to the pod-tom is classic.
The first time i saw this the crowd scenes with everyone yelling “PACKERS” cracked me up every time, but it’s kinda worn off after repeat viewings.
“Moses; move the bike!”
“I wanna see that pant-suit hit the floor”
“Ohh, McRib sandwich with McFlies”
“Johnny CRAPple-seed”
“Lion’s Club medium-rare chicken booth … pasted with sun-brewed mayonaise”
“Are we dead Mike?”
Mike: “Mr. Rebane you really can’t see anything” Tom: “just shut up and keep filming Mr. NYU film-pants”
“Audiences won’t soon forget when the thing we didn’t know what it was, was put in the helicopter by the guy we didn’t know.”
Suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, as if a light has been lit, there was no trail, there was no Balloon Boy, no thing called Falcon to be tracked.
(Sorry, Off Topic, but had to do it.)
out-For-Snakes: “Watch-Is anyone else really grossed out when that spider falls into the blender and gets all mixed up in her vitamin shake or whatever it is she’s making?? ICK!! Makes me wanna hurl. Gross.
Oh, and PACKERRRRRRSSSSS!!!!
woo!”
It’s a Bloody Mary.
Great episode. My stomach always turns when I see that oil stain at the head of Ev’s bed. You realize that it most likely was someone’s ACTUAL room, rather than a set, and that oil stain was from someone’s ACTUAL greasy hair. BLECH!
Oh, and I also remember seeing Robert Easton in a small role in Working Girl with Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford. Had no idea that he was the Klingon judge in Star Trek VI–good call, Gummo #44!
About Tom’s “interesting” collection. I didn’t see The Movie riffed until much later. Was that the first refernce to Tom’s collection in MST3000 movies? And if The Movie’s visual picture of TS’s room was seen first I’d think it would take away from the skit in TGSI. Oh, and that fake Tom Servo can just be thankful TS’s crazy gramma didn’t get him. :evil:
Btw, given there’s an interociter in TS’s room, perhaps there are other escape pods? Or Packer Super Bowl tapes!
#71 Johnny Ryde – OUCH. Good one!
Gulliver:
Thank you, pearliemae (#32), for bringing up the oddness of M&TB failing to recognize Leslie Parrish — I remember feeling very sad about this because Trace, first-class STAR TREK fan that he is, would certainly have remembered her… to me it was just an added twist of the knife, a reminder that my favorite Brain had left the show.
There are many arguments to be made about Bill Corbett’s inferiority to Trace Beaulieu, some better than others, but lamenting Corbett’s failure to make one Trek-related comment about one actress is probably the silliest argument to date.
I love this episode. In many respects this movie is almost the perfect MST fodder. It has a profoundly horrible director who the crew has encountered before, a stupid plot, loathsome characters, recognizable actors, terrible effects, technical incompetence, a local connection, and an excuse to tee off on the host. What more could one ask for?
Bill Rebane is a seriously underrated bad director. He tends to get a pass on Monster a Go Go, but some of the major problems with that movie are replicated here. The guy has no idea on how to record sound, and there are many scenes on both movies where background noise (like the typewriter) drown out dialogue. You can never tell what is going on in the night scenes. If he provided any guidance to the actors, it does not really come across in either film, though in this film it works to his benefit. Say what you will about his technical proficiency, he evidently knew how to run a loose set. Everyone in this movie seems to be having a ball.
The actors in this movie are generally pretty good, especially Robert Easton. What was he thinking when he worked on the screenplay, and then agreed to play Dan Kester, though?
I’ll probably be alone on this, but I’d like to suggest that this episode might be Kevin Murphy’s best performance in the theater. It seems like almost all of his riffs slay me, particularly the wordless responses to the Alan Hale prune joke and Dan Kester turning on the light.
I hate to say it, but I’m with Rebane on Paul’s “summary.”
I’m going to start a band called Zucchini Throwpillow.
Oh, sorry, Sampo, forget to rate this one in my previous post. Five stars out of Five. Again, one of the best episodes in the show’s history.
Packers won the super boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwl!
Best episode ever!
Ev: “So when are ya gonna get off your butt and do something?!”
Robert Easton chewing repulsively: “Gotta keep mah strength up.”
Mike: “Tearin’ food stamps is hard!” :lol:
One of THE best episodes ever and as said before, the beginning of the golden era of MST3K’s sci fi years. I’ll never forget that Saturday afternoon back in ’97 when I first saw it, my sides hurt so hard from laughter. PACKERS! VAAAA-A-A-A-NCE! This, Final Sacrifice and Horror of Party Beach are my trifecta of sci fi favorites.
Another fave line, as Hale drives away from the riot and (mostly self inflicted) bloodshed between the moronic townsfolk and the spider, Mike: “I’m goin’ to Taco John’s ’til this blows over!” lol
I’m the twin brother of Dutch!…. A MAN YOU MURDERED!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is one of only a couple episodes that I failed to acquire during the SciFi run. As such, I only saw it for the first time a couple of months ago on DVD. I can see how, at the time of its first airing, this was like a major departure from the show’s routine. After a series of black and white films with similar themes and settings, suddenly there’s this abomination from the seventies. All the movies used in Season 8 up to this point were filmed with at least a modicum of competence, then suddenly, WHAM! This utterly exremental film with no redeeming cinematic value. Not since LaserBlast and Incredible Melting Man had they suffered through a similarly incompetent and pointless film.
Nearly everyone in this film is revolting, but I think that Barbara Hale still managed to survive with some dignity intact. Despite the whole hill-rolling scene and her grating, gravelly shouting, her character still weathers the crisis in a mostly calm and analytical manner. Thus, Dr. Jenny Langer is my clear choice of favorite character for this film (and really the only possible sane choice). All of the other characters are horrible and I shudder at the very notion of being trapped anywhere with one of this greasy, oily bunch.
I think it’s all been said, except…
PACKERS!!!! WOOO!!!!
You can never say that too much. :razz:
#68: She’s making a Bloody Mary. Why on Earth she’s using a blender to do so is beyond me, and you really can see her very pointedly NOT looking at the blender while she’s making it.
Of course, Leslie Parrish’s Star Trek character, Lt. Palamas, is most memorable for the dress she wore, which is still legendary. The upper part was was basically a wide strip of cloth draped over one shoulder (and held in place with double-sided tape.) It was probably the best example of costume designer William Theiss’s Theory of Titillation: “The degree to which an outfit is considered sexy is directly proportional to the degree to which it appears to be about to fall off.”
As for Rebane’s movie here, I can say that if the characters were MEANT to be incredibly repulsive, then he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. I couldn’t suppress a groan of anguish every time Alan Hale busted out his “jokes.”
Another interesting point is the pointless “take that” against Jaws. Ha ha! How clever, Bill Rebane! You sure are a much better filmmaker than that Spielberg guy, I can tell you. I’m sure that Rebane expected all five of this movie’s theater patrons to cheer at that line. He must have inspired the makers of Laserblast to do their similar dig at Star Wars.
Obviously a very minority opinion here, but I really do not like this episode at all. The movie goes beyond being merely bad/inept, and into the realm of the truly repulsive, and nothing that the Brains do is enough to make it tolerable for me. Just one big Pthpthpthp! all around. :???:
5 stars.
“Hey, it’s in color.” And what a movie it was. This episode has been a favorite of mine ever since it premiered on Sci-Fi. In the context of the order episodes, this one really is a refreshing change from the black & white movies.
Some favorite riffs:
Mike: “It’s a giant spider invasion of savings at MENARDS!”
Mike as Felix Unger as we see the bedroom. : “Oh, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.”
I love the whole night time kitchen scene with Robert Easton and the sister-in-law. I really like Servo’s, “Don’t turn on that light!” Arggh!
This movie was like a color-version of Earth vs. The Spider… though, it was funny.
Pop-culture cyclically rehashes stuff from 2 decades prior, driven by our undying childhood nostalgia first coinciding with whenever we first acquire spending power. The textbook example of the ’70s revising the ’50s is ‘Happy Days, and in film, the ’50s general fixation on “space” mutated into ‘2001’ and Star Wars.
But perhaps someone better versed than I in scifi/horror movies of the last 6 decades could confirm a trend I think I’ve noticed: Was there a school of thought in ’70s B movies that any hokey ol’ scifi flick that hit the screen 20 years prior could be “done right” simply by remaking it with new, state-of-the-art, “realistic” special effects, in spite of even less care being taken in the areas of story and scientific principles? Meltin’ Man’s been mentioned repeatedly in this thread, and I think this might be the main problem it shares with TGSI. Sure, there’s far worse garbage made for SyFy today, but this emphasis on just the FX led to it being more fluid-y, revolting, and to quote Mary Jo, masturbatory in the ’70s than in films of any other time. The trend may have continued through the ’80s, with ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ and ‘The Blob’.
Not that there aren’t good reasons for remakes/updates: Just watch ‘The Last Man on Earth’ and ‘The Omega Man’, 2 different takes on ‘I Am Legend’, both worthwhile enough to enhance each other and the original novel, shaming only Will Smith’s fresh take.
Maybe the key to screwing up a revamp/remake is going into it without carefully weighing preservation of the original’s integrity against the need to update it for current audiences, and just intending to “do it right by fixing that one element”. A more recent example would be all the comic book revamps of ’80s cartoon properites, which seemed to think they were going to fix them by removing kiddie elements and making them more “mature”. This led to a Thundercats series with mountains of corpses, a main character killed in a totally uncaring manner, cute/annoying comic reliefers being dismembered by dinosaurs, most of the female protaganists being the bad-guys’ sex slaves for a few years, and the upstanding hero snapping necks once he learned of all this. Once the shock-value wore off, it just made fans appreciate the subtlety and nuance of the original material, and see their storytelling as truly compelling in ways other than compelling kids to buy toys.
The full effect of this was felt when 810 ended the string of ’50s b&w: similar cheesy monster concept that frequented the last 9, only in color, wow! Now we can clearly see…every greasy fluid coating everyone and everything in this town, even before the spider sprays his own all over them…and then disintigrates enough to show us how many flavors of ice cream it has inside its body. I think this is what made TGSI seem so much worse than the movies in early Season 8, and therefore far better riffing fodder.
This never fails to make me laugh. A classic as far as schlock movies go. I liked the intentional humor of Vance talking to his plant. “Have I ever told you I love you?” Other NASA guy: “Not Recently.”
“How was your day at the WHORE?!”
“It’s befuddlin’ mah dumb cracker mind!”
This whole episode is freaking beautiful, start to finish.
PACKERS WON THE SUPERBOWL! WHOOOOOO!
I’ve seen/met people who made the Kesters look like the Nelsons (Ozzie, not Mike)…
There are so many funny lines in this episode, yet, as with every SFC episode, I can’t help thinking they’d be even funnier if Trace Beaulieu had been there to voice his share…
#41: That reminds me. In the scene where Brodie and Barbara sit down with the skipper and the kid reporter in the restaurant, at one point the skipper calls the kid away for little private sidebar. We never find out what this was about, do we? Or did it get cut by the Brains?
Maybe he thought that Dave looked more intelligent than the sheriff and was asking “Is this guy for real or what?”
Or he just figured a reporter (although Dave seems young to be a reporter, the dialogue states that his father RUNS the newspaper, so it’s sort of an obvious part-time job for him to have) would have better insight?
MRxL!
#41: About that scene in the restaurant when Steve Brodie and the kid go off on a private conversation – I just got it! Steve is giving his kid some acting tips. “Ok now son, that last line had too much energy. Make your delivery more wooden. Just follow my lead.”
I forgot to mention that Pearl’s sending them the movie a second time is the ultimate proof that she is and always has been far more evil than her son.
As far as I’m concerned, when Alan Hale Jr., nearly at the beginning of the movie, calls somebody “little buddy”, it’s the movie’s equivalent of Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here. Very funny experiment, though. And it’s pretty cool that Mike has a Darth Vader mug.
Great episode. Being from Wisconsin this movie does make us look kind of bad. Oh well we still have the PACKERS!!!
By the way do they still make Surge? It was kind of gross.
According to wikipedia, Surge is no more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_(soft_drink)
I don’t think Surge is still made. What ingredient was it that made it different than other sodas? It had some sort of stimulant other than caffeine, but I can’t recall what that was now. Between that and those dumb commercials where teenagers would be charging through some sort of EXTREEEEEEEEEEEE obstacle course for a can, SUUUUURGE! was the butt of so many jokes when I was in high school, like that there should have been cans of it along with the cigarettes and “S-meat” on the Smokers’ ship in ‘Waterworld’, since there’d be millions of cans of it left over that no one would resort to drinking until after the apocalypse.
And one more random thought that’s been rolling through my subconscious for years: If some entrepreneur ever produced a Mystery Science Theater 3000 pinball machine, the sound clip for when you either launch an extra ball or win a free game should be: “Brain Guy, send them the movie…AGAIN!”, with the next ball launch being accompanied by, “Movie sign?!? NOOOOooooo…”
The extra ball/game should be triggered by acquiring the penny and busted cigarette, and…
Yes, I know that with the decline of arcades in favor of personalized content for home systems this’ll never happen. Just, if it DID…
I love this movie ! I can watch it MST3K, NoN MST3k..
I have the Retromedia and Syngery DVDs of this..
MST made the movie really famous though :)