Movie: (1983) In an dystopian future, a corporate drone discovers a way to project himself into his a favorite movie.
First shown: 12/6/97
Opening: Crow wants to cash in on his catchphrase: “You know you want me, baby!”
Intro: Mike tries to find himself a catchphrase, while Public Pearl TV begins its dubious pledge drive
Host segment 1: Crow and Tom order a monkey, which escapes and throws stuff
Host segment 2: While Mike continues to struggle with Henry the monkey, PPTV presents a preview of “Pearl! Pearl! Pearl! Pearl! Pearl!”
Host segment 3: Tom asks to be doppled to the nanite world, and soon regrets it
End: Bobo tries and fails to talk Henry down, so Mike takes deplorable action. Meanwhile, Pearl is counting her ill-gotten gain
Stinger: “Mom … ‘m I nuts?”
(307 votes, average: 4.62 out of 5)
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• And so season 8 comes to an end, and does so with a flourish. Another strange …er… movie, lots of great riffing and memorable host segments.
• Bill’s take this episode is here.
• This episode was included in Rhino’s The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 4
• References.
• The “You Know You Want Me, Baby” T-shirts hit the Info Club store very quickly after this show aired. The boxes we can see in the opening are probably real.
• This season started on the first of February and it was December when this last episode of the season aired. The first seven episodes were shown in seven weeks, an almost dizzying bounty of new MST3K. But after that we got exactly five episodes every three months. This would be the last new episode until season 9 began in mid-March of the following year.
• The “Public Pearl TV” pledge drive in the opening is inspired. And, of course, Ortega (that’s Paul under that mask) makes a return appearance. “The Nature of Bobo” bit-within-a-bit is great too.
• TV’s Frank is invoked twice, including an “eyukaeee!”
• Instantmonkeysonline.com actually exists (update: it STILL exists). It allows you to send a cute ascii picture of a monkey to a friend via e-mail. It wasn’t very instant when I tried it, though.
• Mary Jo and Bill managed to top the pledge drive sketch with the instant classic “When Loving Lovers Love.” The pair show a tremendous chemistry.
• The endless fat jokes might begin to seem unfair after a while, except, let’s face it, the movie itself keeps calling the character “The Fat Man.” That seems, to me, like permission to go nuts.
• Paul and Patrick are the voices of the hoodlum nanites. This is pretty much the one clunker segment in this episode.
• That’s Beez and then-recent BBI hire Peter Rudrud as the voices of the “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank Technical Support” team.
• By the way, the RiffTrax team actually did a very respectful, but still very funny riff of “Casablanca.”
• Cast and crew round up: Another brief one, since this was mostly done by Canadians. Costumer: Mary Jane McCarty also worked on “The Last Chase.”
• CreditsWatch: Produced and directed by Kevin. Fred Street, an audio guy who appeared in the credits in seasons 2 and 3 and then returned for season 8, falls off the regular credits after this episode, as does Post Audio Inc. (Both return one more time for special thanks in a season 10 episode.)
• Fave riff: “Thank you, Floyd the pervert.” Honorable mention: “Ah, the call to script rewrites.”
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Whoops…meant to add Hobgoblins.
huzzah! my favorite episode!
I was very sad the day my wife made me get rid of my “You Know You Want Me Baby” t-shirt.
Of course it was ripped, threadbare and i wasn’t allowed to go out in public with it.. but still
I’m Interfaced!
First of all:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Now to today’s movie. I can’t help but wonder what happenes in the future that made mind switching with an animal a mandatory policy? Did the furry community gain high political power and institute new laws that everyone have a fursona? I’m sure this technology would be a furry’s fondest dream, until they realize how gross animals tend to be. Personally, I’d rather be doppled into the middle of a harem of super-sexy bikini models than into a smelly baboon.
#11: Boy, you got that right. We’re supposed to regard Fingal as some sort of brave revolutionary taking down The System. The System, though, is remarkably patient with him, giving him a last chance even after screwing with the global climate and doing a Robin Hood with the company’s “credits”. Money in THE FUTURE is always “credits” isn’t it? Just like how ordinary items in THE FUTURE always get ridiculous-sounding abbreviated or hyphenated names. Why don’t you reconst your flavo-fibs and call for a medico on the voice-com flavo-link synth-arrgh!
Apollonia couldn’t have screwed up things worse. Why the hell couldn’t she merely speak as herself from the start instead of hiding behind weird disguises and cryptic messages? I’m pretty sure that if I picked up my telephone and heard the telephone operator say something like, “No outgoing calls, trust me, I’ll explain when I can,” I would not accept this any more quietly than Fingal did. Would it have killed Apollonia, when she was speaking as the telephone operator, at the very least to tell Fingal her name?
It’s been said that the Sci-Fi era MST3K shows got too mean. Maybe so, but I share their anger in this one. Sometimes anger is the only sensible response to a movie this aggressively stupid. “The director’s neck right in my hands!”
“Y’know, I bet nobody ever scrolls up THIS cinema…”
A few more observations:
Mary Jo has the phony hostess thing so nailed… especially the way she enunciates “WNET”.
One of the best riffs ever that’s both clever AND reams the idiotic technobabble:
Pinch-mouthed Cockney creep: Ident??
Mike: Well, that’s a shame, maybe you need a polyvinyl coating.
#54: And it’s so true… the System is not only patient but practically enabling him by participating in his fantasy on his terms. How many chances do they give him, three, four? “Okay, Miss James, I really mean it, this time we’ll terminate him, honest, if he doesn’t behave…”
INVALID FORMAT!
QUIT OR RETRY?
I still wear my “You know you want me, baby” T proudly, mostly because non-MSTies wonder what the hell it means.
“He looks drunk to me” was a line my roommate and I would say apropos of nothing, despite the fact that we spent most of our evenings drunk.
And for anyone who doesn’t care for this episode, at least it’s not an anteater.
The single most irritating bit in this movie is the “reverse the access code”.
Have to agree with Crow there.
Good thing the Fat Man wasn’t encoding allied messages during WWII. Sprechen sie deutsch?
I think my favorite riff (if you can call it that) from this episode is Kevin’s laughter after the way the psychist delivers the word “cinemas”.
I wonder if this movie was the inspiration for James Cameron’s “Avatar” idea – or ‘m I nuts?
Is it me, or did this movie not include any kind of “memory bank?”
‘M I nuts or is this a hilarious episode? I loved the “Dr. Who…the hell cares?” riff near the end. The Brains seem to know their British television (in the past they’ve referenced Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and Benny Hill off the top of my head). And yes, this movie is exhibit A as to why public television should be axed.
Love the first part of the episode, but it loses me after the 1st Host Segment with all the techno jargon. Not one I put on very often.
PBS Pledge Drive technology hasn’t improved past 1998 apparently.
This one grew on me over time as well. It takes a few consecutive viewings to sort the whole mess out. It’s definitely “different” from any other film of that season! And, of course, CLASSIC host segments.
As for Raul Julia’s appearance in this piece of sh…..surely fine entertainment, I’ve always kind of wondered if he did this project as a kind of “pay-back” for the early exposure he got in his career on PBS. Unless I’m mistaken, wasn’t he a regular cast member of “The Electric Company”, back in the early-mid seventies?
I’m on medication,okay?
I believe the nanites are portrayed by Patrick Brantseg and Paul Chaplin. I don’t know why Bridget is credited, it doesn’t sound anything like her.
Yo, Dja-MILL-a!
My all-time favorite ep, hands down. I never get over the moments of absolute ridiculousness the movie keeps chucking at us like so many video rectangles (Fingal’s head being sawn off, the animal film footage, the Birth of Venus sequence with the children’s choir, Apollonia’s image of electrons making love…), so it’s especially gratifying that the guys give this one the MST treatment HARD. That, for me, makes up for the off-putting video quality, badly adapted story, and draggy back third—even the throwaway riffs during that stretch kill me (“Try jiggling it!”).
And the PBS segments were rare gold in the Sci-Fi era, from Bobo’s ginormous Border Pop cup (wasn’t that one of the props sold on eBay? I could swear I tried bidding on it) to “Loving Lovers Love,” which was like every Roberta Flack song rolled into one.
All that plus a U Thant reference, so bonus points all around from this judge.
Come…to my mall…to my atrium…
I’ll see you on the dark side of Raaa-uuul!
Another favorite of mine. I’m still not sure what the hell the movie is about. At the end, when his Rick double is shot and they, uh, interface, are we supposed to infer that Fingle has merged with his fantasy Casablanca persona, making him a more complete person in the real world… or m’ I nuts?
And to be fair to Fingle’s jingling of his dingles, I’m sure that most guys, upon discovering themselves in a fantasy playground, would immediately whip up an unrequited crush or two. However, is it… sexy?
I got a copy of this on Laserdisc a while back, and the “Eyewitness News” music on the end credits just goes on forever! Long after the credits have stopped even. I’m guessing PBS would insert a pledge break a that point.
I can imagine a few Matrix riffs if they somehow had been able to do this movie just a few years later.
I feel the ” ‘m I nuts?” line is still the most unintentionally funny line of any movie covered by MST3K. The fact that the guys simply giggle when they hear the line just shows that even the Brains couldn’t think of a worthy response…
Oops, I was actually thinking of the sequence in Diabolik where they showed clips from past films to the guys. In the actual scene Tom simply repeats “My nuts?” after Raul’s infamous line.
There is an in-depth, humorous review of the original “Overdrawn…” at the Agony Booth website, including descriptions of scenes cut for the MST version. More stuff with the Fat Man and his corporate cronies, etc. Lots of screencaps with funny captions. Good times…
http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Overdrawn_at_the_Memory_Bank_1983.aspx
What’s your name? Ortega? That’s pretty!
I love the nanites! The clunker for me was Henry the Ape and having to listen to Mike drool on himself!
Raul Julia is Daisy the Mangy-ole-baboon in… Doppling for Credits!
One of my favorite episodes… i don’t know why… but i like this episode better in the morning hours than the late hours…
must be a saturday morning episode thing…
“We demand that you set up a delicious buffet!”
“More Gravy!” “To Wendy’s!”
I always thought to myself that if I ever audition for American Idol, I would sing “When loving lovers love”.
“Bloody Darby”
“Grampa! Grampa!”
“Hey Brain Guy, I borrowed you a sweater…”
“Yippee Aye Oy Vey”
Great episode 5/5
Oh, and for those with poor short-term memories (like myself), next weeks “episode” ASSIGNMENT: VENEZUELA can be found on Rhino’s Vol. 7, the Killer Shrews disk. It’s also viewable on YouTube, all 24 minutes of it. (Bless/curse Rhino for including bonus features on their sets but not telling you which disk they appear on!)
Special thanks to Sampo for outlining the next year of so of these Episode Guides. I love ’em. There are still some bonafide classics to be found in Seasons 9 & 10 (Werewolf, Girl in Gold Boots, etc.), but with this Trilogy of the Future, MST3K as a series has reached its peak, IMHO (Later host segments set in Castle Forrester do not trump the often inspired scenarios of the “endless chase” seen in Season 8). I’m looking forward to going back to the future with the KTMA episodes (some of which are great) and those early CC years filled with pure Joel goodness.
Bizarrely enough, my parents actually let me watch this on PBS, back when it originally aired as a kid. (This would be on our local affiliate in MN, KTCA, not on the Boston station that produced it.) It was such a strange movie that it stuck in my mind, so that even all those years later, when my friend described the MST3K episode he’d taped for me, I was able to interrupt him with, “And his body had been sent off for a sex change, right?”
Not sure whether that nostalgia helped, but I love this episode. It’s got that peculiar brand of quirky insanity that makes it good riffing fodder, and they have some great lines (“I finally killed my virtual pet.” “Genius, pure genius…” “…couldn’t save this movie.” and I will admit to singing, “Come to my mall, to my atrium, yeah yeah” whenever I hear the tune to ‘Come As You Are’ by Nirvana.)
And the sketches are great too. My girlfriend’s four-year-old adores “When Loving Lovers Love”, because it’s a song about love. She dances to it. We giggle like schoolkids. :)
The Henry the Ape skits may not be much in and of themselves, but I thought they added to the overall feel of several things going on at once throughout the episode, rather than isolated skits, what with Pearl being constantly preoccupied with her orderly pledge drive while a monkey runs amok on the satellite. And going from his “Nature of Bobo” special to talking Henry down at the end gave the good professor two unrelated but similar things to do in a single episode, something of a rarity for his character. Aside from the first Summer Blockbuster Review, was this the first time Bobo was ever on the Satellite? And while interracting with something entirely off-screen may seem unforgivably cheap to some, they’re also interracting with other parts of the SOL we never see. For me, this is another episode that felt like one continuous skit with 4 to 9 rude interruptions from an implausible movie, and it doesn’t get any better than that.
And though everything they threw at pledge drives was both dead-on and decades overdue, I’ll always see PBS as a good thing…that I just never watch. I would…if they hadn’t stopped airing the greatest musical sitcom of all time, ‘The Steven Banks Show’. I recall he was based in New Orleans, so I hope Katrina didn’t destroy the master tapes; I haven’t seen a trace of him in 15 years.
“SHHHH! He’s talking about his area…”
I recall Paul writing that this was the most painful movie they did for SciFi until Hobgoblins, or something like that. If this one really hurt the Brains, could it be partly that this horribly unworthy “futuristic” take on Casablanca dredged up memories of the OTHER horribly unworthy “futuristic” take on Casablanca? The one that denied MST3K:TM the full and proper theatrical release it deserved?
Just a wild guess on my part.
Of all the barbs in all the wire, she had to walk into the same distributor…
This movie certainly is “aggressively stupid”–it probably shows up more sharply because it attempts to be smart. I don’t think I’ve ever read any John Varley stories, but I’m sure he has done and can do better than this adaptation.
The fakey future-slang does get on one’s nerves a bit, but two seeming examples of it really aren’t:
“Ident” appears to be a Britishism which they and others use to abbreviate “identification,” where Americans would usually say “ID.”
“Medico” is another Britishism for doctor–it appears in at least one Monty Python sketch.
5 stars!
A few things puzzle me about this movie.
1. Fingal attended BosNYWash school. Now, does this imply that Boston, New York, and Washington D.C. have merged into some kind of megalopolis?
2. Doppling. What kind of weirdo wants to go on vacation in the body of an animal? Is it for the sex? And how does it work exactly? Is this some kind of mass computer simulation? And if the animals exist on their own without dopplers, is right to take over their minds for a cheap thrill?
3. Cinemas. As we now know, it is nearly impossible for one corporation to have total control over digital media. Now, in the movie’s world, have films been banned? Are they just not part of the culture anymore? Are there no more movie theaters? No more television?
However, the concept is not as silly as it may seem. Imagine if our own society got so used to digital downloads that movie theaters became obsolete? Now imagine the culture or digital media becoming so commonplace that the people become apathetic about it. What if some corporation did end up controlling all existing movies and television programs?
Anyway, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank is both stupid and intriguing.
This is my most watched episode of all time.
Surely this will cure him of watching cinemas!
Good episode, four out of five.
Can’t wait for Assignment: Venezuela. I knew nothing about it until it showed up on Volume 7. It promptly became one of my very favorite “shorts” if you will (considering it is VERY LONG).
Concerning A:V, when did it air originally? Was it attached to one of the episodes? I have always wondered where this short came from.
mikek @84
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnywash
Crow – “And just what is the ‘It” which is “to him” of and which he can perhaps handle?”
Tom – “Danger: Ear Poice!”
“I guess you have to go now?”
“yeah” (Tom: ” But it’s just #1, don’t worry”)
Random observations:
– Novacorp seems to be a multilevel shopping mall or probably an empty office complex on a weekend.
– It’s pretty funny that the angry monkey is named Henry Kissinger.
– I like this episode but don’t watch it often, the film is interesting and bad but bland.
3.3 stars? Hard to quantify!
ALSO: Sampo, thanks for the update about the episode guide future! It will be interesting to see the reviews when we get around the the KTMA shows! Hopefully those who don’t have them can follow along on youtube! Some are rather devoid of riffs, like the ones where Trace or Josh are not there. Fun to compare them to the versions they re-riffed later, such as the Gamera and Fugitive Alien flicks.
“One of my favorite episodes… i don’t know why… but i like this episode better in the morning hours than the late hours… ”
I think it’s because of the PBS vibe. It feels like an educational program they’d show you in elementary school, plus perverted kids who fondle the dopples and Fingle tingling the imaginary ladies.
Re #82:
I agree with the interconnected feel of the host segments, and that this episode was probably the height of the host segments in the series. Now, there’s plenty that I enjoy in season 9 and 10, but I agree that Castle Forrester reinstated a “comfort zone” for the Brains and killed off the inspired, adventurous feel of season 8. Sometimes they worked (the Observer planet, the Galactic Tribunal, the wormhole, and both this and the previous episode), sometimes they didn’t (Roman Times), but there was always something new on the horizon.
As far as the episode guide goes, are we not getting The Summer Blockbuster Reviews and Oscar Special until after the KTMA revisit? If I recall right, the first Summer Blockbuster Review fell between Prince of Space and Horror Of Party Beach. Just curious, as I consider them mini-episodes of their respective seasons (and where else will you see Pearl, Bobo, and Observer sitting in the theater with Mike and the bots?). I love the revisits though. It’s become a Thursday tradition that I don’t want to end (meaning if you have to pad it out with, say, The Film Crew, that’s okay too).
Lets see what’s more exciting (enter 10,000 activities you can do today)or being a panda. It seems more exciting eating flavofives.
#66:
Actually, Raul Julia was a member of the cast of Sesame Street during its 3rd season (1971-2). He played Rafael, who co-founded the Fix-It Shop with Luis (thank you, Muppet Wiki.)
Another observation: Given that “prophylactic” more or less means “preventative,” “prophylactic rehab” doesn’t make much sense. Rehabilitation corrects a problem that already exists. You don’t use it to stave off future problems. Since the problem of Fingal slacking off at work already existed, they should have ditched the “prophylactic” part.
@ 86 Matt:
Assignment: Venezuela was written and recorded for the MST3k CD-Rom that never actually happened. Eventually BB put it on a shorts compilation and Rhino did the same.
As usual, if my facts are wrong, feel free to correct me with what REALLY happened. Just doing this from memory.
I do agree with you, this is easily in my top 5 shorts.
Love this episode. I don’t quite understand those who dislike it because “the movie’s so stupid.” Isn’t that the point of MST3K, to make fun of bad, stupid movies? The ones I find boring are the ones where not much happens (typically one of the dreary 50s flicks). In this one, there’s plenty of weird crazy stuff going on that is ripe for riffing–who cares if the movie itself is stupid?
By the way, it’s “Flav-o-fibes,” as in fiber chips–remember, it’s THE FUTURE, where apparently salty junk food snacks are all healthy and stuff. Now pardon me as I exit through the synth-o-flav-o-door.
An anteater killed my Father!
Dammit, he was found in front of the anteater cage at the zoo, with a note made of smashed ants on paper. The police said it was inconclusive who killed him. Anybody who supports the dirty anteaters can go to…
I am sorry, I am alittle sensative.
#84: “3. Cinemas. As we now know, it is nearly impossible for one corporation to have total control over digital media. Now, in the movie’s world, have films been banned? Are they just not part of the culture anymore? Are there no more movie theaters? No more television?”
I thought it was just that Novicorp people were forbidden from watching movies while working, not necessarily that all citizens were forbidden from watching them. In any case his getting caught watching “cinemas” didn’t seem to be regarded as some grave crime, as though he’d been caught reading a book in Fahrenheit 451, and more like just another instance of Fingal goofing off on company time and earning a stiff reprimand for it.
Sometimes it’s the little things that make you laugh the most. Like Crow singing ‘Happy Together’ to the music, or “Big slam outta nowhere on anteaters” and so on.
Come! As you are! To my mall! To my atrium, yeah yeah!
I hated this episode when I first saw it, but since purchasing the dvd, it has grown on me.
I also find the 2 female “love interests” quite attractive, in a hairy upper lipped, Canadian sort-of-way.
Fav. line: “Mom, ‘m I nuts?”
#81, when you say “Boston Station,” you are obviously referring to WGBH 2. Well, sorry to correct, but it was actually WNET 13 New York that produced this pile of crap.
My dad also saw this movie when it originally aired, on Detroit’s (and most of Canada’s) PBS affiliate, Superstation WTVS 56. When he revealed this to me, it took a lot of effort for me to not risk being smacked by saying “Dad, you have no life!”
Und #60, Ja, ich spreche Deutsch. Ein bissen.