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)
Loading...
• 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.”
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
Ugh, John Agar.
The opening where Crow does the Space Child bit seems to be Bill really starting to make the character his own. It certainly isn’t anything Trace would have done. The way Crow questions Mike’s gesture professor bit is also a patented Billism. This is where I start enjoying the new Crow for what he is rather than missing what he no longer is.
You notice how Tom has a different name for each pastry (actually several names for any given one) even though they all look the same?
Add my voice to those who love the way Bobo begs the Lawgiver for death. Well played.
Add my voice to those who love the way Crow is asking Mike why he should laugh at Mike’s gesture professor. I am one who loves a biting sense of humor and that describes Bill very well.
Favorite Riffs:
The Load “Which would make it one of the oldest human records.” Tom “Older than Frampton comes alive.”
Crow “Maybe we climbed right past the summit.”
John Agar “Your sleeping time? How do you know what that comes?” Crow “Whenever you speak.”
John Agar spouts out yet another factoid. Mike “So you read the brochure. Big deal.”
Adal “Our gods are always angry and give orders.” Crow “Oh, she’s Catholic.”
During the beating of a mole man.
Crow “This is unpleasant”
Mike “Just pretend it’s Adam Sandler.”
Crow “and suddenly it’s great.”
Tom “And that’s for Billy Madison.”
Mole people is a special episode to me. I had to transplant the spool from my VCR tape to another case when the original began to malfunction upon “LOAD”ing into the machine.
“Surface Meat- Coming through…”
The Mole People fails the Bechdel Test. Adad is the only female character with a speaking role.
If you use slo-mo, you can see that the Polaroid in HS3 is in fact a picture of Crow.
Anyone else think that the fertility symbol is mildly creepy?
You could tell that Adad’s death was a last second change because of how contrived it was even by B-movie standards.
And speaking of which, I initially thought her name was Adal too. It was doubly weird because the first time I saw The Mole People, I was making my way through David Drake’s RCN series, in which one of the main characters is named Adele. Of course the two are nothing alike. One is personality-free eye candy, while the other is a gunslinging librarian.
I’ve seen some remarks in other places which consider the prologue with Dr. Baxter as an attempt to sell some junk science as genuine. Personally, I didn’t think it came off that way at all. My impression was that he was explaining how the belief in other civilizations living underground is an ancient concept that managed to persist further into the modern age than you might think. I also think he made it apparent that the movie was purely a What If scenario.
@ #26: Yes, that riff is in this episode.
@ #37: That’s an unpleasant thought.
Favorite riffs:
They probably shouldn’t have kept the world’s oldest record on a cheap card table.
Hey, I’m the guy who speculates wildly around here.
This is easy, archaeology. People just bring you stuff.
They let Billy draw the runes this week.
They’re only keeping this guy so they can hollow him out and crawl inside when he dies.
Treasure these brief moments when John Agar isn’t talking.
Filmed in Wedgievision!
This movie is just ropes and asses!
Don’t take the camera off me. I’m dying.
“There must be some rational, scientific explanation for this.”
I think the elf princess put it here.
Disney’s Dominatrix World!
It’s nice to know that they serve light snacks in Hell.
Day 12: The expedition turns whiny.
You should never have goats and whipping in the same scene.
“With your cylinder of fire, you could bring them under control.”
Why, thank you! Oh, you mean the flashlight.
Ameteur Night of the Gods!
“You will take me with you?”
I’d like to, honey. But I’m a gay, married, impotent priest with a terminal illness and occasional herpes and I’m a hologram on the run from the law.
Great episode!
To this very day if you hold me back or mess something up I will call you a “load.”
One of my favorite MSTieisms!
The high priest was played by Alan Napier. Born Alan William Napier-Clavering on January 7, 1903 in Birmingham, England, he died of a stroke in Santa Monica, California in 1988. Tall (6’6”), distinguished-looking English character actor with aristocratic bearing and precisely modulated voice. A cousin of the former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and spent his formative years as an actor with Oxford Repertory and, from 1924, on the London stage. During the 1930’s, he found his niche in Shakespearean roles. His characterization of Menenius in a 1954 Boston revival of ‘Coriolanus’ was described in the Christian Science Monitor (January 23,1954) as imbued with “benevolent distinction and with some of the comic quality of the part”. By that time, however, Napier had largely forsaken the stage for the screen.
In 1939, Alan Napier immigrated to America and, in the course of nearly five decades, appeared in film and on television as noblemen, manservants and doctors. His gaunt, suave, sometimes bespectacled characters could be kindly or villainous. He gave good support in the supernatural thriller The Uninvited (1944) and lent gravitas to his role of Cicero in Julius Caesar (1953). He is best-remembered, however, as the ever reliable, and very English, butler Alfred Pennyworth in “Batman” (1966), starring Adam West. He was initially reluctant to sign on to play Batman’s butler until a friend pointed out to him that the show would make him the most famous butler in the world. Alan Napier’s second wife, Aileen Dickens Bouchier Hawksley (nicknamed ‘Gypsy’), was a great granddaughter of Charles Dickens.
Favorite lines:
[Intro by USC Professor] Can you sign my drop sheet?
The MOLE PEOPLE: Oh, these are the people who make that Mexican sauce.
Agar had to memorize his lines phonetically.
‘The Goddess of Ishtar isn’t smiling so sweetly this morning.” She’s retaining snow.
[Nestor Paiva] Bozo in his later years. Boy, the Fonz didn’t age very well, did he? Shame.
[claw marks on chest] “Claw marks.” You slept with Madonna.
[High Priest] No one is to tell Mr. Wayne about our little soiree…that’s Alfred the butler, right?
It’s a wraith of albino Patti LaBelle’s.
“Would you tell us that you are Gods?” Agar will.
“You will die in fire of Ishtar.” Hey, that movie wasn’t that bad.
[girl whipped] David Soul’s favorite movie.
Not everyone can wear a snood.
‘…our Gods are always angry and give orders.” Oh, she’s Catholic.
[Mole Men beaten] Just pretend its Adam Sandler.
[dancing girl] Ishtar’s gonna fry somebody’s ass for booking her.
[Sacrifice Closet] Helen Mirren volunteers to go first. It looks like Al Lewis in a long wig.
“The eye of Ishtar.” Or just a skylight.
Final Thought: And John Agar’s career sank deeper than the Mole People? I give this one 3 out of 5 stars.
I love this movie!
Then again, my real first name is Howard so that might have something to do with it ;)
Am I the only one who cared that “Star Child”‘s eyes had the Sci-Fi logo?
I guess so.
Great episode. So Hugh Beaumont’s been in at least 2 movies with someone from the Adam West Batman series (Alan Napier in this & Ceaser Romero in Lost Continent). They should have made him a Batman villain – ‘The Dad’, or something (Makes as much sense as Egghead).
Believe it or not, there’s a John Agar movie where he actually acts (to a greater degree than the vast majority of his films). In The Brain From Planet Arous, when he’s possessed by the evil alien brain, he’s pretty crazy. And damp.
Very good episode, and this is from somebody who liked the CC era much better than the Sci-Fi era, Although they do the “sketch that never really gets started” thing far too often for me, to be fair this bugged me in the CC era as well. But we have a very watchable movie with a bizarre intro that I can’t imagine why it was put there, except to increase the movie time. I guess the Terminator would have been a better movie if it started out with 5-10 minutes of a professor explaining time travel theories.
Very interesting to read about the changed ending, the ending in this movie really bothered me and seemed completely senseless, now I know why.
The Brains were psychics, I thought of last year’s protests in Wisconsin when I heard the line:
“Sound and welfare reform by the governor of Wisconsin”
Other favorite lines:
“I just know Balki is responsible for this.” I hated Balki with a passion.
“Make something up. State it firmly, even arrogantly.”
Movie with Agar going to Adal: “What did I tell you?”
“That you were following me for my safety”
There was also a very dated riff about “Baby Jessica, she’s digging her way out.” I remember she dominated news coverage for a long time back in the ’90s.
Baby Jessica was in the late ’80s and the story so dominated the news and media, inspiring a Simpsons episode too, that it’s not really dated.
Anyway, the ending of The Mole People is so awkward and bad that I have to believe it was a sudden change due to a request by Universal. What a dumb reason too. Adel was the whitest woman ever.
“Down, down, down in the hole…”
I really liked the ‘load’ bits. I guess it’s because I genuinely have no idea what that guy is doing in this movie. He doesn’t really seem integral to the/any plot, at all. He, very simply, is a ‘load’.
I too loved the “load” bits. My favorite was after ol’ nestor died, Mike (I think) says, “somehow I still feel like he’s loading us down”.
It’s also fun to see Hugh Beaumont in film rolls. Everyone knows him from Leave it to Beaver, but he did other stuff, as well. This and Lost Continent, just to name a couple.
Of no account #109
so what are you thinking? ‘the Cleaver?’ ‘the Mighty Ward?’
if he had been a viliian on ‘Batman,’ i vote for the Mike Nelson/Hugh Beaumont/destroyer of worlds that showed up during ‘Human Duplicators.’
Despite the performances of Mike’n’the Bots, Lawgiver and Bobo, this episode still took a long time to grow on me, not an “instant favorite”. It was bumped out of my rotation several times by Roger Corman and Sandy Frank epics until it finally went in to stay a couple of months ago.
Mole People was chock full of the things that go into a really great bad movie: bad archaeology, Hugh Beaumont, John Agar — hell, it even had Rock Climbing* in it — and yet, the parts failed to come together to form a greater whole, a “gestalt” of badness, if you will. Like Nestor, this whole movie was something of a Load.
—
*I know that technically it was “spelunking”, but still, what is spelunking but Rock Climbing in a cave — where, instead going up a mountainside, you’re going down, downnn, dowwwnnn…
#110 – Putting “educational” intros into exploitation movies has a long, long, long history. It was intended to give them JUST enough of a veneer of respectability that moviegoers wouldn’t be embarrassed to pony up for a ticket.
I would submit that the Internet serves much the same function for Hollywood’s vastly overbudgeted, modern-day exploitation movies.
I love John Agar and I don’t care who knows!
so technically speaking… who were the Mole People? the hideously repulsive losers or the guys who dug around in the dirt all day? kind of a confusing title. just like ‘the Girl in Lovers Lane.’ i mean there were like 3 or 4 girls in the movie and we have no idea what street they lived on.
I give it 3 stars,too.Not a great episode,but not a bad one either.Not an episode from the Sci-fi era that I go to first.There are some good riffs and I do like the Gesture Professor at the beginning of the movie,but not as a whole.Still trying to get used to Crow’s new voice,especially during the first 2 host segments,too..I can tell that the movies weren’t as bad as they were during Comedy Central.Sure,there were some great ones like “Werewolf”, “Future War” and “Space Mutiny”;just to name a few,but none as bad as say,”Monster A Go Go” or “Beast of Yucca Flats”..Remember when Kevin mentioned in that interview he did with Mike(Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders)that they didn’t do the worst movies and said there’s a lot worse than the ones they’ve done? I wished they would’ve done those as well..Still,this is a decent episode.Sorry to ramble on like this….P.s..Did anyone notice there’s a scene from “Wild Wild World of Batwoman” in “Mole People”? lol..
@ MattG in no.19:
I agree. While I didn’t like that phase any less, I was also a bit disappointed — for lack of a better word — when first Professor Bobo, and then The Observer were suddenly rendered stupid and buffoonish after being exposed to Pearl. It’s as if she had some weird mystical power or something. Bobo and Observer at least did a good job of appearing to show some high-level intellect and competence, but five minutes hanging around Pearl, and whammo, instant idiots.
I’m surprised I didn’t comment on this one the last time around. The first few eps of this season are some of my very faves because when they moved to the Scifi channel I could watch it again after missing a couple years. I thought this was one was fun on its own as I like 50s scifi movies and they’re riffing was great all the way through. Every time I see Virgil Vogel’s name in the credits for something (he directed a lot of Big Valley eps) I always have to say, “Virgil Vogel va-va-voom. Vini vidi vici, Virgil Vogel. Virgil Vogel, vestal virgin.”
I love the load jokes too and my fave is “warning: contents of load may have shifted during death.”
Other fave riffs:
“It ain’t no shocker, I love my blue blockers!”
“It’s just a jump to the left” (when we first see the gesture professor)
“Get out of my chair lieutenant crown roast.”
John Agar…never was on my christmas card list. :deadrose:
I can never get past thinking about Howard the Hunk when I see Robert Smith on ESPN. I wonder how many people ask him about his appearance on the show.
I give mad props to Bill for his Crowspeak on this one.
Mike, looking at the space child eyes: A dollar ninety-eight apiece!
Crow: So? Does all-powerful have to mean over-budget?
John Agar: Wait till Stewart sees this!
Crow: He’s gonna blow chunks, man!
Howard, you cutie… ( :inlove: )
“You buys your ticket, you takes your chances. I believe in grabbing for the gold ring every time.”
Probably my favorite line of a dialogue to quote from an MST movie.
You know, I agree with Professor Bobo about the fire safety demonstration being a great part of Lawgiver Daze.
(Maybe that’s a future weekend topic: Lawgiver Daze event planning.)
This is my favorite Mike – SciFi Era episode ever.
Down
down..
“Ishtar’s GOTTA love that one.” Lots to love about this goofball of a movie. I do like John Agar, and his bravado in this one but what an easy target for the Brains.
minor point: in fields like archaeology and mineralogy, it is common to depend on the locals in remote areas to come up with some of the best finds. After all, they live there and tehy know an academic will pay handsomely for it.
I thought the guide was a good performance, but I get a guilty laugh when I hear, “Be right down!” during the violent rockslide. Best moment of the experiemnt is the pause after Mike is voicing the insecure thoughts of Agar as he is rapelling down…and keeps right on going. “But they don’t mind me talking so much, do they? I mean, I let them talk too!…” How tough must it have been seeing that scene unriffed!
Other highlights:
Adel’s great banjo prowess. And now a little Foggy Mountain Breakdown. (singing) “I’d rather be in some dark hollooooow…”
John Agar fight scene, everyone: (polite applause)
Is the first stage of grief “pure, unbridled joy?”
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen most of these early Season 8 episodes, so it was a nice surprise to find out that THE MOLE PEOPLE is a really funny episode. It’s great! The movie is the real star; what a weird, hammy, and cheesy movie this is! John Agar doing his Agar-thing, Hugh Beaumont (!!), those very cool mole monster costumes, the albinos, the Load, the ropes and asses, this movie has it all!! (Bummer on the ending, tho).
The riffing is strong and lively and Bill as Crow seems to be settling in to the character more, better voice control at least.
I find it odd that there wasn’t even a passing reference to Gerry and Sylvia (Dr. F’s Mole People from Seasons 2&3). Coulda slid one in there guys, c’mon.
The Host Segments are pretty good in this one, which isn’t something I say about a lot of the Sci-fi eps. HS#1 is great, with Mike’s perfect gesture-scientist impression going “down…..down….” The bots ripping on him make it funnier (to me) and I’m not sure why people take it as being “mean.” Seems to me they’re just keeping Mike in check. HS#2 is another “goes nowhere” skit, but I really like this line from Gypsy: “Maybe the neck is warped? You should keep an orange peel in the case.” Funny and true! My musician friends like that one. HS#3….well, they all can’t be winners. At least Crow remembers Mike now……
I don’t really care for Lawgiver Daze at the beginning or end. Doesn’t really bring the ha-ha, you know? That is weird that Robert Smith was in this ep. I recognize him from ESPN and stuff; never knew he was on the show. Must be a fan…?
Oh Howard…..
RIFFS:
Servo: “Down, down..to the very nipple of the world.”
Mike: “Gary’s pulling up the driveway, everybody hide!!”
during the mountain climbing in the snow,
Mike: “Watch: they’ll get crushed by a giant dog chasing a frisbee.” ——then-current-reference to a series of Coors Light commercials with giant people (and a dog) hanging out in the snow covered mountains as the jingle implored you to “TAP THE ROCKIEEEEES! COOOOOORS LIGHT!!” If I recall correctly, this commercial was on ALL THE TIME and was on a bunch of my MST tapes from back then.
http://youtu.be/HkOBZEtFOKI
Crow: “Avalanche footage! RUN!!”
movie: “We got to get down.”
Mike: “We got to get funky!”
Mike: “This movie is just ropes and asses.”
guy falls,
Mike: “Be right down.”
Mike: “Are you high or something?”
Mike: “Calgon, take me away!” ——reference to the popular commercial and laundry detergent. Call-forward to Space Mutiny…..
Servo: “Now we apply the Solarcane.”
–
This is a really great episode,
Shout! Factory did a good job with this release,
the documentary on the DVD, “Of Mushrooms and Madmen,” is really good and informative.
Of course, this one has me digging down. . .
down. . .
DOWN. . .
. . .
. . .
and giving it a 4 out of 5 Agars
Most pointless death of a heroine since Carrie in Girl from Lover’s Lane.
Concentric hollow rings in the Earth would make it hard for seismographs to work.
As long as you get to Asia that kegger should be easy to find. All the best parties are in Asia.
Do you suppose the Tunnel Dwellers like to get together an enthusiastic chorus of, “I’m a Mole Man, I’m a MOLE Man…”?
Fantastic riffs, but there’s something about the washed out grey color palette that I find depressing in a Coleman Franciscan way.
And now, in the words of Bruce Springsteen, “I’m goin’ down down down, I’m goin’ down down down, I’m goin’ down down down…”
I was shocked and disturbed that I hadn’t commented a few years ago, so here goes (I know you’ve been waiting!)…
Leonard Maltin was in #909 Gorgo.
Robert Smith. Great athlete. Great role model. There aren’t enough guys like this in pro sports. Of course, without his facemask and #26 jersey, I didn’t know immediately who it was. I was GLOWING when I found out later! While I’m on the subject of pro sports… Go CHIEFS!! (Go somewhere. Anywhere, besides 2-14 again.)
I always thought that the gesture professor COULD have been believable had the filmmakers simply had Dr. Downdown reference famous literature concerning the innards of the Earth. That would have TOTALLY worked, but I supposed science was cooler than literature in the 50’s. Actually, that’s ALWAYS been true. :-)
Robot rump #119:
“who were the Mole People? the hideously repulsive losers or the guys who dug around in the dirt all day? kind of a confusing title.”
In the documentary on the recent Shout release, several people who worked on the movie mention this. Alfred the Butler and his pale pals were the titular mole people. The guys digging in the dirt were just referred to as “slaves.”
Robert Smith is a pretty cool guy, even if his name is too common and confusing. MST3K referenced Robert Smith from The Cure a few times, too, so it’s quite a puzzling situation, heh.
OK, so The Mole People… what can I say that hasn’t already been said? It’s another in the long line of “average movie, average riffing” that was no stranger to Season 8. Yawn. I don’t rewatch much of early season 8 for this exact reason.
Apropos of nothing, one of Agar’s final roles was a bit part in the deliciously grim Miracle Mile. His portrayal of an old man who refuses to escape the coming nuclear annihilation of LA so he can be with his wife at the end is pretty endearing, actually.
And John Agar also has a bit part in Nightbreed, where he’s tortured by David Cronenberg.
That’s true, look it up.
“Archeologists are just overpaid publicity agents for dead civilizations.”
LMAO #100, just like the actor who played Cherokee Jack, Paiva is “Another Hollywood Pretty Boy”…
Love the Load jokes. (Paraphrase)”Ironically ‘Etienne’ means ‘load’ in French.” “And so does ‘LaFarge’ as well!” “Load Load”.
I do have to mention that I was pretty impressed that Tom Servo uses the same strings that I do on my guitar (Ernie Ball Super Slinkys) although I sometimes go down a size to Extra Super Slinky. Crazy, I know.
Re#136
When I last watched Nightbreed during the John Agar torture scene when John explained that he’d tried to join the Nightribes but had been rejected by them I added, “They’d seen my movies”. Watching by myself in my own home, not a theater. Nightbreed is a great film, even though it didn’t translate from the source materiel (Cabal) as well as Hellraiser did.
Checked this one out again last night. Of the first three episodes of season 8, this one is the best. The Brains are starting to settle in, and the movie reminds me of the days of Fire Maidens and the like. An enjoyable episode.
“The Gesture Professor”? Servo spends the whole Joel years saying “A Bell Lab Film” every time they parody educational films (“Why Doesn’t Johnny Care”?), and then, once Dr. Baxter actually shows up in a MST movie straight out of Hemo the Magnificent, with or without the Magic Screen, they’re puzzled at who is this dull, bald stranger? (Y’know, Kevin, we know this because we actually SAW Bell Labs films… ;) )
As far as the “cruelty” of “Where do I laugh?”, seems more like M&tB spent the entire SciFi years making fun of the fact that they didn’t know how to actually do the comic discipline of host sketches, and tried to joke “Look, we’re doing host sketches! I’m dressed up as the professor, it’s parodic!”…Which, in other episodes, would be sketches where Crow dressed up as the Jack Frost bear or the Phantom Planet dog-alien: “Look, guys, I’ve become the character from the movie, it’s funny!” “Uh, yeah, that’s real nice, Crow.”
That might’ve seemed meta-parodic to them, but just came off as sort of bored, snarky and flipping off what the fans “expected” them to do on the show–Ie. actually pay enough attention to the movie to parody it, instead of writing their own narcissistic spaceship sketches and occasionally beat up the movie out of hip, personal boredom.
Where did the slaves come from? Were they degenerate Sumerians who turned into human moles in a literal sense while the rest just took Clorox facials? If not, were the slaves a race of humanoids that evolved from moles and were subsequently enslaved by the Sumerians when they went down down down…? Either way this is some seriously weird evolution.
I always thought the slaves were the titular Mole People and the Clorox crew were just humans that lived underground.
I was surprised at the similarities the plot of this movie has to the short novel THE SECRET PEOPLE by John Beynon Harris (John Wyndham who wrote DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS)even down to a rip off of the Frizetta cover art for the scene where the scientists enter the large cavern.
Speaking of John Agar and other movies, in the film “The Naked Monster,” he reprised his role as “Revenge of the Creature”‘s Dr. Clete Ferguson, which was for all intent and purpose the SAME role he plained in this one. If he had to change his name and profession, things must have gone pretty badly with Dr. Helen Dobson, who’s also in “The Naked Monster”, as are several other characters (not just the actors but their CHARACTERS) from 1950s SF movies, including Kelton the Cop. “Aww, why do I always get the spook details?”
So, you know, in case anyone was interested, there’s that.
#143: Agar says something about how centuries of enslavement have “turned men into beasts,” so yeah, I think your first guess is correct.
As we now know, Prof. G. Octavius Neon may have obtained some Mole People DNA to create his monsters in “The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman” (where we saw that an identical ancient Sumerian city can be found with easy walking distance of the surface; DOH!).
A certain Dr. C.D.S. Forrester may have created his OWN “monsters,” Jerry and Sylvia, in a similar way. Forrester even strongly resembles Neon, something which inexplicably went uncommented upon during the WWWOB episode. Maybe Neon was one of Pearl’s deceased husbands (although G. stands for neither Chuck, Felipe, Jerome, Maury, nor Wendell) and Dr. F’s father, meaning Dr. F may have inherited the Mole People DNA samples — or perhaps Jerry and Sylvia *themselves* — from dear old dad. Or not, there’s that, too.
A fine episode. Between the Gesture Professor, John Agar, the ropes and asses, there’s just a lot of material for riffing.
The Gesture Professor deserved more mockery, not just for his hilarious gestures and facial expressions but for being a complete charlatan. The Gesture Professor was an English professor trying to expound absurd geological and astronomical theories that could’ve set back science by several hundred years. I only wish Crow and Servo hadn’t interrupted Mike’s impression.
As for the movie itself, for some reason the Mole People costumes really creep me out in the same way as the Solarite costume that Richard Kiel wore in Phantom Planet. I think it’s due to the combination of bulging, inhuman eyes and the black and white film.
Beyond that, John Agar is an easy, deserving target of ridicule but I feel kind of bad for the “load” guy because he was obviously a victim of stereotyping: of course the heavily-accented extra can only tremble in superstitious fear while the smug white jerks confront a hostile underground civilization. For that matter, I don’t know how the director thought that waving a flashlight around would substitute for an action sequence.
I unabashedly love the Gesture Professor. I’ve watched the opening of this movie more than the entire movie itself. And I think if you look at it from a “here’s a history lesson on the crazy things people have thought in the past”, the Professor’s intro works. I don’t think we was saying these were valid theories, but that humans have always wondered what could, if anything, live beneath the surface. Of course, he has to sell it *somewhat* plausible because that’s what’s supposedly helping to sell the movie; so it’s a bit of a tightrope walk.
And now, I get to make a joke about someone being painfully and hypocritically un-self-aware…
And while yes, being injured for a large part of the movie’s climactic conflict doesn’t do much for your perceived story value to a chase scene, M&tB reducing their shtick chain-riffing to a completely high-school-hallway “Hey, Loadmaster, how’s the Loadin’?” doesn’t exactly help reduce the mean-spiritedness of the riffing.
(Stupid new edit button)
And while the “Kids who grew up without 4th-grade science class Bell Labs/Hemo the Magnificent” issue was addressed the last time round, the Professor was ahead of his time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lgzz-L7GFg
(And he looked like my dad, too, who taught college science, that always freaked me out.)