Movie: (1960) It’s an anglo-saxon mashup of Godzilla and King Kong, as a dinosaur-like creature is caught off the Irish coast and then exhibited at a circus in London. What could go wrong?
First shown: 7/18/98
Opening: Crow’s head has become a nesting place of the Spix’s macaw
Intro: Observer & Bobo’s arm wrestling match is interrupted by a transmission from Pearl and … Leonard Maltin!
Host segment 1: “Waiting For Gorgo”
Host segment 2: The William Sylvester edition of Trivial Pursuit
Host segment 3: The Nanite’s circus encounters tragedy
End: The women of “Gorgo,” Pearl & Leonard continue to plot
Stinger: Irish fisherman says “Blow it out your…” something.
(268 votes, average: 4.03 out of 5)
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• This is as close as we ever got to a real “lost” episode. It aired once (or, rather, twice, once in the morning and once in the evening) on July 18, 1998, and then apparently somebody with a claim on the rights to the movie contacted SciFi Channel and made them pull it. It never aired again. And that’s a shame, because it’s pretty good. Not a home run, but a solid standup double of an episode, notable for the guest starring appearance of none other than Leonard Maltin. The movie is pretty watchable, clearly an “A” movie put together by professionals (shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Freddie Young) with a big budget, which is definitely a departure for the show. The non-Maltin host segments are, as the Hitchhiker’s Guide would say, mostly harmless.
• Paul gets a break and this week it’s Kevin turn to offer observations.
• For a long time, if you owned a copy of this one, you either taped it back in 1998 or you got it from a tape trader. Then, it was recently included in the Mystery Science Theater 3000: 25th Anniversary Edition.
• Bill does a nice bit of physical comedy in the opening bit when he convincingly launches himself out of frame.
• Maltin does okay, in my book. He’s not an actor and it shows, but he delivers his lines well.
• Actually the Spix’s Macaw is a kind of parrot and not nearly as large as depicted in the sketch. Incidentally, it is believed to be extinct in the wild.
• Callback: “We’ve got to go find Robert Denby!” (“Riding with Death”)
• Segment 1 is cute and silly, but there’s not much to it.
• Segment 2 is kind reminiscent of the “City Limits” trivia game in episode 403. I wonder if they remembered that they did it.
• That’s Kevin and Paul, of course, as the voices of the nanites in segment 3. As near as I can tell, this episode features the very last appearance by the nanites.
• Some may be baffled by the “Hey! Mike Nelson!” “Hey! Tom Servo!” bit. Mike Nelson was the name of the character Lloyd Bridges played in the TV series “Sea Hunt.” The character was a scuba diver (it’s where the phrase “By this time my lungs were aching for air” came from).
• The exchange “Well, whaddaya know?” “Not much, you?” refers to Michael Feldman’s long-running radio quiz show “Whad’Ya Know?”
• In the final segment, Maltin suggests that a Mickey Rourke movie will be a painful selection, and Pearl adds that he should cross reference that with Eric Roberts. So, “The Pope of Greenwich Village”? I don’t know…
• Cast and crew roundup: Camera operator James Mills also worked on “Phase IV.” In front of the camera, William Sylvester was in “Riding with Death” and “Devil Doll.”
• CreditsWatch: Directed by Mike. Intern Dan Tanz joined the show and would continue for the rest of the season.
• Fave riff: “Am…in…Ireland. Send…real…food.” Honorable mention: “Let’s go steal the captain’s strawberries. That’s always funny.”
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Great episode, but no Torgo-related riffs over the title screen?
I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get something like “I take care of the place while the Master is away.”
When I watch this episode I’m always amazed that a “Godzilla” type movie could be rendered so boring.
Solid but unspectacular, Gorgo is just ‘one of those’ experiments where you can have a perfectly fine time watching but you won’t be beating down the doors to do so again.
However, “Waiting for Gorgo” is an absolute gem. I cherish that sketch, sold so very well by Tom’s panicky “Arggh, and here he is!”
Completely subverts the whole point of Godot for the sake of a pun and a guy in a cheap monster costume. That’s solid gold.
Not one of my favorites but I can enjoy it once in a while.
The riffing is good enough to keep me from falling asleep from the overly boring movie.
favorite riff –
(Announcer) – although the creature is very dangerous, he has been filled with massive amounts of tranqilizer…If I get any closer to this thing, I could use some myself…It’s no joke…(Crow) “I need drugs!”
#102 –
I have a different take on that. I would be surprised if a godzilla type movie could ever be anything BUT boring. They do nothing for me.
Giant insects, now that’s different! (especially if Bert I Gordon is involved)…Even rogue body parts on the loose are more exciting to me than giant fake monsters.
Along with “Hamlet”, this is the worst of the SciFi bunch. I try to like it, but it just lays there. Dull, dull, dull.
Having yet to see this episode I had nothing to contribute to this discussion until last night when I began re-reading my copy of “Kiss and Make-up” by Gene Simmons of KISS. In chapter 2 of the book he references “Gorgo” not once, but twice as a Godzilla rip-off, but one of his favorite films growing up. Along with MST3K episode #1 itself, “The Crawling Eye”, saying that creature freaked him out. So there ya have it, Gene Simmons for “Gorgo”.
This was a pretty good episode. I did not see it originally on Sci Fi, I watched it on Youtube a while back. There was a riff in here that made me almost fall out of my chair laughing.
Somewhere near the end, when Gorgo’s mom is rampaging around the countryside tearing down power lines and such, there’s a moment where the camera zooms in on her face. At that point, she opens and closes her mouth twice. Crow then sings in “Downtown” (a reference to the 60s song). The words matched the mouth movements perfectly, and since it was so out of nowhere and random, it had me laughing very hard.
:lol:
I enjoyed this one and got a lot of laughs out of it. From start (The Vice Presidents unimaginative campaign slogan) to finish (Don’t bother the man, he’s Dorkin). Love Crow’s take on the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the simplistic, “The Infant” – “The Outfant” riff. LMAO – Good stuff all told.
I never saw this one until now. I was excited since it was a rare new (to me) MST episode. I have to say I came away pretty disappointed. The movie was blah. I’ll give it credit for good production value. As the Ballyhoo featurette points out they used well made models giving them so heft so they looked solid crumbling and crashing. But the biggest letdown for me was the riffing. I don’t have any specific complaints but it was just plan lacking and sub par.
Waiting for Gorgo was the one highlight for me. I actually cringed hearing the glass breaking sound effect when Gorgo tossed Tom Servo. So am I alone in thinking that Mike in the costume was a cross between Gumby and Hannibal Smith in a monster costume?
Favorite Riffs:
The kid mutters something unintelligible. Crow “Is this kid speaking in Bam Bam language?”
Tom “Can one repent if one hasn’t yet pented?”
Mike “Come on son, as a treat let’s go crush France.” Tom “Hooray”
Not a great episode in my book, the riffing didn’t do a lot for me and the movie wasn’t bad or good enough to be interesting.
‘Oh Gorgo boy, the Gor the Gor is going, from Gor to Gor’
YES! My #1 all-time favorite episode (actually, it’s tied for 1st place with Godzilla vs Megalon). It’s always a good day when I actually like the movie by itself, and then having great riffs on top. I just wish Gorgo had gotten a sequel (Gorgo Strikes Again!, or something similar). Looking through Leonard Maltin’s movie guides, it’s pretty unusual that he & I actually agree on movies.
There was a Godzilla game on PS2, and one of the maps was London. Just made me wish they could have added Gorgo as a playable character…
The ‘Waiting for Gorgo’ sketch is one of my favorite host segments of all time. It’s just so silly. Plus I wish more plays ended with giant monsters attacking & killing the cast.
Now everybody get back to Dorkin!
This episode has the distinction having the biggest failure at a “naughty riff” ever. Saying “Dorkin” all the time, like a kid who just learned a new curse word, just doesn’t work. I guess it’s intended to remind one of the slang word “porkin”, but it’s just not funny.
Anyway, the movie itself was well made and I like those freaky, pre-historic fish with the legs.
@MikeK: It’s actually intended to remind one of the slang word “dork”, which has come to mean “socially awkward or unfashionable person”, but which was originally a term for a portion of the male anatomy. Those jokes are according to taste, of course.
Yes, I see it as that too, a mash-up of “dork” = “penis” and “porkin'” = “sex”. They tried, but like “Don Evinrude and Sonny Crockett,” it’s just not firing.
Solidly hate this movie just on the basis of its humans. Its two “heroes” are interchangeably drab; their li’l sidekick, like the kid in Gamera, is the movie’s true monster (inexplicably concerned for the main characters from the moment they meet, yet delighted by Mama Gorgo’s rampage through a burning metropolis with thousands of casualties); the whole “grouchy harbormaster” thing just pads out the woefully threadbare story in lieu of characterization…and aside from Dorkin’s standard-issue showman-promoter, the rest of the cast is nothing but walk-ons.
I’m glad the Ballyhoo feature in the Shout! Factory set reveals the King Bros’ huge amount of meddling in making the film, because I like Eugène Lourié and this is a huge step down from his other sci-fi outings–The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Giant Behemoth, even that clunky goofball The Colossus of New York. None of them are great, but they’re each better than Gorgo.
TCM shows this movie from time to time.
It’s actually surprising how many movies TCM shows that have been on MST3K, and even more that have been Rifftrax VODs.
And now, with my viewing of Gorgo earlier this week (from my fancy new 25th Ann. tin set from Shout!), I have seen ALL 194 AVAILABLE EPISODES OF MST3k. BOW BEFORE ME!
This was the last episode for me to catch up with, as I had missed taping it when it originally broadcast back in 1998, even though by that point I was obsessively taping episodes weekly (not really sure how I missed it, and I kept waiting for a re-broadcast that never happened. It was some years later when I read that it was shown only on one day and then pulled from rotation).
I even had an opportunity to get a copy of this one from a guy I knew in college back in 2002/03, as we were tape sharing at the time (mainly he was borrowing my extensive tape collection) and he happened to have Gorgo, but I knew he was bad about getting whole episodes onto tape, so I asked, “is the whole episode on here?,” and he replied, “yeah, except for the opening credits. And the end, too,” So I said, “no,” as I was (and am) OCD about my MST so I had to have the whole thing or nothing. So I passed. Took me ten years of checking other episodes off my to-see list before I got down to this one and finally watched it. . .
. . . So? Was it worth the wait? Well, yes and no.
Watching a MST you’ve never seen before is a great experience. I relished watching Gorgo, if just for the experience of new riffing and Host Segments. It gave me a nice feeling, very pleasant but also a little bittersweet, as this was the last one that would be “new to me.” . . .
. . . But? How was the episode itself?
Well, it was pretty good, not great.
I will say this for Gorgo; it is my favorite of the three British movies of Season 9, that’s for sure. Overall though, I found some of the riffing to drag a bit, and while the movie itself is a fine production (easily a candidate for “best movie riffed on MST”), it also is very dry at times with some weak characters that don’t really light the screen on fire (guess that was Gorgo’s job..).
As for the Host Segments, HS#1 is the best and goofiest, and I especially like Gypsy’s throwaway line of “we’ll be back after these messages for whiskey and cigarettes.” In HS#2 Mike makes me feel very uncomfortable with his gloating, awkward dance; it was kind of creepy. HS#3 is the worst, but I don’t like the nanites one bit, so that has everything to do with it. If this is the last of the nanite sketches, good.
Leonard Maltin’s appearance is notable and completely serviceable, but not really that funny. There was also something about the flat video-ish-ness of the look of those scenes that I found really off putting. Plus, Mike and the Bots didn’t mention Laserblast, which would (and should) be the whole point of having Maltin on in the first place, or at least I would think. Strangely, I give Leonard Maltin’s appearance two-and-a-half stars..
–
RIFFS:
Servo: “I put the propane tanks on by mistake.”
Crow: “Fine, I’ll spend my Euros elsewhere!”
Crow: “So did Gorgo just cooperate and wrap himself in the net..?”
Crow: “Go play on Gamera’s back, kid. I’m not into it.”
movie: “Actually, it’s no joke..”
Crow: “I need drugs.”
Mike: “Lt. Modest Crotch.”
Crow: “This is the same thing they do when Oliver Reed’s in town.”
Mike (in British accent): “This simply isn’t done. You’ll be hearing from my solicitor.”
Mike: (doing his “Gorgo laughing”)
–
Gorgo,
not too bad of a movie,
only a pretty-good episode,
I give it 3 out of 5 Dorkins.
“Waiting for Gorgot”, another Top Ten interstitial.
BTW, am desperately searching eBay for the Playboy issue featuring “The Girls of Gorgo”, if anybody has will pay big money … :-D
PS –
#92 – how about those who “graduate college”?
“Girls of Gorgo?” What girls? Is there a burlesque scene that got cut out of the Mstied version?
A great ep. For some reason I find it much more enjoyable than the Gamera movies.
#54: Regarding Space Mutiny, you say “Yet so many MSTies continue to rate it as the best episode ever, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s based entirely on their love of the movie, not the riffing.” Your conclusion is wrong; Space Mutiny is an utter piece of crap film saved only by M&TB. So the problem could either be that a seemingly large majority of MSTies for some strange reason love a piece of crap in spite of the fact that you (and apparently ONLY you and a small handful of others) claim the riffs aren’t funny, or it could be that you just don’t care for the episode.
Gorgo fails the Bechdel Test. There is no instance of two females conversing, and in fact Mike and the Bots make note of the lack of feminine presence in the movie.
Personally, I thought the Trivial Pursuit sketch was kind of weak.
While there seems to be some hostility towards it, I thought the Nanite circus was hilarious. Though the scale of the props compared to the Nanites was completely off. Also, it appears to have been the only time the Bots have expressed sympathy for clowns.
I agree with Crow regarding the reporter. I wished he would’ve died, too.
And speaking of characters I dearly wanted to die, Sean appears to have been a precursor to Kenny and his fellow half-pint misanthropes.
@ #5: So it was from before the Sydney Opera House was built?
Favorite riffs
The H.M.S. Over Easy.
Stop shaking the boat. I’m gonna puke.
Watch for sharks. I accidentally bathed in fish blood this morning.
Counting plankton is really hard.
Clear the stage for our campy musical revue.
May your corned beef not pickle correctly.
The poor Irish. You know, if they’re not invaded by Cromwell or infested with leprechauns, they’ve got this guy.
I’m a little lost. Can you tell me how to get to Tokyo?
Open the pub! Come on, it’s nine AM.
If they don’t let me up to go soon, it will be a yellow submarine.
Go play on Gamera’s back, kid. I’m not into it.
“There are rumors that the animal has killed a number of persons already in the process of its capture.”
But they were all Irish, so it’s okay.
Come see Gorgo, he’ll kill your family. Come get killed by Gorgo.
We are a submarine, right?
The Queen Mum is brought out to fight the beast.
Maybe Mary Poppins flies in and kicks his ass.
Oh, not Her Majesty’s Certified Paper Clip Works, purveyors of paper clips to Her Majesty’s Court since 1743.
“We prayed for a miracle.”
Now to cricket scores.
As a treat, let’s go crush France.
I’ll never be one to say, “Bollocks, Gorgo!” I rather like the movie, and the riffing is just fine. It’s a couple of the host segments that could use more pizzazz. “Waiting for Gorgo” is a treat, and Mike’s insanity during the William Sylvester game (a mysterious item indeed to show up on the SOL) is funny and disturbing. But it’s not that hard to recall that that reporter with the black sunglasses and bright red lipstick was a “Gorgo” babe, and as for Pearl’s last collusion with Leonard Maltin…what a missed opportunity! Of all things they could dream up to torture M&TB with, why must it be “The Pope of Greenwich Village”? Were the Brains just bitter about that guy getting his thumbs taken?
The guys see Steven Seagal and a Baldwin brother in Joe’s face. Anyone besides me see Jason Bateman in there, too?
Sometimes it’s the little things that amuse me: There’s a part in the film in which the Admiral says, “Nara Island has been destroyed.” They cut to a shot of Joe and Sam exchanging a surprised glance, so Crow snaps his head to the left as if to join in.
#118 I had a similar experience when, thanks to a Shout box set, I saw a film I’d totally missed, and I agree that it’s kinda thrilling! For me, it was “Project Moonbase.” Weirdly, I had always confused it with “Moon Zero Two.” I never ordered the tape from my source, always thinking I already owned it. So I was like, OMG, this is from Season One and I’ve never seen it? Yay! :)
Charlie! They took my thumb!
Gorgo, the British bloke-in-a-rubber-monster-suit movie. Not a bad go, eh? Except the seals leak now and then and the brakes are rubbish, but still an alright attempt. Do mind that you keep the carburetors properly tuned as you watch it. Take care with that and Bob’s your uncle. Tah!
This is one of only two MST3K films I’d seen prior to discovering MST3K (the other being I Was a Teenage Werewolf) but that gave it no real advantage or disadvantage per se.
IMHO this episode has the advantage of being easily followed even if you just have it on as background noise. Some episodes don’t have that advantage even if you’re watching them intently…
I ever so mildly wonder: How much money had Joe and Sam gotten from Gorgo by the time that Mater Gorgo arrived? There comes a time to just take the money and run, Joe. Otherwise “You die, Joe!”
Not many people remember that in the first King Kong sequel, Son of Kong, Carl Denham was getting sued by half of Manhattan over the damage Kong had done. Denham lucked into striking it rich at the end of that film but I doubt that Joe and Sam could so easily dodge a similar bullet.
IMHO this and the Servo/butterfly thing just get into some unnecessary areas…
The golf course west of the grain silo? ;-)
Yet still smarter than the adults.
Shrug. Works for the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, et cetera.
Some focused/obsessed person somewhere has probably created a website featuring all of the dolls who’ve been left behind during evacuation scenes. Sure would likes to know who and where…
Ah, but would they make for worse RIFFED films? ;-)
Consider the NEWmst3ked version of Reptilicus: Better, as good as, or worse?
“If you can’t laugh at yourself…you’ve never seen what you look like sleepin’…” — Harry Anderson, comedian
In the Space Mutiny shuttlecraft sequence (or whatever), Crow points out that, as robots, he and Tom are basically indestructible. I’m sure the Nanites are at least nearly as indestructible (I, mean, okay, yeah, the clown “died” but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t rebuild him, make him stronger, faster…).
Personally, I can’t stand “fourth wall” stuff. If a movie isn’t going to take itself seriously, it’s got some nerve expecting *me* to take it seriously. That’s subjective, of course.
“This is George Bernard Shaw. I’m under the table now…”
Some of the lines might have still been up, and good news broadcasters don’t stop until the news itself stops. News broadcasters who value their lives, perhaps, but if you valued your life, why would you become a war correspondent (or the equivalent) in the first place? I’m sure that in fictional Japan, monster correspondents are considered the toughest of all.
H.P. Lovecraft: The Lost Episodes.
No “Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator…” jokes, though. Tch.
The theoretical remake (Hollywood’s apparently never going to stop with the remakes so they might as well remake films that most people haven’t heard of in the first place) could have two women as the protagonist. I think the time has come. They wouldn’t necessarily need to be so obviously in-the-closet as Joe and Sam, of course…
I should moisturize…
Unless I was actually watching the original 1998 debut and am simply misremembering, I’d swear this got at least one rerun during the final four years after the show ceased production. I remember seeing it just once among all the familiar reruns and being surprised that I’d never seen it before.
After that until Shout! finally got it out on DVD it was just a hazy memory, mainly of the ‘Waiting for Gorgo’ sketch and of course Leonard Maltin’s appearance. Watching it again it doesn’t really set my comedy world on fire. It’s just too straightforward. Honestly to me the analog isn’t so much Godzilla as King Kong.
To wit: soldiers of fortune discover mythical beast –> SoFs capture said beast and turn it into public attraction in middle of famous city –> beast goes on rampage –> pontificating on Man’s hubris and the good and the beautiful or something like that. Think about it, won’t you? Thank you.
Fave riffs
Me mum’s at work so I’m havin’ a garage sale with all her stuff.
We’re turning you over to Interpol. Good night!
“The Pope of Greenwich Village” is considered a classic by most, so that has always puzzled me. Perhaps they weren’t giving the bit that much thought?
This episode has never made much of an impression on me. It’s good, but it kinda just lays there. But it doesn’t hurt, so there’s that. I’d say it’s middle of the road.
Interesting note about this one. It was only shown twice, as you probably know. Doing some research, most Sci-Fi episodes were shown around 10-12 times each. Comedy Central episodes were shown around 50 times each. Weird that the Sci-Fi era was so more far reaching considering they barely played the episodes. It’s either the power of being in more homes on cable at the time (Sci-Fi channel), or the magic of keep circulating the tapes!
Also, could someone provide a list of all the episodes the Nanites appear in? My count is 6.
Er……..depends what you call “classic”, or how many constitute “most”.
If by “Most”, you mean Kevin’s favorite running habit of quoting the “Thumbs” line and Trace singing Sinatra’s “Summer Wind” in the CC episodes, then, yes.
Oh, good, so it wasn’t just Jonah&tB who did all the Mad Lib “title insert” song jokes in lieu of actual riffs. ;)
No comment on M&tB’s writing staff, but the SciFi era tended to get a little TOO Biggus Dickus catchphrase-distracted by things that would make junior high-schoolers snicker.
It gives them that squishy feeling…Oh, and has anyone seen the dog’s meat?
Pretty sure GORGO passes the Bechdel Test –
Mama Gorgo: ROUUWHARRRRR!
Woman In Crowd: Aauugh!
Just going by consensus: It’s at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes –
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_pope_of_greenwich_village
and 6.7 on imdb –
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087932/?ref_=nv_sr_1
ok, imdb’s rating is not too high, but it doesn’t appear that “Pope” is a hated movie. YMMV.
I watched The Pope a few months ago and really enjoyed it. Watched it again a couple of days later with my brother and he really enjoyed it too. It’s a good movie IMO. That being said, Eric Roberts not only chews the scenery, he chews up the scenery on all other productions within a 100 mile radius. It was entertaining chewing though! Some people may find his performance polarizing. I’m sure there was debate among the writers room on whether his performance was good or bad, hence the joke in this episode. I find when people here try to figure out why Best Brains “hate” something it’s probably just them being entertainingly bemused.
That’s weird, it looks like you’re quoting something I posted, but you’re not.
That’s the same Eric Roberts as played the Master in the (weird) 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, yeah?
That’s him. One of these days, they have to get Michelle Gomez, Eric Roberts and John Simm together for “The Three Masters”. And the McGann movie is one of my favorite “Doctor Who” stories. I watch it every Dec. 30th, along with “Blackadder Back and Forth” and one of the KTMA Melon Drop Specials.
Oh, and I understand Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke are both in “The Expendables”. I still haven’t seen it; is it riff-worthy?
The best riffs still come from the movie–
That, and the reporter rhapsodizing about the destruction, cut to Gorgo’s mom turning around to roar “Shad-DUUUP!!”, and then a semi-roar of “…Windbag!”, perfect bits of on-screen timing. Y’know, ON-screen, where the movie is actually happening?
Think it was more of a PR thing, since the hype about Maltin guesting on the series at the time gave the impression that the Mike-era Brains midway through the SciFi series had started to underestimate their cult-fan creation–And started to become aware from the catchprase and routine-worshipping Internet fan-buzz that one or two rollickingly snide End Credit Time-Filler Sketches about Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide could backfire among the more, er, LOYAL fans into Mike’s official ex cathedra to his disciples that Leonard Maltin deserved to roast in hell with Joe Don Baker and Rick Sloan, for the unpardonable crime of giving Laserblast two-and-a-half stars…Guys, it was just a lame self-aware end-credit sketch.
While it’s not an “apology” for a characteristically name-centric bit of M&tB snarky Blame-Game, having Maltin on the show was a two-way street–Not only was Maltin a good sport, but the Brains were good (if guilty?) sports about “Here he is, fans, he’s NOT the boogeyman, and you’re not DC fans, so learn to take a freakin’ comedy joke, okay??”
Think we all would’ve expected one “So, um…(ahem)…still there on the Laserblast thing?” joke, but that’s one possible theory for why that elephant didn’t show up in the room.
As Kenneth says, it’s pretty good, not “weird”–A little too “American” and never watched the original, but Paul McGann (who kept playing the Doctor on BBC Audio) would have been a perfect Old-School Doctor, in ways some of the New ones aren’t.
And yes, that’s Julia’s brother Eric (he has his sister’s lips), some time after Oscar nominations for “Runaway Train”, and some time before becoming a staple of Asylum movies.
Kind of sort of marginally on-topic, a piece of trivia I came across just yesterday (which is, of course, now gone):
“[In The Muppet Movie (1979)] When Animal accidentally eats Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s Insta-Grow pills, he memorably balloons through the roof. Jim Henson refused to use a normal puppet on a miniature set to accomplish this effect, so his crew had to construct a gigantic Animal head that measured 60 feet.”
A sixty-food Animal head. Go on, try to wrap your own heads around that…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079588/trivia?ref_=tt_ql_2
“What?! And leave show business?!”
;-)
With (among others) Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Charisma “Cordelia Chase” Carpenter, and cameos by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger? That’s the kind of thing one can only decide for one’s self…
How about make it The Five Masters, since Geoffrey Beevers and Derek Jacobi are still alive.
Delete your account.
I can but presume that commentators who expected “better” from a bigger budget film must not very familiar with the “quality” of so many contemporary big-budget films…
In hindsight, I’m not sure if I think it’s odd or not that there were no riffs encompassing László “A Man, a Plan, a Canal” Görög (screenwriter of “The Mole People”). Admittedly, I’m similarly unsure how a reference to “László GORGO” could have been worked in but hey, although I HAVE a brain, I’m not one of THE Brains. ;-)
Well, yes, a giant monster movie will tend to be a…giant monster movie.
Not even “Sam! You made the pants too long!“?
I don’t recall if they had similar “set ’em up Joe” or like that there riffs for Joe but they might have.
In foggy old London? Well, kind of, yeah…
At first glance I thought you were referring to rogue GIANT body parts on the loose and I was like “WTH? There’s no way I wouldn’t have heard of a movie like that…”
;-)
Which reminds me, why does everyone (even us) just presume that Li’l Gorgo was male?
France doesn’t seem to have any kaiju films of its own (at least, not that I’ve found and I have looked); one might think the Eiffel Tower would be a veritable magnet to giant monsters wanting to climb it but I guess not. In Destroy All Monsters (1968; obviously NOT a French film), Gorosaurus attacked Paris but evidently that’s it.
Well, they were nice to him (as it’s easy to guess that the quartermaster wasn’t). Sometimes that’s all it takes with kids, a simple act of kindness and you’ve got a friend for life. Like it or not. ;-)
I’ve found that the more effort one spends in seeking an item, the more sense it makes to just take it for granted that it will ultimately prove not have been “worth the trouble.” Eventually “the trouble” ceases to be a factor as the item’s value becomes secondary to the act of acquiring it, of defying the universe that dares to imagine that it can keep you from your prize. Kind of like with search engines: You search for a phrase/reference/et cetera on a whim. Don’t find it immediately? You try a little harder. Still nothing? Time to put serious thought into it. Again nothing? Oh, internet, we in it now, you don’t know who you’re fooling with…
;-)
SAMPO: The exchange “Well, whaddaya know?” “Not much, you?” refers to Michael Feldman’s long-running radio quiz show “Whad’Ya Know?”
It wouldn’t have occurred to me that it referred to anything in particular. I thought it was just an answer to a commonplace rhetorical question. In The Thing That Couldn’t Die, Boyd said to Mike(the character) “Well, what do you know” and Mike Nelson riffed: “Nothin.” Shrug.
Nah, they used one of those new-fangled Xpan-Track nets: When the monster tries to stretch it out and escape, it snaps back and clings to the monster like a second skin.
Made In Japan ;-)
How did Alan Moore miss that one? ;-)
In case it occurred to anyone else that “Nara Island” sounds like it should be one of the fictional islands from the Japanese monsterverse(s), I checked and “nara” is in fact an actual Japanese word (what are the odds, huh?). The word has multiple meanings, including “flat land” and “what?” (“What?!” “Oh, for crying out loud. The! Word! Has! Multiple! Meanings!“)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_locations_in_the_Godzilla_films
https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Ogra
That description can also kind of be applied to the Joel era’s “Jim Henson’s ____ Babies” riffs too. I enjoyed those but logic dictates that you did not. And that’s okay.
Although, as I’ve mentioned at least once, I really don’t like scatological humor, for those who do, Creeping Terror’s remark reminds me of an alleged conversation about bad films between two noted directors (I don’t recall the original source), that some in here might or might not (as usual, down to those two possibilities) find interesting:
Roger Corman: “Stanley, you can’t polish a turd.”
Stanley Kubrick: “Sure, you can. You just have to freeze it first.”
The Bots might have had better luck with their calendar if they could have somehow included the film’s 1960 novelization, Gorgo, written by Bruce Cassiday under the pseudonym Carson Bingham, which reportedly included a few softcore porn sequences (as did two other monster movie novelizations, Konga (1960) and Reptilicus (1961), both written by Dean Owen):
“Sam Slade [William Sylvester] didn’t believe in Gorgo until he saw the monster’s hideous scaly face, its slimy green talons and the massive mouth that could swallow a killer whale.* Sam didn’t believe in love, either, until he met virginal Moira McCartin and helped her to discover the deep passions slumbering within her. Moira taught him to love and Gorgo taught him to fear…”
And vice versa. ;-)
https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Gorgo_(Novelization)
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*it’s weird, I keep thinking that should be “s p erm whale” but I’m not sure why…
Did anyone else know that the system won’t display that word I just made a valiant effort to use? I Just found that out. That’s why there are spaces between some of the letters, to fool the system into thinking it isn’t that word at all.
Hm.
Uh.
So…
I recently purchased the Rifftrax Live Samurai Cop DVD. Anyone want to talk about that instead? ;-)
Do not bring your evil here
Personally, I don’t mind Sean, the “Gorgo” kid. He seems to talk sense a good part of the time, he’s clearly smarter than the two leads, he doesn’t do anything to seriously endanger anyone, and he doesn’t automatically get Level 1 security clearance and start advising the Ministry of Defense. He’s certainly more tolerable than the kids from “Neptune Men”, or Kenny, the budding psychotic from “Gamera”.