Movie: (1983) A nameless hero and his talking motorcycle fight an evil dictator in a post-apocalyptic world.
First shown: 7/24/93
Opening: Servo attempts a formal welcome but Crow rattles him
Invention exchange: The Mads demonstrate the Square Master, J&tB show Bittersweet Hearts
Host segment 1: Joel retrofits the bots to be slot cars, but Tom still needs some work
Host segment 2: J&tB put on a sketch: The warrior tries to get a driving permit
Host segment 3: J&tB discuss things you could do after the apocalypse
End: J&tB get a phone call from Megaweapon, Joel reads a letter, the Mads enjoy an active lifestyle
Stinger: The Paper Chase Guy checkin’ out Persis
(229 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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• This episode has its moments, I’ll give you that. The movie is all over the place, from the whiny, chipmunk-cheeked hero and his air-headed onboard computer, to the squeaky spiders, to guerrilla leader Jimmy Carter/Ronnie Cox, to hapless Persis Khambata, to perhaps Donald Pleasance’s creepiest performance (and that’s saying something), to the “Road Warrior” rejects, to the raw star power that IS Megaweapon. The riffing is solid for the most part, and the host segments are decent. It doesn’t quite add up to a classic for me, but, yes, it has its moments.
• This episode is in included in Shout!Factory’s “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Vol. XVI.”
• The stretch between the end of season 4 and the beginning of season 5 was 168 days, the sixth-longest amount of time MSTies had to wait between episodes.
• That said, longtime fans will recall that, although this is episode 501, it is NOT the first episode shown in season 5. That honor went to episode 502- Hercules, which aired a week before this one. Why? They’ve never said, I don’t think, but my guess is that the Comedy Central suits decided the Hercules movie was a more marketable opener. In any case, as we’ve done in the past, we go by episode number.
• I wonder who Dickie Schnable is.
• Joel’s bittersweet hearts invention has since come true. You can now buy little chalky hearts that say all sorts of weird things.
• Joel makes what I always thought was an astute observation: that the afterlife would be a little like Ellis Island. I’d never thought about it like that…
• Callback: “Ator? Tong?” (Cave Dwellers) “Old Time bus driver Billy Slater…” (Junior Rodeo Daredevils) Crow mentions “Hangar 18” “He hit Big Jake” (Sidehackers). “I Accuse My Parents.”
• How are they controlling the robots during the slot car host segment? Are puppeteers crouching under the track?
• Everyone loves that bit during the movie when Joel and Tom Servo get into a little dual-riff that is, I guess, a parody of Robitussin commercial–one I don’t remember ever seeing. Maybe that’s why I don’t find it as hilarious as everybody else seems to…
• It’s nice to see Tom Servo forthrightly admit that they never bothered to write an ending to bit in segment 2–having movie sign happen is a little like when Monty Python “drops the cow.”
• I believe this episode contains the very first reference to then newly elected President Bill Clinton.
• Do you think that the odd, pointless little comments of the onboard computer were the inspiration for the bittersweet hearts invention?
• Persis Khambatta’s character gets called Natasha and Nastasia, depending on who is addressing or referring to her.
• Then-topical: The “woo-woo-woo” thing audiences of the Arsenio Hall Show did.
• Probably my favorite moment of the episode is toward the end when the camera does that long pan of all the revolutionaries celebrating and Tom Servo has a celebrity name for every single one. Amazing and hilarious.
• That’s Mike, it hardly needs saying, providing the voice of Megaweapon. The raport all the actors have with one another at this point in the show is really remarkable.
• Cast & Crew roundup: Cinematographer Giancarlo Ferrando also worked on “Devil Fish.” Make up person Otello Fava also worked on “Danger: Diabolik” and production designer Massimo Antonello Geleng also worked on “Devil Fish.” In front of the camera, we’ll see Donald Pleasance again in “The Pumaman.”
• CreditsWatch: The writers list is now: Trace Beaulieu, Paul Chaplin, Frank Conniff, Joel Hodgson, Bridget Jones, Kevin Murphy and Mary Jo Pehl (Michael J. Nelson is still head writer). Contributing writers: Colleen Henjum, Jim Mallon. Host segments directed by: Trace Beaulieu. New credit–Utility Infielder: Patrick Brantseg (which I think means Patrick started getting paid for what he was already doing). Hair and make-up: Andrea J. DuCane (she will do it for all but five episodes this season). New interns: Stephanie Hynes, Peter Keffer, Michael J. Sheehan and E. Jane Shortt.
• Fave riff: “Heeeeyyeee, it’s the crazy Guggenheim museum!” Honorable mention: “They love it when he signals a left turn!”
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BAD MOTHERS!! BAD MOTHERS!!!
Anyone watch the Rifftrax release, Warrior of the Wastelands? AWFUL, and has the same exact look/feel, and even stars Fred Williamson in a post apocalypse world with roaming automobile and bike gangs. It’s like someone just kept shooting with new actors, also shot in Italy. It’s even more of a ripoff of Mad Max 2.
@#88: Actually, evil minions are highly skilled marksmen. It takes pinpoint accuracy to fire in the direction of so many unprotected bodies and not hit any of them. It’s sort of like how Jack Benny was actually a good violinist because it takes great skill to be that bad deliberately.
I just watched this episode recently, and I really enjoyed it. I one thing I noticed was that J&TB mentioned Lion Country Safari when a group of humvees is driving down the road. Lion Country Safari is a wildlife park in Loxahatchee, FL, near where I grew up. Does anyone know is they are talking about that Lion Country Safari, or another one? If so, I’d be very giddy if they riffed on my hometown.
This episode is in my top 5 of all time. I love it and laugh hysterically every time I watch it.
“This fall on NBC…Black Nazi, White Ninja, and the Beige Berets”. A monumental riff if there ever was one. Someone seriously needs to cosplay this.
C’mon. Can’t we all just get beyond Thunderdome?
I’m surprised at the negativity for this one; maybe I like it because these were the movies that ushered in the home video era, and as I teenager in the 80s, my friends and I would rent these movies every Friday night(my Dad had to be along because in those days you had to give the video store a check for something like $60 in case you didn’t return the video).
Robert Ginty sucked out loud in this movie, but he really wasn’t a bad actor at all. I can remember when my parents divorced and my Dad and I had to move to a …cough…trailer park….cough, cough, he consoled me the Friday after we moved by buying a brand new TV and a 4-head JVC VCR(which according to my Dad was top of the line). It must have been pretty good because I was married and had my first kid when he finally got rid of it.
He then took me out to rent 3 or 4 movies to watch while he went out on a date.
The 2 movies I can still remember are Death Wish 2 and Robert Ginty’s Exterminator (Good job on the parenting Dad!). He wasn’t bad in that, definitely not the cheesy rip-off of Eastwood in “Fistfull Of Dollars” that he is in this movie. I really do like this one; I thought it had some of the best riffing of the Joel era, and it had Fred Williamson, Fred “The Hammer” Williamson!!!
In reading the posts that talked about commercials, it brought back memories of a condom ad I used to see on tons of episodes where the kid is standing on a city street screaming about how he won’t use them or something, and then a girl walks up and says something like “Use some or get none”.
Oh how I loathed that commercial.
Even now when I think of that kid, I want to punch him and punch him and punch him and punch him and punch him and punch him and punch him…
God I hate that frickin’ kid.
That was so cathartic – thanks.
One of my favorite episodes EVER. It’s an 80s post apocalyptic flick (both great genres for riffing), our bored and mumbly “hero” Robert Ginty (recently saw him in a showing of Mad House with Kirstie Alley on This TV, he slurred his words less), great skits (especially the one where Joel is pretending to be Ginty whining about going to school with Crow as his mother scolding him), great riffing and of course ya gotta love the ‘bots fanatically boyish adoration of…MEGAWEAPON! I was so excited when this episode was announced for volume 16. Before that I watched it on Youtube with my Nintendo Wii’s internet browser (used to watch many unreleased MST3K eps this way before they stopped updating the browser which is now barely compatible with both Youtube and google video), how geeky is that?
@103 – Think there were several Lion Country Safaris, one of which might’ve become Six Flags Great Adventure–I remember the name, growing up, and I was never near FL at the time.
@90 – During the S&M bar scene, Joel says: “If you can’t put in 30 minutes a day, you don’t deserve a hot date.” I can’t remember what gym used that line in their commercial. But it brings up the subject of commercials.
Think that was Bally’s Fitness, as they were the main source of B&M gym franchises doing 80’s West-Coast-Aryan ads at the time. (Apart from the flood of SquareMaster infomercials.)
And yes, if this episode had just Tom’s cameo-actors bit, it would be classic, but it also had Joel’s running “location” riffs during the big chase–
“They’re in a warehouse!…Now they’re in a Holiday Inn!”
One of the great exercise episodes in making running theme riffs out of nothing. :)
I got Fred Williamson to sign the MST3k Warrior of the Lost World mini poster that came with the MST3k Volume XVI DVD box set at Florida Supercon on Saturday, June 19th, 2010. Until that moment, he had not been aware that the episode had been released, acknowledging that while he had caught some of the episode some time ago on television, he has never seen it completely through.
I asked him to add a unique personalization to it. I explained how in the movie he had said “You’ve been chosen. Like Arthur being able to pull Excalibur out of the rock”, and asked him to paraphrase that line by writing “You have been chosen to receive this”, followed by his autographed name right beside it. I also purchased a photo op with him, complete with my wearing a leather jacket so that I could look like Donald Pleasance, just like that final scene in the movie with him and Pleasance. I explained all of this to him by showing him a clip of the episode, purchased from iTunes, on my iPhone, quoting Joel’s quip from the scene “Hey, it’s a graduation photo and he’s dreaming of Fred Williamson!”
One of the best combined purchases totaling $45 that I ever spent. I encourage more of you to get your MST3k DVD copies of the film signed by him as well. I think it’s rather fitting that I got him to sign the episode mini poster, as the original Warrior of the Lost World movie had the story of its origins involving director David Worth being asked to create a movie to go along with a movie poster that had already been made to sell on the film festival distribution circuit. I made mention of my having gotten my mini poster signed here on the Satellite News back in March, under the This Date in MSTory comments section, on Fred Williamson’s birthday no less! On this same day, I mentioned this in an e-mail to David Worth, noting the irony of me getting the MST3k episode mini poster signed by Williamson and the movie’s own film poster origins as well. He congratulated me and appreciated my sense of humor in our correspondence. I also made mention of having had an MST3k weekend discussion thread on B-movie posters posted on this site back in August 2010, and how his film was mentioned in the discussion by one fan in the comments section.
I later notice that Geretta Geretta, who played the Amazon character in movie that fights Robert Ginty was also at SuperCon, but it escaped my notice because she was listed near the very bottom of the media guest website list, plus she was credited in movie back then as Janna Ryan, which threw me off. She’s on Facebook, and recently inquired about where she could see the episode on Shout Factory’s MST3k Facebook page and a couple of fans, including myself, told her it was available in Volume XVI. I even provided here a link to the official MST3k.com website where she could get the original first-print edition with the Tom Servo figure autographed by Kevin Murphy. I told her about my experience with Fred Williamson, sent her a friend request, which she accepted. She’s Liked the Shout MST3k Facebook page, as well as the Florida Supercon page to indicate she going, which I hopes means I can get her to autograph the mini poster too, which I mentioned to her. I encourage others here to get her to sign it by her, too.
Anyway, here’s a link to my photo bucket account with my autographed MST3k Warrior of the Lost World mini poster, and photo op with Fred Williamson, as well as a few other autographs and photos with other personalities from MSTed movies you might recognize.
http://s1118.photobucket.com/albums/k615/Paul_DerHagopian/Mystery%20Science%20Theater%203000/
Speaking of location references–
When the rebel guys are rounding up the incompetent guards (just after the third host segment), Joel calls out “OK everyone, meet up at the One Potato Two in an hour and a half” in a tone suggesting a parent at a shopping mall. Can anyone fill me in on what One Potato Two might be–something I’d find at the food court? Or am I way off base, and it’s not a store at all?
@112–1 Potato 2 was (and apparently may still be in a few scattered malls) a restaurant found at malls, usually in food courts and focusing on, well, potatoes. I remember them being around at the various -dales in Minneapolis/St. Paul in the late 1980s-early 1990s, so they must have seen them too. Never ate there myself; apparently I wasn’t in a potatoesque mood.
5 stars.
I adore this episode.
As obvious as this sounds, I always love episodes where there’s a remarkably unappealing leading man. Joe Don in Mitchell, Arch Hall Jr. in Eegah!, the Time Chasers chin butt guy….and, of course, the Paper Chase Guy! His performance is so bad, disengaged and unlikable that it puts him in the Hall of Fame of awful leading men in MST3K lore. Add Donald Pleasance, the most annoying (kind of) talking motorcycle ever, Persis Khambata, and a Jimmy Carter look-alike….and friends, you have MST3K Gold.
The opening sequence is one of my favorites ever:
“I had the right of way. I did.”
“Any fruit to declare?”
“Grady, the Paper Chase guy is here!”
“(to the motorcycle) SHUT UP!!!!!”
I love the riffing….Joel and the bots are in top form. Hilarious host segments. Highlights are the Square Master and Joel’s performance as the Warrior of the Lost World. I also love the little touch in the opening segment where Tom and Crow make up. It just reinforces the feeling (as funny as this sounds given that they’re fictional robots) that they’re a family. Such a wonderful dynamic that was so prominent in the Joel era.
I think this is my favorite season premiere (even though as Sampo points out, it didn’t air first originally) of any season. It’s an impossible task to follow Manos, but, this is a home run in its own right. Not as iconic, but, a terrific episode nonetheless.
“Feel some malaise, sucker.”
112 & 113 – The last 1 Potato 2 I remember was at the Maplewood Mall food court in the early part of the ’00s, but I think it’s been gone for some time now. For some reason I always thought the name was funny as hell, probably because I am deeply weird.
As you can imagine, that riff is actually my favorite in this episode. Chalk another one up to those psychic lawn darts!
noplot and noordledoordle–
Thanks for the info. Looks like this is a slice of Minnesota Mall Culture that I’ll never get to experience. I like the name, too–it obviously stuck in my head when Joel said it, and it’s pretty fun to say.
#108 – I have a few tapes that I transferred to DVD just because of the commercials. As much as we hate them now, the T.V. commercials keep us grounded in our pasts. Those endless “Psychic Hotline” ads, the 10 cents a minute and sprint ads, the “Fall line up” Comedy Central Ads, and the one gal wondering who Conan O’Brien is when lisiting talk show hosts (all of which are gone EXCEPT Conana).
Not evem AOL commercials yet. Those were the days. And the “Opening this weekend” ads for movies you see at 3 a.m. on USA now.
Activision did StarMaster BTW (#10). I know becasue I was an ADMERIAL (I still have the patch you got from taking a picture of the screen and mailing it to Activision).
This was one of the few “modern films” I saw on Showtime before MST3K was ever on. I was drawn by the big name cast (That girl from ST: the Motion Picture) so it had to be good, right? (Also a fan of Paper Chase.
Like City Limits (403) I felt odd watching them Riff a “modern movie.” I mean, riffing was for old movies, not ones you saw last year on HBO. Little did I understand in my youth.
A classic episode, even though I want to hammer that talking bike to death. I’d like to add that there was nothing supersonic about that speed cycle, you’d have to attach rockets to make it break the sound barrier for even a short time and it would endanger the rider.
ALL HAIL MEGAWEAPON!!! I’d seriously buy a diecast model of Megaweapon if someone made such a thing.
For some reason in the early/mid 80’s Italian cinema became obsessed with taking The Warriors, Escape from New York, and The Road Warrior and cramming them through the stump grinder of their b-movie machine. This film and Escape 2000 are both conspicuous examples of this trend. I find these films to be great fun.
“Megaweapon! MegaWeapon! Megaweapon!”
That 2 unsuccessful insurance salesmen joke is a reference to a commercial. I just can’t remember it.
“Taste Milaise, Sucker!”
I really like this episode. It’s a fun post-apocalyptic one… made in Europe, I think.
“The Unclear war has been fought.”
Alex:
The “unsuccessful insurance salesmen” reference is from Monty Python–it’s a sketch where people are jumping/being pushed out of tall buildings. One of the early episodes, I think–but I don’t have my box set handy to check.
Typical Fifth Season episode: The riffing is firing on all cylinders, the skits are at least cute, and the film quite frankly deserves it.
Favorite riff topic: pretty much everything about how our “hero” never actually -does- anything heroic. Whether one uses the classical definition of a hero as someone who does extraordinary deeds, or the modern one as someone who performs noble, brave acts…well, he just totally fails at both definitions.
Watch out for Squibs!
I love this episode, to me it is a continuation of the strong finish to Season 4. I’m a fan of post-apocalyptic movies in general (ROAD WARRIOR!) and it was nice that MST did a smattering of them over the years (I think the next one is S7 ESCAPE 2000..) as those episodes consistently rank as amongst my most often watched. WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD is one of my favorite Joel episodes, Top Ten. The Square Master Invention Exchange is great and the Bittersweet Hearts is one of their most clever and very enjoyable (“my needs”). All the Host Segments work for me, I love the non-ending to HS#2.
As for how the Bots are operated during HS#1 on the slot-car tracks, it looks like Tom is being operated through the slot in the track, through the car, and as he doesn’t go anywhere that would seem pretty easy to do. Crow would be a little more difficult as he RACES around the track (“watch out for that jump, Crow!”) but it probably follows the same set up, but with a stiff bar underneath the table attached to Crows car that allowed someone to race it off screen, then they would take Crow off the track, walk behind camera, and place him on the other side of the track and then slide him through and repeat. For the last time through, Trace grabs the puppet controls and slowly pushes Crow in, working the head and mouth, etc. It really is quite good puppetry, just like the Opening with Servo fumbling his speech. Good Stuff..
RIFFS AND THINGS:
after coming back from the Opening, Servo apologizes: “I’m sorry I made you eat my speech.”
Crow: “Music by Hawkwind. Or Genesis. Or Tangerine Dream, or King Crimson. Or Uriah Heap, or Synergy, or Rick Wakeman, or The Allen Parsons Project.”
Joel: “He’s the Gintyiest!”
..title flashes up on screen
Joel: “Oh I don’t know…”
Joel: “It’s not so much the apocalypse, it’s the humidity.”
I really like Joel’s “running down the road” gag; one of his best screen interactions.
guy on bike on fire,
Joel: “Another Buddhist protesting helmet laws.”
ALL 3: “ANY FRUIT TO DECLARE?!!”
Crow: “Hangar 18…!”
Crow: “Coma-coma-coma-coma-Caligula!!”
I agree with Crow’s assessment, the human body IS neat.
Joel: “Jimmy Carter IS Missing in Action.”
Joel: “Jimmy Carter IS The Enforcer.”
Joel: “This isn’t MAD MAX, it’s Sad Max.”
the bike refers to it’s joke, “what wall”,
Crow: “The computer is doing callbacks.”
Servo’s long list of celebrity names at the end of the episode over that crowd shot of doofuses is great, but how come nobody transcribed that on this thread yet? I’m waiting.
–
I love this one,
easily 5/5
now, one last time,
DO YOU HAVE ANY FRUIT TO DECLARE!?
I was watching a copy of this the other month and wondered who Billy Slater was. Finally found it. Didn’t remember it from the Junior Rodeo film. Still found it funny as hell as the truck exploded in slow motion.
As for the insurance salesmen bit, I guess I didn’t watch enough Monty Python when I was younger.
This was the episode that got me back into this show about 4 years ago. Once I saw the skit where the Warrior of the Lost World tries to get his learner’s permit, I was instantly re hooked, laughing so hard I was in tears and trying to catch my breath. I immediately began the task of acquiring every episode and have since seen them all. This one still holds a special spot, and is permanently in my top twenty. Megaweapon is an ongoing in-joke we share at work; we even named a price gun Megaweapon.
Great episode! This episode just gets better with every viewing. MEGAWEAPON RULES!
@88 as for bad guy henchman being such bad shots…I think this all points to how bad the coverage is on their vision plans.
this is a classic episode. There i said it… i’d say it again if i had to…
“Hi, I’m Jimmy Carter. I’m runnin’ for President.”
Late to the party. Sorry.
Anyway, I can’t believe I didn’t see anyone mention Crow’s CALLFORWARD instead of callback.
Towards the end Crow says “I accuse my parents” — but that episode hadn’t aired yet!
Anyway — I really enjoyed this one for the most part.
The riffing does drag a bit in the action scenes but… they’re action scenes that are moderately well handled and it’s hard to make fun of people just kind of driving and shooting at one another for several minutes at a time. Or running around and shooting at one another for several minutes at a time with no dialogue.
How is the top riff not “Any fruit to declare?”
now I hate him even more!
This movie is like Robot Holocaust and Wild Rebels had a bastard child
Warrior of the Lost World fails the Bechdel Test. There are no instances of two female characters speaking to each other.
So what was it about Methodist churches built in the Sixties that made them aesthetically unpleasing?
On the DVD menu, mixed in all the inane blather of the motorcycle, they slipped in, “Crow Rules.”
Joel’s bittersweet hearts invention has since come true. You can now buy little chalky hearts that say all sorts of weird things.
Bet they’re still not antacids.
@ #2: Depends on how loosely you’re defining the genre. Robot Holocaust and City Limits are both clearly post-apocalypse films.
tinaw #90: Some things I noticed that other people didn’t mention: Donald Pleasance’s outfit for this movie seems to be very Blofeld-ish. in fact, in my notes I said that it seemed like the only thing missing was the eye scar.
He didn’t have a white cat either.
Favorite riffs
It’s not so much the apocalypse, it’s the humidity.
Another Buddhist protesting the helmet law.
Ohio looks great after the Apocalypse.
“You want survival?”
Sure, we all do!
I hope you’re not afraid of boredom.
Wednesday is Nazi Night. Germans drink free.
You swing your partner with the chain, ’cause love is best when there’s sweet pain. Dosy do.
Lie down. You were killed six times already.
Ninjas, please report to the Master Ninja set. Grunge girls, you’re needed in the Mad Max set. What are you people from The Philadelphia Story doing here?
This isn’t Mad Max, it’s Sad Max.
This fall on NBC, black Nazi, white ninjas, and the Beige Berets.
No that’s where the porta-potty drains!
Megaweapon died tragically today. Investigators still have no clue about the mysterious explosion that took the life of the beloved Megaweapon. His widow asked that donations be sent to the Department of Transportation.
You know, if you’re going to see the Apocalypse, you should spend the money and take the helicopter tour.
Tonight on Crossfire! On the right, some guy. On the left, some other guy.
My bike say I’m suppose to kiss you.
Just close your eyes and think of Donald Pleasance.
Some Msties like the black-and-white films. Other Msties prefer the Russo-Finnish co-productions. Still other Misties favor the dubbed foreign films. But if you ask me, the best films riffed in this series were the ones made in the 1980s/1990s. They just seem to fit the format the best.
You can tell that someone really tried to make a good movie with Warrior of the Lost World. They didn’t succeed, but they didn’t fail as much as, say, Manos or Monster-A-Go-Go. I would put this one at the same level as Space Mutiny or Final Sacrifice.
Still a great episode. I love Frank flexing as he presses the button to start the movie.
Also, helicopters really are more effective in battle (and in general) when you get them more than 20 feet above the ground.
I know it’s already appeared a few times on this page alone, but — ANY FRUIT TO DECLARE?! Gets me every time.
You know, it’s not so much the apocalypse, it’s the humidity.
It’s kung foley!
“Kiss the girl!” Make her cry.
Many times I’ve dreamed of cutting a trailer for WotLW using the audio from Fury Road. I’m sure I could make this film look 20 times cooler than it actually is.
What I really hate about the film is the ‘reluctant chosen one’ story they use. The Paper Chase Guy keeps whining and saying he isn’t the chosen one, and everyone just acts like they didn’t hear him. Just once, I want to see a scene where the expected chosen one just lets everyone down (no, not in an Ep III kind of way…the Jedi were not as unanimous regarding Anakin being the Chosen One as every other person in this film).
I still hold this film in my head as one of the reasons why I just cannot enjoy or accept Italian filmmaking…along with their annoying penchant for shooting first, dubbing everything in later…as well as making all computers TALK when they TYPE/SPELL OUT SOMETHING (I’m looking at you, Devil Fish!).
Obi-Wan:
“You were the Chosen One! You were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them. You were supposed to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness.”
In all fairness, Anakin/Vader DID destroy the Sith and stuff. He just took his own sweet time to do it, about twenty years and 3 movies earlier, uh, later. In fact, I always appreciated how the story line still worked, it just showed that fate operates on a different chronology than human kind.
But I’m part Tralfamadorian.
This episode first aired when I was twelve and living in Indianapolis. As a result, I was rather amused by the final host segment when Megaweapon mentions he’d visiting a friend in Indy. It’s fun when MST can bring up personal memories like that.
“All the gummy-mints have colitis?!”
This became an instant favorite when I first saw it and was a perfect start to Joel’s final stretch of episodes. Everything works, to me there are absolutely no dead spots whatsoever. Although I do wonder sometimes if the ‘driver’s permit’ sketch would have come off any better had movie sign come in just a second earlier to avoid that pause. It hardly matters, though, since Trace plays that strict 70s Mom role to perfection (“I will not duck down, I’ll wrinkle my pantsuit!”). Servo’s “HELLO MRS WARRY-AHHRR!” slays me every time.
Besides the horrendously unlikable hero and incomprehensible storytelling, one other element that amps the ridiculousness is that ‘weebleweebleweeble’ gunshot sound effect. It sounded like someone playing a video game with an infinite ammo cheat code.
Fave riffs:
Crow (of Mr. Paper Chase): I couldn’t possibly like him any less right now…
Mr. Paper Chase: What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?
Crow: Oh now I hate him even more!
(When Donald is holding Persis at gunpoint)
Crow: One false move and I’ll shave her head! I shaved mine and I’m just crazy enough to do it!
And only because we already had the Laurie Anderson joke on the Weekend thread–
Computer: “Hang on to your…”
“Hang on to your….BLANK, Brett Sommers:” “I said, ‘Hat’.”
This running gag has officially entered my lexicon of MST3K references I try to work into common parlance. :)
(As homaged by Crow the next week, in his one-man host-seg salute to Gene Rayburn.)
A solid later Joel episode. Love all the Jimmy Carter jokes (“Taste some malaise, sucka!”) and other random riffs (“Get your honky ass back down here!” ; “For John. Heh, this movie belongs in the John.”). The bit where Servo does celebrity associations when the camera pans over the cheering crowd is one of the funniest “pause-worthy” jokes in the show.
Controversial opinion time: Am I the only one who thought Einstein’s voice was not annoying, but kinda cute? I’d love to know who played Einstein, but unfortunately the credits just say “as itself”. Boo.
It’s quite likely it was actually computer generated, especially since you wouldn’t know what the heck it was saying without the display screen.
On another note, I saw on IMDB it says that Fred Williamson found out about this movie while filming another in Italy, and asked the director to be in it, so he could extend his work visa & enjoy the country longer. That might explain why he’s not in it nearly as much as you might expect.
Not sure if you want to watch The Road Warrior, Escape from New York, or The Warriors? Why not watch all three?
Yes you are. Now take your wedgie like a man.
@Stressfactor(#129)–I was hoping someone else had noticed; this is probably the only case of a call-FORWARD, right? It is a little easier to tell when we’re going through the episodes in order, but when i’m skipping around for fun a reference to an episode that didn’t come out until 2 months later doesn’t jump out at you.
The movie was available on Netflix for a while but I didn’t get it in time. There are several scenes skipped over that i’m at least mildly curious enough to see.
“Just drape a piece of liver over her face, it would have the same effect!”
Obviously this is classic episode to me, and is firmly lodged in my personal top five. The sheer oily, oblivious, hyper sexulaized awfulness of the “Paper Chase Guy”, and J&TB’s utter disgust with him never fails to amuse me. The riffing is excellent, and the long spinning tracking shot of the rally where they drop about forty refrences in a minute, is perfection. Sure they did that “Hey! he looks like Mac Davis” kind of bit a little too often, but it all works here.LThe movie itself is also incredibly stupid, but never dull, much like “Space Mutiny” or “Time Chasers” and is the exact kind of ridiculous ’80s sci-fi fodder that I think produced some of the greatest episodes.
Am I a bad person if hearing the name Buttafuco still makes me giggle after twenty years?
I too was perplexed by the strange gun noise that sounds like a stuttering video game. I thought maybe the Omega Guards were shooting invisible lasers or something.
Poor Persis. Her big break involved being bald and weird in the worst Star Trek movie ever. Then in no time she went from working with Gene Roddenberry to being in movies like this and Megaforce. At least she got to have her hair, and it looks nice too.
Gotta love Fred Williams. He makes a mark on this movie even though by his own admission there’s really no reason for him to be in it. Check him out in Bronx Warriors 1999 along with Trash from Escape 2000.
@ Cornjob: I’m thinking you might recant if you were made to watch Final Frontier Clockwork Orange-style. ST:TMP was more bland than bad.
“Black Nazi, White Ninja, and the Grey Berets. On Thursdays!”
That so sounds like an hour long A-Team like 80’s TV show.
Maybe the Black Nazi was a comment on how in a post apocalyptic world the symbols we now use will lose their meaning. Hence a black guy might put a Nazi uniform on because it fit and he needed a new outfit, oblivious or indifferent to the political irony inherent in the act. Which is why Prosser put Omega symbols on his minions and… I don’t really know what I’m talking about do I?
Where did the Paper Chase Guy get that super bike anyway? Who built it and programmed it to be his friend?
And why did the magic floating healer priests in white need puffy cheeks for if they could manipulate the laws of physics? And what about Scarecrow’s brain!?