By the way, as promised the episode guide entries for the first two Gamera episodes in season three are still open if you were waiting for the set to see them and comment.
To get you in the mood, several takes on the Gamera theme song.
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Weekend Discussion Thread: All Things GameraIt’s been a pretty Gamera-centric week in MSTiedom, for obvious reasons, so let’s round out the week with a full on discussion of the new set, your favorite episodes and your favorite moments from the TEN Gamera eps (including KTMA), the original movies (which is your favorite?) and anything else Gamera-related.
93 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: All Things Gamera”Commenting at Satellite News
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#27 I’m in full agreement with you there, Wilford. I would LOVE if boys from Rifftrax would do a riffing on the two unriffed Gamera movies from the original series (Gamera vs. Viras and Gamera vs. Jiger). The updated series from the mid 90s and especially the failed reboot, “Gamera the Brave” would be amazing as well. I personally grew up with these movies and Gamera has a closer place in my heart than Godzilla does. Also, to tie in a bit from the previous weekend discussion about musicals made from MST movies, you gotta do one of Gamera. But do it as a major opera ala “The Ring Cycle” where you span the entire length of all the original seven films or the three updated films with it taking several days of continious performances to tell the entire epic tale of Gamera.
Just got my set today at Best Buy where it was the cheapest I’d seen it anywhere. Haven’t watched any of the episodes yet but I’m dying to see Mike Nelson as Michael Feinstein. HOW did Frank and Trace not completely die laughing during that bit?
I cheered when the ‘Turn Down Your Lights’ came up. I’m working on these and them I’m going to watch Gozilla vs. Megalon– Oh, wait, no I’m not. Because I followed the instructions that came with The Giant Gila Monster and properly disposed of my copy of that. ;o) (smileys aren’t working)
I’ve ordered the final 3 double features from Shout Factory of the last 6 Gamera movies (including the three titles not touched by Best Brains). Cheese ahoy!
I also have another thing to thank Shout Factory for with this set. On Gamera vs. Barugon, the original Japanese trailer featured scenes from a movie that, surprisingly, wasn’t Gamera vs. Barugon. I was wondering why it wasn’t in the movie at first, but then realised it was probably one of those “from the director of…” snippets. It involved a giant Warrior menacing a number of samurai. I had no idea what it was, but it intrigued me enough to see if I could find anything about it. By coincidence, I went to my favourite “cult movie” video store, and happened across an 11-film box set which, to my surprise, had the very same Giant Warrior on the cover. So I now own two of the three Giant Majin films (the only two released by AIP). So thank you, Shout Factory! You’ve enlightened this Japanese movie novice.
I LOVE this boxed set! So far I’ve watched all the episodes with the exception of the Zigra one. Oh, the “Gamera vs. Guiron” episode has one of those “How did they miss this?” moments for me. Each time someone uses the teleportation device an echoing “PING” is heard. Each time I hear this I’m expecting a riff on the Pink Floyd song “Echoes”.
RaptorX8 I’m no good at following instructions. I have both volume 10 and volume 10.2. I still have *mumble* vs. *mumble*… :-)
My favorite bits are not MST3k Gamera related, but more modern. I get a kick of the Gamera movies that star Steven Seagal’s daughter. She’s huge compared to the other actors.
And then I love in Godzilla Final Wars, a little kid is playing with a Gamera toy, then throws it away, calling him a “loser”. Funnier than it sounds.
Too many good moments, but some favorites off the top of my head:
– Gameradamerung sketch
– Gamera’s internal diagram
– Gamera visits the SOL on the hexfield
– The “great read” and applause jokes after the halting delivery of the “they must be coated with anti-electric wave paint” line in the first Gamera.
– The jokes when Gaos stubs his toe after it’s injured.
– Servo says, “Maybe you shouldn’t DO THAT Gamera!” after Gamera repeatedly touches a force field and gets shocked every time. He doesn’t learn, does he that one?
– The farmer on the bridge in the first film: “That must be that…flying saucer…I’ve heard them talk about so much…lately” line. Really funny. And I discovered it’s just like that in the original Japanese too thanks to the recent Shout! release of the original uncut film with subtitles. Actually, the dubbed lines in the Sandy Frank version are fairly faithful to the original Japanese, at least in the first film.
– The “how do he know?” comment from Joel after Baragon uses his rainbow to destroy the missiles because there’s no plausible reason that he should have known there was a serious threat out of his immediate sight that far away.
– The Gamera song, every MST3K version used for comedy every time. They are ALL great fun and really funny.
– The stuff about traffic accidents and Coca Cola from the kids in the film. Amusing and a little weird at times like everything in Gamera.
– The fact that the alien women are going to saw off that kid’s head and eat his brains in a kid’s movie. Again, weird, really weird, like so many old, gruesome fairy tales.
The new DVD box set is amazing and I’m about to watch the third disc in the set in a few minutes. More comments after I get more of a memory freshener from the rest of the set!
And I also enjoyed the special Gamera postcards Shout Factory included with my order. Some nice artwork.
10 minutes into Gamera vs. Zigra, and we have comparisons between children and killer whales, plus some guy making pervert faces while watching the whales getting their teeth brushed. Remember what I said about Gamera vs. Guiron being the most surreal? I may be mistaken… :-)
I’ve watched three of the five so far. Gamera Vs. Guiron is next, and I told the wife she has to watch it with me because of just out and out goofy the movie itself is.
I think the one thing I surprised by was how clean looking the originals were in the trailers and snippets featured in “So Happy Together.” I remember the commercial on the first disc talking about a new HD transfer, and I have to say it looks a lot better than I would have expected. I’m not saying this to plug the standalone movie releases, I just think they cleaned up really nice. It almost makes me wish the theater footage could be re-edited with the cleaned-up version. I know that’d be an ambitious undertaking (and who knows if the original raw footage even exists any longer to do it with).
It’s not a fault, they used what they had available and was shot in the pre-HD days, but it would be interesting to see. Regardless, I love the episodes.
OK. I just finished the last of the Gamera movies and I just have to say that those movies seemed to get funnier and funnier as the series went on. Gamera vs. Zigra was just absolutely hilarious! From “pervert whale” man to the mini-skirted assassin chasing the kiddies around the aquarium to the absolutely ridiculous Gamera shuffle and xylophone playing, it was just a fantastic time.
When I was a little kid my dad would throw a toy plastic turtle I had across the room and refer to it as Gamera. When MST3k showed it some years later I got the joke.
I just ordered the set, and I WILL tear it out of it’s cardboard encasement (with my teeth, no less), and watch every turtle-drenched moment with unbridled glee, when it gets here. Shout ROCKS!!!!!
#64 – just watch out for the metal box, you might be watching Gamera with broken teeth.
*sits back and just basks in the happiness that is Gamera* :D :D
I’m enjoying everybody elses since my mailbox is still empty. But it’ll come… Saved me a fiver too ordering from amazon. :p
True, but worth it.
@#7: received my MST3K vs Gamera on Friday 7/29 from Shout!Factory….totally shocked o_O as I certainly wasn’t expecting it that early and had only ordered it earlier that very same week. I smiled for days :-))
Normally would have done the Amazon preorder but wanted the stress ball this time. The cheap/free [read *slow*] shipping from Amazon is excruciating. Might stick with S!F from now on.
Gamera vs Guiron is one of my all time favorite MST episodes. The crazy dubbing at the beginning, the officer corn job bit, the bicycle song, the “thank you” scene, the Richard Burton running gag, the alien babes with the southern accents. Oh my…….. i gotta go watch it again!
#68 I’ve gone to Shout! Factory for the last two sets, and will probably continue doing so. If I’ve had a problem, they’re quick to respond, and returning is easy. Plus the extras they include.
@68- I think I’m with you on that. While I do love saving a few bucks, I was really looking forward to having a Gamera marathon weekend. Will be ordering direct from Shout for set 22!!
Always loved Mike’s Felstein’s rendition. I sing it a bunch in the style. never fails to get odd looks at the Target. But hey, he is really neat.
You know if Gamera were a pig, we could call him Hamera.
I was really looking forward to this boxed set and have not been disappointed. My two sons and I have been watching them over the course of the week and really enjoyed the experience.
One of the movies holds a special place in my heart:
Gamera Vs. Guiron was my first MST3K experience.
I remember sitting in the comic book store in which I worked 20 years ago, staring at a postcard-sized screen watching this flickering, grainy film (taped at SLP!). When Gamera did his Kurt Thomas horizontal bar move, I KNEW I’d be a fan for life. When my two boys and I laughed aloud at the same time when Gamera made his move against Guiron, any lingering doubts I may have had as to their parentage dissolved (heh).
This set has been a perfect cap to the summer.
@ Mark Honhorst #73: Go to my foot locker and get my belt.
Haven’t gotten the box set yet. Soon as I pay off the rent, though…
Actually, I remember the Gamera movies from long before MST. They were a staple of the WABC-TV “4:30 Movie” for a long time. I remember me & my brothers watching “Gamera vs. Guiron” (or whatever title it was using) and making jokes like, “How do you like your brains? Medium rare?”
As for the other Gamera movies, I’ve only seen “Gamera vs. Viras” and the first in the updated series, but I agree that riffing on them would be a great idea. For example, during the first new one, a ship is nearly destroyed by the sudden appearance of an atoll. I can just hear the riffers signing (a la Denis Leary) “It’s an atoll/it’s an atoll/what an atoll!”
Oh, and I was just watching “Gamera vs. Gaos” this morning. How about this: you tell Goas that he’s been chosen to leave his footprints at Graumann’s Chinese Theater. He gets there for the ceremony, but you replace the cement with quicksand. How about that?
@74: Gamera v Guiron was my first MST ever too, it was closing time at the bar so I stumbled to a friend’s house and he was watching Gamera v Guiron. I had never heard of MST before but my friend said to watch it and I was hooked within 5 minutes (apparently for life). Really looking forward to getting this set as the first Gamera episode is one of my all time favorites.
Hats off to Shout! You might remember when the extras were originally announced for this set the Hour Wraps were not on the list. In a thread on this site this was noticed and someone from Shout responded they forgot and viola they were added. In that same discussion thread a couple of us brought up the Turn Down your Lights thing. It was explained that to date that bit wasn’t included with the masters provided by Best Brains to Shout! but nothing more was said. Now low and behold that appeared on this set as well.
It’s been said before and I’ll say it again. Shout! really seems to listen to us. You just can’t ask for more than that.
Also, it’s weird of me but every single time either Zigra or the Zigra groupie says “All you people of the Earth” or something similar the chorus to “All You Zombies” by The Hooters pops into my head.
I have NO idea why….
Ah the curse of being a child of the 70’s/80’s.
yay! i too ordered mine from shout on the 27th and had it the 30th! couldn’t believe it came that fast, but i’m in central IL and it shipped from IN. i’ll be ordering all the future sets direct from shout! my 3 yr old son HAD to watch when we opened the box. that’s my boy! he also keeps saying he’s “stressed out” when he plays with the ball-kid’s hilarious.
i love when mike is gamera in “gamera” wearing the wife beater and keeps scratching his belly. that is one of those touches that sends this show over the top.
oh @45 stressfactor: i was totally addicted to sunday afternoons on KPLR 11. saw all the old time monsters on there. where is that kind of programming now? first up would be wrestling at the chase(von erich bros!) then usually ma & pa kettle or abbott and costello, then a sometimes terrifying monster movie, finished up with francis the talking mule. no wonder i’m warped.
@bdtrppr6
High five for KPLR! W00T! Well, I hate to say it but cable has kind of killed independent TV stations I think. That and the cost of productions.
It’s kind of weird to think that something like MST3K probably couldn’t get made today… at least not in the same way.
The comforting thing is that a lot of self-starters have simply just packed up their bags and moved to the internet.
Oh yeah, I remember watching all those you mentioned. Plus the old Bob Hope and Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis movies.
It’s actually one of the reasons why I kind of have a short tolerance level for Joel’s Jerry Lewis impersonations.
Trace’s Dean Martin routines don’t bother me nearly as much though. Go figure.
Did anyone notice the GAMERA SILOUTTE on the inside covers of all the movies in this set? C O O L ! SHOUT RULES BABY!
@82, He’s also on the back of the metal box, under the paper. Very Very happy, not just to finally see these episodes, but to finally see these movies again (I was six at the height of “The ABC 4:30 Movie,” during Monster Week – Guiron is what I remembered best). Shout does a phenomenal job with the series, from menu to packaging. It was great to hear someone explain how the films progressed – reminiscent of the commentary track from Gojira. And I agree w/ Trace – the guy who plays Cornjob is an expressive actor who may well have been successful in Japan.
Guiron is the prime episode of the set – from Cornjob to the horribly-cadenced dubbing and the most rushed monster this side of Torgo. I’m only surprised there were no Paul Hogan jokes about Guiron’s head (“That’s not a knife…”)
-Do the kids really sing “Hirohito Gamera?” or is that J&TB?
My favorite is still Gamera vs. Guiron. It was the very first episode I watched when I got my boxset last week. The movie itself is so wonderfully insane, it’s the perfect mix of cheesy sci-fi and bizarre kids movie (it’s also surprisingly violent, the scene where Guiron carves up Space Gaos still makes me cringe! haha) and with “Cornjob” and the Southern dubbed Alien babes it’s just made for riffing by the guys. I also really enjoyed the retrospective with Joel, Josh, Trace and Jim. Joel nailed it when he said the movies reflect the sense of how children often think the world revolves around them and I also liked his sentiment that they felt like guides taking the viewers on a tour of the wild situations in the movies. Anyways, this is by far my favorite boxset and I’m still amazed we have official DVDs of these episodes, thanks again to the amazing folks at Shout!
Surprisingly, I got my Gamera set right on time last Tuesday early evening for 40.99 using the Amazon Prime trial free same day shipping. Great deal. I was tempted to order with Shout to get the nifty post cards and extra stressball but decent shipping with them is too expensive (15.99 for same day when I can get it free with Amazon? No).
I pre-ordered mine at least a week before the release date and v.21 arrived Saturday, I’m almost sure I picked the free shipping option. I haven’t watched all 5 yet, but it’s good so far. There is one possible problem, though it may just be my TV. At the end of Gamera, Joel says the movie featured name-actors and still shots of the actual actors are shown. For the one who played a Japanese farmer (the riffs played off his Barney Fife-ish voice) my screen is so dark I couldn’t make out anything. I paused it and manually turned up the brightness on my screen, that allowed me to see it. I increased the default brightness setting of 25 up to 40.
Mine should arrive today! Now, if I only didn’t have to get through eight hours of work before I can fish it out of the mailbox…..
I got mine yesterday finally and watched “Gamera” last night! Loved the short doc with the MST guys about the shows relationship with the Gamera series (this was actually the first time I had seen Jim Mallon interviewed ever, so that was interesting). Also I thought this was a really outstandingly funny episode, better than I even remembered. The Kenny as demonically possessed spokeschild of Gamera jokes were killing me.
Do you suppose every so often they still get letters to that PO box in Hopkins MN with people’s theory on exactly “what’s up with Kenny”? LOL.
For as bad as the Gamera films were, they did sort of turn me into a fan. I even found myself buying the 90’s film trilogy when it came out on DVD. If anyone else did this, did you discover the ‘Lake Texarkana Gamera’ easter egg on the Gamera vs. Legion DVD like I did? A fan of the Gamera MST episodes might want to treat themselves to this, because it’s a rare example of MSTing out ‘in the wild.’ See, apparently ADV was dubbing the film, and they first produced an honest English dub working from a translated script like they were supposed to. But then they created a second audio track in which half of the dubbed voices remain the same, but the other half are replaced with people doing ridiculous Southern accents and saying things completely off script. One of the main characters is even replaced with a guy doing a continuous Bill Clinton impersonation. You may think that I’m kidding, but I’m being completely serious. Just check out the Amazon reviews for the ‘Gamera Limited Edition Boxed Set.’ I’ve shown this version to a lot of my friends, and even the non-MSTies have found it hilarious. I’m wondering if anyone else out there has discovered the same thing?
Anyway, about these MST eps, I have to chime in with many others that vs. Guiron and vs. Zigra are my favorites. But, while the Michael Feinstein bit is hilarious, my favorite skit is the ‘dimensional model of Gamera’ from Zigra. With Tom and Crow doing background music for each other, and bouncing back and forth so easily … For me it’s one of a handful of skits where everyone just has perfect energy, interaction, and zaniness. I find these so rare that the only other example I can think of right now is the ‘Kathy Ireland Fabulous Range of Emotions Acting Guessing Game’ sketch from Alien from LA. Thank you Gamera friend to all children I’m not afraid I’m wearing a tie you go home.
While I was waiting for my set I actually did go back and re-watch the KTMA versions of these films so when my set finally arrived and I popped in “Gamera” last night I was quite surprised at the number of KTMA era riffs that they spruced up a little bit and re-used in the first few minutes of that movie alone!
The one KTMA era riff, however, that didn’t make it that I wish had was when Dr. Hidaka talks about going back to the university and Joel says “That could take years!” I really wish they had kept that one.
@83 – “Tsuyoi-zo Gamera”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-UACM_8q_Q
Feel compelled to at least give a mention to the brilliant military plan in GAMERA VS. GAOS that involved a turntable and a giant fountain of fake blood. Apparently, this was back when Wile E. Coyote worked as a consultant to the Japanese government…
Couldn’t wait for the weekend to start watching VOL. XXI. Watched Gamera tonight and let me tell you it was a blast! When I watched the bonus material I could not help but notice how fatherly everyone looked. So far this is a super set. Great job SHOUT!
Loving the set. Haven’t seen these episodes in so long!
And Cambot makes his debut in the DVD menus!