If memory serves, the premise of the CC era and the MST3k Movie was that Dr, F was looking for the worst movie ever to use for his world domination scheme. Question: did he find it before the whole end of season 7? and if so, in your opinion which one was it? For me: yes with Castle of Fu Manchu.
This isn’t really about the worst movie the Mads sent, but it’s more about: what movie, shown by the Mads or not, is THE movie that will allow them to take over the world.
Me? I’m going with “The Way We Were.”
You?
Don’t Let Duke of Puddles have ALL the fun! Keep sending those WDT suggestions.
Also, FYI- I tentatively plan to begin posting official season 12 episode guide pages once a week beginning Oct. 24. These plans may change (like, if I get a job), but that’s the plan right now.
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That’s a useful distinction. I think you’ve made a meaningful contribution to the analysis of cinematic dreck. I find Mighty Jack and Invasion of the Neptune Men to be EW-class, while Castle of Fu Manchu and Hobgoblins are CF level 2s.
I’m really looking forward to checking those off my list.
Irwin Allen’s “Cave-In!”
It’s the last of the string of Allen’s increasingly terrible made-for-TV disaster movies (“Flood,” “Fire,” “Hanging by a Thread,” “The Night the Bridge Fell Down”), in which a not-exactly-all-star cast has to casually stroll a state park’s cavern system after the entrance collapses. They face a few bumps in their path–stepping stones over boiling water, a brief dip under cold water, and a rope bridge that is falling apart because of course it is. Oh, and James Olson is an armed criminal madman who picked the wrong day to use the tourist attraction as a hideout (yeah, he’s not very bright) and is now mingling among the trapped group.
What do you do when the crisis in your script would MAYBE fill a half-hour of “Emergency!” but you’re making a 90-minute movie? Flashbacks galore! One character even has a flashback to an incident for which they weren’t present! Leslie Nielsen plays a disgraced cop on vacation, and his dramatic performance (as opposed to his portrayal of Det. Frank Drebin) is a rare highlight. Ray Milland is also on board as a loathsome manipulator.
Utterly free of suspense, “Cave-In!” makes “San Francisco International Airport” look like a Hitchcock thriller.
@gottogetbacktothejudorange: “Dondi” is available on DVD from Warners Archive. Ah, Cinematic Dondi! Imagine an entire movie devoted to Juanito, the annoying “Kenny” of “The Black Scorpion,” screaming “I’ll take keeer of dem!” over and over and over again, and that’s pretty close to Movie-Dondi. (The character in the funny pages wasn’t even a fifth as excruciatingly twee, although he was disturbing in his own right for the giant round black voids of his eyes in a world in which everyone else was drawn relatively “normal.”)
They made a movie of that? Yutch. One of those strips that never conveyed anything except “What kind of person LIKES this?” … “Henry”. “Fred’nand”. Just scary bad stuff.
The Dondi comic strip was excruciating! O. M. G.! I almost came down with Type 2 diabetes it was so icky sweet. Never saw the film, though I read all about it in Golden Turkeys. My then-wife said she HAD seen it and that it was worse than the comic strip–by a lot, too. Thanks to her I still have the theme song burned into my psyche (“Dooondi! Little Doooondi! A world full of joy wrapped up in one little boy . . . ” [Insert gagging sounds here.]) I became very adept at making up funny lyrics to it, though, which could be amusing in an MST context (“Tooorgo! Little Tooorgo! A world full of disgust in two bloated knees . . . “)
“Your movie, Paint Your Wagon, is an adaptation of the Loewe and Lerner musical, originally made when they were both low and both learners. It stars Clint Eastwood at a low point in his career and Jean Seberg at the high point of her career.”
A movie that could promote and actually achieve world domination. Hmmm. It’s been tried before, I think.
Leni Riefenstahl and TRIUMPH OF THE WILL couldn’t do it for Hitler and the Nazis and she was a pretty darn good cinematographer. Let’s see what the American entertainment industry has on offer.
“Reality” shows – Dancing with the Has-Beens, etc, etc., etc.
Multiple initial “cop” shows- NCIS/CSI, etc. Highest bullet and body count to ever bloody the television screen.
DisneyCorp – Addict the viewers as toddlers to flash-bang-colorburst-pablumplot and then SELL THEM THE STUFF.
Sorry Dr. Forrester, but I think you have been beaten to the punch.
There can really be only ONE film that the Mads tortured the bots with that could be considered the worst movie ever: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies.
Although, how anyone could use it to achieve world domination in today’s world, considering that a certain orange-skinned gibbon is well on his way using similar techniques. But Dr F never had the advantage of Twitter.
But on a positive note, FANTASIA was really cool.