Movie: (1969) The masked wrestler El Santo travels back in time to confront Count Dracula and acquire Dracula’s treasure. Original title: Santo En El Tesoro De Drácula.
Host: Jonah.
Opening: Kinga unveils Moon 1; Max explains what happened to Moon 13. They unveil the Kingadome and the Gizmoplex.
Invention exchange: Jonah gave an unhappy Crow blinkers. Grandma Pearl suggests a different activity, believing that Synthia and new clone Mega-Synthia can handle things.
Segment 1: The bots try regressing Jonah.
Segment 2: Jonah and GPC host QVSanto, the luchador home shopping channel.
Segment 3: Crow and Tom’s trash talk is very kind.
Close: J&tB sing the praises of Perico but there’s trouble in Moon One as the Kingadome is hit by a meteor.
Thoughts:
• The new normal: This season there are two parallel theme songs, sung by Tom Servo (Baron Vaughn in Jonah episodes and Conor McGiffin in the Emily episodes), along with Felicia Day and Paul (Sabourin) & Storm (Sicostanzo).
Jonah episodes:
TOM
In the not-too-distant future
Next Sunday afternoon
The evil Kinga Forrester
She ran her empire from the moon
Her latest plan was the Gizmoplex
A twisted scheme based on stolen specs
Now she’s pulling the strings from the old Moon base
And she’s back to her experiments with prisoners out in space
KINGA
I’ll send them cheesy movies!
The worst motion picture wrecks (la la la)
They’ll have to sit and watch them all
And we’ll stream them at the Gizmoplex! (la la la)
Now keep in mind they can’t control
Where the movies begin or end (la la la)
They’ll have to keep their sanity
With the help of their robot friends
Robot Roll Call
Cambot! (TOM: And, action!)
GPC! (TOM: Which one?)
Tom Servo! (TOM: That’s me.)
Crooooow!
If you’re wondering how we eat and breathe
And other science facts (la la la)
Then repeat to yourself, “It’s just a show.
I should really just relax!”
ALL
For Mystery Science Theater 3000!
• A middling start to the third season of the revived show. Some moderately funny riffs but not a lot of gut-busters.
• This ep marks the first appearance of Yvonne Freese as Mega-Synthia in a TV episode (the character originated as part of the live “Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour).”
• This ep premiered in the Gizmoplex March 4, 2022.
• If Joel ever talked about it anywhere I must have missed it, so, has there been any explanation as to how and why Cambot became a fleet of mini-Cambots?
• GPC swings into the theater to deliver a riff once in the first half, and again in the second half. She also helps out in the “Perico” song.
• The ending bit, where the meteor strike on the Gizmoplex somehow requires Kinga to turn to “Dr. Kabahl, the strange financier from the future,” kind of comes out of nowhere, but it gets fleshed out (somewhat) in future episodes.
• Stinger: Hoods vs. thugs.
• Callback: “Manos, the Hands of … oh, never mind,” (Manos)
• Fave riff: “Is the hubcap dating the second unit director?”
• Honorable mention: “Dream of ear-less silver-faced demons.”
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MST3K Connections: Director Rene Cardona directed Santa Claus and the upcoming The Batwoman. Writer Alfredo Salazar wrote The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy and The Batwoman. Santo once again appeared as himself in Samson vs the Vampire Women. Jorge Mondragón (Professor Soler) portrayed Dr. Sepulveda in archive footage used in The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy. Carlos Suárez (Ratón) portrayed Igor in The Batwoman. Guillermo Hernández (Wrestler X) was a henchman of The Bat in The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy, a vampire in Samson vs the Vampire Women, and Jorge in The Beast of Hollow Mountain. Producer Guillermo Calderón was producer for The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy and Santa Claus
Holy cow, a new Episode Guide entry.
I still haven’t actually seen season 13 yet.
For that matter, I haven’t finished season 12 yet either….
I think part of the lore with the mini-Cambot-fleet is that each Cambot is a viewer to the Gizmoplex? I’m not sure if they were supposed to be like actual pods for people to “visit” in, or if the idea was that the viewers were controlling the cambots, and could, y’know, use them to enter the theater/etc.
Yay the Season 13 episode guide!
In hindsight, it is one of the weaker episodes, but the excitement was palpable and we were all just thrilled to have new episodes and the brand new Gizmoplex.
While the majority of the host segments this season fall flat because it’s Jonah/Joel/Emily & the Bots behind a desk in front of a green screen, there are a couple of gems. The wrestling promo one from this episode got a lot of love.
Did they change “Next Sunday AD” to “Next Sunday afternoon” because BC/AD isn’t really used anymore (now it’s BCE/CE)
This is something that has always bothered me about the revival: it feels too fake and lacks that cheap & cheesy handmade feel of the original series.
The OS was clearly a labor of love made by a dozen or so people, while the newer seasons are rather over-produced.
While I’ll admit that on rewatch this one didn’t hold up quite as well as I remembered the first time around, there’s still some good riffing here, especially during the first part in the house before the time-travel-mind-regression-whatever stuff kicks in. Now that I think about it, the plot reminds me somewhat of The Undead, weirdly.
However, one thing I noticed with the riffing: In my opinion, they fixed a LOT the pacing issues they had in seasons 11 and 12, where it seemed like they were trying to cram in as many riffs as possible with little to no room for the movie to “breathe”, so to speak. It felt like now they were going with a comparatively much more easygoing cadence, something that brought out the silliness of the movie more when you weren’t trying to keep up with wall-to-wall riffs in places. For that alone I’ll confidently say this was a marked improvement over much of 11 and 12.
The greenscreened host segments, well, those kinda didn’t work as well as one would have hoped, but given the situation at the time, there wasn’t much that could be done about that, sadly. Some decent ideas throughout the season, but they’re hard to execute under those conditions.
Possibly, but it also rhymes with moon, like A.D. rhymed with “you and me.”
You forgot that the backers’ preview of this episode introduced us to the legend, the phenomenon that is WHITE DOT.
Re: the technical problems with the preview, I wasn’t mad at all. I just felt bad for the guys running the playback. I know from experience how nerve-wracking it can be when a live broadcast comes apart, and you have to scramble for a solution. Fortunately, we fans just kept busy on the chat and waited it out. (Then, I went through the same thing when the Mads riffed on “The Devil Bat”, but that’s another story…)
I thought this was a great start to the season. The riffs were funny and, as noted, were better paced and not as heavy. However, for me the funniest moment wasn’t one of the jokes. It was just the sight of El Santo, in a neat suit & tie while still wearing his silver mask. I nearly fell out of my chair.
As for the movie, let me get this straight: El Santo is a champion wrestler, a crime fighter, a monster slayer, and a brilliant scientist? Ye gods, even the Doctor can’t match that. And there’s something pretty voyeuristic about El Santo & his cronies watching Luisa get victimized by Dracula in the past and not doing much of anything. (Is there a “fixed point” thing involved?) The ending is kind of underwhelming, too; at least in “Vampire Women”, El Santo burned the house down. On the other hand, there’s Perico, who’s pretty much the Jerry Lewis/Lou Costello/Huntz Hall of the movie.
All in all, I thought this was a great start to the season. I was very optimistic.
There is a review of this MST3K episode and others on YouTube.
Look up “Faith’s Take”
Wish I’d seen it. My wife gave 100$ to the kickstarter campaign and we never got any access codes. Waiting for DVD/Blu-ray.
Yay! I’m so glad the Ep Guide is up and running for Season 13!
I agree that this is kind of a middling episode. The higher production values (compared to Vampire Women) kind of homogenize the overall weirdness of the premise out of the film. It’s still goofy, but more in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon sense than the off-the-charts WTF sense of the S6 movie. Jonah’s crew is more comfortable now with the SOL premise, and therefore has that nice, slower, more relaxed pace. (The riff-a-second problem, however, returns big-time with Emily’s electrified, hair-on-fire approach.) Overall, the show is far less over-produced than it was on Netflix, but I agree that it lacks the earnest home-made passion of the original series. Maybe the performers are a little too professional/slick? Are there too many new characters? Maybe, although I love Dr. Kabahl! He is a genuinely welcome addition! How many Synthias and GPCs does one MST need, though? I still think Crow and Servo are too flat; as I’ve mentioned before, Kelsey Ann’s Crow in the Emily eps is the only ‘bot that has a distinctive personality. I finally realized I have a problem with the reboot’s host segments, too. Whereas in the original series, they were woven into the fabric of the show’s premise and what’s going on in the movies, now it’s like Jonah/Emily and the ‘bots are making like Micky Rooney in those old Andy Hardy movies–“Hey, gang, let’s put on a show!!” It’s okay, at least some of the time, but it ties in with the whole over-production issue: we don’t suspend disbelief and think that we’re watching a desperate person and sentient robots suffering through a cheesy movie while trying to outflank a couple of evil mad scientists–it really is just Show Biz. There’s little interaction between the test subjects and the Mads. The ‘bots don’t have any distinctive personal quirks and passions, they don’t get angry with their human or tease him/her, they don’t argue or needle each other like bratty siblings … Everything just kind of sits there.
I thought this episode was a pretty good episode. I don’t think this should have started the season with. The problem is that the movie does not have the goofiness as vampire women. The episode has to setup the whole season storyline. So I have to give the episode a pass on the episode.
Someone at IMDB goofed. Jorge Mondragón’s character in this movie is named Dr. Sepulveda, as the voiceover guy reading the sign at his office kindly informs us.
The plot is pretty much a rehash of The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy. No surprise, since they both have the same writer.
@ mando3b: Funny you should mention Hanna-Barbera, since both Treasure of Dracula and the first Scooby Doo cartoon came out in the year 1969. And it’s got the same team structure. Stalwart leader El Santo is their Fred. Skinny coward Perico is their Shaggy. Redhead bombshell Luisa is their Daphne. Which by default makes Dr. Sepulveda Velma. This is where it kind of falls apart.
Favorite riffs
This is my favorite Castlevania sequel.
Manos the Hands of… oh, never mind.
Three dudes watching a woman in a silly outfit spin around? That’s not science. That’s Fashion Week.
But if you see my neck or ankles, we must wed.
She needs a chaperone to go upstairs in her own house? This is Victorian.
Now you’ll have seven years of bad suck… uh, luck.
I’m really digging his Quilted Northern dickey.
If you have to drag your dog to see the monster, you might want to call it a night.
“Now she’s dead.”
Let me make her double dead.
Let’s give her five minutes, and then send her to meet Frankenstein’s Monster.
We interrupt Mexican Odd Couple for this important bulletin.
Physical comedy always looks better when you can’t see it.
We can see perfectly thanks to these two-watt flashlights.
Ah, that sound. Perico, go back to the car and get the WD-40.
Guys, wait for Perico and his sensible graverobbing slacks.
But wait! We didn’t get to see you get out of your car, walk across the graveyard, fumble with the gate, walk down the stairs, and struggle with the hidden door.
Is the hubcap dating the second unit director?
This fight scene needs pies.
“Where is the danger you told me about?”
I am the danger!
All that desecrating’s made me hungry. Chicken and waffles, anyone?
So there are new gimmicks and cast changes in this season? Ugh.
I actually liked season 12, which felt less gimmicky than season 11 and kept the focus on the movie and riffs.
Man do I love weird luchador movies!
The first host segment of the episode has TWO of my favorite low key, oddball jokes of the whole season.
Jonah: Oh, I know Crow. Hey, Crow.
Crow: Hiya!
Just great, fun line delivery with an absurd little premise. And then Jonah admitting he stole the yearbook from some dude at a bus stop is a wild trip into “I have so many follow up questions that’ll never be answered.”
Are these new episodes ever coming out on DVD/BluRay? Because the price for the streaming service is way too steep for me.
Good news, all episodes are available on demand (with commercials) over on Pluto TV.
I’m losing a fortune here! Stell! Stell! Stell!
Wow, I didn’t think I’d get a chance to do this again. I hadn’t felt an impetus to check out Season 13 despite having created a Gizmoplex account because I wanted to see if we’d ever get a physical release. But now that we can have these conversations again, I’m going to follow along and watch each episode for the first time as their entries come up. My initial impressions were suprise that they got Patton Oswalt to continue participating and happiness that Mary Jo is still appearing. As for the sets and production values, I felt it was something of a cross between the comparitively lavish Netflix seasons and the scaled down early seasons. It might not have the same ‘home-made’ feel the show had in the 1990s but on the other hand it feels like if the show had been first conceived in the present day, this is what it would look like.
Regardless of the production values I’m actually glad the episode guide is expanding and I took a look, as while I agree this was something of a middling episode (aren’t most season openers?) I still had a good time watching (the ‘General Lee’ horn medley was a genuine gut-buster for me) and isn’t that the most important thing?
Favorite Riffs
Don’t look at me, I’m from central casting.
This contraption is run with an Etch-a-Sketch!
They bury their dead vertically?!
Wait, they didn’t show him getting out of his car, walking across the graveyard, opening the gate, coming down the stairs and struggling with the door!!
“If Joel ever talked about it anywhere I must have missed it, so, has there been any explanation as to how and why Cambot became a fleet of mini-Cambots?”
Mitosis (or is it meiosis?)
You can see it free (with commercials) on Pluto TV.
So here we are again. Another full-fledged Kickstarter has come and gone. I was nowhere near as trepidatious as I was during the Season 11 Kickstarter when I was nervous it would turn into a case of you can’t go home again. While neither season 11 or 12 hit the lofty heights of firing on all the cylinders of the prime/peak of seasons 3 & 4 (your mileage may vary) it was absolutely MST and I was glad to be reunited with this old friend. So this time I pledged right away. Having seen The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour I was glad to hear the Emily Marsh cast would be incorporated as well. (More on that later when we hit her first episode.) And I’m really happy to get Joel back on an episode later this season. All this leaves on the wish list is getting the rest of the originals back for a reunion episode. Let’s make that happen in Season 14. Finally I do like the concept of the Gizmoplex. I’m not a Netflix guy but I’m more than willing to sign on with a streaming service where I my patronage will benefit Joel directly. Meanwhile I’m glad they are still offering physical media as a Kickstarter reward. What can I say? I still like to own physical media as I vacation regularly in a corner of Door County WI where reliable high speed internet just isn’t a thing.
While I’m great fan of “Turn Down Your Lights (Where Applicable)” I like the new sequence of phrases as they are original riffs in and of themselves in the spirit of “Turn Down Your Lights (Where Applicable)”.
Welcome to the Gizmoplex
Please silence all cell phones
(Or don’t. It’s your choice)
And now, our feature presentation.
And low and below, “Turn Down Your Lights (Where Applicable)” survives in the actual theme song. So I get the best of both (old and new) worlds here.
I like the new theme song. I wasn’t really a fan of Har Mar Superstar so I’m happy they brought it back “in house.” I guess we aren’t going to get Jonah singing so giving it to a Bot is just fine. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not hating on Baron Vaughn. It’s just you can’t deny the best singing voice in MST history was Kevin Murphy so I do wish it was him. Anyway: As always, the MST theme is a master class in a TV show theme which gives the premise in a nutshell and this latest iteration maintains the tradition. The opening scene of the show even tips its cap to this concept.
So Max ticks off some of the past homes of MST. But they omit KTMA and The Comedy Channel. I wonder why.
The Invention exchange: Crow with blinkers was very lame. The Mads’ invention could only be one thing in episode 1301: The Gizmoplex. I like it. And I guess it is the very first invention in the history of the show I actually use.
So glad Mary Jo Pehl is still appearing. I do find it odd she continues be the only classic cast member to crossover between the new MST and Rifftrax.
The latest door sequence: It appears to be the rooms of the Netflix sequence but redone as animation instead of physical props. I’m not sure I like this. More on that later.
Host Segment 1: It was cute. It looks like Jonah has no embarrassing high school memories until he slips up on a detail and it is revealed his popularity was a fraud. If only he had whited out the Trenton reference in the stolen yearbook he would have got away with it.
Host Segment 2: This one fell pretty flat for me. It just seemed like warmed over leftovers.
Host Segment 3: (By the way I’m glad, after season 12, we are back to the traditional three in movie host segments.) They really made Jonah look like a young Mean Gene Okerlund. (R.I.P.) Someone was really paying attention to detail as well. Since this is a young Mean Gene they put him in a blazer with an AWA patch. Then again Tom talks about the match being in Memphis where I don’t believe Mean Gene ever worked. I did enjoy the concept of the segment. Two wrestlers doing a promo trying to out polite and admire each other using menacing voices. This was easily the host segment of the episode for me.
The post movie Perico sketch was very old school MST. I could easily see Joel, Trace and Kevin doing that one.
Credits Watch: The name that really jumped out at me is comic book writer/artist Mike Norton. I’ve been aware of him for years via Comic Geek Speak. Next time I see him at a con I have to ask how he got this gig. It was cute that White Dot gets a credit as well. It was curious that Jim Mallon gets a mention as original series producer. I don’t know if that was in seasons 11 and 12 as well. Wonder if it was terms of buying him out prior to the original Kickstarter.
Filming with greenscreen: As I type this, I’ve seen all three backer pre-release showings and have rewatched Santos during the official premier. I’m having a real tough time adjusting to CGI backgrounds on computer screens. I’m not sure I ever will. I get why it came about. Covid-19 was an incredibly disruptive thing and things certainly had to be done differently just to make things happen. This certainly cut back on crew on the sets and thus potential Covid exposure and allowed for remote filming so it could be assembled together later. But it just doesn’t feel real. I’m also the old guy who prefers the models and practical effects of the original Star Wars trilogy. To me real things just feel more real. Plus, in the case of MST, the greenscreen technology that is CGI just feels to be the antithesis of the Cowtown puppet show I love so much. I actually like the paper puppets on string animated across the paper art background (during the intermission) better simply because it is real. It just feels more midwestern Cowtown puppet show than the CGI on background. Does that make me old? When did I get old? I’m only 49.
My exposure to Santos movies are limited to two MST episodes so I’m hardly an expert. All I can say is this stuff really is weird. He really must have been Mexico’s Elvis Presley in the way he crossed over from his breakout profession to permeate everything including movies. I just can’t get over how this movie accepts it as perfectly normal that a masked wrestler is inventing and pitching a time machine to the academic (why not scientific) community. Oh and wait, he can battle and slay vampires too.
Favorite Riffs
The Guillermo Calderon Stell credit appears on screen. Crow “I’m losing a fortune! Stell! Stell! Stell!
A bloody hand graphic appears under a credit card. Crow “Manos! The hands of… oh never mind” Is this riff pandering? Maybe. I love it anyway.
Perico directs the maid the correct way to walk around a table. Crow as maid “Thanks I always get confused in these round-abouts.
Luisa appears in the time travel suit. Crow “Jane Jetson”
Lisa spins in the time machine: Crow channeling Austin Powers “Yeah Baby Yay!”
Dracula makes his first entrance. Tom sings: One, Singular sensation. Ah Ah Ah”
Luisa is brought back to the present. Crow “This has been a spin and Marty Kroft production.”
Santo “Run don’t walk.” Tom “We need to pad out the film. Hurry up and take your time.”
The heroes move through the rocky underground tomb caverns. Jonah “I’m going to lose it if they run into a sleestak.”
Pluto is on demand? I thought you just had to tune in and watch whatever they happen to be playing which is usually not a new episode.
It’s both for a LOT of stuff. Just go to search and either do “MST3K” or a part of the specific movie to not get EVERY Mstie ep they have.
@Dan in WI: Comedy Channel is a semi-precursor to Comedy Central, so they probably didn’t see any need to mention it as well. As for the KTMA episodes, they’ve never been mentioned in any of the nationally released episodes that I can recall (I of course could always be mistaken). Perhaps the KTMA episodes occur in a parallel universe.
I’ve seen this one around five or six times now. It’s really starting to grow on me. I like the relaxed feel of season 13. Now that we have so many “new” episodes (seasons 11-13, plus the new shorts), we can kind of live in them, and get a feel for their personality. Like the Jonah crew really has it’s own vibe now.
This one, along with the rest of Season 13 continues to surprise me with it’s rewatch-ability. I’m already changing my initial opinions on several episodes I didn’t care too much for. Sometimes that can take years, but in this instance it’s taken only months!
I’ve seen nothing from NU-MST3K to rank among the highest highs of the originals. Outside of time travel, I don’t think that’s possible to equal those. Old school episodes are untouchable, lightning in a bottle. However, seasons 11-13 have provided some fun additions to the catalog that I enjoy the more I watch.
Commedy Channel: I get what you are saying but I’m still a completist.
KTMA: Traditionally you are right. Joel isn’t a fan of them getting seen because the show wasn’t fully formed at that point. (Plus there are differences: The character is named Joel Hodgson instead of Joel Robinson.) Me, I still enjoy KTMA for what it is: the development and evolution of the show. I enjoy seeing the roots. But because of Joel’s view of them, I was shocked at the time when Joel gave away KTMA #1 & #2 as Kickstarter Season 11 rewards.