Movie (1973): A sketchy gang of fortune hunters join forces to travel to an exotic island in search of a cache of pearls.
Host: Emily.
Opening: Emily’s bots try ASMR but GPC2 is not helping.
Kinga and Max admire the new “Simulator of Love,” built by lonely Gizmonic Institute worker Emily Connor. Then they strand her there.
Invention exchange: The mads have a toothpaste for hideous plants with teeth. Emily has invented mech hands.
Segment 1: Emily pitches the East Eddie SAT Prep Guide, 70s Dirtbag Edition. Later, Jonah checks in on Emily and she has some criticisms of the lack of show host cooperation.
Segment 2: Crow is the emcee for the game show “Milk & Honey.”
Segment 3: Emily and the bots attend EddieCon.
Close: Emily raps “Mother Crabber,” which features the debut appearance of the smaller and more lightweight GPC 2. Max joins the rapping; Kinga gives it a thumbs down.
Thoughts:
• A couple of lines of the theme song are slightly different in Emily eps. Here’s her version:
TOM
In the not-too-distant future
Next Sunday afternoon
The evil Kinga Forrester
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 Role Call: Cambot!
Cambot: And, action!
GPC! GPC: Which one?
Tom Servo! Tom: That’s me.
Crooooow!
TOM
If you’re wondering how they 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!
• This episode was made available on April 29, 2022 to Kickstarter backers and on May 8, 2022 to Gizmoplex users.
• This marks the debut of a second cast. In addition to Emily, there are new versions of the bots, Crow (Kelsey Ann Brady; the first female in that role), Conor McGiffin as Tom Servo and Yvonne Freese as GPC.
• What do I think? Well, overall, it’s too early to be sure. My first impression is that Emily seems the most natural, both in the theater and in the host segments. Kelsey Ann seems a little nervous but that may fade as we go on. I’m not ready to write the second cast off. I’d give the episode a B-plus (they get the plus for how wracked with nerves they had to be).
• I used to regularly mention LOTR references when they did them and it’s nice to see they’re still doing it (although LOTR is no longer the boutique reference it once was).
• Stinger: “What happened?” “Some mother crabber set a trap.”
• Callbacks: “Can’t we get beyond Atlantis?” (Laserblast)
“BANG!” (Cry Wilderness) “Hikeeba!” “That was a lot of money back now.”
• Fave riff: “Early Venmo was sweaty.”
• Honorable mention: “I think the horn speaks for all of us.” Also: “Island Tinder” and “Sleazebags, assemble!”
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I went into this one with a lot of trepidation. I find these U.S./Filipino co-productions from the Seventies very unpleasant. It didn’t help that it was modeled on Treasure of the Sierra Madre, I movie I absolutely despise. Perhaps it was due to lowered expectations, but it was actually tolerable. Certainly better than Beast of Yellow Night.
Sid Haig as East Eddie certainly made an impression on them, seeing as they had two host segments centered on him.
Something which is potentially unsettling. During the establishment shots of East Eddie’s turf, we see two minimally clad women carrying an unconscious guy between them (which inspires a Weekend at Bernie’s riff). Now it could just be that the guy had gotten passed out drunk and the bar staff were taking him home so he could sleep it off. A considerably less benign possibility is that we’re seeing two ladies of the night in the process of rolling a john.
Their having trouble telling Mathias and Logan apart brings to mind Radar Secret Service with its “I thought that woman was that woman.”
MST3K Connections: Producer John Ashley (who also portrayed Logan) was also Stan Kenyon in Attack of the the Eye Creatures. Sid Haig (East Eddie) was also Donar in Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II. George Nader (Nereus) was also Nick West in The Million Eyes of Sumuru, Roy in Robot Monster. and Glen Martin in The Human Duplicators. Kenneth J. Warren (unspecified extra) was also the first roustabout in Circus of Horrors. Presenter Lawrence Woolner was also executive producer for The Human Duplicators.
Favorite riffs
Can’t we get beyond Atlantis?
Some questionable choices for a tourism video.
Weekend at Bernie’s 3: Havana Nights.
This music makes me feel like I won a consolation prize.
All the animals were harmed in the making of this film.
Mike Brady’s lost weekend.
“What’s the pitch?”
It’s called Dinoriders.
I think the horn speaks for all of us.
“Let’s get the hell outta here before the whole damn city boards us.”
I know you’re joking sir, but that would seriously break our occupancy codes.
Water Reclamation Reservoir of the Damned.
And they said you couldn’t sneak into Disney’s Polynesian Resort.
We’ve secretly replaced these divers’ regular oxygen tanks with helium. Let’s see if they notice.
I’m gonna find that didgeridoo player and snap his neck.
Set your harpoon to stun.
This way. Just follow the ominous music.
Show some respect. This is where we hold Open Mike Night.
“I would have a chance to find a way for myself. To be a woman and not just a tool for survival.”
Bad news, honey.
She’s only doing this for detached scientific research.
Ian Flounder’s James Pond in Live and Let Dive.
Dear Scuba Weekly, I never thought it would happen to me.
Even the boat isn’t back at the boat.
This suspense is boring me.
Brooke Shields and Brooke Shields in The Grey Lagoon.
Botticelli’s Death of Venus.
The real pearls were the friends we made along the way.
For a review of this “MST3K” episode and others go to “Faith’s Take” on YouTube.com.
She reviews Rifftrax as well.
First thing to mention: This is the episode where my name in the Kickstarter list of the credits. I get the Simulator of Love debut episode! I’ll take it.
And we have the Simulator of Love. In typical efficient MST storytelling we quickly get the introduction and abduction of the test subject in just a few minutes time. In many ways it is reminiscent of the introduction of Mike without having to launch him hundreds of miles into space since the Simulator appears to be right there on the Moon’s surface. Emily’s “oh poopie” as she realizes what has happened was priceless. But once she learned how to push the button she seems like she’s ready to take it all on.
Invention Exchange:
The Mads got a keeper giving us something we never knew we needed: Plantsodyne. It’s an added bonus that this invention tampers in God’s dentist chair.
Emily already has an invention. I told you it is all downhill after learning to push the button. Though the Mech-Hands do seem to have trouble doing the thumbs up. Back to the drawing board.
Just think how lucky Emily is for her first experiment. She gets the best criminals looking for pearls find a kingdom of fish people movie starring John Wayne’s son that ever was made in the Philippines. It’s almost like they are going easy on her. Of course right after the second host segment Jonah thinks they were rough on Emily.
East Eddie Dirtbag SAT Prep Guide host segment. I liked it. The 70’s isn’t exactly my thing but they really sold it just the same.
Milk & Honey host segment: You got a love a game show with a punitive element. But is it fair that the lamb dies if the game show host doesn’t know the answer?
Jonah meets Emily segment. This is a meta moment. It is an interesting thought of having them work together. I wonder if this is some sort of foreshadowing. But is Emily right in thinking the Mads are dumb? If that’s the case why is Emily the newest captive test subject?
Eddie Con host segment: It had a few good lines and was good but not great. Overall, this was the best set of in movie host segments on the young season.
The Mother Crabber rap is an instant classic. And Max really brought it home. ‘Nuff Said.
This movie really meanders about with little personality until the third act. Then suddenly East Eddie feels he needs a diversion to escape this very quiet island. It is the diversion which actually gets them caught when they could have just left… This was yet another movie without a likeable character.
Favorite Riffs:
Tom over the title card: “Can’t we get Beyond Atlantis?” It had to be done.
East Eddie is getting a chest massage. Crow “Shouldn’t she use a vacuum?”
The masseuse stands/walks on East Eddie’s back. Emily “Now she can finally clean that fan.”
During the casino establishing shots: Emily “Tensions mount at the high stakes go fish table.”
Tom comments on the “O” on Kathy’s shirt. “Oh, her shirt lists the number of interesting scenes in this movie so far.”
The camera pans through a village establishing shot. Tom like a quarterback “hut hut, hut”
Crow in regards to East Eddie making a sexist comment to Kathy. “Does it count as harassment if no one understands it?”
Emily as Logan “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Crow as Mathias “Probably, we’re the same guy.”
Logan and East Eddie make some seriously chauvinistic conversation and then look at Mathias. Logan “What about you Mathias?” Emily “How will you treat women like property”
This is episodic debut of Team Emily as this group (assembled and fully endorsed by Joel) performed two live tours, The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour in 2019-2020 (ending a week or so before the world ended) which riffed No Retreat, No Surrender or Circus of Horrors, and the Time Bubble Tour in 2021-2022 which riffed Making Contact (and I was lucky enough to see this one and it was awesome).
Kelsey was the swing understudy for the second tour. Nate Begle primarily performed Crow in both of those tours, and was set to participate in Season 13, but his departure from the show was announced a couple of weeks before the premiere, with Kelsey taking over Crow as part of Emily’s crew. However, he is in the credits of a few episodes, either as a writer, or for the puppeteering of Crow.
The timing is a little wonky (and we’ll probably never know the exact details) but I believe much of this crew’s episodes (at least the theater segments) were filmed prior to the tour, and Nate did the riffing. Kelsey’s riffs may have been dubbed in in post after Nate left the show. They may have reshot some of the host segments, but I don’t think we know for sure. Her Crow does take a little bit getting used to (a lot of people say it sounds like Milhouse from The Simpsons), but I think over the season she settles into the role. I also absolutely loved her humor and energy in the post-premiere livestreams.
“Mothercrabber” may have been the most popular host segment from the season.
Such a weirdly dull movie, yet the riffing keeps it from being a slog to sit through, which like Robot Wars, by pure coincidence I watched it on my own a couple years ago before S13 was even announced as being in the works. And that was painful.
The weirdest thing is that none of the characters react to a whole island of people with weird ass eyes. Just eventually an offhanded comment about them in relation to evolving to see in deep water. Also weird that there were no riffs about the cast’s no-reaction. Not a complaint, just an observation.
As people regularly define the hosts, Joel as the father figure, Mike as the babysitter, I’m not sure what label has settled on Jonah, but for me personally I see Emily as the new step sister being brought into a larger set of siblings that actually embrace her. Yes, it’s more wordy than Joel and Mike, but sometimes you need words to describe things. Heck, that’s what they’re there for. :)
Still working on episode 2. Hey wait for me…
They referenced this in the last live tour. Joel was the dad, Mike was the big brother. I think Jonah was described as “another big brother.” Emily described herself as “the cool babysitter.”
It is pretty crazy how, 25 years ago, LOTR references were purely the domain of uber-nerds.
Looking back on the Comedy Central era, the LOTR jokes seem downright quaint.
Nazgul? That’s entry-level stuff, you gotta step up your game.
If anything Mike was more of the “little brother” whom the bots constantly pulled pranks on.
They didn’t exactly show him a lot of respect (not that he earned it, lol).
Wait a minute, why am I sitting across from me?
So, I finally get to meet this new crew. I’m still lukewarm about the most of the host segments in the streaming era, but that’s just me. The riffing was good, but the movie itself just kind of limps along. John Ashley is well beyond his ‘Beach Party’ prime and honestly looks a lot like a young John Vernon. Just like Jonah’s first episode though, they gave Emily a banger of a song to close out her debut. And, they gave Max a good bit right at the end too. A very Frank-like moment.
Fave Riffs
‘Starring John Ashley’
And also John Mary-Kate!
‘You owe me a lot…’
Eight bucks!
Both of them think they’re the star and the other guy is their stunt double, it’s cute!
Welcome to Legends of the Hidden Temple!
Meanwhile in the third subplot and fourth outfit change…
‘You only live once.’
Wow, Logan invented YOLO?? Take that, Drake!
‘Hang On!’
That’s literally her only option!
First off, I will apologize in advance for repeating stuff I’ve already written in my posts. It’s unavoidable–I’ve already shared observations that are going to come up again as the new episode guide progresses. Plus, I’m in my pre-dotage and I just forget stuff now . . .
I liked Beyond Atlantis a lot. It’s the first Season 13 ep that I’ve watched a second time. The movie had a Coleman Francis feel to it–thoroughly incompetent, with a slimy touch that made you want to take a shower after watching it. I found Fast Eddie curiously likeable, in spite of the fact that he’s a violent lowlife mobster and pimp. He actually behaves more reasonably and with a cooler head than the two other dopes in the gang. I’m surprised that Emily & Co. didn’t comment on the fact that this group of petty criminals basically destroyed an ancient indigenous culture just to create a “distraction” as they left. (That is one of the most Coleman-Francis-like-offensive moments. And something that makes Fast Eddie admittedly a bit less likeable.) The ending was awful, too. ’70s movies often have this casual amorality about them, not so much out of any conviction as out of a tacky, middle-brow corporate desire to exploit ’60s-era anti-establishment attitudes. (Think “It Lives by Night”,in which the oily wimp who becomes a man/bat/ape and kills several innocent people is given a long soliloquy at the end about how he’s “part of everything now”, and has no use for middle-class hypocrisy and corruption.) This is one of those films that has a discernible plot, but no inner logic that holds it all together–stuff just happens, and it’s kind of connected, but nothing logically follows from anything else.
As for the new crew: I’ve said before that Emily is the first caffeinated test subject on MST; Joel is famously “sleepy”, Mike and Jonah are just regular guys, while she has her hair on fire. That makes her eps kind of tiring to watch, although she’s funny and offers something new to the mix. I really like Kelsey Ann as Crow–she gives us the first reboot ‘bot with a big, demented personality. She also delivered the first line in the reboot that made me spontaneously laugh out loud: as the hooker gives Fast Eddie her take, Crow says in a simpy voice “Two mary huanas, please!” The problem I have with this crew is that all that demented, coffee-nerves energy has them talking constantly: the same issue we all had in S11 & 12–the riffs never stop, and Crow and Emily are always bouncing off the walls during the host segments. It gets exhausting after a while! I’m also skeptical about the Gizmoplex creating all these additional layers: the Satellite of Love, the Simulator of Love, Joel being brought back, two sets of ‘bots, three hosts, Dr. Kabahl, extra robots, two Synthias and Pearl . . . As some of you have already pointed out, Kinga and Max don’t have enough to do as it is, and now they have to share a really crowded stage.
As for the hosts: Joel is dad to robots who are little kids; Mike is the slightly dim older brother to a couple of bratty middle-schoolers who tease him mercilessly; Jonah is the friendly neighbor to a couple of somewhat self-important teens. Emily . . . ? I don’t know yet. I kind of like “cool babysitter”, but I’m going to have to think about this some more!
My problem with Emily is that I found her trying way too hard. The entire season with her I felt that way. However I did find this episode really funny. The movie was bad but not too bad.
This is one the best episodes of the season.
When watching the original episodes and there’s a Lord of the Rings or Doctor Who reference, I have to remind myself “wow, that’s when those references were REALLY nerdy.”
This was the riff where I knew Emily and her crew would do just fine. Never saw them on their live tours, though I figured they had some chemistry from those shows. Still, I was curious to see how their first episode would go. They knocked it out of the park. And “Mothercrabber” is an instant classic. Might be my favorite S13 episode.
Joel was the father figure, Mike was the brother, Jonah the drinking buddy, and Emily the cool chick whom you don’t mind being only in her friend zone. I think she’s great, but my take on Kelsey as Crow is that she’s trying too hard to be a character, heavy on the New York which makes her harder to branch out into other characters, as opposed to Midwestern Trace and Bill’s Crows.
Is it me, or did they completely ignore Sid Haig’s long body of work?
And, like Mike’s S5 origin, we have the subplot trying to spin her as “Who, me? I’m just another innocent temp by the name of Emily, who got caught in an evil scheme! :) ” for the sake of replacement, when her style turns out to be more cynical and negative than Jonah’s Joel-replacement.
And that turned out to be a problem for me–So far, we’ve had female comics as villains, which they seem to enjoy, but not so much for riffing. (Unless you count GBC2’s odd apropos-of-nothing riffs in the episodes.)
You could go into whole arcane theories of comedy to explain Male vs. Female Humor, but think one of the main problems is that guys are used to looking ridiculous, can develop a sense of self-deprecation about it, and more readily understand the comic principle of being Silly For Silly’s Sake…And that goes for saying something silly during a serious moment, or comically underreacting during a big scene, or vice versa, and other such out-of-nowhere absurdities. If you’ve ever tried to get female viewers hooked on the Three Stooges, or the Marx Brothers, or even Monty Python, it’s like trying to explain rocket science to island natives: They don’t seem to know WHY someone would do something silly if he had the choice, and keep watching the comic sketches waiting for some real-world explanation…Wait, why are they slapping each other? Why is he walking silly? Why are those two pretending to be a mirror, don’t they know by now??
Female humor comes in from the opposite viewpoint: They spend their lives stressed out about not looking ridiculous–because then someone might socially underestimate them–so that when they do do something funny that puts them in a negative light, it’s seen as an empowering “rebellion” against society, or social expectations, anyone who says they shouldn’t do what they want, other women, etc.
As a result, they can’t seem to make the distinction between The Joke and She Who Tells It: Instead of Trace as bufoonishly evil Dr. Forrester, we get nasty Pearl Forester, or smug-vicious Kinga Forester, or dominatrix Mega-Cynthia, we’re meant to celebrate the over the top self-indulgence of “That’s right, I’m being nasty! Didn’t expect that, didja, well, how you like them apples?” If Phil Silvers walks into a Sgt. Bilko episode and acts obnoxious for a half hour, YMMV for humor, but if Melissa McCarthy storms into a Booking.com commercial and acts like a bull in a china shop for thirty seconds, that’s…women’s humor.
If it was just Emily, okay, we could live with it. But now we have Kelsey as Crow, and it’s a DOUBLE assault of “Yeah, me, I’m making fun of this movie, got a problem with that??”
Compounded on that Kelsey’s Crow(ette?) also has to sound like hyperactive Bill Corbett, which she tries to rasp her voice to sound “male”. (And ends up sounding not so much like Bill Corbett, as like a female children’s audiobook reader reading a story about pirates: “And then Captain Redbeard said ‘Arrr, maties, let’s have a treasure party!'”)
Which literally makes it a problem telling which riff is Emily’s in the dark, and which one is Kelsey’s. So far, the one way I’ve been able to tell them apart is that Emily tends to over-sell her riffs with a little too much self-confidence in her own funniness, while Kelsey really, rrrrrRREALLY over-sells her riffs!
I’m guessing Producer Joel read too many “Women’s humor is overlooked!” articles back when we still had debates over the ’16 Ghostbusters, and thought putting female riffers into the show would be a New Direction for a New Generation, which is…what MOST show producers do when they run out of ideas.
I can line up dozens of examples. (No, I’m not going to point out the black girl who took over for Drew Carey on “Whose Line”, and I can’t bear to bring up the black girl who took over for Doc on AppleTV’s “Fraggle Rock”.)
One thing kinda worth mentioning is that Emily’s Crow was originally voiced by Nate Begle, who voiced him in the last two live shows and also was pretty involved in the Kickstarter and lead up to S13 before being abruptly and unceremoniously replaced at the last minute by Kelsey — the understudy from the 2022 live show (she also stood in for Servo and maybe even Emily at one point). The change was so last minute that Kelsey had to record all her lines ADR. Considering all that, I think it’s impressive it came out as good as it did. Begle is still credited as one of Crow’s puppeteers and as a writer, tho.
I saw so many comments last year as the episodes that were released about Kelsey “settling in” to the role of Crow over the course of the season, and I have to raise this point:
All of Kelsey’s Season 13 puppeteering and voiceovers, were filmed/recorded over the course of 10 or so working days in February 2022. How exactly can anyone tell that she became more comfortable in the role over the course of the season? There’s nothing to indicate that her voice-overs for Nate’s puppeteering, like in Beyond Atlantis, weren’t recorded after her work on the Joel episodes, and the Kickstarter production update from back then indicates that the Joel episodes and the three host episode were recorded during the first week of the February production. Like someone pointed out above, we don’t know if any of the host segments were reshot with Kelsey puppeteering. We don’t know if the host segments for several episodes were all filmed on one day, or if they were filmed in or out of production order. So to say that Kelsey “settles in” to the role during the course of the season is IMO really just a VERY subjective opinion, or even an attempt to consciously or unconsciously influence other’s opinions of her performance.
Re-watching this episode reminded me of how dark this movie is. I mean, you’ve got a mutated race that kills outsiders, while forcing one of their own to mate against her will. You’ve got a bunch of crooks who seem to have some sense at times, but will easily rip each other off at others. You’ve got one crook who’ll steal the pearls from a corpse’s funeral shroud. You’ve got a hot scientist who dooms an entire race by garroting a girl. You’ve got a hot native girl who turns murderously jealous. Then there’s the young sheep (or goat) who gets horribly eaten by carnivorous fish. And, yet, this movie has an “Everyone Laughs” ending? Um…what?
The episode itself was OK, though. I’d seen Emily in the live shows, so I knew she was good at riffing. Kelsey’s Crow was a change, but I got used to the new voice. Again, the riffs were funny and well-paced, and the host segments worked fine. And “Mother Crabber” was another good song for the show.
No Bechdel Test Reports?
Yeppers, all this is what conjured up the fetid spirit of Coleman Francis for me: it’s not just dark, it’s gratuitously offensive and slimy and evil. The “everyone laughs” ending is what sent me careening over the edge. Are you freaking kidding me?!? After all this murder and mayhem and genocide and stuff, you’re going to leave us with a close-up still of Fast Eddie rollicking with mirth?!? I don’t think so! On the other hand, it’s movies like Beyond Atlantis, Red Zone Cuba, Manos, etc., that wind up being MST3K classics: the directors’ supreme incompetence somehow dilutes all the poison. (You still feel like you need a shower after watching them, though.)
I never thought I would say this, but you’ve made me miss your complaints about Mike/Rifftrax.
Oh, are you still alive? Huh.
Or maybe such producers simply conclude that better representation of half of the human race will draw in more female viewers.