Movie (1992): A daydreaming youngster acquires a mischievous creature who wants to be his friend.
Host: Jonah.
Opening: The Mads are thrilled that Dr. Kabahl’s plan is working. Meanwhile J&tB are knee-deep in the game GPC chose for game night.
Invention exchange: The Mads have created the Deadmill, an exercise machine for zombies. J&tB have the Sustain-A-Band, a rock show products that can survive rock star mayhem.
Segment 1: J&tB pull themselves together. Jonah disobeys Kinga and gets the oxygen turned off.
Segment 2: Jonah plays bootleg Dom Deluise tapes. Meanwhile Kinga orders around Pearl Synthia, and Mega-Synthia, then refuses Pearl’s desire for quality time. After intermission, The Mads hire Growler and M. Waverly.
Segment 3: Kinga hires Dr. St. Phibes to examine Jonah but instead she explains Munchies.
Close: The movie has fried the bots’ logic circuits. Meanwhile, Jonah and Emily hatch a plan.
Thoughts:
• I have to admit this one was a bit of a slog for me. It may be a good current example of what longtime fans have learned over the years: when a movie is an intended comedy, the episode can be difficult. It’s not impossible but there’s an extra degree of diffuculty. And I think we saw that here. There were some really funny riffs but they were a bit sparse.
• The character up there with Ardy is being voiced by the Man Himself, Ivan Askwith.
• This episode debuted on May 27, 2022.
• Gage recites Galadriel’s famous speech. Again, not as obscure as it once was.
• Dr. Donna St. Phibes, a B-movie monster conservationist and biologist (played by Deanna Rooney) first appeared in the live show and returned in season 12. Now she’s back again.
• A plot between Jonah and Emily begins. We’ll all be on needles and pins.
• Stinger: Gage says: “Gotta be Munchie.”
• Callbacks: “pretty nice” (Mac and Me)
“Guess I’m off to Deathstalker II.”
• Fave riff: “Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, ACK!”
• Honorable mention: “Finish him!” “The slide-whistle of imminent doom.” “Parenting: the sometimes job.”
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I found that this episode is more fun if watched with a friend. My best friend and I watched this together and that made all the difference — especially because she had actually seen Munchie when it first came out as a kid. She found it hilarious.
“Faith’s Take” on Youtube has a review of this MST3K episode and many others.
She reviews Rifftrax, as well.
I thought both ends of the intro were a bit lackluster. The Mads’ end of it simply served to reestablish the Season 13 premise of the Satellite of Love, Simulator of Love and Gizmoplex, while the scene on the Satellite bridge was a quick bit. I’ve played some version of a Settlers of Catan table top boardgame 10 plus years ago but I really don’t have enough memory of the game for the joke to land I guess.
Invention Exchange:
Wow. Benjamin Franklin really was ahead of his time predicting both the zombie apocalypse and climate change. Funny I don’t remember any mention of that in the Money Talks short from experiment 621. But I will say this invention is the true sustainable clean energy that so many other sources promise but don’t deliver. Unlike things like solar you don’t need a backup source for when that pesky sun isn’t actually out. I’m sold.
Sustain-a-Band is cute. I’ll give it that. Now my rock era of choice (Hair Metal) wasn’t really known for the mic drop so its application in my world is limited. The boomerang drum stick ignores the fact that those drumsticks (and guitar picks) tossed into the crowd become treasured keepsakes not landfill. However, I can’t deny the waste of the smashed guitar. This whole invention made me laugh a bit. What was that hit they were playing? Backschool Boys?
Host segment 1: The initial reaction to the Munchie is perfectly understandable. They way it broke their spirit was very reminiscent of the sandstorm scene of Hercules Against the Moon Men. Then we get Jonah’s defiance, Kinga’s punishment and the Bots obliviousness. I like this one.
Host segment 2: There are a few good lines in the Dom DeLuise outtakes but it was rather pedestrian as a whole. Meanwhile scrapbooking does indeed sound like an ominous threat. I don’t think Kinga should take Pearl lightly. And finally we have this season’s debut of M Waverly and Growler.
Host segment 3: They really sum up the evolution of the Munchie very well.
Closing Segment: The Mads not being able to hear Jonah and Emily talk in rhymes was kind of random. But good for a minor chuckle.
The movie: This is yet another example of MST should not do intentional comedies. They know it yet every once in a while they forget their own rule. This movie thinks it is a combination of Weird Al’s “UHF” and Gremlins meets Saved By the Bell. It also wants to be Back to the Future but forgets that particular aspiration for large chunks of time. Then tries to play catchup. It is bad and doesn’t really work as a comedy. Scott Ferguson thinks he is William Zabka. He isn’t. Ace Mask thinks he is Denis Haskins. He’s not. Andrew Stevens thinks he’s got smarmy Dirk Benedict nailed but he can’t even do that right. Arte Johnson tries so hard to be Christopher Lloyd but falls so incredibly short. Loni Anderson is typical Loni Anderson but even Dom DeLuise falls flat.
Favorite Riffs:
The accordion solo wraps up. Tom sings “My Bologna.”
Gage runs like Troy Gentile doing Barry Goldberg. Crow “With a run like that Gage has to try out for the football team.”
The normally magic using Munchie lights Elliot’s hotfoot personally. Crow “So he has to be physically present for this prank but the others he does from the credenza? I’m starting to think this movie might not make sense.”
Then the hotfoot takes hold. Jonah “Ah yes the traditional proposal dance of the North American douche tribe.”
I watched this last night so I’m ready to discuss. Some episodes have an entertaining movie to go with the riffs. This is one of those episodes where the movie brings very little to the table, leaving the riffers to do all the heavy lifting by themselves. The episode is funny. I’d say the movie was the worst derivative 80’s kid’s movie ever, but having seen Mac and Me, I know better. Aside from the homicidally enraged chef chasing a the flying pizza with a cleaver, the movie had almost nothing to offer on it’s own. Not a single good performance. Munchie was hideous, but compared to Mac and family it wasn’t that big a deal.
I’m pretty sure the reusable collapsing guitar invention was done somewhere around season 2 or 3. The drumsticks and mic are expansions on the concept.
We Munch, we die, we Munch again!
I actually liked this one. Sure, it’s an intentional comedy that isn’t funny, but that gives just me more time in between laughing at the riffs to take in all the touches that make this a time capsule of things you just don’t see or can’t do in movies anymore. That whole locker room scene, for instance, sheesh. And you can’t tell me the jerk boyfriend/homicidal bozo wasn’t hired because he bore a striking resemblance to the former Mr. Loni Anderson.
Fave Riffs
“And Dom DeLuise as…”
Apparently Don Bluth took a year off and ‘someone’ needed health insurance!
Somebody just got back from power walking at the mall.
“I need something to do with my hands…”
Don’t do it! You’ll go blind!
Did we just hear the pizza’s tires screech?
“Where else would I be?”
Branson, Catskills, cruise ship, I dunno…
I respectfully disagree. Mac and Me is what it is and more importantly it knows what it is: an ET rip off aimed squarely at kids. If I was in its target demographic I suspect I would enjoy it. On the other hand, Munchie believes it is an all ages comic classic. After all it has Dom DeLuise so it has to be great. Right? Not so much. I actively hate this movie for being so arogantly self-delusional.
The Rock & Wreck Guitar from Crash of Moons.
https://youtu.be/-u6tLNe7zKg?t=62
Again, no Bechdel Test results. Too bad. I enjoyed those. :-|
It all depends on your expectations going in. I was prepared to absolutely hate Munchie, and was pleasantly surprised that when I didn’t. Mind you, I agree with all of the horrible things you all say about it–it’s one of the worst movies of all time–but the gang’s treatment made it watchable, and I laughed some, which is all you can hope for.
Sorry–Mac & Me is the single worst film ever MSTied. As I said at the time, it filled me with an ineffable rage, and nothing the crew did helped. It wasn’t just the blatant rip-off of ET, it was the brazen product placements, the gratuitous generic musical number in a Mac Donald’s, the ugly and unappealing aliens . . . Any movie that features Ronald McDonald so prominently should be sent immediately to Crow’s Anti-Preservation Society. Good–the blood pressure’s down. I’m ready to get on with my day! . . .
This was for me one of the best episodes of the season. I laughed all the way though it. The movie was so dumb and unfunny. Jennifer love hewitt had that stupid grin on her face through out the movie. That became so annoying.
This movie is very weird because I found it was actually really charming up until Munchie is introduced. A kid just trying to fit in and get by with actual supportive people in his life, and then we get to see his daydreams. And Gage is really easy to sympathize with. Even the kid playing Gage is pretty dang good. And then… Munchie happens.
Oh, and random Monique Gabrielle appearance. *swoon* Though with her bangs, anyone unfamiliar with her are kinda denied her amazing eyebrow acting.
Sure comedies are harder to riff, but really the character of Munchie is what makes this one difficult. Ugly design aside, host segment 2 is accurate in calling out how pretty much everything Dom says isn’t actually a joke. So ugly, unfunny, and unlikable in absolutely baffling ways really drags the movie down.
MST normally shouldn’t do intentional comedies to begin with, but now that streaming-era MST3K is only picking 80’s-00’s VHS-era movies from New World and Concorde Roger Corman, they DEFINITELY shouldn’t do intentional comedies.
The movie was a “sequel” to Roger’s earlier Critters/Gremlins knockoff “Munchies”, plural (no relation to Hobgoblins), and the studio attempt to spin off a kid-friendly follow-up only proves that Corman shouldn’t do intentional kiddy movies.
If you’ve seen RiffTrax’s riffs of the David DeCoteau “Talking ANIMAL?!!?” Trilogy, you already know why.
That said, it was refreshing to see that Angus Scrimm had a career outside of Morningside Mortuary.
Whoops! I’ll remedy that.
Santo in the Treasure of Dracula: Pass. Louisa and Pequita talk about the medallion.
Robot Wars: Pass. Leda and Annie have multiple non-male conversations.
Beyond Atlantis: Pass. Syrene and Lenore briefly talk about the crab pits.
Munchie: Fail. The sole conversation between Cathy and Andrea is about Andrea’s father.
Thank you. :-)
When the movies for Season 13 were announced, I had presumed Beyond Atlantis would be the big slog on account of its Seventies Filipino origins and how it aped Treasure of the Sierra Madre (a movie I despise). Turns out Munchie won that dubious distinction, though for reasons I’ll get into when those episodes come up Shape of Thing to Come and Christmas Dragon come close. Kinga wasn’t exaggerating when she said this one was bad.
The main problem is that it was part of a wave of attempted imitations of Robin Williams as the genie in Aladdin. I used to like Williams when I was a kid, but not so much now. So mimicking something I already find annoying and somehow make it worse makes this one a challenge to sit through.
Favorite riffs
Andrew Stevens is Steven Andrews in Standrew Avens.
Nothing says family comedy like disembodied teeth chattering in an empty void.
This is Gage Dobson’s first win after being nominated for such daydreams as “What If I Were a Robot with a Sword for an Arm” and “Naked Book Report II”.
That kid went on to work for Apple Computers, as a janitor.
Boy, there’s never a radioactive spider to bite you when you really need it.
Jim Henson’s Dangerous Minds Babies.
“And two demerits.”
From Gryffindor.
“Then I’ll have to think of something to do with these hands.”
Don’t! You’ll go blind!
Well, at least he died doing what he loved. Wishing he was dead.
After the Hardy Boys split up, Frank went onto an unsuccessful career as a child private investigator.
Cue the Italian oompah band.
Munchie is performed in front of a dead studio audience.
Extry, extry, Italian immigrant goes on murder spree!
Ooh, angora. Did Ed Wood direct this part?
I just died of dysentery.
“I am gonna kill you.”
Once I deal with this brain hemorrhage.
Still not convinced Munchie isn’t pure evil.
When I saw John Gielgud in Romeo and Juliet at the Old Vic, he went full Monty.
What is this guy a professor of again? Nuclear physics, Egyptology, and a TGI Friday’s interior design?
“What he needs is a man’s influence.”
You know any?
The slide whistle of imminent doom.
Buckle up, kids, because I think this scene goes on for another seven minutes.
Those troublemakers in Alpha House have really done it this time.
You think Gage’s party is great? There’s a five year old down the street with an opium den.
Well, his relationship with Cathy was pretty much done anyway. Might as well vivisect a dog monster thing and call it a day.
I love a sensible sedan chase.
Come on, Munchie. Didn’t you invent the Tokyo drift?
“One Adam Ten. One Adam Ten.”
One out of ten? Are they reviewing the movie?
Cathy was sentenced to twelve years in prison for fraudulent catering charges on Elliott’s missing credit card.
Elliot died on the prison farm and was vivisected by the other inmates. No charges have been filed.
Ace Mask, Private Eye!
I’m glad he’s in this so now I know what Phantasm would be like as a family film.
“Elliot died on the prison farm and was vivisected by the other inmates. No charges have been filed.”
If the subject is dead, it’s a *dissection*, not a *vivisection*, which is performed on a LIVING subject. I know, nitpick, nitpick, nitpick, nitpick, nitpick…
Your complaints don’t event make sense. Are you some AI bot gone wrong?
Streaming era movies, by decade:
50s: 1
60s 10
70s 9
80s 7
90s 3
2000s
2010s 3
So of 33 films riffed so far in the streaming era, 10 fit into your timeframe described.
New World and Concorde films: 4. I’ll be generous and include Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 1 and Munchie, since they were produced by Corman, but not by those companies and round the total up to 6
The overlap that are 80s-2000s AND Corman produced: 3 films.
But hey, at least this one wasn’t riffed by scary womens, right?
I find it hard to believe that ANYTHING could out-slog Demon Squad (yes, a Joel riff I could not physically finish), but that’s another discussion for later.
Or desperately hammy and self-struck ones either. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury next week.
(Darn, and that was a vintage Full Moon I was waiting for when it was announced. We seem to have a copious supply of Charles Band, this season.)
@majorjoe23: I advise hitting that Ignore button, which really, really works. At the very least it’ll improve your blood pressure.
Now for some MST3K Connections. Director and writer Jim Wynorski was director and story writer for Deathstalker II (in which he also portrayed a dying soldier). Writer and creature designer R.J. Robertson (who also portrayed the second policeman) wrote additional dialogue for Deathstalker II. Toni Naples (Mrs. Blaylok) portrayed Sultana in Deathstalker II. Monique Gabrielle (Miss Laurel) portrayed Reena the Seer and Princess Evie in Deathstalker II. George “Buck” Flower (rich tramp) portrayed a security guard in Mac and Me. Bob Sheridan (band member) was first assistant director for Deathstalker II. Finally, effects animator Kevin Kutchaver did digital effects for MST3K: The Movie. This makes him the only person to have worked on both an MST3K movie and MST3K, at least so far.
That’s a really interesting tidbit about Kevin Kutchaver.
The problem with the ignore button is I seemed to get logged out regularly, so it wouldn’t end up doing that much good.
I don’t even see such a button.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I thought this movie really hurt. The overused character types and unfunny pranks just really got to me. I was really wincing at the dialogue the bullies were given. It seems the screenwriter has no idea of how kids (or even humans in general) actually talk. Personally, I just had a very tough time with it. Well, at least the filmmakers resisted the urge to place Munchie as one of the attendees at the Last Supper.
The episode, itself, was OK, though. The riffing really helped me get through the experience. (One thing, though: maybe it’s my age talking, but when Andrew Stevens’ name appeared in the credits, I fully expected a riff like, “Stevens! You magnificent Bastard, I saw your mini-series!”) The host segments worked fine, particularly Jonah defying Kinga and the return of Dr. St. Phibes. Now, I don’t know if they’re included in the Pluto TV cut, but the Gizmoplex version I saw had two additional host segments, one before & one after the episode. The first had the Simulator ‘bots dealing with a possible critter infestation (no points in knowing who it is) and the latter one had Emily & SimServo finding SimCrow’s corpse (no, he’s not really dead).
Good episode, but lousy movie.
Maybe I need to look again, but I don’t think I got the extra host segments on Pluto.
And those two movies tell you how flawed the Bechdel Test is. The above two movies are as chauvinist as can be and yet they both pass this “low bar” test.
Oh I think we figured that out long ago after Horrors of Spider Island passed with the greatest of ease. It’s better to regard it as a thought experiment (which is my intent) rather than a serious form of divining feminist intent in a movie.