Movie: (2014) A group orphans go on a quest to find Christmas.
Host: Emily, Joel, Jonah.
Cold opening: The rhyming plotters are ready to go. After the open: Kinga, Max and Dr. Kabahl present the triple ripple holiday spectacular/extravaganza.
Invention exchange: Jonah has a B52s wig for Tom. Joel has a perpetual motion machine. Emily has a paperweight that looks like a cinderblock. The Mads have the Missile-toe.
Segment 1: Friar Nolte visits to explain what Christmas is all about. The bots are then transported to Joel’s SOL.
Segment 2: The escape plotters meet again and discuss how they’ll explain their departure to the bots. After intermission: Jonah explains things to his bots.
Segment 3: The Mads get all three riffers in one place, without any of the bots. In the theater, from left: Jonah, Emily, Joel.
Close: Kinga almost foils the escape plot but thanks to the bots, the plotters make it through the Time Bag. Dr. Kahbal renounces the Mads and Kinga is ruined.
Stinger: “The dragon!!”
Thoughts:
• This episode premiered on Dec. 16, 2022.
• I remembered this as kind of a slog but I really enjoyed it this time and a laughed a lot.
• Lots of LOTR references. “Minas Tirith,” “Tom Bombadil,” “Saruman,” etc.
• Naughty riff: “That’s what the sock is for.”
• Obscure East coast riffs: Longwood Gardens, Dorney Park.
• The reactions to flying off on the dragon are very funny.
• Great line from Joel: “I only know the Mike version.”
• The closing credits have several new Christmas-themed tunes. They also now have a (rather lengthy) “in memoriam” section.
• Fave riff “Ooh, right in the orphan maker.”
• Honorable mentions: “Ah yes, the medieval obsession with cleanliness.” “You’re next, Bran Stark.” “Ooteeny!” “Quick, get it before it renders.” “They prefer the term henchman-American,” “You will never find a wretched hive of scum and whovery.” “You guys can pull a sled, right?”
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Cold Opening: Not much to say here. Just a quick recap of the vague plan they began fleshing out at the end of the previous episode.
Opening: Not much to say here either. Just hype for this first of its kind episode. But just what is a “triple riffle?”
Invention Exchange:
Jonah and the Bots: The B52 head for Tom.
Joel: A perpetual motion machine made of a steering wheel and hour glasses.
Emily: A paper weight disguised as a cinder block marketed to high end executives.
The Mads: The mistletoe bomb for when you want to send the kiss of death.
Again, the invention exchange too got the short shrift because of the anticipation of this triple-riffle episode. I think the Mads did the best hurry up improve of this exchange but I liked Emily’s delivery.
I do like Pearl’s introduction. “Today’s experiment answers the age old question: Wouldn’t middle earth be better if had a Santa. And the answer it turns out is no.” I couldn’t have said it any better.
Host Segment 1: Friar Nolte channels the spirit of Linus and explains what Christmas is all about. Who got closer to the mark: Linus or Friar Nolte? Who’s to say?
Host Segment 2: Back the plot of this episode. The bots are going to be left behind after the hosts make their joint escape.
Host Segment 3: Jonah, Emily and Joel are all consolidated on Joel’s satellite. The Bots are all elsewhere.
Closing/The Escape: It looks like it worked. I like the way they even included Mike in spirit by doing his first theme song to help power the percussive drive. But it is Pearl that saves the day. But I do have questions. Why did they go back to 1991? And why the slam on TiVo? (As a cord cutter who enjoys the reliability and superior uncompressed picture of terrestrial TV, I love mine.)
So this was a different episode. They put little effort into any of the introductory or mid-movie segments and told their story in the closing. It was fun. I also liked the idea of different riffing teams for each movie segment. This was an all-round success. So, when’s season 14? I think the Gizmoplex is repairable. There really is a lot to build on here. The Gizmoplex (online version) infrastructure is in place so in the future we should theoretically only have to pay for movie clearance and straight episode production. Now I just wish we return to sets where everyone congregates and guest appearances by Trace, Frank, Kevin and Mike.
This movie was really badly needed after the grueling despair inducing marathon of the shortened version of The Bubble. The movie is light. It might even be entertaining to the tween nerds it is marketed toward. It has a plot you can follow and a few heroes characters (not necessarily the actors) you can actually root for. I even really enjoyed the score on this movie. Yet it is delightfully absurd enough to serve up some really great riffs. This episode goes into me top five of the revival episodes.
Favorite Riffs:
Emily’s segment:
During the fight scene, when parents are being arrested and as the dragon kills the parents: Emily and the Bots sing “simply, having, a wonderful Christmas time.”
The soldiers face the dragon. Emily “All right men, roll for initiative.”
Crow comments on the general state of this medieval setting. “No penicillin but they’ve got hair gel.”
Ayden hangs a rough looking sock by the fireplace. Emily “Haines burlap…for her.”
Sister Lenora: “It’s almost supper. Go wash up.” Crow “Ah yes, the medieval obsession with cleanliness.”
Joel’s segment:
As the kids are sneaking through the dining room there is a knock at the door. Joel “Gruelhub.”
The kids notice someone wearing a hood moving distantly through the woods. Crow “Utini!”
The kids get in the rowboat. Joel “Uh, anyone know how to hotwire a boat?”
A closeup shot of Fin’s eye makeup. Joel “Maybe he’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline.”
A hungry Hoyt “Can you smell that?” Tom “What the Rock is cooking?”
A bar brawl breaks out. Crow sings “and the knave in the back said everyone attack and turned into a tavern blitz”
Jonah’s Segment:
Ayden approaches the injured dragon. Tom “It’s that look of Spielbergian awe you can only get by staring lovingly at a tennis ball taped to a stick on a Toronto soundstage.”
Saerwen makes her grand entrance. Jonah “Assasin’s Christmas only an PS4.”
Emily/Joel/Jonah segment:
The dragon is hitched up to the sleigh. Emily “Hey guys look. They sleighed the dragon.”
The orphans are running around placing Christmas gifts at the village doors. Emily “Look this can’t be that much more work than they’d be doing in the mines.”
Well, that’s strange–Where did the three earlier comments go?
Yes, I’d tried to keep a running count of how MANY episodes this season used the Jawa riff with someone lurking/hooded in the background, but since I couldn’t get all the way through some of the episodes, had to leave off at two or three.
For those who missed, I’ll just repeat that this looks more like it should have been one of MK&B’s direct-video fantasy Rifftrax episodes.
Maybe we’ve been spoiled by Santa/Martians, Mexican Santa and Christmas That Almost Wasn’t, but seems like the requisite Christmas episodes need to be saved for one of the great bizarre kiddie matinees out of our collective Boomer memories of the 60’s-70’s kiddie-matinee glory days. Even “Santa & the Ice Cream Bunny” has more of a traditional $1.50 holiday matinee flavor than this indie quickie.
This one felt more like one of the 00’s-10’s Canadian direct-videos that RT dumpster-dives out of Amazon or Tubi, like “The Fairy King” or “The Littlest Unicorn”, so that Kevin can make the “I’ll steal your immortal soul” riff every time an elf or leprechaun character appears in the movie.
And, once again, the climactic season arc revolves around knowing the words to a Fan-Favorite Song.
Although Joel jokes “I only know the Mike version”, since he never watches the CC era, or this one either, most likely, having worked on them.
“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
Revelation 12:9
Oh sorry, that was the Christian Dragon
The Christmas Dragon very much felt like the result of some stoned teenagers playing Dungeons and Dragons and deciding to make saving Christmas the point of a quest. “Roll initiative men.”
And it’s just not Christmas until Mom and Dad get roasted alive in a cage by a bitchy dragon. And there was about as much Christmas in this movie as Die Hard. Decent episode. The movie was bad but by no means the worst or oddest Christmas movie I’ve seen. It felt a little like if Quest of the Delta Knights had Christmas shoehorned into it, just without the David Warner.
The mistletoe on Kabal’s hood was a nice touch. It reminded me of the snow globe Servo had for a head in Santa Clause Conquers the Martians.
We like you now for some reason!
And so we come to the end of another season, like season 7 way back when, that some of us weren’t expecting to get and leaves me wondering what the future might hold. I actually kind of liked the movie, in the sense that while it was competently made (some impressive makeup on that elf!) that just made the grab bag of tropes and scenic elements stand out just that much more. I certainly found it more interesting than ‘Christmas that Almost Wasn’t’ and I hope all those child actors at least had fun making the film. The ‘Friar Nolte’ sketch had me giggling nonstop as well. It took all season, but they finally gave Oswalt a worthy showcase.
Meanwhile, perhaps I’m just behind the curve because I only keep up with MST3k news on this site and this is my first watch of any season 13 episode, but I felt it was something of a tease to say all three hosts would be riffing the movie and then only have them in the same theater for the final segment. It would have been mind-blowing to have them all in one SOL to begin with and have the assorted bots popping in and out as needed.
Ultimately though, I can’t say when I’ll next have the urge to rewatch these episodes. I’d be the first to buy a physical copy, but I’m still patiently waiting for the day the remaining cable-era shows finally get cleared for home media. Whither ‘Rocketship X-M’, Godzilla, or ‘Quest of the Delta Knights’?
Fave riffs
Jonathan Lipnicki is ‘The Crow’!
[sleeping friar]
They don’t have to sneak, he’s dead!
‘What would you do without me?’
Be drama-free?
Life expectancy, 16; drinking age, 21. So unfair!
Be vewy vewy quiet, we don’t have a permit to film hewe!
And if Dreamworks’ lawyers come, we were never here!
[friar receives gift]
The ‘Holly Bibble’??
Although, unless that was a joke at the movie friar, seemed like that was paying marketable “Gotta shoutout to the RT fans, too!” demographic homage to MK&B’s weirdly personal RT fascination with current Nick Nolte’s drunken-bum image.
I’d rather leave the off-topic personal celebrity-shaming to those who seem to need it the most, and concentrate on what MST3K does best.
FWIW, Shout Factory just announced a 24/7 PlutoTV channel of the Toho 60’s Showa-era Godzilla (plus the two cartoon series and the 90’s kiddie Mothra films they already owned)–
So while Criterion still has disk rights to the original movies, could this mean that Shout now has some cleared Toho rights to the character, to invoke Megalon and Ebirah? Keep watching the skies…
One of my less favorite episodes of the season. With a few exceptions, I just can’t abide child actors. And child actors in indy productions like this are somehow even more intolerable.
Patton as Friar Nolte was a hoot, though.
Also liked how they played the Season 5-6 version of the theme song, so that Mike was with them in spirit at least.
“I only know the Mike version.” floored me. As did most of Emily’s line delivery revolving around her cinder block.
A very stupid movie that does that thing where they keep introducing new wrinkles and then resolve them immediately expecting us to feel something. I loved it. Just dumb, barely competent fun.
My spectrum brain does have a hard time shutting off and just-relax-ing at the end. Why would a slower song be the better option for a percussive drive? Other than that (which I am aware is a purely me thing) I loved the episode. A solid ending to the season.
I keep thinking of how the pitch meeting goes for movies like this:
“Hey Mr Big. I’ve got a great idea to make a cheap film that will bring in lots of dough! We’ll take these orphans, Bart Simpson types, and they’ll outsmart and out run the evil adults.”
“Yeah, we could show them make a dangerous escape from their bedroom window 30 foot up.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous for young actors?”
“Naw, we’ll be 8 feet off the ground but shoot it from above and the audience won’t know the difference!”
“Hey I’ve got an out of work friend who does great CGI dragons. He will work cheap. Let’s stick them in for a fantasy aspect.”
Mr. Big: “If we set this at Christmastime, there is no way this will not be a big hit. We will be hailed as visionaries!”
This movie deserves a wedgie in the worst way.
I salute you, Joel Hodgson, for devising a way to give these films what they deserve.
Tim Allen? Maybe you’re thinking of Buzz Lightyear vs. the Little Green Aliens.
(Yes: I never liked 90’s Disney comedies, and I’m going to take it out on a generation that let their knowledge of proper spelling be warped by pop culture.
And no, it’s not “okay now, because everyone does it”, start taking responsibility. Even the freakin’ movie explains the difference.)
I really liked this one. The movie is the usual plot salad that makes little sense, but it has a sweetness to it that makes it easy to watch. Like a lot of you, I normally detest child actors, but the ones here aren’t bad at all. And I REALLY enjoyed having the three hosts alternate! They pulled that off superbly. Well . . . I could’ve done without their “escape”–we all know they’re going to be back for S14. They’ve done this now for all three reboot seasons. It’s gotten kind of stale. The bit about having to talk in rhyme to deceive the Mads was a mite precious, too.
Somebody say something about the old Citation Needed podcast?
The talking in Rhyme bit started when Jonah called Emily on her first episode. Still don’t know why the mads couldn’t understand it.
I suspect this falls under the category: It’s just a show, I should really just relax.
They explain that mad scientists can’t understand rhymes. Pretty straight forward explanation. :)
Could this weakness of the Mads be used to Jonah’s, Emily’s, and Joel’s advantage?
Perhaps a group song?
I’ll miss these weekly episode discussions
Thanks for updating the episode guide for Season 13. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a Season 14!