Movie: (1977) Upon his return to Earth, an astronaut develops melting skin and murderous tendencies, and the authorities try to hush it all up.
First shown: 2/24/96
Opening: M&tB are playing a little hardball
Intro: Crow’s “Earth vs. Soup” screenplay is being made into a movie, with Dr. F. and Pearl in charge
Host segment 1: A script conference goes nowhere
Host segment 2: Crow shoots his movie
Host segment 3: Dr. F. leads a focus group
End: Crow learns the fate of his movie
Stinger: “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
(224 votes, average: 4.65 out of 5)
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• You can read Mary Jo’s thoughts on this episode here.
• Of course, this ep is dominated by the movie-making segments. The Brains openly admitted that this was their chance to get even with the Hollywood suits who made their lives a living hell during the making of MST3K: The Movie. If they saw it (and they probably didn’t) a few execs may have recognized themselves. In any case, the segments are great fun, the movie is dumb and a little drippy and the riffing is very memorable. A great episode.
• This episode is included in Shout’s “Volume XXXVI.”
• References.
• Trace and Mary Jo are pitch-perfect as smug studio heads and it’s nice to see Dr. F and Pearl working together, rather than being at odds. Trace’s running gag with the water bottles is classic.
• Callbacks: Tom is singing “Are you happy in your work” (from “I Accuse My Parents”) as segment 1 begins. M&tB sing a few bars from “Only Love.” (Sidehackers) “What’s the matter, don’t you like it?” (Brute Man) “You always were a good judge of men, Deathstalker.” (Deathstalker) “The melting man was found alive and of normal size” (Monster A-Go-Go).
• This is one of those movies where the Brains find themselves having to riff the same scene (in which our hero Steve gets a bloody nose) several times. They managed it remarkably well.
• Director Crow is wearing a Deep 13 hat.
• This is the movie that features the great “What did we learn?” conversation. They should have done it for every movie.
• A little behind-the-scenes note: Confused about the scene showing a girl sobbing in a police car and a photographer taking pictures of everything in sight? That’s because the scene just before it was cut from the MSTed version. In the scene, the photographer gets the girl model (played by Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith) to pose and bounce around, then forcibly removes her top after she refuses to. She starts hitting him as he continues to take pictures, and then trips over the Bill-Gates-look-alike corpse, making an oozy mess and screaming a lot. That’s why she’s crying in the police car, and that’s why the photographer happens to be there.
• Then-current reference: Now-forgotten sitcom “Caroline in the City.”
• Cast and crew roundup: Executive producer Max J. Rosenberg also worked on “The Deadly Bees.” Makeup/special effects guy Rick Baker also worked on “Track Of The Moon Beast” and “Squirm. Special effects guy Harry Woolman also worked on “Laserblast,” “Aent for H.A.R.M.” and “Hangar 18.” Assistant director Henning Schellerup also worked on “Hangar 18.” In front of the camera, Myron Healey was also in “The Unearthly.”
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Kevin Murphy. Crist Ballas did hair and makeup for the only time this season. The focus group members were Paul, Jim, Beez, Ben Mooers, Helena Espinoza, Kelly Schrandt and Barbara Tebben.
• Fave riff: “You know, I’m actually starting to hate Hans Geiger.” Honorable mention: “Did they have a race horse tied up to the wall?”
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Oh, HODJKA!
This is another really great Season 7 episode (haters need to stop hatin’ on this season!) but I am going to agree with the minority on the quality of the Host Segments. I don’t find them to be all that funny, not really. Sure, there’s some wry humor, and even though I know where they are coming from in regards to the writing (a bit resentful, sure, but bitter? Not so much…), it doesn’t exactly lead to a laugh riot. Crow as a pompous jerk (like in HS#2) is usually good for a laugh or a least a good line or two. Here…not so much.
So for me, the Host Segments take a back seat to the movie and the riffing in this episode. THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN is a movie that is right in my wheelhouse, I was excited when it premiered. 1970s horror films (of all qualities) are a particular love of mine, and THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN does not disappoint in the areas of ickiness and goofiness. This is easily the goriest film they ever riffed on MST3k, and this is the EDITED version! I can see how some of the goings-ons in here (the head in the pond, the meltiness, etc.) could bother some people, but that is really just a testament to the quality of Rick Baker’s special effects work. They really are standout. Baker would go on to be nominated for 12 Oscars, winning 7 of those, including An American Werewolf in London and Ed Wood.
The movie itself is pretty terrible, but enjoyably so. The non-acting of Dr. Ted Nelson is amazing and the “crackers” scene is stunning in its WTF-ery. (Also, a shout-out to the “what is happening here?” old couple in the lemon grove). In addition to future-SILENCE OF THE LAMBS-director Jonathan Demme (boyfriend to the stoned hillbilly chick) and genre regular/70s casualty Rainbeaux Smith (whose part seems to be pretty much cut from the MST version; she’s the model, upset in the back of the police car when the headless body is found), I also want to point out a couple other actors:
**Demme’s on screen lady friend, the girl who cuts off the Melting Man’s arm and then has that really long and amazing freak-out scene, is actress Janus Blythe, who is best known as Ruby from Wes Craven’s classic THE HILLS HAVE EYES (and the not-so classic PART 2).
**Also, the afro doctor colleague of Dr. Nelson’s, a Doctor Loring (aka: Dr. Groovy, who pretty much disappears halfway through the movie), is played by Lisle Wilson, who was in Brian De Palma’s SISTERS, in which his date with Margot Kidder does NOT go well….
THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN will see release to BLU RAY on July 30th from our friends over at SHOUT!FACTORY (under their very awesome SCREAM FACTORY label) and my hope is that we will see the MST version show up on the next DVD release (Vol. XXVIII). :fingersxd:
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RIFFS:
space stock footage,
Mike: “FAKEY!”
Mike: “Just blow up and melt, c’mon!”
Crow: “That was one hot burrito!”
nurse busts through the glass door,
Servo: “No, I’ll get the door, thank you.”
head falls over waterfall,
Mike: “He’s off the ramp…”
Servo: “He’s bursting with flavor!”
kids smoking, coughing,
Servo: “It’s alive with pleasure.”
Mike: “It’s smooth…*cough*” —————–one of my favorite bits in this episode
Mike: “They were broad minded to cast aliens in this role.”
Mike: “She looks like a ‘Killer Klown from Outer Space’.”
Crow: “Let’s hide in one of your skinflaps!”
Mike: “Buford Pusser: Eating Tall.” ——–In Walking Tall, Pusser was of course played by, JOE DON BAKER.
Crow: “I did get the lead in the Coleman Francis Story.”
Crow: “This is a very moist movie.”
movie: “Don’t you remember? You went back in to check when the movie started.”
Servo: “Then you grabbed the one-hitter.”
Crow: “She’s a strange cross between Barry and Cindy Williams.”
Servo: “I’m starting to get un-stoned.”
Servo: “No. Neil. Don’t. Stop…. Steve. My God. You’re hurting him.”
Crow: “Why did I go on that high phosphorous diet?”
Crow: “Me? I’m soaking in me.”
Mike: “Well, the movie has to mop up after itself.”
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My DAP copy has quite the choppy edit to it, the commercial breaks are real rough and the end credits are truncated (although the stinger is on there, thank god), so yeah, I’d REALLY LIKE FOR SHOUT! TO RELEASE THIS ON DVD. Thanks. :fingersxd: :fingersxd:
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This is a melty good episode.
I give it 4 out of 5 HODJKAS!!
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Now, where are my crackers. . . . . . . . . . . . .
I stopped watching MST during original airings right about Kitten With A Whip, didn’t watch a first run episode again until Joel and Frank showed up Soultaker, then spent several years playing catch up with my rediscovered favorite show. And I can definitely say that Season 7 is the most solid season for me. Incredible Melting Man is a highlight of this truncated season but every episode makes me laugh still. It just seems the writing after the movie’s tortured process shows a freedom that hadn’t been in evidence in a while. Season 7 is a hidden gem and very satisfying.
This is quickly becoming my favorite Season 7 episode. Being a screenwriter/filmmaker myself, I find the host segs (the penultimate “Earth Vs. Soup” host segments) to be absolutely hilarious. The frustration the Brains went through in order to make “The Movie” is clearly reflected here. And there’s some top-notch riffing during this silly, yet kind of sad, movie. Too bad we’re almost out of Season 7 episodes to watch!
I went to see ‘Melting Man’ when it was in the theater …I had read about it during production in ‘Starlog’ magazine, described in an interview with Rick Baker, so I went to check it out….
While Baker did his job well with the Make-Up FX; the film itself was sooo bad….
The audience began calling out jibes at the screen.
In an eerily-pre-MSTIE moment, during a scene where The Incredible Melting Man (or; ‘Mr. Squishy’) was shambling along, leaving a trail of goo behind him, I began loudly singing :
“Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away….”
I am nowhere near Simon OR Garfunkel, but I did get the best round of laughs from the theater crowd.
Ahh…Fun.
To me, this is about when the skit aspect of the show jumped the shark, where they were just so painfully unfunny, because they were getting more and more elaborate, rather than just a 3 minute joke.
This episode starts off fine with some memorable riffs (He’s on roller blades!) but quickly becomes another “ok” season 7 episode. Mostly because let’s be fair – the movie is pretty dull. The skits aren’t really funny, more like wry.
One of my favorites eps of all time
Some of my favorites are, “No, don’t, di, di don’t,” which Mike follows up with “da da dow da da dow da dow da dow,” “You are whipped,” and of course “Atchaka.”
Thanks for all the info #101. I love this episode. I left some comments years ago circa#47. I still wonder just what Ted would have done if could have convinced Melty to back to the lab. Cover him in sawdust? Give him a bucket to melt in? And even if the melting stopped he’d still look like runny lasagna. Where would a plastic surgeon even start with that mess. How much antibiotics would he need?
Is it just me or have there been a lot movies popping up that seem to to be realizations of clinical depression? High School Big Shot, The Train Safety shorts, Beast of Yucca Flats and the other 2 Coleman Francis Movies, and now we get to watch a man melt for 2 hours. Geez, somebody get these filmmakers some Prozac.
This is my favorite episode from season seven. This is a very disgusting movie, not only the melting and the head hitting the base of the waterfall, but also the boys smoking, reading Playboy, and the loathsome, “Wanna play doctor?” (Shudders)
Though Burr Debenning underacts most of the film, I have seen him in tv shows (he must have been a popular guest star for about a fifteen year period) and he always did quite well. In an episode of The Rockford Files, I was impressed with him as a partnered gay man (a very unusual role in the 1970’s) as I find it one the most accurate portrayals of a gay couple, nothing like the over feminizing that has been become typical from Hollywood. I go to church with a guy named Burr, so whenever I see him I think of the late Mr. Debenning.
I like Paul in the focus group segment, looking to see what others do to see if he should raise his hand.
Fave riff: “Some enchanted evening, you may see a redneck / You may see a redneck across a crowded bingo hall.”
I loved this episode it’s one of the first ones that I remember watching on comedy central. The movie is classic, any monster movie that ends with a janitor mopping up the monster is classic MST3K fodder.
5 stars. The riffing is on par with any Mike episode ever. Due to Pearl, I can’t say I enjoyed the host segments but at least her hamminess was toned down due to the running movie plot.
“Aatchka!” is a Hall of Fame moment. I just find the whole film to be one of the best suited to the MST3K treatment ever. The old couple scene might be in my top few scenes in MST3K history. Every second of the scene kills me. But, Crow’s turkey noises when the old woman is “running” takes the cake. “It was brave of them to cast aliens in these roles.”
It’s funny, Burr was good in other things. He’s good in a Columbo episode, etc….but, he’s just awful in this. I don’t know if it was the direction or what….but, he’s a hilariously unappealing hero.
I got to see this one for the first time recently when I undertook my project to finish watching every MST3K episode and it was pure gold! I normally have to watch an episode twice: First to understand the movie and second to really revel in the riffs, but I only had to watch this one once to enjoy it completely.
Also, if you want another great(?) movie done very similarly to this: bad acting, cheesy effects, pure 70s, check out Cinematic Titanic’s riffing on The Alien Factor. I will give props to it though in that it has some genuinely good/scary monster designs.
The Incredible Melting Man fails the Bechdel Test. The only conversation between two females is when Carol and her mom talking about the former’s encounter with Steve.
Love how Crow uses his net as an umpire’s mask
I’m not familiar with George Hamilton. I’m guessing he had some sort of meltdown (hence riffing, “The George Hamilton Story,” at the title), but have no idea what the incident in question was.
That mom probably didn’t think about how disturbing Snow White (even the Disney version) actually was.
So what is the deal with Judy’s mom and her gigolo? If it was meant for comic relief, it flopped hard.
When the sheriff said, “aiding and abetting a criminal,” I first thought he said, “eating and abetting a criminal.”
For the most part, I still stand by my statement in #84 about the entertainment qualities (or lack thereof) of therapeutic writing. One exception I’ve encountered is Doctor Who contributor Robert Holmes, who managed to pen enjoyable stories from his mental traumas. Spearhead from Space and Terror of the Autons reflected his almost pathological aversion towards plastic and its ubiquity in modern life, while The Sun Makers was written shortly after he had gotten raked over the coals by Britain’s equivalent of the IRS.
Favorite riffs
Can you stir the tanks without killing us all?
Houston, could you turn your radio down, please?
How much did you guys like Jupiter? I think we just blew it up. Sorry.
I don’t think the happy clown therapy is helping.
She’s a tad squeamish for a nurse.
This week on Emergency Patient Drop-Off.
“Who knows about it?”
Just me and half a nurse.
Calumet Harbor means two things to these guys. Stunted bullheads and Old Milwaukie beer.
“You’re going to scare the fish.”
I think the fish can handle it.
Mom, I don’t want to be in Dad’s movie anymore.
This would be going so much better if he’d eaten some crackers.
“I don’t like the looks of that.”
Roving bands of coroners.
God bless Drippy and Runny and Sticky.
Dad, Tommy spilled your wood glue and pushed me in it.
He’s right. I should have anticipated his cracker needs.
Careful, the paneling is out acting you.
Come to Melting Man Farms and pick your own Melting Man.
“You know I’m not married, Ted.”
I know. I was just trying to hurt your feelings.
There’s pudding in the Melting Man, to make him moister.
I wish someone would get killed so we could move on.
Give her a wire monkey and see how she reacts.
I should just move to a new town. Start a new life for myself. A town where melting people are accepted.
Your melting was completely cosmetic and it wasn’t covered by your medical plan.
Ted Nelson was found alive and of normal size. There was no melting man.
Cape Kennedy was renamed Cape Ted Nelson, and quickly renamed Cape Kennedy again.
We learned that lights and lighting aren’t really necessary to make a film these days.
And neither are actors.
I learned it was impossible to look good in the Seventies.
He’s an actor who was known at the time for being extremely well-tanned. Bit of a then-current reference, I guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hamilton_(actor)
Unless there’s some newsworthy something that I missed, George Hamilton is an actor that is more famous for his perennial deep, dark tan than he is for his acting. He is (or was–haven’t kept up with him) a big advocate of tanning beds, laying in the sun, etc. Not the best spokesperson for the Skin Cancer Society. Hence, The Incredible Melting Man.
Hamilton is still around, and yes, he’s more famous for his excessive tanning than his acting. He was recently one of the new Colonel Sanders lookalikes in KFC ads, and as usual his tanning was the main joke, as he was pointedly promoting the “Extra Crispy.”
Haven’t seen this episode in ages so I think I’ll have to give it a spin very soon.
George Hamilton, apart from “Love at First Bite”, was also most signature-famous for his obsessive pool-celebrity sun-tanning.
And, unlike Donald Trump, his disturbingly unnatural skin tone was REAL.
Have to admit, being the anal-retentive stickler I am, I laughed at:
“Mommy, a Frankenstein!”
“No, dear, Frankenstein was the doctor.”
Ah, it’s good to have a S7 riff that’s not a rant about rednecks, fan-litany cult-quotes (“You must recite the Holy Ayy-Hotchka!”) or misdirected crabbiness at anyone or anything not moving the plot along to its finish at any given half-second.
Das Blecch!
Again, having little to no knowledge of the travails that went into making the movie until long afterward, this episode for me is the Brains finally putting the long-running ‘Earth vs. Soup’ gag a proper sendoff while they still had the chance. I loved Crow’s incredulous ‘How’re we supposed to get Kevin Bacon?! We can’t afford him!’ at the beginning.
Further, it seems like at this point Dr. F. and Pearl were finally beginning to gel somewhat as a team working to screw over M&TB. Perhaps their teaming would have gotten even better if the season hadn’t been cut short…
Fave riffs
Dr. Ted Nelson: Would either of you like to come over to dinner tonight?
Servo: GOD no!
Crow: This kitchen may be badly decorated, but it’s not inherently terrifying.
Crow: Come to Melting Man Farms and pick your own melting man!
Mike: Cape Kennedy was renamed Cape Ted Nelson… and then quickly renamed Cape Kennedy again.
IMM is probably the most overtly “body horror” movie ever featured on MST, unless I’m missing an obvious pick. I don’t think it’s particularly effective (read: gross) body horror, since Melting Man is on camera (and in close-up) so much of the running time that the audience pretty quickly gets inured to him. It might have been more effective if Baker had done more definable “melting stages” for the monster to go through, so that his look consistently evolved. As is, he kind of has just three looks: more or less goopy human (waking up in the hospital), melting zombie (95% of his screen time), and total meltdown man (the very end).
I like this episode a lot, and find the host segments very funny.
One thing I’m surprised that they failed to riff, is when the nurse is running in a panic down that long, industrial-looking corridor, you can clearly see that there is NO ONE chasing her. Which is bad enough, but then almost immediately after she crashed through the door, she was followed by the melting man (on skates), as if he had been right behind her all along.
BTW, this same thing happened in “Being From Another Planet”. There were several shots of Ben Murphy’s girlfriend running down long hallways to escape the mummy yet the hall behind her is clearly empty.
Mummys and space aliens have mind control powers that make people think they’re being chased when they’re actually not.
Everybody knows that!
And see, bein’ known both for sun-tanning an’ for playin’ Dracula, well, that’s irony, don’t cha know…
That was sort of the joke, he played Dracula in a comedy.
Is this the only episode where the host segments never even mention the movie? There isn’t even a cursory “Your film today is…” introduction like most of the other plot-heavy episodes.
@ #124: Huh, you’re right. It’s like they got so much into the therapeutic writing that they forgot about the movie.
Uh, well, no. The person whom we know to be chasing her has fallen behind but might catch up with her at any minute. Which is exactly what he does.
That aside, there’s this thing that a lot of people do when they’re in potentially life-threatening situations. They PANIC. Their access to rational thought dwindles or even vanishes entirely. They make bad decisions, they do stupid things, more often than not their very efforts to avoid getting killed are in fact what GET them killed. Because that’s how panic WORKS.
That seems so amazingly transparent to me…
Oh well.
The movie could’ve used more Jonathan Winters riffs because from what I understand he was an extremely funny comedian/actor. Oh well.
I think that was depicted in “City on Fire” also. Oddly, the seventies were in some ways more upfront about the kind of stuff some kids get into when adults aren’t looking without making as big a deal out of it as later eras would. The film depicts kids smoking because that is in fact something that some kids do and that’s all there is to it. But it’s so casual that I seriously doubt any kid watching the film would’ve decided to take up smoking JUST because of that.
I think part of the reason kids smoke is because it’s so hammered into them that they SHOULDN’T. The bigger a deal parents make out of something (smoking, nudie magazines, explicit music), the more likely kids are to pursue it. And when they smoke (either nicotine or marijuana*) and it turns out to in fact be not THAT big a deal, they sometimes start wondering, “What else did they lie to me about?” Which is where the REALLY dangerous stuff like the hard drugs and the unsafe sex and the binge drinking get the toehold.
If Stephen King is to believed, kids also sometimes get their kicks by lighting their own flatulence. I’m politely dubious as to whether or not that kind of thing shows up in many films, though. It may be just a Maine thing, anyway.
Veering off, per certain true crime books, burglars frequently defecate on the floor in the houses they rob. I doubt that’s brought up in many films either. I’m not sure even Law & Order: SVU ever mentioned that, despite the host of other, uh, biological STUFF that gets mentioned on that show.
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During the era of “Reefer Madness” (albeit not actually IN “Reefer Madness”), some anti-marijuana crusader supposedly said something to the effect that “if the Frankenstein Monster were confronted with the monster marijuana, he’d drop dead of fright.” A statement that means LESS than nothing on any number of levels.
I believe the technical term for those is fart flares. Nice and alliterative.
Admit it, the Gene Hackman gag’s going through your head right now, too.
It’s an extremely long corridor, and there’s no one behind her as she reaches the exit. If the Melting Man was that far behind, there’s no way he could suddenly catch up and exit immediately after her, as in the movie.
Clearly the director wanted to save himself the trouble and expense of getting his “monster” on set and running, but he failed to film the nurse in such a way as to completely block the view behind her.
I presume that you’re unfamiliar with the typical capabilities of horror slashers/killers: No matter how fast you run, and no matter how slowly they are walking, they will ALWAYS catch up with you.
And, again, the term is: PANIC. Her instincts told her to run, so she ran. She might not have been able to STOP running until she calmed down. Why is that in some films one character will empty all six bullets into his enemy when, clearly, one or two would have been enough? Because instinct told him to shoot and he couldn’t stop shooting until he ran out of bullets. Even then he might have kept pulling the empty gun’s trigger until the sound of click-click-click-click-click finally registered on him.
But whatever. I don’t insist on anything.
I would love to hear all the Brains’ thoughts on making the movie and the hell that it was. If the skits were a caricature of what actually happened then the real story would be just as entertaining.
The problem is that the basic premise of the film is flawed. Melting because you looked at Saturn??? I’m sorry, but I don’t think anything like that could possibly happen. It’s just not believable. I don’t know how else to express it.
Several excellent Rifflares (an extended set of good riffs one right after the other).
a – going down that line of cages on that whatever-that-was talking about his wife’s impending pregnancy.
b – going home with Karen and Richard Carpenter……with the immortal HOTCHKA! and the WHERE ARE THE CRACKERS!?!
c – Mom and her stud looking for lemons…..
I always thought there were good sets of riffs that made this one worth watching, and of course the payback-is-hell theme of the studio shots.
Some of you may already know this but a few weeks ago The Walking Dead paid tribute to “The Incredible Melting Man’ with a zombie lookalike.
http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3427154/incredible-melting-man-tribute-walking-dead-last-night/
There was also an Incredible Melting Man in “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. Must have been quite a chore animating all the dripping.