So let’s share our favorite “psychic lawn darts.”
Mine came with episode 201; “ROCKET SHIP XM” when Tom said: “Dreezle drazzle drozzle drome, time for zis one to come home” (from the ancient and [mostly] forgotten “Tooter the Turtle” cartoons).
I hear that riff and suddenly I’m seven years old, it’s Saturday morning, and I can taste the soggy Froot Loops.
What’s yours?
(Keep sending those discussion thread ideas to msampo at a-o-l dot com!)
(Reminder: Get out that copy of “Death Rat” and re-read it before the end of the month!)
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
There’s so many, but the one that cracks me up is in Warrior of the Lost World in the tune of Ride of the Valkyries “Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit”.
Not really obscure I know, but the Looney Toons cartoon is one of my favorite cartoons ever and holds a lot of good memories for me.
Also enjoy the “Stiv Bator, Richard Hell?!?!” from the same movie. Was really starting to get into punk when I first saw this episode.
“We’re starting a radio station and we’re naming it FRANK!” They were ridiculing the Minneapolis country station at the time called BOB FM. Extremely obscure.
#150: Great little weird Saturday morning show in the early 70’s, always looked forward to! Good call!
As a one time film student, I get absorbed any time there is a production equipment reference. ie, baby-junior lights used on models for godzilla films, etc. I guess this is familiar territory for Mr. Murphy, since he was key grip for Blood Hook.
I didn’t think I had one until just now…
In 607 Bloodlust: Mike has the Man Hunter Guy say something along the lines of “I had a great job as an actuary downtown..”.
As a man with a great job as an actuary downtown, this rif always reaches out and smacks me in the face.
In various shows, any underwater scene, would bring….”by now my lungs were aching for air”……classic! :)
And my wife came down the stairs…her face was SPLIT! *rizzlerazzle*
–“Adlai Stevenson buys a car,” from Hired! (part two), the short in front of Manos. He really does look like Adlai Stevenson, and I’m a huge history nerd.
–the “Hearts of Space” references in Pod People
–the kola nut/un-kola nut bits throughout numerous episodes
–“In the Heat of the Night” riff from The Magic Sword (“What do they call you down in wardrobe?” “They call me Esther Krebbs!”)
–“They were in different lines at Ellis Island.” from Lost Continent
–Can’t remember the episode (Fire Maidens, maybe), but Tom starts singing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar
You put the lime in the cocoanut and drink it all uuuup….
There’s one in every episode, I’ll bet. But I haven’t been watching lately. Finally watched “The Day the Earth Froze” and the riff about grandma buying a little pool table… I know exactly what that’s about. Mine also bought us a Cootie game. These stayed at her house.
The craziest one for me came from Pod People in a reference to The Brady Bunch. I’ve barely seen five episodes of The Brady Bunch in my life, and I remember exactly one thing total from them, which, if you’d asked me to phrase it, would have come out, “I vaguely recall one episode where some kids get lost somewhere and find some Buddha thing.” So then this exchange between Tom and Joel in the episode made me go bug-eyed: “This is more intense than when Bobby Brady got last in the Grand Canyon. / Wasn’t that in Hawaii? / No, that was where Peter found that Buddha thing.”
In Parts: the Clonus Horror, they reference Koyaanisqatsi. Twice, I believe.
I watched it one week after I’d had to watch that movie for a class.
Absolutely surreal moment.
In “Hercules Unchained”, I forget what prompted it but Joel says “…and a hell of an engineer!” which is a reference to my alma mater’s fight song:
I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech
And a hell of an engineer!
In “Century 21 Calling” there’s a reference to “… side 5 of ‘Sandinista!'” (the triple album by The Clash)… when the background music really does sound a LOT like the start of the Clash song “Version City”, a very obscure tune from that LP!
(Note: it’s actually the first track on side SIX, but hey… I appreciate the effort.)
Just one example, because I happened to rewatch the episode today:
In ‘Women of the Prehistoric Planet,’ the Mads sing about “Clay and Lar’s Flesh Barn. Fifteen locations to serve you – now in Altoona!” To be clear, that would almost certainly be Altoona, WI – not Altoona, PA.
There aren’t that many people from Altoona, and at the time the episode was broadcast no one in Altoona WI could get MST3K – because The Comedy Channel wasn’t carried in the Eau Claire/Altoona metropolitan area. Given the rarity of 1) people who formerly lived in Eau Claire or Altoona, 2) people who knew about MST3K during season one, and 3) people who also actually lived in one of the few cities that carried The Comedy Channel in 1990, I figured that I was perhaps the only person watching who appreciated that particular reference.