Episode 1002- The
Girl in Gold Boots
Movie
Summary: Buzz, a traveling
thug, stops at a diner somewhere in the Nevada nuclear
testing grounds and meets Michele, who wants to be a dancer.
He suggests she accompany him to Los Angeles, claiming his
sister Joan is a famous hoofer. After drunk dad slaps her
around, Michele concludes that life with Buzz may be a
quarter-step up, so she agrees.
Shortly, they're joined by Critter, a fey man with a guitar.
Off they go to the jolly world of striptease and drug
dealing that is Los Angeles. Turns out that Joan is an
exotic dancer, sort of, and her boss, Leo, the Oiliest Man
in the World, deals drugs to school kids. Michele is
thrilled. She gets to be a dancer, right next to the famous
addict Joan! Maybe she'll even get to be addicted and used
and thrown away herself!
There are many many many scenes of dancing. Many, I tell
you. Very many.
Critter latches on as a janitor at the club, Buzz falls
right into drug dealing, and there's all kinds of tension
between Buzz and Critter regarding the attentions of the
zaftig Michele. Critter admits to Michele that he's planning
to become a draft dodger someday, which for some reason
makes it impossible for him to declare his love for her. She
keeps dancing and replacing the increasingly addicted Joan,
while Leo grins and drips oil.
Buzz takes part in a jailhouse robbery and kills a guy.
Critter and Michele find out. (I'm losing interest here,
just as I did while watching the movie.) Critter beats up
everybody and calls the police and joins the Marines. An
ending arrives which is presented as happy.
Prologue: Crow wears a "WWBSMD" bracelet -- 'What Would
Buffy St. Marie Do?" His answer to a hypothetical moral
dilemma: Write a folk song. An odd shift to the castle:
Pearl warns she's about to become a fully-accredited mad
scientist.
Segment One: Pearl tries her darndest to act like a mad
scientist, as a mad scientist inspector is visiting. She
shocks Bobo, gives Brain Guy a latex hump, and talks Mike
and the 'Bots into overreacting to the movie. When she
starts hitting Brain Guy, the inspector nods approvingly.
Segment Two: Crow dresses as Buzz, Servo as Michele; Crow
tries to exact revenge (for what? Who knows?) on Mike by
making Mike pour beer on his most prized possessions, as in
the movie. Those turn out to be Mike's beer stein and then
Crow himself.
Segment
Three: Crow's legs are all
that are visible as he dances provocatively, wearing gold
boots, apparently sporting a tiny bikini. Mike's outraged;
the 'Bots accuse him of being uncomfortable acknowledging
Crow as a sexual creature.
Segment Four: Mimicking the film, Mike sings a folk song in
front of a window as it rains. Crow keeps appearing, telling
him that the water has caused a fire. Mike's oblivious and
sings; Crow and Servo finally extinguish the fire.
Segment Five: Everybody on the SOL dresses like Leo; they're
embarrassed. In the castle, the inspector concludes that
Pearl's experiment is a failure -- until he sees Brain Guy
in a dress, dancing. He accredits Pearl as a mad scientist,
"conditionally."
Stinger: Joan: "Oh God, I wish I had my pretty mind
back."
Reflections:
The whole mad scientist
accreditation sub-plot has an interesting history. Our
overseers at Sci-Fi, both of whom are long gone, fooled
themselves into thinking that if we were somehow able to
build an over-arching plot into our show, people would start
watching it. We didn't like the idea, since the new shows
are usually presented several weeks apart and then never
again shown in order; and we seem to write better when we
don't have to pay attention to stuff like plot. But, we had
to do it. It seemed sort of sad, really, because by this
time we were already pretty sure we were writing the last
season.
We all loved Leo, the club owner. He joins our pantheon of
oily guys, where he's welcomed by the likes of the oily guy
in a sweater dress, from Attack
of the Eye Creatures, way back
in the Other Years.
The nightclub is called The Haunted House, and has an odd
dragon hovering over the stage, emitting smoke from its
nostrils. I assume this place actually existed, back in the
'60s. Anybody out there remember it? -- Paul Chaplin.
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