Movie Summary: Craggy jarhead and former High School football coach Doctor Robert "Bob" Hedges receives a gift in the mail from an his old friend Dr. Earling which turns out to be highly radioactive. Meanwhile, in the fetid swamps of Northern Florida, doddering Dr. Earling, his daughter Claire, and her excessively oily fiancee Victor have created a time machine which can bring knickknacks back from the future. Leathery "Bob" arrives and questions the veracity of their experiment, which causes Victor to secrete unguents at an alarming rate. Oh, "Bob" immediately hits on Clair, which for some reason causes tension between him and Victor. This goes on for a while, and somehow several of the characters strip down to swimsuits, baring their milky translucent flesh, and go romp and play in the nearby reeking backwater. The increasingly whiny and oleaginous Victor manages to use his time machine to summon a human from the year 5000, the above-named Terror, who in a gesture of good will rips the face off an unsuspecting nurse and hits on Victor, accidentally irradiating the poor dope. Saponaceous, stupefied Victor, buttery emollients now streaming freely from his every pore, agrees to go into the future with this murderous woman and sire her children. The whole mess ends quickly when the time machine goes ker-flooey and Victor and his new found love go up in a smoky grease fire. I guess they tampered in God's domain er sumphin'.
The leering caretaker Angelo rounds out the cast.

Prologue: Having recently acquired a parka, and taking his cue from winter garment catalogues, Tom Servo combs the Satellite looking for things to "comfort-rate:" a basketball, bologna, you get the picture. Turns out he's not very good at it, and he cries.

Segment One: The Observers are fed up with Pearl and Bobo, and decide to dissect them. But first, in true Star Trek fashion, they force the two to do battle, apparently to the death. Pearl is armed with a deadly double-bladed karanku, and Bobo with a sea snail.

Segment Two: The Observers send the Satellite samples of their highly evolved food, which comes in the form of pills. Of course, you don't eat one, you have to eat bowl-full after heaping bowl-full, so really what is the point, I mean if you're going to have pills and all, it's kinda stupid to... you know... have to... eat... lots. Anyway, Mike manages to make a gourmet delight by crushing them and making them into patties, in another hilariously food-based comedy gem, from us to you.

Segment Three: Crow volunteers to hop in Mike's freshly built time machine and go back to tell Mike's family that he's all right. Crow does go back in time, and spends eleven wonderful years with Mike's family before he returns, but he had such a darn good time that he plum forgot to tell them about Mike. And he hits on Mike's old girlfriend, Ginger, whom Crow calls "Ginger Sa-NAP!"

Segment Four: The Observers, intent on demonstrating their musical prowess, favor us with an old chestnut called "When I Held Your Brain In My Arms." It's a delightful little ditty, although when they sing, the Observers sound a helluva lot like Servo covering the Ink Spots.

Segment Five: To teach the rascally libidinous Crow a lesson, Mike sets his time machine to summon the radioactive and deadly Terror from the Year 5000! To be Crow's blind date, and everyone has a good laugh and learns an important lesson.

Reflections: I really like the Observers a lot. How often do you get to write for characters who talk like Jeremy Irons, sing like the Ink Spots and carry their brains, unguarded and vulnerable, in bowls? One of my heroes, Arthur C. Clarke, has often contended that a culture of sufficiently advanced technology would seem to us indistinguishable from magic. If this is true, then perhaps Galileo, upon seeing our modern age, would think of us all as wizards. The only thing Mr. Clarke doesn't take into account is how incredibly stupid any creature might be, no matter how advanced. We try in our own humble way to offer this alternate perspective. I hope some day that Mr. Clarke might watch our little puppet show, have a good laugh and perhaps, quoting Puck, cry "Shall we their fond pageant see? / Lord what fools these mortals be!"
Hell, who am I kidding? -- Kevin Murphy