1003. Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996)

I love what Mike Nelson says about this episode. If I remember correctly it was " this is supposed to be a children’s movie, but there’s like Satan all over it"! We’ve had stretched together tv episodes (Riding with Death, Stranded in Space to name a couple of examples), but two totally separate movies? It’s different, but I like it. Especially the “ahem” second part of the movie. Great material here; from the smug reporter frying his cat, rock and roll martian kid, the crazy medium, and the really creepy monkey with cymbals, this is definitely an underrated episode.

Fact. This was the last first time episode shown on Sci-Fi as there were issues with the rights to the movie.

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Right? They could’ve at least finessed it and called him Pitch. :mexico: :dolls:

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Satan’s Shop of Mystical Wonders?

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Home of The Satanic Super-Sale!! (Like in the sketch from Devil Doll.)

What’s funny is that I really envied my friends with collections of fancy dolls when I was a kid. But in adulthood, I never had the urge to finally collect them. I’d already found so many other things to obsess about and overspend on. I do have several doll books, though.

*I sure did love paper dolls in childhood, though and at one time I probably had enough around to fill at least one file drawer. I might still have one or two stashed somewhere at home.

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Dolls are like another form of the Uncanny Valley. You know they’re not real and yet the attempt is unnerving to the right people.

I can be very skittish about even mild horror. The pet deaths in this episode are something I have to brace myself for, for instance. Despite being clearly fake. But I’m apparently missing the gene which finds dolls terrifying. Maybe once they start to achieve mannequin-scale? But otherwise, not very much.

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Merlin ranks alongside Pod People as a bizarre example of where a film obviously originally intended to be in one genre was awkwardly forcibly inserted into another genre.

The results did make for great experiments though!

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I think Mike turning into a giant baby might be something of an underrated segment. Even if it’s sort of a follow-up to one of the Mads’ inventions from earlier days. And I guess it forms a bookend of sorts with the Space Baby Diapering sketch that was still in the wings.

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