@Goldash Your read once you re-watched it?
1 Like
Hamill’s Jim Dale homage is decent, but you’d think a guy so hailed for his voice-acting would’ve tried a bit harder to stay on the beat. (Yeah, queen of the nit-pickers. That’s me.)
3 Likes
I’m a premium nitpicker too. It’s why I’ve never been too popular. Where I give in on caring past the acknowledgment is when I feel it’s important at least to me to say so. Hamill declared himself a fan of MST as the 2015 Kickstarter blasted into high gear and in the afterglow of funding 14 new episodes the logistics of scheduling and planning of every celebrity appearance led to a perfunctory vibe to virtually each cameo. Harris and Hamill were the best. The one or two take limit on shooting MST Host Segments perhaps hampered Hamill who I figure is a perfectionist and warms up to something the more takes he has. That’s just a guess.
3 Likes
To me Hamill’s sequence is one of the peaks of Season 11. I REALLY loved that segment and wish his character might return one day.
7 Likes
Some of the guest shots did feel a little “that’ll do” and stilted, so I think you’re right about limited takes. I think Hamill also likes playing off other actors, and I imagine it was just him and the film crew.
2 Likes
Oh, I still found it enjoyable. I remember one wag on tumblr who had this gif with the inevitable caption of, “Yay! The REAL Star Wars is back!” or something similar.
3 Likes
Were MST ever to riff Corvette Summer (1978), having Mark revisit as an older incarnation of that part would be a hoot!
5 Likes
He’d probably just offer to donate a Mil. to Joel’s favorite charity in return for the show agreeing to pretend that it never existed. 
I tried to watch this once. The principle expounded upon at the conclusion of Wild Rebels is most applicable. “My brain feels clean as a whistle!”
3 Likes
I’ll be honest, I fell asleep! I think the day was just so much that I kinda collapsed and didn’t know where I was until my alarm sounded, lol.
Ironically enough, I woke up during the “P.T. Mindslap” segment! Aaaand then fell back asleep again afterward oops.
But that won’t stop me from rewatching tonight. I’ll be sure to post my (updated) thoughts here when I’m done!
2 Likes
Carnival Magic is a strong episode, definitely one of the better entries in season 11.
I wonder what became of Carnival Magic 2. Was any footage of the film ever made? (If so, I smell a “lost media” YouTube video!)
5 Likes
It would appear not. The IMDB Trivia section says that sequel plans were scrapped due to Carnival Magic’s poor performance at the box office.
5 Likes
Now why does that not surprise me?
4 Likes
Heh, shocker of the century, no?
2 Likes
Not enough magic?
1 Like
Some sprinkles for your icing:
Al Adamson also directed East Meets Watts, (aka Dynamite Brothers aka Stud Brown) which was riffed by Cinematic Titanic.
Stewart has a fleeting resemblance to the creepy butler from another CT target: Legacy Of Blood. Every time I see his face I flash back to that movie and it takes me a minute or two to close the door on that astoundingly grubby, mange-bearing turkey again. 
5 Likes
All right! Just finished the full episode. Liked it a lot more the fourth-ish(?) time around…I honestly feel like it’s one of the better episodes of Season 11? That could change, of course, but there’s a lot that stood out to me this time around.
The film is just as messy as I remembered, but there’s definitely an endearing quality there, as @MattBlack pointed out.
Still a ton of riffs I forgot or didn’t catch, like one of the tigers being named Baron (and Servo responds!)
“That carny won The Masters between scenes” was a great call. As was the riff at the end, about Alex leaving the circus to live a happy and productive life…only to cut back to the sign outside the tent as the riffers do an American Graffiti recap of their lives after the movie 
There were so many other riffs I loved — I really need to take notes for the Season 11 era, there’s just so many riffs that it’s tough to recall without writing some of them down. I’ll post them into the “without context” thread once I find them.
And the mad scientist mentioning “vivisection” still totally threw me off. I remember it from my first watch but it still messes me up every time. I have to audibly respond to my TV like someone watching football.
Underrated part of the episode, Jonah’s extended jazz hands at the end of “The Great Space Circus Show”. I’ll agree with everyone and say Mark Hamill was great here. They kinda teased the possibility of bringing him back, so I hope they will. One day. 
Great episode, great riffs and a great thread!
7 Likes
I’d like to think that this film and Mac & Me as the only two films of the Netflix era that advertised a sequel that was never made.
Although, I do hold out hope that a treatment for a Mac & Me II will see the light of day when the time is right.
6 Likes
I can’t remember where I heard this, I think it was Joel, and I think it was in one of the livestreams…
But apparently the story is that Carnival Magic was finished – shot, edited, ready to go – and then they had the thought that something was missing and decided, well, we need to have Alex talk. And they dubbed his voice in after the fact.
And the more I let that roll around in my head, the more the implications boggle my mind.
They let Markov stay on with the carnival… because Alex did trained monkey tricks.
Alex enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame and took the carnival with it… by doing trained monkey tricks.
Dr. Vivisection came to the conclusion that Alex represented a missing link in primate evolution… over some trained monkey tricks.
Like… watch it again and keep that in mind, it’s amazing.
8 Likes
As Julie Schwartz said, “Monkeys sell comics!”
2 Likes
For me, these conventional dramas are such a trial to sit through. While technically the presence of a talking ape would be stretching the definition of conventional, they don’t really do anything interesting with Alex. All we get in that regard is a pale imitation of similar antics from previous ape movies, and those productions weren’t exactly anything to write home about. At the end of the day, it’s just about a bunch of carnies resolving their personal hang-ups. There’s also an unscrupulous researcher who appears to regard Harry Harlow as a role model and has terrible ADR.
The key problem is lead character Markov. The movie tries to convince the audience that he wise and contemplative. Instead, he comes across as smug and pompous in a manner similar to Peter Lawford’s character in Angels Revenge.
6 Likes