McCloud?
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Oh, wonderful! It’s something else when you have an episode that stands out far and above the others in a given era.
Also, welcome to the forums!
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Pod People Song Skit.
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Trumpy IS Magic Sketch.
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Clown in the Sky.
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New Age Music.
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I think it was my first full episode. I had seen some of Pumaman before, so I consider that my first MST3K, but I came in at the flying scene, and whoever owned the laptop, I think, had to go well before the end. But my friend had Pod People, and picked it out to show me, and it was a good choice. Still a favorite.
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Trace’s voice while Trumpy is looking at the kid’s pets is an all-timer for me; little wingéd potatoes for everyone!
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Pod People, simply put, is a Magic Thing.
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“Pod People” was my “second first episode.”
By that I mean I watched the show as a kid but I was too young to retain hardly any of it. The only episode I can distinctly remember watching during my childhood in the early '90s was “Godzilla VS The Sea Monster.” The only bit of it I remember was the Godzilla Genealogy Bop, though I mis-remembered it as a Godzilla workout video.
My family lost access to Comedy Central by the mid-90s and we never had Sci-Fi, so I never even knew the show continued, or even that it continued without Joel as the host. It was only during my pre-teens/early teens in the 2000s that I rediscovered the show when I found a VHS copy of “Pod People” at my local Blockbuster. That’s the first episode I saw when I rediscovered the show, that’s why it’s my “second first episode.” It’s the first one I remember clearly, the first one I truly fell in love with, the first one I all but memorized. Riffs from that episode are part of my everyday lexicon now.
To this day it’s still my absolute favorite thing MST3K has ever done. Maybe it’s nostalgia goggles because it was my “second first” episode, but I’ve never seen another episode where I love the weirdness of the movie (Trumpy, you can do magic things!), love the riffs (little winged potatoes!), love every host segment (Clowns in the Sky!), and basically laugh nonstop throughout. I just love everything about it and if it’s not nostalgia goggles talking, I’d say that for me it’s the pinnacle of the show. It’s the one I generally compare other episodes to.
I would actually say other episodes of the show I hold in really high regard are because they remind me of the feel of “Pod People.” My favorite Netflix-era episode was “Cry Wilderness” for this reason, and watching “Making Contact” during the Time Bubble Tour was a perfect introduction to the new cast for me because it felt kind of like the vibe of “Pod People” in terms of movie quality, content, and the quality of the riffs and host segments. Likewise, “Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders” has a similar vibe for me, even though it’s arguably a rather different kind of movie. They’re all ostensibly kids’ movies but have weird sci-fi or fantasy content, strange production values, and feel like they awkwardly shoehorn in some horror elements that don’t belong.
Lastly, I unironically love the song “Sara” from “Pod People.” I mean, Ringo did some bad songs, but…
“That’ll keep 'em.”
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Joel’s Monster Chord and the Public Domain Karaoke Machine. Invention Exchange.
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Pod People was a great episode. It’s another one I got on VHS from Rhino.
The Invention Exchange and that whole weird scene with the alien Trumpy making the objects in the boys room move around - that makes this episode memorable!
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The Rhino tape is one of my favs. I have it somewhere around here.
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It makes more sense in the original French or Spanish; basically you’re giving someone the middle finger.
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I thought it was just sarcasm.
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love the subtle humor of Crow actually eating a sandwich.
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What sandwich would Crow be eating? I always wondered that.
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This is one of the episodes that made me a MSTie. I think time has distanced me from the episode a bit, but as others have said, now’s as good a time as ever to revisit it, especially as part of Synthia’s Selects!
“Idiot Control Now” came from out of nowhere (everyone’s surprised reactions were pretty much my own). The phrase “Flying Over Trout” has ruined trout for me. It’s all I think about if people mention baseball player Mike Trout. It will be an inside joke I use until the day I die. With the wind in my eyes, naturally.
The opening credits having nothing to do with the rest of the film is actually one of my favorite parts of it. Honestly sets you up for the 90ish minutes of wildness ahead.
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The first actual episode, 2nd ever experience after watching the MST3K movie. I was familiar with This Island Earth enough that I just thought of the humour of making snarky jokes. Seeing something as nutzoid as Pod People, a deliriously bad movie that I had never seen written up in the B-movie guides of the time, made things so unpredictable.
The riffs were more esoteric than the movie and yet I got so many that at times I was wheezing for breath due to laughing so hard.
Finally, as a first time experience, the sketches are interesting. I just knew Joel was the original guy. So many of the sketches in this (Idiot Control Now, the Magic thing, Clown in the Sky) Joel is off in his own DGAF vibe that was just amazing to experience for the first time.
Still absolutely top 10, maybe even top 3, and definitely agree Cry Wilderness has a similar wierdo vibe to it as a movie, but it doesn’t have those sketches .
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Speaking of hand gestures, the poster for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had to be changed for some countries because the “devil’s horns” sign means “cuckold” there.
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