Comedy Central was my go-to on a good share of episodes. A bunch of Season 4 landed in my collection entirely because I’d videotape any MSTie listing I brushed across. Space Travelers (1969), City Limits (1984), Being from Another Planet (1982), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964). I grabbed the lot and watched them to death. “Earth girls are easy!”, “Run, Toto, Run!”, “Thank you, sir, may I have another?” Teenagers from Outer Space (1959) easily rose to the top. Scratch-N-Sniff Report Card, Resusci-Anne. “It’s a Devo Hat” or “Audrey Hepburn’s hat from Breakfast at Tiffany’s”?
I love this one. Classic low budget black and white sci-fi, which is more rare in MST3K than you might expect. The bad acting, the TORCHA!, the lobsters being waved around as monsters! Fantastic! It shares a title with a great RPG, too.
This is easily a top ten episode for me. The movie is actually watchable, yet still superbly riffable. And the Reel to Real and Duct Tape Fashion Show segments are priceless.
Edit: I know it’s the episode number but now when I look at my browser tab I think it’s a Page Not Found error
Maybe the ep I’ve seen the most. I’d stop short of calling it my absolute favorite, but it’s high on the rewatchable list. Tom’s running gag of muffled voices from the car trunks never fails to make me laugh.
I discovered this episode around the same time that I discovered The Giant Gila Monster on the Mystery Science Theater Hour, and I love them for many of the same reasons: easygoing movie, goofy 50s sci-fi hokum, hilariously useless side characters, etc.
But what sets Teenagers from Outer Space apart is its collection of bad guys. Specifically, Mister TORCHA! Thor is also hilarious, given that he’s SUPER-SERIOUS and thus cannot be taken too seriously by us or the SOL crew (Thor to country-fried driver: “TELL ME!” Servo: “WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE HOYT AXTON?!”).
Is it just me, or is this one a particularly musical episode? Feels like the riffers have a lot of moments where they sing rock lyrics as the characters. Not a complaint at all, just an observation.
Like @meshuggen8r said earlier, the running gag of Servo making panicked voices in the car trunks is an absolute hoot.
One of my all-time favorite riff targets is here with Harvey B. Dunn as the sleepy Grandpa. SO MANY FUN JOKES involving this guy, like Servo saying, “Oh, Grandpa, I bought that Nyquil for colds, not so you could make Nyquiladas!” And then there’s Grandpa telling Joe about his girlfriend Betty tearing around with outer-space Derek, causing Crow to say with a yawn: “He’s Betty’s new regular Saturday night thing!”
The movie can be genuinely suspenseful at times, especially with Thor attempting to get medical treatment for a gunshot wound (Servo as Doc: “Cigarette butt… the hell is that doing there?”) and Derek standing off against the giant shadow lobster (love Crow making a callback to Bela Lugosi’s “How fortunate, zis vill zimplify everything!” line from The Phantom Creeps upon finding a disintegration ray). But it never feels overwhelming. It’s a light movie with something always happening, which lends itself well to better riffs and more watchability.
Dig this one… and of course, it had a pitch-perfect stinger to bring things to a close.
I’m always intensely irritated when they bump of the supposedly Bad Girls after only a scene or two. See also: poor Nathalie in The Unearthly. [grumble]
Still, I laughed like hell at the discovery of Professor Simpson’s skeleton at his desk, thanks to Servo’s Cryptkeeper impression: “I’ll be taking lunch here, HEE HEE HEE HEE”
I’ve tried getting into this one but it just doesn’t move me. All episodes have their moments, and this one has a few. But, it’s not a favorite of mine. I do get a kick out of Harvey B. Dunn though. He leaves a lasting impression in all three episodes he’s in. Especially Bride of the Monster!
No connection to the tongue in cheek role-playing game published by R. Talsorium Games, alas. Instead, it’s another Teen Angst film where the alleged teens are at least in their mid-twenties. What’s more, it follows the example of Teenage Cave Man where it possesses all the tiresome whining common to movies in this genre without any campiness to make it somewhat palatable. Such a goofy title deserves a wackier premise than what we get here.
The plot involves aliens arriving to turn Earth into a ranch for giant lobsters, which incidentally is realized with the shadow of a puppet. One of them questions the morality of doing this to a planet with sentient life and is told to keep it to himself. He eventually goes AWOL and is chased by a trigger-happy goon who uses his skeletonizing death ray on practically everyone he meets. You may ask yourself how Earth could stand a chance against such weaponry. The answer is that it doesn’t and must be saved by a deus ex machina that relies on the crew of invading fleet being immensely gullible.
