I always got the feeling the two leads were horribly miscast in eachothers roles, Beau is too softspoken to be the leader of a mistfit gang, and Tommy is just downright ouffputting and bland to the point of creepiness (though that might just be through a retrospective lens!)
Watching a movie like this long after the 60’s have gone by sort makes you have to remind yourself: “Oh right, 1965, the whole rock 'n roll, girls danicing, and kids attempting to have some form of fun the film is sold on was supposed to be BAD or taboo. While the bland creepy “slow ballad” singing cop-friendly protagonist is supposed to be… rooted for? Despite barely appearing in most of the movie since the “giants” are the only ones given some kind of personalities, or are interesting.”
On the whole though, very goofy movie. It’s pacing is wonky, but if you enjoy 1960’s jiggly dancing, it’s bareable.
I’m a diehard Monkess & Zappa fan, so even if it’s not one I revist often, I have a soft spot for the episode. Joy Harmon & Toni Basil appear in some quality later Monkees stuff (The Monkees On The Wheel & the Daddy’s Song dance sequence in HEAD, respectively.) And the reveal of the tribute to FZ at the very end never fails to make me sentimental.
Bert I. Gordon is back with his size alteration tomfoolery, this time in a very loose adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel The Food of the Gods. Not that I’m one to get all huffy about literary sacrilege in this instance, since I don’t care for anything Wells wrote. I must say that it did my heart good to see him portrayed as a blithering moron in the Doctor Who serial “Timelash”.
The setting is now contemporary and has been reinterpreted as a teen film. One of the more heavily promoted sequences was the sudden growth of the rebellious teens, causing them to burst out of their clothes. However, this leads to a major inconsistency that happens when they get treated with the gas that shrinks them back to normal. The theater curtains they used as improvised garb shrink along with them. Something similar occurred in The Wild, Wild West episode “The Night of the Raven”. The effects are accomplished in the manner we’ve come to expect from Bert I. Gordon. As well as the usual rear projection and split screen work, there’s also a bit of forced perspective and some horribly fake looking giant body parts.
Well, this one is certainly a lot of fun! Bert I gives us this (semi) comedy. Beau Bridges, Tommy Kirk, Ron Howard, and a young Toni Basil give this movie star power. And it’s not that bad, which makes it a very watchable episode. It’s easy to get caught up in the movie, and the riffing just goes along for the ride!
I heard there was a scene planned but ultimately cut where one of the giant teens kills someone by stepping on them. I have no clue whether that scene was even filmed.
I’m glad it was left out - it would have made the film much darker.
Tommy Kirk got his start with Disney. His IMDB biography says he
became synonymous with everything clean and fun that Disney Entertainment prescribed to [sic] in the late 1950s and very early 1960s
Tommy had started out in TV in 1955, when he was only fourteen years old. He was also in the big cinematic hits The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber, plus other Disney movies. So by the time VotG and Catalina Caper were made, he was a seasoned acting veteran with proven box-office draw. But the transition from Disney to an acting career as an adult was a challenging one, just as it would be decades later for, say, Britney Spears.
Interpretation is slippery. One could read more into a line than is actually there. What I adore about the arts is deciphering nuance, contradiction, and variety in pieces of work though not at the expense of what’s actually there. It’s a fine line. One fandom and giddish excitement may overlook in the heat of the moment over “a new discovery”.
As an MST episode this is fine. Good riffs. The only thing that really detracts from it is the terribleness of the “Legacy of Blood” style final joke that smears a big stinky double deuce on you as the movie ends.
But as a fan of H.G. Wells I vehemently protest his name being slapped on this pile of celluloid dreck as much as I protest “Lord of the Rings” being slapped on Amazon’s so-called fantasy product. H.G. Wells wrote good stuff which was far ahead of its time. But it seems like every time some director and script writer gets ahold of his work they mangle it beyond recognition into something so awful that it can’t be said to have anything to do with what its references. And so it is with this movie. It has nothing to do with H.G. Wells work any more than taking two slabs of rubber, slapping a brick between them and calling it a “ham sandwich”.
I like this episode. Certainly not in my top ten, maybe not even in my top 25. But I like this episode. That said, it inspired a comment I once made elsewhere on the forums: repeating the same thing over and over isn’t inspired riffing, and may not even be riffing at all. It comes off as just saying something to fill time. Once we get to the “Jim Begg” section, the episode becomes a chore.
I realize I may only be speaking for myself, and that’s fine. Differing opinions is part of the fun of MST3K. But I firmly believe that is one of their worst stretches of “riffing”.
This is a fun episode, with a watchable movie getting the riff treatment. With Ron Howard as the boy genius, and Tommy Kirk starring, Burt I. was definitely going for a Disney movie feel here. He honestly does not do a bad job with it, even with the bad giant body part props. Still, there is plenty of good riff fodder here. It was definitely one of the first ones I watched in this month’s (Mega) Synthia Selects.
The host segments are great. It’s always a good time when Torgo shows up in Deep 13, and we get a good dose of him in this episode. Frank hitting rock bottom and bouncing back to defeat Torgo gives Frank plenty of room to shine as well. It is all topped off with “The Greatest Frank Of All”, and the tribute to another great Frank in the stinger.
It may not be a top 20 episode, but it is one of those comfort episode for me. I can sit down and watch it about any time, and it will put a smile on my face.
You don’t like any running gags, so like “doodads” in The Mask left you cold?
Not criticizing, just curious. For me it depends on what they are running with, some work (“Rocky” - “Again!” in Star Force), others don’t (yeah, the Jim Begg stuff).
I’ll echo what some have said, not a top 25er for me, but a top 50? For sure.
I’ve said this elsewhere, but I like black comedy, I like humor that pushes buttons (Kids in the Hall) and the “Back and the to the left” line when Genius gets a face full of red was about as dark you get on an MST episode.
Love the callback to another Bert I movie they riffed on (“What sin, could a duck commit in a single lifetime?”)
Always enjoy this one and laugh a plenty whenever I give it a go.
