618. High School Big Shot (1959)

This short is amazing. Always has been. It helps, uh… leaven the mood before having to wade into the dreariness of the movie.

None of the characters ever rise above (ha! I did it again) the level of cardboard cutouts, but the actors do their best.

As with Girl In Lovers Lane, the real moral seems to be that towns should have more than two women living in them.

Gotta’ love how they ask, “Where’s the bread display?” during the scene in the liquor store.

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Who knew that the true battle between good and evil was in bread distribution?

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They never did say where you should put the Angel’s and Devil’s food cakes…

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First things first: that short is so absolutely guano insane, and I -heart- the hell out of it. The riffing is firing away on all cylinders, and it’s a joy to watch.

Mike’s response to rhyming dialogue with “Make sure you stock your truck up, so that you don’t… oh, you know” is an all-timer.

“But why does the strip club need bread?” is a perfect riff, too.

I mean… the strip is so inexplicable and bizarre OVER BREAD DELIVERY that you can’t help but -want- to see the gang tear into this for all its worth. Bonus points for the devil character inspiring a lot of classic riffs from Crow like “Damn you all to my place!” and “You’d think Hell would just provide those” in response to the devil asking for asbestos pitchfork tips in the contest at hand.

Classic short, undisputed.

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As for the movie, I’ll say this: it’s interesting how one’s reception of MST3K episodes can flow all over the place.

This one hasn’t been a constant rotation favorite because it feels so oppressively, absurdly dark, and not in a silly Union Pacific short kinda dark. The dad’s fate is particularly awful for an MST3K episode. It was difficult for me to get into this episode, to be honest.

BUT.

Some episodes you may not care for in some viewings can improve on later viewings. I felt this when I revisited Invasion U.S.A. for the Vault Picks. It didn’t really appeal to me before, but under the right circumstances? It can take off much better than you might be led to believe.

That happened with me and High School Big Shot. While it’s still not a top-tier installment in my book, I found a lot to enjoy when I saw it under a different set of circumstances.

And the darkness can lend itself well to some fun riffs. I’m a particular fan of Servo’s “I never walked to a drive-in before!” Let’s be honest, “How’s the German Expressionist date going?” is a blazingly brilliant god-tier riff.

Also amazing:

Marv: “Betty… I’ve got almost a dollar left. Would you like to have a Coke?”
[a little later]
Mike: “Tonight only, Coke’s a $1.10!”

Side note about the movie itself: Marv is ASTOUNDINGLY DUMB for:

  1. not giving Betty a basic briefing on what the paper was about

  2. failing to write that paper in Betty’s voice, giving it the kind of characteristics, flaws, and qualities that would typically be found in Betty’s writing

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We shouldn’t forget that Marv may be kinda stupid, OptiMSTie.

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Heh! Oh, no doubt, no doubt.

Which raises an interesting question in and of itself: who possesses a greater level of stupidity, Marv or Jimmy from I Accuse My Parents?

Yes, things ended much better for Jimmy, but that doesn’t necessarily preclude him being stupider than Marv.

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This moment was so terrific that it merits its own isolated post.

Mike: “Oh, I hate it when his face lights up!”

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Oh, I think Jimmy’s off in his own world of stupidity. Buuuut, it is his birthday, so we’ll let that go.

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IT’S MARV VERSUS JIMMY IN A NO-GRAMMAR-BARRED ESSAY CONTEST

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More naïve than stupid. Because up until the cheating incident he was clearly considered a top student.

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So, the theme of both is, Love makes a smart person stupid.

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That has definitely happened with me a time or two. Several of those come from the first season. Having not caught on to the show until season 2, those season 1 episode seamed very rough, and I did not have a good appreciation for Josh’s role in the series. Over the years, some of those episodes have really grown on me.

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The big difference here is that, ultimately, Marv was not redeemed by an impossibly angelic figure with a dumb self-made paper hat.

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Ah, if only Marv had been offered a char broiled hamburger sammich with French fried potato garnish…

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See also: The cheating short.

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The copy on the Rhino tape boxes kinda went along these lines, where the box for The Crawling Hand said something to the effect of: “This episode is so early, TV’s Frank isn’t even here.”

Which sucks, because that’s something of a disservice to Josh’s work. But yeah, those Season 1 episodes WAY improved with rewatchings.

Season 6 episodes can be like that, with a few of them being so oppressively dark for some viewings and ridiculously euphoric for other viewings.

I was thinking that that wouldn’t be the case for High School Big Shot, but my, it has MUCH improved for me.

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If we’re talking crossovers, I’m surprised that the Pizza Dominatrix from The Selling Wizard doesn’t fit somewhere onto the chessboard of the celestial store display conflict between the angel and the devil from the short.

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Come to think of it, Jimmy was pretty stupid before he met the girl. Like when he let his mother meet the other ladies and didn’t expect her to completely embarrass herself and him. Jimmy was just stupid. He must have cheated to win the essay contest or something.

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That seems to be alluded to with all the lies and deceit that Jimmy wields so handily over the whole episode. If he’s that good at applied deception, it stands to reason that he was up to something shady.

Except for the whole “letting worlds collide” thing, Jimmy was adept at that kind of artifice.

On the other hand, while Marv may be proficient at writing, his knack for strategy and cunning is… decidedly lacking.

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