901. The Projected Man (1966)

Essentially a mishmash of 4D Man and The Fly, this movie recalls the old chestnut about how feuds between academics are so vicious because so little is at stake. Though that sort of thing is more popularly associated with people who work in the humanities, it seems reasonable that those in the sciences are just as inclined to such pettiness.

And herein lies the primary issue with the film beyond its highly derivative plot. A significant portion of the action focuses on maintaining access to grants. While such things are important in scientific research, they also make for dull viewing. A similar problem is how, as vengeful mad scientists go, Dr. Steiner is perhaps a bit too low key. Mad science tends to work best when it’s hammy and over the top.

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“Imagine sending a watch three feet across the room.”

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“Duran Duran is gonna pop in right?”

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“I assume Dean Jones will be in this eventually?”

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“Bottom… Falling out of plot. Movie… Sucks.”

Let us not forget Tom’s love for Sheila in her underpants!

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“So no more Sheila in her underwear huh?”

“No, I’m afraid not Tom.”

“Oh yeah there’s gonna be because I’m gonna SIT HERE AND I AIN’T GONNA BUDGE TILL I SEE SHEILA IN HER UNDERWEAR AGAIN. AND NOT YOU OR THE POLICE OR THE NATIONAL GUARD CAN DRAG ME OUT OF HERE. NO NO NO.”

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Servo is an underpants aficionado.

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A Tom Servo quirk. He falls hard for the occasional lady in an experiment or just the underwear. Maybe both. Creepy Girl is the greatest example. There are others. @optiMSTie Who else am I missing?

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I remember him getting into a fight with Crow over their respective crushes all the way back in Moon Zero Two, to the point of Joel getting them to take their beef to zero-G.

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This episode has an unfortunate little bit of bad history.

When this one debuted, there was a problem with the sound mixing. As a result, there was like this added reverb to what the riffers were saying. The comments sounded terrible.

Because this was the Season 9 premiere, I got nervous over this. I was thinking, “Oh, no. The show CANNOT sound like this going forward, right? It can’t be like this all the time, right?”

Thankfully, it was corrected for the next episode (as well as the next rerun of The Projected Man somewhere down the road.

It’s on YouTube under the title " Mystery Science Theater 3000 - 901 - The Projected Man (original broadcast audio) ". And it’s… rough.

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I will never not refer to him as “Peach Haliday” as a result of that credits riff.

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”Just… just stop. Not funny.”

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The 'Bots getting on Mike’s case about enthusiastically running with that shtick is LIFE-SUSTAINING.

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As for this one, I don’t have this one in my rotation too very often.

Like I’ve said before, there’s only one episode that I actively DON’T like, and that’s The Castle of Fu Manchu. This one, however, has its moments, some stuff that registers with me, like all the skewering of the dumb science (Crow: “Imagine sending your watch three feet across the room!”), the British setting (Mike using a British accent: “Don’t make me go to the larder and unseal a tin of whoopass”), the Harvey Dent-esque makeover that Dr. Steiner goes through, and so on.

But to be honest, as much as I absolutely love a recurring gag run into the ground and run into the ground HARD, the “Lembach is staying” material never really landed with me, and they kept going back to that well a mite too much for my tastes. The movie’s lower energy reserve and low-key nature doesn’t do the gang any favors, either. It kinda feels like the movie flummoxes them at points, I dunno.

The thing about MST3K is that episodes you haven’t seen for awhile tend to surprise you when you go back and revisit them after some time. And you know what? I’m due to be surprised by this one sometime soon.

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Totally agree with you about Fu Manchu. To be honest, I have trouble getting through that one. Just…so…bad.

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I don’t like Fu Manchu, but I will say that I appreciate the host segments where the Mads keep reveling in the pain that the movie has inflicted.

Likewise, this episode also has nifty fun host segments (even as its theater segments feel more involved than the ones for Fu Manchu). I —ADORE— the sketch where Crow and Servo are “projecting” Mike’s most treasured possessions, with Mike eventually turning the tables on Servo.

Another good one is Mike falling victim to Crow’s Touch of Death™, but the really cool extension of the fun is in continuing that gag in the theater, and then having that carry over into the theater.

The “Lembach is staying” thing, as it was in the theater, seemed like they were trying to glom onto something, anything from the movie, but that didn’t really work for me so much here.

But the REALLY BIG story here? The introduction of Castle Forrester! I’m always a sucker for villainous headquarters, and Castle Forrester really brought something of the feel and flavor of a centralized location like Deep 13 for all the mad science of the show.

There’s a tradeoff with that, of course. Having a set-in-stone location for the baddies is fantastic, but that also means that we lose the “endless chase” of the theme song. And I get the logistics of that, really. It had to have been something tricky to have cobbled multiple sets together for Season 8 with Deep Ape, Observer World, Camping Planet, Roman Times, and the one-off incidental stuff like the Public Pearl set and the cosmic courtroom in Agent for H.A.R.M. Even with that tradeoff, I dug Castle Forrester. A pity that the show couldn’t stick around too long on Sci-Fi Channel to work a variety of ideas and concepts in/with Castle Forrester.

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I too wish we could have seen more of Castle Forrester. I really believe the show was hitting stride in season ten. A season eleven sci-fi era would have been great!

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Especially with how the show has this knack for exponentially developing and growing.

What we see in this episode with the introduction of Castle Forrester feels like delivering on the promise and setup of what was an already incredible Season 8.

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I so agree. Season eight, in my opinion, was the high point of the series. Every episode was a gem!

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