You’re some guy McKonen.
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Isn’t it weird that guy played almost the exact same role in 12 to the Moon? And he hardly did any other movies.
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He found his niche.
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There was also a character named Makonnen in 12 to the Moon. They recycled the name in a different character.
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Well, I love this one! Have I mentioned that dopey rocket ship movies are my favorite Mst3k genre? And this one is definitely dopey. The sets, acting, alien are all inept, but the plot is decent and the ending is bittersweet, Chapman having to choose his true love vs going home. The riffing is top notch in this one especially when Chapman is shrunk inside his suit. And, of course, there’s the whole “Good and the Beautiful” speech which gives them plenty more to riff about.
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Gotta go with that hot dog loving fellow from my favorite Mst3k episode!
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All the kitties need cuddles!
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Ew, the old guy calls it his “combat rod”.
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“Hey, it’s an adult rocket ship.”
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“Drink lots of beer.”
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“Someone on the MIR flushed.”
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Not every episode can be Top 10, but The Phantom Planet is still a lot of fun. The movie is pretty bad, but as another poster noted, they seem to have accidentally gotten some of the physics of space travel right. They dispense with that quickly enough, and get to the inane bits like people shrinking in their space suits, and killer gravity plates scattered about in the throne room. Of course, with the apparent frequency of duels to the death on the Phantom Planet, it was probably a wise design choice. It also leads to the ‘combat rod’ riff, which cracks me up every time.
What really makes this episode stand out for me more than the average episode, however, is the cheesy speech from Lt. Makonnen (MacKonen? McConan? Mack Onnen?). That is some speech, from some guy, just ask his Captain. It also takes the cake as my favorite gazing into the camera cheesy soliloquy of the series. Heck, I can recite it by memory, and have done so in at least one inappropriate situation that earned me an elbow in the ribs from my wife (fortunately she was the only person at the Fellowship Baptist Church that day who got the reference). It’s probably for the best that I am an atheist and am not found in churches very often.
I did find the host segments were a bit hit and miss. The Rooney-off is a decent gag, but Pearl’s world domination kit with missing detonator fell a bit flat. Bobo the ghost never really did anything for me either, and went on far too long. On the other hand I get a kick out of Crow forgetting about Mike as he floats away from the SoL like McKonen. Oddly enough, the good and beautiful food segment did not work for me either, despite my fascination with Mack Onen’s speech.
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@optiMSTie I’m not as familiar with this. It truly caught my attention. Is this as good as it seems?
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I dig on this one quite a bit, yeah!
It’s pretty solid stuff. I’d put it in my top 100, definitely. It’s a case of tempering expectations. It doesn’t quite reach the pantheon status of other S9 titans like The Pumaman, Werewolf, and The Final Sacrifice, but it’s a fine episode in its own right.
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What I especially like about The Phantom Planet is that it serves a terrific purpose as a relaxation episode. You can fire this up like The Unearthly, Space Travelers, and The Amazing Transparent Man and just vibe to it.
But what sets The Phantom Planet apart from those is that it feels like the riffing feels more uniformly strong.
It’s 50s sci-fi schlock in the same vein as the Rocky Jones features, in that you get the feeling like you’re in danger of seeing the strings any second, and the cheapness of the overall production design gives the gang so much to fire away on, whether it’s comparing the asteroids to fried chicken or likening the combat rod to something taken “from Al Pacino’s football field.”
Plus, you have all the fun about our hero Frank (that flashback sequence where the gang does embarrassing echoing memories from Frank’s past is GOLD), the love quadrangle involving Frank and his asteroid-dwelling foil and the two women (one of whom is Coleen BY GOD Gray from The Leech Woman !), the dumb science that pertaining to Frank shrinking down (Crow: “So, people are just balloons?”) and the asteroid dwellers surviving, the dog-like Solarites (“… I really need to go walkies…”), and our “Kool Moe Grandpa” leader Sessom. Heck, we even have Richard Kiel as one of the Solarites! Granted, he never takes off the alien creature headpiece, but it’s still awesome that he’s involved.
Again, these episodes really take off when we get to the fireworks factory, and we get that in two sequences: the shrinking-down of Frank and the space battle between Sessom’s asteroid and the Solarites.
It’s not the best of the best of the best, but it’s still pretty damn good, especially for late evening viewing or winding down after coming home from a long day.
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