I saw Animals Are Beautiful People years before Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and I also got a big kick out of it.
That said, having re-watched that documentary, there’s a lot of really obvious animal cruelty going on. It was kind of disturbing.
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I just can’t shake that Raul’s delivery and dedication to his craft really elevated what he had to work with.
With a lesser actor, or an actor trying to play Fingal differently we would have had a train wreck, but he gives it a decent polish.
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Yeah, you really get the sense that Raul Julia wasn’t merely paycheck-sleepwalking through this one.
Sure, it was a made-for-PBS movie, but homeboy swung for the fences and channeled that serious trademark charisma for his performance. You gotta respect that.
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I can’t remember what actor I saw said it recently, it might have even been someone on an MST3K livestream, but they said that when you’re an actor making a movie, you’re only seeing it from the inside and you’re not seeing the full thing, so unless it’s just Ed Wood-level terrible, you might not even know how bad it really is. I’m sure he didn’t think it was the Casablanca the move keeps aping, but he may not have realized it was that bad and so he was a professional about it.
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Can I say I legitimately love the special effects in the movie? I don’t care if they’re ridiculous. I love them.
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Or City Limits level terrible.
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I honestly think the people working on City Limits also didn’t realize how bad it was. Again, I’m sure they didn’t think it would be winning any Oscars, but until you see the final product, edited, with all the effects and music and foley and so on added, only then can you truly know what sort of movie it really is.
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Some. It did supposedly get the nickname S****y Limits behind the scenes from what I’ve heard.
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Fair enough then.
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“Appearing tonight: SLAYER!”
Great riff as Fingal walks into The Place.
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Obnoxiously inexplicable Cockney guy: “Ident!”
Mike: “That’s a shame, maybe you need a polyvinyl coating?”
Perfect.
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“Hey, I can sing too! 
And now you find yourself in '82 … oof!”
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Not as inexplicable as Tooby. What the Flav-O-Fibe was going on there?
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I WILL defend his delivery of “AND STOCK BONUSES!”
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Let’s not forget Comic Relief Lady’s delivery of “Nooooooooooo!”
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Difficult to hide that this is my personal favorite 
As a fan of MST3K, Raul Julia, science fiction, dystopian futures, PBS, and cheesy graphics from the dawn of CGI - this episode is just… chef’s kiss
And honestly, where would we be as a civilization without the phrase “scrolling up cinemas”
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"Mike, the comic relief lady is making me very tense. :-/ "
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It was way ahead of its time, for sure!
So glad that you champion this one as you do - cheers!
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Totally agree! What they were able to achieve at the time with the budget and technology available was very impressive for a PBS program.
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Can anyone definitively say this movie didn’t inspire Netflix and movie streaming?
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