In terms of pure entertainment value, which includes how so bad they’re good they are:
1 - Mac & Me
2 - Pod People
3 - Munchie
4 - Hobgoblins
In terms of episodes-
1 - Pod People
2 - Hobgoblins
3 - Mac & Me
4 - Munchie
But I love all four so it’s almost a tie.
I enjoyed this episode, quite a lot, but our MST3K cast’s hyping the horribleness of Munchie puzzles me, too. It kind of reminds me of when the cast admitted they were wrong in thinking something other than Cry Wilderness would be the fan favorite of season 11.
I don’t doubt it was a gruelling episode to write. They themselves have said that comedies present a very difficult task, as do tightly-edited films (post-1970s?) that leave little time to get the riffs in.
But Munchie wasn’t a “horrible” film, just a fairly standard, silly, film playing to the perspectives of young children. Nor does it seem to be the series’s, or even this season’s, best and/or most painful experiment. Back when I first binged all the season’s movie teaser trailers on the Gizmoplex, Munchie barely registered. I thought there were many better riffable films, some we have already seen (and I enjoyed more than Munchie), and likely many yet to come.
I think the problem is that adults are not the audience for this movie, children are. A movie meant to appeal to children is often not going to appeal to adults. But some kid renting this from Blockbuster in the 90s would probably be fine with it.
all the hallmarks of a kids film: wishing for death, being eyed by the guy necking your mom, and sniffing you pinkie
i lean towards it being made for a teen to young adult/parent audience that might have to take the family to the cinema. so, yes, it is a failed family film as previously stated by many
I’m not saying it’s a good movie, I’m saying kids would be fine with it. I certainly enjoyed much worse things when I was 10 in the 80s, like every single Saturday morning cartoon.
1 - Munchie
2 - Mac & Me
3 - Pod People
4 - Hobgoblins
Please note that I’m by no means declaring Munchie a good film. But let’s see:
No. 4 because almost non-stop misogyny pretending to be humor.
No. 3 because of a Platinum-level unlikable lead who gets more hateful on every re-watch, not to mention the extremely clumsy grafting together of two separate movie genres. Not to mention that the “cute” kid is creepy as blazes with the very obvious dubbing and being almost as stiff as Trumpy himself.
No. 2 because eff you McD’s for your horrid food and terrible business practices and for throwing away truckloads of perfectly good money on this condescending gibberish, and…
No. 1 for… being crap but managing to avoid all that other stuff and being mostly just bland, cheap, and phoned in.
OMG, you just made perfection better!
Often in Q&As the OG cast often mentions how hard it is to predict which episodes will be fan favorites (or even which riffs). This might be a great example!
After processing it, I think Munchie is a solid episode. Probably the best episode of this season.
I think a big part of the reason why this one was so hard on the writers–like others over the previous 12 seasons that didn’t seem as bad as the writers made them out to be–is the multiple rewatchings in a short time frame, including when they watch it a few seconds at a time. I think it was Frank years ago (paraphrasing) who said the way they have to watch these to write for them would make you hate your favorite movie.
I’d imagine they hated it more bc it was virtually impossible to make fun of something that was already making fun of itself, and not so much that it’s the worst movie ever made. I thought Mac and Me was just as bad, if not more so. They’ve long said they don’t riff comedies because it’s tough to riff something that doesn’t seek to be earnest and this may be a case of their own suffering through the thing they said they’d never do. shrug
Also, to me, this is the weakest of the 4 episodes so far this season. Might change after a few rewatches but it’s firmly in 4th place for me, personally.
Munchie is Mac and Me without the charm.
Wow, Dana Carvey had possibly the worst Carson impression of anyone in 1990. I think my mom did a better Carson than that. That said, the sketch does really capture the “famous people acting dumb is as hilarious for you as it is for them.”
Which is interesting because it was written and directed by native Long Islander Jim Wynorski, who had written and directed a dozen movies prior to this going back a decade, including such classics as Deathstalker II, soon-to-be-riffed Return of the Swamp Thing, Chopping Mall and the back-to-back movie and remake Slumber Party Massacre II and Hard to Die.
If you know that era of cheesy movies, the cast is practically a who’s who: Angus Scrimm (Phantasm) as the funeral home guy, scream queens Brinke Stevens, Monique Gabrielle, Toni Naples, director Fred Olen Ray (who collaborated with Wynosrki on Dinosaur Island the same year and much of the same cast), frequent heavies/character actors Peter Spellos and Ace Mask…and so on…
I kind of enjoyed it just for that. In fact, the thing about Munchie is, the worst part of it, by far, is Dom Deluise. He’s just awful. Even the cringey, awkward Andrew Stevens/Loni Anderson makeout scene doesn’t sink to the level of his, I don’t know what you’d call it, Borscht Belt Humor?
It’s like they saw Aladdin and said “Let’s have a funny man improvise stuff as a cartoon character! Kids’ll love it!” And then they got Dom Deluise. Oy.
I’m really not bothered by DeLuise. I think he’s miscast, but whatever. He wanted the paycheck and did what he could.
I feel sad for Anderson. I was never a big WKRP fan, but she was a good foil or straight woman for her co-stars. They just don’t give her much to do here. At least her character isn’t cartoonish-levels of mean to her son, though. And she’s written to care about him more than that twerp she’s initially dating.
I was actually thinking of this when they went off on Dom during the show. That’s Chris Farley, isn’t it?
Yes it is. The laugh he does is so great.
I think Munchie himself had a lot to do with it.
This thread title makes me want a Jonathan Richman theme song for Munchie.
Honestly? I’d say…
1 - Munchie
2 - Mac & Me
3 - Hobgoblins
4 - Pod People
Don’t get me wrong of course, they all suck, but after all the hype I actually thought Munchie was a fairly competent kids film. Beyond Munchie himself being ugly and bafflingly confusing, and the dark turn the movie took there at the beginning with the kid daydreaming about death, it actually wasn’t that bad. Or at least, I’ve certainly seen much worse. The acting is decent (even the kids), the lead isn’t annoying AF, and it actually had some humorous parts that had nothing to do with the riffing.
I thought Mac & Me was much worse by comparison. And the complete incompetence related to actual aspects of filmmaking easily bring the other two down to the bottom. I really want to put Pod People up higher, because it’s just such a fun episode, but its obviously cobbled together plot means that the consistent plot of Hobgoblins (of all things) actually makes me give it a small point in its favor. So down to the bottom of the barrel it goes.
