WE HAVE A GUY FOR THAT 
EDIT: Also, what @CLANG_Potroast said!
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I always forget what a good episode this is. Every time it’s “why don’t more people talk about this one?” The goofy henchman with his cartoonish glasses could carpool with Torgo and Ortega. And that the tough guy lead is also a non-ironic accordion star makes it even better!
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Ridiculously good!
I get the feeling that had this episode been one of the first available on Rhino VHS (or a regularly streaming title from the get-go), it would’ve been talked about a lot more than it is now.
If it were to have Turkey Day Marathon exposure, it would have to enter the conversation more frequently, I would think.
I will never get over Dick Contino being an accordion badass. It’s just too funny.
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The Giant Spider Invasion
Excellent riffs. So-so sketches. I also like Barbara Hale and Doughy Guy. (Except for the rolling.) I wish they’d had a better movie to be in.
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Yeah, solid riffing all the way through that one. I always forget that’s the one with the pod people, probably because it has nothing to do with the movie. It’s weird, you’d think they’d go for some more Wisconsin-based stuff. Maybe they felt they used all that up in the riffing.
And Doughy Guy and Della Street are the heroes, or at least the most likeable characters (Doughy Guy loses a lot of points for that doctor crap), but the movie seems to kinda forget about them for a lot of it.
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I think the actor manages to make him likeable despite that whole unfunny lol!sexism thing. Which was pretty common in movies and on TV at that time.
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310 - Fugitive Alien
ALWAYS worth it for the Forklift Song alone. But there’s other solid stuff at work here.
I forgot how stupid the whole “all the different buttons on Ken’s jumpsuit” thing was, and the gang ran with that HARD. The overwrought acting/dubbing helps to make this a treat. The “I Love Ken” song part of that one theater segment is a hoot, too.
The host segments are a scream by way of the debut of Mike’s Jack Perkins. Just brilliant!
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Devil Fish
The Italian Filter sketch is one of my all-time favorite sketches. The rest isn’t too shabby, either. This is primo Eighties cheese and they seem delighted with it.
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After listening to the scientist lady’s, ahem, super accurate lecture, I couldn’t help wondering if she studied science with the lady from Beyond Atlantis.
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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! That is wild. In a '70s-ish kinda way.
Thanks so much for sharing that here!
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311 - It Conquered the World
One of the never-gonna-get-released-in-all-probability episodes. Yeah, it’s pretty much what you’d expect going into a Roger Corman movie.
But first, that short, Snow Thrills, is straight fire, especially with Joel’s classic “yeah, well, you’re full of skit” riff and all the wordplay that follows from that.
For some odd reason, I had it blocked from memory that Dick Miller was in It Conquered the World, so when his name and appearance come into play here, I’m all “OH OH OH HEY CHECK IT OUT IT’S DICK MILLER!” Fundamental Hey-It’s-that-Guy guy.
MST3K has had a storied tradition of busting on Peter Graves and Biography!, and I believe it starts here (or at the very least, it’s Peter Graves’s first appearance in the national run of MST3K, not counting his KTMA appearance in SST - Death Flight). And the Peter Graves impressions, especially those from Crow, are a hoot. AND ALL THE JAMES ARNESS JOKES
It was also cool to see later episode fixtures like Lee Van Cleef and especially Beverly Garland represented here.
That alien creature is hilarious trash, and Crow laughing hard as he likens it to a giant Vlasic pickle is key.
What’s really at the forefront here is the concept of riffing rhythms, how there are moments where we get these much quieter stretches of film with the occasional punctuated zinger and then scenes where all hell breaks loose, prompting a flurry of jokes to match the onscreen action. If there’s onscreen chaos, you get a more lively flavor and tempo; if the scenes are talkier, the humor is more dialogue-based and timed accordingly.
As far as the host segments go, it’s hard to go wrong with Kevin Murphy’s Mighty Voice as he imitates the narrator from the short. The dinner banter one is great, too, while the famous siblings song seems… odd (which they try to handwave away by saying that the movie was kind of short and they needed to fill time).
SPEAKING OF PADDING. That closing host segment where the SOL gang and the Mads listen to Peter Graves’s concluding speech in its entirety? Beautiful in its time-killing laziness. And then the humor is taken up one more notch when we get the speech AGAIN over the end credits! I just wish that they would have had the guts to play the speech in its entirety for the stinger.
It’s not the king of the Corman episodes, but it’s still a fun little installment.
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Watching The Sinister Urge as we speak. KLINE!!!
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LOTS of Loves of Hercules. It mightbe one of my faves of the newer eps.
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Anything involving Gloria was an all-time riffing sequence. Love that bit where she’s all “DIRK, NO, THAT CAN’T BE DIRK”
Also: “Kline, wait with the corpse. Kline, wait in the car. Kline, wait in the hoary netherworld. When is it Kline’s turn?!”
It’s very good. It ousted Hercules Unchained as my favorite MST3K Herc ep!
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I was in the mood for something British, so I put on my favorite of the Season 9 trio: The Deadly Bees!
It’s actually a fairly interesting Parlor Mystery, but it’s got enough little quirks that it makes a fabulous riff target. I enjoy it.
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Giant Gila Monster
The host seg with Joel doing Crazy Gugenheim? When I was a kid, I didn’t understand that he was supposed to be a drunk, I thought he (Gugenheim) was making fun of mentally challenged people, which made me uncomfortable, even at that young age.
You think they’d have a drunken character sponsoring cereal these days? Probably not.
But it makes me think they really missed out some good commercial’s way back when…
“Hi, I’m Mitchell, for Fruit Loops. When I’m good and hungry I like to pour me a bowl of this fruity treat… Just add beer for a hearty, healthy breakfast.”
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Which has one riff which always makes me laugh:
Could you scratch my back with your voice?
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Just finished watching Project Moonbase
It predicted correctly:
- Cordless phones
- Moon landing by 1970
Incorrectly:
- Lady president
So many good riffs on this one. Again another movie that I saw unriffed before MST3K
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It’s one of my favorite episodes and just screams Heinlein, if you’ve read his stuff. The riffing is top-notch.
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