BORN TODAY
1895: ALBERTO VARGAS, who did the costumes for WORLD WITHOUT END, riffed in MST3K’s first live show.
1915: BORIS ANDREYEV, who portrayed Ilya Muromets in episode 617- THE SWORD AND THE DRAGON.
1917: MURRAY DeATLEY, cinematographer for the movie in episode 415- THE BEATNIKS.
1975: JOSEPH OLSON, intern for some Season 8 episodes of TV’s MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 as well as two 1997 MST3K TV specials.
DIED TODAY
1977: HUGH HUNTLEY (age 87), who portrayed Perkins in season two serial THE PHANTOM CREEPS.
1978: ANGELA GREENE (age 55), who portrayed Dr. Julie Benson in episode 701- NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST.
2000: BUCK YOUNG (age 79), who portrayed Tom Nelson in episode 305- STRANDED IN SPACE and Detective Aldridge in episode 512- MITCHELL.
Getting ready for the episode guide on Thursday for Puma Man made me think of why I enjoy that episode so much. And it’s honestly Vadinho. That guy cracks me up. I looked back through the weekend discussion threads and noticed that we’ve yet to do a “Wackiest/Funniest Sidekick” discussion thread.
Good idea! The one that immediately comes to mind for me is the insane Heathcliff from “Wild Wild World of Batwoman.” One long Charlie Callas impression, topped of with a big kiss!
First shown: 4/4/98 Opening: Tom has Short Man’s disease Intro: Tom is better; Pearl’s ball is somewhat under-attended, while Observer has Ortega and some buddies over Host segment 1: Mike offends Shelli the Nanite, so his dry look does not come out well Host segment 2: Mike has been chosen to be Coatimundi Man Host segment 3: Crow and Tom capture the mind of Roger Whitaker End: Crow resigns briefly; while a guest finally arrives at Pearl’s party Stinger: Puma Man is defenestrated (160 votes, average: 4.57 out of 5) Loading ...
• This is a beloved episode, so beloved that the last time we did a poll of fans to find out which episode they wanted to see released on DVD, this one was at the top of the list. Me, I’d call this one good, not great. The movie is incredibly stupid and reasonably watchable and the riffing is top-notch, but the host segments range from only mildly funny to not.
• Paul’s take is here.
• A lot of people assumed this movie was somehow a ripoff of the TV show “Greatest American Hero.” After all, the story line is remarkably similar and the flying sequences are practically identical. But the TV show hit the air waves a year after this movie came out. Call it parallel development.
• Watch Pearl’s beauty mark. It moves around quite a bit.
• The intro segment marks the first instance of segments that mention how Observer has begun to develop a, um, personal life outside Pearl’s orbit. In this case, instead of buying into the whole “ball” thing Pearl has going on, he simply begs off because a gang of pals is over to watch “Sliders” (remember “Sliders”?). That’s Beez and Patrick as the pals, and of course Paul as Ortega.
• When Servo hits the theater for the first time, he still has his wig on.
• Of course that’s once again Mary Jo as Shelli the spiteful hairdessing nanite in segment 1.
• Following segment 2, Mike still has coatimundi hat on, prompting Servo to make a little host segment callback: He quietly says “Bold, Mike” (a reference to the famous barbecue sauce sketch in which he wore the same hat, or one very like it).
• I do sort of like that moment in segment 3 when they all say “Barbara Feldon” at the same moment like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
• Pretty obscure reference: Mary Gross
• Kevin is terrific as Roger Whitaker (who is still with us, by the way).
• Fave riff: “It’s S&M day at the Field Museum.”
So that we could enjoy host segs and shorts, MST3K often had to remove scenes from a target movie so that they could cram everything into two hours. I’d like to know if any Msties have seen any unMstied movies and what kind of scenes they cut.
For instance, in “It Lives by Night”, they cut a scene of the sheriff escorting Kathy back to her motel room and trying to kiss her. A very icky scene indeed, but it adds a bit of meaning to Mike’s riff which claims the sheriff is a pervert…
In “Warrior of the Lost World”, MST shows Nastasia shooting Prossor once, but she actually plugs him five or six times, and point blank in the head to boot!
In “Mitchell” they skip over Mitch killing John Saxon!
I hate that I know all of these.
Here’s another one: in episode 704 – THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN: Just before that confusing moment in which Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith is seen sobbing in a police car and a photographer is taking pictures of everything in sight, they cut a scene in which the photographer gets the her to pose and bounce around, then forcibly removes her top. She starts hitting him as he continues to take pictures, and then trips over the Bill-Gates-look-alike corpse.
Anybody know any others?
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