Movie: (1975) A slovenly cop is determined to bring a mob kingpin to justice.
First shown: 10/23/93
Opening: Joel’s unveils his toothpicky creation; the bots know what they have to do
Invention exchange: The Mads are being audited, so they’ve hired a temp by the name of Mike; J&tB present the Daktari stool
Host segment 1: Gypsy overhears the Mads plotting and thinks they’re talking about Joel
Host segment 2: A worried Gypsy tries to think of a way to get Joel off the SOL; Crow and Tom are no help
Host segment 3: Mike learns of a hidden escape pod, and gives Gypsy control
End: Joel is ejected into the escape pod, leaving behind a plaque and a final word; Dr. F. is furious … until Mike presents his time card
Stinger: “Your lying through your teeth!” “Buzz off!” “No, you buzz off!” “I SAID BUZZ OFF, KID!”
(209 votes, average: 4.78 out of 5)
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• It all starts so normally. Just another episode, right? Wrong. This is, of course, the most famous of the show’s “transition” episodes, and I’ve seen it perhaps a dozen times now. What sticks out is how well the whole thing falls together. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s all accomplished in about 15 minutes. Tight scripting, tight performances, tight editing, it’s a marvel of precision. It’s sentimental, but it doesn’t get mawkish. And it’s very funny all the way through.
• This episode was first put out as a single-disk release on November of 2001.
• References.
• You want a metaphor? How about Joel building an extremely fragile creation, certain in the knowledge that it will be destroyed? Now, that’s a metaphor.
• Mike makes his first appearance as, well, Mike. Wow is he young. (Recently I saw a movie starring a young Tab Hunter, and I’d never noticed before how much a young Mike and young Tab vaguely resemble each other. Maybe it’s the square heads.)
• The Daktari stool sat in the hallway of BBI for years. It was still there when I visited the set in 1999.
• What does Joel have against Harlan Ellison? Besides the obvious, of course…
• Segment 1 features a parody of the scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey” in which computer Hal reads the lips of the astronauts. Interesting that “2001” is again parodied in another transition episode at the end of season seven.
• Segment 1 is pretty much as close to Dr. F and Frank as most of us will ever get. I remember some female fans of Trace rather enjoyed it.
• Jim does a great job in segment 2. “Breathe through your nose”?
• I love the moment when Mitchell says: “Sh—.” and Joel finishes his line with: ‘…ugar?”
• Want a connection from this movie to the Robert Blake murder case? Sure, we all do! Gary McLarty and Ronald (Duffy) Hambleton, both of whom testified against Blake when he was accused of killing his wife, had small roles in this movie. McLarty played one of Mistretta’s henchmen and Hambleton played mob boss Edmondo Bocca, who gets dropped by Mitchell just short of the green. Both testified that Blake explicitly discussed killing his wife. But, unfortunately for the prosecution, both of these guys had somewhat checkered pasts. Blake’s defense team successfully undermined the credibility of both witnesses, introducing evidence of mental illness, drug addiction, etc. In the end, their testimony may have actually helped Blake get off.
• Not mentioned in the references list, because they only do references during the movie and not during the host segments, is the “OPE” thing Gypsy is muttering. It’s a reference to the movie “Dr. Strangelove.”
• The presence of that Christmas tree in John Saxon’s house — and pretty much no other references to it being Christmas — is one of the many odd things about this movie.
• Joel seems to lose it during the “Adam Rich” scene. (Actually, the kid is played by a Todd Bass, in his second and last role in show business, according to the IMDB. It would be fun to find Mr. Bass, who must be in his 40s by now, to see what he remembers of this shoot. By the way, according to Wikipedia the kid is supposed to be the son of Linda Evans’ character! Who knew?)
• Then current reference: the forgotten movie “Cop and a Half.”
• Hamdingers suddenly took over the MSTie consciousness after this episode, but it was funny how Gypsy and Mike (and, by extension, BBI) seemed very clear on what Hamdingers were … but nobody else seemed to be. It was hard to nail down just what they were, and descriptions seemed contradictory. Some said the Swift-Premium folks made them (I believe Kevin invoked Swift Premium during an online chat). Not true. At long last, I can point to this site, which seems to solve the mystery at last.
Hamdingers were a short-lived meat product produced by the Patrick Cudahy Co. out of Cudahy, WI, in the mid ‘70s … The product was sliced ham patties, about the size of a hamburger patty, and it came in a round can. Like Spam, it became a great meat to fry up with some eggs for breafast, but the great thing about Hamdingers is that it came in individually sliced portions, so you could grab a patty and fry it up for that perfect Hamdinger sandwich.
The entry doesn’t mention that they were reportedly great fish bait as well.
• I love that DOS command Mike has to type in to the “techtronic panel” (apparently this was the one and only time that the control panel in Deep 13 was called this).
• Movie comment: Toward the end of the movie, Mitchell inserts a portion of his handkerchief (there’s a lesson, kids!: always remember to carry a handkerchief; you never know when you might want to blow up a drug dealer’s car!), then screws the gas cap back on over it, so that the rest of the handkerchief is hanging down. He then drives to the meeting place and when the deal goes south he, all in a split second, whips out a lighter, lunges forward and holds the lighter to the handkerchief, which INSTANTANEOUSLY lights up. Now maybe, just maybe, the tank was very, very full and the handkerchief got nice and soaked with gasoline on the ride over. But the tank might also have been mostly empty, meaning the handkerchief could have been bone dry. That seems far more likely, doesn’t it? Which would mean it would have taken maybe ten seconds for Mitchell to light it, plenty of time to stop Mitchell. What I’m saying is that it seems unlikely that the handkerchief would immediately burst into flames in a fraction of a second like it does here. The whole thing is about as implausible as a young, sultry callgirl falling in love with Mitchell.
• Callbacks: Several references to “Eegah”; reference to rock climbing.
• Toward the end of the movie, we get Joel’s last bit of fatherly control during the bit where Tom and Crow get a bit dark and suggest Mitchell should turn the gun on himself.
• Naughty riff: “I’m huge.”
• I love the classic, low-tech use of confetti to simulate static in the Hexfield. Very Joel.
• When fans on the internet weren’t obsessing about Hamdingers, they were arguing about the correct pronunciation of “Lao” as in “Dr. Lao.” The consensus was that Joel blew it.
• Tom and Crow fall apart during the PANIC, but I think this may be one time it was on purpose.
• I love Mike’s expression as Dr. F and Frank laugh about his fate.
• Cast and crew roundup: Sound mixer Herman Lewis also worked on “Teenage Caveman,” “Viking Women and the Sea Serpent and “Night of the Blood Beast.” Score composer Jerry Styner also worked on “The Side Hackers.” In front of the camera, Buck Young also appears in “Stranded in Space,” Rayford Barnes also appears in “Beginning of the End,” Jim B. Smith also appeared “San Francisco International and Alan “Mustang hood” Gibbs did stunts for “Hangar 18.” And, of course, Joe Don Baker also stars in “Final Justice.”
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Kevin Murphy. Jim Mallon is listed as a contributing writer for every episode in season 5 except this one, where he is listed as an “additional writer.”
• Fave riff: “We’re going to control the ghetto, you and I, young man.” Honorable mention: “BABY OIL??? NOOOO!!!!”
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Yeah, Mallon’s Gypsy could be awfully annoying at times with his shrieks. It really got on my nerves big time.
Patrick Brantseg on the other hand was much easier on the ears.
I liked Bransteg’s Gypsy way better.
“Just thought I’d let you stupid-heads know”.
(Great line from Soultaker).
Love this episode! So many good riffs in this one. Am I the only one who thinks this movie plays like a pilot to a Mitchell TV show? It seems to set up characters just like one of them would. It’s even got a theme song, and everything.
While I definitely prefer Mike to Joel, it is sad to see Joel leave at the end, as he did create the bots. Crow and Tom have to see their father abandon them. How messed up is that!
At the MST3K discussion board, it was theorized that the reason Joel left his bots on the SOL at the end of Soultaker, was that he was afraid of bringing them back to earht and the Bots being taken away by the government. Makes sense.
“Mitchell” was the first MST episode I ever saw from start to finish (we’d had Comedy Central for a couple of months, but it wasn’t in our local TV listings, so I kept coming across the show partway through without knowing what it was… seemed like it was ALWAYS on, and I just didn’t get it at all at first). Anyway, I finally caught on, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Hard to believe it’s been 15 years now.
Also, I can honestly say the Daktari/Dark, Tarry Stool pun never occurred to me, partly because I have never heard the phrase “dark, tarry stool” before, and partly because it just doesn’t make any sense as the Daktari Stool is neither dark nor tarry.
Not just my favorite episode, but one of my favorite entertainments of all time! This episode finds is expressed in my daily life to an unbelievable degree.
And it has one of the most literate references of any episode. When Linda Evans is standing in Mitchell’s living room, she notices the porn. And Joel, as Mitchell, says he’s got it for the Kilgore Trout piece. Absolutely brilliant!
One of the mysteries in this movie was why
a rich mafiosi would have only one
servant who was a combination driver,
body guard, and chef.
And, yes, I overall also prefer Mike to
Joel, although my brother and niece
disagree.
#66 – Fartnog Buttstinkle
Sorry, my friend, the riff about opening presents on christmas eve or morning was a Crow line. (Again, sorry. I read it and resisted as long as I could.)
Manny Sanguillen #101
While I do agree that Mallon’s Gypsy screams were grating, I loved it when Jim had Gypsy laugh or giggle.
For some reason I find Tom and Crow’s song at the end of Final Justice rather fitting on this film. My apologies if the lyrics are off.
You better runnnn….
He’ll steal your lunch.
You better hide….
He’s got the runs.
METABALLS FRIED IN LARRRDDD!!!
You can tell that once Joel had made his intentions known about leaving the show, BBI thought out not only who’d replace him, but how they would do it. Here’s why both plans were brilliant:
– think about how all great shows that tinker with their formula lose their charm immedeately. Best Brains looked at this potential disaster of a situation – losing a beloved character that had created and hosted this show from the ground up, leaving for seemingly odd reasons – and took who they were to replace him in serious consideration. Trace was out (double duty as Dr. F and Crow), Kevin was out (puppeteering Servo), Frank was out (Dr. F’s henchman can’t be two places at once), Jim was out (voice of Gypsy, as well as not having the moxie to be a host of anything). That left Mike, Paul Chaplin, and Mary Jo Pehl as the only realistic possibilities. Paul is good in spots but doesn’t have the form of a host, while Mary Jo was still relatively new to BB at the time. But Mike had made many an appearance before, and on so many of those occasions shown comedic talent not seen anywhere. Being Head Writer certainly didn’t hurt, either. Even Joel endorsed him for new host in his announcement of departing the show.
Second, I have a theory that the guys and gals at BBI sifted through much of the movies they planned on using for Season 5 to find just the right episode for Joel’s farewell. In my mind, “Mitchell” not only stands out for the obvious reasons of the changing of hosts, but the very fact that its abundance of material to riff on made it an easy choice to close out this particular era.
When Mitchell first premiered in October of ’93, I knew very well it was Joel’s last stand, and the thought of my favorite show completely changing before my young eyes scared the living s**t out of me. In many ways, even to this day, MST has been a type of solace for me. What transpired over those two hours made me laugh and cry, but then realize it would still be there next week, with a new face and vibe that suggested it had something to prove. And that’s what we all should be doing in life, everyday. Realize that change is inevitable and roll with it.
Funny how you mention a young Tab Hunter and Mike Nelson looking remarkabely alike.
I saw Tab in ‘Damn Yankees’ and my thoughts were exactly the same: he DID look like Mike Nelson in that movie.
Perhaps the most memorable episode in MST3K history. I really was torn over this one. The movie was a comic goldmine and one of their best episodes from that standpoint, but it’s also Joel’s farewell and I really wasn’t sure how I was going to enjoy the series without him. Fortunately Mike proved up to the challenge even if it took him a couple of episodes.
Gotta love the revulsion they had for Joe Don Baker, for me one of the most unlikeable actors around. That someone thought he’d be great as an action lead who beds sexy hookers shows how prevalent drug use was in the 70s. As Crow would later say in “Angels Revenge”, “I bet the phrase, “Where’s my cocaine” was said a lot on this set”.
“My-my-my-my-GAWWWWDDDD!”
Another classic in the series.
Jim’s hand can be seen pulling Gypsy’s mouthpiece during segment 2, when Joel is looking for his magazine.
I didn’t see anything… the string does get hung up on a piece of crumpled paper briefly that could LOOK like someone’s hand I guess… but then you see Joel pull a sheet away and the shape goes with it…
One of the most brilliant things to me is how Joel is ejected from the ship while he`s trying to read a fan letter. I haven`t seen all the episodes but the ones I have seen never involved any interruptions during the reading of fan letters, so that made it all the more surprising. :shock:
End of one era, beginning of another, and what better way to celebrate than with this goofy Joe Don Baker flick? Sad to see Joel leave, but I enjoyed Mike, as well.
“BABY OIL?!!”
I sure did feel their pain during that scene.
And Joel’s right: “Zero Tolerance is really funny!”
So many great lines. I love Kevin’s 3M riffs. And I actually like Joe Don Baker as an actor. I don’t know why anyone thought he’d be a good action hero, but he’s a pretty good character actor. And one thing no one’s commented on yet, I think it was a nice touch that they gave Joel the final riff of the film. Even if it is just a quick “Mitchell!”
Crow’s eyes fall out during PANIC! as well.
This is the greatest episode of all.
For the record: This http://www.walmart.com/ip/Patties-Fully-Cooked-6-Ct-Ham/13908272 is pretty much what passed for hamdingers in my grade school lunchroom growing up in the 80’s.
I have to confess. I don’t have complete and total hatred for Joe Don Baker. I thought he did a convincing job as the corrupt police chief in the Chevy Chase classic “Fletch.” But both of his MST appearances are horrible. Perhaps he is just too loathsome a human to play a leading man, hero, action hero or even anti-hero. Corrupt policeman it is then.
I love the look of the Bots in the opening. Crow is armed to the teeth with the flamethrower and Tom is looking pretty menacing with the ax. The open flame of the thrower made me think of season 1 when that was a lot more common. Then they come back from the commercial break and Crow and Tom are looking good with those toothpicks in their mouths as they survey the destruction.
There are a lot of classic inventions in the background that Mike is sorting. I see the foosball table and the life size Operation game among my very favorites.
I love Clayton’s introduction to this film:
It’s a super secret spy,
Has a motorcycle
Marooned in space
Meets Hercules…
… or not
Watch it and weep Joel Proel Mole
Who did the choreography of the sex scene? That was worse than terrible.
There’s a great little exchange when Mike returns Frank’s keys to him.
Frank “Hey what did you need my keys for?”
Mike “um, your lights were on.”
Frank “ oh okay I… Hey I don’t have a car!”
Mike “well then what did you give me your keys for?
Frank “I don’t know I thought I left my lights on.”
Mike “I’m glad I didn’t waste time shutting off your imaginary lights.”
Frank “I’m… I’m sorry.”
This is going to probably be heresy, but this movie is so bad I think the Brains struggle to do anything with it. In fact the first time I watched it I was very close to turning it off. It was only the fact that it was Joel’s last episode that kept from doing just that. Then it would be years before I’d even attempt to watch it again. Since then I’ve upgraded it to good by not great. But it really is a dismal movie.
Favorite Riffs:
During the credits: Tom “any movie with whacka chicka is okay by me.”
Mitchell to dispatcher “If I get shot in the next couple hours I was unarmed. Log it.” Crow “Speaking of logging it, I better find a bush around here.”
The camera pans up Linda Evan’s coat. Joel “Uncle Fester?”
Joel about Mitchell’s sport coat “Could we get more volume on that jacket please?”
Goons are working Mitchell over. Tom “They’re going to end up with Mitchell’s dinner all over them.”
Mitchell lying around with many empties. Crow “Our hero ladies and gentleman.”
Mitchell is about to get into the shower. Crow “Thank god for the jump cut.”
Tom’s series of 3M riffs.
During a fight scene Crow “oh right in the dingy.”
>>>What does Joel have against Harlan Ellison? Besides the obvious, of course
I’m not sure what “the obvious” is, but Harlan Ellison is known to harbor many grudges against how various TV producers have handled or mishandled his scripts and is overall very critical of the television industry in general. He is also notoriously difficult to work with WHEN he decides to be. The impression I get is that if you’re not already a friend of his (and he’s VERY well-liked and respected by those writers and editors who ARE his friends), he’s quite likely to act like a jerk toward you with relatively little provocation and KEEP acting a jerk until he’s darned good and ready to stop.
He also doesn’t like being “categorized” as a science fiction/fantasy writer, but I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything.
This is the circus of Dr. Lao.
We show you things that you don’t know.
Oh we spare no pains and we spare no dough,
oh we want to give you one hell of a show.
I went through this fast because I’m heading out for the day. But yes #115 hit the nail on the head.
B A B Y O I L !!!
My girlfriend and I actually just watched the uncut version of Mitchell on Amazon Video(featuring both the parts that were cut out by MST3K and the parts that were either cut out or replaced with different cuts for television). So the language was heavier(“Bastard” was written on Mitchell’s car instead of “Jerk” and he told the kid to “piss off” instead of “buzz off) and there were some scenes that made the story a tiny bit easier to understand. It was very interesting. Mitchell actually asks the prostitute who she was hired by several different times, so Mitchell came off as (a little bit) less of an idiot. There were some mobsters following Cummings around and threatening to run him over after he refused to take the shipment. The police chief demanded that Mitchell bring one of them in for questioning so that was why he shot that guy in the leg at the golf course. Mitchell tracked down the guy who sideswiped him off the road and slammed his hand in a car door. And, of course, there we finally got to see what happened to Deaney. He met with Cummings and decided to try to run Mitchell down in a dune buggy along with a friend. The scene from the opening credits(the “slow-motion sneeze” was from a spot where Mitchell smashed the other dune buggy driver with a big rock and then took his buggy to chase after Deaney. Deaney’s buggy lost control and rolled and then (for some reason) exploded instantly. And there were a lot of shots of Linda Evans back and she also was giving her thoughts about the centerfold in one of Mitchell’s magazines. I would absolutely love to see Rifftrax or Cinematic Titanic do the complete version of this movie!
And the first thing that Mike will do when launched onto the Satellite is root through Joel’s tube socks.
#119: Who did the choreography of the sex scene? That was worse than terrible.
Well, when you think about, in real life, exactly how often is sex well-choreographed, anyway?
Some time ago I came across an anecdote to the effect that, during Sir Winston Churchill’s career as British Prime Minister, an employee’s little boy wandered into his office, found him busy at his desk, and asked him, “Are you really the greatest man in the world?” (this apparently being how Churchill was referred to during his later career, not unlike being called “the Great Communicator” or whatever)
Churchill’s response: “Of course I am. Now buzz off!”
Just think if the Brains had included a Churchill reference at the end of the Mitchell/kid scene. They could’ve spent the rest of the movie making intermittent Churchill/Mitchell riffs, whatever those might be.
Is Frank’s “old head” supposed to be the one that he lost in the previous episode? Did Dr. F not so much make the head itself explode as make it explode OFF of his neck, leaving it intact?
Incidentally, it might just be that Joel didn’t have ROOM in his one-man ship for Crow or Servo, and certainly not for Gypsy. There’s always THAT.
Or maybe the engine reacted badly to proximity to molybdenum or, well, there are always potential explanations. Maybe after Joel escaped, Dr. F (or more likely Frank, he’s the guy with the money, as seen when he finances this or that invention exchange*) bought off the cops to guarantee no one would listen to Joel (when he got back to the USA from Australia).
So, Dr. F and Frank were originally going to kill MIKE, not JOEL, right? Because, seriously, IMHO the final sequence didn’t make it clear that they were CHANGING their plans for Mike (in contrast to having had no existing plans for him in the first place).
===
*and THAT’S why Dr. F ran out of money at the end of Season Seven, because FRANK was the guy who knew how to manage money, Dr. F didn’t have a CLUE how to handle something so practical and non-mad-scientific; that just now occurred to me
What does Joel have against Harlan Ellison? Besides the obvious, of course…
What, isn’t that enough? :P
And IMO City on the Edge of Forever would have fallen into well-deserved obscurity if he hadn’t thrown such a hissy-fit over the alterations to the script. But then the time travel episodes in every incarnation of Trek have always struck me as being the weakest.
They mentioned it on the show, but this seemed like such an also-ran movie. It’s aggressively cheap and muddled, and I was surprised to see that it wasn’t a Made-for-TV project in the mid 70s (despite the sex and violence being rather prominent).
Knowing that these guys did the TV edit (hence the “Jerk” moment), I wonder if the weird end credits speed-up was on that edit alone, or originally in the film. Even in the 70s, that’s a pretty cheap effect to make it sound like a key change.
Maybe I’m just getting older (and rounder), but on this viewing, it does seem like the Brains are a bit over-mean to Joe Don. He really isn’t THAT overweight here (I think he’s fatter in Final Justice) and he tries his best to pull off some of the most unfunny comedy I’ve seen since Catalina Caper. But at least this one has a proper ending unlike his next entry in the MST canon.
Host segs are some of the most brilliant ever. Love the bots on pogo sticks… and the expression on Mike’s face when Frank so readily tosses him the keys.
5 Stars
RE: ” I love the classic, low-tech use of confetti to simulate static in the Hexfield. Very Joel.”
I always thought the confetti was meant to be ‘Snow’, to employ a so-called ‘technical’ term.
#24
“Oh, did Harlan Ellison ever try to take apart MST3K as he has “Star Trek”, “Star Wars” and nearly everything else?”
Harlan Ellison is known for his controversies. When he wrote “City on the Edge of Forever” for the orignial Star Trek, he had a subplot involving drug dealing on the Enterprise, as if that was going to fly! Furthermore his script called for Jim Kirk to try to save Edith Keeler, and Bones and Spock restraining him. Roddenberry lined these out of the script, to Ellison’s eternal wrath.
Who knows? I’m sure Ellison shot off his mouth and said something stupid, and Joel remembered it.
Here’s the stuff Ellison’s been mixed up in….. a very strange dude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison#Controversies_and_disputes
#46
There’s something enduring when Tom Servo goes unhinged. It’s not just frustration it’s just wing-bat nutty. I love it!
I just re-watched this episode and the biggest revelation for me was that apparently Joel’s jumpsuit doesn’t go past the knees.
Great episode. My favourite part is the “chase” scene, the only movie that offers even more excitemen that I can think of is Danger Death Ray! And Joe Don Baker deserves all the riffs he gets, he ruined baby-oil for thousands of people. My favourite non-theater part is when the bots realize that Joel has escaped, you can see Crow losing his eyes. Terrific episode.
#131: Harlan Ellison is a dickweed.
#131:
To be fair, Roddenberry’s vision of a future in which humanity has pretty much solved ALL of Earth’s problems (including, presumably, drug dealing) and life in the Federation was pretty much PERFECT* must have been VERY foreign to Ellison’s pessimistic worldview (notice that following Roddenberry’s death, the various Trek franchises themselves became increasingly darker and more pessimistic).
Plus it was a SEASON ONE episode, and obviously Ellison must’ve submitted the script fairly early in the season, so he might not quite have grasped exactly what Roddenberry would and wouldn’t go along with in any event. So he might not have entirely understood (at the time) why Roddenberry cut the drug subplot, and not understanding why the scene was cut would’ve made it even more irritating.
Hard to believe he didn’t see the inherently greater dramatic value in Kirk being forced to stop his friend from rescuing the woman Kirk loved in order to save history, but so it goes.
Of course, technically, Kirk could possibly have allowed McCoy to save Edith and then taken Edith BACK into the 23rd century WITH them, but, well, you know.
I’ve often thought it would be ironic if the diverging point which created Star Trek’s “Mirror Universe” was Edith Keeler’s life and death moment, that the timeline which would have resulted from Edith surviving (where she turned the USA so pacifistic that the Nazis won and Earth turned evil and so on or whatever) eventually became the Mirror Universe, where Earth conquered other planets. Pretty sure that’s been established not to be the case, though. Shrug.
===
*which is why the original series’ episodes almost never actually OCCURRED in Federation space; perfect’s all well and good, but it holds inherently few dramatic possibilities
It’s a super secret spy,
Has a motorcycle
Marooned in space
Meets Hercules…
So why hasn’t somebody made THAT movie, anyway?
#134 Agree with a lot of your points.
I think it would have been inconsistant in Kirk’s character to save
Edith Keeler. A Starfleet captain has the responsibility to sacrifice himself and his crew in his duty. It was a more natural response for Kirk.
Having said that, I thought TNG went way over the top in a perfect society. No money? Come on! What’s the point in gambling if there’s no risk? At least Kirk told Scotty “he earned his pay that week.”
#134 (touches no one’s life, then leaves)
So far as I’ve found, there are three different versions in print on the whole behind-the-scenes controversy re: “City on the Edge of Forever”. There’s Shatner’s book “Star Trek Memories”, there’s “Inside Star Trek” by Herb Solow (Desilu exec) and Robert H. Justman (associate producer), and Ellison’s “Harlan Ellison’s ‘City on the Edge of Forever'”. The latter features his original script, and an essay giving his side of the story which rips apart the televised episode and is more venomous than all the snakes in the Well of Souls.
And I don’t know what opinion, if any, he has or had about MST3K.
Host segment 1 takes on a whole new meaning for me now that Joel has said he was basically forced out by Mallon. In the show, it is even Mallon as Gypsy who is saying that Joel won’t leave without the bots so he will have to be ejected from the ship. Now there’s a metaphor!
As for the episode itself, I like both Joe Don Baker episodes as he is a terrible hero/anti hero/whatever you want to call him and he gets well deserved abuse. Also a technical note, Tektronix is a company that makes lots of television equipment so Mike was probably really standing right by a Textronix panel. And I love hearing the old MS-DOS commands.
I remember this was a traumatic time for MSTies everywhere, as shown by the vehemence of the Mike-Joel feud. I gave Mike a chance and think the Mike era had several good episodes but I think the percentage of great to good episodes went down significantly IMO as the Mike era went on.
@127 Sitting Duck: You, sir, are insane! The City on the Edge of Forever is a classic in most Trek fans’ minds and has won all kinds of awards, including the 1968 Hugo. I think Ellison made an idiot of himself by complaining so much about it when it was so universally praised. I will quote wikipedia about this episode:
“The filmed version of “The City on the Edge of Forever” is considered the best episode of the original series by many critics such as Entertainment Weekly.[9] TV Guide ranked it #68 in their 100 Most Memorable Moments in TV History feature in its July 1, 1995 edition, featured ranked it #92 on the 100 greatest TV episodes of all time,[10] and ranked it #80 on its list of “TV’s Top 100 Episodes of All Time.” “
I never got the Daktari stool thing, either. It was probably because I do remember watching that show when I was a kid. Check out the opening credits for another name familiar to MSTies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxdxk0RpBQg
I’ve been watching MST3K since 1990 but I didn’t get on-line until 2001 so I didn’t know about the Joel/Mike controversy for several years. I personally have no preference for one over the other so I just don’t get the issue. Perhaps more people should really just relax.
I also remember being incredibly annoyed in the 70s whenever a commercial for Hamdingers came on. I couldn’t find it anywhere but trust me, it was bad.
>>>What’s the point in gambling if there’s no risk?
The same as in any game: To have fun and, perhaps, win. That’s basically the rationale for playing (random examples) Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit, for instance.
Also, Kirk could have just been using an expression about Scotty “earning his pay.” If somebody does well at something, you might tell them “you’re batting a thousand” even though they’re not actually playing baseball. ;-)
I too found out about Joel leaving via the TV Guide. I was crushed as I had just discovered MST3K (Manos being the first first-run episode I saw). This is a very funny episode, but I always get a buzzkill during the host segments because they’re all telling the new Mike story. Sucks. Just watch this and the next episdoe in a row and tell me the entire tone didn’t change sharply. It just seemed to go from Joel and the bots watching a movie, to Mike and the bots saying ‘here’s a joke, here’s a joke, here’s a joke’ over and over. I know they were all doing the same thing, but Joel’s delivery seemed much more natural to me. I think it took a long time for the new version to find its way because it’s really hard to get through most of season 5.5 – 6 for me. Outlaw was pretty decent though.
and howcome nobody mentions that Mitchell 2 DID come out? It was called Final Justice! Unless that was before Mitchell. I was so surprised they never mentioned that during Final Justice.
This is the end of the real MST3K to me. Love my tapes, love the DVDs, but what came next was mostly just okay in my book (Season 8 was great though).
Joel, as I awkwardly said when I met you – thank you for making this show!!!
I know this is heralded as one of the greatest episodes ever…but for some reason, I simply find it to be average. Maybe it’s because I didn’t start watching the show until after it was already off the air, meaning I didn’t have the attachment to Joel that the fans did in 1993. Or maybe because I had heard people talking about how awesome “Mitchell” was for several years before I actually did watch this episode, and my expectations for it were so astronomically high that it just failed to live up to them.
It’s not a bad episode, by any means. But it’s not a riot, either. It’s just sort of passable, I guess. The host segments hold my interest more than anything, though – Joel’s escape, obviously, is the highlight of this episode, and the story they constructed around it is a bravura piece of work. Right from the get-go, you can tell something is a little bit askew this week. Joel happily lets the bots burn down his scale model of Monticello, then his invention exchange is a lame pun (“Dak…tari…stool?”) and the Mads don’t even have an invention because of the audit. It tips you off that something amiss is about to go down.
This movie is pretty reprehensible. And it feels like it’s trying way too damned hard to be “edgy”. Stuff like the woman in the limo and her 16-year-old manicurist who tells her about her wild sexy escapades, or Mitchell’s gun falling out of his pants, it all has this air of the director flailing wildly at the audience and saying “Look! Look at how R-rated this movie is! See, this is legitimate cinema, people!” I think, if anything, that’s something the Brains could have really whaled on, but they don’t seem to notice it.
There are some standout riffs here and there. I know I always laugh at stuff like “What’s on the water?” “Smoke” and Servo’s “Fluffernutter!” when Mitchell wakes up from his nap, but for the most part, the riffing just kind of sits there. Sorry, but I can’t get into it much.
Though I do think it’s fitting that Joel gets the last riff in this episode. ‘Bye, Joel! You were enjoyed!
#141: What a shame, MST3K ruined by that hack, Nelson. How do they dare to continue the show without King Joel. Those fools couldn’t come with any decent episode after Mitchell, except Outlaw, and Angels Revenge, and Zombie Nightmare, and the Coleman Francis movies, and Escape 2000, and the The Incredible Melting Man, and Night of the Blood Beast, and Prince of Space, Giant Spider Invasion, and Horror of Party Beach, and…
Words I hoped I would never have to read. “Joe Don Baker and sex scene” in the same sentence. There’s not enough soap to wash that image away.
I became a mistie during the Sci-Fi era, so I never knew about Joel and the background of MST3K. It took meeting a friend who was a mistie that I learned of Joel, so started by backward trek through MST3K.
Having never participated in the Joel-vs-Mike thing (and I certainly don’t want to start it now), I think we’re lucky to have had two such talented people to play this role. I wish Joel could have stayed, and Mike could have continued his funny “Hugh Beaumont” characters he would do. But they didn’t.
They each did things so well. Joel’s “teaching the bots about life” were genuine slices of brilliance. Joel’s put-downs were devastating. One of the things I liked about Mike era is he laughed when the bots would crack a funny. Not a big thing, but you get an idea the Mike character, although not enjoying being up there, enjoyed being with the bots.
I’m just happy also that we can still go enjoy them.
And I have my ticket to watch Mike, Bill and Kevin RIFF MANOS!!!!! Wooowooo!!!!
Probably my two favorite stingers come from Mitchell in his shouting match scene with a 10 year old, and the other would be from Rocket Attack USA. Crows annoyed reaction to “help me” is priceless.
#141, to clear it up, yes, “Final Justice” did come out after “Mitchell.” “Mitchell” came out in 1975, “Final Justice” in 1984.
There’s no debate: “Mitchell” is the greatest “MST3K” episode ever. Not only is it seminal in the history of the SOL and its inhabitants over the years, it’s also a top-notch riff-fest of a terrible movie that features some great character actors. Martin Balsam, a great character actor with important roles in some of the best movies of all time, along with Merlin Olsen, Linda Evans, and Morgan Paull. Now, don’t get me wrong, they all stunk things up in “Mitchell”. But that’s okay. They’re all pros and sometimes bad movies happen. Also, this is an incredibly quotable episode. No matter if you’re merging in traffic, opening the door to strangers, looking through lattice, knockin’ boots, talking to pesky kids, eating soup, or whatever. “Mitchell” has something for everyone, in every situation. This episode is why I’ll always say that “MST3K” is my favorite television show of all time. This episode is why I revere Joel, Trace, and Kevin, and also Frank and Mike. It’s hilarious. It’s just the greatest. And that’s that.
I have watched this episode 11,000 times!!! Solid three star episode!! One day i hope to escape New Jersey the way Joel escaped the SOL!!!
For me the scene in the park when KEVIN ( who loves to sing ) riffs on the scene and changes the words to Saturday in the Park by CHICAGO. It is pure Kevin / Tom Servo gold for me.