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Weekend Discussion Thread: Host Segments You Just Didn’t Get

Alert longtime MSTie Jenny suggests…

I’ve always hated not getting the joke and, well, there some host segments I just didn’t get. Maybe because I was too young or wasn’t Minnesotan. So how about host segments you just didn’t get and scratched your head at. Like in 610- THE VIOLENT YEARS, when Tom reenacts a tearful scene from “A Star is Born.” Didn’t get it.

I’ve always been a bit baffled by the “emotional scientist” sketch from episode 210- KING DINOSAUR. Too many layers.

What segment would you pick?

123 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Host Segments You Just Didn’t Get”

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  1. Blast Hardcheese says:

    I wasn’t sure I had a sketch I “didn’t get,” but I just finished watching “Attack of the The Eye Creatures” again, and I have to say that the Earl Holliman segment leaves me dazed and confused. I never watched “Police Woman,” and in fact my memories of EH in the 1970s came from his occasional appearanced on “Hollywood Squares,” where he was one of the “straight” stars–the guy who actually attempted to answer the questions seriously, without the usual goofy or off-colour jokes. Couldn’t respect him after that–I even began to wonder if he even understood the concept of the show (kinda like sitting in the SOL theatre and saying “wow, that was a great scene–I wonder what’s going to happen next?” And meaning it.) Anyway, the one-actor-kinda-looks-like-Earl-Holliman-so-we’ll-build-a-segment-around-it premise is pretty lame–all the stranger since the film is awful enough to have generated some better segments than this one.

       1 likes

  2. Blast Hardcheese says:

    @97:

    I think the lines run:

    “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
    Do not forget, stay out of debt.” (The internal rhyme is crucial, d’ye see.)

    Luckily, here in Canada, “Gilligan’s Island” was an after-school staple for years. The Hamlet musical was one of my favourites.

       0 likes

  3. EricJ says:

    @97, 102 – Oh, are you boys still arguing about this? :)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXId5jOTxdg
    (While Phil Silvers quickly flees the island.)

       2 likes

  4. Kay ... just Kay says:

    Just one more comment on the Daktari(sp?) stool thing… my mom vaguely remembers the veterinarian having a vehicle painted with a zebra stripe pattern, hence the zebra stripe stool. That sounds about right, of course this may just add to the confusion. Happy Day of Thanks to all!

       0 likes

  5. Foodman Chu says:

    Speaking of Kevin segments I sort of hate (and yes that Barbara Steisand one grates even now that I do know what the hell it was supposed to be about), I’m just now muting the end of The Undead where Bobo makes a brain sandwich. I GET it, but why is it there? Why is he repeating that same “Swallows Come Back from Capistrano” couplet? Why does the Brain Guys non-theme loop over and over? Why is it so damn LONG?

    Really just relaxing is off the table.

       0 likes

  6. MSTie says:

    RE: #87 and “The Mike Listens To Creeping Terror Music Endlessly Sketch was something that I never saw that much humor in. Mildly amusing at best. Goes on way too long and way past the point where we get the idea.”

    I too think these kind of sketches go on past the point of being funny, but in the book The MST3K Amazing Colossal Episode Guide it was explained that TV’s Frank found these kind of skits hilarious. Meh. I think it’s beating a dead horse.

       0 likes

  7. Jbagels says:

    Those kind of sketches adhere to the “sideshow bob getting hit by a rake” school of comedy, that is do something a couple times and it’s funny, do it 2 more times and it’s not funny but then keep doing it to a ridiculous point and it becomes funny again. Just like the mase mousse or the Urkel thing I guess(although that just gets annoying after a while). I find that kind of thing funny usually.

       1 likes

  8. Jbagels says:

    @foodmanchu is that the one where Bobo says “may o naise”? Me and my brother said that all the time back then.

       2 likes

  9. AgentMom says:

    What sketch don’t I get? That’s easy to sum up.

    All I have say is” Um dee dee, hoowah hoowah

       2 likes

  10. Jbagels says:

    Does anyone know what song that is he’s humming?

       1 likes

  11. Cambot J. Nelson says:

    Nice call, Agent Mom. There are just some sketch monsters out there nobody gets. They’re the wind, baby.

       1 likes

  12. Alex says:

    I never really liked any segments that were too short. I’ve noticed most of the skits in Zombie Nightmare unfortunetly were.

    Some skits I never got though….. it’s hard to choose, but I’d say when Gypsy doesn’t “get” Crow in Monster A-Go-Go wasn’t really that funny, and a few of the host segments from Amazing Transparent Man were kind of lame, lioke when Mike messes around with that piano. Still, I’m not really a guy who tends to judge the host segments that much, cause the brains do their best. :P But I agree, there are some I do think they could’ve really approved on

       1 likes

  13. Kenneth Morgan says:

    @97, 102, 103:

    My two favorite versions of “Hamlet” are the Castaways’ (or should that be Harold Hecuba’s?) version, and Arnold’s version from “Last Action Hero”. (“SOMTHING’S ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF DENMARK, AND HAMLET’S COMING TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH!”)

    On subject, I go along with others wondering just what the “Dum-Ba-De-Ke, Hoo-Ah Hoo-Ah,” thing is from. Unless it’s just a nonsense dum-de-dum song that we all start humming when we’re bored.

       2 likes

  14. Blast Hardcheese says:

    EricJ (re: 103):

    Thanks for the link–you just catapulted me back to Grade 7 for a few minutes. It was a good place to be. YouTube–never would have thought… :-)

       0 likes

  15. The GR says:

    We might not have had Gilligans (you pick up a few references if you read US fanzines back in those preinterweb days). But we had Biggles and Python and Catweazle and Bagpuss and other things.

    In the mid 80s we had a season of 10 ‘Worst Films’ hosted by the Medveds with captions so we had a sort of early MST3K.

       1 likes

  16. Steve Vil says:

    The only one that ever really baffled me- not because I didn’t get it but because I just didn’t see the humor in it- was the host segment where Crow was vacuuming prairie dogs so Tom could herd beefalo. Just sort of surreal and puzzling.

       0 likes

  17. MSTie says:

    #62 — “I’m still not too sure who Hamilton Joe Frank and Reynolds are.”

    Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds was a horribly-named early ’70s soft rock band that only had a few hits. Probably their best-known one was the also horribly-named “Don’t Pull Your Love” (Out on Me, Baby) which of course led to all kinds of sex jokes. From the band’s name, you can’t tell how many people there are. Four, two, three? It was a trio. They had OK voices but were overall rather forgettable.

    Some 1971 flashback for ya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_3QqzI23sE

       0 likes

  18. ck says:

    #115
    But you also had Benny Hill. (Although Benny did
    seem to have pretty good taste in female assistants/dancers).

       1 likes

  19. Blast Hardcheese says:

    @115:

    Don’t forget The Goodies–woefully underrated comic geniuses that they were.

    And Magic Roundabout.

       1 likes

  20. The GR says:

    #118
    Benny Hill was my Grandmothers milkman when she lived on the east side of Southampton. Rumour has it he use to visit Hythe Market (here) and always had a carrier bag of cash on him. Liked him as a kid but in the 80s he became totally unacceptable and his career was essentially gone.

    A big show here was, of course, Doctor Who which had a cultish following over there in the US in the late 70s/early 80s I believe?

       0 likes

  21. The GR says:

    #119

    The Goodies were brilliant. They’ve all got gongs from the Queen now and Bill Oddie does nature progammes.

    Chorlton And The Wheelies any one? Or what about Noggin The Nog? Always hated Ivor The Engine, he was just too smug for me with Jones The Steam and Idrhys the dragon.

    When I get working I must check out HR Puffenstuff, another show we didn’t get here.

       0 likes

  22. EricJ says:

    @121 – When I get working I must check out HR Puffenstuff, another show we didn’t get here.

    You may wish you hadn’t. (Hey, it was the mid-70’s, and live-action kiddy shows were cheap.)
    But, if only to understand refs from Day the Earth Froze (“No complaints here, Witchiepoo”), and theme song refs I’m still trying to place the episode to…YouTube once again to the rescue:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUb0V-0_kFw
    Therapeutic help is available afterwards. 0_0”

       0 likes

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