Best boss/worst boss in an MST’d movie/short.
The best boss has to be the troubled “Mr. Warren” in “Hired!” He has no idea how to manage people but he’s willing to learn from his flying elf-swattin’ dad!
What’s your pick?
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Weekend Discussion Thread: Best/Worst BossesAlert reader Ken suggests:
51 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Best/Worst Bosses”Commenting at Satellite News
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A good candidate for Worst Boss would be J.K. Robertson from “Time Chasers”. The guy buys the rights to a working time machine, but won’t listen to reasonable warnings from its creator. When an employee has misgivings over committing murder, he shoots said employee dead. And, when the timeline resets and he’s given another chance, he fires the once-dead employee for a relatively minor mistake, and shows no real indication that he’s anything but a money-hungry jerk.
The turkey-wolfing general from THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN. Wouldn’t it be great if he could bring to bear ANY kind of practical assistance for his pathetic whiny scientist.
For best boss I’ll go with Happy Chef from “I Accuse my Parents”. He gave Jimmy a job at his diner and helped him out with his problems.
For worst boss Mr. Haskins of from “The Brute Man”. That guy was grouchy as all hell. “Creeper, Creeper, Creeper! You give me the creeps!”
I say a Best Boss candidate is the manager of the show in “Incredibly Strange Creatures…” His star goes on stage drunk and flubs her routine, but he gives her good advice, a stern warning, and another chance. Plus, it’s obvious he’s willing to give a lot of people a chance at performing, talented or not.
Worst Boss – The Master! He has all those gals out back and won’t let Torgo have even one…what a hog! No phone, no TV, nothing to keep a poor satyr entertained. Plus, he DOES look a bit like Bill Buckner…
Best: Col. Sanders from Time of Apes. Tough but fair.
Worst: The guy in charge from PARTS. I mean…. PARTS!!
Mr. Haskins from Brute Man was actually a great boss. If the delivery boy had taken his advice and stopped snooping after the Creeper, he would still be alive.
Worst boss is the villain from Danger!! Death Ray. Not only does he kill or sacrifice his own men, but he does not appear to have a dental plan. Considering all his employees who get hit in the face by Bart Fargo, that is going to cost them a lot of money.
Best Boss? I would have to go with Omphale from “Hercules Unchained.” She showers you with food, massages by a whiny houseboy, love, dancing nymphs. And then when it’s “quitting time” you get to hang around for all eternity looking buff and all that.
Worst Boss? That’s easy! That would be Mrs. Claus in “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” She works everyone like slaves! “Paint those hobby horses, stop standing around like statues.” She never gives anyone a moment’s rest! And how do they all get paid? With the cookies that Santa doesn’t eat and those are darn few and far between!
Worst (and Best) boss: The chubby chairman in OatMB. He actually is quite patient with
Fingol, who foolishly turns down chances to be saved through impatience (I mean, a
filthy, disgusting anteater would have handled things better).But the chairman
deserved to be put on report for his solution to security—I know. I’ll just
reverse the access code!
Also, worst boss, Krankor. Both for the high attrition rate of his staff since he can’t seem
to figure out his weapons are useless against effete superhroes and his design of staff
uniforms.
For worst boss, I’ll go with Dr. Vornoff from Bride of the Monster. For best boss I’ll agree with Sampo and go with Mr. Warren from Hired.
Best: Ratfink. despite all the shortcomings of his henchmen, he was thoughtful enough to arrange for some whacha-chic-waah for his army of mole men.
Worse: head of the Neptunian invasion. misplacing your record AND blowing up the Hitler building…oh what will your mother say?
Best: Jimmy’s boss at the shoe store in I Accuse My Parents. Hey, he hired Jimmy. That alone makes him patient and tolerant.
Worst would have to include Col. “Pappy” Greene from Project Moon Base. He threatens to spank his underlings and strongly urges them to get married whether they want to or not.
John Saxon in Mitchell. Come on, he bought a hooker for his assistant.
Worst: Adam West in Zombie Nightmare. Also Vadinho from Pumaman.
Best: Santa Claus, in either of those two movies.
Worst boss might be the hypnotist in She-Creature. Possessive, controlling, micromanaging, soul stealing, murder for profit. The Great Vorreli wasn’t much better the way he treated his dummy. The werewolf saboteur in Projected man wasn’t exactly supportive.
Best boss: Harry Bayliss from The Beatniks. He will not give up on Eddy Crane, despite being stabbed by Moon when he tries to help Eddy break loose from that goofy gang. Now that’s loyalty!
Worst boss: Gloria Henderson from Sinister Urge. She hires you, but if you know too much or she has no further use for you, either she has you killed or kills you herself!
Leo, the greasy gangster-boss of the Haunted House nightclub in “Girl in Gold Boots” would be a great boss! He might be sarcastic and hard to work for, but he is generous with his supplements to his dancers, doesn’t like bad-mannered “kids” with guns, gives mop-boy to yak-boy promotions and is “with it” on the Hollywood scene!
Best: The scientist guy with the mystery accent in Killer Shrews. Sure, he created killer airdales with carpet scraps glued to them and let them escape, but he DID keep plenty of booze on hand!
Worst: Calgon, leader of the rebels in Space Mutiny. He’ll throw you off catwalks and insult your knowledge of primitive dentistry.
I would say the best and worst boss awards should go to Ed Platt’s beatnik/crime boss/preacher from The Rebel Set. He was willing to give jobs to guys who really needed the work. He set clear and achievable goals for his employees. He provided the right amount of supervision to his band of novice criminals. Unfortunately he loses points for attempting to terminate his entire staff.
Then again, to paraphrase Frank: They knew going in that this was only a temporary situation. (insert diabolical laugh)
Worst Boss: The redneck sheriff in ‘Laserblast.’ First insults, then bogarts, all your small indulgences.
Best Boss: Bryant “Doc” Lockhart. Takes you camping with hot coeds. Finds actual monsters (3 if you count Crenshaw). And all for grad-level credits!
Great postings so far.
Worst Boss
I’ll vote for Dr. Lorenz from The Corpse Vanishes. He yells, slaps and whips his servants at the slightest real or perceived error. Toby can’t be more than 32″ tall and he was required to heft luggage bigger than him to the second floor. I believe he stabs Fagah to death as well. Heck, all the servants dressed like hobos so the pay was bad. I am sure the benefits sucked as well, no medical.
Best Boss
I vote for Dr. Lorenz! The servants, Fagah (believed to be mother to Toby and Angel; homicidal with permanent stink eye), Toby (Little person who was bell boy, lookout (?) and deliverer of cryptic messages) and Angel (Homicidal potential side show geek, and Lorenz’s whipping post). Who the heck would hire this bunch in the first place?! They also always knew where they stood with him.
Best boss: Gary from “Horrors of Spider Island”. A man of few words. He’ll just cross his legs to say you’re hired. Worst boss: Yuri from “Werewolf”. No further explanations needed!
Best Boss: Ava Gardner’s producer in “City on Fire” (played by James Franciscus, I think). Even though Garder’s news anchor character was always aggressively drunk and had zero personality or charisma on camera, her producer was convinced that she was a star, just waiting for her chance to be discovered. When the story of the big fire was about to thrust her into the national spotlight, he put up with her abuse and saw to it that she would be ready for her big chance, even going as far as to shove her into the shower to sober her up!
Worst Boss: Michele’s dad in “Girl in Gold Boots”. As the proprietor of “Eat”, he does nothing but drink all day, slap Michele around, and excrete oil!
Worst boss: The Master. He kills Torgo. That’s a bad day at work.
Runner Up: Santa Claus from Santa Claus. That’s a LOT of underage workers.
Best boss: Batwoman. Mmmmm! It’s yogurt!
The captain on “Phantom Planet” is a great boss as long as you don’t jabber about the good and the beautiful. Otherwise, he’ll shove you out the airlock.
Best: The gent with the bird in BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. He’s patient, understanding, and takes messages for his employees. As long as you’re not a snoopy reporter and don’t mess up his newspaper, anything you do is apparently fine with him.
Runner-Up: Kimar from SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. Dropo is spectacularly inept, can’t be depended on to do the simplest task or obey direct orders, and he keeps him on anyway.
Worst: Santa from SANTA CLAUS, for having an all-kid concentration camp to build his toys. And they have to sing little songs whenever he decides to play the organ. God knows what they have to do when the cameras aren’t on…
Best: Leonard Driscoll in RIDING WITH DEATH. He cleans his eyeglasses regularly, and he doesn’t like Robert Denby. Worst: Edward Platt’s character in THE REBEL SET. He’s pretty hard on the guys he hires for the heist (killing two out of three), and he has no respect for the clergy. Another worst choice: the talking table in SECRET AGENT SUPER DRAGON. He needs to allow more time for research (“well, it’s hawd”).
Best Boss: The Chevrolet boss from ‘Hired!’. He listens to his dad’s advice and realizes that he needs to be a better example to his employees. He helps young salesman Jimmy turn his prospects around and become an asset to the company.
Worst Boss: The crabby old fart from ‘The Brute Man’. I’d rather be choked to death than work for a jerk like that.
I see #18 beat me to it with THE REBEL SET!
Best boss: Sheila from “The Violent Years” sending girls out to criminally attack men is okay in my book
Worst boss: Mitchell’s captain, keeping him on the force must result in at least 2 lawsuits a week
I LOVE the old storekeeper from The Brute Man. Then again, I’ve known since late childhood I was destined to grow up to be a crotchety old woman myself.
Ready4sumfootball #13, stop sucking up to the Big man. Santa knows a brown noser when he sees it! :-D
Worst boss has to be the General from Project Moonbase. Nobody likes getting spanked at work.
What #3 said.
About the boss sexual harassment of Bright Eyes in Project Moonbase: As the Globetrotter on Futurama said when Bender put on his Globetrotter ripoff jersey:
“Hello lawsuit”.
#32? #34? Spanking? Donna Martell? I’ll be in my bunk.
John Russell in Untamed Youth. John Russell was scary. Really scary. John Russell’s eyes looked like the eyes of a polar bear-“We’re doomed.”
Several good choices for worst. Let’s not forget Dr Vornoff’s abuse of Lobo in “Bride of the Monster”. And for ineffectuality, think of Col. Harrison in “The the Eye Creatures”, who had the US military at hand but took a backseat :-P to the necking ‘teens’ who actually saved the day for night.
Best Boss: The old Professor in Terror from the Year 5000. What a sweet deal Angelo had….toolin around in the boat, a sugar shack wallpapered with porn and scored with Davey & Goliath music….not to mention the endless peeping-Tom opportunities and a time machine that coverts milk into bowling trophies!
Worst Boss: The Spacecraft Captain from Teenagers from Outer Space ….while good operating a Multichannel Mixer and sticking to the code of operations (maintaining the supreme race…) his middle management “people skills” were straight out of Harlan County….TORCHA! He was also mean to puppy dogs and lobsters
Another great topic and great answers that have me falling out my chair in laughter! For my contribution I’ll go with:
Worst boss — Captain Santa from Space Mutiny. He really didn’t know what the hell was going on, but at least he got the Bellarians to play under his robe.
Best boss — Dr. Gavin from Horror of Party Beach. As his assistant you get to go sight-seeing around New York, AND you get to boink his daughter. Does he have an internship available?
The Novicorp Chairman (aka The Fat Man) from Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. Why did he get involved with Fingal’s memory being downloaded into the mainframe? Had he just left him alone, Fingal would probably have just bumbled around until his body was found. Or just offer him major stock to not botch things up. And reversing the access code? Hacking 101!
Calgon from Space Mutiny seems like a shoe-in for worst boss, what with all of the murdering/freezing his subordinates and anyone else who got in his way, but I feel like Commander Santa Claus from the same film deserves some serious consideration. He basically spends most of the film hemming and hawing uselessly, letting Calgon rampage through the ship and kill a bunch of people–and when he and Captain Sting are given evidence of what Calgon’s up to, all they do is say they’ll warn the rest of the ship “in due course!” Like Mike said, he really did fail.
For best boss, definitely Happy Chef, a man of grace and compassion.
Best- Ator. Not afraid to show his emotional side, and can make his own hang glider out of, you know, stuff.
Worst? The General in Beginning of the End. Got a few bugs? Nuke Chicago into the Stone Age without a hang glider.
The guy in command of Rocketship X-M got everyone killed by overruling the correct calculations of another crew member. Worst boss ever.
#32 I read somewhere that Carley Simon dealt with stage fright by having a band mate spank her before each performance. I think Madonna might have a similar pre-show ritual for different reasons.
Hugh “doormat” Beaumont from Human Duplicators.
Worst boss: Yuri from “Wahr-wilf” — he’ll punch you out if you’re male, harass you if you’re female, and he can’t keep the same hairstyle from day to day.
Best boss: The diner guy from “I Accuse My Parents.” I’d like to say something sarcastic about him but he was just a nice guy.
Worst boss – its a tie in the SAME movie, The Girl in Lover’s Lane. The owner of the pool hall who sat by and encouraged his patrons to get their asses kicked; and the owner of the diner who employed Jack Elam even though he creeped the hell out of his daughter.
Worst Boss – Easily JK Robertson from Time Chasers.
Best Boss – Easily Al Frazier who owns the diner in I Accuse My Parents. Free room and board as long as you go to church with me.
#44 (Yipe Stripes): Yes, and Mike’s Hugh Beaumont gets at his pent-up rage, because he comes home only to warm pies (instead of saran wrap and stiletto heels).
I don’t know if this is the right place, but I’d like to suggest a topic: Most Incompetent Protagonist from an MST3K movie or short.
I already have my choice picked out. :)
My vote for best boss goes to Captain Santa from Space Mutiny. It was nice of him to give that dead woman another chance.