Short: (1950) A typical suburban family demonstrates how to be bland and formal at dinner.
Movie: (1952) A gathering of strangers in a bar are stunned to learn that the Soviets have attacked the U.S.
First shown: 7/23/94
Opening: Mike tries to build a robot
Intro: Dr. F. or a wire mother?
Host segment 1: A date with M&TB
Host segment 2: Tom tricks Crow into a Lois Lane discussion
Host segment 3: A visit from “A. Bomb” on the Hexfield
End: Tom thinks it’s all a dream, letter, Frank is on patrol!
Stinger: Couple stare as a paper boy cries out: “Extra! Paper! America invaded! Read all about it!”
(14 votes, average: 4.14 out of 5)
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• I wouldn’t say this is an episode where the short outshines the feature, but I think the two are about evenly matched. The short is an absolute classic (“The less said about this the better!”) but the riffing of the feature is just about as good. And most of the segments are a definite step up from last week’s drab entries.
• Again, in the opening, they make very explicit that Mike is not Joel. I remember that killbot caused quite a stir on the MSTie internet. People were trying to make replicas within hours.
• Trace seems very perky in this episode. I particularly love “Yat-dat-dada-dada-dat-dah-FACT!”
• This week the Umbilicus is the “Umbilcon” for whatever reason.
• Great little throwaway: As Tom is examining the “mother” we can hear him mutter “…usually have two…”
• The point of the movie seems to be a pitch for what is referred to as “the universal draft,” which apparently means that the military can just waltz into a tractor factory and demand that they build tanks. The goal, of course, is fighting Communism, under which the military can just walk into a tractor factory and demand that they build tanks. Maybe that’s why we didn’t hear too much about “the universal draft” after this.
• Segment 1 is great stuff, just the sort of segment I would include in a “shorts and the host segments they inspired” collection I would love to see Shout! Factory do.
• Annoying commercial: The Odor Eaters featuring “Swamp Foot.” Honorable mention: The “Real Bowl” Comedy Central bumpers, which were distinctly unfunny.
• “It’s a long par five to the nation’s capital” was later reused in the movie.
• I love the neon “stand by” sign in the TV studio. It’s elegant, I’ll grant you, but pretty useless.
• This movie must have been pretty easy to make–just edit together all the stock footage you can find, along with about 20 minutes of actual movie.
• Segment 2 comes before we’ve seen any of the Lois Lanes. It probably should have been segment 3. That aside, it’s lots of fun and has a very casual feel that I like.
• Then-current riff: “Vince Coleman’s final revenge.” Coleman was an outfielder, playing for the Mets in 1993, when he threw a lit firecracker into a crowd of fans in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, injuring three children, and deservedly got into a heap o’ trouble. Honorable mention: “This is all Andrew Guiliani’s fault.” Andrew was the mischievous son of then-New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani.
• That’s comedian and MST3K writer Mike Dodge as the Bomb. Dodge joined the writing staff at the beginning of season six, and this was his only on-screen appearance. Mike’s performance is a little over the top for my tastes, but he didn’t have a lot to work with. This segment is pretty tiresome.
• Fave riff: “Well, just keep coming down until you’re not in the sky anymore! Doncha know how to land???” Honorable mention: “So, are you gonna finish the windows?”
I can’t explain why I find this movie, about the utter obliteration of the United States at the hands of a suspiciously unnamed enemy nation delights me so; maybe it’s just for its odd mock-World War II feels like it’s making fun of a discount History Channel production.
Besides not bothering to name the enemy nation, it’s odd they don’t actually show — or name — the President of the Whole Entire United States. I think this reflects an (odd, to modern eyes) reluctance of movie makers of the time to show the President too directly, as if he were just another movie star. Yankee Doodle Dandy has an even more bizarre case of this, as James Cagney as George M Cohan converses with a President who can’t possibly be anyone but Franklin Roosevelt even though they shy away from saying that. They also don’t actually name “Washington, DC”, instead calling it “the seat of government”, so as to make the dialogue as stilted as possible.
If this movie isn’t on a double-bill with Rocket Attack USA it should be. Also if it isn’t a Hearts Of Iron II scenario (that’s a grand strategy game covering 1936-to-1954, where you can play any of the roughly 200 nations in the world and it’s even more complicated than you imagine it could be) then that should be too.
My favorite riff was (to the effect of) fretful generals worrying after the surprise attack, atom bombing of every army and navy base ever, invasion of San Francisco, and destruction of Billings, Montana, or wherever it was Lois Lane wanted to go, “Could the atom bombing of New York City be a diversion?” and Crow asking, “From what?”
I’ve only seen the short from this one (thanks to Shorts Vol. 1) but I’ll get caught up on the movie (and last week’s episode) this weekend.
the short is very funny but the movie is not funny. Was it me or the daughter and brohter was acting really weird around each other. I wonder if they dated or something. i don’t know if was the acting or there was some tesion between the actors which for me makes the short kinda creepy. Less said about this the better.
This is not one of those episodes that you foward to. It just not funny nothing but stock footage. boring.
When i heard they were doing a movie called invasion usa. I really thought it was the chuck norris 80′s movie.
Mike Dodge was also the voice of the boss, Mr. Honcho, in the Film Crew videos.
I love this movie. So goofy and implausible. So paranoid. Ed Wood only dreamed he could fit as much turgid stock footage into one of his films. A great sleeper episode for me.
#1 Joseph Nebus- As a fan of MST and HOI2, I did a spit take on your “Hearts of Iron II: Invasion USA” comment. I’d buy that. In the spirit of the film, the invading country would have to be impossible to determine and the leaders and generals of the US would have to be nameless, faceless silhouettes.
Did you know that there were outtakes from A Date with Your Family? It’s true! And they’re inexplicably in color…
http://www.archive.org/details/DateWith1950_2
Regarding the “umbilicon” (umbilipod?):
I always was under the impression that the tube connecting the ship and Deep 13 was the Umbilicus, but the little chamber you could put stuff in and/or take stuff out of was called something else, hence Umbilicon or whatever he says.
I like this episode.
I loooove the short but the movie is only so-so for me.
I can’t tell you how many times I use this little gem – “Remember, always cut the meat of the person to your left.”
A great episode, and I agree that it should be in a set with Rocket Attack USA. The short is priceless, and has one of our family’s favorite riffs: “Dad feigns eating, draws Junior out, then disowns him!”
The movie is jaw-dropping. I love these movies that try to show the danger of Communism, and end up portraying the US military as entirely inept. Good god, how were they spending our tax dollars? Didn’t they have ANY personnel with brains or a decent response time? Wow.
Favorite riffs: “And when you pledge to the Soviet Union you get this nifty tote bag.”
*”Tractor police, John Deere Squad!”
This movie hurts me. Rarely do i fall asleep watching movies, let alone my favorite show, but Invasion USA just kills me. By the time we’re in the midst of the stock footage orgy, i’m already snoring. I can’t help it. I’ve seen this episode about three times now and all three times i had to finish it the next day. It’s not that Mike and bots do a bad job, it’s just that they can’t save this sleeping pill of a film. But this won’t be the last mind-numbing film of Season 6, no sir…
The short is damn funny, though.
I like the short and the movie is nice and weird, but dull.
The short is one of my favorites, as I first saw it on the Shorts collection from Rhino. The completely stiff dinner is laughable, and yet kind of practical. I really can’t fault them for the basic idea of just finishing one’s meal in peace.
My favorite riff from this one, of course, is “The less said about this, the better,” as the teenage son pulls the chair out for his mother.
Invasion U.S.A.
I’m glad Mike referenced the Chuck Norris movie of the same name. (Coincidentally, that movie stars Richard Lynch, who played the grandma-looking guy in the movie Werewolf.)
What I find odd about the movie is that the whole scenario is basically an argument for defense spending. Also, why does the army need a guy’s tractor factory to make tanks? You’d think they would already have a contractor in place for the sort of thing?
Cool thing in the movie: Wall mounted TV in a bar, a very common thing today.
Missed opportunity: No Robocop references made, despite the presence of Dan O’Herlihy, who played the “Old Man” CEO of OCP in Robocop.
A Date with Your Family is awesome, but it’s available separately so you don’t really need the episode to see it. Favorite Riff: “Emotions are for ethnic people.”
Invasion USA itself is, well, pretty lame, and the riffing wasn’t really enough to overcome that for me. Mostly, I was just deeply disappointed that it didn’t turn out to be the 1985 Chuck Norris film of the name. (Which, coincidentally, shares a villain with season nine’s Werewolf.)
Also, this has been mentioned, but the message of this purportedly patriotic film is rather bizarre. So, in order to protect our personal freedoms we have to surrender all our personal freedoms? It seems a bit like burning down your house to save on insurance.
I had forgotten about this one, but I could not stop laughing at Crow’s reaction to being separated from his wire mother.
“…and sister seats the dog, and the dog seats…”
i saw the outakes. i can now understand the tenion. it came from the actress playing the sister holding in her laughter.
I love the short. It is just so dark and funny. The movie, however, is just ok. Host segments are pretty good throughout.
One other thing: Mike Dodge, in addition to voicing Bob Honcho, also narrated Edward The Less.
Sampo, I’m surprised you didn’t mention Crow’s mother (which was based on a well known experiment on infant primates IIRC). Though she got sucked into space a few episodes later, Crow’s Mother did reappear in the final episode as did Tom’s duplicates. And yes Trace was hilarious when Crow is separated from his “mother” (Trace certainly gave Crow the best reactions).
One thing I loved about the opening is that Mike never says a thing throughout (too busy fighting his “Destroy”-bot I guess). That was unusual to me since Mike is usually quite chatty in host segments.
One of my all time favorite shorts! Everybody in it looks so uncomfortable and self-concious. The riffs are hilarious and biting. My favorite lines are:
“Daddy, I’m dating a negro.”
(“Everyone is now seated.”) Their stomachs knotted like fists!”
(“Say how delicious moms cooking is.”) “Even as you gag on it!”
“Suddenly a violent argument breaks out over who had a more pleasent day.”
“This makes me want to heat up a Libby Land dinner and eat in front of the TV!”
Man, I love this episode.
I didn’t het to post this during the Beginning Of The End recap, but Peggie Castle is really hot. She has kind of a laid back, sly sexiness that is a lot of fun. There are some cheesecake pictures of her with Noel Neill in swimsuits standing around the models of ruined buildings taken for this film that are kinda bizarre floating around.
“I’m moving to Fire Island dear…”
I’ll post more remeberances later, but I do remember Vince Coleman even before he played with the Mets. He came up with the Cardinals in 1985 and stole more than 100 bases as a rookie. However, he also got run over by an automatic tarp machine before an NLCS game with the Dodgers. He never got to play in the World Series against the Royals, and some Cards fans I know think that that incident lost the Series for them more than Don Denkinger’s infamous missed call.
“The Woody Allen story.”
One line in the short “Hi mom, I’m
pregnant” somehow crystalized the short
as a prescient portrayal of the Sarah Palin
family at home in Alaska (making a turkey
dinner?)
Hands down funniest stinger ever from the CC-era.
Terriffic short, so-so movie, it kinda drags throughout. As far as the question of why the universal draft, and forced conversion to war production, most countries do this to some degree in time of war. In any case, the invasion is entirely implausible, even in the 1950′s, no nation, or even an alliance of nations, could have mounted such an attack, and have it be a surprise.
Love it love it love it. The short is, of course, a classic. My favorite riff would have to be a tie between:
Mike: “Son has a tight psychological grip on Junior.”
Narrator: “Do you begin to see now how a date with your family can be a truly special occasion?”
Mike: “Do you? DO YOU? WELL, DO YOU? BETTER SAY YES, DAMNIT!”
The episode proper I do also treasure. Something about these cold-war era scare tactics make for truly laughable cinema. Something about meeting all these characters we know are hopelessly doomed to die. And, yes, the very definition of a walk-on is one of the greatest stingers out there.
This one was okay. Liked the short better. The movie was sluggish, but some riffs made it tolerable.
Yeah, okay. These people didn’t know it was mass hypnosis. It’s perfectly normal to see other people’s viewpoints when you’re nowhere NEAR them. How did they know what was going on with the enemy? In the army’s headquarters? I know – it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie…
Still – come ON.
And yes, I guess that was the first flat screen TV in the bar, there. Pretty good for the times, eh?
Callback: Try switching to – RADAR. – Crow
Some good lines:
Hey, look, they’re dead, let’s move it along lady – Mike (line in the airport)
Go away, you poopie-kaka-head Russians – Crow
Bozo has been cancelled – Mike
(When a guy in the bar says to eat, drink and be merry, for tommorrow we die): Not that funny when it’s true, Ed – Crow
Thank God – for a minute I thought this war was going to affect me personally – Crow
“Emotions are for ethnic people.”
I believe the monkey experiment was done by a Dr. Harlow.
Has there ever been a Doctor Who spoof that featured human-sized versions of the wire monkey standing in for Daleks, firing death rays out of their bottles?
“Well, there it is – spankings all around, then.”
I have a little Excel document, part of which is a worksheet that divvies up all my MST3K episodes into different “categories” or “genres”, if you will. Such as “Aliens”, “Made for TV” or “From Our Friends in Japan”.
This movie sits squarely in the “Huh?” column, right there with “Robot Monster” and “The Dead Talk Back.”
I mean….what the f- ?
The first time I saw the feature (the Short being an old friend of mine), I had to keep reminding myself, “Don’t watch the movie – don’t watch the movie – the jokes…listen to the jokes…the riffs….”
But man, was it hard! Now, after several viewings – and largely in part to Trace’s ever-increasing GENIUS with Crow – I love watching this insipid nightmare of a snuff film.
“I really am a cowboy, you know. I’m not gay!”
“Would you really jump out of a window for me? You nut!”
I like this episode. When it comes to Cold War paranoia films it’s no “Rocket Atack USA”, but it’s pretty amusing and MST3K did a fine job exploiting it for humor.
I think Gordon hits the mail on the head: succumb to the riffs, and forget about trying to follow the movie. Early on Tom yells at the screen, “Will somebody PLEASE INVADE SOMETHING?”…but that really is the start of the stock footage horror that I think turns some people off this one.
That said, some great riffs…just about everything they yell during the Congressman’s speech really pleased me (You’re not funny! Bring out Grand Funk!) and I like the evil communists rifling the drinks cabinet: (with Russian accent) You got some Eagle snacks? Maybe some dip?
I also really liked the initial round robin they did as the brandy was swirled.
–Castro’s not so bad.
–Dalton Trumbo is a really good screen writer.
–Roy Cohn is the greatest obstacle for our country.
The short is of course brilliant–so many memorable bits. One that no one mentioned yet:
–Daddy, I had a feeling today.
–Well don’t.
The use of RADAR would have prevented the surprise attack. We must give ourselves to RADAR freely.
I’ve always found it interesting that Vince Coleman carried firecrackers on his person at the time (actually I think it was more of an M-80 than a simple firecracker). He was a great base stealer, but his career was already in a decline at the time of that incident.
The short clearly outshines the movie in this episode. And Crow’s falling for the wire mother is hilarious. His screech at Mike trying to pry him away from the bottle is great.
Never seen the movie, but “A Date With Your Family” is the perfect, nay the archetypal MST3K short. Every moment of it seems designed to be riffed, and every joke is a home run. I stand in awe of this one.
The short contains one of my all time favorite riffs in any MST3K experiment.
(Narrator): But he won’t spend much time on the phone either.
(Mike): He’s mute.
When I first heard that riff I could hardly breathe I laughed so hard. And I still do every time I watch the short.
Little Black Star says:
January 8th, 2009 at 11:53 am
“Did you know that there were outtakes from A Date with Your Family? It’s true! And they’re inexplicably in color…
http://www.archive.org/details/DateWith1950_2 ”
I remember seeing this on youtube a few years ago.
Also, I recall Prelinger saying something to the effect that they were usually filmed in color if available, then made into prints of color as well as black and white to give customers a choice. I guess schools or whoever would usually go with black and white for obvious money reasons and so the actual short itself in color has never surfaced.
“A Date With Your Family” is in my top 5 shorts.
Do you? DO YOU?! BETTER SAY YES, DAMMITT!!
Has anyone noted yet that the doll used to portray Dr. Forrester in the Intro is a modified ‘Ernest P. Worrell’ talking doll? I only noticed because I think I used to have one of those. lol
I always found Invasion USA to be not a terrible movie but a rather dull one, but the Date with Your Family short has maybe my two favorite riffs of all time.
Narrator: No one starts eating until father has served himself.
Mike: THIS MEANS YOU.
Narrator: Do you begin see now how a date with your family can be a truly special ocassion?
Mike: DO YOU? DO YOU?!
Narrator: And why brother and sister looked forward to the evening?
Mike: …WELL DO YOU?! BETTER SAY YES, DAMN IT!
“These boys greet their Dad as though they were generally glad to see him, as though they really miss him.”
Best line in the short. After watching the short a few times I came to realize that theree is a lalance. Dad has really no interest in the family. The Kids don’t really like (or for that matter) really know their father. Don’t bother Dad, Dad won’t bother you.
Son’s only choise for any warmth from his family is his Oedipus comlex with Mother. Dad indifference to his daughter will probubly end up in a pregancy and a visit to an “aunt” in another town.
It could be worse Rowsdower could be their father.
“Well this certainly is pleasant”- Tom’s rigid angst-ridden read always cracks me up.
Favorite callback:
Brother makes the “ok” hand sign: “This stinks!”
Wouldn’t make any sense if you hadn’t seen Pod People, but because I had I just couldn’t stop laughing.
Has anyone else ever noticed that when you show an episode to some people who haven’t seen a lot of Mst3k you feel a little awkward laughing at all of the callbacks?
@asilaymotionless
As a 30 something fan of the show, I have taken it upon myself to school the next generation, or two, on the show, and as a result, often feel a bit awkward explaining certain bits about it to them….but ultimately, I find they get it, and ain a better appreciation for the show, even if a lot of the jokes are terribly dated by their standards. Youth is wasted on the young.
Favorite riff:
Russians in American uniforms: “We’re from Chicago.”
Guard: “You ever watch the Cubs play?”
Tom (as Russian): “Yeah, they won. . . d’oh!”
[...] MST3k Satellite News, a website I have been visiting on a regular basis since I started surfing the Internet back in 1996 (then it was just a fan site that became the premier source of information and news for MST3k fans), has posted a review of Episode #602 – Invasion U.S.A. [...]
I much prefer the short here. One of their better ones and so many quotable lines. I’m probably alone in this, but I actually think a lot of the intentions of the short (but certainly not the execution) are admirable. Actually taking the time to have the whole family together. Respecting your parents and giving them some downtime. Being positive and not rude at the table. Having the daughter/slave do all the work (ok, kidding on this last one) are concepts now mostly sadly lost.
The film is a hoot but never rises to the short. There are some great bits but it’s the weakest of the entries in season six. I much prefer, and laugh a lot harder, watching the classic cold warhorse Rocket Attack USA.
I’ve always found the film itself to be so-so, there are some funny bits and good riffings from the crew, but it’s kinda stodgy.
The short, on the other hand, is in my opinion the best they ever did. The short by itself is very amusing these days, but with their dead-on riffing it’s taken to another level.
“Buck up, here we go…martini!”
Y’know, it wasn’t very funny, but I like “The Real Bowl”. I like it very much. Why?
Because it takes me back to a more innocent time. A time when reality TV was just a passing fad that deserved what few lame jokes you could make about it before it disappeared, or at least became “functionally extinct” in ecology terms.
Back then, we all knew it could never infect the major networks and be used a club to prevent potential writers strikes. I mean, as lame as pop-culture in the ’90s was, people were smart enough to never give reality TV a following back then, right? It was the decade we had MST3K on the air, after all, right?
People used to laugh more then. There were concerts in the park…
Oh, who am I kidding? That’s the same decade where comic book executives cancelled Transformers TWICE, even though it was selling as much as any other title and had a plot good enough to keep going even after the toy line died. They just had to make way for “NFL Superpro”. Of COURSE reality TV was destined to defile all visual media for the next century!
But I think back to those fish getting flushed, and tell myself that all spawn of the Real World will somedays suffer the same real fate.
*Ahem* No, I never saw this ep, and my parents don’t remember ever seeing the short, despite going to high school at the time of its release.
Just had to throw in my 2 cents about the Real Bowl since no one else was going to.
As cold war, fear-machine driving ’50′s movies go, Rocket Attack USA will always be the highest ranked (at least their use of stock footage was limited). While Invasion USA had some interesting moments, its storyline is too abysmal up until the end (the shot with the family and cab driver getting flooded out from the broken dam was particularly grim). In fact, the only thing this movie had over RA-USA was that the female lead was hotter.
“A Date With Your Family” really is one of the show’s best shorts; almost every joke hits a home run. At the same time, the message of the short is a positive one, and its a shame more families do not get together in this fashion more often.
btw – I know the ACEG joked about it, but was it ever confirmed that Hugh Beaumont actually did the voice-over in this short? It certainly did sound like him.
The movie itself is ok but it’s outshone by the short, which is one of the best they’ve ever done on the show. So many great lines from this one which most of you already noted.
I think Invasion U.S.A. made for a good episode, even if it was grim and made large of stock footage, largely because the scaremongering is so over the top. The entire armed forces of the United States are reduced to a handful of soldiers, a couple dozen planes, and a few anti-aircraft guns. In most places, the first warning of an attack is when the Russians break down the door and murder everyone. (They may never say “Russian” in the movie but the soldiers are all toting PPSh machine guns.)
My favorite moment is toward the end, when it’s known that the Rooskies are advanced on Washington. “Double the guard around the Capitol!” someone says. Next scene we see that the doubled guard consists of…two soldiers. Well, better than one, I guess.
Overall Invasion U.S.A. is a lot more entertaining than many of the Season 6 movies. I’d definitely take this episode over The Dead Talk Back or Red Zone Cuba.
Short was awesome, but did anyone else notice that the cake they had for dessert looked really good. I kept thinking, “Man, if I could only go through the screen and get a slice of that! It looks delicious!”
This movie bored me on so many levels, I had to resort to my music playlist I had saved on my computer just so I could get through it.
Yep…the short is DEFINITIVE MST3K, but wow…Holy Crap, what a steaming turd of an excuse for a movie!
I’m surprised that it’s initial release didn’t spark a nationwide riot from moviegoers, if only based solely on the fact that a good two-thirds of it is nothing but stock footage from WWII…VERY loosely strung together. How infuriating to think of paying good money to sit through this (as stated earlier) “snuff” film in an actual movie theater. There’s nothing truly inspiring or patriotic anywhere to be found in the whole pretentious mess.
Despite a few sparse inspired moments of riffing, this movie annoys me more every time I happen to see it. As far as filmmaking goes, it’s just LAZY and gratuitous, and for some reason, it makes me kind of mad.
Did anyone else notice that Crow seemed to mess up on a riff during one of the dogfight scenes?