Movie: (1981) A clairvoyant magician and his talking chimp become a carnival sensation.
Opening: Tom is giving a TOM Talk
Invention exchange: Kinga announces her wedding; J&tB have Yeasta Pets; The Mads have Flavor Sweat
Segment 1: Carnival barker Tom presents “Markov & Alexander.”
Segment 2: Highway patrol Tom & Crow exchange cop-code radio calls
Segment 3: PT Mindslap and the Great Space Circus Show visit, but Kinga and Max chase him off
Closing: Kinga and Max narrate the disturbing carnival parade
Stinger: Sad cop sitting on his car gets towed away.
(68 votes, average: 4.04 out of 5)
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• The first time I saw this, having heard horrible things about it for years, I felt it really lived up to its billing. I wrote: “Just … whew!”
I noted that it reminds me very much of “Carnival of Souls” and I still think so. Both have that “locals hired to act for the first time in their lives” air to them. But I didn’t LOATHE it like some people do, and no way is it the worst movie MST3K ever did. It actually has a stinky charm, like bad meat or good cheese, as the saying goes.
• Clearly the big news for this episode is the appearance of Mark Hamill — he even sings! If you’d told me in 1998 that I would be typing that, I’d have said you were crazy.
• The credits say “The Great Space Circus Show” lyrics were written by Joel, Elliott Kalan and Robert Lopez, and it was arranged and performed by Stephen Oremus.
• “Who’s the guy on the bridge for a moment in segment 3?” many people, including me, asked. The character is actually in the credits as as Matt Claude Van Damme. He’s played by associate producer and writer Matt McGinnis. In the comments, somebody said McGinnis said on Twitter “it’ll be revealed but it’s hush hush, like Gypsy’s payload.” FYI, he’s also a Skeleton Crew cameraman in a later episode.
• One of my problems with the re-launch, especially early on, was the chemistry between Kinga and Max, which I felt was a little awkward. But I have to say they have a nice chemistry in the opening.
• Following last week’s appearance by murdered actress Lana Clarkson, let’s also note that the director of this week’s movie, Al Adamson, was murdered in 1995.
• Cast and crew roundup: Just one: producer Elvin Feltner also produced “Teen-Age Strangler,” another movie with a “locals hired to act for the first time in their lives” air.
• Classic riff: “Put your shoes on, honey, we’re almost at Grandma’s.”
• Callbacks: “Watch Out for Snakes!” (Eegah).
• Fave riff: “Two words: cattle prod.” Honorable mention: “Polov!” “Did he just pitch them a ‘Planet of the Apes’ sequel?”
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Because…it’s just a show. And no one’s going to watch a show where the main characters are constantly demoralized (insert riff here).
We can clearly see that Joel, and later Mike, almost never actually suffer. Sure, being imprisoned is a drag, but it’s a FUN prison, isn’t it? We only see Human and the Bots for less than two hours at a time and even then they’re as often as not enjoying themselves when not in the theater. Human and the Bots are up there 24/7 365 days a year, who knows how much fun we’ve missed? Sure Joel and Mike have their occasional…breaks with reality, but they always snap out of it.
That’s part of why (as I’ve stated too many times before) I think the SOL bridge’s new look during the Sci-Fi Channel era was a big mistake. The older bridge was bright and cheerful, kind of like a kid’s show setting (which makes sense because, you know, puppets). The depressing proto-Borg look, well, cripes, I’d be in the depths of near-suicidal despair just from a few days of knowing that I’d be surrounded by THAT for the rest of my life…
(Y’mean, a show where they’re constantly crabby, sour, negative, cynical, impatient, and shouting “Okay, you can end this scene any time now!”?) ;)
As the old theme said, you make lemonade. (As opposed to other riffers, who think they have to make their own “lemonade” ON the movie….)
Again, it’s hard to understand if you’ve only grown up in cineplexes and been demoralized going to just about EVERY movie…Unless you go to one of the CT or RT live shows in a big traditional theater with a whole crowd of like-minded folk, and then it’s so fun to be part of a lively audience! You’re just paying Ticketmaster prices to get what folks a generation before you took for granted.
In our old college-town all-nighters, where they would dig up old sci-fi rarities, one time it was the coldest February, it was after midnight in a college-town with one main street, there was nowhere else to go but the
bridgelobby, the theater was showing some old rare foreign silent movie (think it was Lotte Reiniger’s shadow-puppet version of Baron Munchhausen)…and the heat went out. J&tB can only pretend to be sitting suffering in a theater stranded in the middle of the cold blackness of unforgiving space watching completely unexplained things jump about the screen for ninety minutes, but that was our reality at that moment. We may not have been in as fun a mood as we were in other movies, but to say were were a rowdy audience that night is putting it mildly.I can’t 100% say it was FUN, but looking back, I have better memories of sitting in that audience than I do of seeing Incredibles 2 in the shopping-mall Cinemark two weeks ago.
Ultimately, we’re lashing out at everyone else because we’re miserable now and miss the happier times of our youth.
I think I remember reading in one of the hundreds of interviews about MST3K I’ve perused that the darker, moodier bridge lighting helped Mike with his headaches/migraines. As an occasional migraine sufferer, I can attest that one of the last things you want when you are in pain are bright lights shining in your face. Some people even have their headaches trigger from bright light. So while it was an aesthetic choice, it had a beneficial side effect of making filming a little easier for Mike.
Why do you make posts that you know no one wants to read?
Like…shows from twenty years go when we still watched cable, f’rinst.
Stuff you WANT to read is boring. :)
Ummm… it seems like you are agreeing with my point. What was it you think I was saying?
(I apologize for dignifying him with a reply, but it’s only a short one)
No, it isn’t. Otherwise one wouldn’t want to read it.
Do you honestly not get that most of the people in here GENUINELY DISLIKE YOU?
Note also that he apparently believes that his contributions are interesting. So much delusion.
She’s a fictional character who first appeared in Captain America #288 (1983)…although she was evidently named after the band that’s already been mentioned. Life’s a wondrous tapestry, innit? ;-)
That picture up there keeps making me think of Century 21 Calling. Odd.
Now that you mention it, the last time I went to a theater was to watch a live performance of Rifftrax. And that was “Jack the Giant Killer,” many years ago. My usual film habits are restricted to DVDs that I own or occasionally check out of the library. In fact, MST3K Season 11 constitutes well over 50% of the “films” that I’ve watched in the past six months. Not that anyone asked. ;-)
I always thought Joel did that rather well.
And exactly how many episodes took that approach? Five or six? Out of EIGHTY-SIX?
If I had to pick a worst episode of the Joel years it would be, no contest, Castle of Fu Manchu precisely because of what you’ve highlighted about it (if those are your favorite parts, it explains much about how neurotic you are). I watch MST3K to be entertained and seeing beloved characters in the throes of despair does not entertain me.
Wait a minute. That’s why YOU’RE always trying to inflict emotional pain, isn’t it?!
I suppose they do those things.
I do not think it means what he thinks it means…
I don’t do that, either. Cripes, no wonder you’re in such a disagreeable mood all the time. The pieces are falling into place right and left. And yet I Just Don’t Care.
Shrug. More often than not I skip past the host segments of Season 11. That’s just me, of course. Many people enjoy them immensely and that’s A-OK by me. :-)
Shouldn’t there have been Riding with Death callbacks, though? Or at least a shout of “Vaaaaaaannnnnnnce!”?
The heart wants what it wants. Whoever wrote The Book of Love was one sick b_stard…
Isn’t it usually the credits that make him sick, though? Also, I’m not sure it qualifies as a sight gag if it also involves dialogue. ;-)
Well, how many un-sinful people attend carnivals in the first place?
“And then a lion jumped out and shot her.”
They Just Didn’t Care.
Carnies aren’t known for maintaining much of a sense of wonder. They don’t look at life, they’re bitter.
Just when we’re startin’ to have fun, we get saddled with a PLOT” — Buster Bunny
This was back in the era of free-range parenting, don’cha know.
My favorite scene in this episode is when the chimp is doing mundane things and Jonah and the bots marvel at them.
“Good? He’s the best! I mean, look at that thing hanging down!”
“USA! USA! USA!”
“HE IS IN THE REFRIGERATOR!” “IT’S ORANGE JUICE!!!”
(when the chimp offers a kiss) “Whoa, too far.”
SAMPO: I noted that it reminds me very much of “Carnival of Souls” and I still think so. Both have that “locals hired to act for the first time in their lives” air to them
Everybody has to start somewhere. And if they end there as well, them’s the breaks.
For a similar example, refer to The Howling: New Moon Rising. Then regret it.
Actually, based upon what I’ve read on the subject (hey, film is film), the production values in 1970s pornography didn’t quite rise to this film’s. They occasionally had super-heroes, though, so there’s that.
But not like having a good cry. So there’s that to distinguish it from “Child Bride,” anyway.
Did anyone else know that in some parts of the United States, child marriage is STILL legal? Roll that around in your heads for a while…
You seem to be operating from the premise that it’s possible to “deserve” to be murdered. I respectfully disconcur.
Worked for the couple in Manos.
Europe
So you only watch partial episodes. HERETIC! THIS GUY IS NOT ONE OF US! Lol
I’ll never understand host segment skippers. What, do you think this is Rifftrax or something? Oh well, more host segment goodness for me! :)
Well, I said “more often than not,” not “always.” Besides, as noted I was referring just to Season 11. The Jonah/neo-Crow/neo-Servo dynamic outside the theater just isn’t doing it for me. They’re trying to re-create the sort of chemistry that it took YEARS to perfect and it just doesn’t work that way.
“We’re at a carnival, see? See all the carnival stuff? Look how much we’re at a carnival. We’re more at a carnival than you’d be anywhere else, I’ll tell you that.”
Remembering:
“Okay, there’s a fair that figures prominently in the movie, we know!”
Chick Flicks: Should They Too Be Riffed? That’s NOT Our Focus for Today. Another Time, Perhaps.
It goes without saying (and yet…) that said flicks should tend more toward drama than comedy, because bad comedy isn’t funny.
It wasn’t a CIRCUS, it was a CARNIVAL (did the movie somehow fail to convey that?). Many a circus employee will gladly explain the difference to you. At length.
Isn’t like three-fourths of it totally lacking in dialogue, though? That would mean it literally ain’t half-bad.
Both of them excellent endeavors, too. :-)
Well, aren’t we a little bundle of sunshine and optimisim.
Seriously, what do you have against Mike? Did he break into your house and pee in your corn flakes?
Why didn’t any of the human actors say anything particularly funny or outrageous? It had no point and that was the point. It’s subversive. Or ironic. Or a foam peanut. Something like that.
Well, at least two out of those three are considered among MST3K’s best, so I’m not sure that’s the kind of comparison you had in mind.
A monkey-fetishest named Ollie? Hope he didn’t miss it.
Or alternatively, just anybody. Back then, there were even more people who’d watch ANYTHING than there are today.
“Hello, Harry.”
Or, alternatively,
“Hello, Fata.”
T.E.D.? Initial impression? What is that, some kind of joke?
;-)
Budget cuts, y’know.
When you think about it (“So don’t think about it.”), she was in a semi-lawless environment dominated by unscrupulous sweaty men who weren’t likely to have much luck scoring with female customers. In such an environment, many a girl or woman would dress and act like a prepubescent boy just as a survival tactic. When you’re one of the boys, there’s less chance of them thinking too much about how you have girl parts…
That said (and recognizing that no one much cares to begin with), I’ll admit I skip the host segments in earlier seasons now and then. Probably more during the SFC years than the CC years, because the Brains were getting more and more hostile and bitter, because Bill Corbett’s voice got on my nerves too easily, and because I really never much cared for Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy in the first place. Plus, as I’ve repeated too many times already, the SFC era bridge depressed me if I looked at it too long. CC episodes whose host segments I didn’t care for include (as noted) Castle of Fu Manchu, Fire Maidens from Outer Space, Colossus and the Headhunters, San Francisco International, and others not occurring to me at the moment.
I didn’t much care for the host segments in Cinematic Titanic or in Film Crew, either. I’m in it for the RIFFS, baby. ;-)
And, as just one more contrast, that’s the part of the episode that I absolutely could not stand. The fact that you enjoyed it doesn’t bother me a bit, though. ;-)
He’s Newman to Mike’s Seinfeld.
One puzzling thing about this film is that if the talking chimp aspect was dubbed in later as an after thought after the movie proper was filmed, then in the original storyline how was the addition of a chimp that does very little going to save the carnival by drawing in the crowds. Especially if the potentially man eating big cats the carnival already had didn’t do the trick? The chimp talking is the only remarkable thing going on, even if it’s used to no effect. So what was the movie even about before the “talking” bit was tacked on?
I wish I could say I intended that. But to be honest, that was a complete accident.
So, half a fan, duly noted lmao
I’ll do you one better, I not only skip the host segs of the SciFi era, I skip the episodes altogether!
And Sampo, bad meat does not have a stinky charm ;)
If you couldn’t gather from EricJs posts, he feels that Mike’s style of humor is bully-ish, and it offends him. He feels that the Joel and Jonah eras do not use bully humor, but instead are more clever towards the movies. This is just his opinion, and he’s entitled to it.
And he’s never once asked anyone to delete their account.
Well, I’ve certainly never gathered that and I’ve been, well, skimming and occasionally fully reading his posts for years, so thanks for the info…which does nothing to alter my opinion that he’s a thoroughly unpleasant person, though.
If you’re interested, you go to Youtube search for “The New Detectives” then the episdoe “Buried Secrets” it covers the murder of the director. Its the last segment.
If you don’t think J&TB showed contempt for the movies go back and watch episode 416. Honestly, I don’t understand the constant bickering over who was the better host on this site.
Can’t we just enjoy the show?
I began watching it during season 8. It’s my favorite season by far, and to be honest, I think Mike is a funnier host. Does that make me a bully? Less intelligent?
I love episodes from all the eras. They all have their strengths, and weaknesses.
I come to this site to commiserate with other Msties. Please, let’s not turn this into any other hate-spewing social media nightmare.
Piffle.
It’s not about whether or not he’s entitled to his opinion; he can think whatever the hell he wants.
It’s the constant droning, on and on, about how much Mike sucks, and how everything was better under Saint Joel. He expresses this on a regular basis – it gets old.
And while that would be annoying enough, he does it in the most condescending, dick-ish way possible. Your defense of him is baffling.
For anyone who’s been around long enough, it’s easy to spot a living, breathing troll. This isn’t about a difference of opinion – this is about asking a disagreeable, arrogant weenie to delete his account. It’s really quite simple.
Gare