Movie: (1964) An air force pilot is eager to learn to fly the F-104 jet, and that means mid-air refueling.
First shown: 10/29/94
Opening: Crow tries to log onto the information super-highway
Intro: The Mads have cranial ports; but M&tB have Cowboy Mike’s barbecue sauce and it’s bold!
Host segment 1: While he and Tom reenact the refueling scene, Crow misses a call
Host segment 2: The bots “debrief” Mike
Host segment 3: The United Servo Academy Men’s Chorus performs
End: Crow finally logs onto the information super-highway, Mike reads a letter, the Mads are sharing their thoughts
Stinger: Lady elbows hubby
(243 votes, average: 4.43 out of 5)
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• This episode is especially near and dear to me. The movie is JUST. SO. BAD. The riffing is great, considering how little they had to work with, and the host segments are silly and endearing.
• This episode is included in The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 12
• Ah, 1994, the year that most people discovered the “online” world, and we began to hear a certain automotive metaphor. By the way, Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet, but he did coin the phrase “information superhighway.”
A personal story: In 1994 I was working for an electronics retailing trade magazine, and one of the big stories of that year was that some electronics retailers (anybody remember Circuit City?) were just starting to carry computers, though nobody (including my boss!) could really say why, exactly, a consumer would want one. And keep in mind that modems were often not standard equipment on many of the computers that were coming to market at that time. Having been online (mostly on Prodigy and AOL) for a couple of years at that point, I tried to explain that “going online” was going to be the killer app for these things. He had no idea what I was talking about and refused to let me do a story about it. He was fired a few months later.
• BTW — do NOT go to biteme.com. It appears to be doing nefarious things.
• In the comments, several experts explained the “looking for uart at fx1050” prompt–essentially it’s saying that there’s a hardware/software conflict, probably involving the modem.
• I love how Crow starts dancing slightly to the hold music as he waits.
• That’s Kevin as the first tech support voice. The next voice is Jim, I think, then the live voice is Paul.
• “It’s bold!!” became an immediate catchphrase.
• I sometimes note especially “naughty” riffs, but it would be impossible to do for this episode. There are dozens during the refueling scenes. My favorite is: “I think he has whiskey jet.”
• Non-spaghetti ball bumpers: datebook, beaker, film canister.
• I once showed this episode to my brother, who was an Air Force pilot. He hated it.
• There was much discussion in online MSTie forums about Crow and Tom, ahem, “refueling.”
• There’s an extreme closeup on the Crow’s phone at one point, and, based on the spray paint flecks on it, I assume it’s been laying around in the prop room.
• Notable theater moment: Mike and Servo get up and dance.
• Those bouncing bombs looked strange to me but several commenters explained that with low-level bombing you need time to get away and the bouncing is designed to give the pilot that time.
• Art riff: “Christo’s latest installa-[boom]…well, good.”
• Random riff: Crow just blurts out: “I hope they blow up Blossom.” (Glad they didn’t.)
• Callbacks: “Shut up Iris.” (The Beatniks), “People seemed to laugh more then:”(Stranded in Space), “Eegah” and “Watch out for snakes!” (Eegah).
• Then-current reference: Tailhook. Honorable mention: “Marilu Henner is replacing Vicky!”
• The topic of corn de-tassling also got a lot of discussion in the forums.
• Segment 2 is great, and I know that many female fans of Mike enjoyed the notion of him being debriefed (tighty whitey alert!)
• Servo does something they rarely do on the show — he takes note of the reel change alert in the corner of the screen and comments on it.
• As if the previous great segments weren’t enough, in segment 3 we are treated to a performance by the United Servo Academy chorus. Kevin wrote both the music and lyrics and I assume spent hours overdubbing himself into many-part harmony. The commenters explained that Mike is imitating Bill McGlaughlin from the local classical music radio show “St. Paul Sunday.”
• Somebody once dissected the lyrics of the song, indicating where every line was stolen from. This has links to almost all them. By the way, if you’d like to hear/see a very nice live version of the song, check out this now-legendary moment from the first JoCo Cruise.
• We get one of the show’s few Cheech and Chong references as Tom Servo imitates Sister Mary Elephant.
• As soon as the character on screen says “poopie suit,” that’s it. Off Tom and Crow go on a long string of scatology, and there’s no stopping them. Mike’s Joel-esque pleas for them to stop fall on deaf ears.
• The “Boogers” incident actually happened, according to the ACEG.
• There is no cast/crew roundup. Nobody involved in this movie worked on any other MSTed movie.
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Jim Mallon. For interns David J. Belmont, Shannon McNeely and Peter Nicolai, this was the final episode they worked on.
• Fave riff: “You know, it’s all kind of dull until you remember how sharp those wings are.” Honorable mention: “Found him! He was under a pile of blankets in my room.”
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Ah, yes, The Starfighters.
SEE some of the most godawful performances by bad actors and non actors ever caught on film!
MARVEL at the red-hot snuggling action!
THRILL as the planes refuel. And refuel again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
FEAST your eyes on the one and only POOPIE SUIT!
Now I’m going to watch this over the weekend.
To Kenneth Morgan (#46): The poopie suit probably has some legitimate and unweildy name like “personal hygene garment, aeronautical” or something, but the guys who have to wear the damn things will always give them some sort of nickname, usually vulgar. The same way the inflatable life vests that pilots wore in WWII are known as “Mae Wests” or the chemical toilets on board some planes are called “Honey Pots.”
I allways figured this movie to be more of a Air Force recruitment/propaganda piece than a “real” movie. It seems obvious that the film makers wanted to portray the Air Force in the most positive light possible, and someone decided that meant that the Air Force should be portrayed as having no problems (aside from a little cloudy weather and unsupportive parents). This decision deprived the movie of conflict, and for that matter, story. What’s left is essentially an hour and a half long infomercial for the Air Force that features, as Mike put it, “more nothing than any other movie”.
This is definitely a case of an exceptionally abysmal movie making for an exceptionally good episode.
But, Sampo, even if your brother hates this episode, does he still like MST3K in general?
The “Bouncing Bombs” are napalm canisters, and yes that’s what they do.
BTW, I was an AF Navigator, and I love this episode-think the movie’s lousy.
Absolutely bottom of the barrel movie. My personal top 5 episode…Great riffing and greay host segments…..just a flat out gem of an effort. [Applause!] :lol:
This is one of the few Season Six episodes I can’t get into, and it’s exactly because of many of the reasons already named. Nothing happens in this…I can’t even call it a movie, its that nondescript. And for me, this was the rare case were the riffing didn’t quite match the painful boredom the film delivers. It was just okay.
The host segments are the best thing about this episode. Between the BOLD!!!!! barbacue sauce bit, Crow’s quest to get onto the internet, and Servo’s choir, they are actually a welcome break from the dullness of the feature. A definite fall-asleep-to episode (those Ray Conniff-like singers alone are prone to lull me to sleep!)
“There’s ALREADY too much flying in this movie!”
Good ep. One of the most boring “movies” on the planet. I’d call it a still. That moves.
Host segments and riffs were good. I watched this a couple of months ago, and tried to watch it again tonight for this, but I just couldn’t get through the whole thing again. It’s good, but there’s only so much one can take. I need more space from it than just a couple of months.
Some more good lines I like:
“Yeah, I see the Charleston was really big in the SIXTIES.” – Mike
“This plane is INSATIABLE.” – Crow
“And as the seasons change, the refueling continues.” – Mike
“The refueling jet likes me! He thinks I’m cuuute!” – Crow
“Yes, the desert environment is enhanced by bombing – left alone it is too placid.” – Crow (Long “a” on placid).
“NOT an actor.” – Crow
“Well, if we’re ever attacked by white rectangles, we got it under control.” – Servo
“Here, the Airforce escorts Sununu to a golf game.” – Crow
“Oh, you are SO the only girl around.” – Mike
“Remember the world before this movie?” – Mike
“You know, I read this screenplay – it was two pages.” – Mike
“All right men – POOP!”- Crow
“And to think, at the beginning of this film all these characters were strangers to us.” – Crow
“Hoped they remembered to arrange where they would MEET in Europe.” – Crow
Good all around, really. I just can’t sit through it again so soon. :smile:
One of my all time favorites. Five stars. The one line I liked that I haven’t seen mentioned here is Mike saying, ‘We have a visual ID on numb-nuts.’ My review at TV.com can be found here.
I like the lyrics that they make up about the poopie suit.
“Poopie suit! Getting relief filling your briefs in your poopies suit!”
I love this episode, do you hear it!? Love it! Love it!
Great host segs, get riffing, great movie, great everything.
The refueling stuff and poopie stuff is a howl, but naughtiness/scatiness of it often makes people over look just how great some of the “human” scenes are. The date, the debriefings, and one of my all time fav MST scenes: the prank phone call! Hilarious stuff for them to work with.
I don’t think this was a recrutiment film as some have mentioned. It has long been a policy of the military to give full access (well probably almost full) to their various equipment, killing machines, poopie mobiles, etc. So I’m guessing someone in the air force really liked this script which was, I think, an attempt (misguided as bullet in the gun of David Hinckley) to humanize fighter pilots in a time of great anxiety, etc. Probably also the director had some connections.
They probably realized they didn’t have enough “human interest” story when they had the film in the can (ahem ahem) and decided not to edit this one, ahem, tightly, and there you go…lots of footage of star@#+%&@.
My theory anyway.
A+
From the Original Movie Poster (see Wiki page)
Officer: “did you know flying a plane is like making love?”
Crow: (as the lieutenant) “Uh … You have to pay?”
Brilliant episode – 5 stars all the way!
#612 has some of the most memorable host segments EVER! The BOLD! sauce skit is pure genius and anyone who has had to sit on the line for tech-support can relate to Crow’s problems getting on the ‘information superhighway’. Brings back fond and frustrating memories of the early days of the web ;)
Having worked in marketing I always attempt to find “something” in the utter “nothing” of this film – some justification for it’s existence. As a PR effort it’s pretty weak, it doesn’t really focus on any particular message(except lots of hot refueling action!). I guess there is positive spin in the sub-sub-non-plot where the congressman is trying to get favors for his son and the military is portrayed as acting independently of his pressure.
Gotta love how the only element of tension (storm) in the story isn’t even shown. With all the stock footage in this film they couldn’t find any of storm clouds?
(Lieutenant) “Alright – let’s get out there and crank-up”
(Mike) “the Air-Force recommends CRANK”
Although there may be ‘some flaws’ in this film, rest assured that the director, Will Zens, has a masters degree in film from USC! LOL!
“Following service as a test pilot in the U.S. Army Air Force in the European Theatre of Operations, Major Zens obtained a Masters Degree in film from the University of Southern California.[1]” – Wiki
So your AF pilot brother hated it! That’s odd because I had shown it to a bunch of F-16 Pilots from the 482nd at Homestead ARS Florida(in fact I had to make a copy for them) and everyone of them loved it! Obviously your brother didn’t “get it”! BTW, it’s one of my favorite episodes :razz:
This was an episode I initially didn’t ‘get’ and it took repeat viewings for it to really grow on me. The Cranial Port & United Servo Men’s Academy Choir sketches are classics (although the barbecue sauce, debriefing & refueling ones are standard season 6 phone-ins). However- My favorite moment is Crow waiting on hold. Crow’s every subtle frustrated gesture in this scene shows how proficient Trace Bealieu had become at working the puppet and demonstrates why he was one of THE best puppeteers working in the world a the time.
Thanks ThisGuy! I love Crow’s reaction to not getting on the internet in the openening! It reminds me of Invasion USA where Crow gets protective about his “mother.” Brilliant!
for anyone who cares, Mike is imitating Bill McGlaughlin, host of St. Paul Sundays on public radio. Since we all know Mike is a big classical piano nut, it makes perfect sense for him to send up this particular host. Mclaughlin definitely has a “snotty” sounding delivery shall we say and Mike captures that perfectly.
About the United Servo Men’s Chorus whatever from the host segment, I was in the University of Houston Men’s Chorus a while back and we sang some contemporary pieces which had some of the same tight harmonies and dissonances that Kevin M. wrote into his piece. They are difficult to execute well and Kevin was spot on(does he have perfect pitch? anyone?). Quite a nice effort harmonically, very satisfying. shall we say “Fantastic”
Just drop a load inside your pants…
As you’re flying over France…
In your Poppie Suit!
D’oh! “Poopie”, I meant! Poopie!
Oh…poopie.
Rozar, I think you mean “fantastique“.
Tom Servo’s hymn was one of my favorite MST3K songs ever. Can someone please enlighten me to the second song that the Servos sang leading into the commercial break? I’ve never been able to figure it out.
Rozar Samco, Post #66:
That name sounds familiar. I think I’ve heard Bill McGlaughlin on the classical music station in Chicago. I think he has a syndicated program called Exploring Music or something like that. He certainly has a unique voice but I never connected his voice with the one that Mike Nelson did. That could very well be where he got the inspiration for his snooty, arts program host.
This is one of my top-5 favorite episodes. I wore out my VHS tape watching it so much, so I was really happy when they released it on DVD.
When watching this with a friend, she was ready to turn it off after just a few minutes of the glorious refueling scene, but I made her finish it. Now it’s a favorite of hers, too! I love it. The host segments are fantastic as well, Servo’s song being my favorite song they ever did. And the barbecue sauce…well, I can’t look at a bottle of barbecue sauce without going through that skit in my head now.
#70: “Mademoiselle from Armentiers.” I know this because William Frawley sings it at least twice on “I Love Lucy.”
Brandon and MSgt Sandra: My brother knew nothing about the show before I showed this to him, but he was visiting and I thought this ep would be a good choice. Yes, I think he didn’t quite “get it.” I think the topic was too close to home for him and I have a feeling he didn’t like the Air Force being ragged on so much. He did laugh a bit, but he seemed to really lose interest about halfway through.
Wow, and here I thought I was the only person who loved this episode so much. Most of my friends think this one is just too slow and boring. :???:
For the umpteenth time now: “BOLD?!? Well, HELL YES it’s BOLD!”
I know that a UART was something used for external dial-up modems that were connected to the serial port, some internal modems also have their own UART.
Mostly everything else said in that segment sounded mostly like a lot of technical babble to me anyway.
Yeah, the long and short of Crow’s issue was simply that his software was not configured for his hardware, or his hardware was conflicting with other hardware. Maybe his ISA Serial I/O card was not jumpered correctly. Also a possibility – his program was set for the incorrect IRQ or COM port configuration. So either the serial controller was dead, bad, conflicting, or could not be found on the port and interrupt which the software was using. The program could not read the RTS/CTS from the modem (Ready-To-Send / Care-To-Send). The 25-Pin serial port the PC came with would be on COM1, IRQ4, and would probably have a 16550 UART chip, which is a good high speed serial controller, with FIFO handling interrupts (First-In-First-Out) flow control, allowing 11,500 BPS over RS-232 serial. Basically, it’s chips behind the serial port on a PC, allowing a PC’s software to talk to an attached serial device, like a modem, or a null modem serial cable or adapter. And if his PC had an internal ISA modem added on, and it, too were jumpered at COM1, IRQ4, there’s a conflict between the PC’s I/O serial card, and the added modem. One would need to be changed to COM2, IRQ3 (unless there was already a COM2, then one would need to be completely disabled). Otherwise neither would work. So while you can dial-up at the blazing speed of, say, 9600 bits per second (baud), or today at 56k baud, you could direct transfer between two PC’s using a ‘laplink’ null-modem serial cable at 115200 bits per second! In the old days we would backup someone’s PC from an old machine to new, since USB drives and whatnot did not exist.
Wow! I just read through DON3k’s post and actually understood some of it (but now my head hurts…)
Damn…I actually didn’t like this episode. I’ve only watched it twice. Although the host segments were some of the best ones ever!
And even though I didn’t like it that much, reading all the quotes from it on here makes me want to watch it again!
#74: Many thanks!
I worked on A farm for 2 summers as A young teen.
We picked strawberrys greenbeans and yes…
We even de-tasseled the sweetcorn A few weeks before picking.
#82 – did you drone on and on about it on a first date? :mrgreen:
“This plane has recently been sexed – it’s a boy”
In high school this was my favorite episode for a while. Not quite that high now, but still way up there. The firing range scene is one of the funniest stretches of season 6.
Also, the Servo academy men’s choir is – for me at least – one of the most wonderful pieces of music ever. Even though the lyrics are basically nonsense, Kevin’s voice is incredibly peaceful. I would buy a cd of him singing almost anything.
Oh, and while I may not want to know, who/what is Frankenhooker?
Ah, what a great episode. It’s one of my favorites but it has a bad reputation among the casual fans I’ve discussed it with, probably because (as Preston P said) NOTHING HAPPENS. I’m a plane buff, but there’s no way I’d even try to watch this movie un-riffed.
More on the “poopie” suit: it’s officially called a “constant wear anti-exposure garment” or something like that. It’s a dry suit that’s worn under the regular flight suit to keep the pilot from dying of hypothermia if he has to bail out into a cold ocean. I’ve heard that it’s nicknamed a “poopie” suit because there’s a provision for urination but not for defecation, so pooping is the last thing you’d want to do while wearing one.
Re: 84
“Frankenhooker” (also referenced in 513) is Frank Henenlotter’s 1990 horror film about a hooker built from the scraps of other hookers (who exploded after smoking “Super-Crack”).
So I guess it’s really more of an “Oh, poopie!” suit?
A firm favourite, and really shows the quality of the writing in making such an utterly dull, repetitive film such good fun. No refuelling gag left uncovered!
Everything is so dry and self-important and devoid of personality that the guys have a field day.
(holds up model)
“Now this is the Starfighter.”
Tom – “Get in.”
This is one of those eps that takes me repeated viewing to appreciate. I have this bad habit of trying to pay to close attention to a movie on the first few viewings. So, needless to say, I tend to miss some of the riffing. But, it is truly a golden ep.
Fav. Riff:
Crow: “You seem chipper. Did somebody get refueled this weekend?”
I love this episode so much. I wasn’t expecting much from it the first time I viewed it, but it’s definitely one my personal favorites now. My favorite host segment line is in this episode.
Crow: There is no known antidote for Mike’s Extra Bold!
Is it me, or does the senator (Carl Rogers) kind of look like Blofeld (as played by Charles Gray)?
weird, decided to watch this on a lark last night, googled uart @ fx1050 and saw this just got posted. clearly i have psychic powers. Favourite riff; “Where you boys from?” “Russia.”
This movie has a special place for me, as it was first shown at the dawning of my MST addiction. That the film constantly mistakes action for story, washes over the audience with exposition, has cavernous gaps of nothing happening, and topped with horrible acting is the best kind of fodder for MST. The United Servo Academy Men’s Chorus is one of my all-time favorite MST segments. It was executed almost flawlessly.
A favorite line: “Is your face odd and mis-shapen? Then join the Air Force”.
For April Fool’s Day a couple years ago I wrote a positive mini review of this film.
This is the heart wrenching story of a young Air Force fighter pilot who has to prove himself to his father who is both a congressman and a decorated Air Force pilot in his own right. This in and of itself would make for a wonderful film, but we are also treated to a glimpse into the daily lives of Air Force pilots and the rigorous training they have to endure to become the best of the best. As a added bonus, the footage of the pilots doing their maneuvers features actual Air Force jets in the performance of their duties; to the best of my knowledge no trickery with models is used.
Even though the Brains long dispensed with the invention exchange, I’ve noticed that a lot of the first host segments work much like an invention exchange would. In The Starfighters we get Mike’s BOLD barbecue sauce and the Mads’ mind linking device. Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter and the matter transference device also feel like Deep 13’s half of an invention exchage. Anyone else notice this?
One note on the poopie suit riffs: Sampo makes it sound like Mike tried to stop it from the beginning, but Mike did join in to a point, then he tried to stop them.
COMPLETELY UNRELATED:
Mike’s Morrissey impression in City Limits may be my favorite moment in the entire show.
@ 93: There were a lot of things from Deep 13 in early Season 6 that felt like leftover invention exchanges (Nelson Cigarettes, the Deep 13 Voodoo Kit, NummyMuffinCoocolButter, etc.). I suspect that’s why they came up with the Umbilicus, so they could keep coming up with inventions but drop the exchange format and just have Dr. F use Mike and the bots as guinea pigs.
This is the episode where by nephew always wants to see the singing robots. Impressive talent displayed by Kevin.
One of the few movies where black and white may have made it more interesting. Episode great, movie awful (only War of the Colossal Beast was worse IMHO).
Such a bounty of riffing joy:
“Junior thought that he could be a swinger… siddown, Junior!”
“Just lie back and think of England’s airspace”
“Or more recently, Berlin” Mike, really faint: “Berlin??”
Also, a line later partially reused in The Movie: “I’d like to thank me for flying Me Airways. Please check around my own seating area for any items I may have stowed there”
“Congressman Wikowski” Crow: Bunny??
The huge number of double entendres in the beginning is killer, one of the best segments in the show’s history. ALMOST as funny is later in the movie, Mike makes a great meta-joke by running down a checklist of jokes: “Premature ejaulation entendre? Check. Multiple partner allusions? Check.”
I haven’t seen this episode so I have no comment.
My favorite episode!
I’ve watched it 30+ times.