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Weekend Discussion Thread: Analyzing Season 11 SegmentsAlert regular “Sitting Duck” offers:
Have at it! 18 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Analyzing Season 11 Segments”Commenting at Satellite News
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The Moon 14 Dinosaur BBQ sketch always struck me as Joel-esque, especially when it cuts back to Jonah saying, “Yeah… I don’t know…” It reminded me of something Dr. F and Frank would have been up to back in Season 4 or 5.
Also, the more conversational sketches (sometimes centered on a premise like making your own monster movie) were very much reminiscent of the Joel era, and reminded me of the Eegah “Hell works in subtle ways” and “single parent TV shows” sketches.
And YAY, FIRST COMMENT!
The list of hybrid B-movie titles during the Avalanche episode seemed very Joel-esque to me. I could almost hear Joel saying, “Whaddya think, sirs?” at the end. The slide show montage at the closing of the Christmas ep reminded me of the Mike years. Overall I felt most of the sketches were Joel-ly while a lot of the songs were Mike-ish. I liked most of them except for Kinga’s songs (no slam to Felicia Day or her voice, just found them embarrassingly twee and beneath someone who’s supposed to be a Mad).
Joel showed up to direct most of the on-set Netflix segments while other hands did the in-theater riffing, so quite a few of the host segs have that silly, deadpan, thrown-together movie-pageant-goes-wrong and improvised-pop-culture-discussion quality of the early CC episodes:
The first thing I noticed about the “We’re raccoons, we’re lovable!” segment from Cry Wilderness was how much it resembled the glory days of “Trumpy, you can do magic!”, right down to the last few jokes right before fadeout/movie-sign (Crow hammering a propane tank), and the un-alluded-to drive-by prop-comedy jokes about cereal boxes of “Ha-Ha’s” “Crispy Carcasses” and “Skeptix”. (What, no Captain Ron cereal?)
And when we got to “Creepy soul-chilling Mexican big-head parades” from Beast of Hollow Mountain, you can spot the style right away.
The songs, OTOH, yes, did feel like the rest of the crew, and Joel’s new “Franchise magnate-owner who likes Sci-Fi episodes” side, thought they had to Keep Their Trademark Fanbase Going with one more “Play MST3K: the Return For Me” CD, available for Kickstarter investors.
Except for the faux-Broadway Neil Patrick Harris song, which was just there to cash in on Felicia Day’s Dr. Horrible fans.
The creepy head parades remind me more of a Mike episode. They were prone to always do something to mess with his head and that’s the feeling I got.
I find (with the exception of the story arc toward the end of the season) season 11 to be Joel like- reminding me of KTMA at times. It’s lovable and precious compared to sardonic Mike. I love both styles, and, I love the new show.
This WDT is kind of a tough one which might explain the low number of responses so far. Rather than citing specific segments perhaps I could show tendencies. Joel was a prop comic at heart and Season 11 had some great prop based segments. Mike was more actively engaged in musical and dramatic skits so we can put at least some of those in S 11 onto his scorecard, but the division seems a bit artificial because Season 11 is its own thing for me.
(sarcasm on)
Joel likes the Sci-Fi episodes? How terrible!!
(sarcasm off)
Yeah, if it was twee, what kind of Twee would it be? ;)
The poster who said the Creepy Head Parade was “a Mike sketch, ’cause the Bots were always messing with Mike”, that’s a bit wishful thinking–
Unless he meant S5-6 Mike-era, with Trace and Frank still on the crew…And even then, with Mike in the lead and Kevin directing more and more, the show started to lose its interest in scene-specific movie-heckling during the host segs, and just started to become its own sitcom where the comics could devote more attention to themselves. (At least except in extreme examples, like the “Shoe-polish of deceit” sketch from Blood Waters of Dr. Z.)
During S6, the episodes would usually take ONE recognizable gag from the opening short, like “Cheating” or “Design for Dreaming”, and then stretch it out as its own episode-long running-gag plot for the entire show, Because Characters. And because running-gags are funnier, since they establish more cult-characters and cult-lines for the fans to propagate, not to mention that you don’t have to write as many new sketches or pay as much attention to that week’s movie.
And after the Dr. F’s Mom years of S7, and the network-enforced Roman and Ape Adventures of S8–and the Bill-Crow Dresses Up years of S8-9, there was no going back until S10.
The fact that the Mads were creeped out too makes it more like the Mads joining in on old CC-era segments, like the Idiot-Control song from Pod People, or apologizing for Manos…
Max’s “What do you want from usssssss???” was clearly Patton’s tribute to Frank Conniff: The Man, The Legend. :)
The final host segment of Cry Wilderness (where Jonah and the Bots try to trick Max into giving them the keys to the Backjack) comes across as something that Mike would have tried to pull on Frank.
I feel like both Joel and Mike are in there. He’s not their creator, so there is no dad vibe so they don’t mind doing the “Let’s pants him” from time to time. But Jonah is so tolerable to his situation and so likable like Joel the bots go easy on him.
Father Joel.
Brother Mike.
Affable Neighbor Jonah.
Reliably awful take.
Season 11’s host segments generally reminded me more of Joel due to Jonah’s sweetness towards the bots and the fact that Joel was at the helm of the show again.
I love both Joel and Mike and felt Jonah was a excellent addition, particularly the choice to have his character act happy to be on the SOL. It felt right given that the fans were so happy to have the show back.
I felt that the host segments were a natural evolution of the Joel era. Since he was a prop comic there was more with props(I love this season’s prop design). The relationship of Jona with the bots was more like Joel than Mike.
The sketch that feels the most like the original bots is the Alexander/Markov sketch with Servo as the carnival barker and Crow and Alex. That one slays me, just awesome.
Another Mike-style host segment is the prologue (can’t recall right off which episode) where they’re playing Never Have I Ever, and the Bots use it as an opportunity to break Jonah’s will.
I’ve got a Weekend Discussion idea.
Since the potentially final classic DVD set and the season 11 set (for Kickstarter backers) both come out this month, what is everyone’s favorite set? Tying into that, what is the best special feature on one of those sets?
Delete your account.