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Weekend Discussion Thread: Minor Character MoviesAlert reader “Murdock Hauser” asks:
It’s funny, I thought of the same movie, only I would pick “Gomez,” aka Thong. I think he’s got a lot goin’ on in his personal life. What’s your pick? And keep those WDT ideas coming! 95 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Minor Character Movies”Commenting at Satellite News
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Re: the first one, they could be the anti-UNIT. They get stuck with the hoaxes and easily-beaten minor leaguers, while Lethbridge-Stewart and his crew take on the major threats in the background.
Re: the second one, I think Fred Silverman would’ve paid a king’s ransom for the rights to such a show. Too bad the money would’ve already been spent on “Supertrain” and the 1980 Summer Olympics. (Thanks a lot, Jimmy!)
Toblerone definitely needs his own movie. Vedino could also carry a film well once he lost that dead weight called Pumaman.
I would watch the hell out of the weekly misadventures of the two unfunny stumbling drunks from THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH who think they’re deep philosophers. (They die horribly every episode only to return in the next with no explanation.)
The Club Scum emcee and Marge Simpson hairdo waitress start a detective agency. He searchs for a single shred of dignity, while she searches for a restraining order.
Will these two crazy kids ever get together!?
No.
At the end of the movie he joins a donkey mud wrestling league under the name M.C Felcher, while Marge hairdo runs off into the sunset, cheering for herself as she goes.
Drink a lot of TaB and vote for Walter Mondale!
Hmm, how about The Gesture Professor from “The Deadly Mantis” having an episodic t.v. show where he introduces old theories (none more recent than 1900) about space travel to Mars, or the Loch Ness monster, and then we have our unlikely teams of professors and scientists engage in some goofy adventure to discover or explore possible “truths” related to those theories. Included could be some of the legends and mythological characters contained in the Russo-Finnish MSTies, like the Sampo and Lemmankainen (or Father Frost and Father mushroom!) Man, I would be “down, down, down” with that!
Clearly not only is Jimmy Parlow the hero of Girls Town, but with his criminal past and vigilante singing talent he could easily get a Netflix series…
The pharmacist from “Skydivers” could be the lead character in an AMC series, part of the “Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul” universe. He keeps bartering various chemicals in exchange for sex, as he sinks ever deeper into a moral and ethical cesspool he can’t escape.
Mike’s ”Deestroy” Robot –
After his short life on the SOL Mike’s unfortunate bot made it to China as part of a shipment of electronic waste. There his partially reassembled self was sent to Tibet so that a local monastery could piece together a satellite television allowing the monks to watch the World Cup. Deestroy did such a good job at this that the monks reprogrammed him in the ways of inner peace. His destroying claw was replaced with a prayer wheel and his speaker would chant “ohm mani padme hum”, but occasionally a soft, guttural “Deestroy” could sometimes be heard as a secondary throat chant.
Knowing that his roots were in the USA the monastery sent Deestroy, now renamed Kwai Chang Bot, back home where he wandered the countryside searching for robotic balance. Occasionally KCB was forced to defend himself and it turned out that his prayer wheel doubled as a very effective nunchuck. Never mind that nunchucks are an Okinawan weapon. This is Hollywood. I leave the details to the script writers.
The tall sister Alma coul star in a antiquing TV series with and Mick and Geri where they solve crimes when looking for antiques while Alma and Geri fight for Mick’s affections.
Or there could be a “Origins story” for Torgo, which explains why the Satyr got ensnared in the Master’s cult to Manos.
But, as it happened, Glen Larson got it instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6djQ86stNFg
Yeah–The Gesture Professor from “The Mole People” doing science vs. superstition lectures, that’d totally ring my Bell! (And my Lab’s, too!) ;)
Ok, it was only mentioned in passing, but I have to declare the clear winner of this whole thing:
Johnny Longbone!!!
Not only could he star in his own action series (I mean… he did *everything* in that movie!), he could also have his own cooking show. Mostly about stew. And … sigh.. onions..
Gare
Others to consider:
– Mr. Woodruff from “San Francisco International”. Even after having been proven wrong by Clu (hey man… he’s outta sight..), Woodruff indignantly claims that “You haven’t heard the last of this!”. I wanna know what happened next!
– Bill Dudley, a mighty fine bread delivery guy. Did Whitey ever actually write that article? I mean, talk about Divine Intervention.. an angel writes a glowing (ha) article about your bread delivery success. That should be good for a promotion at least. (Though it’s guys like that who become supervisors).
– The Reverend in “Days of our Years”. The continued adventures of ..um… watching people’s lives fall apart. Hm.
– The newlyweds from “Once Upon a Honeymoon” – we follow them on their honeymoon. Naughty parts are edited out.
– Speaking of which – Wilbur. I’d love to see him save more marriages by sprinkling his Angel Dust on people.
– And hell, “The Sword and the Dragon” is just **full** of potential. Consider:
– Why is Ilya paralyzed in the beginning?
– What’s the Invincor backstory?
– How about Little Falcon – if he hadn’t traded the sword for a lid and gotten high in the castle, what adventures might he have had?
– And most importantly – the Wind Demon. At the very least, he could do Infomercials. “Clean up’s a breeze, thanks to Wind Demon!”
Gare
My ex and I had the idea of doing a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-style mashup where the main characters were all of the more competent “ethnic” sidekicks from MST movies. We had:
Thong from Cave Dwellers: the muscle
Johnny Longbone: Archer and detective extraordinare
Eulabelle from Horror at Party Beach: occult expert (“it’s the voodoo, that’s what it is.”)
Vadinho from The Pumaman: Spiritual guidance and backup muscle.
How about Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern from Hamlet? Oh wait…
I’ve always been fascinated by the airport owner in Hangar 18, clearly someone from the Northeast now living in a desert. A show about him could be a combination of Wings and Sandford & Son, sponsored by Pepperidge Farms
I propose “Sandy’s Therapy,” which follows little Sandy from “Tormented,” now all grown up and ****ed up as hell. She realizes Tom the Ugly Jazz Pianist was more interested in her than in his fiancee, her adult sister. Oh and then there’s that whole “he’s going to kill me because I overheard him murder someone” thing. The final traumatizing blow was all the cutesy sailor outfits Sandy was forced to wear as a child, making her look like the spokeskid for Little Debbie snack cakes.
I love an Origin Story for Torgo!!! I think Mike Nelson is the logical person to play him :)
Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, but in Mexico they can come back for a night if you light a candle and put out some Danish ale on your Shakespearean Ofrenda. Now there’s a show with multicultural connectivity. “Dormir, ocaso a sonar”.
Dropo Claus. Years after the events of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Santa gets sick, so Dropo comes to Earth to pick up the slack. Will either Dropo or Christmas cheer survive?
Trying to think of something with the three midgets from Hercules & the Captive Women, Outlaw, and The Undead. Something exploitative and in very bad taste, of course, but not in the A & E “reality” sense. Possible titles: Imp Batch, My Little Warrior, The Littlest Buffalo Shot of Them All, or Come Pour the Midgets. Maybe a Three Stooges rip-off? Or yet another big-city detective agency? Or how about Terror of Tiny Town transported to sword-n-sandal times? [Suddenly he shudders and runs to take a good, long shower with lots of soap . . . ]
I’m amazed, simply amazed that no-one has yet mentioned KLINE! (The Sinister Urge)
“You don’t direct Kline, you get out of the way!”
You could also make full movies about each and every one of Sybil’s relatives (The Magic Sword)
TISCWSLABMUZ’s Ortega. The origin story. What twisted path led him to become a horrid carnie fortune teller’s mute lackey?
Well, somewhere along the line he obviously attended the Culinary Institute of America! Learning to ash properly into the quail happened much later.
And THEN he met Pearl and she got him working the fundraising phone lines. Hoo boy.
I see this as potentially a great DiNiro role (or maybe John Goodman, IDK).
A character from the show itself: That little skittering thing that lived in the hallway to the theater during the Mike years. Seriously, what WAS that thing? The Brains must have had some sort of REASON to add it to the hallway sequence, but what?
After seeing Anaconda I think Jon Voigt should play Ortega in a TISCWSLABMUZ prequel
Eulabelle from “Horror at Party Beach,” dealing with her guilt over being an accessory to genocide…
Swimming in Food – Super villain Valmont and his co-host sad sack Franny from Laserblast explore the niche foodie scene that is swimming pool food. Eat your Spare Ribs in the pool? Sure! Cheese-its go better with chlorine. I bet you didn’t know that. Join Val’ and Franny as they bob up and down in a new pool each week sampling the latest in fine cuisine.
The Dutch and Helga Show – Tainted beef, tainted love. Can Dutch and Helga survive the pitfalls that await each week in small town Wisconsin?
The Hole – Everything goes in the hole. Train Conductor Merritt Stone goes in the hole to find out who he really is. What he finds will shake him to the core. A mysterious alternate reality where he exists as a man named Jack Coslin who is trying to find Merritt Stone.
The “Mrs. Joe Don Baker” lab technician from “Laserblast” could star in a “Twin Peaks”-style surrealist mystery series. So many questions: Who are the mystery government agents bringing in strange objects for analysis? What is the source of the objects? What is the lab tech’s real gender? What is that other guy really doing in the middle of the night when he claims to be “calibrating the interferometer”? And the question on everyone’s lips: Why, why, why is the doorknob mounted at shoulder height??
A separate spinoff would be for Kathy to go all X-Files in trying to learn “the truth” about what happened to her boyfriend.
On another note, which MST3K film child was traumatized enough to grow up to be a serial killer? Or a super-intense law enforcement agent who can think like a serial killer? Or something like that.
To expound on my last post, The Magic Sword truly is rife with unexplored backstories.
Who are the 6 knights and how did they end up being petrified by Sybil’s family?
Who are George’s parents? Sybil says they were royalty but it never comes up again.
It’s also implied that Sybil and Lodac go back quite a ways (and that his dragon ate most of her relatives)
I also want more backstory on that poor hag in Lodac’s service. Not to mention all the Zippy the Pinhead henchmen he’s got.
The Little Dudes in a Golden Cage. Who are they? Where are the from? Why were they going be part of the feast? (probably second course)
and much, much more
A movie about Johnny Longbow investigating archeological mysteries might have a real Tony Hillerman feel if done right.
Officer Kelton appeared not just in “Bride of the Monster” (1955) but also in “Night of the Ghouls” (1959) and “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (1959)* (where he bemoans: “Why do I always get hooked up with these spook details? Monsters! Graves! Bodies!” CONTINUITY!). All, of course, directed by Ed Wood.
Kelton later appeared with other characters from 1950s monster movies in fan-film “The Naked Monster” (2005).
46 years in between, that’s a long time…
***
Tor Johnson, of course, also appeared in “Bride of the Monster” as Lobo.
He appeared as Lobo in “Night of the Ghouls,” too.
He then appeared as a police inspector in “Plan 9,” making it seem as if Lobo really cleaned up his act, only for him to die and be resurrected by aliens as a Ghoul (not a Zombie, a Ghoul).
Really, when you think about it (“So don’t think about it.”), the aliens in “Plan 9” did exactly what the “alien forces” (Or Whatever) did in “Night of the Living Dead”…nine years later. On not much more than twice Ed’s budget (Plan: $60,000; NIght: $114,000; thanks, Wikipedia).
When “Night” hit the theaters, Ed Wood was still alive. Too bad he didn’t think to sue for copyright infringement. In 1968, George Romero was even more of a nobody than Ed Wood.
Ed’s own showing for 1968, btw, was “The Sexecutives,” one of Ed’s dozens of lurid if not sleazy novels. No set of idle hands, our Ed…
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*Ed also directed “The Sinister Urge” a mere One Year Later, in 1960, but that’s not really relevant here.
Exactly what usually happens in consumer complaint cases…nothing.
No, because she wasn’t really a magazine writer. She LIED to Bill, she lied like a cheap rug, she lied like a big lying liar who was lying. “Divine truth,” indeed…
Though there was probably some satisfaction to be had with the NotLD copyright Charlie Foxtrot.
Sister Ann leads a covert campaign against more cyborgs and dinosaurs while Runaway/Tool-Guy finds satisfaction in life as a social worker.
To my dull surprise, the actress who played Sister Ann (Travis Brooks Stewart) has only one other acting credit, in “Bikini Hotel” (released in 1997, as was “Future War”). I can’t help suspecting that might be partially attributable to her name. “Travis Brooks Stewart?” Sounds like a male country/western singer. So it goes.
Ator. Deathstalker. Wizards of the Lost Kingdom. A situation of some kind…
Batwoman (1966). El Santo (1962 and earlier). Prince of Space (1962) (and/or Space Chief (1961)). Three 1960s super-heroes from three separate nations join forces to…uh, yeah, whatever.
(I’d include Pumaman but he’s a 1980s super-hero. Keepin’ It Simple.)
Tony Washington returns from the dead (again) to become a zombie vigilante, the smasher who fights slashers. Although if he refrained from actually killing his enemies, he’d sort of qualify as a zombie super-hero instead.
(what, did everybody else die or something?)
Radar Secret Service, “Aunt Mary,” H.A.R.M., Intersect, “Superdrago,” Project Visitor (eye creatures), Operation Sand Dollar (laserblast), and others are dissolved and merged into a single agency (budget cuts, y’know). Office-based sitcom shenanigans occasionally interrupted by paranormal investigation and espionage activity ensues.
(Kind of a shame when spy films can’t even be bothered to give their spy organizations NAMES, huh…?)
Doris Powell, drugged and nearly decapitated, emerges from the fire at the end of “The Brain that Wouldn’t die” and goes on a one woman killing spree against all Cosmetic Surgeons. L.A. shivers in terror as Police are baffled by Ms. Powell and her elusiveness. Special guest star- Robert Denby.
But what happened to the guy who carried her to safety during the fire? ;-)
Oh- he’s Center for the LA Lakers.
On their way back from the 1950s, Nick and Lisa accidentally switch to a parallel timeline track (the “Days of Our Years” guys are at it again…) which results in them visiting…
1968 OSLT (Rocketship X-M, 12 to the Moon)
1970 (Project Moonbase)
1980 (The Phantom Planet)
hereabouts (Fire Maidens from Outer Space)
1985 (First Spaceship on Venus)
late 1980s-ish (City Limits, Warrior of the Lost World)
1999 (Cosmic Princess)
2000 (Escape 2000)
2011 (The Last Chase)
2021 (Moon Zero Two)
somewhere in this general vicinity, I guess (Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Robot Holocaust)
2050s (Crash of the Moons, Manhunt in Space)
2064 (Invaders from the Deep)
2068 (Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars)
2071 (The Time Travelers)
2281 or so (Humanoid Women)
5200 (Terror from the Year 5000)
far into the future (Space Mutiny)
even farther into the future (Fugitive Alien, Star Force: Fugitive Alien II)
very far into the future (Teenage Caveman)
really, really quite far into the future (Time of the Apes)
and so on
Hal “Creeper, the” Moffet graduated (or vanished, anyway) in 1930.
His killing spree was in 1946.
Kind of a big gap, wouldn’t you say…?
From “Is This Love” to “Racket Girls” to “Horror of Party Beach”…
ROMULANS AMONG US.
Kind of a shame that those riffs were limited to just pointing out “Romulans.” Not even a “Hey, I think I can see her neutral zone…” to spice things up? Oh well.