Movie: (1959) Aliens have a plan to use Earth as a farm for their giant lobster livestock. One of the crew rebels and flees to a small town, with another alien on his trail.
First shown: 6/27/92
Opening: Joel uses behavior modification to prevent a recurrence of the “NBC Mystery Movie” gag
Invention exchange: J&tB demonstrate the scratch ‘n’ sniff report card, while the Mads show off their resusci-Annie ventriloquist doll
Host segment 1: J&tB present “Reel to real”
Host segment 2: J&TB recreate a pre-movie no-littering message
Host segment 3: A really boss-looking space ship visits, but the pilot is a disappointment.
End: Duct tape fashion statements, letters, Dr. F. dines with a friend
Stinger: “When we return to our planet, the high court may well sentence you to TORTURE!!”
(294 votes, average: 4.53 out of 5)
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• How I love this episode. Maybe it’s the easy-to-follow (albeit punishingly stupid) plot. Maybe it’s the goofy host segments, most of which are not so much funny as wry. Maybe it’s the charmingly naïve idea that somebody thought people would believe that giant lobsters walk upright. Whatever it is, this one’s a lot of fun.
• References.
• This episode was included in Rhino’s “The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 6.”
• This episode definitely begins with the “Title card.”
• Body (or, rather, skeleton) count: 6, not counting Sparky and the lobster and the big mess at the end. And for you Dave Barry fans, Sparky and the Lobster WBAGNFARB.
• “Lisa Smithback,” mentioned in the invention exchange, has to be a real name, probably a schoolmate of one of the Brains. Wonder if she’s out there somewhere?
• I love the little Jeff Dunham-esque gestures Trace does around the dummy as he does the ventriloquist bit.
• Callbacks: Crow’s desire for “hamburger sammich” is from episode 203- JUNGLE GODDESS. Later he retreads the “Welcome to Death Valley Days, the driver…” bit, and “How fortunate! This will seemplify everything!” from The Phantom Creeps.
• The word TORCHAA! became an immediate MSTie buzzword following this episode.
• So, what do you think is the point of the “ironic” tone Joel and the bots adopt during the “Reel to Real” sketch? They read all their lines like a presenter at an awards ceremony who is given a bit to do and resents having to do it. Did they decide the material was too lame to be played straight? But wait a minute! Maybe they’re parodying comedians who tell jokes ironically! That’s TWO levels of irony! We’re through the looking glass here, people!
• Host segment foreshadowing: In the illustrations (who did those, by the way?), we see Betty in a bathing suit, and grandpa sleeping on the couch, but we haven’t seen either in the movie yet.
• The repeated muffled voice in the trunk bit almost gets a little unpleasant after a while. Tom just portrays it as so horribly desperate.
• As Derek and Betty enter the college, there are several riffs about the smell of school. Perhaps these riffs were the genesis of this episode’s “scratch and sniff report card” invention exchange.
• Several characters have songs stuck in their heads. Grandpa’s is the theme song for the TV show “New Zoo Revue.” The ill-fated professor’s secretary’s is AC-DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.” The Doctor has two: first it’s Nick Gilder’s “Hot Child in the City,” then Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded.” The nurse has several, including Apollonia 6’s “Sex Shooter,” “Aqualung” by Jethro Tull, The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and the “Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” by Country Joe and the Fish.
• As Thor bursts into Betty’s house, watch Joel. I could be wrong, but it looks like he’s pickin’ his nose.
• So the point of segment two is to set up a few throwaway lines in segment three? (i.e. “goomy bears?”)
• Movie observation: Derek says he saw the Commander stop Thor from killing him. He did not. He was 40 yards away and running like hell.
• J&tB failed to notice this continuity screwup: Thor pistol whips the nurse, there’s a short cutaway, and in the next shot Thor and the nurse have magically switched seats in the car!
• Naughty riff: “What until you see my tongues.”
• During host segment three, Joel professes his faith. Or is he being ironic again?
• Gotta admit: the spaceship in segment three really is boss.
• The third segment is great. Joel seems incredibly relaxed. And anytime anybody tries to tell you he was always “sleepy” just show them this segment. He’s wide awake, baby.
• There is a LOT of juicy gossip about the making of this movie: Reportedly, Tom Graff, who played reporter Joe Rogers and wrote, directed, edited and co-produced the film, charmed producers Bryan and Ursula Pearson (who played “Thor” and “Hilda,” respectively) into paying $5,000 of the movie’s $14,000 shoestring budget. After they heard Graff got $25,000 from Warner Brothers for the distribution rights, they sued, but all they got was their $5,000 back.
The flying saucer was reportedly abandoned on property near the estate of Gloria Swanson, who used it for publicity.
Graeff and David Love (“Derek”) were reportedly lovers. The two met when Graff cast Love in a short film Graff made a few years earlier. Love vanished after the film and his whereabouts are unknown.
Graeff never made another movie. In 1962, he bought a huge ad in the L.A. Times proclaiming himself the second Christ. In 1968, he bought another ad, this time in Variety, announcing the upcoming production of a film called “Orf,” to be directed by Carl Reiner (it wasn’t true, and Reiner immediately threatened to sue). Graeff committed suicide in 1970.
The Pearsons eventually divorced. Ursula ran a travel company in L.A. and died in 2006. Bryan, a struggling actor, was only able get a few acting roles and retired from acting in the late ’60s. As of 2006 he was working in real estate in Hawaii.
• This is yet another MST3k movie featuring Bronson Canyon in some of the exterior shots. Through the use of selected locations and very tight framing, Graeff was pretty successful in making the streets of Hollywood look like a small town.
• Tom servo has legs???
• The final bit in Deep 13 in a riot. “Help me!” “No, literally! I have a man up in space!”
• Cast and crew roundup: Sonia Torgeson was also in “Daddy-O.” And of course Harvey B. Dunn was also in “Bride Of The Monster,” and “The Sinister Urge.” Robert B. Williams was also in “Revenge Of The Creature” and “This Island Earth.”
• CreditsWatch: Mary Jo Pehl joined the writing staff with this episode. And, for the first time in at least three seasons, the host segments were directed by somebody other than Jim Mallon—this week, Kevin Murphy. Resusci-Anne provided by Nancy Mason. Dr. F’s name is still spelled “Forrestor.”
• Fave riff: “There’s a piece of green something between your–” Honorable mention: “I’m David Eisenhower! That makes you… Julie Nixon!!”
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My favorite episode and it’s not even close with any other.
“It’s called ‘Iron John’…”
This is another one of those movies that I had seen when I was a kid. Even then, I knew the monster in this film was lame, lame, lame. So, when I learned that MST3K was going to do this film, I wasn’t expecting much. Imagine my surprise when I found myself actually getting into the film, despite the riffing. Now it’s probably in my top ten favorite experiments. Thor’s almost Terminator-like pursuit of Derek the Gentle was really kind of riveting. I also liked the use of skeletons that were probably hanging up in some professor’s science class. The film-makers didn’t even bother to remove the knob from the top of the skull. Even Tom comments on it.I really hope SHOUT gets ahold of this one.
“You blocked my path!”
“Tooooorrrccchhhaaaaa”
“and you say it rather woozily”
“He’s so gentle”
#94
“Of course, I’d eat my own HEAD with drawn butter.” — Crow T. Robot (Sci-Fi Channel version), “Horror at Party Beach”
“Gummi Bears” is the original German name for Gummy Bears. I use to sell them every year in German class before they were available in America and would eat far more than I would sell. Also, in the 80’s the Gummi Bears got their own cartoon.
Without a doubt one of my top five episodes. I must have seen it 20 times and it is still hilarious every time. I think it moves really well, there are really no dead spots where the show drags, and I also think it is a great episode to introduce those not familiar with the show. The movie was obviously made on a very limited budget, but as was mentioned earlier, the plot is simple, and easy to follow, and there are so many characters that are ripe for riffing, that it stands out for me as one of the finiest episodes that they put together.
Way, way, way after the fact, but I’ve watched this a few times recently… and I realized, you know, the story wasn’t so bad. With a little work, it could have been a really great story. What lets it down is bad direction, really bad effects, and bad acting (however, Dawn Anderson as Betty is fine, as everyone mentions — she really gives it more than it deserves). The ironic part is Tom Graeff gives the worst performance in the film as Joe!
But the script seems to actually catch a lot of the plotholes for a change — Derek’s double-double-cross at the end is actually cleverly done. You could almost believe Mr. Fake Beard Father was just so concerned about his son that he instantly bought Derek’s story. And the finale (“I shall make the earth my home, and I shall never leave it”) is kind of touching in its way. Derek sacrificed himself in order to inspire the oppressed to revolt against their tyrannical leaders.
There are coincidences, sure — the rock Derek picks up HAPPENS to have the disintegrator ray underneath it — and some of the exposition is indeed ripe — but if this had undergone a second draft, and actually had a budget, it might have been a very solid B-movie along the lines of “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
Still… does the disintegrator ray provide those handy strings for the bones as well?
What about the Christian overtones of the movie? The book? Sacrifice? And when Derek dies, the other characters are standing in front of cave with a stone rolled away from the entrance. Surprised it hasn’t been commented on.
Well, let’s hope you delete the two spam comments above this one and we move along with real comments. I LOVE this episode; it’s in my top ten for sure. So many things to love — the word “teenagers” in the title as mere audience-bait, the ridiculously-named David Love in all his wispiness, the skeletonizing ray gun that scared the **** out of me when I saw this movie probably fifty years ago on Saturday afternoon TV, the lovable but overly trustworthy Grandpa, the earnestness and gullibility of Betty. Plus, lobsters and TORCHAA!!
Really wished they hadn’t killed Sparky, though. That was uncalled for.
Yeah, #109 and #110…wtf? Before I leave that topic, was #110 written by a computer or by someone for whom English is not a first language? Oh well, anyoo…back to this ep. It takes itself so seriously and is so sincere I just gotta love it.
#67 and #93 – the riffer was correct. Derek looked a bit like David Eisenhower who married Julie Nixon, who is compared to Derek’s love interest, Betty.
@113 – And David & Julie were kidded for being the insufferably clean-cut young Republican couple in the political-celebrity news during the 70’s (reflecting the Nixon era’s wish that young people stay away from nasty thoughts of Vietnam and Watergate), which made them reffable material.
And is TOR-CHAA! any worse than Billy Joel’s “PRES-SHAA!”?
Teenagers from Outer Space fails the Bechdel Test. The one between Betty and Alice is about Derrick, while the one between Betty and the secretary is about Professor Simpson.
That alleged university looks suspiciously like a high school.
Crow’s attempt at a French accent in the final host segment sure died a quick death.
@ #75: Sampo been mentioning the misspelling just about every time it shows up in the credits.
Favorite riffs
Oh, I’m a writer, producer, and director. But I really want to grip.
Wait, I just came to say I killed your dog.
“It’s Sparky’s dog tag. Where on earth did you find it?”
Well, after caving in his head with a shovel, I uh…
“You are not familiar with the focusing disintegrator ray?”
Yeah, my aunt has one.
Miss Hathaway: The Early Years.
You know, school always smells the same when you go back.
Smells like shame, guilt, and humiliation.
Wow, this is pretty nice. I don’t think I want to destroy this house after all.
There’s a dead spaceman to see you, sir.
Wait a minute. Miss Moss, just leave your bones by the door.
Menopause can feel like a speeding car chase.
If a strange-looking lobster comes knocking, ignore it.
“I can load the car with every tool we have in the garage.”
I can load my pants.
“I’m not joking…”
I’m doing improv.
A big crab, sure. But a man from space?
The foley man’s frying up a burger.
“But I have never piloted swim trunks before” might just be my all-time favorite riff. It’s not fall-off-the-couch funny, but something about it just tickles me.
When Frank started setting up the ventriloquism invention exchange, I though they were going to go with Danny O’Danny. That was the funniest part of Joel’s standup – did it ever make it to this show?
Well, “DDL Auto-Submitter” would be a bit of a giveaway username…
“May I mambo dogface on the banana patch?”
:-))
“Whenever you’re around them – you talk *wrong*”
Good ol’ Steve Martin standup bits.
Gare
401 – Teenagers From Outer Space
Memorable Riffs:
Servo: “We have the supreme pizzas!”
Leader: “You will wait until the sky is light…”
Joel: “It *is* light!”
Grandpa: “You can’t miss it.”
Joel: “Just like you can’t miss me.”
Crow: “This is bogus! I’m going to the deep end!”
Crow: “Gramps started early today.”
Servo: “Whoah, I never toasted someone that old before!”
Servo: “Nickels! Check for nickels!”
Thor: “You will take me to a doctor to remove these metal pellets.”
Joel: “Well, it’s 2:30, they’re probably all golfing.”
Crow: “Hey, what’s a turkey roasting pan doing in the office?”
Servo: “If he dies, he can make soup.”
Servo: “Well as long as we’re down here…”
Betty: “That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen!”
Servo: “Yeah the lobster was pretty bad too.”
Crow: “Ah, turn Rush Limbaugh off!”
Servo: “Oh crimety, there’s little chunks of Derrick everywhere!”
Fav. Riff:
Crow: “Now you’ll have to wait an hour. It’s standard procedure.”
Comments:
– Obscure reference: Joel calls the robots ‘Mutt and Jeff’ during the Invention Exchange.
– I noticed there’s a “Kent Rogers” in the film’s opening credits. Highly unlikely it’s Kent Rogers the voice actor, as he was killed during WWII, and this film was made in the ‘50s.
– Similar to the “human phone ring” in ‘Monster A-Go Go’, the crows cawing in this film are pretty obviously noises being made by actors.
– I gotta say, Servo’s “If he ever wakes up” comment ranks up there with one of the darkest riffs they ever dished out. Wow.
– I like how when Thor shouts “GET IN!” Servo actually jumps, as if he was genuinely startled by that.
– After operating on Thor, did that doctor leave, and open the door, without sanitizing his hands? EWWWWW!
– When that giant lobster shows up, is it just me, or does Derrick suddenly obtain an Italian accent?
– That guy drinking the booze, does not look ANYTHING like Mel Brooks!
– Segment 3 is kind of a throwback to Season 2 with the running gag of Crow saying there’s a ship outside and no one believes him.
– Anyone besides me think Betty is too calm and collected when she’s on the phone with the police officer, regarding the giant lobster?
– I also find it funny that the cop does everything Betty tells him to without questioning it. Also, it’s funny that he keeps sitting back down after doing every order.
– Typical B-movie trope: Betty wears that dress for almost the whole duration of the film, and yet it never gets dirty.
– Wow, there’s a lot of Oz references in this episode.
Best Segment: Segment 3 is pretty funny. It has this really cool build-up….. and then a deliberately disappointing pay-off. Nice.
Worst Segment: Another disappointing Invention Exchange.
Overall: It’s good, but not great. ** 1/2
“Resusci, you *is* a chick!”
Overall an enjoyably stupid movie.
Is it me or does Derek’s father/the Leader look a bit like Hirocon from StarTropics?
A couple of my friends saw part of this one. They loved the part where Thor says “…sentence you for TORTURE!” They loved it so much they kept saying “Torture!” for a while. That’s what we did back then, quote stuff.
I was lucky enough to find the DVD set with this one on it priced extremely cheap. I think $15.00 and was probably given that price by mistake. I can only guess. Good for me.
What lovely TOR-CHA! this experiment is. As others have said, this could have been beyond MST3k with a better budget. The actors do the best with what they have, the shock of the ray gun’s effect sort of makes up for the cheap effects. Although, one big plot hole I don’t think anyone’s caught is when Thor passes out in the doctor’s office long enough for our heroes to escape, why didn’t TAKE THE RAY GUN WITH THEM?!
But beyond that, just loads of laughs all around. Not to mention, this film has what I think is one of the best fake beards this side of Captain Santa in “Space Mutiny.”
Captain Santa is a distant third for the worst fake beard. The top honors go to the supreme ruler in “Teenagers from Outer Space” and Fidel Castro in “Red Zone Cuba”.
It had never before occurred to me that Captain Santa’s beard was fake. Maybe Cameron Mitchell didn’t want to be recognized in “Space Mutiny” (and it apparently worked, since the Brains AFAIK did no Cameron Mitchell riffs on that occasion) If so, well, the joke’s on him, because thanks to MST3K, that may now be the film for which he’s most remembered. ;-)
(Marginally related comments can be found in the “Stranded in Space” thread.)
“But what about Torture?”.
This was my favorite objection to just about anything for years. My old comments at #88 and #89 still stand. The movie is charming and Betty is hot. And nice too. Too bad for Marv that the Betty in High School Big Shot wasn’t this nice.
They’ve got valley parking!
I feel bad for that/those poor lobster(s) they used. Remember folks, you take a lobster out of the water and it’s suffocating. Do you think the cast knew the horrific monster they were all supposed to be afraid of was just a lobster someone was shaking around? ….actually, I’m also surprised that they could afford a lobster or 3, what with the tiny movie budget. Maybe they just borrowed them.
“Give that kid a special test…get ’em outta here.”
#100: “is it just me or does Resusci-Annie look like an exhausted Jodie Foster”
Well, that might explain why she wanted to go cruising for chicks…
#113: That alleged university looks suspiciously like a high school.
Yeah, when the high school moved to the new high school campus, the university bought the old high school campus. You didn’t know that? It was in all the local papers, right under “Building Code Under Fire”…
;-)
(I don’t mean to monopolize the thread but the other people just stopped talking…)
Maybe Derek, Thor, et cetera are teenagers by the standards of their planet…
In “Bride of the Monster,” the Brains kept referring to Harvey B. Dunn’s lack of an index finger on his left hand. They don’t seem to have noticed it here, though. Incidentally, while looking that up, I saw that Dunn also appeared in “Crossroad Avenger: The Adventures of the Tucson Kid” a 1953 TV pilot by none other than…Ed Wood. That’s right, Ed could’ve been right up there with, uh, the great western TV directors of whom I can’t think of even one.
“You are not familiar with the focusing disintegrator ray?”
Well, OF COURSE she isn’t, Derek, this planet is far less advanced than your own, that’s why you’ve been sent to invade it. What did you, *sleep* through the entire briefing?!
>>>#19: This movie had 681 riffs over 1:15:08 of movie time for an average of 9.064 riffs per minute (RPMs). That ranks #94 all-time.
Whoa. How and where was THAT determined?
>>>#22: Unlike “City Limits”, this is alot easier to follow
Well, the fifties were easier to follow than the eighties, so it works out. There were fewer people back then. ;-)
>>>#25: Addendum: I forgot that the incidental music from the beginning of, as well as the end of, Night of the Living Dead (1968) is featured throughout Teenagers from Outer Space.
Ah, but you are incorrect, sir or ma’am. In fact, it’s the incidental music from “Teenagers from Outer Space” that’s featured in “Night of the Living Dead.” “Teenagers” had it first.
>>>#64: McCloud was good too, but certainly no Columbo.
Which reminds me, I never quite got this in earlier episodes: How is “Chief? McCloud!” relevant to walking into darkness?
>>>#75: borderline-angelic small town folks in the form of Betty and her grandpa (even the gas attendant and guy who gave Thor a lift were nice until Thor went ‘TOR-CHA’ on their asses)
Must be the town that was taken over by the NICE body snatchers. Or maybe it’s in the timeline where George Bailey had a twin brother and life is thus twice as wonderful. ;-)
>>>#82: with plenty of lousy actors giving stilted readings (at least half the cast, including our protagonist, sounds like they’re seeing the script for the first time on the cue cards in front of them)
Don’t think of them as actors seeing the script for the first time, think of them as aliens speaking English for the first time. Their native language is Graeffite, not English. Maybe back home they don’t even communicate by sound, much less spoken words.
>>>#119: – Anyone besides me think Betty is too calm and collected when she’s on the phone with the police officer, regarding the giant lobster?
– I also find it funny that the cop does everything Betty tells him to without questioning it.
Well, it’s the same basic set of reactions as in “Giant Gila Monster.” Like I said there, some people can get used to anything.
Crow: When TV repairmen walked the Earth.
Crow: You know, we won’t see costuming like this until Mark Singer does “V”.
Derek: There was happiness; there was love.
Joel: Oh, BITE me, there was NOT!
Servo: Let us implement contractions.
Joel: Oh, I like that – they race to the scene, but they park carefully.
Servo: Children lose the ability to walk!
Servo: Wish we could pan over there, but, ya know.
Servo: Many of the Mercury players have never been in films before – here are some of them.
I love this episode.
#62: So… were those all supposed to be detectives? Because there wasn’t a single one wearing a police uniform.
Maybe the budget that year didn’t allow for uniforms AND guns, so the officers had to wear their own clothes to work; small towns don’t tend to have a lot of money.
Re a similar riff from Giant Spider Invasion “They didn’t even TRY to make it look like a real police car!” Maybe the police department *couldn’t* *afford* a real police car. Police cars don’t grow on trees, y’know. One has to purchase them somewhere from somebody, and if the car fund comes up short, one must make do with regular cars instead.
Tragically, it tends to be the giant-monster-prone small towns whose budgets most often come up short…
The two door police car in Alien Factor by CT is pretty hilarious.
Anyone notice that except for Sparky all the skeletons have ample connective tissue?
#62:
Mm, yez, you demonstrate a common misconception regarding the operation of Graeffite focusing disintegrator rays. In fact, the ray penetrates directly to the target’s skeletal structure, super-charging the bones at the molecular level, to which all adjacent organic matter is thus drawn inward. A minimum of matter fuses directly with the skeleton to form a crude connective structure locking the bones into the formation formerly held in place by the target’s organic tissue. Once the fusion is complete, the remaining excess matter is expelled from the skeleton’s molecular structure and converted into harmless visible light, creating the “disintegration” effect. The entire process takes a fraction of a second and is, to the naked eye, indistinguishable from an outright disintegrative force which penetrates the target’s physical structure from the exterior, whereas the force is, as described, in fact exerted from the interior.
OSLT.
SCIENCE!
@ # 134, “Anyone notice that except for Sparky all the skeletons have ample connective tissue?”
Not to mention the handy block or hook or other apparatus at the top of the skull for hanging in a classroom or doctor’s office.
Really, when you think about it (“So don’t think about it.”), why is it “Resusci-Annie”? One doesn’t resuscianne people, one resusciTATES people. Shouldn’t it be “Resusci-Tatum”? Oh well.
#135: Thanks for clearing that up. I was mistaking Thor’s weapon for a Phaedron focusing disintegrator ray. Silly me.
For post Post # 130
It is a reference to the Opening of the NBC Mystery Movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHk5cGwuS6A
Right away when Grandpa greets Derek Servo says “Pull my finger! Just kidding you can’t.”
I think the movie was never intended to be called Teenagers from Outer Space. So the casting was originally age appropriate. Some executive or marketing person decided to change the title to help attract the youth audience, and ended up making everyone look stupid as if they were trying to pass off middle aged people as teenagers. The actors must have hated that.
the old Blue Demon movie “Arañas infernales” lifts some footage from TFOS
Andrew McLaglen.
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