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Weekend Discussion Thread: Best and Worst Cops in MSTed MoviesAlert reader Patricia suggests we discuss…
You can pick any criteria you want. I’ll just talk sheer competency: Most incompetent cop has got to go with Alan “Nassau” Hale Jr. as the completely clueless sheriff in “Giant Spider Invasion.” For most competent, I’d pick the Hat Squad from “Radar Secret Service,” but then they did have RADAR helping them! What would you pick? 105 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Best and Worst Cops in MSTed Movies”Commenting at Satellite News
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Love or hate him, you have to admit, Mitchell DID get the job done…
Most incompetent- the cops from The Corpse Vanishes who can’t seem to put one and one together and figure anything out of the obvious pattern being left by Bela Lugosi. Thankfully, “Intrepid Girl Reporter” is there to save the day for them…
Mitchell. Worst. Cop. Ever.
Please. Best cop? Clearly, Kline.
Kline! Say it loud, there’s music playing. Say it soft, it’s almost like praying. Kline!
Call Alan Hale’s sherrif a bad representation all you want, but his quote “You ever see Jaws? This makes that shark look like a goldfish!” was worthy of being quoted by John Hurt in the ALIEN legacy documentary.
Worst: Giant Gila Monster.
There’s a horrible train wreck just outside of town with probably many killed and hundreds wounded, but he didn’t really seem to care, just did a lot of talking and no action.
Best: Swamp Diamonds.
The female undercover police officer. She saved the diamonds and Touch Conners!
Seems as if you could divide MST law officials into the Good, the Bad, and the Inept.
Gunslinger’s Beverly Garland was quite effective, definitely in the Good category; sure, most of the town ended up dead, but she took up the law with real style after her husband was killed, going after lawbreakers with strength and courage.
By comparison, there are SO MANY Inept law enforcement reps in these movies that it’s hard to choose. But two examples come to mind: I’ll name the “forgetful” sheriff from Blood Waters of Dr Z, who conveniently fails to remember the crazy doctor’s desire to turn people into fish. Wow…really!!? Also, the laughing sheriff from Earth vs the Spider, who refuses to believe anything the teens tell him, is pretty disgraceful (and he was portrayed by Gene Roth, who also played the scornful, skeptical, pretty useless sheriff in Attack of the Giant Leeches!).
Bad would have to go to the highly disturbing character played by Michael Pataki, who ends up getting killed by bats at the behest of the crazy bat-wife in It Lives by Night. And I also recall the bad cop in Master Ninja who apparently tries to rape Demi Moore. I guess when MST cops are bad, they’re truly BAD.
Oddly enough, I’m fully prepared for this question thanks to a spur of the moment decision to re-watch Zombie Nightmare. Frank Sorrell is so incompetent, I realized the movie would’ve gone exactly the same if Frank hadn’t been a character at all. He doesn’t stop the zombie or save any of the kids, he blames the victim of an attempted rape, and just stands there as Churchman is dragged to Hell. I know Churchman deserved it, but Frank seems to be the heroic character (however designated it is) and should’ve made an effort to save him.
You could argue that there aren’t any heroes in the movie, but minus that Frank Sorrell is still a terrible cop.
Oh, there’s also the questionable cops in Wild Rebels, who enlist Steve Alaimo’s help & end up getting a whole bunch of people, cops & civilians alike, killed. Good job, guys!
Worst has to be a baby oiled slathered Mitchell slip sliding around on a pull out couch ugh, shiver.
Worst First Runner up would be Merrit Stone (or is it Gene somsthing?), who portrayed virtually the very same rock stupid know it all peace officer in Earth vs the Spider and Attack of the Giant Leeches.
I’ll check back in for the best recs.
The best has to be game warden Steve Benton from “Attack of the Giant Leeches”. He’s committed to his work, even though that meant arresting his future father-in-law.
The worst has to be the officer from “Laserblast”. Sigh, I HATE HIM!
It’s never clear (to me, anyway, and I imagine to everyone else) what branch of law enforcement he trying to represent, but Coleman Francis clearly hasn’t been introduced to the concept of due process.
“he’s” trying, “he’s” trying. Too early for to good grammar.
I vote for the cops in The Dead Talk Back. They are so inept they have to rely on a crackpot “scientist” to help them solve a crime. Maybe if they had talked to the rich kid’s parents they would have found out dear old dad had given him a crossbow.
A couple of non-Mitchell choices for worst:
– Sherriff Pink from Squirm seems like he would be a real jerk to contend with during a traffic stop.
– All of the cops from Future War, especially the bored dispatcher.
– The detectives from The Dead Talk Back. If you have to rely on Henry Krasker to solve your case for you, you’re not a good cop.
Best was the miniature patrolman from Samson vs The Vampire Women who tried to warn everybody but got locked up for his efforts.
Best – Mitchel/Geranimo: I’m giving ol’ Joe Don the double thumbs up here for several reasons… a) he gets his guy (both of them in Mitchel – even if one is cut out), b)he gets the gals, and c) gotta love that body count! Sure he’s a slob, but he makes being a slob so much fun….
Worst – Sooooo many to choose from, but I have to go with the sheriff from Blood Waters of Dr Z. All this weird stuff is going on and HOW long does it take for him to remember about the “crazy ol’ Dr Leopold”? *groans*
Adam West in “Zombie Nightmare.”
Best nomination goes to Fingers O’Toole of Catalina Caper. Not sure the name is right, the lanky prat falling guy following the Duvals. He gets my vote because he risks his life to save a girl from drowning, endures countless spills, trips, motion sickness, knock downs, near drownings and still finally gets his man, I think?
NMS @14-Hey I nominated you. Re your comments on Henry Krasker, he was the forerunner of all the CSI shows that are so popular with the kids these days. He along with Holmes were visionaries in this field. Who would have guessed?
Um, most of the good ones are mentioned already (Kline!)
I’ll toss in the guys from Manos – “We don’t wanna lean on ya. Jest git!”
Gentlemen, are we forgetting Manos’ prime pair? The hard-working policemen who spend their time chasing make-out couples, and giving up on searches after spending two seconds looking off camera. It’s a wonder Torgo and The Master managed to operate their seedy bordello under these fine officers’ jurisdiction!
The cops from Prince of Space got wiped out pretty darn quick; whole new level of incompetence there.
Best cop would have been the deputy from The Touch of Satan. Poor pitchforked b*stard.
In the “Sheer Incompetence” category I nominate the Angel County Sheriff’s Dept in the Creeping Terror.
-the sheriff is killed while incautiously investigating the alien spaceship.
-a gymnasium full of people is decimated.
-the “make-out car park” is attacked.
-a group of picnickers is wiped out.
All by a slow (really slow) alien.
They can’t catch or track the alien.
They are numb and dumb to the ongoing tragedy.
Thank goodness we weren’t subjected to actual dialogue from them – though the narration wasn’t much better.
Loved watching the instrument panel get pistol whipped and the socializing at the newlywed deputy’s house.
KLINE!
Not only one heck of a cop but obviously also
with a great future career in acting (“steals”
the scene whenever he’s in it).
Actually Batman in Zombie Nightmare gets both
worst cop and incompetent cop award. He’s had
all this time to study zombie pathology and
then gets surprise attacked by them at the end.
Especially after having just had the discussion about Final Justice, I think you’d have to include Sheriff Geronimo as one of the worst representatives of American law enforcement. Despite his eager vigilantism, he still manages to get constantly defeated by whatever situation he finds himself in. Not to mention that most of the people he meets end up dying because of his incompetence or compunction for unnecessary violence.
Too bad KLINE! didn’t ever get his own movie.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned the fine example of law enforcement in Laserblast yet. You have them getting high on job, getting blown up, getting ready for some football, etc. The moviemakers liberally mixed absurd small town sheriff stereotypes with absurd southern stereotypes and came up with these clowns.
Sometimes in these movies the police are background filler at best, like the police who show up at the end of Eegah. There isn’t much to say about them either way.
I thought Alan Hale’s sheriff in the Crawling Hand was much more competent than his sheriff in The Giant Spider Invasion. And I thought both of them were much more effective than his sheriff in Angels Revenge. Also, when he was the sheriff on that island, I thought he wasn’t very good at law enforcement either.
Some of the worst cops were in Village of the Giants. They can’t call in the military, or think of some other way to deal with some spoiled, giant teenagers? They’re just going to have the whole town do whatever they want? You need to think outside the box, man!
Another bunch of bad cops were in Radar Secret Service, where nobody could solve any crime or pursue any criminals without the use of radar.
Several people have mentioned the sheriff in Giant Gila Monster as one of the worst, but I kind of liked that guy! He had a good relationship with the young people in his town, which is important because it makes them feel appreciated, so they’re less likely to rebel. You don’t have to be a hardass to maintain order. And he always defended the “sing whenever I sing” guy when that crotchety old man called him trash. This is the kind of cop you wished was around when you were young. Yes, he didn’t think the train crash was relevant, but really, he was looking at a bunch of missing persons cases. I don’t think I’d make that connection, either.
Best- Kalgon from Space Mutiny. In spite of having a adminstration hostile to his goals, Kalgon is a leader able to effectively marshall his forces, gain allies and counter opposition within and without his force. Then after his plans are thwarted and having been horribly burned to death in a tragic clown car accident, he is seen apparently planning new strategies for his goals.
Worst- the sheriff from Giant Gila Monster. Would you forget the skid marks!!!
For worst, I would have to go with Captain Santa and the crew of the Seventh Sun. The fact that they have to rely on Big McLarge Huge to save the day speaks volumes of incompetence. Before he arrived they had not one, but two mutinying factions on board the ship.
Steak Brick Groin himself may yell like a girl, but he dodges laser fire, dons masterful disguises, survives multiple sump pump explosions, and gets the grandma in the end. He’s the last of the best.
Just thought of two more incompetent sheriffs. The two in
Manos. They’re obsessed with stomping nout that immoral
necking by teenagers but are obliviously to the constant
disappearance of people down the road into the desert.
(and is there an abandoned car lot
in that desert? Does the latest servant of The Master operate
a used car lot on the side? Will the appearance of the two women
at the end of the movie lead to another sterling debate and
cat fight?)
OK, I have another one. In The Amazing Transparent Man, the bank cops (and everyone else) were just going to stare in stunned silence as a bag of money “floated” its way out of the bank.
Also, cops/military/security in almost every Japanese movie on this show. They always let the little boy who was in love with Gamera, Godzilla, Jet Jaguar, or whomever into the control room, or onto the front lines, where he could distract everyone or get hurt. This happened like clockwork in all of these films.
I always thought the Sheriff’s Office of River Falls was surprisingly competent in Earth Vs. The Spider. You usually expect these guys to end up as spider chow for disbelieving the protagonist, but hey — they listened, they dutifully went to investigate, they found a big-ass spider and took action!
It’s hard to think of any good cops in MST3K movies, aside from Kline of course (or it is Klein?) Part of the distinguishing characteristic of bad movies and TV is that the cops are there for the sole purpose of getting beaten up by the monster and thereby proving the monster’s menace to the viewer. Think Worf in Star Trek: Next Generation: he shows up, takes a clumsy swing at the monster of the week, and is hurled into a wall for his trouble. So of course, in all the monster movies that MST3K has shown, the cops are never able to manage.
Hm. Does Cornjob from Gamera vs. Guiron count as a competent policeman? Sure, he doesn’t actually really do anything, but he does stick up for the little girl against her shrewish mother.
One of the worst cops was the fellow at the end of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Why does he shoot Jerry at the end? (Well, to be honest, I probably would have shot Jerry too just on general principle. “You shot zombie Jerry!” “He was a zombie?”)
In a whole different league are the “desert patrol” men of Beast of Yucca Flats. I don’t think they were cops at all, just a couple of weekend warriors who’ve appointed themselves vigilante protectors of Coleman Francis Mountain. Their solution to every difficulty? Parachute in, even if it’s just to the corner liquor store, and shoot at it.
my, my, my, my Mitchell!
You know, being from WI, I didn’t even realize the sheriff was saying “NASA” incorrectly and couldn’t figure out why he was being corrected.
If I was a cop, I’d want to be a cop in the town from EARTH VS. THE SPIDER. Sit around playing checkers all day, order some biscuits & cole slaw (maybe get the Meal Maker), and lovingly mock any reports about threats of giant mutated insects.
The sheriff in Squirm was the laziest, sleaziest, don’t-give-a-crapiest officer I’ve seen. Got eaten by worms…good enough :lol:
I’m casting my vote for best cop for Lt. Anderson (That’s me!) from Teenage Strangler. Sure he’s dull, but he’s consistently there and on the job. Bravo!
Worst cops have to be the crabby lazy cops from Manos. Whether it’s badgering people about tail lights or making out,they’re there! Gun shots, meh. Could be in Mexico. Go on, git!
Cornjob doesn’t do anything? If he doesn’t enforce bicycle safety, who will?
The sheriff from Squirm gets my vote for worst, only because we had to see him post coital and talking throatily with that chick in a jail cell. Gross.
The cops in The Screaming Skull were great. Unfortunately, nobody called them.
For worst, how about Sheriff Thumb-Hook from “Track of the Moon Beast”? People get killed by some kind of hideous beast, and so he brings in… an anthropologist?
I’m tempted to give “best” to the cops from “Future War” who, when they want to question the Sister, are able to swoop up to her on a random street and bring her in. They apparently didn’t even need to LOOK for her first, they just knew where she was. Now that’s an efficient police force! Either them or the cops at the end of “Red Zone Cuba,” because they shot Coleman Francis, and that has to count for something.
Not that he was a particularly effective cop, but does anyone but me feel kind of sorry for Inspector Ginko? He seems like a much nicer person than Diabolik. At least he gets his man at the end (even if Diabolik seems to think he’s pulled one over on the Man by getting entombed alive instead of killed outright).
My picks:
Best- Kline, of course! Although it does seem unfair, since he’s SO good. Maybe he should be ineligable for nomination.
Worst- I’ll have to second the sheriff from Squirm. Complete a**hat, accomplishes nothing, sexist pig, creepy, needs new dentures, lazy, seemingly unaware of what his job is supposed to be. A big storm? Power outage? Why does he apparently have nothing better to do then get in some woman’s pants (in a jail cell to boot- ewwww!)? He might have lived to the end if he’d only given the slightest credence to Southern Belle and Weenie Boy’s claims.
The cops in Samson versus the Vampire Women. They throw a fellow officer in the booby hatch for suggesting the murders were the work of vampires, yet they call in a masked wrestler to serve as judge, jury and executioner, a masked wrestler who has no problem believing in vampires since he fights monsters all the time. Technically, I guess, it was the professor who called Santo in, but they were all in cahoots, anyway.
Seems to me we’ve all forgotten who the best cop ever in MST3K really was–not Kline but someone from the same episode: Tom Servo. He stopped that bus and he saved them kids!
The angry, hectoring state trooper from Last Clear Chance deserves some sort of award. No wonder so many people die in motor accidents in his town; he’s spending every hour of his job at some poor schmuck’s farmhouse giving the kids rambling lectures on traffic safety. Sort of a cornpone Craig Peyer, really.
I think the bumbling rent a cops in “The Incredible Melting Man” who shot Ted Nelson. How dare they shoot Ted Nelson. He is, after all, Ted Nelson.
Another good cop was Kelly from Red Zone Cuba. Nobody, not even Fidel Castro could stop Colman Francis and his gang but within 5 minutes of showing up with his helicopter, Kelley had bagged a wild Curly and had the others rounded up. He should have had his own TV show.
More bad cops- The guys from the prisoner transfer from Teenagers from Outer Space. They showed you really can fight city hall!
My brain is overloading with possibilities. All I can do is agree with what others have said. However, I will state one of my other choices.
Worst Cop: Cracker Sheriff from The Blood Waters of Dr. Z. He just hangs around with a state DNR guy, mildly mocking his race, doesn’t even keep close watch on the creep who lives in an abandoned aquarium, and when he finally gets a chance to be a hero, he doesn’t even get off one shot at Dr. Z.
Best Cops: Sheriff Mustache and Cortez from Devil Fish.
In The Girl in Gold Boots, the entire police department let that drunk get arrested, who let the “young” guy in, who robs the jailhouse of something (for the life of me, I can’t remember what) killing a guy in the process. Those are some seriously bad cops!
Strange tact here. My best cop nominee is William Boyett who played the Idaho State Trooper in “Last Clear Chance,” the short for Ep. 520. He looked and sounded most official, even when crashing funerals. He had lots of practice playing TV cops in Dragnet, Adam-12, T.J. Hooker, Kight Rider, CHiPs, The Incredible Hulk, Quincy, Iornside, Hawaii Five-O, The F.B.I., Seahunt (By that time, my lungs were aching for air….(sorry, couldn’t resist)), well, you get the idea. It seems that any producer who needed a cop would call central casting and there was Boyett. This guy really looks and acts like a cop.
My worst cop nominee is the over the top Chief of Police in “Diabolik” (Ep. 1013). His scene at the press conference succumbing to “Exhilarating Gas” is hilarious even without riffing. Maybe Shout will release this final MST3K sometime soon.
Guys, help me out here…I am trying so hard to remember which episode “Kline!” was in. I know exactly who you’re talking about, I just can’t picture the rest of the movie around him. (Kline really stole the show for me!) I know it was a color film from the 70s or early 80s, I know Kline wore a sheriff’s deputy uniform, I know he didn’t say much, and was kind of the sheriff’s whipping boy. Was it Giant Spider Invasion? Laserblast? Zombie Nightmare? Help!
Alan Hale in Crawling Hand. “You’re our only witness to this murder, you were the only one in the house at the time of the murder. Nah, I don’t need to take you in for questioning. Sure you can stay here at the scene of the crime.”