Movie: (compilation 1982; original episodes 1976) A re-edit of two “Space: 1999” TV episodes. The inhabitants of a space station encounter a hostile alien and his shapeshifting daughter. Later, her shapeshifting ability goes out of control and endangers the ship.
First shown: 1/22/89
Opening: It’s Superbowl Sunday! The Mads show off their “no-d” glasses
Host segment 1: Crow gives Joel a haircut
Host segment 2: Crow suggests Servo can learn to fly. It doesn’t go well
Host segment 3: The Bots help Joel with his taxes, and find out more than they wanted to know
End: Joel, Crow and Gypsy play football, and Gypsy and Joel sing “We Are the Champions”
(147 votes, average: 4.12 out of 5)
Loading...
• This episode originally aired on Superbowl Sunday 1989, which explains all the football stuff. Servo’s head comes off for the first time (that we know of) in this episode. This episode also marks the first time the show used a movie that was actually two TV show episodes loosely spliced together. The concept would later reappear “Master Ninja” “Mighty Jack” “Riding With Death” and more.
• References.
• Segment 1 was re-done in episode 105- THE CORPSE VANISHES; some of the football game during the end segment was featured in the MST3K Scrapbook Tape.
• Servo’s head extends again during the riffing.
• Joel says something silly and Crow turns to him and calmly asks: “What color is the sky in your world, Joel?” That one would come back later.
• During the transition period between episodes, Joel keeps saying “series” when he means “episode.”
• Servo just gets up and leaves at one point.
• The riff “there go the music lessons” is an early version of “There go the piano lessons” from the movie.
• About Servo’s head falling off: I think the first time it happens, after Crow has talked Tom Servo into base jumping off the desk, was on purpose. But when it falls off again later, I think that was an accident. They just kept going.
• Servo’s head is still off when they return to the theater. Joel reconnects it.
• Servo is still steamin’ mad at Crow after segment 2. They two almost come to blows!
• Movie stuff: So, I didn’t watch this show as a kid (I knew OF it, I just never watched it.) Was this sort of an attempt at a British “Star Trek”? (Some commenters agreed that it was, even though it was a decade later.) Landau seems to be trying to do Shatner in a couple of places.
• The episodes that were combined to make this “movie” were “The Metamorph” and “Space Warp.” The former was the debut episode of the show’s second season. The latter came 13 episodes later. Yet when the second half of the “movie” begins, alien Maya is again in sick bay, giving the impressions that she in sick bay for 14 episodes. Not true, the commenters said. She just ended up in Sick Bay a lot.
• Can I just note that this movie is mostly really really boring, although it is occasionally punctuated by some actual action? (It nearly put me to sleep.)
• Cast and crew roundup: Executive producer Gerry Anderson also did “Invaders from the Deep” and “Revenge of the Mysterons,” as did score composer Barry Gray. Production designer Keith Wilson also did “Revenge of the Mysterions.” Producer Fred Freiberger also did “Beginning of the End. In front of the camera, Catherine Schell was also in “Moon Zero Two.” Stuntman Peter Porteous also appeared in “Future War.” And Alf Joint was also in “The Projected Man.”
• Fave riff: The reference to the “Dennis Hopper segment of the film.” Honorable mention: Joel sings a few bars of the Banana Splits theme song as our heroes climb into the ridiculous moon buggy.
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
I disagree with those that felt Phase IV was the first “mid-season 1” quality episode. I felt that one to be slow in riffing. But this episode was good. Without actually sitting down and counting everything out, this episode feels like the first one where over 50% of the riffs are something other than “state park jokes.” That is real important to establishing the MST we all know and love.
I noticed on at least a couple of occasions leaving the theater that Joel, despite Crow leaving first, is stepping over something. I wonder what that is all about.
It’s great to some one of my all time favorite character actors “Brian Blessed.”
Joel: “That’s no titanium ball. That’s a battle station:” You gotta love a good Star Wars reference.
Joel: “Get it? Mr. Misty Meiner?
Crow: “What color is the sky in your world?”
>>>The two almost come to blows!
Except that their arms don’t work. ;-)
There are surely several sites focusing on Space: 1999, but here’s a pilot recap I came across in my “customary” site perusals:
http://www.agonybooth.com/tv/Space__1999/Breakaway.aspx
The site also recaps a number of MSTed movies in their original form (so if you ever wondered exactly what got cut out of “Mitchell” or “Red Zone Cuba,” it’s there). I first discovered it when, on a whim, I did a Yahoo search for “There is no way out of here. It’ll be dark soon.” :-)
I think I enjoyed this more, because of my fondness for cheesy 70’s Sci-Fi than I did for the MST3k angle.
Okay riffing for a KTMA, but I just like that 70’s made-for-tv science fiction pretty much any way I can get it.
With Brian Blessed as Mentor, I kept having Prince Vultan flashback from Flash Gordon.
I like how Mentor calls the Moon ‘Your Moon’… Wouldn’t the fact that it’s a free-floating body in space, not in orbit, no longer make it a moon? Odd he would just call it that. Well, this is cheezy TV sci-fi. And I’ve got to admit, there’s way bigger issues with the whole premise of Space 1999 than just that.
Very convenient how the Space Princess just happens to transform into animals that are identical to Earth animals.
They must be able to crank out those Eagles, since it seemed like Space 1999 lost 2-3 each episode. The moon is rich in materials, apparently, with the exception of titanium….
Three stars.
I never watched Space 1999, but after seeing this KTMA episode I gotta say the show was extremely weird. Was it aimed at kids? Whatever it was, it was pretty trippy.
From the simple elegance of Gamera to the technical sophistication of Space 1999, KTMA era takes on them all on. The Mads are really starting to settle into their madness? The host segs are much stronger and fun. Really enjoyed the Bots taxing reaction to Joel’s tax write offs.
I am a big fan of Landau & Bain from their IMF days so seeing them in a SciFi show is a treat for me. The spliced episodes of Space 1999 were good, for riffing. The special effects were sort of weird, the models used and interior shots of the moon complex I thought were pretty good and fairly realistic. When the planet, Psyclon, is viewed, it looks like the MST3K set!?
The villain Mentor was emoting all over the place. I guess the planet Psyclon has no lithium for Mentor‘s manic condition. His daughter, Maya, has braided eyebrows which sort of freaked me out until I started to wonder if she was braided elsewhere, I know shame on me. The aliens Maya morphs into, Carpet Man and the Giggler, were silly but can really kick Brit butt. J&TB were still in their smart-alecky, teen know-it-all phase which is hilarious to me. Loved when they were mocking Landau’s clothes; “Hey Martin, are your collars wide enough?”. Enjoyed this one a lot.
Martin Landau could’ve been a great William Shatner (look what he did for Bela??)…but the “1999” was simply too boring and didn’t give him time to emote like “Trek” did for the Shat.
This past weekend, when I watched “Cosmic Princess” in anticipation of this week’s KTMA recap, I also watched “North by Northwest” (Blu-ray) and “Cleopatra” (DVD) for the first time (great flicks BTW), both also starring Martin Landau. So, without even knowing he was in any of them, it turned out to be a Landau film festival at my household. :x “Cosmic Princess” is the first TV-episodes-masquarading-as-movies of what would become semi-regular “MST3K” fodder (“Master Ninja 1 & 2,” “Ride with Danger,” etc.) but man, those 80’s style video credits at the start and end of the movie are just painful to watch. Is this the only experiment where they come back from commercial at the end solely to riff on the credits and say goodbye? Since it’s KTMA there is no standard time for an episode’s length (the movie dictates how long these “MST3K” episodes last) and, at 102 minutes, “Cosmic Princess” feels longer. Personally I found the riffing sub-par (way too many DOA ‘Land of Dairy Queen’ jokes) and the theater segments a very mixed bag, although the Crow-versus-Servo rivalry is notorious here for being carried into the theater (a good couple of minutes the movie just plays as Joel tries to keep the ‘bots from slugging each other… weird). It’s KTMA so the TV episodes… sorry, ‘movie’ itself carries the bulk of the episode and boy, it’s a snoozer. I’ve never seen “Space: 1999” (or the original “Star Trek” for that matter) and the two episodes in this ‘movie’ are barely above old “Battlestar Galactica” in the camp scale. That said (a) Catherine Schell is hot as Maya (that bug-eyed monster thing she shape-shifts into when she runs outside is disgusting though), (b) Landau makes for a somewhat believable center of moral authority (although the 2nd half of the ‘movie’ benefits from him not being in it that long) and (c) “Battlefield Earth” lookalike Mentor (Brian Blessed) saves the ‘movie’s’ first half with his hammy Burl Ives-like characterization. Overall TWO-AND-A-HALF STARS in the KTMA scale and TWO STARS as a movie just because the SFX miniature work from the “Space: 1999” episodes looked phenomenal for a mid-70’s British sci-fi show (bell bottom pants worn by the male crew members not included in my complments :mrgreen: ).
Favorite Riff: Do you see that (outside in space), what is that? Landau (from J&TB): A paycheck. :lol:
Oh, and ‘Series 2’ is a reference to Space 1999 coming back, after being semi-canceled. It was reworked, in attempts to make it more exciting, and flash. That’s part of why Joel points out his new Blazer in the beginning of Part 2. The colorful blazers were a trademark of Series 2.
Space 1999 was a kind of British Star Trek. I remember being really excited when the show premiered (this was around the time Star Wars first came out). When I watched the frist show, though, I was HORRIBLY disappointed. Man, was it DULL! Needless to say, I didn’t watch the second episode.
Crow: Everything’s groovy on the moon.
Common wisdom among MSTies is that Joel was nice and Mike was mean, but this movie starts with Joel stating that he’s already bored. Combine this with his exasperation at the non-ending of last week’s “Phase 4”, and already we see that Joel is a cynical, no-nonsense film-viewer.
I irregularly watched Space:1999 as a kid. It seemed mysterious and profound but couldn’t hold a candle in terms of characters or plots to the Star Trek reruns I already loved. It was well-produced pap, with cool models (the Eagle ship is still iconic to this day) and a hot alien-chick (at least to a pre-pubescent boy). Now the bridge-bound navigator/communications officer with the short hair looks pretty good to me (Sandra Benes = senior data analyst: thank you, Wikipedia). Brian Blessed, of course I remember as Vultan, but he was also good as a corrupt art-dealer for a few episodes in the wonderful English series “Lovejoy” with Ian McShane.
Hair-cut host segment: I currently live in San Francisco, so references to the ‘Niners having once been Super Bowl-worthy are hilarious to me. And as a member of Team Coco, the Carson/Leno/Arsenio bit is a nice time capsule to a more innocent time.
But overall, meh. There’s plenty of riffing here but little of it lands: our boys are never able to find their way into this mess. It’s maybe too cheesy for them, but lacking the surreal dubbing of the Gamera flicks. Crow’s “There go the music lessons” @ 34:27 during the brain-drain is pretty good though. He also gets a callback with “Evacuate?”/”Sounds painful.” (35:32). So, 2 stars, but mainly for the cast, costumes, and crazy effects of the original movie.
For those counting, there are a couple of Prince references: Under the Cherry Moon and “When Doves Cry.” And more “mango juice rubbing babes” in a host segment.
Crow: Boy, he really rocked that mother.
Forgot the ratings thingy again!!! It’s up there now.
When Servo leaves, does he stay gone, or eventually come back?
Maybe Josh… really needed to go, if you know what I mean.
Also, about Servo’s head falling off, being a reason why they’d yell cut in later seasons. I’m not sure. There were plenty of times where Servo’s head falls off, and they just keep going. Like in 104- Women of the Prehistoric Planet (keeping in mind it was the last season 1 episode), during the final segment, Servo’s head falls off and…. Joel really does nothing. He just says, “Oh, you lost your head”, and then continues on.
I see a lot of comments by people unfamiliar with S:1999 so….
It was one of the live action series by ‘puppet series’ producer Gerry Anderson after his many successful marionette series: Joe 90, Supercar, Fireball XL-5, Stingray, and Supermarionation series Thunderbirds (best known), and Captain Scarlet.
The other live action series he did was UFO.
Yes, it was an attempt to ‘cash in’ on SciFi because of Star Trek, but there have been a lot of other series that came and went because of a spike in SciFi movies/TV. (e.g. Battlestar Galactica in 1970s was reaction to Star Wars)
Sampo noted that about a dozen episodes were between the two used, yet Maya was in the sick bay in both.. I haven’t seen the series since it aired, but IIRC, Maya wound up in sick bay a LOT!
Overall, I remember it fondly, in spite of the cliches and reeeeally bad science. Look up what else was on the same TV seasons (do that for any show that seems ‘too cheesy’) and its popularity can be explained.
Oh, and Maya was supposed to be the “Spock”, because first season didn’t do as well as expected.
I believe the Fugitive Alien films and Prince of Space were also tv episodes spliced together to make a movie. Those were always interesting cuz the plot would change in the middle of the “movie”. :grin:
Wow, I need to get more episodes filmed. This is my latest episode of Lazlow the MST Guy:
http://blip.tv/file/4051858
I should be filming KTMA 11 Humanoid Woman this weekend.
Lazlow: Just wanted to say that I am enjoying these. Keep it up!
Space 1999 was a Gerry Anderson production, and yet no puppets. It had a better cast than the material by a million miles, hell, didn’t Charles “A Fish Called Wanda/The Lavender Hill Mob” direct these episodes?
And yet it’s dreck.
Anderson’s shows are ALL dreck, puppets or not.
Martin Landau and co. are standing in for marionettes.
ITV spent FOREVER trying to beat Doctor Who at the SF game, and they REALLY REALLY sucked at it. (Doctor Who wasn’t really saleable then to the US market anyhow, no American actors and the serial format would have just been totally against American TV grammar.) It didn’t help that it was scheduled against Doctor Who, during it’s Tom Baker/Hinchcliffe years heyday.
And hence things like this… bizarre, high-concept, expensive, nearly unwatchable show.
They gave up after what, two years?
And spent a ton of money. Landau genuinely HATED making the show by all accounts it was not a fun gig.
And yet Gerry Anderson kept making dire shows. This was, amazingly, the GOOD live-action Gerry Anderson show. At least the Mads didn’t make them watch Space Precinct.
I watched “Space: 1999” a lot when it was first on. The opening season featured far more cerebral plots and a more mysterious tone. The second season (which included these episodes) was known for a major reworking in tone and scripting, more action, a cast overhaul, and adding Fred Frieberger (the producer of TOS’s third season) as show runner. The general consensus among fans is that the second season is, shall we say, somewhat inferior.
On the plus side, the visual effects are great (especially the Eagle crash in the hangar) and Alan Carter is the second coolest space pilot in science fiction. (Han Solo is first.) On the other hand, the plots don’t make much sense, the episodes are as awkwardly stitched together as the ones in “Riding with Death”, and the acting is too broad. (Brian Blessed is excused, since he’s at least always interesting to watch.)
As for the experiment, the riffing is OK and I liked the host segments. (Nice comment from josh about the No-D glasses: “I can only see length.”) I think this is one of the better KTMA shows.
And, no, Maya wasn’t sick for 14 episodes. As with “Riding with Death” and the “Master Ninja” movies, the episodes chosen have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Oh, and an authoritative site for info on “Space: 1999” (including this “movie”) is the “Space: 1999 Catacombs”: http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/
Pilot Guy:”One, two…”
Servo:”Three.”
Pilot Guy:”Five…”
J&TB:”WHAT?!”
Some fun moments with Crow blurting out “We’re gettin’ our asses kicked!”, then acting *very* sheepish afterwards as Trace realizes he may have stepped over the line, and Joel has to reassure him.
This is among the few MST3K movies I actually saw prior to the riffed versions (others are Hangar 18, Laserblast and Incredible Melting Man). As a kid growing up the the mid-1970s I was really into sci-fi and clearly remember this show and the shaggy monster that Maya truns into in part 2.
Silly silly premise … fundamental misunderstanding of gravity …. there’s no way to knock the moon out of orbit using nukes, lol. AND if you did move the moon out of the solar system Earth’s orbit & spin would adjust with disasterous consequences.
The riffing is getting stronger and better focused with each episode. I really think Josh and Trace are much better spontaneous riffers than Joel (at this point anyhow)
Note: the Haircut scene with Crow and Joel is a direct continuation from the earlier episodes where the caller asked “Who does Joel’s hair?” and they showed the credits highlighting “Mr. Crow of Beverly Hills” as the hairstylist.
Also, once again there is a bangng noise in the studio or in an adjacent room and Josh explains it away as Gypsy.
Funny riffs:
Joel “It’s the feel-good mineral of 1999, kids love the rich taste of Titanium”
During the brainwashing scene with Mentor’s evil computer ..
Joel “It’s a pajama party”
Crow: “There go the music lessons”
Tom: “.. and all of 4th grade”
Patrick Duffy look-alike: “Evacuate?”
Crow: “Sounds painful”
Crow: “It’s like being on LSD – Lousy Space Dramas”
Wow and if anyone reading this hasn’t seen this episode @ least check out the ultra-low budget & totally goofy alien in part 2 … hilarious on many levels! Appears at around 3:05 on this Youtube clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo_POLNp0fU&t=3m5s
Not having seen any of the K episodes I can’t directly comment
on them. But, even though from a few clips seen here and there,
they are more amateurish (relatively) then Season One, is there
any chance they might be available mon future dvd sets? I think
there have been comments some (Sandy Frank?) films so far are
impossible mto get.
Never saw this episode but I remember the Space: 1999 series. It was EXTREMELY boring so I can guess how bad the movie was in this episode.
Space 1999 had a cool premise, if scientifically ridiculous, it gave them the ability to fly through space in the near future without having to build a giant space ship. the first season had some pretty good episodes, some of them were definitely on the trippy side, which is part of its charm. Watching these bad prints make them seem probably a little more trippy than they really were. Amusing that this was put together as the answer to Doctor Who, and that the BBC was worried about it. If I remember right in the first season Gerry Anderson’s wife was also involved in producing and by the time the second season started they’d gotten divorced so there was less money to spend?
Anyway, this movie is seriously dull, just a lot of running around with very few advances in the plot, even a waste of Brian Blessed. I didn’t think the riffing here was very inspired either, not as good as the last couple, certainly too many “land of Dairy Queen” references. One thing you do notice in this episode is that J&TB are willing to goof around in the theater, doing something unrelated while basically ignoring the movie, which serves them in good stead for the future.
What I actually find more amusing than anything is Sampo not knowing what “Space 1999” was — boy you guys are just kids.
And the first season, when seen as an adult, was actually quite good. The second season was downright goofy (think third season Star Trek – TOS) so it’s hard to make a judgment on it from this. Wait until the blu-ray set comes out this fall (of the first season only and that’s no coincidence).
Mike: I knew OF it. I just didn’t WATCH it. And thanks for calling me a kid. :-)
John Paradox #13: IIRC Space Preceint was another live action show from Gerry Anderson.
It would have been real neat if they had MSTed a four-parter Doctor Who.
OK, I confess, when I was a kid in the 1970s, I actually was a big fan of “Space: 1999.” Revisiting it 30 years later when it came out on DVD…man, I must have been a really boring kid! Still, the first season wasn’t *truly* awful; the episode where the moon went through a black hole was kind of cool (if scientifically implausible) and got kind of “2001”-y in its philosophizing. Still, the acting was inexplicably bad; Barbara Bain had been pretty good in “M:I” but in “S:1999” could easily have been replaced by a 2×4 with a blonde wig on and no one would have been the wiser. As for Season 2…well…even hardcore fans have a tough time with it. Living rocks? Oh, I don’t THINK so.
Btw, “Space: 1999” was co-created by Gerry & Sylvia Anderson (whence the Mole People, I think), and part of the show’s problem was that they put more effort and money into the costumes than the scripts. (The special effects weren’t bad for 1975.) They divorced between seasons 1 & 2 which I think was one of the reasons why Season 2 was so much worse (I hate that I know that…maybe I’m *still* boring!).
Back in the 90s, The Sci-Fi Channel used to show the Andersons’ previous series “UFO” on Sunday afternoons, and my best friend and I would riff on it relentlessly. It made *no* sense.
The MST version of “Cosmic Princess” was the first KTMA episode I had ever seen (I got a copy–1000th-generation VHS–in a tape trade circa 1994) and it was a bit of “culture shock” at the time. I really had a hard time getting through it…although I got “City On Fire” at the same time and thought it was better. But then I liked “Space: 1999,” so perhaps my taste does not bear close examination!
@ 15
Hey Lazlo, saw that video and enjoyed it. Keep up the good work. ;)
Only a quick correction: This actually wasn’t the first TV-movie film used on Mst3k. It was actually “Invaders from the Deep”, unless you’re not counting that one since no one but Jim Mallon has a copy of that episode.
I thought this was a decent episode. The ‘movie’ is decent. I didn’t grow up with Space 1999 but I find it enjoyable. The host segments are fun, especially the one where Servo’s head falls off (the whole segment, not just the head falling off).
Another MST3K movie made up from TV show episodes. I could stand to watch this.
I watched Space 1999 as a kid. There was an episode where tentacles were coming through an opening of some sort and pulling people through twards a monster we could see aside from the tentacles. Anyone know which episode this was?
Haven’t seen this in a long while.
My association with Brian Blessed is as the king in the first season of “Blackadder,” and as Emperor Augustus in “I, Claudius” (which you really should check out if you’ve never seen it.)
Was Catherine Schell the lady in the Gumby outfit in “Moon Zero Two”?
Looks like it.
#32 Cornjob – The episode with the tentacles was Dragon’s Domain. I must have been 12 when I saw that episode and it scared the crap out of me! I hate to admit it but I bought the series on DVD to see if it really was as boring as I remembered. It is. I have always enjoyed Catherine Schell though. The episodes used in Cosmic Princess weren’t even the worst/slowest to choose from.
Catherine Schell also played Lady Lytton in The Return of the Pink Panther.
That title screen glows!
I remember hating “Space: 1999” when it aired. There was so much hype comparing it to Star Trek, and then when it premiered…UGH! Landau and Bain must have been actively trying to kill the show – there’s no other explanation for their performances. (Although the problem could be on my end – I didn’t like them on M:I, either.)
However, I enjoyed this episode a lot. I hadn’t watched it in about ten years, and it still holds up.
I too really enjoyed this episode, but truly found the “movie” way boring. The GAMERA films were goofy and childish and PHASE IV was OK but COSMIC PRINCESS is what I’d call cheezy. Everything is so silly and over the top and didn’t both episode plots pretty much already happen on STAR TREK – TOS in one way or another? I don’t know if S:1999 had a US network run but a kid in the late 70s in showed on Saturday evenings on our local UHF station WKBD TV50 in Detroit. It still stunk back then.
I found the host segments to be very funny and the riffing to be really strong. I did notice Josh stepping on the others riffing during the theatre segments a few times but it only added to the fun. I like the loose feel of these KTMAs.
3 stars on the KTMA scale.
In British Television, a ‘season’ is often refereed to as a series. Hence the last season of Doctor Who is Series 5 (or Series 31 for the old folks).
Rock on Creepygirl- I’m an old TV 50 viewer. I also remember Bill Kennedy.
To answer you question (as I WAS old enough to watch this show when it first came on) No, it was not a British version of Star Trek, it was an attempt by the Andersons (Stingray, Thunderbirds, Joe 90) to make another live action show (UFO being their first.
I also believe that Star Trek was the first TV series to have a “stun” light beamed weapon. It then became standard issue on TV and movies. Other shows had “stun” devices, but NOT a killing weapon that could stun.
Yes, the show was incredibly slow and more talk than a TV show should have been. But then, ALL British TV was that way back then. Look at the original episodes of Dr. Who and Blake’s 7.
This, of course, was a compilation of two unrelated episodes and why they chose “Space Warp” as the second one I have no idea. In the 1980s it was standard to take an old show and cut together episodes to make a movie to sell to independent markets. Battlestar Galactica was one of the more successful attempts at this. UFO and The Champions, both good shows in their own rights, were given to editors of less talent.
Why they did not just take the first two episodes of season 2 and put them together is a mystery. They even cut the first episode to explain why Maya can shape shift but her father seems to lack the talent. Also, why is she even in sickbay? She was not ill when they left her planet. There were many good episodes that featured Maya in the second season. Anyone of them would have made a better “second half.” of this “movie.”
That said, this was too dull a film for our fledgling cast to take on. Maybe after season 4 they would have had the talent, but not this soon. It is a mind cripplingly slow film with many scenes that lead to nowhere . . fast. Only to be repeated again in the next scene. The cast of MST3K were not up to the challenge.
There were highlights. Glimmers of things to come.
The opening segment with the 3D Glasses. When one lens falls out and Dr. Erhardt says “I can only see length.” It sounded like an improve line and was perfect.
Joel spent a lot of time with the fact that this was a Super-bowl Sunday show. He obviously was not thinking that this show would ever be seen again. That in the future, when the hit show was in re-runs, no one would remember who played that game so long ago.
Way to many references to Dairy Queen. They were only mildly funny at first, then degenerated into a lack of writing talent as the show progressed.
Shades of “Creepy Girl” can be seen when Tom admires Maya.
Shades of MST3K- The Movie – tell us what is lost when the fight scene in the caves result in head hits (There go the music lessons & All of fourth grade)
Dated references – Mr. French (how many of you were even ALIVE when “Family Affair” was on TV, or even in re-runs?)
Mitch Miller and “follow the bouncing ball” (even older than Family Affair). I would have used a “Rover” reference instead. Old yes, but THIS audience would be more familiar with “The Prisoner” than “Sing along with Mitch.
And Gypsy at the end with the football game where she says, “I’m the Fridge.” Does anyone here remember “Refrigerator Perry”?
I am always amazed at the number of “Banana Splitz” references they used during the series. That was a short lived show back in 1969 and yet it still resonates with those who saw it. Why is it so memorable yet did not have the ratings to go a second year????
The highlight of this episode was, of course, the “Pizza N’ Pasta” commercial. I wonder if they did other ads during the Year Zero run and if so, do they still exist? I’d love to see them.
The show is still ironing out bits. There were a few lines stepped on and a cue forgotten. In the “Space warp” scene, Crow says “That makes my stomach woosey.” There is a long delay before Tom replies, “You don’t have a stomach.”
There were many things wrong with this episode both on screen and in the theater. Like I said in the beginning, this was far to bad a mess for Joel and everyone to take on so young in their career. Of course, they had to use the film library they had access to and the may not have had a big choice.
On to the next one.
Brian Blessed rocks! Without him these episodes, uh, I mean this movie is utterly lifeless (in a scene where they pursue the monster on the lunar surface you can actually see athletic shoes on the monster! THEY JUST DIDN’T CARE!) In addition to Blackadder I and I Claudius Brian Blessed also provided the voice of Boss Nass (the head GunGun) in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. What an eccentric performance.
Richard the Lion footed (#42):
I’m was around when “Family Affair” was first run. I haven’t seen the show in years, but I remember the name of Buffy’s doll (Mrs. Beasley). I feel pretty old right now.
@ creepygirl & trickymutha….me too.
Space 1999 was pretty boring to me then, and I was into any Sci-Fi at that time….made Star Trek look like Raiders of the Lost Ark action-wise.
I remember kind of having a thing for miss munton chops though. It was the 70’s….women were just hairier back then ;-)
In addition to the aforementioned “piano lessons” riff, this episode marks the first appearance, to my knowlege, of “unfortunate skin.”
I wonder where the “black Carson” line came from. Did they get it from an actual barber visit?
@ Trickymutha & Chief?McCloud:
Thanks guys. I was born in 1969 so I do remember Bill Kennedy also. I was such a little kid during his heyday but I believe he didn’t actually retire and leave the air until somewhere around 1981 or 82 when I stsrted Jr. High.
@ Richard the Lion Footed:
Also on TV50, FAMILY AFFAIR was a syndication staple through out the 1970s and early 80s. It was shown between GILLIGAN’S ISLAND and THE BRADY BUNCH for like a decade.
#42
As I recall, Joel *does* make a quick “Rover” reference, but he misremembers the name and calls it “Fido” instead!
#35 Thanks for the info. Those tentacles creeped me out as a kid. I was only 5-7 or so and I didn’t know what an octopus was and had never seen tentacles on anything. The fact that you couldn’t see the whole monster made it creepier.
@42: I remember William “Refrigerator” Perry. Hell, I remember the damn “Superbowl Shuffle” song! “We’re not here/To cuz no trouble/We’re just here to do the Superbowl Shuffle”.