Movie: (1962) A teen girl, her weird-faced boyfriend and her scientist dad discover a cave man living in the desert.
First shown: 8/28/93
Opening: Crow has been frozen to nearly absolute zero!
Invention exchange: Rebuilt Crow is just like new; J&tB presents the Pork-orina, while the Dr. F replaces Frank’s blood with antifreeze
Host segment 1: J&tB consider subtle forms of hell
Host segment 2: The bots alter Joel’s face to look like Arch Hall Jr.
Host segment 3: J&tB discuss why ’60s sitcoms are run by single dads
End: Washing the movie off the bots, Joel reads a letter, Frank gets a fluid change
Stinger: “Fake it.” “That’s what I’ve BEEN doing. Now I’m getting sick!”
(148 votes, average: 4.68 out of 5)
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• We’re in a very good stretch of episodes here. This is another winner, following close on the heels of last week’s gem. Great host segments, great inventions, great riffing. Shtemlo!
• This was one of the first episodes released on DVD by Rhino, in April of ’00.
• References.
• I always wondered what the “porkorina” instrument really was. Commenters informed me that it is a bass harmonica, aka a bass harp.
• Then-current reference: While doing his Cryptkeeper impression, Crow mentions the now-forgotten cable series “Dream On.”
• Callbacks: “Glen was 50 feet tall!” (War of the Colossal Beast), “The Torgo school of fondling,” “To live like the hu-man” (Robot Monster—also a mention of the Robot Monster set) “Durn smoochers!” (Attack of the the Eye Creatures) “He tampered in God’s domain” (Bride of the Monster), “Giant Gila Monster.”
• Segment one, is another pithy, brilliant sketch, one that assumes a certain level of sophistication on the part of its viewers. It’s classic MST3K.
• I hate to tell Joel, but maybe the reason he didn’t see anything in the papers about Charley Weaver dying is that Charley’s real name was Cliff Arquette.
• After having referenced “Last of the Mohicans” with the classic “Stay alive! Whatever may occur! I will find you!” line in the last episode, they go ahead and do it again…and then they do it again!
• The second segment, while not as witty, is a great example of the sort of Looney Tunes silliness they often did well.
• Crow is once again netless following the second segment, as he was in the previous episode.
• There is very little that needs to be said about this travesty of a movie, since it’s been thoroughly examined many times, but it’s worth saying again, as so many have before, that the scenes in the cave, with Roxy’s dad cheerfully suggesting she give in to Eegah’s romantic advances — particularly the horrifying shaving scene — are the very dictionary definition of the term ”icky.”
• This is an episode that launched so many catchphrases, from “Stop saying ‘whee!’ Nobody says ‘whee!’” to “My tires are filled with water!” to “Watch out for snakes!” to “Shtemlo!”
• “Wha happa!” is used twice.
• Joel again invokes Gregg Toland, the cinematographer for “Citizen Kane,” because a shot shows a ceiling.
• Arty reference: Keith Haring.
• Cast and crew roundup: associate producer/editor Don Schneider worked on “Incredibly Strange Creatures,” screenwriter Bob Wehling was an actor in “Revenge of the Creature,” cinematographer Ray Dennis Steckler directed “Incredibly Strange Creatures.” He also appears in the movie as the guy who gets thrown into the pool at the end. Sound recorder Sam Kopetzky also worked on “Girl in Gold Boots” and score composer Henri Price worked on “Incredibly Strange Creatures.” In front of the camera Richard Kiel was also in “The Human Duplicators” and “The Phantom Planet.” Carolyn Brandt was also in “Incredibly Strange Creatures.”
• CreditsWatch: Contributing writer Colleen Henjum becomes Colleen Henjum-Williams. Host segments directed by Joel Hodgson.
• Fave riff: “Sit down, pie face, it’s a long list.” Honorable mention: “That little satchel will be the death of him.” “Poor shovel. Didn’t ask to be in this movie.”
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I had the opportunity to ask Richard Keil (on a radio talk show) what he thought of his early work being featured on MST, getting riffed and so on. He was totally cool with all of it and said he considered his early movies as “practice,” and that he had fun with all of them.
He seemed (on air, at least) to be a really nice guy.
Ro-xie!
“Hi Roxy….Sorry about my face!”
Funniest riff ever.
HONK if you LOVE Eegah!
Another classic…almost as good as “Hercules.”
Favorite riffs:
“Forget Dad…this is a BLAST!”
“There’s an oven in the living room.”
“Hey, how come I don’t get foley?”
“He resents my dune buggy.” LMAO
:wink:
What IS the real instrument that made that porkorina sound? Musicians? Help me out.
It sounds they used Kevin Murphy’s voice multi-tracked, with perhaps a little bit of synth/keyboard mixed in too.
“Again, sorry about the face!!”
As far as the porkorina sounding instruments of Green Acres et al, it varied from electric guitar to harmonica to electric keyboard.
God, what’s not to love about this episode:
“He must have been over there hiding, watching us the whole time”
Joel – “Playing Bass”
On a side note, recently picked up ‘Wild Guitar’, Arch Hall, Jr.’s other movie he did. Can’t wait to watch it with a group.
what can about this classic episode. eegah the movie is one of those films where you have to ask. What in the world were they thinking?
i love the fact the dad was suppose to be the great adventure but he goes to the desert in loafers and black socks. i remember reading where arch hall jr said the woman who played roxie was the dad’s secretary in real life.
Don’t forget about the cameo of ray dennis steckler of i.s.c.w.s.l.b.m.z.
“I’m so naughy. I’m such a little brat.” I love the sound of Joel’s voice when he says that.
Actually, what Arch Hall Sr. was thinking is well-documented; with this and other, similar films, he wanted to turn his pug-faced son into a teen idol. Why he chose a project like Eegah to accomplish this is anyone’s guess. Maybe he assumed that all the really cool kids were into implied incest back then.
Daniel: You would do well to check out “The Sadist”, where Arch plays a serial killer who torments some poor souls. A real hoot.
Although the sound heard on MST3k seems to a synthesized version, the real instrument is a Bass Harp AKA Bass Harmonica. I own one. It’s the ‘Green Acres’ sound, as many people know it. They’re very expensive for a harmonica; A couple of hundred bucks, minimum, up to $1200 for the model I have. They are about 10 inches long, and consist of two harmonics to form a two-octave setup. The most notable maker is a German harmonica company named Hohner. You can see some, here:
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/bassharp.html
Was anybody else confused when Jr. sang about Vicki even though his girlfriend’s name was Roxy?
Also, I believe Roxy was Arch Hall Sr.’s secretary at the time which is how she got the part.
Sampo, in callbacks you forgot to mention Joel’s “Oh, no! He’s gone to the Torgo school of fondling!”
Also the Brains must have loved Last of the Mohicans because that riff comes up again in later episodes (anybody have a list?). Same with “Watch out for snakes.”
I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I loved Arch Hall’s music. Not only the tunes featured in Eegah, but also the tunes from “Wild Guitar” and “The Choppers”. Last year I picked up an album release of Arch’s greatest hits also titled “Wild Guitar”. It’s a really fun disk with all of the tunes Arch sang in his films, along with dialog clips from each of the films, as well as a live recording done at a Florida drive-in. I picked it up as a goof, but was pleasantly surprised.
Also, I highly recommend Arch’s chilling turn in “The Sadist”. It’s almost unbelievable that the folks behind “Eegah” are responsible for such a creepy classic as “The Sadist”.
Has anyone seen Arch Hall Jr’s movie, The Nasty Rabbit? I saw a VHS copy of it a few years back, and now regret not buying it…for less than ten bucks, it probably would have been worthwhile.
“Harriet, the cattle are smoking again!”
Don’t forget about the cameo of ray dennis steckler of i.s.c.w.s.l.b.m.z.
And Carolyn “She’s the most masculine man I’ve ever seen” Brandt as the girl he’s kissing.
This is one of the best Joel episodes. The bad surf songs (with the unseen choral accompaniment) are ripe for plucking.
One of the many little touches I liked about this episode was in the third host segment, when Joel and the Bots talk about widowers and 60s home life while Joel tries to fry popcorn. The popcorn isn’t really an important thing, but it does add a little bit of activity and movement to what would very easily be a long talky skit. (They do something similar in the Hamilton, Joe, Frank, Ann, Reynolds sketch in Hercules, with Joel eating cereal and to my irrational delight taking a bowl into the theater.) It’s a nice bit of staging and I’m curious who realized how much a prop would improve the skit.
Now and then, particularly over on rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc, we could get a fine thread going on movies which had the potential to be great ones, and this is I think one of the stronger candidates. Not for Arch Hall Junior or for Magooey Daddy, of course, but for Eegah, who ought to be the protagonist and who has a reasonably moving tragedy. This particularly shows in the deleted scenes, which focus mostly on Eegah sniffing Roxy’s scarf and getting enraged, but which offer good reasons to be sympathetic to his loneliness and need for human contact. So I’m just saying, when Michael Bay gets around to ripping this experiment off, that’s going to be the human story he obliviously fails to feature.
The episodes in this season have a really wonderfully playful air to them. I think it’s part of what’s given us such a stretch of just perfect episodes, with this among them.
Irrelevant personal trivia: this episode — on Rhino videotape — was the first Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode I ever gave as a gift, that time to a brother who then wanted copies of everything I’d recorded off Comedy Central to that point.
It’s awesome to see some others singing the praises of Arch Hall Jr. I first became aware of him through EEGAH of course, but I actually LIKE him in a kind of Ed Wood sort of way. Wild Guitar is a fantastic film with Ray Dennis Steckler (that lazy turd Jerry from The Incredibly Strange Creatures…)directing and in a supporting role!!!
The songs are great, and the acting isn’t fantastic, but Arch makes it seem like Elvis meets Eegah. Also, if you get sick of Arch as an oily, whiny guitar-toting teen, I highly recommend The Sadist, to see him as an oily whiny psychotic knife-wielding teen! Pure gold! Perfect for watching right after Eegah!
Oh, yeah. I too resent his dune buggy!
An absolute classic. I only started watching MST3K after the show went into reruns on Sci Fi, and this epp and Pod People were the first Joel episodes I ever saw (I got the two, along with Creeping Terror, for my birthday in the year 2000. Rhino VHS tapes of course).
I could watch this one over and over and never get tired of it, and to this day it reminds me of those first moments of getting used to Joel, Crow’s first voice, and Forrester and Frank.
“Roxy!”
“-music!”
“Roxy!”
“-and elsewhere!”
A great episode, with one of my favorite sketches of just talking (segment three, with it’s penultimate “The only NORMAL family back then were the Munsters!”). I haven’t seen much of the pre-“Mitchell” season 5, save what’s been released on dvd, but if this is any representation I hope they get around to these soon!
Great episode and essential watching for any MST3K fan. Every time my brother and I hear a Styx song, we end up recreating the “Subtle Forms of Evil Sketch”.
Me: “What do you think of Adolf Hitler?”
Bro: “Well I hate him naturally.”
Me: Okay, now what do you think of the band Styx?”
Bro: “Well they had one or two good…Oh my God, your right!”
This is an excellent episode, of course, and one that gets a lot of attention because of its early release on home video.
Like some of the other folks here, I was moved to seek out some of Arch Hall Jr.’s other films. I especially like “Deadwood ’76”, where Arch Jr, played a whiny, oily drifter who’s mistaken for Billy the Kid.
The one that stands out in terms of MST3K, though, is “Wild Guitar”. If you see this movie, you’ll spend the entire time thinking how perfect it would’ve been for MST3K.
“How ’bout I give you a shave?” Roxy.
“I know it’s wierd. But I’m into ‘wierd.'” Crow
During the first segment, after Crow falls apart and Tom refuses to rebuild him, Crow mumbles something. Does he say, “I’m shattered”? I sure hope so!
As cultured as the Brains were, I really expected there to be some “Chicago” riffs at some point, as much as Tom kept yelling “Roxy!”
Omega #14 – I also thought that the girl who played Roxy was connected to Arch Sr, but I thought it was a little more than work related. Paging Dr. Freud!
Eegah shaka Eegah shaka Eegah Eegah Eegah shaka…
I can’t stop this feelin’…
Is it me, or is this a remarkably well preserved film print? Arch Sr. must have sprung for the good color stuff … of course he still cheaped out on the sound.
GizmonicTemp- imdb also mentions the secretary trivia. According to her filmography, Marilyn Manning made two more movies (both of which feature the Halls- The Sadist and What’s Up Front).
Omega Was anybody else confused when Jr. sang about Vicki even though his girlfriend’s name was Roxy?
That song was also in “Wild Guitar”, where his girlfriend was actually named Vicki. I guess they were too lazy to write a new one for Eegah.
One of the creepiest movies they’ve done. I go so far as to say even creepier than Attack of The The Eye Creatures, and that is saying something.
Host segments are solid. I like the opening with taking Crow to absolute zero best. It’s just one of those things that is so much funnier if you know physics.
What more can be said. Part of me actually likes the arch hall/steckler/wood kinda horrible movies. The part of me that hates life! I don’t know what it is about inept film making that puts me into a good mood. They really hit the hammer on the head with this episode. I have stopped saying good bye and have replaced it with “watch out for snakes”
Ohh and sorry about his face…
Nothing much to add, except to ask if anyone has seen the Arch Hall Sr. biopic “The Last Time I Saw Archie”? I haven’t; the very idea of Robert Mitchum playing Mr. Dark Socks & Loafers is enough to blow my mind.
I loved the host segments where they’re talking about the subtle forms of hell and the 60’s sitcoms. I like those moments when they’re just talking and it has that family dynamic. Something woefully lacking in the Mike years. Especially the Sci-Fi eps. Crow and Tom have no chemistry at all in those. Can’t picture that surly Crow saying something like “chase me” to Tom as they head toward the theater. I missed that part of it when the cast changed.
Liked the riffs in this ep, too.
This episode is pretty good, I guess, if you like to laugh at stuff that is super-funny– and I do!!
As fishbulb stated, “Wild Guitar” would’ve been very good for the MST3K gang to do. I think when I watched it with a friend we ended up riffing on it. The movie just compels you to do such a thing.
“Hey Roxie, throw me the shotgun.”
Servo (excitedly) “Oh I can see it now! A tragic accident!”
I think the pork-o-rina was supposed to be a bass harmonica. That’s what was used in the incidental music of “Green Acres”, et.al.
My favorite riff: “Frederick’s of Maplewood!”
Aaaahhh, i love this episode. On long days at work, i go around making the mumbling noises Eegah makes.
a true classic effort. i think that the shows from those first set of Rhino films sometimes lose their luster because we’ve seen them so many times, but this was a great choice to highlight the show. i definitely recommend you pick up Arch Jr’s music!
Was compelled to watch this when I got home from work today. Sometimes the riffing can be sort of spotty or seem forced, but they were really on when writing this one. It’s just natural…
“I sure hope it doesn’t get hot!”
“Hey, you’re putting that in the way back! My kids are back there!”
“Hey, they’ve got an oven in the living room!”
This episode just keeps on giving!!!
I’m ashamed to say, but I’ve never seen this one until today. That said, its great.
And for all the people finding the razor scene with Eegah licking the shaving cream gross, I find the thick sexual tension between the father and daughter to be significantly more nauseating. Not just in the cave, but the way they sort of bat each other about…it gets into territory that even Freud would have to walk away from.
I love Arch Hall Jr’s movies. Specially Eegah and The Choppers. The Sadist is a good movie and Arch is very effective in it.
My combo’s gonna be there, MAN THEY SWING!
p.s. Watch out for snakes.
I always get a kick out of Dr. Forrester in the invention exchange.
Dr. F: And since Frank’s blood was a previously unknown type, the money that rakes in will…WHY!? Because it’s SCIENCE, that’s why!
This was my first “Joel” episode and IMHO his best. It ranks as #3 in my top ten and always makes me cry with laughter everytime I see it. What a classic.
Oh, and….Roooxxxyyyy!
I’d rank this as one of the best experiments, with one of the most annoying “heroes”. Does anyone else cheer when Eegah punches out Arch, Jr.?
I do wish, though, that later Rhino releases included the feature this one did, with both the unMSTed movie and the signal in the ep of where BBI cut stuff out.
One question: Why exactly is the skeleton flipping off the audience at the beginning?
@ adoptadog #17
“Nasty Rabbitt” is probably Arch Hall Jr.’s worst film (and that is saying something). It’s supposed to be a screwball comedy about spies, but it’s awful. And as a Arch Hall Jr. fan, I was disappointed, in that Arch is only on screen for 10 or 15 minutes towards the end. It’s more of an extended cameo than anything else. DVD’s were issued about 2 years ago of “The Choppers/Wild Guitar”, “Nasty Rabbit/Eegah”, and “Deadwood ’76/The Sadist”. Each disk was under $10, so I picked them all up. I’m sure if you search Amazon or Ebay there will be plenty available.
I’d like to meet your combo.
I love the two horny.. er… THORNY devils “telling secrets”.
“What? Can I help you?”
‘Can somebody push that guy’s amp into the pool?’
Is it? Fresh, I mean?