Movie: (1951) A military/science team searches for a downed rocket atop a remote, dinosaur-infested mountain.
First shown: 11/24/90
Opening: Coach Joel gives the bots a locker room pep talk
Invention exchange: The Mads unveil their exercise treadmill equipped with wheels, introduce the movie and give Joel movie sign against his will
Host segment 1: Hugh Beaumont, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, visits on the Hexfield with a message of unholy death
Host segment 2: J&tB’s preachy “The Explorers” sketch bogs down
Host segment 3: J&tB see The Cool Thing and announce a contest
End: J&tB analyze the movie, Joel reads a letter, Dr. F declares victory
Stinger: “Well, thanks for straightening the whole thing out…”
(157 votes, average: 4.19 out of 5)
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• Rock climbing, everybody. Rock climbing.
• Well this one is definitely a winner. Wacky movie, great riffing, decent host segments and, oh, did I mention…rock climbing? Rock climbing.
• Joel, still sporting a cheesy goatee, is now in a never-before-seen cyan jumpsuit.
This episode appears on Shout’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Vol. XVIII.
• A message at the beginning of the Shout DVD apologizes in advance for the tape artifacts in their product. Apparently the official BBI copy was damaged or not stored properly. Upsetting.
• References.
• This is the infamous episode featuring, as previously mentioned, the mind-bloating “rock climbing” sequence. A couple of years after this episode came out, the sequence so moved one usenet fan that he created a “rock climbing FAQ (frequently asked questions) file” that analyzed the “rock climbing” phenomenon within an inch of its life. And, as proof that nothing ever really disappears from internet, here it is.
• During this season, J&tB’s response to the movie was seen in a very black-and-white way–either Dr. F. “won” or Joel and the bots did. They never made this more explicit than in the opening segment here.
• However, Joel makes a little mistake in his pep talk: the episode two weeks ago was “Ring of Terror,” not “Rocket Attack USA.”
• I hope the Mads sued these guys.
• Frank twice addresses mole people, Jerry and Sylvia, who are apparently behind the camera in Deep 13.
• Joel never gets to do an invention exchange, but don’t worry, the one he’s holding, the sign language translator, will be used next week.
• Joel gets Movie Sign “against his will”–He refuses to enter the theater and appears to get an electrical shock to his tush. This is described as a “shock to the shammies” in episode 302- GAMERA, when Joel gets it again.
• Yes, the opening shot is the same shot used in “Rocket Ship XM.” Lippert was nothing if not thrifty.
• Callbacks: “We’re on our way!” (Rocket Ship XM) “Charbroiled hamburger sandwich and french fried potatoes!” (Jungle Goddess) “Thees will seemplify everything!” (Phantom Creeps) “Chili peppers, they burn my gut.” (Sidehackers) “That square bugs me! He really bugs me!” (Wild Rebels)
• That’s Mike, of course, as Hugh Beaumont (“Cryptodad” in the credits) in yet another Hexfield Viewscreen appearance, in segment 1, and he’s very funny, though the writing is excellent as well. This segment is a pretty good example of what is so wonderful about MST3K.
• Servo keeps asking “Ever fly one of these things?” He also said it a few episodes back. Is that from something?
• Obscure KTMA reference I never got before: Joel riffs, “Maybe there was hand soap in the hydraulic fluid.” A reference to a plot contrivance in the movie in episode K13- SST DEATH FLIGHT. Went right over my head in the past.
• Movie observation: Actors do things in movies that real people would never do (unless they are very stupid). A pristine example is the cop in “Plan 9” who scratches his temple with the barrel of his gun. There’s a moment like that in this movie: Would anyone really sit RIGHT on the edge of a cliff, with their legs dangling over the side, like they do in the movie?
• Host segment 2 is probably inspired by the brief “asking for directions from the native” scene in this movie, combined with all the “white male reality” stuff from “Jungle Goddess.” But here’s a question: Is this the first “We’re doing a sketch but it’s not going very well” sketch? They’ll do more sketches like it throughout the series.
• The “cool thing” bit in segment 3 is clearly inspired by the moment in the movie when the characters reach the top of the mountain, and everyone stands amazed at what they see, but they don’t show us for a long time. Some of the entries they got from viewers were shown in episode 213- GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER.
• Cast and crew roundup: Producer Sigmund Neufeld also produced “The Mad Monster.” Director Sam Newfield also directed “Radar Secret Service, “The Mad Monster” and “I Accuse My Parents.” Cinematographer Jack Greenhalgh also worked on “The Mad Monster and “Robot Monster.” Editor Philip Cahn also worked on “The Brute Man. Special effects guy Augie Lohman also worked on “The Rebel Set.” Special effects guy Ray Mercer also worked on “I Accuse My Parents,” “Radar Secret Service,” “Last of the Wild Horses,” “The Sinister Urge” and “The Beast of Yucca Flats.” Costume guy Alfred Berke also worked on “Last of the Wild Horses. Makeup guy Harry Ross also worked on “The Mad Monster and “Viking Women and the Sea Serpent.” Production manager Bert Sternbach also worked on “The Mad Monster.” Writer Orville H. Hampton also worked on “Rocket Ship XM.” Score composer Paul Dunlap also worked on “The Rebel Set” and “I Was a Teenage Werewolf.” In front of the camera, Whit Bissell was also in “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” and Murray Alper was also in “The Leech Woman.” Hugh Beaumont was in “The Human Duplicators” and “The Mole People.” He was also the narrator of the short “A Date with Your Family.” Sid Melton was also in “Radar Secret Service.” Chick Chandler was in the short “Once Upon a Honeymoon.”
• CreditsWatch: Trace and Frank are still “special guest villians” (misspelled). This week’s creative pit boss: Kevin Murphy. The “Explorers Action Theme” written and performed by Michael J. Nelson. This was intern James Smith’s last episode.
• Favorite riff: “Still talking to crap, monkey boy?” Honorable mention: “I never knew Mountain time was so slow!”
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Hugh cracking up (unscripted) as they try to hoist-up their load-of-a-party-member cracks me up.
A great episode.
Mike in the viewscreen is a real treat, and that whole skit idea is genius.
…But first, a stern talking-to…
This episode gets underway with a running start. First we have Joel’s pep talk which a well done brief skit. It makes its point and then moves on to Frank’s exercise machines. Years later Denis Leary would do something very similar in his stand up. I’ve always found exercise machines stupid for just these reasons.
But then we get the mads repeatedly taunting taunting Joel and the bots with rock climbing. I love the non-chalance they do it with. Again it is so well delivered. We wouldn’t see this type of taunting again until “deep hurting.”
I really don’t know the exact riffs per minute count, but this episode sure feels rapid fire in a free and easy kind of way.
This film has several Jungle Goddess callbacks. Chief among them are hamburger sandwich and French fried potatoes and if you don’t understand it shoot it.
Mike does an excellent job as Hugh Beaumont. Only he could pull off the concept of Hugh calmly talking about an apocalypse.
For all the monotony of the rock climbing scenes, I have to say I personally think it is far of the most monotonous thing ever seen. For me that title goes to the much more tedious driving scenes of Manos. After all the rock climbing scenes do have something resembling action (slow paced though it may be) and occasional dialogue. Plus Joel and the bots do an exemplary job of filling up these scenes! The Manos driving scenes had nothing.
This is an easy five star episode.
It appears the stinger is traditional black and white as opposed to the blue tint used to keep the shadowrama visible.
Favorite Riffs:
The rocket is seen in an establishing shot. Crow “Oh look it’s a V2.” Tom “I could have had a V8.”
Hugh Beaumont appears on screen for the first time. Tom “Oh that’s Ward does at the office.”
The entire series of every fly/crash/die in/etc… one of these things riffs. Then finally Crow says “Will you let that die please?”
Plane crashes. Crow “Hey we landed on a witch. Maybe the rest of the film will be in color.”
Joel “Is everybody done heaping shame on me?”
Tom “Wow roping a wild rock is not easy to do.”
Hugh Beaumont: “You know what a miracle is Lt.?” Crow: “The words the end”
Absolutely love this one. Rock climbing at the speed of a lethargic, drunken snail with vertigo really is something, isn’t it? Perfect for riffing.
“Oh look, we’re in Hell.”
“Neat.”
The movie is boring as all-get-out, but the episode is very funny.
This may very well have been the first time they decided a sketch was just not working, though another contender may be the “attacked by a disembodied hand” bit from “The Crawling Hand”. In any case, they’re pretty much following the Python example of ditching a bit that isn’t working and going on from there.
My favorite part is Mike’s appearance as Hugh Beaumont. He’s really funny as the nicest Horseman of the Apocalypse you’ll ever meet, and the attempt at “black & white” is pretty clever. Still, he’s even funnier when he returns as Hugh in “Human Duplicators”.
Now, when they first heard this one was on, did anyone else think they were riffing on the near-demented Hammer film “The Lost Continent”?
My observation on the Shout Factory release DVD issues: the distortions occur only at edit points (i.e. scene changes) although not at every edit point. I suspect it’s less about poor storage and more about the master tape being played on machines that don’t precisely compensate for the 1990 settings (especially if the master tape is 3/4″ ).
Oh, and I did like the opening pep talk. “Beat ’em. Beat ’em! Beat ’em!! BEAT ‘EM!!!”
I really love this episode. Great riffs and host segments. 4 stars.
On a personal note, this is the first episode I ever saw (taping would come later). I was at a friend’s place, killing time until he was available to hang out. I channel surfed until I found recognizable faces (as it turned out it was John Hoyt from one of the opening scenes and later so many more of the crew on the plane). I instantly perceived the format of the show (riffing on old movies) as several friends and I used to do this very thing back in ’81 thru ’83. I still have some recordings we made of our riffing. Anyhow, I was instantly hooked. It was like coming home after being away for many years. And as this friend has Comedy Central and I didn’t, I became a somewhat more-frequent visitor (with blank VHS at the ready).
I forgot how much these guys did. not. like. Sid Melton. In their defense, he was really annoying in this film. It’s been decades since I’ve seen Danny Thomas, so maybe he was better on that.
And yes, the “hoist one of the guys up by the butt” scene where Hugh Beaumont loses it is still hilarious. That and the decision to let the guy effectively moon the camera at least broke up the monotony of the rock climbing scenes.
This was the first full episode I ever saw. And what a great one to start with! From this point on I was hooked for life.
Sampo, dumb question here, but would it be possible on future entires (maybe past entries as well?) to include which DVD set the episode is included in? I know this one was released on DVD, but have no clue which set it’s part of.
And in response to the negative comments I’ll get for posting this stupid question:
Yes, I am that damn lazy and don’t want to hunt around for it myself. And no I don’t have this type of stuff memorized like you hardcore viewers.
Outside of that, I love this episode, Crow doing Henry Fonda’s Tom Joad “Wherever there’s a guy climbing a rock, I’ll be there.” kills me every time.
This was another winner. I could never watch this without Joel, it’s just so dull, but the riffing makes it entertaining and I get enjoyment watching them sit through this boring movie.
This is one of those episodes that could have used an alternate stinger. Maybe something involving hoisting up by the butt, or the cheesy dinosaur special effects?
Graboidz–yeah I’ve been thinking about doing that, though it would involve going back in to the entries and updating them as new sets come out. In the meantime, reminder: this site as a DVD list https://www.mst3kinfo.com/satnews/dvds/index.html. You can go there and search for a title and find it pretty quickly.
This is one of the episodes that had to grow on me as originally I just felt time crawl when watching it. However, now it’s not a favorite but one that I can get humor out of. The Shout Factory release with the deteriorating print is an annoyance and sad that the film was allowed to degrade to that point. Not unwatchable but after about the thirtieth black lines and fading camera shot. I stopepd the dvd and put in a copy of the episode I got from a fellow mstie who had transferred episodes to DVD (note: this happened waaaaaaaaaay before Lost Continent was even a possibility of commercial release, as I too believe in buying episodes when they become available from commercial retail) and in this case I’m glad I did as the quality of the taped episode is actually much better than the Shout Factory
Which leads to this suggestion to SHout Factory, if the master is in such a sorry state talk to the fans and see if anyone has a fancopy of better quality. Because believe me there are.
That aside the episode is great, Mike is brilliant. The preachy white hunter skit is painful to watch though. Even though they break down to the “sketch isn’t working bit” that doesn’t save it for me. Joel blowing the lines takes me right out of it. It would have been better if Kevin didn’t have to keep feeding him his lines.
But other than, good. Rock Climbing; bad.
I can’t remember — are the Mole People credited as “Jerry and Sylvia” in the end titles? Or just as “Mole People.” I bring it up only because today is Gerry Anderson’s birthday — a reminder that he spells his first name with a “G.”
And now I will go back to repeating to myself “It’s just a show, I should really just relax.” :)
Frank’s invention was way cooler than the friggen Segway.
One of my favorites from the early days…
An absolute classic and a “perfect” episode of the show. A few well known actors in a slow, low-budget movie with lots of padding would turn out to be the secret formula for quintessential MST3K in this case and other episodes down the road. The four Lippert-produced movies in season 2 are always on my favorites list and this is one provided a “model” episode of the show. Whenever I see something really gratuitously slow, especially in a movie, I immediately think “rock climbing” to this day.
The sketches like nearly every sketch in season 2 are really clever, thoughtful, salient and funny. Invention exchange from The Mads is great satire making fun of the trend in superfluous exercise devices that is still common today. Cryptodad visit as the name implies is a bit obscure and really entertaining.
“I never knew mountain time was so slow” has been a favorite joke for me for years. I also really like, “still talking to crap, Monkey Boy?”, “do you have enough crap strapped to your belt?”, and “you guys not seen woman in long-time, besides, me no got lead sarong”, and “they’re fighting model-a-model” (as in mano-a-mano). Hilarious stuff!
Nearly everything about this episode shows off MST3K at its best. Maximum star rating on this one!
frankenforcer–Any fan copy is going to be, at best, a dub of a VHS copy off TV. It may not have the artifacts that appeared in Shout release, but no dub off TV is going to be as sharp as a 3/4-inch master. That’s simply the technical fact.
Sorry to double post, but that Rock Climbing FAQ may have been impressive in ye olde Internet days, but right now it’s pretty predestrian. If Lost Continent was just aired a week ago, rock climbing would now have it’s own wikia. (Note: Not wiki, as in a singular page. Wikia.)
“I can see my house from here. I can see my house from here. I can see my house from here. I can see my house from here.”
I tried to watch this one recently, and it IS rather amazing how dull it is. The problem is that Joel and the bots don’t do a whole lot to spice it up, making it rather a slog. “The Mole People” is an example of how a tedious, repetitive film can be made funny (and so this doesn’t turn into a JvM debate, “Fire Maidens From Outer Space” is also a good example). But it’s as if they DIDN’T know what to do with a tedious film and just whined their way through it. Who knew clever riffing would be such work?
Would the camping of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 match or possibly exceed the rock climbing of Lost Continent?
[ insert Maplethorpe joke here ]
3 stars, good solid episode, lots of funny. not insane and demented and on-fire, but good.
I appreciated the potentially obscure Hungadunga riff.
Question on the Shout factory DVD.. at the very end after the stinger there was an odd little copyright message refering to ( I wrote down the name but I don’t have it handy ) one Wade Williams Ward White something like that ? Who he ? Mr Shout Factory ?
There were callbacks to both Rocketship XM and Jungle Goddess because they were all Lippert films and all had basically the same thing – lost ships…
We are not done with Lippert yet as King Dinosaur is 2 weeks away..
I love Lost Continent, the episode and as a stand alone film. I used to own the VHS of it when it was a rare tape..Its a nice afternoon nap kind of film. The rock climbing sequence unedited is 18 minutes long actually. I love watching Hugh cover his face when Sid’s butt is exposed..actually in the uncut version you get his full moon twice…
I have always been interested in watching Joel’s hair evolution with each episode, basically starting as a crew cut like on top and growing out..in Hellcats he brushes it back and grows out more…I think it kept growing outward until 302 Gamera ( I think) and if I didnt know any better the first couple of Season 3 episodes were shot after Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster…( can Sampo or anyone verify this)
Yep..Joel’s hair. Ill be checking into my asylum now
Thank you
I meant lost aircrafts…
Wade Williams owns a lot of the titles shout factory has been releasing and has his own website..he distributes usually classic B movies through IMAGE entertainment and the prints are usually really well done…
Frankenforcer, what Sampo said.
ALso, Brian Ward said that even if they could try and remaster an episode based off a fan copy, it would cost a buttload of money to do so. It wouldn’t be impossible to take a fan copy and clean it up, but it would be very expensive. Ward said he’d rather used that money to get movie rights.
Now on to my review:
208- Lost Continent
Plot: A group of rocket scientists crash and land on a lost continent. Stars Hugh Beaumont.
Host Segments:
Opening: Joel and the Bots have a prep talk.
Invention Excahnge: Portable treadmills; Joel has an invention but the Mads don’t let him present it.
Segment 1: Mike Nelson plays Hugh Beaumont on the Hexfield.
Segment 2: The Bots present “The Explorers”
Segment 3: J&TB see The Cool Thing.
Closing: J&TB talk about “Padding”.
Stinger: Two guys snuggle by the fire.
Memorable riffs:
Joel: “Lost Continent? I lost my keys once, but that’s ridiculous.”
Servo: “This is Neptune! God of the sea!”
Servo: “Touch her there, and she buzzes!”
Servo: “RRRRR… forget that reststop, I’m fine now.”
Servo: “This is the pilot. Anybody back there flown one of these before?”
Pilot: “Dead end….. dead end…”
(Servo hums the Pink Panther theme)
Crow: “Let’s form a soccor team and eat each other!”
Servo: “Bob… um I’m on fire here.”
(Sid Melton falls to his death)
Crow: “Damn, he has my keys!”
Servo: “You know, even rock climbing movies don’t have this much rock climbing.”
Character in Movie: “I’ve gone color blind!”
Crow: “If this movie were in color, that would mean something.”
Joel: “I ditched a hot babe for this?”
(while the tricreatops are battling)
Joel: “Ow! Ow! You got my braces!”
Crow: “Oh no guys… NOW IT’S THE TRIP DOWN!!!!”
Fav. riff:
(pteridactyl gets shot)
Servo: “Hey, somebody shot Terry!”
Best Segment: Mike does a great job as Hugh Beaumont.
Worst Segment: The “Cool Thing” segment is just… stupid. I think they’re spoofing the scene in the movie where the main characters see something off camera, but the audience doesn’t get to see it at first. But either way, it’s a fast-forward moment.
Comments:
-This is another episode where Servo’s arms work.
-Joel refuses to enter the theater, and gets electricuted.
-Rather naughty bit in the theater, J&TB peek down the woman’s dress!
-If you weren’t looking at the credits, you’d think this was a Coleman Francis film. It has two scenes with characters drinking AND talking about coffee!
-The running gag of Crow announcing a ship is approaching and Joel ignoring him, continues.
-A line from the movie that I love: “I show you Scared Mountain. But it is taboo!”
-Watch for the part during the “rock climbing” sequence where Hugh Beaumont starts laughing in the background, when the other actors are pulling Sid Melton up the cliff by his butt.
-Holy crap! A reference to Romper Room! I remember that show! I wonder how many other people do.
Overall: A great full-blown episode. The movie is pretty tedious with the long, drawn out “rock-climbing” sequences, but J&TB make the most of it. Some hilarious riffing throughout. I actually laughed my ass off in several places. The host segments are a little dissapointing, but I’d still rate this a strong season 2 episode. Full 4 stars. ****
I didn’t see this one until the DVD release. The first time I saw Mike casually lighting his (literal) pipe bomb, I nearly died with laughter. I must have rewound that a dozen times.
There’s another reference to the Marx Brothers in this one: You left out the most important Hungadunga. Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga & McCormick was a law firm referenced in (I think) Animal Crackers.
I have to say that this is one of my least favorites. I re-watched it in anticipation of today’s discussion and I ended up having to stop for the night and finish it the next day. I almost never do this.
It took me some time to figure out why John Hoyt was familiar… He was the pre-Dr. McCoy from the first Star Trek pilot…
One of my favorite touches in this episode is how the entire “Hugh Beaumont” set, including Mike’s suit and his pipe, is done up in gray tones, as if J&TB were actually being visited by an early sitcom. It’s just one of those things which shows the effort they put into the show.
BTW, I haven’t seen all of season 2… Do they ever announce the results of the “cool thing” contest?
dsman71 @26. thx for the info !
I’ve always liked Hugh Beaumont – as the friendly, dadly type of guy – and he really makes the movie itself bearable for me. The idea of him being one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (along with Fred MacMurray, who was not nearly so cuddly but still quite the 50s father figure) was perfect, and Mike did a wonderful job in the role.
Glad that the ACEG pointed out Hugh’s meltdown while Melton was being hoisted up by his monkey boy petard. I’m not sure I ever would have caught that one on my own.
Favorite riff: During one of the camping scenes, when Romero is standing in front of the scientist, who is just getting to his feet, there’s the sound of an animal trumpeting. Crow says, “Oh, very impressive.” Joel responds, “Sorry.” Subtle, quick and very very funny.
And, Dan Belcher, #3, thanks for this great descriptive phrase:
“Rock climbing at the speed of a lethargic, drunken snail with vertigo really is something, isn’t it?”
You made my day!
Wow I am going to have to watch this one again since everyone seems to like it so much. I remember this one being kind of a tough watch due to the extreme boring-ness/not very great film quality of the movie. I do remember Mike’s part being really funny though, so that did stand out to me. Will check it out!
# 30 = the Cool thing was Mexican Stoplight Candy announced somewhere in Season 3 and then there was a letter still later asking where they got Mexican StopLight Candy. Joel of course says “Mexico”
# 31 – No problem…I own a lot of those Wade Willaims titles like The Hideous Sun Demon, The Brain From Planet Arous , Devil Girl from mars , Lost Continent
3.85 stars
Yeah, you need to watch it a few times to inure yourself to the sleepy crawl of the movie itself, but the riffing is the best up to this point in season 2, matched later perhaps only by King Dinosaur (which is kind of like part 2 of this episode) and Godzilla vs Megalon.
@30 & 35 I thought the “really cool thing” was answered by fans who drew what they thought it was and sent ’em in . . .
– – –
This is one of the better Season 2 episodes for me, for reasons many have mentioned, but nearly all of my friends hate it because they can’t cope with rock climbing. It brings them untold suffering.
The one exception was a friend of a friend who once happened by while watching it – and had never heard of or seen the show – who sat down about 1/4 of the way through, and within three minutes said “this is way better than Friends.”
Truer words are rarely spoken.
IIRC, this one has the ending segment wherein the director is described with the line “he would entertain the cast by doing terrible things to his dog with a fork,” which had in me in hysterics the first two or three times I heard it. So unexpected.
I didn’t see this answered yet so…Sampo, that riff asking if anyone has ever flown one of these things must be from “Airplane.” I’m pretty sure.
I will be back to post review as this is an important episode to me.
Coupla things:
I do like it when a scene is so boring that they have time to enact a whole new skit among themselves while the scene plays out; sometimes taking their time, just to prove a point. I love when Joel is the mellow influence telling the bots to calm down and endure the rock climbing scene, it’s not so bad… and within 10 more seconds Joel loses it and starts yelling. I’m very entertained when Joel loses his cool. “CAN WE GET A FRAME OF REFERENCE HERE? WHERE ARE WE? PLEEZE?”
Also, I think the rocks/ jungle hike scenes are much more bearable in this movie than in Prehistoric Planet, just because at least some character development is happening, and no one is saying “Hikeeba.”
Okay.. 15 minute break, everybody.
I don’t know about anyone else, but…
This episode was never very funny for me (but I do like segments one and two). It is fun to watch, but really only for the goofy, bland movie. The episode highlight is the “Explorers Theme Music!”
I’m really not that fond of this episode. Perhaps it is all that rock climbing, but this one doesn’t seem quite as energetic or funny as previous episodes in this season. Sure it had its moments, particularly the first fifteen minutes, but for me it just seemed to bog down once they found the Lost Continent and then began that gawd-awful “rock climbing”. It really did get tedious after a while and I just found Joel and the Bots riffing did little to lift it for me. It wasn’t a horrible episode, certainly not the worst one they’ve ever done, but for me it wasn’t one of their high points. Two and a half stars out of five.
Pretty decent episode. Real shame the DVD release is in poor quallity, but none the less, still watchable.
Oh, and Sampo….. did I mention, rock climbing? ;)
re: hanging your feet over a ledge, I’ve done it a few times, but each time I was actually rock climbing and was harnessed into safety equipment.
The rock climbing faq was hilarious. I too timed that sequence when I got the dvd release, but I didn’t pause it, ran the timer straight through.
Thanks, Sampo, for the link to the “rock climbing FAQ”. VERY funny deconstruction of some really wretched filmmaking!
In case anyone is interested:
So this, along with Lippert classic Rocketship X-M, is a movie that featured creative use of film tinting. In Rocketship, the sequence on Mars was tinted red, for obvious reasons. In Lost Continent, the stuff once they reach the top of the mountain (beginning with the scene where they’re all staring at crap we can’t see yet) is tinted green. That’s why Sid Melton makes his dumb little comment about being colorblind; in the MST version that comment is completely nonsensical, but to movie viewers who had the misfortune to PAY to see this thing in the theater, it made somewhat more sense.
As the eight episode of season 2 this was also only the eighth MST episode I saw. Until I saw this one Jungle Goddess had been the only MST episode that came anywhere close to boring me in any way. I have to say that I think Lost Continent as an episode is just barely watchable. This movie isn’t the “worst” film they ever did, but it is definitely one of the most boring, and pointless ones (so I guess it is one of the worst films they did in that respect). Maybe if they had done it in season three or four when their riffing was even more honed that might have made it more of a fun episode, but as it is it’s on the low end of the episode spectrum for me. Actually this movie is SO boring and full of dead spots that I really can’t see how they watched it and thought it was a good choice for an episode. I can only imagine that whomever was weeding through the films back then (was it already Frank at that point?) must have latched onto some aspect of it that made it so they just couldn’t pass it up, and then convinced the rest of them that they should do it. Or maybe when they started watching it they had some ideas for good riffs right off the bat that made it seem more appealing. Or it could just have been one of those “we need a movie to do and this seems good enough” movies that they otherwise might have passed on if they had a better option at the time.
I can’t say I don’t enjoy watching this one at all (there really aren’t any MST episodes I actually hate or would absolutely refuse to watch), but I don’t seem to find myself watching it all that often. And I really doubt I would have watched it at all in recent years except that I watched it when I got the DVD set it was in, and again a couple months ago as part of the run I’m doing through the entire series from beginning to end. I definitely wouldn’t show it to someone I was trying to introduce the show to, at least not until I knew they were REALLY into the show, and that they’d be interested in seeing any and all episodes.
I do like how the guys who wrote the Rock Climbing FAQ (from my university!) mistakenly assumed Joel was talking about a “crab salad.” Not the same thing.
And the cool thing? Mexican stoplight candy.
The salad mentioned in the riffs is a Cobb Salad, yes ? It comes up in other eps as well.
I just watched this for the first time (thanks to recent sale on volume XVIII at Amazon) and can’t believe what I’ve been missing. I’d heard about ROCK CLIMBING, naturally, and assumed this would be a painfully dull episode. How wrong I was. Despite the unbearable explorers sketch and a few gags driven straight into the ground thorugh repetition, this a five star episode for me.
“Just for the sake of discussion, what part of the human body do yout think would taste the best?” :laugh:
I feel like I should have taken notes, but a few observations that stuck:
– I thought that was Wilbur the angel from Once Upon A Honeymoon, and the original Trek doctor, but just figured most white ’50s guys looked alike.
– Thanks to I Was A Teenage Werewolf, I just can’t trust Whit Bissell. I was suspecting him of ulterior motives the way Cesar Romero was suspecting the other scientist. By the way, I had no inkling that he was meant to be Russian until he said so himself. I assumed he was probably German, ala Einstein and von Braun. Also, younger Whit Bissell, with those glasses, at certain angles sure looks like Hugo Weaving in The Matrix. Anyone else see it?
– I never knew Cesar Romero was so tall. Or was everyone else in the movie just short? And who the hell ever thought a handsome Latin Lothario would make a good Joker, anyway?
– How is it that Sid Melton never played a chimp in a Planet Of The Apes movie? It’s not like it would’ve been beneath his dignity, such as it is. Maybe he was accutely aware of his monkeyness and didn’t want to draw attention to it. And according to all-knowing Wikipedia, he’s still with us at the ripe age of 90. An interview would sure make a swell bonus feature on a Radar Secret Service DVD…
– “Cryptodad”? The hell does that mean? I love Mike as Hugh Beaumont, too bad they couldn’t have him drop by again during Mole People (And why not? Mike portrayed Torgo in Village Of The Giants…), but why is he a Horseman of the Apocalypse? I’d really like to hear the thinking behind that, if any of the Brains remember.
– Special Guest Villians is misspelled in the credits. (Possibly in other episodes also,though I’ve never noticed.)
– What, has Jim been storing the master tapes in his sock drawer?