A recent discussion thread talked about episodes that would have turned people away from MST3K. Now being that everyone has different tastes, some might think that some of these episodes weren’t that bad or even think that they’re great. So let’s all play devil’s advocate and defend a “lame” episode.
“Hamlet”, often denigrated as one of MST’s worst, still had plenty of clever riffs and was an interesting departure from their standard sci-fi and fantasy movie line-up.
I will defend an ep I recently denegrated: Radar Secret Service. The ep has a classic short, Sid Melton and a great running gag.
Your pick?
Keep those WDT ideas coming!
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Invasion USA manages to not give into despair.
Season One Episodes –
They can be slow. They can be a bit tedious, but they are like watching the first steps of an infant that one day would become a sprinter. Flashes of brilliance. Moments of great ad libbing. This is where it all came from
I have a soft spot for The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy. Part of it is because it had the first of the Commando Cody shorts, when the serial was still fresh. But how can you not laugh at a line like, “Once that robot gets into gear, you’re really gonna see it kick some Aztec.”?
CODE NAME: DIAMOND HEAD. It has a great short (A DAY AT THE FAIR), the pilot’s “intrigue” is utterly relaxing, and I personally never tire of the Lovejoy jokes. We’re going to watch it tonight as it is one of our feel-good episodes.
I will defend mad monster for some reason gets dumped on. You have this overacted movie which is almost funny by itself. You have a mad scientist, werewolf, and revenge movie rolled into one. The riffing is funny. For example when the mad scientist is talking about getting revenge. tom servo riff why does he have to kill them to get revenge can’t he show them a pie chart. another was tom servo riff about the female lead She wants to be judy garland in the worst way. To me it gets overlooked.
Honestly, I never got the hate for Hamlet. I actually think it’s one of their funnier episodes. The ghost we barely see (“The ghost! Cut to the ghost!), Ophelia’s wheat act (“That’s for thoughts. Try to get one.”) and of course, “To be or not to be?” (“The verbal equivalent of Dun Dun Dun Dun!).
Well, I love Racket Girls, and I don’t care who knows it! It always leaves me with tears running down my cheeks. Once, when the stinger had just gone, I had to just sit back and roar with laughter for another five minutes. In and of themselves, the rasslin’ scenes are tedious, but for the riffing they are a gift that just keeps on giving. (“This takes away all the fun in looking at someone’s hinder!”) The final scene of Mike & the ‘bots as big-time wrestlers reading fans’ letters is worth the price of admission by itself. Then there’s the decent short, Bridget as Lisa Loeb, Crow asking Mike for Servo’s hand in marriage (!), Jan-in-the-Pan as the stripper at Crow’s bachelor party (!! Best. Of. All!!), and you have an absolute classic in my book.
On Jim Vorel’s ranked list of MST episodes, rating both episodes and movie, Mighty Jack ranked was ranked right up there with Castle of Fu Manchu and Red Zone Cuba as bad episode and painful movie. I have to disagree. These ’60s Japanese superspy movies are always a hoot, and this one has all of that and more. And the host segments. It has Dr. F in fish net stockings and high heeled flippers. It has Mighty Jack dog food. And while the sea shanty Slow the Plot Down is terrific, I find that the movie moves along at quite a pace, careening from cliffhanger to implausible cliffhanger, punctuated with a generous helping of unnecessary explosions and other cheap special effects. It’s so wonderfully goofy I would call it good introductory episode, definitely not one of the worst of the series.
The Dead Talk Back. It’s a boring b&w talky murder mystery, but for some reason I love it. And while Sampo said in the episode guide that The Selling Wizard may be his least favorite short, I love it as well. For me this duo is my “go to” episode when I can’t decide what to watch.
I’ll second “Hamlet” I can’t get enough of the Crow/Tom ghost sketch.
As an aside, I was reading a review of “Let There Be Light” on Agony Booth yesterday and it occurred to me that MST3K(or RiffTrax) really needs to grow a pair and start covering all these awful Christian propaganda movies that seem to be a dime a dozen these days. From “Left Behind” (and its many reboots), to dreck like “God’s Not Dead” and “Saving Christmas”, to even schlock like “30 Minutes in Heaven” and “The Shack”. Sure, they’d get plenty of heat from Fundies, but maybe if you guys made some actually decent movies it wouldn’t be an issue.
Everyone pretty much seems to agree that repackaged material by Sandy Frank is really bad. He even retitles from time to time. But one retitled gem is actually pretty good. The theme, the material… which makes it all the more puzzling that he would misname it “This Date in MSTory”, especially when that’s already the title of an earlier presentation that came out at virtually the same time. He even changes his own credit from Sandy to Sampo for some reason. I mean, if he wanted to change his name professionally to differentiate from the Late Night with David Letterman writer Sandy Frank, why not just make it S. Elvis Frank or some…. thing…. um…
(looks around site)
Well, it seems… that…. well….
Okay, all kidding aside… I do think that “Castle of Fu Manchu”, while decidedly bad, isn’t hugely different from other, less derided MST3K fodder. The exception, though, is the operating scene which I’ve never been able to actually look at. THAT part is unbearable. And we do get great whimpering, etc., from the ‘bots in that episode.
“Hamlet” is one that was kind of a slog at first, but is now one of my favorites. The movie is certainly drab and dreary, and the Shakespearean English was hard to follow at first. But the riffs are hilarious, and once I had a better grip on the plot and what the actors were saying, it all “clicked”. And I love Mike’s three card Monte con, and the way it backfired.
“Mitchell” was another one that I didn’t care for very much at first but now is a classic. It’s dull, stupid, ugly, made-for-1970s-TV movie with an aggressively unlikeable hero and a plot that still doesn’t make much sense. The fact that it was Joel’s last episode just added a heaping portion of sadness to the movie’s pain factor. But eventually the great riffing won me over.
“The Dead Talk Back” is another dull, dreary movie saved by good riffing plus some goofy plot and character elements. Great host segments, too. (I loved the bots’ call-in radio program sketch!)
I know some folks dislike “The Starfighters” but that one’s been a favorite of mine from the get-go. Yeah, nothing ever happens in the movie, but it does have poopie suits. It’s also amazing how Mike and the bots manage to keep up a steady stream of great riffs through so much stock footage of in-flight refueling and bombing practice.
I really love the slow, dumb black and white movies like this, or The Violent Years, Radar Secret Service, Girl in Lovers Lane, The Dead Talk Back etc… There is something so fascinating about them, especially the actors. They don’t look like your typical leading men or women, and are sometimes bizarre characters, like Joe from Racket Girls. These movies are perfect for riffing!
“Overdrawn at the Memory Bank”. Those who hate it REALLY hate it, but it’s actually one of my favorites from an already-strong season 8.
I agree you filthy disgusting anteater!
Wow! HUGE slam on anteaters, completely out of nowhere!
My nuts!?!?!?
Good, we’ve gone this far in the thread without someone referring to Monster a-Go-Go as a “weak” episode… :)
I’ll defend “The Sidehackers” for being the movie that taught the writers (per The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide) to watch a film ALL the way through before choosing it as one of the experiments. Thanks, “Sidehackers,” for being that bad!
I think that The Girl In Lovers Lane is under-appreciated. It seems like one that I would dislike (black and white, drama, sappy love story) but I really enjoy it. Hearing “Big Stupid” just makes me laugh every time (that should have been one of Dave Ryder’s alternate names in Space Mutiny). It’s also one of the few riffed movies that actually has a good story, good acting, and good direction. It’s a very watchable episode for me.
There were no weak episodes.
As ugly and awful as they are, the Coleman Francis movies are among my favorite eps. They lend themselves well to riffing, and our heroes give ’em exactly what they deserve. Skydivers has one of my favorite ensembles of host segments, led by Crow’s taunting during Servo’s planetarium show and Forrester’s swing choir challenge; and the “election campaign” in the Yucca Flats host segs leads to one of my favorite closing lines ever: Dr. F: “Frank, I’m going to start slapping you now and I might never stop.”/Frank: “Let the healing process begin!”
I also know that there is some ambivalence about the sword-and-sandal classics in the MSTieverse, but those, too, are faves. For some reason, there will always be a warm place in my heart for Colossus and the Headhunters.
Sorry for those of you that love “Overdrawn At The Memory Bank” but I would rather watch “Hamlet” my second choice for worst episode ever 10 times in a row than suffer through a minute of Overdrawn.
I’ve mentioned before that the main issue with “Hamlet” is the riffing is mostly just in regards to Shakespeare’s dialogue. The film itself doesn’t offer too much else to make fun of. There aren’t really any quirky b-movie moments (aside from the aforementioned ghost that’s mostly kept off-camera). Plus the film itself is pretty dreary to look at, and barely has any atmosphere (Crow: “They could use a tree. Hell, a stick would liven things up.”)
One riff that does crack me up is when Hamlet comes across his uncle laying on the ground…
Servo: “Hey, my uncle has a nice ass. No wonder my mom’s into him.”
As for a film that’s considered weak, that I’d defend, maybe Season 6’s The Creeping Terror, which I think was an episode fans criticized back in the day, saying the film was too horrible, or the riffing wasn’t good.
I personally think The Creeping Terror is one of the best Season 6 episodes. And, like ‘Prince of Space’, the film itself is so bad and goofy I can’t help but enjoy it. And it’s one of those rare
movies where even though the movie sucks, M&TB are clearly enjoying their time watching it.
I will admit that the host segments aren’t very good, which did seem to be a staple of Season 6 (I believe due to them working on The Movie).
It doesn’t get much love, but I really dig “Secret Agent Super Dragon”. I think the lead is actually pretty smooth, and c’mon man – Marissa Mell. Hubba hubba.
Same for “Double 007”. People bust on Neil for being a pale imitation of Sean, but y’know – he does a pretty respectable job against Thanatos (hear that, Thanos? Screw you!).
Gare
This is one of the few Mike-eras I’ll watch, as they manage to find their own bemused silliness in the movie’s important, earnest, message-laden silliness. “Rocket Attack USA” was over-the-top propagandic and got funny head-shakes, but Invasion USA just had those few “What just happened?” hooks.
I remember Colossus & the Headhunters as being not-altogether-painful either, but it’s been a while.
Doctor?…Robot?…Bruno?…Doctor?
Like Jay says, you have to take S1 on its own level. The riffing sounds more audience-organic and off-the-cuff, and you couldn’t have gotten a Robot Monster or Moon Zero-Two in the second season.
OTOH, it might be nice to have gone with that Crawling Eye redo as hinted at the end of Diabolik, with actual riffs and no J.-Elvis Servo.
I love The Creeping Terror! It’s always been one of my go-to episodes, and one of those that I just assume that everyone likes, so that I get surprised when I hear that some people don’t. (I THINK that last sentence made sense . . . ) Don’t agree about Season 6 host segments, though (see above re: Skydivers & Yucca Flats).
Haven’t been able to get through Operation 007 again after the first time; but it’s been a while, so it might work if I give it a try now. I recall it as one of those highly cynical exercises where the film makers know how bad it is, but (like Johnny) just don’t care. Super Dragon is great, but my favorite Bond rip-off is Danger! Death Ray–the “special” effects with the director’s kid’s fine Mattel products, of course, but the fact that somebody thought that “Bart Fargo” would make a super-cool secret agent name is one of those baffling WTF moments that defy all logic but make for great riffing. [That might be a good WDT, if it hasn’t already been done: out-of-left-field what-on-earth-were-they-thinking details that make an already ridiculous movie even more so . . .]
“Sidehackers” was the first episode we saw and I generally liked the “biker movies” (Hellcats, Wild Rebels), but many of the fans dislike the genre and the riffing didn’t change their minds…it’s too bad the squares couldn’t dig the scene, man…
I love season 6
^this times a million. Overdrawn is horrible
It’s always interesting to see my favorites listed among others’ “Worst. Episode. Ever” lists. Of course, I have a real hard time with Red Zone Cuba, despite really loving Skydivers. And Teenage Crime Wave gets under my skin, too. Even Manos is hard for me to get through sometimes.
Not much more to add that hasn’t already been mentioned, but I’m one of those weirdos for whom Starfighters, Overdrawn, I Accuse My Parents, Radar Secret Service, Sinister Urge, and Operation Double 007 are easily in my Top 20.
Well, then, I will defend it as a great episode, since that’s the point of this topic.
Season 6–and S7, despite their general Movie-frustrated snarkiness and higher percentage of MJ riffs–at least had Trace still doing Crow’s riffs, with a better sense of timing and silly/absurd riffing.
Of course, we also had that gratingly unspontaneous “Tee-hee!” giggle forced into the character, but it was a reasonable tradeoff.
Season 6 is probably my favorite. Actually, I’d say 5-8, with very strong “outliers” in 3, 4, 9, & 10 and a few very solid eps in 2. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, Trace-Crow’s giggle, which is always timed perfectly and makes me laugh even harder than I would have otherwise. (Trace-Crow is the “special sauce” that makes MST3K even greater for me than it would already be.) That’s just me, of course, and everyone else is entitled to their opinion. But being a reasonably intelligent, decent person, I will stand by my preferences here.
What makes The Selling Wizard entertaining is how they get so much material out of something as innocuous as grocery display cases, and the model who appears in the short.
Considering that Mike and Bridget are Christians themselves, don’t count on it, even if they didn’t like the movies.
Indeed: Trace’s Crow was more in the mischievous spirit of Charlie McCarthy–or, as already alluded on the show, Captain Kangaroo’s Mr. Moose–while Bill’s Crow, OTOH, would be more in the spirit of channeling Fozzie Bear.
And considering how you could clear the dance floor once Kevin Murphy saw the nuns in “Girls Town” and “Future War” and went for the disgruntled-Catholic jokes, it’s probably not worth the effort. Too much denominational difference.
Like today’s so called political “rallies” the above described movies are obviously intended for a target audience. Riffing on such fodder, I feel, is basically redundant and ultimately foolish. The Rifftrax folks are not foolish. For the most part their audiences would be turned off and the film’s target audiences would be enraged. Don’t you think that there is already too much enragement in this world?
Back To The Subject – I rewatched THE BRIDE VANISHES from season one today for the first time in many years. What a pleasant surprise. The riffing was laid back, but funny. Lugosi made the film a step up from what it would have been. The host segment were like a time capsule with Joel pounding the desk where no buttons existed, etc. It was fun.
Here are a few more late votes:
12 to the Moon: doesn’t get much attention good or bad, but has long been a favorite; over-the-top whacko short, “special effects by Billy”, earnest and honest but dumb as a bag of hammers, and with a wonderful foretaste of “Big McLargehuge”.
Starfighters: I went on and on about this one not too long ago, so I won’t go on too long now; don’t know how I missed all the laughs the first time I watched it; for me, the best collection of host segs in the whole catalogue (Crow refueling while the tech support guy finally answers his call; Crow & Servo in full uniform “debriefing” Mike; and of course 10 Kevins singing the stirring “United Servo Academy Hymn”).
Bloodlust: this one is more of a slow simmer for me–didn’t much care for it at first, but have seen it a lot lately on Shout!Factory TV, and it has nicely grown on me.
Here’s a question: Are “weak” episodes the ones you actively dislike, or the ones you never, ever think of? After all, the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference . . .
I took “weak” to mean episodes that are rarely if ever in general lists of good or great MST3Ks, ones that are rarely mentioned, not ones I specifically didn’t like. For example, I don’t like “The Starfighters” but a lot of people love it, which is great.
I love City Limits
I took “weak” in this context to mean episodes that we like that OTHER people don’t like. That is, we’re defending what others think are “weak” or “lame”.
The opposite of love is indifference? No wonder it wouldn’t fit on my knuckles…
In this context, I like the Rocky Jones eps. High silliness quotient in the movies & the riffs, IMO.
The Club Mst3k site has a button to sort the episodes by how many laughs they’ve gotten. Their equivalent of a thumbs up I think. Two of the lowest ranked episodes are The Hellcats and Stranded In Space. I love the biker movies. Sure The Hellcats isn’t their best riffing but the movie is a look on the lighter side of drug dealing, overdosing and good-natured debauchery. There’s a German Shepherd crime boss. You can’t ask for more than that. A nifty theme song and accompanying soundtrack. Ross Hagen…. ’nuff said. I dig late 60’s and early 70’s Southern California too.
Stranded In Space admittedly is dull but I like it. Cameron Mitchell is very good in it and the camera work is pretty good too. They used the Brady House as their Big brother Headquarters. That’s cool. I dig Bettina Cook too. You can’t go wrong living by the rules of the Perfect Order. It makes everything so easy. Here’s a dumb short video I made of Stranded in Space and the Perfect order…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V2eqAuz4Ik
Oh, I know–I was just randomly contemplating what we MSTies mean by a “weak(er)” episode in the first place: one that we actively detest or one that is just totally blah. For instance, I really loathe Hobgoblins, and find Stranded in Space to be so bland that it’s like there’s nothing there at all. Both are toward the bottom of my list, but for utterly different reasons. To bring all this around to the current WDT, I usually find it easier to defend the detestable ones, because they so often bring out the best in M or J & the ‘bots; the really dull ones are often a much harder slog for them. (Brock Lee Rubberband: I hear you on Stranded in Space! For me, it was a really interesting idea that just wasn’t handled right; since it was a TV pilot, I imagine they had all the cool stuff planned for later episodes. As it was, it was intriguing, but still dull, and maybe just a little too well-done to deserve the full treatment.)
Stranded In Space was my first episode
“The remaining monkey brains have been reduced to 1.99.”
For me, at that riff moment, Operation Double 007 transcended space & time. It formed a holographic monocle through which I view the entire series.
It was the forbidden fruit in my Garden of Eden.
And I saw it was good, and I did eat.