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Sampo & Erhardt
Sci-Fi Archives
Visit our archives of the MST3K pages previously hosted by the Sci-Fi Channel's SCIFI.COM.
Movie: (1987) A young boy, alerted by Bigfoot that his forest ranger father is in peril, travels to the woods to save him.
Opening: Gypsy is working on some overhead wiring and is dropping objects on J&tB. Crow tries to catch one and fails. Invention exchange: Jonah uses a theramin for Thanksgiving music; the Mads have rotating Carvel Ice Cream characters. Segment 1: The bots are laughing raccoons and Jonah is a laughing dad Segment 2: Jonah explains how the movie got made Segment 3: Brain Guy, Bobo and Pearl visit Kinga and Max Closing: Crow & Tom, wearing a Red Hawk disguise, try to trick Max into giving them the keys to Jonah’s ship. Stinger: Big game hunter guy chows down. (63 votes, average: 4.06 out of 5)
• Jonah explains that he is required to act out the show open each time. I have to say I don’t really get it, but then I don’t really get the whole “liquid video” thing.
• This episode features the first appearance of Rebecca Hanson as Synthia, the clone of Pearl. She was a big hit during the 2017 live tour.
• Interesting riff: “This looks like a state park.” In the ACEG, Mary Jo denigrated this very type of riff. Did Joel and the writing team know that?
• There is a long quiet space of no riffing during Red Hawk’s monolog
• Increasingly obscure riff: “I also have dental practice in Minnesota.”
• Callbacks: “Rowsdower?” (Final Sacrifice), a mention of an interociter (This Island Earth).
• This film shares a writer and several cast members with the 1977 Brigham Young biopic “Brigham.”
• The film was Jay Schlossberg-Cohen’s only full feature. According to his website, he once served as director of the Maryland Film Commission and now works as a fine artist.
• Puppeteer Grant Baciocco shared a story about a connection to Cry Wilderness on the MST3K Discussion Board:
“When we were filming this, I instantly realized that the cinematographer listed in the credits lived upstairs from me in my first apartment. By chance, I saw him walking down the street a couple months ago and told him they’d be riffing this film and he flipped out. He said, “I didn’t think anybody remembered that film.” He said it was the first project he worked on in Hollywood and the whole crew thought that the director was going to be the next Spielberg … until they started filming.
Grant also revealed he was Kevin’s virtual hands in the grooming of Patton.
• Fave riff: “Wikipedia, the print edition, at last.” Honorable mention: “Let’s head out to supercuts, son. I’m buyin.’”
I was inspired by how in the Ray Bradbury book “Fahrenheit 451.” At the end of it, the heroic protagonists are adapting to a world where books are banned. They commit themselves to memorizing whole books, to ensure they are not lost from destruction of physical copies.
Are there certain episodes of MST3K that you have memorized whole sections of, it not practically the whole episode?
Me and my friends in our youth use to be able to recite whole sections of the Invasion of the Neptune Men episode of MST3K.
I was able to recite and act out the Noh Theater host segment without a script in front of me.
Same goes for long stretches of movie riffing segments. I was able to quote the jokes as well as the movie dialog in the order as played out.
What about other MSTies?
Manos and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians– I can recite the movie and the riffing.
NEVADA CITY, CALIF.–Timothy J. O’Connor, who had a long and distinguished career as one of the leading character actors of his generation, passed away peacefully in his sleep on April 5, in his here, at the age of 90.
MSTies will remember him as Dr. Revere in the TV movie “The Stranger,” seen in episode 305- STRANDED IN SPACE.
Movie: (1961) When Danish scientists discover a piece of an ancient dinosaur, they dig it up and inadvertantly bring it back to life.
Opening: Jonah Heston, a space trucker/rebellious Renaissance man, returning to Gizmonic Institute with a load of meteors, receives a phony distress call from Moon Base 13 on the dark side of the moon. Jettisoning his load, he lands and is immediately captured and brought to the underground lair of Kinga Forrester, daughter of Clayton Forrester, granddaughter of Pearl Forrester. With her is her chief henchman, who calls himself TV’s Son of TV’s Frank, but whom everyone just calls Max. Kinga announces that she is restarting her family’s greatest experiment, Mystery Science Theater 3000 Intro: Jonah introduces Tom and Crow and demonstrates Gypsy’s new voice and flying rig. Also Tom can FLYYYY … but only in theater. Crow wants an improvement. Kinga introduces herself, Max does as well, and then explains the premise. Jonah shows off his invention: a bubble fan. Kinga introduces the movie Segment 1: Jonah & the bots sing “Every Country Has a Monster” Segment 2: Tom Servo clones himself Segment 3: Jonah reads letters Closing: Jonah creates a tiny Copenhagen for Gypsy to destroy; Kinga is not impressed Stinger: Petersen gets nutzoid (58 votes, average: 3.86 out of 5)
• The new door sequence, as near as I can tell is:
6—Laundry room
5—Bathroom
4—Kitchen
3— Bedroom
2—Office?
1—Workshop (aka “the fab lab”)
• For the record, MSTies had to wait 6,424 days since the debut of episode 1003- MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS for the arrival of season 11.
• The new lyrics to the theme song (please correct if I have something wrong:
Har Mar Superstar: In the not-too-distant future, Next Sunday A.D.
There was a guy named Jonah, Not too different from you or me
He worked at Gizmonic Institute, Just another mug in a yellow jump suit
A distress call came in for him at half past noon
That’s when an evil woman trapped him on the dark side of the moon.
[Kinga] I’ll send him cheesy movies, the worst I can find
He’ll have to sit and watch them all and I’ll monitor his mind
Now keep in mind that Jonah can’t control when the movies begin or end
So he’ll have to keep his sanity with the help of his robot friends
Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo Crowwww
[Har Mar Superstar] If you’re wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts
Just repeat to yourself: “It’s just a show, I should really just relax”
for Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Other thoughts and observations
“Turn down your lights (where applicable) returns. The previous episode to have was episode 402- THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, from June of 1992.
• That’s Erin Gray and Will Wheaton as the Gizmocrats. A lot of people saw that opening and wondered if it was going to be a regular thing. It wasn’t. Just a one-off. Thanks to Erin and Will for doing it.
• The little device that taps into Jonah’s ship plays a little mechanical version of the theme song, and Jonah says it “sounds familiar.”
• The little Gizmonic Institute flyover is very much in the style of the old miniature set pieces.
• The giant clown hammer, too, looks very familiar.
• When the doors slide open on Moon Base 13, it is the complete antithesis of the old Deep 13. Deep 13 was a lonely, quiet place with few inhabitants. Jonah walks in one what could be a rave: a full band in mid-song and plenty of henchman to send him on his way.
• It appears that the old Umbilicus has been re-attached to the SOL — interesting that something from post season 5 would appear. Somewhere Mike is smiling.
• Robot roll call is also quite different: No little sayings. Cambot is always shown on Jonah, Gypsy enters from the right, Tom enters from the left and Crow leaps up onto Jonah’s back.
• Joel plays “Ardy,” the “movie in the hole” guy. The whole liquid video thing he controls is a bit baffling to me.
• The riffing begins slowly but eventually picks up steam.
• This movie was cut quite a bit—in fact there were TWO songs, both of which were cut. This one and this one.
• The Carvel ice cream jokes seem overdone to me. There, I said it. I’d say it again if I had to.
• Callbacks: “I’m squishy” (Young Man’s Fancy), Killer Shrews were mentioned.
• At one point there’s a bit of a drum beat in theater when Jonah does a riff on “Monster Mash.” A bit of a departure…
• The only Trump reference I caught: “Yooge! Yooge!”
• I guess all the coverage of the relaunch led to the arrival of letters, even before the show had arrived on Netflix.
• Isn’t it nice to have Rebecca (the new voice of Gypsy) there for harmonizing purposes?
• Fave riff: “How about Reportacus Shutupacus?” Honorable mention: “It’s just a sign that says ‘Made you look’!” and “…not even attempting to get a job.”
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