Movie: (1981) A band of outlaws fights an evil corporation overseeing a forced evacuation of the Bronx.

First shown: 3/2/96
Opening: Crow’s charity auction
Intro: Crow starts a fire on the SOL, Dr. F. puts his mother in a “home”
Host segment 1: Mike helps Crow try bio-feedback, but a fire starts
Host segment 2: Men’s night on the SOL
Host segment 3: Dr. F. has a plan to boost ratings: Timmy Bobby Rusty
End: Letter, Servo arrives by helicopter, and Toblerone visits Deep 13
Stinger: “PTOO!” “HA, HA, HA!” sez Toblerone
(207 votes, average: 4.46 out of 5)
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• This one is hit and miss for me. Some funny segments, some “meh” ones. Some great stretches of riffing, some quiet sections. And the movie: ugh. Boy, is it stupid but, wow, does it have some wacky characters. But above all, there is Toblerone, Dablone, or whatever his name is.
• This episode is included in Shout! Factory’s “Volume XXXVII.”
• References.
• Mary Jo also provided the commentary for this episode in our season seven episode guide. Did she mention she loves Dablone? Yes. Yes, she did.
• Fans had been getting episodes pretty regular for the past month, but this was the last one we would get until mid-May (about 10 weeks away) and THAT would would the last one we’d get for many months.
• By this time, fans knew the show had been canceled on CC and suddenly, on this brand new thing called World Wide Web, there were already hundreds of “Save MST3K” sites. It would be several more months before Sci-Fi Channel would make the announcement that the show was coming back.
• Between this and the next episode, “MST3K: The Movie” hit theaters. Indeed, by the time the next episode aired, the movie was already fading fast.
• The phrase “Leave the Bronx!” became an immediate catchphrase.
• Is it just me, or does leaving the Bronx for New Mexico seem like a pretty good idea?
• The opening is a cute idea but it kind of gets driven into the ground. But it does feature that “award show” music we’ve heard before.
• The intro, in which Dr. F puts Pearl “in a home” is a very nice reveal. And it’s definitely a return to form for Dr. F.
• And nothing says “We’ve been canceled” having a big fire for no reason.
• The “men’s night” bit is great, with poor Crow completely unfamiliar with Mike’s 700 different slang requests for a brewski. Nice and breezy.
• Sometimes in an MST3k episode, they’re going along, riffing the movie, minding their own business, then all of a sudden a larger-than-life character appears. Torgo is like that, of course. And later there would be Rowsdower. But in season seven, there was Toblerone. Ha-ha-ha!
• One other thought about the movie: the little demolition expert kid is cute and all, well sort of, right up until he calmly murders a guy. Sure, he’s been blowing them up at a distance for a while now, and yes, the guy was about to shoot his dad, but still.
• In 1980, Peter Gabriel wrote and recorded a song called “Jeux Sans Frontières.” Many casual listeners — like Crow — never guessed that the phrase he was singing was French, and instead struggled to find an English phrase that fit the phonemes they were hearing. Crow apparently thinks Peter was singing o/` “She’s so pop-u-lar …” o/` (I will admit that, before I knew better, I thought he was singing “She’s so funky.”)
• The Timmy Bobby Rusty stuff definitely reflects the kind of notes I’m sure they’d been getting from the suits at Comedy Central. The bit is not terribly funny, but it was probably cathartic for them. Segment 3 is also the first reference in a long time to Dr. F “selling the results of his experiments to cable TV” as Joel used to tell us all the time. That’s Paul as TBR, of course.
• Callbacks: “I gotta get to the ‘Zombie Nightmare’ set,” “I’m Cherokee Jack.” (Red Zone Cuba) “No, Lupita!” (Santa Claus).
• With only one episode to go, BBI seems to have created a brand new bumper for this episode, one with the planet Earth in the background and the SOL going by. It’s pretty, and it was used again in the next episode.
• Somebody makes a riff that is premised on the notion of a Kinko’s being on every corner. I’d forgotten that era 15 years ago when when the chain was aggressively expanding. They’ve now been absorbed by FedEx, most of those locations have closed and the brand has largely faded away.
• That’s Mike, of course, as Toblerone, in the closer.
• Cast and crew roundup: Just one name this time: costumer/art director: Massimo Lentini was also art director on “The Cave Dwellers.”
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Jim Mallon.
• Fave riff: “Kill us! … Thank you!” Honorable mention: “All right we’re here in the K-Rock super van with the — AIIIEEEEEE!!!”