Movie: (1976) A Victorian-era scientist and his assistant take a test run in their Iron Mole drilling machine and end up in a strange underground world.
Opening: J&tB are having a pre-nuptial heart-to-heart, but then Jonah introduces Growler
Invention exchange: With nobody coming to her wedding, Kinga turns to the Observer Hive Mind Manager. The bots have permanent temporary tattoos; The Mads have the Rip Taylor urn cannon
Segment 1: Jonah gives the bots a steampunk makeover
Segment 2: Crow’s a Mahar
Segment 3: Doug McClure visits and offers Max some romantic advice
Closing: As the wedding draws near, Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy appear to give their blessing, but in the midst of the vows, Max has other plans.
Stinger: “He died as he lived…”
(66 votes, average: 3.73 out of 5)
Loading...
• Lots going on in this one. First of all, there’s the movie. This is the second movie this season that was adapted from an Edgar Rice Burroughs story and stars Doug McClure (“Land that Time Forgot” was the other), and this one is even more OUT THERE. And more riffable, I think. The riffing is very solid; I laughed a lot. But the big headlines are in the host segments, with a new bot that did NOT immediately get stomped to bits, another big-name guest star, the return of several legacy-era characters (and performers), a giant crowd and the big question: what happened to Jonah?
• The bots mention Joel and Mike and suggest a combination of the two would be T.J. Miller. Hmmm…
• One thing about the movie: Nobody mentioned a KingaChrome spill but there were two or three very jarring jumps in the action.
• Joel McHale pops up and, just as he did on “The Soup,” he totally commits to the bit. In a season full of guest stars, he held his own.
• I’d love to know who wrote the “smelting” song to go with the opening theme music. It’s very funny.
• So, the first time I was watching this, when the Hive Mind Manager started talking, I’m going: “That voice is SO familiar!” Then all at once it hit me: PAUL! He does a great job and it was great to see him.
• Incidentally, Russ Walko did the very Rowlfy voice of Growler. I could get used to him…
• So, when the monster lunges down at Jonah, the view cuts to a wide shot and it’s unclear if Jonah was eaten, or escaped or something in the middle. I assume season 12 will find him making a miraculous recovery…
• As a kid who grew up in the Philadelphia area, I enjoyed the reference to the giant heart you can climb through at the Franklin Institute. It’s still there!
• Classic riffs: “Gamera is friend to all the children,” “And the crowd goes wild! Yay!” “Climb up to mouth level!” “He died as he lived…” “Football practice!” and a mention of a character’s “area.”
• Callbacks: Pearl sings a few bars of “When Loving Lovers Love.”
• More in-theater beat box fun as J&tB go all “Ballroom Blitz.”
• Nice visual riff: a “Fantasia” riff with Tom in Mickey ears.
• The Observer wedding guests were: Patricia Adams, Mike Aronow, Kyle Bacon, Jordan Brown, Andrew R. Brunner, Nick Carlson, John Cookson, Jason D’itri, Larry Dunn, Zachary A. Forsyth, Tony Goggin, Dave Goldblatt, Spencer Goldrich, Jonathan Gorbach, Laura Gorbach, Ike Haldan, Jason Kirk Harder, Larry Hastings, Jeff Hill, Adam King, Darcy Madi, Guillermo Martinez, Juan Martinez, Colin McRavey, Andrew M. Minoff, Amber Oliver, Paul Denver Reynolds IV, Kathryn Rice, Joe Sherman and Ben Tobin. This beats the number of people in the pancake breakfast host segment in episode 913- QUEST OF THE DELTA KNIGHTS.
• Cast and crew roundup: Since so many of these are for “Land that Time Forgot,” I will call it LTTF. Doug McClure was also in LTTF and SST- Death Flight. Caroline Munro was also in “Starcrash.” Keith Baron, Godfrey James and Bobby Parr were in LTTF.
Behind the camera: Director Kevin Connor also directed LTTF. Producers John Dark and Milton Subotsky also produced LTTF. Max Rosenberg also produced LTTF and “The Incredible Melting Man.” Editors John Ireland and Barry Peters also edited LTTF. Art director Bert Davey also art directed LTTF. Cy Grant did voice work on “Revenge of the Mysterons.” Cinematographer Alan Hume was also cinematographer on LTTF. Production designer Maurice Carter was also production designer on LTTF.
• Fave riff: “I dreamt I as a protocol droid.” Honorable mention: “Back to the Amazon.com warehouse!” and “This Petco adoption day is now what I thought it was gonna be.”
