Movie: (1956) A “psychical researcher” hypnotizes a prostitute, causing her to regress to a previous life as a woman accused of witchcraft.

First shown: 3/8/97
Opening: Trying to fill in the viewers, Mike seethes about past injustices
Intro: The Observers test everybody and Servo tests well
Host segment 1: Servo becomes an Observer–then the spoons go missing
Host segment 2: The witch from the movie appears, but she’s going through some changes
Host segment 3: Mike plays his Digger Smolken album
End: Crow is an imp, Tom and Mike lash out at Leonard Maltin, and Bobo makes a brain sammich
Stinger: Observers
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star (221 votes, average: 4.37 out of 5)

• My memory of this one was that it was all drab and smeary, kind of like the walls in the psychicical researcher’s office, but this was one of those episodes that was a lot wackier than I remembered. To start with, it’s Corman, and that means funny. And it’s the first non-Universal movie since the season started. Plus you got Billy Barty, the always-fun Bruno VeSota, Digger Smolken and the STAY! chorus. What’s not to love? Well, maybe the last host segment…
• Bill’s take on the episode is here.
• This episode is included in Shout Factory’s “MST3K: Volume XXXIV.”
• References.
• It’s in this episode that Bill breaks out and begins to become the Observer we know. He has some nice moments in this one.
• Why did Corman think audiences would go for this hokey tale of psychic regression? Well, it was, briefly, all the rage. In the mid-1950s, a book called “The Search for Bridey Murphy” became a best seller. It supposedly was based on a true story about a woman who regressed to former lives via hypnosis. In 1956, a movie based on that book, with the same title, was released, and did pretty well, well enough to get Corman working on a ripoff. But by the time he was able to get it filmed, the craze had peaked, and a new fad was hot: zombies. So they changed the title from “The Trance of Diana Love” to “The Undead,” even though there’s nothing particularly undead in the movie.
• When Livia and her imp change into bats, they may look familiar to you. Corman used them a year earlier in “It Conquered the World.”
• Daleism: As Quintus hypnotizes the girl, he says: “Do you see my hand?” Mike adds: “Do you think I’m Dale?”
• LOTR references: Rivendell, Strider, Mordor, Mithril.
• Bridget is lots of fun as the witch unable to control her shape-shifting.
• A rare riff retread: “This guy is Satan … from hell” is a riff originally done in “Santa Claus.”
• Callback: “You’re stuck here!” (Fugitive Alien)
• The old “spoons dropping from the sleeve” bit was probably most famously done in the 1930 Marx Brothers movie “Animal Crackers.”
• The “Servo as Observer” bit goes on a bit, I have to say. This long segment, plus the long segment at the end, are obviously drawn out because the movie is so short. A short might have served them better.
• That’s Kevin singing on the Digger Smolken album, of course.
• I wonder if Leonard Maltin saw the bit at the end before he agreed to be a guest star a year later.
• The final bit—the lengthy brain sandwich-making scene—sparked fierce debate among internet fans. Some loved it, others saw it as long, labored, pointless and emblematic of a growing problem they were having with the revived series. It really is a tour de force for Kevin. On the other hand, it’s definitely a long walk for a little joke.
• One other note: Kevin, his hands — or paws — probably slippery with mayoNAISE — drops the tape and it rolls a little way away and he has to run after it. They keep rolling.
• The Observers steal the stinger again. What would be your nomination? Mine is: “STAY!”
• Executive producers Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson also worked on “The Amazing Colossal Man,” “It Conquered the World,” “Earth Vs. the Spider,” “Teenage Caveman,” “Viking Women and the Sea Serpent,” “War of the Colossal Beast,” “Night of the Blood Beast,” “Terror from the Year 5000,” “The She-Creature,” “I Was A Teenage Werewolf” and “The Screaming Skull. Producer/director Roger Corman also worked on “It Conquered the World,” “Teenage Caveman,” “Viking Women and the Sea Serpent,” “Swamp Diamonds,” “Gunslinger,” “Night of the Blood Beast,” “Attack of the Giant Leeches” and “High School Big Shot.” Assistant director Lou Place directed “Daddy-O,” appeared in “Swamp Diamonds,” was a production manager on “It Conquered the World” (he probably wrangled those bats), and “Agent for H.A.R.M.” Screenwriter Charles B. Griffith also worked on “It Conquered the World” and “Gunslinger.” Screenwriter Mark Hanna also worked on “The Amazing Colossal Man” and “Gunslinger and was production coordinator for “Terror from the Year 5000.” Cinematographer William Sickner also worked on “The Phantom Creeps.” Prop Master: Karl Brainard also worked on “It Conquered the World,” “Teenage Caveman,” “Night of the Blood Beast” and “The She-Creature.” Choreographer Chris Miller also worked on “Gunslinger” (and appeared in it as well). Score composer Ronald Stein also worked on “It Conquered the World,” “Gunslinger,” “The She-Creature,” “Attack of the the Eye Creatures and “The Girl in Lovers Lane.” In front of the camera, Allison Hayes was also in “Gunslinger,” “The Crawling Hand” and “The Unearthly.” Bruno VeSota was also on “Daddy-O,” “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” “Gunslinger” and “The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman.” Richard Devon was also in “Viking Women and the Sea Serpent.” Aaron Saxon was also in “Gunslinger.” Richard Miller was also in was also in “It Conquered the World” and “Gunslinger.” Paul Blaisdell also appeared in “”It Conquered the World,” “The She-Creature” (for which he also did special effects), “The Amazing Colossal Man,” “Earth Vs. the Spider” and “Teenage Caveman.”
• CreditsWatch: Jim gets the producer credit and Kevin gets the director credit. A guy named John Sims joins the crew for six episodes. His credit is “SFX/foley.” For some reason, interns Elliot Cobb and Mytch Parks, who worked the first five episodes of season 8, did not work this one and the next one. In their place are Lane Stiller and Steve Zocklein. They worked this episode and the next one, then Cobb and Parks returned for two more episodes. Hm.
• Fave riff: “You have one litter of toads and people won’t drop it.” Honorable mention: “I have never known more about what isn’t going on in a movie” and “This is one tough spelling bee.”

Movie: (1958) A traysure-hunting family at a dude ranch digs up a severed head with evil powers.

First shown: 3/1/97
Opening: Artiste Tom creates negative images of patron Crow
Intro: We meet The Observers, super-intelligent beings who carry their brains around with them. Pearl and Bobo are their guests
Host segment 1: An irritating Observer arrives and observes
Host segment 2: The Observers enable Mike to materialize anyone from his memory
Host segment 3: Crow premieres his documentary on the Civil War
End: Tom has a plan to make Crow do unspeakable acts; Pearl and Bobo get ready for bed
Stinger: Observers
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star (221 votes, average: 4.41 out of 5)

• Check out Paul’s take on this episode here.
• This episode is included in Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Vol XXIX.
• This episode definitely causes me a lot of playsure, but it’s also a bit of a comedown after the wacky fun of “Deadly Mantis.” Some of the segments are more clever than funny, and this is a classic example of a movie that would be unwatchable without the riffing. But it’s there, and it is very good. That’s one thing I have to say about this whole period we’re getting into where some fans began to complain (about the loss of the stingers, about the sameness of the movies (see below), about the new premise, blah blah blah): I maintain that the riffing in all these episodes is as consistently good (and occasionally better) as what we saw in the Comedy Central years. There, I said it, I’d say it again if I had to.
• References.
• It was about at this point that the string of black-and-white Universal b-movies began to wear on some fans. In retrospect, the relief that was “Giant Spider Invasion” was only a few episodes away, but at the time the sameness of the movies irritated some. My sense is that Sci-Fi Channel lined these up for them, thinking that these were the sort of movies fans wanted them to riff. (Though, to be sure, there were at least two others reasons: because they were compatible with the channel, and because, at that time, the company that owned these Universal movies was the same one that owned the channel, making them cheap to acquire.) But the complaints were less about each movie taken by itself and more about the sameness of the sequence. Had they interspersed these movie with some other types of films, the issue might never have come up. The moral: a little variety is always nice.
• Of course, the big news in this episode was the introduction of The Observers, characters not directly from any particular “Star Trek” episode, but certainly reminiscent of many of the sort of supposedly omniscient beings that Captain Kirk seemed to encounter often.
• Tom notes that much of the music in the movie is essentially a needle-drop on the “This Island Earth” soundtrack. It’s hard to miss.
• Callbacks: “She’s getting squishy!” (A Young Man’s Fancy); “Old Timer Billy Slater” (Junior Rodeo Daredevils).
• Early in the movie, something called a “trade rat” is mentioned. The writers apparently never heard the term before (neither had I), and so they have a lot of fun with the phrase. Well, the Columbia Encyclopedia says a “trade rat” is synonymous with “pack rat ,” a rodent of the genus neotoma, noted for its habit of collecting bright, shiny objects and leaving other objects, such as nuts or pebbles, in their place; also called trade rat or wood rat … the pack rat stores the objects it collects to decorate its nest.” There, don’t say you’ve never learned anything from Satellite News. :-)
• As Jessica prepares to leave, Crow wonders aloud where the heck she’s going. Pay attention, Crow. She said loud and clear she was going to her cousin’s.
• Paul is hilarious as the Observer. “I hate him, and can take solace only in my own cool detachment.”
• There were a total of 12 “Dale” riffs this season, and there were Dale riffs in 11 consecutive episodes beginning in this episode. (And there were some in previous seasons! For a complete list, visit Ward E.) From this point forward, they will be referred to as “Daleisms.” This episode’s Daleism: Mike the lunkhead (in the movie) looks at his hands and Mike (the lunkhead, in the theater) says “I thought you were Dale.”
• When Kevin’s appears as Hadrian, his helmet begins to come loose almost immediately and eventually falls off even though he attempts to secure it in mid-scene.
• Then Mike shoves Bridget in the face … THAT must have been a delicate rehearsal…
• Obscure references: Larry Wilcox, who played Officer Jonathan “Jon” Baker in TV’s “CHiPs” and Tracy Gold, best remembered as daughter Carol on the TV’s “Growing Pains.”
• One movie complaint: Toward the second half of the movie, the inhabitants of the ranch decide to dig for the coffin containing the head’s body. I have to ask: Why is the oily beat artist guy digging? He’s a GUEST at the ranch! Sure, both the ranch’s hands are dead, but that’s Flavia’s problem, isn’t it? If I were a guest at a dude ranch (an unlikely prospect, I assure you), you wouldn’t catch me doing heavy labor for the ranch’s owner without a serious cut in the room rate.
• There’s a classic moment in this one when the two women crawl into bed together, and Crow and Tom celebrate in great style.
• A lot of fans were very surprised and not many were pleased when the Observers usurped the stinger. It would continue for three episodes, and the howls of dismay grew louder each week.
• In a thread we did a while back, the consensus choice for the stinger was “You’re all evil and I hope you die!”
• Cast and crew roundup: Screenwriter David Duncan also worked on “Black Scorpion” and “The Leech Woman.” Cinematographer Clifford Stine also worked on “This Island Earth,” “The Creeping Terror” and “The Mole People.” Costumer Bill Thomas also worked on “The Leech Woman.” Makeup guy Bud Westmore blah, blah, blah. Same with art director Alexander Golitzen, set designer Russell A. Gausman, sound person Leslie I. Carey, score composer/music supervisor Joseph Gershenson and score composer Henry Mancini.
In front of the camera: Robin Hughes was also in “The Mole People.” Peggy Converse was also in “The Brute Man.” Phil Harvey was also in “The Deadly Mantis.” Thomas Browne Henry was also in “Beginning of the End.
• CreditsWatch: Bill’s credit as “Observer” begins; it will run though the end of the series. Paul and Mike’s credit as “Observer” begins and runs for three more episodes. Jim gets both the producer and director credit this time, and Kevin continues as associate producer. That’s Paul as Finnigan, Kevin as Hadrian and Bridget as Adrienne Barbeau.
• Fave riff: “Oh E.G. Marshall, you ARE a bold one…” Honorable mentions: “Well, there’s that all-night historical society.” “Now I want her more than ever!” and “Here’s lookin’ up your neck hole!”