Movie: (1956) Pompous archaeologists find a lost civilization underground.

First shown: 2/15/97
Opening: Crow’s thinks his goofy eyes make him a “space child”
Intro: The space child is overthrown. While Bobo suffers through the 32nd Annual Lawgiver Daze, Tom offers baked goods and Crow takes a fall
Host segment 1: Mike tries an imitation of the gesture professor from the movie. It brings everyone down…down…down…
Host segment 2: Tom tries–and fails–to sing a ballad about his adventures in space
Host segment 3: Crow the archeologist, searching for evidence of a previous him, has a breakthrough
End: Crow believes there’s life beneath the floorboards…and he’s right. Meanwhile in Deep Ape, The Lawgiver is presented with a hunky gift
Stinger: “The Load” hits the wall
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star (256 votes, average: 4.30 out of 5)

• We’ve had a number of examples where the riffing is good and the segments are good but the movie just drags everything down. Well, let’s also note when it’s other way around. I think this episode is a good one, but I think a lot of the credit goes to the wonderfully stupid movie. I mean, you got The Gesture Professor, Ward Cleaver, Alfred the Butler, John Agar and Nestor “The Load” Paiva. And you got ropes and asses, whipping the mole and all sorts of outlandish stuff. The segments are okay and the riffing is good, but I think it’s the movie itself that puts this one over the top.
• References here.
• Mike’s take on this episode can be found here.
• Pearl’s float is not very convincing — but, then, it’s pretty tough to approximate a full-scale parade in about 10 square feet of set space.
• The strange blue light still suffuses the set, and it’s especially strong in segment 2. Stonehouse was experimenting.
• The concept of “the sketch that never really gets started” is a long tradition on this show (see “The Emotional Scientist” or “The Life of Fu Manchu” or “Joel wants to be a soda jerk”). This episode has not one but TWO such segments—Mike’s attempt at being the gesture professor and Servo’s aborted folk song.
• Crow finally remembers who he is, and who Mike is. At last.
• Crow’s voice begins to settle down a bit in this episode.
• Robert Smith was the first actual guest star for the show.
• Ward E has a list of the pastries in the intro segment.
• That huge underground cavern and those Mole People should look familiar to you … they were briefly (and incongruously) seen in episode 515-THE WILD WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN.
• It’s been widely reported that this movie’s original ending had Dr. Bentley and Adal happily strolling off together. The studio insisted that a new ending be shot two weeks after filming was completed, because there was reluctance to imply an inter-racial relationship. After all, Adal was a Sumerian. So she got clobbered with a column instead. Sheesh.
• By the way, Dr. Baxter, the gesture professor, was a University of Southern California professor of ENGLISH, not science.
• That’s Paul and Patrick, of course, as “pale day players.”
• Cast and crew roundup: Producer William Alland also worked on “Revenge of the Creature,” “The Deadly Mantis,” “The Space Children” and “This Island Earth.” Screenwriter Laszlo Gorog also worked on “Earth vs. The Spider.” Cinematographer Ellis Carter also worked on “The Deadly Mantis” and “The Leech Woman.” Editor Irving Birnbaum also worked on “The Phantom Creeps.” Special effects guy Clifford Stine also worked on “This Island Earth,” “The Creeping Terror” and “The Thing That Couldn’t Die.” Costumer Jay A. Morley Jr. also whipped up some gowns for “Revenge of the Creature” and “The Deadly Mantis.” Makeup guy: Bud Westmore worked on lots of MSTed movies. Hairdresser Joan St. Oegger also worked on “Revenge of the Creature,” “This Island Earth and “The Amazing Colossal Man.” Art Director Alexander Golitzen, set designer Russell A. Gausman, sound person Leslie I. Carey and music supervisor Joseph Gershenson worked on a bunch of MSTed movies too. Score composer Hans J. Salter also worked on “The Brute Man” and “This Island Earth. Score composer Herman Stein also worked on “Revenge of the Creature and “This Island Earth. Score composer Henry Mancini worked on “Revenge of the Creature,” “The Deadly Mantis,” “The Thing that Couldn’t Die” and “This Island Earth.”
In front of the camera: John Agar also appeared in “Revenge of the Creature and “Women of the Prehistoric Planet.” Hugh Beaumont also appeared in “Lost Continent” and “The Human Duplicators.” Nestor Paiva also appeared in “Revenge of the Creature.” Robin Hughes also appeared in “The Thing that Couldn’t Die.” Marc Hamilton also appeared in “This Island Earth.” Patrick Whyte also appeared in “Kitten with a Whip.” Eddie Parker also appeared in “This Island Earth,” “Bride of the Monster” and “Undersea Kingdom.” Regis Parton also appeared in “This Island Earth.” Ben Chapman was production manager for “The Giant Gila Monster” and appeared in “The Killer Shrews.” Robert Hoy also appeared in “Revenge of the Creature” and “Master Ninja II.” Bob Herron also appeared in “The Slime People.”
• CreditsWatch: Jim gets the “produced and directed by” credit this week and Kevin gets the “associate producer” credit. This is the last episode, for the duration of the show’s run. for which Jim gets a “contributing writer” credit.
• Fave line: “Disney’s Dominatrix World!” Honorable mention: “Why, thank you! Oh, you mean the flashlight.”

Movie: (1960) An aging woman travels to Africa to gain the secret to renewed (albeit temporary) youth. But murder is part of the recipe.

First shown: 2/8/97
Opening: Crow deals with the SOL’s prairie dog problem
Intro: The Apes discover that devolution can be fun
Host segment 1: The nanites are on strike
Host segment 2: Pearl is forced to give some laws, and asks M&TB for suggestions — and Tom has some
Host segment 3: Crow and Tom have a plan to get Mike’s pineal juices
End: Tom’s “Beverly Hillbillies” sketch ends in chaos, but the Apes are oh-so-civilized again
Stinger: The wily cop outwits his suspect
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star (240 votes, average: 4.37 out of 5)

• The last time through, I put this one in the good-not-great category, but, again, I guess I was in the right frame of mind for this — I laughed a LOT this time. Maybe it’s because you can really see them settling in and really feel them enjoying themselves.
• Read Kevin’s take on this episode here.
• This episode is included in “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: The 25th Anniversary Edition, (aka Vol. XXVIII).”
• References.
• Crow still cannot remember Mike. Not too much longer for that.
• Bill’s version of Crow’s voice is still all over the map in this one, but for the first time we begin to hear little snippets of the voice we would soon get to know.
• Cute prairie dog in the opening!
• Kevin is particularly funny in the intro. His mannerisms and his delivery are great.
• The “original Ray Kroc” was a popular piece of Universal set decoration — it was also on Exeter’s office wall in “This Island Earth.”
• Trivia: The African wildlife scenes were reused footage from Universal’s 1954 movie “Tanganyika.”
• Segment one is more clever than funny, but it’s such a change from the sort of host segment we used to get in the CC days that it’s kind of mesmerizing. The voices are Kevin and Paul as Ned and Wade again, along with Mary Jo as Jody.
• Kevin sings a little Zappa, when the soundtrack sounds like “Moving to Montana.”
• In segment two, we once again get hints at how Tom spent his time at the edge of the universe.
• This ep contains the first of what would be a running gag for most of the season: As Mala looks at her hands after becoming young, Tom says “I thought I was Dale!” What does this mean? Well, It’s actually a complicated goof, and thereby hangs a tale. Back in the 1970s, there was a series of commercials for Ivory dishwashing liquid, in which mothers were mistaken for their daughters, because the mom used Ivory and so her hands were young-looking. At around the same time, there was also a commercial for Grape Nuts, in which a teenage boy mistakes teenage girl Dale’s mother for Dale and utters the deathless line: “I thought you were Dale!” Best Brains only vaguely remembered these two completely unrelated commercials, and apparently mixed them up in their minds. There were apparently never any Ivory Liquid commercials in which a character said “I thought you were Dale!” And the Grape Nuts commercial in which that line was spoken had nothing to do with hands. So basically they goofed. But the writers thought they were making a reference to the Ivory Liquid commercials.
• There were a total of 12 “Dale” riffs this season, and there were Dale riffs in 11 consecutive episodes beginning in episode 805- THE THING THAT COULDN’T DIE. (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.”
• LOTR reference: Tom gets all enty. (Hom-hoom!)
• Local reference: The Blainbrook Bowl. Do a lot of drunk girls dance there?
• Obscure reference: Tom invokes Earl Camenbert, a character from “SCTV.”
• Mike and Servo take another brief swing around the dance floor, something they haven’t done since 612- Starfighters.
• Firesign Theatre reference: Crow refers to “Arnie’s Whole Beef Halves.”
• What is with the HUGE front door on the house in this movie? Very weird.
• In segment 3, Mike crawls up in front of the “hatch.” First (and last) time for that, I think.
• The ending sketch is one of those sketches about not doing a sketch. They liked those. Not everybody did.
• The stinger in this one is rather unsatisfying. Feels like it was quickly plucked from near the end of the movie without much thought.
• For the record, Kevin holds that “Jeeeeed!” for 52 seconds.
• Cast and crew roundup: Producer Joseph Gershenson also worked on “Revenge of the Creature,” “The Mole People,” “The Deadly Mantis,” “The Thing That Couldn’t Die” and “This Island Earth. He was also music supervisor on “Kitten With A Whip.” Scriptwriter David Duncan also worked on “The Thing that Couldn’t Die” and “Black Scorpion.” Story writer Ben Pivar was the producer of “The Brute Man.” Cinematographer Ellis Carter also worked on “The Mole People” and “The Deadly Mantis.” Costumer Bill Thomas also worked on “The Thing that Couldn’t Die.” Makeup guy Bud Westmore worked on a ton of stuff. See last week’s list. Likewise art director Alexander Golitzen, set designer Russell A. Gausman and sound person Leslie I. Carey. Art director Robert Clatworthy also worked on “The Deadly Mantis.” Set designer Clarence Steensen also worked on “Rocketship X-M.” Sound guy Joe Lapis also worked on “The Brute Man.” Score composer Irving Gertz also worked on “The Deadly Mantis” and “Jungle Goddess.”
In front of the camera: Coleen Gray was also in “The Phantom Planet.” Gloria Talbott was also in “Girls Town.” Arthur Batanides was also in “The Unearthly.” Murray Alper was also in “Lost Continent.” Charles Keane was also in “Project Moon Base.”
• CreditsWatch: Jim retains the producer title, but Kevin is listed as director and associate producer. For the last time ever, Jim is listed as “contributing writer.”
• Fave riff: “We’re all just so RESTLESS.” Honorable mention: “She’s lettin’ the hair play her.” “Are you okay? How many fingers of whiskey am I holding up?”