Short: (1957) A college couple rushes into marriage, while another couple is taking their time.
Movie: (1964) In a West Virginia town, a newly arrived family is at the center of a series of murders.

First shown: 11/7/93
Opening: Mike tries to phone his grandma
Invention exchange: Dr. F shows off the Frank-n-forcer, M&tB demonstrate the waiter-baiter
Host segment 1: M&tB ask: What is love?
Host segment 2: Crow and Tom want to rumble, but Mike intervenes
Host segment 3: Crow and Tom have a gadget that will make Mike act like Mikey
End: Song: “I’m a Janitor;” Dr. F. cleans up after Frank
Stinger: “And he didn’t steal no bike neither … I did!”
(211 votes, average: 4.55 out of 5)
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• And so the show tries to settle into a new routine, and largely succeeds. The movie is plenty riffable and the memorable riffs are plentiful. The host segments are still a little awkward, but the show ends on a real high note. It’s a sign of good things to come.
• This episode is included in Rhino’s Vol. 10.
• Why is Mike calling his grandma? Not his parents? Not his brother Eddie?
• That’s Mary Jo as the voice of Mike’s grandma; that’s Kevin as the voice of the waiter-baiter.
• Mike channels his TGIFridays days with the waiter-baiter invention.
• Once again we get a short apparently aimed not a grade-schoolers, or even high-schoolers, but college students. I wonder when, exactly, college students stopped listening to mental hygiene movies with 30-year-old Romulans playing the students. Still, the message of the short — take your time, let your parents give you a house — is a good one, perhaps even more so today.
• RiffTrax would later riff “How Much Affection?” which is plugged in the short’s closing credits.
• In the first segment, it’s amazing how many of those celebrity romances are no more: almost all of them. I guess that was the point, but I’m still impressed by their accuracy rate.
• What’s the deal with John Humphries, who plays Mikey? At the first Conventio-Con, he explained. He said was a complete novice to acting when the film was made, and that he took his acting cues from Jo Canterbury, the actress who played weepy girlfriend Betty, whom he knew was from New York and had some acting experience. Thus, as her performance became more teary and shrill, so did his.
• The movie was filmed in, and stars many of the residents of, Huntington, WV. The real sheriff even played the movie sheriff. As one reviewer put it, “The effect is of a small town putting on a high school play about a serial killer.”
• During the introduction to the immortal “Yipes Stripes” number, M&TB try to come up with the dirtiest band names they could get away with, including The Cramps, The Buzzcocks and The Butthole Surfers. I think at the time they were just looking for band names that were good punchlines, but all those bands are now considered pretty important.
• “Yipes Stripes” is a real earworm. I’ve been unwillingly humming it for days.
• We get a nice look at Crow’s legs in second segment, which is otherwise pretty forgettable.
• In this episode they began using something different from the traditional five-second shot of the spinning spaghetti ball when they went to commercial. The bits show closeups of Deep 13. In the first one, the camera focuses in on a datebook that gives the episode number and the name of the movie In the second, the camera pans along a workbench in Deep 13 and stops on a beaker labeled with that info. In the third, we see a blackboard with that info, then what looks to be a big spitball then hits the blackboard.
• In the theater, Servo whistles. Hmmm…
• Segment three is fun, though it goes on a little too long…and why “rime”?
• Mike and Tom are already in the theater after segment three, and Crow enters still wearing the Mikey glasses — and therefore talking like Mikey.
• Callbacks: “Cornjob!” (Gamera v. Guiron). “The Master wants you but he can’t have you.” (Manos) [Note: Mike does that one.] “You can flip any chick in the house.” (Brain That Wouldn’t Die) Also, references to “Eegah” including “Watch out for snakes!” “Mr. B Natural is in one of those lockers!”
• One thing about Mike in these early episodes (and I think somebody in the comment thread last week mentioned this) is that he seems unwilling to actually yell when the line calls for yelling. Instead he sort of whisper-yells. He sort of simulates yelling, though he’s not actually raising his voice. As he got more comfortable in the role, that kind of faded away, but it’s pretty noticeable in these early ones.
• We get another “whu-happa?”.
• The show ends with Mike’s first song as host, and it’s a winner. Mike sang it in the live show at the first conventio-con as well.
• This movie was largely made by, and featured, people who had never made a movie before and would never make a movie again. Hence, no cast and crew roundup this week.
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Kevin Murphy. “The Janitor Song”: Music by: Michael J. Nelson and David Sussman. Lyrics by: Frank Conniff.
• Fave riff from the short: “A big VISA bill!”
• Fave riff: “Fortunately, the Higgins Boys and Gruber were on the scene.” Honorable mention: “Looks like mom has won some dirt track trophies.”