Movie: (1959) When a doctor’s fiancee is decapitated, he keeps her head alive in his laboratory and tries to find her a new body.

First shown: 10/30/93
Opening: Mike’s been in training for his first movie
Invention exchange: Mike presents the gutter-bumber-shoot, The Mads demonstrate the dream buster
Host segment 1: Mike tries to get control of the SOL, but nothing doing (that’s not cheese!)
Host segment 2: M&tB first project together: designing hats for Jan in the pan
Host segment 3: Mike, Crow and Tom discuss the movie’s hateful message; Mike shares an embarrassing moment from his past
End: A visit from Jan on the Hexfield; Dr. F. is inspired!
Stinger: “Who’s to tell me to blow if I don’t want to?”
(205 votes, average: 4.48 out of 5)
Loading...

• A fair-to-good first show for Mike. Horrible movie, great riffing, but many many changes to the forumla.
• This was one of the two episodes that was first released as singles by Rhino, in April of 2000, their first two MST3K titles.
• References.
• I spent most of October 30, 1993, in Edina, Minn., at the home of a very nice lady named Debbie Tobin, with a lot of oddly dressed people I’d never met before. Thereby hangs a tale.
For the previous two Thanksgivings, Comedy Central had paid Best Brains to create short film segments — called “bumpers” in showbiz lingo — that would link one episode to another in its annual “turkey day” marathon. But in 1993, for reasons that will never be understood, I guess, Comedy Central asked BBI to make the bumpers for free. BBI told CC to pound sand. So, CC was forced to look elsewhere for its bumpers.
Now, at the same time, Debbie, who was a regular poster at MST3K bulletin board on the Prodigy online service, had announced she was throwing a Halloween costume party on the day of Mike’s first episode. Somebody at CC saw her posting and asked her if they could send a video crew to film it and make bumpers out of the footage. Debbie agreed, and was (wisely) told to keep it a secret, and most of the people who showed up had no idea the camera crew was going to be there.
Thus on the appointed day I, and about 35 jolly people from all over the country, were in Debbie’s house, in costume. It was the first time Erhardt and I had met, and there were a couple of other people there who I’m still good friends with all these years later.
(And let me just take time out from this story to say that if you were there at MSTieween, please drop me a line and let me know how your life is going.)
We managed to finish up filming just before 5 p.m. local time, when this episode was to debut. Shouting “movie sign!!” we rushed to the basement and the den, where TVs were set up so we could watch. And that’s where I was when the Mike era began.
• There is a LOT to take in here, right off the bat. New theme song lyrics, a new theme song singer, a new robot roll call and a new door sequence, all in about two minutes. It was breathtaking at the time.
• One of the new doors in the door sequence looks vaguely like a pizza. This was a cute reference to the fact that many fans claimed that one of the Joel-era doors made a sound that sounded like somebody saying “pizza!”
• According to BBI, Gypsy says “I’m not ready!” It sounds to me like “Hi from me!”
• Crow and Tom have been “training” Mike using “The Beast of Yucca Flat” [sic]. I think this is only the second time they mention a movie that they would later riff — the other one being “Marooned.” There’s also a mention of “Night of the Lepus,” a movie they SHOULD have riffed.
• Is Tom wearing a Temple University cap? Sure looks like their “T.”
• Right out of the box, Mike is intentionally different from Joel. In an interview that I did with Jim at about this time, he said (I’m paraphrasing from memory here) “I never quite understood why Joel’s character is so polite and deferential to the Mads. They trapped him in space! Why is he being nice to them?” Thus we have an immediately rebellious Mike, who scoffs at being expected to “hop to.” Radical!
• I love the use of the “Flint phone” sound effect with Dr. F’s invention. The world would later hear it in the Austin Powers movies too.
• Another great “Mike as newbie” moment comes when moviesign arrives — and Mike has no idea what to do. He then fails to carry a humiliated Tom into the theater. Crow explicitly mentions the air grate.
• Segment 1 is our first real taste of interaction between Mike and bots. They seem to be getting along okay, but it’s clear the bots have abandonment issues. Can bots have “issues”?
• I gotta say that this movie is pretty harsh for Mike’s first experiment. It is easily the most misogynist movie they ever did (and that’s saying something). The scene where our “hero” goes trolling for bodies is particularly dark.
• Callback: “Back to the ‘Unearthly’ set.” “Mitchell!!”
• At one point, Tom says: “Not with RADAR!” Huh? We won’t get “Radar Secret Service” for seven episodes. Is it a reference to that? Had the Brains already seen it as part of the selection process? Maybe that was a riff that came from Frank, the previewer.
• Segment 2 is fun, a bit a throwback to season 3, when Joel was forever giving the bots assignments and projects.
• Mike is still wearing the lazy susan hat when when they re-enter the theater.
• Tom does a little Flash Bazbo.
• Segment 3 seizes another opportunity have fun at the new guy’s expense, but also has some wonderful assessments of the movie.
• Great running gag in this one: AHH! I’M IN ANOTHER DIMENSION!!
• Cast and crew roundup: Just one item this time: Makeup man George Fiala also worked on “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”
• CreditsWatch: Joel’s name comes off the “art direction” credit, leaving Trace and Jef. Skyline Displays Inc. (the company that offered them the space that would become their studio) comes out of the “Special Thanks” credit, as does the credit for Mark Gilbertson. The “Executive Producers: Jim Mallon, Joel Hodgson” credit comes out completely. David Sussman is added to the list of writers for the rest of the season. Host segments directed by Trace Beaulieu. For the rest of the season, the theme song credit says: lyrics: “The Brains.” Jim Mallon is back in the list of contributing writers (his name was removed in last week’s credits) and will be for the rest of the season. And of course that’s Mary Jo, hilariously depicting Jan in the pan.
• Fave riff: “Hahahaha…have you seen Frankenhooker?” Honorable mentions: “…with a Milwaukee Sawzall.” “If Jack Ruby owned a Denny’s.”

Movie: (1975) A slovenly cop is determined to bring a mob kingpin to justice.

First shown: 10/23/93
Opening: Joel’s unveils his toothpicky creation; the bots know what they have to do
Invention exchange: The Mads are being audited, so they’ve hired a temp by the name of Mike; J&tB present the Daktari stool
Host segment 1: Gypsy overhears the Mads plotting and thinks they’re talking about Joel
Host segment 2: A worried Gypsy tries to think of a way to get Joel off the SOL; Crow and Tom are no help
Host segment 3: Mike learns of a hidden escape pod, and gives Gypsy control
End: Joel is ejected into the escape pod, leaving behind a plaque and a final word; Dr. F. is furious … until Mike presents his time card
Stinger: “Your lying through your teeth!” “Buzz off!” “No, you buzz off!” “I SAID BUZZ OFF, KID!”
(213 votes, average: 4.78 out of 5)
Loading...

• It all starts so normally. Just another episode, right? Wrong. This is, of course, the most famous of the show’s “transition” episodes, and I’ve seen it perhaps a dozen times now. What sticks out is how well the whole thing falls together. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s all accomplished in about 15 minutes. Tight scripting, tight performances, tight editing, it’s a marvel of precision. It’s sentimental, but it doesn’t get mawkish. And it’s very funny all the way through.
• This episode was first put out as a single-disk release on November of 2001.
• References.
• You want a metaphor? How about Joel building an extremely fragile creation, certain in the knowledge that it will be destroyed? Now, that’s a metaphor.
• Mike makes his first appearance as, well, Mike. Wow is he young. (Recently I saw a movie starring a young Tab Hunter, and I’d never noticed before how much a young Mike and young Tab vaguely resemble each other. Maybe it’s the square heads.)
• The Daktari stool sat in the hallway of BBI for years. It was still there when I visited the set in 1999.
• What does Joel have against Harlan Ellison? Besides the obvious, of course…
• Segment 1 features a parody of the scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey” in which computer Hal reads the lips of the astronauts. Interesting that “2001” is again parodied in another transition episode at the end of season seven.
• Segment 1 is pretty much as close to Dr. F and Frank as most of us will ever get. I remember some female fans of Trace rather enjoyed it.
• Jim does a great job in segment 2. “Breathe through your nose”?
• I love the moment when Mitchell says: “Sh—.” and Joel finishes his line with: ‘…ugar?”
• Want a connection from this movie to the Robert Blake murder case? Sure, we all do! Gary McLarty and Ronald (Duffy) Hambleton, both of whom testified against Blake when he was accused of killing his wife, had small roles in this movie. McLarty played one of Mistretta’s henchmen and Hambleton played mob boss Edmondo Bocca, who gets dropped by Mitchell just short of the green. Both testified that Blake explicitly discussed killing his wife. But, unfortunately for the prosecution, both of these guys had somewhat checkered pasts. Blake’s defense team successfully undermined the credibility of both witnesses, introducing evidence of mental illness, drug addiction, etc. In the end, their testimony may have actually helped Blake get off.
• Not mentioned in the references list, because they only do references during the movie and not during the host segments, is the “OPE” thing Gypsy is muttering. It’s a reference to the movie “Dr. Strangelove.”
• The presence of that Christmas tree in John Saxon’s house — and pretty much no other references to it being Christmas — is one of the many odd things about this movie.
• Joel seems to lose it during the “Adam Rich” scene. (Actually, the kid is played by a Todd Bass, in his second and last role in show business, according to the IMDB. It would be fun to find Mr. Bass, who must be in his 40s by now, to see what he remembers of this shoot. By the way, according to Wikipedia the kid is supposed to be the son of Linda Evans’ character! Who knew?)
• Then current reference: the forgotten movie “Cop and a Half.”
• Hamdingers suddenly took over the MSTie consciousness after this episode, but it was funny how Gypsy and Mike (and, by extension, BBI) seemed very clear on what Hamdingers were … but nobody else seemed to be. It was hard to nail down just what they were, and descriptions seemed contradictory. Some said the Swift-Premium folks made them (I believe Kevin invoked Swift Premium during an online chat). Not true. At long last, I can point to this site, which seems to solve the mystery at last.

Hamdingers were a short-lived meat product produced by the Patrick Cudahy Co. out of Cudahy, WI, in the mid ‘70s … The product was sliced ham patties, about the size of a hamburger patty, and it came in a round can. Like Spam, it became a great meat to fry up with some eggs for breafast, but the great thing about Hamdingers is that it came in individually sliced portions, so you could grab a patty and fry it up for that perfect Hamdinger sandwich.

The entry doesn’t mention that they were reportedly great fish bait as well.
• I love that DOS command Mike has to type in to the “techtronic panel” (apparently this was the one and only time that the control panel in Deep 13 was called this).
• Movie comment: Toward the end of the movie, Mitchell inserts a portion of his handkerchief (there’s a lesson, kids!: always remember to carry a handkerchief; you never know when you might want to blow up a drug dealer’s car!), then screws the gas cap back on over it, so that the rest of the handkerchief is hanging down. He then drives to the meeting place and when the deal goes south he, all in a split second, whips out a lighter, lunges forward and holds the lighter to the handkerchief, which INSTANTANEOUSLY lights up. Now maybe, just maybe, the tank was very, very full and the handkerchief got nice and soaked with gasoline on the ride over. But the tank might also have been mostly empty, meaning the handkerchief could have been bone dry. That seems far more likely, doesn’t it? Which would mean it would have taken maybe ten seconds for Mitchell to light it, plenty of time to stop Mitchell. What I’m saying is that it seems unlikely that the handkerchief would immediately burst into flames in a fraction of a second like it does here. The whole thing is about as implausible as a young, sultry callgirl falling in love with Mitchell.
• Callbacks: Several references to “Eegah”; reference to rock climbing.
• Toward the end of the movie, we get Joel’s last bit of fatherly control during the bit where Tom and Crow get a bit dark and suggest Mitchell should turn the gun on himself.
• Naughty riff: “I’m huge.”
• I love the classic, low-tech use of confetti to simulate static in the Hexfield. Very Joel.
• When fans on the internet weren’t obsessing about Hamdingers, they were arguing about the correct pronunciation of “Lao” as in “Dr. Lao.” The consensus was that Joel blew it.
• Tom and Crow fall apart during the PANIC, but I think this may be one time it was on purpose.
• I love Mike’s expression as Dr. F and Frank laugh about his fate.
• Cast and crew roundup: Sound mixer Herman Lewis also worked on “Teenage Caveman,” “Viking Women and the Sea Serpent and “Night of the Blood Beast.” Score composer Jerry Styner also worked on “The Side Hackers.” In front of the camera, Buck Young also appears in “Stranded in Space,” Rayford Barnes also appears in “Beginning of the End,” Jim B. Smith also appeared “San Francisco International and Alan “Mustang hood” Gibbs did stunts for “Hangar 18.” And, of course, Joe Don Baker also stars in “Final Justice.”
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Kevin Murphy. Jim Mallon is listed as a contributing writer for every episode in season 5 except this one, where he is listed as an “additional writer.”
• Fave riff: “We’re going to control the ghetto, you and I, young man.” Honorable mention: “BABY OIL??? NOOOO!!!!”