Movie: (1966): Searching for his brother who was lost at sea, a guy and his pals wash up on an island, guarded by crab-shrimp monster Ebirah, where some sort of evil paramilitary group has built an installation, unaware that Godzilla is asleep in a cave nearby. The brother turns out to be on an island nearby worshiping Mothra. Got all that?

First shown: 2/2/91
Opening: Joel reads “The Velveteen Rabbit” and does all the voices
Invention exchange: Joel shows off his mind-controlled guitar, while the mads have doggie chew toy guitars.
Host segment 1: J&tB sing “The Godzilla Genealogy Bop”
Host segment 2: Joel succumbs to space madness and begins building very bad models
Host segment 3: Despite Joel’s warning, Crow and Tom spoof the Mothra twins, only to meet Mothra on the Hexfield!
End: J&tB discuss famous sayings actors didn’t actually say and look through some “Cool Thing contest ” entries; the Mads consider a corporate re-think
Stinger: Everyone bows down before Mothra
(147 votes, average: 4.37 out of 5)
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• There’s no avoiding comparing this week’s episode to last week’s, since they’re both Godzilla movies. This one isn’t quite the classic last week’s outing was, but it’s still lots of fun. The plot is a little more confusing, but I chalk that up to the editing by Film Ventures International. All the host segments are worth at least a few laughs, and the riffing is solid throughout.
• This episode is not yet commercially available (and seems unlikely to ever be).
• What’s the name if this movie? It was “Gojira — Ebira — Mosura: Nankai No Dai Ketto,” in the original Japanese (translation: “Godzilla — Ebirah — Mothra: The Great South Seas Duel”). But it had other names in various incarnations, including “Ebirah, Horror Of The Deep” (also “Ebirah, Terror Of The Deep” ) when it was released in England, “Big Duel In The North” (also “Big Duel In The North Sea”), “Ritorno Di Godzilla” (“The Return Of Godzilla”) when it was released in Italy and, for some reason, “Frankenstein Und Dis Ungehauer Aus Dem Meer” (“Frankenstein and the Monsters from the Sea”) when it was released in Germany. Frankenstein?
• For the first time since Joel admonished Crow a few episodes back, he again goes for the Lloyd Bridges “By this time my lungs were aching for air” riff.
• For some reason J&tB wait for the FVI credits to be over before entering the theater. Was this something contractual, I wonder?
• This is our first FVI title. For those who don’t know, Film Ventures International was a company that obtained the rights to films after the copyright expired, and then re-edited and re-marketed the film (sometimes under a different name, sometimes not). We’ll get more FVI titles next season. By the way, the clips used during the opening credits are from “Son of Godzilla.”
• Callbacks: “Rock climbing!” (Lost Continent) “You and your friends the only creeps in this joint.” (Wild Rebels) “Linda!” (Women of the Prehistoric Planet?)
• Just for the record, what Joel is reading in the opening segment is nothing even remotely like the real “Velveteen Rabbit.”
• As the characters sneak into the installation, it’s another classic case of a bad guy’s building with hallways that have structures that stick out from the walls, making sneaking around easier. Only in the movies.
• Local reference: Somebody mentions Trip Shakespeare, a Minnesota-based band some BBI staffers knew.
• Joel actually sort of acts during segment two. Not that Joel isn’t performing all the time on the show, but let’s face it, Joel Robinson the character is not that far removed from Joel Hodgson the guy. But in this scene he has to actually act like he’s kind of crazy. He does a good job, I think!
• Then-current reference: Bhopal. Kind of a dark riff.
• I thought the “Karl Malden’s nose!” line of the “Godzilla Genealogy Bop” was just a non sequitur, but this time I noticed a little random throw-away riff where they observe that Godzilla has a nose a lot like Karl’s, which I guess is where that line came from.
• Incidentally, the “Godzilla Genealogy Bop” is one of those songs some fans forget, but it’s quite a lot of fun.
• That’s Mike as the voice of Mothra, of course, in segment 3.
• It seems like they wanted to have the Mothra prop blink, but couldn’t come up with a mechanism, so they sort of shaded the light that was shining on his eyes. Didn’t really work.
• Another then-current reference: “Cocooning,” was one of those short-lived buzzwords that arose when the 200-channel cable universe arrived and just about every movie you could think of was on VHS, so people supposedly stopped going out and just stayed home taking in entertainment in their “cocoon.” Wikipedia says it was coined by none other than Faith Popcorn, who was later parodied by the Brains.
• NOT-current reference, as Crow points out: “Thicke of the Night,” a talk show hosted by actor Alan Thicke (father of recent pop star Robin Thicke).
• Trivia: The script for this movie was actually written for King Kong, but Godzilla was substituted when rights to Kong weren’t available. What about Frankenstein?
• Cast and crew roundup: As noted in the previous episode, several of the cast of “Godzilla vs. Megalon” also worked on this. I won’t repeat all those. Special effects guys Eiji Tsuburaya and Teisho Arikawa also worked on “Mighty Jack.” Akira Watanabe worked on “The Green Slime.” The guy who wrote the score (clearly for the FVI version), Karl Michael Demer, also did the music for other FVI titles, including “Cave Dwellers,” “Pod People,” “Master Ninja I” and “Master Ninja II.” In front of the camera, Eisei Amamoto is also “Mighty Jack” and Wataru Omae was also in “Time of the Apes.”
• CreditsWatch: The whole “creative pit boss” thing is gone. “Villians” is still misspelled. Makeup lady Faye Burkholder must have tossed out some riffs that got used, because she was added to the list of writers for the first time since the KTMA era. Burkholder also gets a co-writing credit with Kevin on the “Geneaology Bop.” Mole person Sylvia was intern Robert Czech and mole person Jerry was intern Nathan Molstad. And the “Squeeky” Toy Orchestra (the people providing all the additional squeaky-toy noises during the Mads’ invention exchange) were Mike, Jef Maynard and Alex Carr.
• Favorite riff: “It’s the Mothra Graham Dance Troupe.” Honorable mention: “What a party! That last shot I saw crabs!”