Monday, September 10, 2012

MST3K: Episode 909 - Gorgo

I'm watching all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes in order. More about that here and here.

Episode 909: Gorgo

First aired: Sci-Fi Channel on 18 July 1998
Availability: MST3KVideos.com fan copy

It's a baby!
If King Kong and Godzilla had a baby, it would be Gorgo.

Not the monsters, mind you, but the movies.

Gosh, if those monsters got together ... well, unless Godzilla is female ... oh, never mind.

This movie is what happens when you want to do a rip-off of Godzilla, but don't want to follow it too closely: you also rip-off King Kong.

Tower Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down...
Set it in the U.K., throw in the guy from Born Free and that guy from 2001: A Space Odyssey and you got your film.

While Born Free Guy and Heywood Floyd are salvaging treasure off the coast of Ireland, a volcano interrupts and nearly sinks the ship, so they put ashore, only to be shunned by the locals, who are after treasure themselves, but the appearance of Gorgo, a Godzilla-like monster kinda interrupts their bickering, so they drive it off, but our heroes capture the critter and take it to London, and after many jurisdictional disputes, they decide to put it in a circus, which nobody, especially not Gorgo, like in the least, but then things get worse when Gorgo's mom shows up, tears the hell outta London, takes her son, and goes home, and everybody that isn't killed, which aren't many, lives happily ever after. The end.

Pure evil. Oh, and Pearl Forrester.
Remember Pearl Forrester? Sure you do. Only, she wasn't in the previous episode. They had a baby sitter watching Observer and Bobo.

Well, it turns out that Pearl is in Hollywood and has hooked up with Leonard Maltin, who, as it turns out, is nearly as evil as she is. He suggests sending Gorgo to M&tB. Pearl agrees.

I think this is the last of the William Sylvester movies MST3K did. He was also in Episode 814: Riding with Death and Episode 818: Devil Doll. And now you can compete with Mike in the William Sylvester Edition of Trivial Pursuit, as featured in one of the Host Segments.

Last of the William Sylvester trilogy.
Another Host Segments featured Crow and Servo starring in Waiting For Gorgo. Who knew that there would later be a film called Waiting For Gorgo.

This episode, by the way, was the least-aired episode of MST3K. It only aired once. Or twice, depending on how you look at it.

This episode aired at 5:00 PM and again at 11:00 PM on 18 July, 1998 ... and never again. Some reports say the rights expired. That kinda surprises me. I sorta wonder if they actually had the rights to begin with, and screwed up. But, whatever happened, it only aired that one day. It's the first episode outside some KTMA episodes to have only a single day's airing. Anyway, I didn't get to see it until I obtained a fan copy.

A lot of episodes in Season Nine have never been released on video. Seven of the 13 episodes have never made it to video. I suspect this one, because of the single-day airing, may be one of the least-watched and, therefore, may be thought of almost as a "lost episode."

The episode is pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of the Lizards That Attack (City) movies, but this episode does well.



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