MST3K: Episode 324 - Master Ninja II

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

Episode 324: Master Ninja II

First aired: Comedy Central on 25 January 1992
Availability: Amazon Instant Video, Amazon (Volume 20), Shout Factory (Volume 20), Best Brains (Volume 20)

It's a sequel

This is another "movie" made from a TV show. Master Ninja II is, of course, the second in the Master Nina series. It's comprised of the 3rd and 4th episodes of the NBC TV show The Master.

That means there were potentially many, many more Master Ninja movies that could have been made. I don't know how many were, but there were at least two too many.

Perhaps it's too soon since Episode 322: Master Ninja I, but this one wasn't quite as good. The movie wasn't any worse -- not much worse, anyway -- but the riffing wasn't quite there. Although there was some funny stuff. Lots of repeat riffs, though. Not necessarily repeats from Episode 322: Master Ninja I, but repeats of riffs within this one episode.

Hot chick in peril.

In several shows, there are callbacks to "Hai Kiba" (from Episode 104: Women of the Prehistoric Planet). Only, there wasn't one or two, but several. It's almost as if they weren't used to doing this many shows in a row. Since both Season One and Season Two were only 13 episodes each, this being the 24th episode of Season Three may just well explain that.

They also repeated the "Xanadu, stately home of Charles Foster Kane! Cost: no one can say!" line from Citizen Kane a few times.

The first half of the "movie" was a Norma Rae episode, with the hot chick from Wings playing the Sally Field type of character. We do get to see Lee Van Cleef get buried alive, but he doesn't stay dead. Or something.

The Bots customize vans

General Timothy Van Patten addresses the troops

The second half was a spy episode, with David McCallum from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. playing the villain and the second James Bond, George Lazenby (On Her Majesty's Secret Service), playing a spy that drives an Aston Martin. He could have driven an Aston Martin a lot more if he had accepted the seven-movie contract offered him in 1969.

"I used to be Bond. James Bond. Now I’m in movies. Bad movies."

Frank refers to himself as "TV's Frank" in the Host Segment after the movie, when he addresses the audience to petition ABC to bring back The Second Hundred Years. If you don't remember that show, then you should be thankful. I remember it. I used to watch it. I thought it was funny. Of course, my being under 10 years old helped.

The premise was that Luke Carpenter disappeared in Alaska in 1900, only to be found and thawed out in 1967 (when the show aired). His son was now older than he was, and his grandson was his spitting image. So, yeah, that's the kind of think I'd have watched when I was under 10. Now? Not so much.

But, it was nice to know I wasn't the only person that remembers the show. Thank you, TV's Frank, for letting us laugh at ourselves again.

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