Basil's Blog: MST3K: Episode 413

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

MST3K: Episode 413 - Manhunt in Space

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

Episode 413: Manhunt in Space

First aired: Comedy Central on 19 September 1992
Availability: iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon(Volume 14), Shout Factory (Volume 14), Best Brains (Volume 14)

It's a Rocky Jones feature!

It's Rocky Jones, Space Ranger! Or so I'm told.

That was a TV show from 1954. I never saw any episodes for a couple of reasons. First, it aired before I was born. The other is that, though it was syndicated, few stations carried.

The entire series comprised 39 episodes, usually in 3-episode arcs. The "Pirates of Prah" arc was released as the film Manhunt in Space.

Of course, being a 75-minute movie in a 2-hour TV show means you're gonna need to pad it. Which means a serial, right? No? Then an educational short? No? What then? Why, a segment of General Hospital, of course. Huh?

Nurse Jessie at work.

Yep. We are treated to the goings on of Nurse Jessie Brewer, Dr. Steve Hardy, and the whole crew. We see Dr. Phil Brewer, but I wasn't sure if this was before or after he raped Jessie, or when they married the second time, or just when it happened. It's was so hard to keep up with soap operas in the 1960s.

The movie, though, is easier to follow. A bunch of space pirates are stopping space ships and stealing space cargo to take to their space planet led by an evil space queen. Space Ranger Rocky Jones is sent to stop the space pirates and rescue the space captives. The Space Ranger and his space crew perform a daring space rescue and defeat the evil space queen and her space pirates, making space travel safe once again. The end.

Typical 50s bad science in a typical 50s bad science fiction outing. It's fun, though.


Hot ~~Japanese~~ American She-Villain.	Winky (Michael J. Nelson) visits.

There is no Hot Japanese She-Villain. There is a Hot American She-Villain Patsy Parsons as the evil space queen, Cleolanthe of Ophiuchius. Parsons was a child star, appearing in James Cagney's Yankee Doodle Dandy. She got out of the business shortly after this TV series and had a long life. Comic relief is offered by Winky, played by former child star Scotty Beckett. He lost his job in this series after being arrested in Mexico, left show business, and died at age 38.


Tom Servo rants about cheap science fiction sets while Joel and Crow quietly looks around.	"Look! It's the MST3K logo!" "You're not suppose to know about that!"

Joel & the Bots have fun with everything being called a "space gun" or "space pills" or any other phrase made futuristic by modifying it with the word "space." Tom rants about the cheap sets while Joel looks around the bridge of the Satellite of Love not saying anything. They also get in an inside joke about a planet looking like the MST3K logo.