MST3K: Episode 422 - The Day the Earth Froze

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

Episode 422: The Day the Earth Froze

First aired: Comedy Central on 16 January 1993
Availability: MST3KVideos.com

Somebody misspelled "Sampo."

I've noticed that as Season Four is MST3K came to a close, the show was on a role. All of the last several episodes were good episodes. Some were very good. Some were great.

I'm not going to say that The Day The Earth Froze was great, but it was good. Not the movie. It was bad. Really bad. But the riffing and the segments from this episode made it good.

I'm not sure what about the movie made it bad. Maybe it's just that the story is hard to follow. I'm not familiar with the Kalevala, on which the film is sort of based. Maybe if I was, I'd understand it better and like the movie. Or, maybe I'd see how bad they screwed it up and hate it more.

What's the story about?

Not-hot not-Japanese she villain.

Lemminkäinen has the hots for local girl Annikki but Louhi kidnaps Annikki so then Lemminkäinen and Annikki's brother Ilmarinen head to Louhi's place to rescure Annikki and find the wind and the mist stored up in bags. Louhi won't return Annikki until Ilmarinen builds a Sampo, which gives out salt and gold and stuff. After leaving with Annikki, Lemminkäinen jumps in the water and swims back to Louhi's place to get the Sampo, but breaks it in the process. Louhi gets all mad and steals the sun. Lemminkäinen and his village band together and go play the harp at Louhi until the sun is released. The end.

The thing that bothered me the most was that Louhi is a chick. Well, not exactly a chick. But a female. At least, the character is female. And, as it turns out, was played by a woman, too. She's either one ugly chick, or Rick Baker did her makeup.

"He invented the Mobil logo!"

Par-Tay!

Some funny stuff in the riffing of the film, including J&tB not knowing what a Sampo is. The narration explains it -- or part of it -- but J&tB are talking during that part, as they are wont to do.

Is this an advertisement ... or a warning?

The Ilmarinen guy builds a horse. Apparently he can build anything. The horse is used to plow the ground, but, because it came out of a forge, it's red-hot. Think: the old Mobil logo.

The riffing during the wedding scene where Lemminkäinen rescures Annikki get married has J&tB singing about how much of a failure Lemminkäinen is for breaking the Sampo is funny. Joel even dances along with the partiers.

Oh, and the short. Last episode, there was a short called Circus on Ice. This time, it's just a circus. Not that it's any better. We do get to see Emmett Kelly eat, though.

It's photo day!

Unhappy Meals.

I loved the Mads' Unhappy Meals. Those were so horribly funny, it concerns me. Not the horrible part, but the fact I think they're funny. That's nothing but twisted.

And, it's picture day. If you've ever suffered through picture day, you understand.

Good episode, made so by the riffing, the Invention Exchange, and the Host Segments.

My copy is a fan copy, since it's not been released commercially. And, my copy had a problem with the audio. It was all out of sync. I had to import it into iMovie, detach the audio, adjust the timing of the audio, then export the movie. It worked, but it's a lot of work. I didn't get my copy from MST3KVideos.com, but I've now ordered a copy from there. They're a great source for unreleased episodes. The quality of their episodes is top-notch. I'll watch this one again when it arrives later this week.

I have several episodes from MST3KVideos.com, and this will soon be part of that. I'll eventually get all the unreleased episodes from there.

Oh, and, yes, some unreleased episodes I bought from there have since been released. I bought the commercial releases when they came out.

I hope this one is released commercially one day. I'm ordering it if and when they do.

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