MST3K: Episode 510 - The Painted Hills

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

Episode 510: The Painted Hills

First aired: Comedy Central on 26 September 1993
Availability: MST3KVideos.com Fan Copy

It's a Lassie movie!

Lassie.

Does that say enough?

It's a Lassie movie. Or a Shep movie. Actually, it's a Pal movie. Pal played Lassie, and Lassie played Shep. So, whatever that means.

This was the last of the Lassie movies that Pal starred in. He was in seven Lassie movies, from the first, Lassie Come Home, to this one. He also starred in a couple of TV movies as Lassie before retiring from the role.

In this one, Lassie isn't Lassie, but Shep. I don't know why.

Old Man Jonathan loves his puppy dog.

Shep lives with Old Man Jonathan, a gold prospector who strikes gold, but since his partner is dead, he wants to make sure his dead partner's widow and young son get their share of the gold, so he tells them, but his partner's partner (or something) gets Old Man Jonathan to keep it a secret, but it turns out he's really trying to get the gold for himself, so the partner, Lin, kills old Jonathan, but Shep finds out, but can't tell anybody, what with being a dog and all, but Tommy, Jonathan's dead partner's son, finds Jonathan's body and figures out that Shep knew Lin killed Jonathan, but nearly dies running away from Lin, so Lin nurses Tommy back to health, but then tries to kill him, so Shep makes Lin fall off a cliff. The end.

There are lots of "Tommy can you hear me?" kind of riffs, because of the kid named Tommy in the movie. And Snausages. Lots of Snausages references. Lots and lots of Snausages references.

Frank's heart is in it.

The Bots challenge the message of the movie.

The Invention Exchange was fun. Dr. Forrester built a generator that ran off of Frank's heart. The harder Frank's heart worked, the more power it generated. So, he force-feeds Frank lots of fatty foods. I'm thinking I could power a medium-sized city myself.

There are also some fun Host Segments, but my favorite has to be the ending segment that had the Bots totally getting the wrong message from the movie. Or did they?

Oh, this episode had a short. Body Care and Grooming taught students that baths are good. Still are, for that matter.

Fun episode. Not a bad movie, actually. Fun short. Great riffing.

They've never released this episode. My copy is a fan copy. Got it from MST3KVideos.com, and it's a good copy, too.

The short has been released, though. It's in Volume 2 as part of the Shorts Volume 1 set.

I hope they are able to release this episode. It's on my To Get list.

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