MST3K: Episode 516 - Alien from L.A.

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

Episode 516: Alien from L.A.

First aired: Comedy Central on 20 November 1993
Availability: MST3KVideos.com Fan Copy

Not the best adaptation of a Jules Verne story.

It's Jules Verne's Journey To The Center Of The Earth! Well, kinda.

In the Jules Verne story, the character that discovered the pathway to the world beneath the world was Arne Saknussemm.

In Alien From L.A., Kathy Ireland's character is Wanda Saknussemm, and her father is Arnold Saknussemm. So, there you go.

Well, there are some other similarities, the most obvious of which is the fact that the lost land that her father finds is ... in the center of the earth. So, there's that.

Okay, enough teasing. Here's the plot.

Bad news for Kathy Ireland: she works at a burger bar. Oh, and her dad died.

Kathy Ireland is a geeky girl who likes this boy, but he is bored with her because she never likes to go anywhere, so he breaks up with her, and if that isn't bad enough, while at her job at the burger bar, she gets a letter telling her that her dad died on a trip to Africa, so she runs off to Africa and finds a secret passage to the center of the earth in her dad's African basement, then falls in and discovers it's really Atlants, so then she meets a guy with a bad Australian accent -- that is, he sounds badly like an Australian, not like an Australian that's bad -- and is pursued by a woman who runs the show and wants to keep secret the fact that Kathy Ireland lives on the surface, so Kathy Ireland must hide from both the evil woman who runs things and the same actress who is also a street snitch, all the while trying to find her dad, which she does, and they return to the surface, where she goes to the beach, dumps her boyfriend that dumped her, then meets one of the guys she met in Atlantis only now he's on the beach riding a motorcycle and they ride off together. The end.

Frank needs quarters.

I'd like to report that they never did make Alien From L.A. II, but they did. They called it Journey to the Center of the Earth and it starred Emo Phillips. Even Dr. Forrester wasn't evil enough to make Mike & the Bots watch that one.

This episode has never been released on video. My copy is a fan copy. Good print that I got from MST3KVideos.com. I got several fan copies from there. I've obtained some from other sources, but Skyroniter's copies are always top-notch.

Not a good movie, though. It's as bad as you'd think.

It's definitely not Wild World of Batwoman bad, but it's bad. Of course, that means there's plenty of fodder for M&tB to riff away at. And they do.

Teats!

References to Blade Runner, because Atlantis looks like the world from Blade Runner, except for the sky. References to lots of 80s movies. All wrapped up in a bad film with good riffing.

The Invention Exchanges, which have been limping along since Joel left, continue to be sub-par. The Mad's Vend-A-Gut isn't any worse than some of the other lame ones they and Joel did.

Oh, and there's nothing really special about Mike's Invention Exchange offering, either. Except it gives the Bots the chance to say "teats" several times. So, there's that.

Mike had a Host Segment where he sang a song, his first. As Mike, anyway. He had done some as other characters, but this is the first Mike Nelson as Mike Nelson song.

Bad movie, but a good episode. Not great, but good. I laughed. A lot.

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