MST3K: Episode 304 - Gamera vs Barugon

I'm watching all the episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in order. More about this here. It began here.

Episode 304: Gamera vs Barugon

First aired: Comedy Central on 22 June 1991
Availability: iTunes, Amazon (Volume 21 Standard Edition/Deluxe Edition), Shout Factory (Volume 21 Collector's Edition), Best Brains (Volume 21 Collector's Edition)

Another Gamera film, another KTMA redo. Episode K04: Gamera vs Barugon is the oldest surviving KTMA episode of MST3K, so, for MSTies, it's like one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Which is kinda sad, when you think about it.

It's a Silly Japanese Monster film, featuring two, count 'em: two, Silly Japanese Monsters. There's Gamera -- whose screen time in this version is so short it's almost a cameo role -- and Barugon, which is a horned dog-lizard that shoots rainbows and has a really long tongue.

Freaky blood-sucking scene

There's no Annoying Kid in Hot Pants running around, so the movie has this going for it. But, it doesn't have a Hot Japanese She-Villain. The leading lady isn't a villain, but a villager who travels to the big city. She does get weird with the whole blood-sucking scene. So, if you can ignore that...

The plot of the film, which is the most serious of the Gamera films, involves treasure hunters traveling to an island to steal a giant opal, which is really an egg, but they don't know it's an egg. One of the bad guys tries to kill the other two, and thinks he succeeds (one actually survives). On the trip back, the opal is exposed to radiation and grows into Barugon, who wreaks havoc across Japan. Barugon shows up, but is defeated. A bunch of plans are developed to beat Barugon, but all fail as new talents (huge tongue, shooting rainbows) are shown. Finally, Gamera recovers and defeats Barugon. The End.

Dog-lizard Barugon

The riffing is much better in this version than in the KTMA version, but that's to be expected. The Host Segments are funny. I loved the Mac vs PC opening. For the record, Servo is a Mac Head, while Crow is a PC Wonk.

As a point of reference, this episode was filmed when Windows wasn't an operating system, but an application that ran on top of the OS. It was up to version 3.0 -- a year before the classic Windows 3.1 was released -- when this episode first aired. It was probably still at 2.1 when it was filmed. Crow ribs Servo about "where's System 7" which was out by the time this episode aired, but obviously not when it was filmed. And System 7 came out 9 days before Windows 3.1.

Mac (Servo) vs PC (Crow)

The primary PC OS was MS-DOS 4.01, which sucked. DOS 5, which wasn't released until after Windows 3.1 was released.

Good times.

I'm still not a fan of Gamera movies, but I do like what J&tB do to them. Having said that, this is the best of the Gamera movies. Which is sort of like saying which World War II Axis Powers leader is your favorite (King Carol II, if I had to pick).

Funny riffs on a semi-serious movies. Funny Host Segments. Good episode.

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MST3K: Episode 303 - Pod People

I'm watching all the episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in order. More about this here. It began here.

Episode 303: Pod People

First aired: Comedy Central on 15 June 1991
Availability: iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon DVD (Volume 2), Rhino (Volume 2/out of print), MST3KVideos.com

I missed the title of this movie for years

This is one of those "classic" episodes of MST3K. Lots of things went together to give this episode that kind of status.

It aired early in the Comedy Central years -- in the first year after the merger between The Comedy Channel and HA! -- and was in the rerun rotation as long just about as any episode. It was aired by Comedy Central at least 27 times before it was released on VHS in 1996. And, it was one of the first episodes released for sale on DVD, as part of the multi-pack Volume 2.

This is an example of the chicken and the egg. Was it released so early because it was a classic? Was it aired so many times because it was a classic? Or was it made a classic because it was aired so often and released so early?

"Zestfully dead"

And, like the chicken and the egg, the answer is a little of both. This episode has so many good or memorable moments -- not just in the Host Segments, the riffing on the movie, and in the movie itself -- that, when combined with those factors that caused it to be seen so often by so many people, it all came together.

Now, about me including "the movie itself" in the "good or memorable" section. The movie isn't good. But it is memorable. It was only after MST3K went off the air that I actually saw the entire movie. I often missed the first part of it, where the alien ship crashed and the poacher smashed the eggs. And, when I saw the name of the episode (Pod People) listed, I never put it with this movie. To me, this was "the movie with the Pee-Wee's Playhouse scene."

This was one of the few Joel episodes that I remember, and was, perhaps, the first Joel episode ... maybe even the first MST3K episode ... that I saw.

Not Randy Owen from Alabama, but an incredible likeness

Only after I purchased this episode did I see it all from start to finish and realize the name of "the movie with the Pee-Wee's Playhouse scene."

There is lots of bad in this episode, but it's all in the movie. The riffing is top notch. The Host Segments are all enjoyable.

The movie itself is bad. It tries to be too many things and does them all poorly. For all its flaws, it has one of the best instances of dubbing on a foreign film that I've seen.

For the longest time, I didn't realize the film was Spanish. I though it was a U.S. film, and that the instances where the voices didn't exactly match the lips were instances where it was edited for TV. For instance, where the singer says "it stinks," it's obvious that's not what he said. I though it was something a little stronger he said, and it was "cleaned up" for TV.

Making music?

Making fun of making music

And, yes, the kids voice was all wrong, but I thought it was a poorly made film and they redubbed the voice to overcome some technical flaw. Much of the rest of the dubbing of English over the Spanish soundtrack was well done, actually, when all this time I thought it was a technically poor English language film.

He's got Bette David eyes

Okay, sure, the characters had a Eurotrash look to them. But, in the 1980s, a lot of films looked that way. Heck, a lot of people walking down American city streets had a Eurotrash look, so the look of the characters isn't a giveaway. But, this was a Spanish film, and I missed it.

Oh, what's the movie about? Which one? The alien horror film involving poachers (one looked like the lead singer of Alabama and another looked like not Leslie Neilsen, but another actor that had bit roles on a lot of shows, usually as a corrupt Senator or evil CEO) and a vengeful mother alien? The horror/slasher film about the young singers and groupies on a weekend in the woods? Or the friendly alien and kid movie where the kid is raising an alien in his bedroom? It's like there were three different scripts thrown together. And, that's pretty much what happened.

It was supposed to be Film A (alien horror) but the studio wanted to capitalize on E.T., so Film C (friendly alien & the kid) was thrown in. And, they were stitched together by Film B (horror/slasher). Or something like that.

Return of "Special Guest Villians"

They all die in the end, except the little alien (the big alien buys the farm), the kid, Mom, and the unlikable singer and one of his girlfriends. It should have had a sadder ending.

Oh, the alien is left alone in the woods unable to care for itself, so there's that.

As I said, the riffing was great. I particularly loved the John (Joseph) Merrick voice Crow used when the little alien, Trumpy, looked at all the pets in the boys room.

Tom Servo used the riff "even The Fog didn't have this much fog." I had heard it before, and thought it was still funny. I was trying to figure out which episode this was reused from. Turns out it wasn't from any episodes. I had used it in my writeup of Episode 108: The Slime People. Maybe this episode is where I got that from. And all this time, I thought I had made it up.

One other thing: they had removed the misspelling of "villains" in the closing credits. The credits are back, and misspelled. I assume that's a gag and not an error. But, I could be wrong.

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MST3K: Episode 302 - Gamera

I'm watching all the episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in order. More about this here. It began here.

Episode 302: Gamera

First aired: Comedy Central on 8 June 1991
Availability: iTunes, Amazon (Volume 21 Standard Edition/Deluxe Edition), Shout Factory (Volume 21 Collector's Edition), Best Brains (Volume 21 Collector's Edition)

"You seem tense. Let me break the ice."

If it seems like we've seen this one before, we have. I have anyway.

I saw this one a while back when MST3K was on the air. I seem to remember enjoying it, but I don't remember much about it.

Last year, when I decided to watch all of the MST3K episodes, I actually started with the season that aired on KTMA. And they did this movie. Remember Episode K05: Gamera? Sure you do. It was one of five straight Gamera films that Drs. Forrester and Erhardt sent up to Joel as part of the experiment.

As it turns out, nine of the 21 movies riffed in Season Zero were redone for Comedy Central. This is the first of those.

Oh, and of the nine, five were Gamera movies. Again, this is the first.

Dr. Forrester san coat and ponytail

Dr. Forrester isn't wearing his usual suit. At least, he's not wearing his coat. The rest of the outfit looks right. Oh, and he cut his hair.

In the KTMA season, Joel did this movie by himself. This time, he brought reinforcements. It helped. That's not a slam on Joel; he did the solo effort on KTMA well, and the riffing in this episode is handled by  three times the crew, isn't three times as good. Better, though.

As before, the thing that was the worst about this and other Gamera episodes are the Gamera movies. I don't care for the Giant Silly Japanese Monster movies, unless there's a hot Japanese she-villain. Doesn't make it better, just more tolerable.

Not a hot Japanese she-villain. She's one of the good guys.

The plot of the movie? An American general who looks like Curly Joe DeRita and sounds like Buddy Hackett orders an unidentified plane shot down. It crashes and a nuclear bomb explodes, waking up Gamera -- who, apparently, is a heavy sleeper.

The giant prehistoric turtle is grumpy when he wakes up, so he decides to tear the hell out of Japan. Gamera kills everybody he can find, except a little Japanese boy named Kenny, who wears short-shorts.

The rest of the movie is the Japanese military trying to kill Gamera, and Gamera breathing fire on Japan and flying around -- and I do mean around; he rotates like a UFO with flames coming out of the leg holes in his shell.

The military and scientists finally figure out how to lure him to a rocket, which shoots him to Mars. The End.

A few things I did enjoy about the movie:

Some of the characters looked like other famous people.

The American general looks like Joe DeRita and sounds like Buddy Hackett.

Colonel Sanders helps defeat Gamera

Tom Servo's fez is gone. And we get to hear Tom Servo sing his song about pet turtle Tibby. Made me want to go buy a turtle just so I could sing over its corpse. And Gamera pays a visit to the Satellite of Love.

Servo sings to Tibby

Gamera (Michael J. Nelson) visits

This was Mike's first appearance since voicing Mothra late in Season Two.

Joel lost his temper with Crow a couple of times.

Joel rips off Crow's arm.

Twice!

Don't mess with the sleepy-eyed guy.

A good effort. The full crew riffing made this better than the KTMA version.

Oh, and we'll see Gamera again. Just not five episodes in a row.

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MST3K: Episode 301 - Cave Dwellers

I have decided to watch every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 from the beginning. More about this can be found here. It began here.

Episode 301: Cave Dwellers

First aired: Comedy Central on 1 June 1991
Availability: iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon DVD (Volume 2), Rhino (Volume 2/out of print), MST3KVideos.com

We all had the same reaction to the film

According to an interview excerpt with the actor that played the main villain in the film, David Brandon (AKA David Cain Haughton), at the last minute, a decision was made to abandon the script and improvised an entirely different movie.

Essentially, the movie was cancelled, but production of the movie was not. Which meant that they still had a film to make, the set and some costumes were already paid for, so...

Brandon seemed to have a good humor about it. And, from what I've read, the actor that played the hero, Miles O'Keeffe, enjoyed the MST3K riffing of the show, indicating he has a sense of humor about it, too.

It's hard to hate a movie like that. But not impossible.

The Frank Zappa/Freddy Mercury villain wears a bird on his head

I'm not a fan of any movie where the man's chest is bigger than the woman's, so it has that against it right off the bat. Then, the hard-to-follow plot. And the acting... well, some of it is really bad.

There's the villain (played by the actor mentioned above). Joel & the Bots thought he was a John Saxon-type, but I thought he looked like Frank Zappa and Freddy Mercury's love child.

The time-frame is unclear. I think it's post-apocalyptic, but I'm not sure. It would explain the hang-glider scene. I think.

There's no hot Japanese she-villain, but there is a Canadian heroine, which is close enough.

She's trapped in a bad movie

There's the old boring dude who's, well, old and boring, and who looks like a cross between Chris Cooper and Burgess Meredith. He's the hot chick's father which is a major plot point, I think.

Oh, and an H-bomb explodes, for some reason.

Put all that together and what do you have? Fodder for J&tB. They have some fun with this one.

You wonder if drugs were involved in the making of this movie. I think they alluded to that with one riff in particular: "How much kief is in this movie?" "Miles O'Keeffe."

Lots of things that just seem so out of place. It must have been hard to riff those. You just have to laugh or ask, what's that got to do with anything?

What's up with the hang glider?

What's up with the H-bomb?

The Host Segments were fun, too. The parody of the opening credits were spot on. And the Foley lesson was fun, too.

The closing credits had a major change. No longer is "villains" misspelled. It simply went away.

Credits from Season Two

Credits from Season Three

Fun episode with a bad movie. That's what MST3K is all about.

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"Keep Circulating The Tapes"

This task of watching all the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes is a larger task than I realized. Here's how it went:

Hey, Netflix has some MST3K episodes available for streaming. I liked that show, but didn't see a bunch of episodes. I think I'll watch the streaming ones on Netflix. Into the Streaming Queue you go!

Oh, look. They also have some on disk that aren't available for streaming. I'll pop them into the DVD Queue.

Hey, these are pretty good. I wonder how many I've actually watched. I'll look into that.

Oh, look. There's a boatload of episodes I haven't seen. And there's a lot of information about them, including when they aired. And I plumb forgot about the story arcs of Pearl and Brain Guy and Bobo. I missed some of the start of that. Let me look into this.

Hmm. Seems watching them in random order makes it hard to follow all the story arcs. And, some of the references don't make any sense until I watch an earlier episode later. I ought to watch them in order.

Well, the spreadsheet is done. Gosh, there are plenty of episodes I've never seen. But, I do own some of them, and have rented some of them. But there are plenty I don't have, to go with all those I do have. Maybe I'll buy some of those I've just rented. Maybe. Something to think about.

Okay, I've now seen all the ones that are available from Netflix, plus many of the ones I own. Still a lot more episodes I haven't watched, though. Wonder how this whole episode trading thing works?

"Keep Circulating The Tapes"

Ah, I see now. There seem to be two big camps. There's a pirate camp (that's what I call them), where they don't care how you got it or anything about copyrights, they'll trade or sell episodes. Any episodes. Then there's the we're-not-really-pirates camp that only trades episodes that aren't commercially available. If you want an episode that's commercially available, they'll send you to MST3K/Best Brains, or Rhino, or Shout Factory, or Amazon.com, or somewhere else. They won't trade commercial episodes. A matter of honor. But, for episodes that aren't commercially available, they take the "Keep Circulating the Tapes" thing to heart. I like this camp.

Oh, look. The KTMA episodes are available. I wonder what that's like?

Well, I have a bunch of episodes on either DVD, VHS, or iTunes format. I wonder if the ones I don't have are still available.

How about that. They are. And there are two versions of the Volume 10 multi-pack. Maybe I will get the other episodes. Maybe.

I wonder about the other episodes, the ones that aren't for sale. How hard is it to get those? Oh, not hard at all, I see. I can trade some stuff for some of those. And, I can purchase some.

Look at that! I have them all. But I haven't watched them. I have lots of not-for-sale episodes I haven't watched. And, looking at this list, I see I have some commercial episodes I never watched. Let me study this a bit longer.

Okay, I think I'll watch them all. In order. And maybe I'll blog about it. Lord knows, I haven't blogged about much else lately.

So, now I have purchased a legal copy of all the episodes that have ever been released. One episode released on VHS never made it to disk, but, I do own that VHS tape.

Not only do I own every episode that's been officially released, I also own every disk. For example, some multi-packs went out of print when rights to one or more of the episodes was lost or expired. Some of those episodes have been re-released as solo discs. I now have all of those.

Bottom line, if it's been released, I have it in one legal form or another. Some, I own more than once (multi-pack and solo, both Volume 10s, iTunes and disc, etc.). For example, Episode 424: "Manos" The Hands of Fate was released on Rhino in 2001. I bought that.

In 2004, it was released as part of a two-episode set, MST3K: The Essentials. Same disk. Same contents. Same extra features (the blooper reel). But it was paired with Episode 321: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which is only available via The Essentials set. I bought that.

In 2011, it was released again, this time by Shout Factory. It was paired with the uncut version of the movie, with a whole new pack of extras (interviews and such). I bought that.

Oh, and it's also available from the iTunes store as a download. I bought that.

So, when it comes to Episode 424: "Manos" The Hands of Fate, I own it. Four times. But, I'm a collector. If you have it, I hope it's a legal copy. I suggest you buy it, at least once.

Similar story about the Volume 10 multi-pack. Volume 10 was released with four movies, including Godzilla vs Megalon. Turns out they didn't get proper rights for that, so they pulled the pack. After a short time, they re-released it as Volume 10.2, with The Giant Gila Monster replacing the Godzilla movie; the other three films were the same.

For a limited time, they offered The Giant Gila Monster as a single disc available to those that had purchased Volume 10, calling it an "upgrade" to Volume 10.2.

I have Volume 10, and the upgrade disc, and Volume 10.2. Yes, overkill, I know. Unless you want a complete collection. I wanted a complete DVD collection. And have one.

Now, what about episodes that have never been released? Actually, I have some of those. In fact, I have all of them. I have obtained them from a variety of sources, involving trades and such. I did trade some episodes for some unreleased episodes. And I traded other good and valuable considerations for selected unreleased episodes.

One site I've been very happy with is MST3KVideos.com. He seems to have a good quality unreleased episodes. And, I like the fact he doesn't copy and trade commercial episodes.

There is software that can be used to extract videos from commercial DVDs. I use such software to transfer my DVDs to iTunes, when the episode is not available from the iTunes store. But, I do not abuse the ability. I do not copy and sell or trade commercial episodes; my copying of commercial content is for my personal archive only, as allowed by U.S. law. The guy that runs MST3KVideos.com doesn't deal commercially-available episodes either. And, when a new episode is announced for sale via commercial means, he pulls them from his trading library. I like that.

Now, he's not the only person that runs sites to allow you to "keep circulating the tapes," but he's one I read a lot of good things about, and one that I've enjoyed doing business with. If you want to trade episodes, he's a good place to start. He has links to other MST3K trading sites.

Oh, one other thing. Though I have the unreleased episodes that are going to be in Volume 23 (King Dinosaur, The Castle of Fu Manchu, Code Name: Diamond Head, Last of the Wild Horses), I ordered the DVD when it was announced. It's officially released on March 27, but I've already purchased it; it's schedule to arrive on that day.

I've enjoyed watching the episodes over the years, and have had fun with this "watch 'em all in order" project that's currently underway.

MST3K: Season Two wrapup

Season Two is behind us. Season Three lies ahead. First of the week, I'll have the first episode of the season covered. So, let's do a quick wrapup of Season Two...

Frank joins Dr. Forrester

We lost Josh, but picked up Frank. Oh, and Kevin took over as Servo. And Mike is getting on-screen time. And Joel has a lot of jumpsuits.

I do miss Josh. But I really like Frank. Josh also took Servo from infancy into adulthood. Kevin has taken over, and is making Servo his own, without losing the groundwork Josh laid.

Frank is a joy. The relationship with Dr. Forrester is different, but it's a great dynamic. The Senior Partner/Junior Partner relationship with Dr. Erhardt was good, to be sure, but the Mad Scientist/Trainee relationship is good, too.

They've settled down and have a great format for the show. The only thing missing is the stand-alone shorts, instead of the episodes from a serial. Yes, they showed a stand-alone short just a few episodes ago, but it's been the only one so far. Looking ahead, they haven't fully abandoned the serials and changed to short subjects, but that will come.

Somebody sure could go fer a nice hamburger sammich and some french fried potaters

Some of the lines that get repeated in later seasons get introduced in Season Two. For instance, the whole "I sure could go fer a nice hamburger sammich and some french fried potaters" came from this season. That's not exactly what the character said, but close enough. And "thees seemplifies evvvv'ryting!" also came from this season's serial.

All of the episodes in Season Two aired in production order. That is, the first one produced was the first one aired, the second one produced was the second one aired, and so on.

Season One had a couple out of order. The second one produced aired first, followed by the first one produced. Then the whole "numbered out of order" thing that began with the 4th episode.

As best as I can tell, the production order and the production numbering are in sync from here on out, though some episodes don't air in production order. Season Two did, but it will be the last season to do that until Season Seven.

In the first two national seasons on The Comedy Channel, they had 13 episodes each. Beginning with Season Three, we'll see them on the rebranded Comedy Central, and with a 24-episode season. That means almost two years worth of work in one year. Think about that. We'll see how that affects things.

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