MST3K: Episode 518 - The Atomic Brain

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

Episode 518: The Atomic Brain

First aired: Comedy Central on 4 December 1993
Availability: iTunes, Amazon (Volume 3/out of print), Amazon (Shout solo DVD), Rhino (Volume 3/out of print), Shout (Solo DVD),
Best Brains

It's a Monstrosity!

I've settled in with Mike in the center seat now. It's almost like the MST3K I remember.

Keep in mind that although when I first saw MST3K, Joel was the host, it wasn't until Mike was the host that I watched it regularly. It wasn't that I didn't like it when Joel was there. It's that the opportunity to watch it regularly didn't happen until Mike was there.

Although I was more familiar with Mike, this project of watching all of the shows has allowed me to see all of Joel's episodes. And, though it took a little getting used to at first, part of that wasn't just seeing Joel instead of Mike, it was seeing the program develop from the beginning. The first year was different. Not just because of the Dr. Erhardt character, but because the crew was still refining the show.

Mike tosses Servo.

I got to really like the Dr. Erhardt character, and was disappointed that he left. Sure, I knew it was coming, but still, I really grew to like what J. Elvis (nee Josh) Weinstein did with both Dr. Erhardt and Tom Servo.

However, when Frank joined the cast, it wasn't long before I got used to Kevin Murphy as Tom Servo and Frank Conniff as TV's Frank. That's not to say I didn't miss Weinstein. I did. And do. But that doesn't take away from what Murphy and Conniff did with their characters.

She's a cat!

It's taking a little longer with Joel and Mike. Though I was more familiar with Mike, watching things from the start have made me see it from a different perspective. MST3K was truly Joel's show. But, six episodes into the Mike regime, I'm getting used to The Talented Mr. Nelson. And that's from someone who was more used to Mike originally. I wonder how long it took those who watched all this unfold in the 1990s to make the adjustment. From what I have read, some never did.

However, I'm confortable with Mike in the role. And, it's not just my familiarity with him as host from before I began this project. It's that Mike was with the show for 4½ years before he became host. He was a writer from the time the show went national on The Comedy Channel, and played many guest characters from Season Two on. He wasn't a new guy that was brought in. He was a behind-the-scene guy that moved to the forefront. The transition from Joel to Mike was complete by the time this episode aired. Or so it seems to me.

This movie's an okay film. It was released under the name Monstronsity. Somewhere along the way, it became The Atomic Brain, and that's the name of the film shows to M&tB.

Old Lady March inspects the merchandise.

Old Lady March has grown tired of looking like Miss Persimmon from Mary Poppins so she hired herself a mad scientist to put her brain into a younger woman's body, so they get a bunch of women from foreign countries with accents so bad nobody would miss them if they disappeared, and experiment on them, giving them cat brains and such so they can determine if Old Lady March's brain will make the trip successfully, but the scientist double-crosses the old woman and wants to take the hottest chick for himself and puts the old woman mind intp a cat, but the cat traps the scientist in his machine and the hot chick escapes, but not before abandoning one of the other women who helped her escape. The end.

The movie is okay, for an MST3K-quality film. The episode is good, but not great. Host Segments are overall okay. Crow as Hank Kimball as Richard Kimball is really funny.

Magic Voice gets her own segment, having a chat with the film's narrator. It doesn't go well.

The Bots are the Mads!

The Mads are the Bots!

The Invention Exchange deteriorates further still, but they do have fun with it. Mike has Crow and Servo dressing as Dr. Forrester and Frank. The Mads retaliate by dressing up as Crow and Servo.

Mike demonstrates chin puppetry. The Bots aren't amused. Mike isn't either, and tosses Servo to his seat when they re-enter the theater.

Well, what about it?

School-bored teens address the school board.

There's a short film. It's called What About Juvenile Delinquency. It's about juvenile delinquency.

A good episode. Movie is bad, but nearly watchable. Short is, well, it's what it is. The segments are good and fun.

I do have a complaint, though.

My iTunes version doesn't have the chapter markers in the right place. Instead, they're every 10 minutes. I prefer that the markers be at spots like the Host Segments, or the beginning of a movie segment or a commercial bumper.

What to do about that? Well, I have the DVD (as well as both VHS releases). More than one DVD, actually. I have the out-of-print Volume 3 set set as well as the solo DVD re-release. With the iTunes having the chapter markers in the wrong place, I'll eventually rip the DVD to iTunes, so next time I watch it, it'll be easier for me to navigate.

And, I will watch it again.

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MST3K: Episode 517 - Beginning of the End

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

Episode 517: Beginning of the End

First aired: Comedy Central on 25 November 1993
Availability: iTunes, Amazon DVD (Rhino/out of print), Amazon DVD (Shout Factory), Rhino (Solo DVD/out of print), Shout (Solo DVD), Best Brains

Everything before this was the Prelude to the End.

This is another film that I saw before I saw MST3K. Beginning of the End was one of those Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon movies that the TV stations showed because they had air time to fill.

I didn't remember much about it, but I remembered enough that it was familiar when I saw it on MST3K.

And, I didn't see it on MST3K when MST3K aired on Comedy Central. I saw it after I got the DVD, and that's when I was certain I had seen it before.

A whole town disappears without warning, only it turns out that there was a warning that nobody paid attention to, such as an unpopulated area being torn all to hell, so the military comes in and takes control, but this hot chick lady reporter gets on the story and runs into scientist Peter Graves who is using radiation to grow large crops and gets the hots for him, so they go off and discover giant grasshoppers are growing big from eating huge wheat and stuff and tearing Illinois mountain towns all to shreds and are heading to Chicago, so the military plans to nuke the town (yay!) but Peter Graves figures out how to lure the grasshoppers into Lake Michigan where they all drown and everyone is saved except for the dead people. The end.

Giant grasshoppers attack a post card of Chicago.

Since it's another movie with giant critters, you know it's another movie by the Notorious B.I.G. Yes, it's a Bert I. Gordon film. That's always fun, and this movie is no exception.

Bert I. Gordon films aren't great films. They're not good films. But, they are watchable films. And the riffing by M&tB just makes it better.

One thing that caught my attention was something that happened during the opening credits of the movie. The text has a hazy appearance and the transition from one screen of text to another is the wavy kind that's often used to represent flashbacks. During this part, Mike called Crow "Honey" when the multiple wavy transitions make the robot sick.

It's the Crow of Diamonds!

While I've seen this episode before I began this project, I didn't remember Mike referring to any of the Bots as "Honey." When I started watching all the episodes, I noticed Joel called them "Honey" a lot, and figured that was one of the differences between Joel's and Mike's relationships with the Bots. Now, I'm not sure they had that difference laid out. Mike's definitely the caregiver in this exchange, along the line of Joel. I don't think they kept that up as the show went on.

The Invention Exchange is a little on the lame side once again. Dr. Forrester invents a Re-comfy Bike. Mike & the Bots decide to spruce up playing cards. The only thing good about it is Crows offering: the Crow of Diamonds.

Later in the episode, but before the movie ends, Mike does something Joel didn't do. Mike calls the Mads, who were totally not expecting it. He won't be doing that again for a while.

The Mads weren't ready for Mike's call. Neither was Mike.

The Mads decide to prove they are not just men, but manly men.

Tom Servo had a line that hit me hard. The characters found a car that was pretty messed up, particularly the top. Servo yelled, "Miss Mansfield!" If you recall, Jayne Mansfield was killed in a crash that took the top of the car, and the top of her head (not her whole head, as early reports said) off. I remember reading that story in the newspaper (that erroneously reported she was decapitated). I knew who she was, and she was the first celebrity I remember who died a sudden, violent death.

Anyway, this was a fun movie and a fun episode. And Mary Jo got another role, this time as a trailer trash woman who calls the wrong number.

Fun episode. I'm sorry I missed it when it first aired, but happy I own the DVD now.

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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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MST3K: Episode 515 - The Wild Wild World of Batwoman

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

Episode 515: The Wild Wild World of Batwoman

First aired: Comedy Central on 13 November 1993
Availability: iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon DVD (Rhino/out of print), Amazon DVD (Shout version), Rhino (Solo DVD/out of print), Shout (Solo DVD), Best Brains

What's in a name?

There are bad movies, and then there are bad movies.

Not just bad. Wicked bad.

And not just wicked bad, but evil.

Movies that should be punished, they are so bad.

Movies that don't you wonder if they mean to be that bad, but then realize that it doesn't matter if they meant to or not, they are really, really bad.

Remember in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Dingy refers to Zoot as "wicked bad naughty evil Zoot?" Sure you do.

[Direct link]

This movie is like that. Wicked bad naughty evil movie. But without the redeeming values of someone who would sidetrack a search for the Holy Grail.

Frank's atomic-powered hair dryer has unintended consequences.

Yes, it's that bad.

Even the title is bad, as in wicked bad naughty evil.

It's an obvious ripoff of Batman, because the TV show was so popular when this came out. DC Comics sued the company that made this movie because of the title, but lost.

You can't find this actual movie today, unless it's the MST3K version. If you look hard, you can find Wild World of Bat Woman on VHS but ... why?

The only reason to own this original movie would be if it came with the MST3K version. It doesn't, and that is probably for the best.

Batwoman and the others dance. Soup will do that to you!

What's it all about?

A scientist has developed an atomic-powered hearing aid that the government rejected but told the Ayjax Company to destroy, but the evil Rat Fink wants to steal it, so he makes people go dance crazy with soup, while battling Batwoman and her Batgirls with henchmen and scenes taken from other movies, but Batwoman survives and unmasks Rat Fink who is the guy that made the atomic-powered hearing aid to begin with, so everything turns out well in the end because the movie ends. The end.

The movie tries to be funny. It isn't. It's just plain bad. I can't tell you how bad this movie is. Well, yeah, I can. It's bad. Remember the worst movie you ever saw? Maybe it was this one. If not, it's probably because you haven't seen this one.

Don't cheat.

Okay, maybe that's harsh. There could be worse movies than this one, but I don't want to think about that possibility. Because I have to think about this movie, and that's enough bad to think about at one time. It's dangerous to think about two movies this bad at the same time.

The only way to survive that scenario would be by cheating. Like mentioning another movie as bad without really thinking about that movie. And cheating is wrong.

If you didn't know cheating was wrong, then you also missed the short film that Dr. Forrester sent to Mike. It's about cheating. So much so, it's called Cheating.

It, too, has little redeeming value. Well, it does say that cheating is bad, which is true. So there's that. But just how they went about it... Well, let's say it's not as poorly made as The Wild Wild World of Batwoman.

It does inspire a series of Host Segments about Crow getting caught cheating. Makes the same point as the short, but in such a more enjoyable way. So, don't cheat. Cheating is bad. Richard Basehart is good.

Despite the bad, bad movie, it's a good episode. The riffing is top-notch, and the Host Segments based on the short are hilarious. Another winner.

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MST3K: Episode 514 - Teen-Age Strangler

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

Episode 514: Teen-Age Strangler

First aired: Comedy Central on 7 November 1993
Availability: Amazon (Volume 10/out of print), Amazon (Volume 10.2/out of print), Rhino (Volume 10/out of print), Rhino (Volume 10.2/out of print), Best Brains (Volume 10.2), MST3KVideos.com Fan Copy

"So is it a teenager who strangles, or someone who strangles teenagers?"

Now that the whole "Mike is the new guy" is behind us -- the theme that ran through Episode 513: The Brain That Wouldn't Die -- we get a regular episode. Of course, Mike is still trying to escape -- he calls his grandmother in the Prologue -- which shows a major difference between him and Joel, but they're not making quite as big a deal about Mike being new.

Mike also gets his first short film, Is This Love?, and it's loads of fun. It has the Romulan-looking roommate who looks more like the parents of a college student than a college student -- one source puts the actress as being 37 -- and lots of hilarious riffing.

Romulans need love, too.

It's a cautionary tale, warning of the dangers of rushing into marriage. It actually makes some good points, but the casting is all goofy, what with the actors that are way too old for their parts. But, like I said, M&tB get in some good riffs.

The movie? It's a fun one. Well, there is the whole plot of teenagers getting strangled and such, but other than that...

Someone is strangling teenagers when they're not dancing on the counters in the local diner, and a witness points to a gang that Jimmy belongs to, and the police suspect Jimmy, who keeps not having alibis because he's always off with his girlfriend, but won't tell anyone because he doesn't want to get his girlfriend in trouble, because her parents don't like her hanging around with Jimmy, but it turns out that the school janitor is killing all the teenagers because he used to be a teacher or something, but gets caught so it all ends well, except for the dead people. The end.

The show does make a change beginning with this episode. The bumpers contain scenes from Dr. Forrester's notes on the experiment in Deep 13. There are calendar entries, notes on test tubes, all kinds of things.

One of the new bumpers.

"This must be the start of the counter culture."

When the show began, the bumpers were simply the "spaghetti ball" logo. Later, various scenes from outside Gizmonic Institute were added to the mix. But, with Joel's departure, all references to Gizmonic Institute were removed (Joel wanted it that way), and that meant new bumpers.

The show hasn't missed a beat following Joel's departure. Not to say I don't miss him, but Mike was a good choice to replace him.

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