This episode is rather infamous among MST3K fandom, as it features two ‘rule-breaking’ jokes: jokes that, with the unsaid rules of the show, are unacceptable. In the first place, when a woman is singing badly, Joel covers her mouth and they mute the sound. In the second, they add the sound of urinating over two men who have their backs to the camera. Both are frankly cringe worthy.
In spite of this, however, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this episode; it certainly was more fun than its reputation led me to believe. The basic plot of the film is…let’s see; there’s a good-guy scientist who tells an EXTREMELY long flashback (I’m not exaggerating; it takes up at least three-quarters of the running time!) about his discovery of the Aztec Mummy and his fight against the evil mad scientist The Bat (whose briefly seen costume would later show up in Episode _; The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman). Finally, we get a hilarious speech by the Bat about how he has created a ‘human robot’ (a robot with a human’s head stuck in its own head) with which he will steal the Mummy’s treasure (the mummy is now mysteriously buried in a local cemetery). You see, this movie was actually a sequel to ‘the Aztec Mummy’ and they apparently decided they could save a lot of money by padding most of this film out with footage from the previous film. I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that there is probably less than a half-an-hour of new footage, including the footage of the hero standing around telling the story of the Aztec Mummy (incidentally, all his guests know most the story, so why is he telling them?).
Still, the film’s ineptness and dialogue help make it a riot, despite some long padding scenes of people walking around dark areas (old tombs, cemeteries, ect.). Joel and the Bots actually get off some good quips.
The film is proceeded by the very first short, which were short films watched before the main feature. In early episodes it was generally a serial. Here we have ‘Commando Cody and the Radar Men from the Moon.’ I was also surprised how much I enjoyed this one; the serials tend to be the least of the shorts shown on MST3K, and to be sure, this one is no match for the later educational shorts, but it’s still pretty fun. I love serials in general, and although this isn’t a very good one it has a lot of the elements that I love; gangsters, revolvers, fist-fights, and ridiculous technology. They really knew how to entertain back then; even a sub-par serial like this is pretty fun. Also, the short provides my favorite quip from the entire episode (see below).
Host segment wise, this is their first ‘story-arch’ episode, which they did very few of. In this case, they deal with an infestation of extraterrestrial demon dogs who threaten to weigh down the ship and crash it. These were generally pretty funny; much funnier than early host segments usually are, anyway. I especially loved Jim Mallon as their leader, Enoch, who is about to tell them how to get rid of the dogs when Gypsy eats him.
The invention exchange is surprisingly funny also; Joel has a great ‘airbag helmet’ which made me laugh out loud, as did the opening segment with the Mads (it’s still a little odd to open in Deep 13), with Dr. F explaining how he only blew up the Mad Scientist Competition once…okay, maybe twice….
So, in summary, I liked this episode a lot more than I expected to; the movie is kind of fun (like most Mexican horror movies), the short is fun, and the host segments are good.
Final Rating: 6/10
Favorite Quip (Short): “Oh, I thought that was a smoke detector!”
Favorite Quip (Movie): “Keep shooting Bruno, it’s gonna work, really.”
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