MST3K – Episode 206: Ring of Terror (With Short: The Phantom Creeps; Episode 3)

(Introductory note: As I am currently in Austria, I won't have the chance to continue my MST3K reviews until I return. However, I had started three reviews before I left and may post them, depending on how complete they are and whether I think I can finish them without reviewing the episode.)

Ring of Terror is a pretty middle-of-the-road episode, notable mostly for the rather disastrous experiment of following the movie with a short instead of the other way around. This does not work at all; shorts help us ease into the movie, rather like an appetizer or a salad. Putting it after the movie is only tiring; once the main feature’s credits role, we’re ready to go home, so springing a short on us doesn’t work.
Well, anyway, Ring of Terror. The film is bookended with a crazy doctor/grave-keeper (I think) leading into our story from one of the tombstones (I suspect this was going to be the pilot for an anthology horror series, but it wasn’t picked up). The story proper concerns Lewis Moffitt (“Sat on a toffit…”), a surprisingly old med-student who is the only guy not squeamish during dissections (you’d think med students would have stronger stomachs, but I guess not). He’s got a girlfriend, who gets mad at him for no reason, and everyone thinks of him as the guy who is never afraid. Turns out he’s really afraid of the dark. Anyway, the fraternity he wants to join (why is never explained) decides a good hazing trick for him would be to send him to the cemetery to steal a ring from a recently dissected corpse (you’d think they’d take that off before the dissection). Anyway, a cat scares him and the dead-guy’s hand snags on his sleeve, so he dies of fright and the narrator seems to find this quite amusing.
Then there’s the Phantom Creeps, which I simply cannot follow at all; the poor film quality certainly doesn’t help. There’s some rather cool effects scenes in this one (especially the climax with power-lines blowing up), but nothing much else; I’m glad they decided to stop doing the serials eventually; they’re just not very well suited for this sort of thing. And I’m REALLY glad they learned their lesson from the episode and never followed the movie with the short again.

Thoughts while watching:

Opening: fake movie sign. We actually see where Joel goes during movie sign (down a side-chute) and we see Crow try to press the button.

Invention exchange: Mads; the real operation game; a little over campy for me, but still fun. Joel; pin-bolus (you play pinball with your kidneys, internal organs and swallowed food). Pretty funny. Big medical week this time.

I rather like Servo’s reading from a film guide about the film.

And I love their panicking as they get too close to the gate.

Weird pretentious narrator.

Servo (on the weird narrator): “Mr. Magoo, what happened to you?”

The bit with the narrator looking for his cat, Puma, will be reused again and again in the series (it’s frankly boring as hell here).

And the guy drops the cat and steps on it, so the chase is on again! Arrgg!

Joel strokes the cat and reassures it.

And we segue into the story proper.

Servo (as Moffitt reads a med-book): “Let’s see, where was I…oh, yeah, see Dick, see Dick make a lateral incision…”

And Moffitt’s girlfriend talks about him with her friends.

Numerous ‘old’ jokes on the surprisingly elderly college students.

Joel (as Moffitt’s date): “Oh, the dump again?”

Really stilted dialogue.

Moffitt: “I’m studying medicine because…”
Servo: “I’m old, I’ve got a practice, I’ve been a respected doctor for twenty years.”

I love Joel’s ‘snake’ voice!

Crow (after Moffitt kills the snake): “Ah, now where were we? I believe I had my tongue down your throat.”

Wait, there’s a dance floor and stage in the cafeteria? What kind of med school is this?

First Host Segment: The Old School; a university for the elderly as seen in the film ‘Ring of Terror.’ I’m not much of a fan of ‘old people’ jokes, but this is pretty funny.

Wait, his girlfriend is name ‘Betty Crocker?!’

Joel takes the last of the fat couple’s drink!

Servo (on the fat couple’s dance): “An interpretive dance showing how plate-tectonics work.”

Crow: “We’re thinking of taking advantage of the freshmen’s osteoporosis.”

I think the copy I’m watching skips a few scenes…grrr…Okay, I switched to a better-looking copy. Now I can really appreciate the ‘old student’ jokes.

Joel does some great ‘other-side’ dialogue for the phone scenes.

Padded scenes leading up to the autopsy…

Servo: “City Morgue; we deliver!”

I rather suspect they’re making a rather bigger deal of this whole ‘autopsy-nausea’ scene than generally happens in real med-schools.

Does the showing the corpse’s hand really warrant the horror chord?

Doctor: “John Doe left this world with one possession…”
Crow: “Dibs!”

Fat guy faints…and again…because it’s SO FUNNY!

Servo: “Say, uh, doctor guy, could we have some of those tools? We’ve got another one up here…”

Their quips during the autopsy montage are great.

Look, the hand with the ring is not inherently scary.

And Moffitt has a nightmare.

Kid: “Alice won’t even look at me.”
Crow: “Can you blame her, pug-boy?”

And the girls are randomly mad because the guys dumped them to go to A CLASS the last night! Come on, the girls in ‘Catalina Caper’ had a better reason!

Guy: “That’s right, the barbeque!”
Servo: “They’re gonna eat the body?!”

Second Host Segment: Mr. Hoover’s autopsy. It’s a HILARIOUS parody of the film’s scene; one of the best segments so far this season.

Guy: “Hey, what’s the story on you, Moffitt?”
Servo: “I’m a serial killer.”

Okay, so Moffitt’s afraid of the dark.

Crow (on an establishing shot): “Here at the coliseum, the vomitoriums are cleaned and readied for the day’s activities.”

And the frat-boys decide on what ritual humiliations they’re going to put the kids who for some reason want to join them through. I just don’t get fraternities.

Girl: “It’s the way you’ve been acting.”
Crow: “Woodenly.”

Moffitt and girl make up (still unclear why they were angry in the first place).

Joel’s right; the fat jokes were never funny and now they’re getting really stupid.

They’re trying to get someone to kill the annoying frat-boy.

(as the frat-boys dump water on the guy)
Servo: “And a bucket of battery acid!”

Crow: “I think the only plot was back in the graveyard.”

Joel: “There’s a million bushes in this naked city, and a million naked people behind them.”

Crow (as Moffitt’s girlfriend): “Oh, how I love that manly man o’mine! Well, off to find someone else…”

So, Moffitt goes to the cemetery for his hazing. Again, why do people go through this for some stupid, arbitrary group?

Crow (the hero pulls up in a cemetery): “Oh, he’s gonna go around to the drive-in window.”

I love their muffled ‘corpse’ voices as Moffitt walks through the graveyard.

They call back to ‘Puma! Puma!’ already!

(as Moffitt walks through the graveyard)
Crow (singing): “The hills are alive…oh, I guess not.”

(in a mausoleum)
Joel: “Hey, it actually says ‘you stab ‘em, we slab ‘em.’”

And Moffitt dies of fright when the cat screams and the corpse’s hand snags on him.

The narrator’s back to deliver the ironic epilogue. I’m guess this was intended as a pilot for an anthology horror series, but it wasn’t good enough.

Third Host Segment: Ram Chips for a good-and-bad thing about the movie (the keep dropping requests for Ram chips). It’s pretty good; their Ram-chip requests are great; especially Servo. Then they cut down the Deep 13 to introduce the short.

And back into the theater for the short!

You know, it was a really bad idea to put the short after the movie; I suspect they did it as an experiment, but it doesn’t work; it’s like serving the salad after the main course.

Odd moment where Joel claims that Willis Cooper was Eddie Haskell; that’s not even close to Eddie’s actor (Ken Osmond) or, frankly, any other ‘Leave it to Beaver’ cast member.

Another ‘Star Wars’ esque opening crawl.

(reading the opening crawl)
Crow: “’…by using a device which makes him invisible’ a contract to appear on the comedy channel!”
Man, they must have been feeling their oats that day!

So, the resolution of the cliff-hanger is that his unconscious body fell out of the car?! That’s the best they could do?

(hero misses and hits a tree)
Servo: “Oh, good Bob, you killed a sequoia.”

Bela steals a random guy’s car.

And more characters show up!

Guy 1: “Who do you think they are?”
Guy 2: “That’s what we’re gonna find out!”
Crow: “That’s not what I asked!

Good point…Servo just pointed out that all these guys look the same.

Bela shows off the ‘source of all his power’ it’s pretty vague.

And we wander around the three or four plot lines…

Evil Spy: “With it, we can conquer the world!”
Servo: “Then we start thinking big!”

Sidekick tries to control the robot; doesn’t go very well. At least it doesn’t try to kill him.

Crow: “Not even chauffeurs can resist the rich taste of ultimate power.”

You know, that robot does look a LOT like Richard Kiel…

And the heroes catch the sidekick who had been trying to smuggle the ‘source of ultimate power’ away.

Servo: “Yeah, let’s clown around with something we can’t possibly understand.”

Rather humorously, the heroes accidentally destroy all power sources around them, leading to the cliffhanger where a power-line tower falls across the road.

Final Host Segment: Song: “If Chauffeurs Ruled the World.” Frank is great here! Then Dr. F. tries to stop him by dropping the car on his head. He finishes anyway.

Stinger: “Weird. Yeah, I guess that is the word for it. Weird.”
Really good; a perfect, odd little moment; the sort of thing stingers were made for.

Movie Quality Rating:

1. The Crawling Eye
2. The Black Scorpion
3. Mad Monster
4. Rocketship XM
5. Moon Zero Two
6. The Crawling Hand
7. Catalina Caper
8. Jungle Goddess
9. The Corpse Vanishes
10. Ring of Terror
11. Untamed Youth
12. The Slime People
13. Project Moonbase
14. The Sidehackers
15. Women of the Prehistoric Planet
16. Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
17. Rocket Attack USA
18. Robot Holocaust
19. Robot Monster

Conclusion: A lame, stupid little movie with decent riffing makes this a decent episode, though marred slightly by the poorly-conceived experiment of following the movie with the short.

Final Rating: 6.5/10.

An Appreciation for The War of the Worlds

As I’ve mentioned before, I love the fifties in general and fifties sci-fi in particular. I don’t really know what exactly draws me to these films, except that they’re so fun, yet so innocent and wondrous. These are the kind of movies you would want to grow up on as a kid; not much cynicism, admirable heroes and, most of all, fantastic sights to jump-start the imagination. Plus, they're often quite good movies to boot.
There is something not often touched on with these films (generally if people feel they must see any deeper meaning in them, they just say ‘anti-communist propaganda’ and leave it at that). Despite the overwhelming number of films whose primary focus was the wonders and terrors of science, there remained in most of them a certain ambivalence about science. The films were generally not only about what science might be able to do, but also (and generally to a greater extent) what it shouldn’t do. The villains in these films were more often than not men (or aliens) who have let their lust for knowledge override their humanity. This can be presented either as a good thing taken too far (‘The Thing From Another World,’ ‘It Conquered the World,’ etc.) or as an actual loss of humanity and force of evil (‘The Brain From Planet Arous,’ etc.). Not only that, but almost always the threat in the film is either the end result or a side effect of some advancement in science. The Rhedosaur in ‘The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,’ for instance, is awakened by a nuclear test. The monster in ‘It Conquered the World’ came to Earth by riding on a man-made satellite.
This ambivalence to science is perhaps best demonstrated in two of the era’s best films; ‘The War of the Worlds’ and ‘Forbidden Planet.’ In ‘Forbidden Planet,’ the question is what happens when science goes too far; when technology outstrips the ability and worthiness of the operator. ‘The War of the Worlds,’ on the other hand, is about nothing less than the limits of what science can offer.
‘The War of the Worlds’ is a film often criticized for its strong religious themes. This is understandable, to an extent, as author H.G. Wells himself was an avowed atheist. No doubt he would have been furious at the ideas imposed on his story. The themes of the novel have been discussed and interpreted many times (my personal favorite interpretation being Isaac Asimov’s contention that it is a colonial reversal story, with England being colonized as surely and ruthlessly as it colonized other lands). However, the book is most assuredly not meant to be about turning to God to face evil (indeed, the religious characters presented in the book are ripe-picking for the Martians). On the other hand, I’m sure Wells’ close friend, G.K. Chesterton, would have appreciated the film’s themes. Indeed, the film could perhaps be summed up as Wells’ story told from Chesterton’s point of view.
The story of ‘The War of the Worlds’ is familiar to most people; war machines, supposedly from Mars, land on Earth. The forces of humanity rally against them, but prove no match for the superior alien technology. Finally, when all seems lost, the aliens are defeated by the Earth bacteria which they have no defense against.
Most of the film is seen through the eyes of Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry), a scientist who is among the first to encounter the aliens. Initially, he is fascinated by them. “This is amazing!” he says, his voice dripping with excitement, as the war machines emerge. All his excitement and scientific curiosity is soon forgotten, however, as he beholds the terrible events of the war. Like all wars, the battle with the Martians causes Forrester to re-examine what is important in his life. In the end, this great man of science is left alone, beaten and disheveled, searching a deserted, besieged city for the one he loves.
In the end of the movie, the strength that men trusted; their science, their courage, all that they could do proves not enough. The military, for all its advanced weapons, proves utterly helpless against the far superior Martian machines (indeed, calling the events of the film a ‘war’ is generous; the Martians more or less walk right over the humans). Even an atom bomb, the most terrible weapon that man’s science could ever devise, has absolutely no effect on the alien invaders. After the a-bomb fails, Forrester comments that since they can’t beat the Martians machines, they’ll “have to beat them,” meaning a biological weapon of some sort. This too fails, however, not because of the Martian’s defenses, but because of man’s failings. As the scientists evacuate Los Angeles, intending to work on their new attack elsewhere, a looting mob waylays and destroys mankind’s last hope to save itself.
I commented that the film’s ambivalence about science is a Chestertonian idea. Along with that, the film has a rather Tolkien-esque subtext in its battle scenes; namely, a lament about the horrors of machine warfare. More than once the film applauds the courage of the military, both implicitly by showing their great sacrifice and courage in battle and explicitly by having the narrator (Cedric Hardwick) praise the defenders for their strength and tenacity.
The problem is, it doesn’t matter. All the courage and skill of the soldiers of the entire world doesn’t matter because the Martians have better machines. It’s significant that the Martians have no foot soldiers; they fight entirely from their machines. To the audience, they effectively are their machines. We see the aliens themselves only twice, and briefly; once when one surprises Forrester and Sylvia (Ann Robinson), his girlfriend, while they’re hiding in an abandoned farmhouse, and again when the Martians fall and die, we see one Martian arm reaching out to touch the Earth it sought to conquer. In both instances we are not only repulsed by the aliens, but we feel sympathy for them. In the farm house, the alien seems more curious than anything and shields its eyes from the bright light of the flashlight Forrester trains on it. In this way, it seems almost like the Martians are themselves victims of their machine-dominated culture. They have sacrificed themselves entirely to their machines and not only can they do nothing without them, their machines actually separate them from the goals they use them to achieve.
Yet, the machines are ultimately controlled by the Martians, who are shown to be utterly merciless. The first casualties are three men trying to welcome the invaders with a white flag and words of friendship. Right before the first battle, Sylvia’s uncle, a local pastor, walks out with his Bible hoping to remind the invaders of their common creator, only to be annihilated in the middle of a prayer by the Martians’ heat ray. Right before this he commented that if the Martians were more advanced than us, “they should be nearer their creator for that reason.” This line calls to mind Chesterton’s comments on progress; that growing more advanced doesn’t necessarily represent real progress and to be civilized means more than technology.
So, in the end of The War of the Worlds, mankind’s science has failed in the face of the superior science of the invaders and the sinful nature of mankind itself. Man’s courage and will to live have proven no match for the soulless machines which their enemies send against them. In the end, all mankind can do is turn to God and pray for a miracle. In the end, the military flees and the men of science take refuge in a church, in the arms of those they care about.
Leading up to the end, Forrester searches for Sylvia in three churches. In each, everyone is praying on their knees for deliverance. In the Catholic church he enters, he finds two of his friends and colleagues praying together (there also is a priest highlighted leading some children in the Rosary). Finally, when he finds her, all they can do is hold each other as the implacable war machine bears down on them.
In the end, of course, the miracle comes. The soulless Martians are defeated, not by anything man can do, but by a literal act of God. They are defeated at the very gates of ‘God’s House,’ falling silently to the ground. “We were praying for a miracle…” Forrester says as he stands over the dead Martian machine. Earlier, Forrester had pointed out that as the Martians are mortal, they must have mortal weaknesses. They were, and they did, and they were struck down by the creator they had ignored or forgotten. The Martians, who seemed like gods, were destroyed by the one true God. In the end, the film says, there will be things we cannot do on our own; threats we cannot defeat with our tools; evil too strong and ruthless for us to face. In the face of these threats, all we can do is pray while holding on to what is really important.

MST3K – Episode 205: Rocket Attack USA (With Short: The Phantom Creeps; Episode 2)

This is one of those episodes which I didn’t enjoy so much when I first saw it, but upon reviewing it I found it to be hilarious; one of the best yet.

We start off with another episode of ‘The Phantom Creeps.’ The resolution to last week’s cliffhanger was…they survived the plane crash. Okay, but we saw it explode and turn over, so…Well, anyway, Bela’s wife isn’t one of the survivors, which leads to a pretty affecting moment when Bela finds her body. We get some really good acting from Lugosi here, as he realizes he’s killed his wife, but can’t mourn her without giving himself away. As for the rest…I really don’t remember a lot of what happened; the hero and reporter-girl team up, and there’s another spy ring out to steal Bela’s invention and then…well, no matter because we’re not gonna get the whole serial anyway (incidentally, that I think is one of the big flaws with the ‘serial’ shorts; we can’t really get into it because we know we’re just going to get part of the story).

The movie itself is a Cold War Propaganda film (a real one; not one made during the Cold War a labeled ‘propaganda’ by a smarmy critic decades later). The film makes no bones about it, with the narrator letting us know right away that the film is designed to drum up support for US Military spending. The story is about a spy sent behind the iron curtain to discover and destroy the Soviet ICBM program. He hooks up with a female spy (in more ways than one) who’s been sleeping with a Soviet general. Turns out the Reds are way ahead of us and, with the dubious help of a British spy (who has no accent whatsoever, by the way), they try to blow up the rocket. They fail miserably, despite the fact that there aren’t a lot of guards around (Servo later describes it as being ‘guarded by a photo-mat’). They’re both killed and the rocket is launched. New York get’s nuked and we end with a warning not to let this happen.

Now, as most of you know (say, four out of our five readers), I’m a political and social conservative, and very fond of the 1950’s. Few things bug me more than people sneering at the Cold War and acting as though the Soviet Union was no worse than we were and the whole thing was just a ‘they’re different, so they must be bad’ thing (Dr. Seuss, I’m talking to you). With that being said, this movie was far too heavy handed and fear-mongering for me. I’m probably more tolerant of propaganda (at least, in very certain situations) than most people, but this film was frankly pretty disgusting. Add that to the extreme cheapness and wooden acting, and you have a pretty awful movie.

The riffing, though, is great; lots and lots of hilarious riffs on the film’s woodenness, jingoism, stupidity, and heavy-handedness abound. The host segments are generally great too; my favorite being the ‘Charlie McCarthy hearings; even funnier now that I’m familiar with Charlie. The only thing that really marred the episode for me were the sneers at the Cold War (as mentioned above), although that wasn’t a really big deal, and one frankly tasteless joke about ‘The Conqueror.’ Guys, some things just aren’t comedic material, and a real-life tragedy like that is one of them.

Still, these aren’t enough to ruin the episode by a long shot and this is probably the high-water mark of the series so far.

One final note; this episode includes the very first ‘Stinger.’ Stingers were short (say, five second) clips from the movie that they’re play after the end credits. Usually, they were of a particularly, odd, stupid, bad, or funny moment in the film. This one is of a blind man walking down the street and suddenly saying ‘help me!’ It’s a great little clip, and you see why they wanted to draw more attention to it.

Thoughts while watching:

Opening song has some extra scenes; the invention exchanges from the previous episode.

Opening: Tom gets a hair-cut. You see, the executives thought Servo’s head was covering too much of the screen, so they make his head smaller here. It’s pretty funny, really.

Invention exchange: Joel; WAS going to do the Mexican-jumping-bean-bag-chair, but Gypsy ate it, so he makes a candy-adding machine (“You can eat your loses if things go bad”). The Mads; water foosball. Frank’s really starting to come into his own here.

So, another episode of the “The Phantom Creeps.”

Crow (as Bela): “This is my skull; stick around and see how that happened.”

You know, the ‘forward’ here is exactly like the one in ‘Star Wars!’

Pick up from last time…

Wife: “This wasn’t in my bag when I left.”

Servo: “Oh, a klepto, eh?”

(explosion)

Crow: “Woah! Now how do you feel about spontaneous human combustion?”

(as the plane crashes)

Crow (as girl): “I didn’t think you’d mind if I took the last parachute, thanks.”

What the…hey, the plane blew up! How is he completely uninjured?

You know, Bela’s a pretty decent guy in this one, or at least a human one. He just pulled over to help the girl for no reason other than he’s a gentleman!

Bela’s very good in the scene where he realizes he’s accidentally killed his wife; he gets some genuine emotion, both from the obvious irony and the fact that he can’t express his real emotions because he’s supposed to be hiding from the law. It’s really an affecting little scene.

Girl: “My paper would like an official statement from you.”

Crow (as hero): “’Get bent!’ Is that official enough for you?”

Crow (during ‘newspaper’ montage): “Extra! Extra! Fire Hydrant attacked by newspapers.”

Man, there is so much going on in this serial! There’s Bela, being evil, there’s the bad spies trying to get his invention, then there’s the heroes, and I’m pretty sure there’s even more.

(as a guard grabs Bela’s sidekick)

Crow (Elmer Fudd voice): “Be vewy qweit! I’m hunting swidekwicks!”

Sidekick: “I’m ready; get the robot to open the door.”

Servo (as Bela): “Alright…hey! I give the orders around here!”

Man, everyone just picks up those little discs in this film!

Joel’s riffs on the robot are hilariously perfect!

Joel: “Oh, be proud, you shot a spider!”

(sidekick has been shot)

Girl: “Is he dead?”

Hero: “No, just stunned.”

Crow: “’Just stunned?’ he took six bullets!”

The origin of the perennial favorite; “the driver is either gone or he’s hiding.” (said in a vaguely Reagan-esque voice).

And the guy just takes another one of those discs!

Crow (as Bela): “Ha ha! I kill me! And others too!”

First Host Segment: The Charlie McCarthy era. This is a hilarious sketch, even with the leftist jokes they do a little of.

When Joel hands Servo over I guess Kevin missed him cause he falls over. He just goes with it very well.

Servo: “Albert Smiler as a sad guy.”

So, basically this is a flat out propaganda flick.

That scientist guy does look sad and ashamed!

Narrator: “It wasn’t long before a coded message reached the desk of George White…”

Crow: “It said ‘drink more ovaltine.’”

So, the US sends an agent into Russia to find out how far their rocket program is.

The narrator laments that the Russian people didn’t want the military to take over. Uh, it’s a totalitarian regime, bud; the will of the people isn’t exactly the government’s first priority.

Joel gets up to beg for some service for the hero!

Good riffs on the café and the dancing girl.

Servo: “This must be the ‘Wine List Players’”

Man, the hero and his contact couldn’t be more obvious if they DID just come out and say they were spies!

Crow: “It’s the Pope on banjo!”

(it does kind of look like JPII)

Servo (as girl): “I think I’ll check the rat-trap…nope, no dinner tonight.”

(as the hero comes in)

Girl: “Did anyone see you?”

Crow: “No, just the guy in the club, the belly-dancer, the fire-eater, the cab-driver, everyone on the street, and the guy filming this.”

Girl: “What are your plans.”

Servo: “Uh, you just burned my plans.”

The hero talks his way into staying with the girl.

Joel’s ‘other side’ dialogue in the phone scene is hilarious; particularly the squeaky little voice he does.

Second Host Segment: Civil Defense Quiz Bowl. It’s pretty funny, despite a tasteless joke about ‘The Conqueror’. Crow’s final answer is great.

Hero: “Hard to believe a group of civilized men could sit around discussing how to murder five or six million others.”

Joel: “That’s why we’ve got to CRUSH them!”

The narrator narrates the meeting of the Russian government’s plans to nuke the US with all the emotion of a college golf match.

Really wooden dialogue leading up to a kiss. Whatever. I don’t care.

Hey! I think these are their first ‘Tor Johnson’ jokes (the one Russian looks like him). He’ll show up a few times later on in the series.

Hilarious bit where the Russian generals walk onto what looks like a firing line.

Yeah, the missile is clearly not there, there’s no shadow!

More good ‘other side’ quips for Joel.

And the hero teams up with a Brit (who has no accent whatsoever) and heads out to join the girl and take out the rocket. They trust each other pretty much implicitly.

Brit dumps the girl and hero right away.

These are the most incompetent spies in history!

Hah! The hero’s voice is echoing! There must have been trouble in dubbing.

Joel uses his ‘Bela’ voice for the guards.

And British guy get caught.

Interrogation with ‘audition’ quips.

Man, two call backs in one quip; ‘chili peppers burn my gut’ and ‘hamburger sandwich and French-fried potatoes.’

And girl gets shot, but she shoots the guard too.

There’s only ONE guard protecting the rocket’s perimeter.

You know, at this point, I would just detonate the thing and let it take me up too. I mean, there’s no way he’s getting out in secret and it’s pretty obvious what he just did.

Yeah, like I said, the Russians just take the bomb off.

Rather hilarious scene where the Russian soldier takes the bomb off and runs into the darkness and we hear an explosion.

Crow: “Uh, did I tell you to throw it?”

And the hero gets killed.

Cut to a reporter going to work despite his wife’s wishes, saying that if there’s an attack, there won’t be anything he can do for her anyway (!) and that he can do more good on the air.

Servo (as wife): “But you host the matinee movie, Bill!”

Third Host Segment: Servo starts having doubts about his hair-cut, and Joel’s Russian counterpart Sorri Andropoli (ironically played by Mike Nelson) visits. And the Hexfield is finally complete in its iris form! Now the set is pretty much complete; there’ll be some minor changes, but nothing major from now until the end of the series.

Now in New York, which is about to get bombed, where we see the oblivious, happy people.

Joel (on a weird guy): “I’m Mr. Dirt; I come here everyday and watch the filth.”

Ironically, the reporter guy says things are ‘brighter.’

Everyone is extremely wooden in this film! Crow emphasizes this by reading the punctuation marks for the reporter.

Every time the film cuts to the Russians Joel and the bots imitate the stilted narrator. This is one of those rare bits that just get funnier each time.

This IS really dull, Joel! We just cut back and forth from the rocket to a guy at the controls, with an annoying little beeping.

Joel: “That rocket’s run by real-to-real; it wasn’t until the seventies that they were run by eight-track.”

Stock footage and REALLY bad special effects to demonstrate the rocket’s launch.

Servo (as teenager-eating-pizza): “Oh, this is no time to die, I just got a single slice!”

And no one cares about the air-raid siren because their too used to it.

Crow (as reporter): “Remember that good stuff I told you about earlier? Well, forget it!”

Come on, this set is a blank wall!

Time wasting stock footage. Incidentally, I think we’ve already seen this stock footage of missiles once and we’ll see it again.

‘Panic.’

The presses actually stop!

Reporter: “Soldiers are asked to report to their bases as soon as they safely can.”

Crow: “Like in about five-thousand years.”

Reporter apologizes to his wife over the air.

General: “Get me the White House.”

Servo: “I quit.”

And New York gets nuked.

Final Host Segment: Joel and the bots complain. It’s hilarious! I love Tom’s ‘the missile guarded by the photo-mat’ comment. Weird letter; really weird letter.

Very First Stinger! Blind man on the street saying ‘Help me.’ A good start to the tradition.

Movie Quality Rating:

1. The Crawling Eye

2. The Black Scorpion

3. Mad Monster

4. Rocketship XM

5. Moon Zero Two

6. The Crawling Hand

7. Catalina Caper

8. Jungle Goddess

9. The Corpse Vanishes

10. Untamed Youth

11. The Slime People

12. Project Moonbase

13. The Sidehackers

14. Women of the Prehistoric Planet

15. Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy

16. Rocket Attack USA

17. Robot Holocaust

18. Robot Monster

Conclusion: A very bad propaganda movie, riffed very well and with some fun host-segments make this one of the best episodes so far.

Final Rating: 8/10.