This one took me a long time to get through. It’s not a bad episode, but just a combination of other commitments and laziness meant that this was a very disjointed reviewing experience.
Of course, the movie is pretty disjointed too. Basically, here’s what happened: It was a Japanese TV show. Then it was edited down into two or three movies. Then it was further edited down into the monstrosity we are reviewing today. There is zero continuity, characters and plot points emerge without warning and vanish just as soon, leaving nothing but ripples of confusion in their wake. At any point in the film the characters could suddenly be anywhere, doing anything and their relationships and attitudes can change without warning.
The plot we have left involves two children and their babysitter/teacher who go on a field trip to a science facility. There an earthquake hits, stranding them in freezing capsules which somehow transport them to a future ruled by apes…or an alternate dimension, or something! In any case, it’s “Planet of the Apes” as a Japanese TV show, edited down from perhaps thirty episodes to less than ninety minutes. The kids and lady meet up with Godo, a human resistance fighter or something, who has a feud with Gebar (really unfortunate name there), one of the ape officers who blames Godo for killing his wife and kids. Then the humans join up with ape child Pepe (whose gender is a mystery until the very end), there’s a semi-good ape commander, a flying saucer, a lot of escapes, and then it ends with the kids and lady back in the present and Godo trapped forever in an endless wasteland. Good times!
After the discontinuity, the worst thing about this movie is the ape costumes. See, the masks don’t move. At all. The apes can’t even open their mouths. This isn’t just the Planet of the Apes; it’s the Planet of the Ventriloquist Apes!
The riffing is pretty strong here, with numerous ‘monkey’ jokes, observations on the bad dubbing, and comments on the lack of continuity. The guys always love ape jokes, and here they come thick and fast as a troop of monkeys flinging…well, they come often and are generally pretty funny.
The host segments are pretty great too, with a darkly hilarious ‘Why doesn’t Johnny Care?’ a surreal ‘scopes monkey trial’ sketch, and an amusing turn by Crow delivering the ‘Ape Fashion Show.’ So, all in all, a solid episode, though the movie is a chore to get through.
Opening: Baseball season on the SOL! Joel puts one out the window and causes explosive decompression.
Invention: Gypsy patches up the hole. This might be the first time she chews them out in the motherly fashion she’ll later develop. Joel’s invention is the cellulite phone which reminds people to stay on their diets (it inflates when you order the wrong food). Frank has developed a miracle growth baby formula. It works…a little too well. Both are pretty amusing.
Another Sandy Frank film.
The credits play over still images of apes and monkeys.
And we open at breakfast in Japan where little Johnny is chowing down in preparation to going to visit a science lab.
(as Johnny)
Joel: “Off to meet my doom mom, see you after school.”
Johnny is joined by a little girl and a woman named Katherine who is their guide.
They talk about cold-sleep: cryogenic freezing.
Johnny’s shorts are very short indeed. Don’t the Japanese know how creepy that is?
Scientist expresses concern over an earthquake warning, but notes casually that “nothing will happen suddenly.” What, do earthquakes build up visibly before they strike?
And the scientist shows them the freezing process on one of the monkeys.
Crow (on the frozen monkey): “Kitty! It’s Snowball!”
Servo: “Rug-doctor: Steaming mad at monkeys!”
And they see a room with capsules for human freezing.
Johnny: “It’s just like they’re really dead. But they’re not!”
Joel: “But their souls are.”
Johnny goes into one of the capsules.
Katherine: “Now get out. Or I’ll get very angry.”
(earthquake strikes)
Crow: “See?”
Well, so much for the ‘won’t happen suddenly’ theory.
And the lab is destroyed while Katherine and the kids hide in the capsules, and are frozen when a rock hits the plot-contrivance switch.
Apparently the whole freezing process is controlled by a single lever.
Then they wake up on beds in the lab (now intact)
Joel (on the capsules): “It’s the Daleks!”
Servo: “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!”
(they do indeed look a little like Daleks.”
They open a door (several times) to find a lecture hall full of apes!
Servo: “It’s a whole planet of Ron Perlmans!”
And the apes capture them and tie them to a tree
Katherine (to the girl, Caroline): “Don’t be afraid, we’re with you.”
Crow: “We’re doomed, but with you.”
And the apes start feeling their hair (yes, it’s kind of random).
Caroline: “What are they going to do to us?”
Servo: “I hope they lower your voice.”
Johnny: “I don’t want to be killed by a monkey!”
Crow: “I want to die by my own hand!”
Crow (on the advancing ape commander): “Come on, girls! We’re gonna give ‘em a makeover they won’t believe!”
And now they carry them off to a slag heap to, apparently, kill them (it’s kind of unclear).
They escape by…well, just running, since the apes are really bad shots.
The apes finally speak…to say “don’t let them get away.”
Joel: “Good plan.”
So they run through a forest…
Reach a bridge…
They cross hand-over-hand under the bridge.
Joel randomly comments that “It’s good to have thumbs,” much to the bots’ confusion.
By the way, do guards really check up on every small splash when patrolling a bridge?
Katherine: “Come on, this way.”
Crow: “Oh, like you know where you’re going!”
They come to a house and sneak inside since they don’t see anyone.
Crow: “Hey, let’s hide in the refrigerator and freeze ourselves back.
The owner comes in and runs off screaming, then a child ape shows up and welcomes them.
First Host Segment: ‘Why doesn’t Johnny Care’? Servo narrates, Crow provides the projector noises. It’s very amusing and kind of bizarre. Ends with the classic line “A mind like Johnny’s is a terrible thing to unleash.”
Ape kid helps them escape (we later learn her name is Pepe).
Ape mob (there’s an ape mob chasing them for some reason) stops at the boundary to some forest which the apes are scared to enter.
We meet two ape villains we have not seen before then cut back to the humans.
By the way, the ape masks are immobile: their lips don’t move at all when they speak. This lends a rather surreal quality to the movie.
The humans cross a barbed-wire fence and Johnny narrowly survives a trap.
Crow: “Betcha care now, don’t you?”
The girl (Caroline) panics and gets caught in a net.
Crow: “Hey, I got a great, kooky idea: let’s pretend she’s a piñata…”
Guy with a gun shows up.
Servo: “Stephen Segal in ‘Shoot the monkey.’”
They all are pretty happy to find another human and immediately assume he’s on their side.
Katherine: “We came here in a very strange way…”
Joel: “By refrigerator.”
After a brief cut to the apes, the guy (Godot) leads them to his cave.
Johnny: “Is this where you live?”
Crow: “No this is my summer home, what d’you think?”
Katherine: “Do you live here with your parents?”
Joel: “No they’re dead, DEAD, DEAD!”
Servo: “That Johnny is a walking faux-pas.”
Katherine deduces that, since Godot is here, there must be other humans.
Godot (to Katherine): “Those clothes are very torn.”
Servo: “They’re going to have to come off.”
The apes are passing the barbed wire, reluctantly.
And Pepe returns (randomly).
And Pepe arrives in the cave to warn Godot and friends.
The apes are burning the mountain.
Ape leader (waving a gun): “Kill him! Kill him!”
Crow: “Hey, you could kill him with that gun!”
Johnny: “Godot help!”
Crow: “Go to hell? Hey, he feeds you, he takes you into his home and this is your thanks!?”
On Pepe in the forest fire…
Crow: “He’s a crispy critter, kid.”
And the apes capture them again.
Ape: “Godot, are you ready to die?”
Servo: “Uh, frankly no.”
The execution is interrupted by the arrival of the ape leader, whom Crow immediately identifies as Colonel Sanders.
Leader orders humans released (no idea why). Godot immediately attacks him and gets beat down.
And a flying saucer shows up…
Now the leader orders the humans taken to headquarters…no, it makes no sense.
Gebar (ape police chief): “I request your permission to kill him!”
(Leader glares at him)
Joel: “On the other hand you’re right, of course, can I have a new desk?”
Leader: “I do not hurt innocent people.”
Servo: “I have assistants for that.”
Servo: “The king of the apes rides in style in the new Buick Skylark.”
Second host segment: Their version for the Scopes Monkey Trial. It’s surreally hilarious.
(On the electric fence in Godot’s cell)
Joel: “Ah, a bug zapper! I checked in but I can’t check out!”
And Pepe to the rescue! She breaks them out using the air-vents.
Pepe apparently always carries a screwdriver.
Servo: “Great, welcome to plot contrivance play-house.”
Crow: “Bye, keep in touch, scream if you get killed!”
And Gebar walks in to kill Godot.
Gebar: “At last I have lived to see the day when I will kill you.”
Crow: “Well, it’s nice to have goals.”
And he just stands there gloating for about a minute…
Then there is a series of VERY fast cuts between Godot and Gebar.
Crow: “Ah! Suddenly the editor goes for an Oscar!”
Leader: “If you had not disobeyed things would be different!”
Servo: “Not better, just different.”
And Godot, Johnny, and Pepe hide in an army truck.
Oh, come on, clear riot masks disguise them?
Ape: “Didn’t they run away and leave you here to die?”
Crow: “Hey, you’re right! Give me a banana, I’m joining you!”
Another inexplicable shot of the saucer.
Guard: “What are you doing here?”
Servo (as Pepe): “I’m a traitor to my species.”
Anyway, Pepe, Godot, and Johnny plan to rescue Caroline and Katherine. They use the old “Straw cart” trick. In a futuristic society.
Servo: “Huh, kid talking to hay, nothing wrong with that…”
And they find the girls, much tears.
Servo: “Hey, how about a little sugar for Godot.”
They argue about leaving or not. Katherine likes the commander…
They drag her out.
And cut to a shoot out on an old-west lot. Yes, just like that.
The saucer shows up again.
Wacky comic music starts as the ape’s weapons are disabled by the saucers.
Crow: “McKale’s Navy goes to the Planet of the Apes!”
And cut again to them sneaking by a road.
They steal a jeep…apes chase them…I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY DRAGGED THIS THING OUT TO A WHOLE SERIES!
And they park to discuss the saucer…
You know what? I’m not even going to try to describe the plot anymore: just role with it.
Commander shows up at a base amid protests…
Pepe: “Where are we going?”
Servo: “Do the words ‘shallow grave’ mean anything to you?”
Godot: “I’m taking you home.”
Joel: “Home? Where my thoughts escape me? Home? Where I comb my facey?”
Pepe arrives back home, blah blah blah…
Everyone seems really happy about leaving Pepe and Pepe seems really eager to dump her mom minutes after reuniting.
Really funny/dark bit where slow-motion Pepe running is accompanied by gun-shots.
(They’re driving, talking about Pepe)
Crow: “*Bumpbump* Oh, Pepe!”
Anyway, they now run into Gebar one last time.
Third Host Segment: Ape Fashion show. Crow is great here: it’s bizarrely hilarious.
Anyway, the flying saucer shows up and shows Gebar that Godot didn’t actually kill his family.
Saucer: “UCOM has ordered that there shall be a stop to all further killing.”
Servo: “Or you will be killed.”
Crow: “He’s an ape and he can’t hang on to a rope?!”
Gebar: “I killed my own son?!”
Joel (as the saucer flies off): “Hurts don’t it? Bye!”
And the commander shows up, offers for them to live together in peace, they turn him down because they’re different. Commander gives a half-hearted message.
Servo: “Message. This is the message, people!”
Godot: “The entrance must be somewhere behind the mountain.”
Servo: “Oh, that narrows it down.”
And they go into a big door in the mountainside, then…there’s some stuff (honestly, that’s the only way I can describe it).
Turns out they’re back in the human world.
The doctors are pretty cheerful about the fact that “they won’t get over it for some time.”
Godot turns out to be lost forever in a desert wasteland while the others have ice cream and talk about him. Happy ending!
Final host segment: the Sandy Frank song. Rather harsh in retrospect, considering how much Sandy Frank himself disliked it. Then they read a letter. The baby pushes the button.
Stinger: Johnny: “I don’t care.” Just right! A truly odd little moment (and probably the attitude of the filmmakers as well).
Movie Quality Rating:
1. Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
2. The Crawling Eye
3. The Black Scorpion
4. Gamera vs. Barugon
5. Mad Monster
6. Lost Continent
7. Gamera
8. First Spaceship to Venus
9. Stranded in Space
10. Rocketship XM
11. Moon Zero Two
12. Godzilla vs. Megalon
13. The Crawling Hand
14. Catalina Caper
15. King Dinosaur
16. Jungle Goddess
17. Wild Rebels
18. The Corpse Vanishes
19. Ring of Terror
20. Untamed Youth
21. The Slime People
22. Project Moonbase
23. The Sidehackers
24. Women of the Prehistoric Planet
25. Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
26. Cave Dwellers
27. Tim of the Apes
28. Pod People
29. Hellcats
30. Rocket Attack USA
31. Robot Holocaust
32. Robot Monster
Conclusion: Awful movie and good riffing and host-segments make for a solid entry.
Final Rating: 7/10.
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