MST3K – Episode 110: Robot Holocaust (with shorts: Commando Cody & the Radar Men from the Moon (partial))

This is a rather famous episode, and justly so; the movie shown here is the first of the ‘eighties sci-fi’ flicks which they’ve seen, and it’s a HILARIOUSLY awful movie. Not quite in the same league as ‘Robot Monster,’ but close (again, for an overview of this movie’s charms, check out the typically hilarious and insightful review at http://jabootu.net/?p=621).
Okay, here’s the plot, as well as I can gather it; it’s the Future, after the apocalypse (according to the opening narration, this was caused by a robot rebellion). The robots rule, the humans are slaves, kept in servitude by ‘The Dark One’ (whose imaginative name is typical of the film’s writing). The Dark One keeps them enslaved by controlling their air and threatening to turn off the air-cleaner and poison them all. Except that a surprising number of people, including Amazons, Mutants, and…some other group are immune to it (our hero, Neo, comes from the latter group).
Anyway, some scientist named Jorn invents a device to allow the few people who aren’t immune breath the poison air (oddly, it goes on the side of the head). The robots capture him and his daughter joins up with Neo and an annoying comic-relief robot (And a few random slave guys) to trek out of the city, then back again to destroy the Dark One (maybe it was just the print I was watching, or the riffing, but I had no idea what they were trying accomplish by leaving the city).
They have some time-wasting adventures, including a confrontation with some Amazons, and eventually make their way back to the air-processing plant, where the Dark One dwells.
Also there is the Dark One’s number-one gal, Valeria. Often in MST3K there is a specific character in the film who captures the Brains’ imagination. Valeria is definitely that one here; she’s an aggressively terrible actress (considering the general level of acting talent on display here, the mere fact that she stands out so much is pretty indicative of how bad she is) with a very strange accent which seems to get worse and worse as the film goes on.
Riff-wise, the film is pretty mediocre; rather standard for season one. This is one of those movies you wish they could do over again with the whole crew; with the skill they develop over the next season or two, this could have been an all-time classic. They get off some good riffs, of course, but it’s rather frustrating to know that they could have done so much better later on. The host-segments are amusing, but there aren’t any stand outs (my favorite is the third, where Tom tries to get Joel and Crow to play his post-apocalyptic adventure and gives himself the best role).
This episode also is the first example of the thankfully rare editing decisions which are simply inexcusable; here it’s the decision to cut off the short (another Cody serial episode) about halfway. The thing that makes this especially galling is that if they had cut the movie’s credits and maybe a scene or two in the rest of the film, they could have easily watched the entire short. What’s more, the credits don’t inspire any good riffs; indeed, they seem pretty bored during them. And, just to add some more salt to the wound, they leave before the credits are done, and we just watch the credits for about a minute without any riffs whatsoever! It makes me almost literally mad when they do this sort of thing, but fortunately they almost never do (indeed, off the top of my head I can only think of one other example, and we’ll reach that one soon enough).
So, frankly, I was a little disappointed with this one; its reputation led me to expect more, but about the only thing that really made it was the movie itself.

Thoughts while Watching:

Opening; Joel explains the premise again. Crow’s jaw is really messed up and his controlling wire is really distracting.

Invention Exchange: Joel; Nitro-burning-funny pipe; Joel lights a match on Crow. It’s kind of a weird one. Mads; ski-mask with expressions. It’s pretty funny, despite Dr. Earhart’s voice, which is really getting to me.

More Commando Cody (although not for long here)…

Servo: “Right in the plywood!”

This was actually one of the better cliffhangers; Cody’s sidekick’s air hose broke. The resolution is kind of lame, though; Cody simply reattaches it. Still, it beats another car-crash.

Joel: “Ted, we can’t take your puppet everywhere!”

Yeah, it’s a moon-car; why do they need to ‘ditch it’?

And they capture the moon-man, and just order him to go to his quarters; they don’t even post a guard on the guy! Well, even the bad-guys were polite back then.

The Film broke? That’s pretty lame, especially since, like I’ve said before I love serials. I guess they didn’t have quite enough time to show both the short and the film, but frankly if that was the case they should have edited the film a bit more; this is just disappointing. Joel and the bots seem pretty disappointed too. I think this was the only time they did this, thank goodness.

Anyway, Robot Holocaust; classic bad movie from the eighties. Their first color movie (again, not counting ‘Women of the Prehistoric Planet’).

Narrator fills us in; Servo will quote this for years. “The world had been brought to its knees by the…Robot Holocaust!”

Lame sorta-gladiatorial fight.

More narration.

One robot is picking pockets in a VERY obvious manner; he just walks up to a guy and reaches for his pocket. He looks a bit like C-3PO and he has a VERY annoying voice.

Joel wants to join the fight.

Evil robot; ‘Kiiilll hiiimmm!’

Old guy is a terrible actor! Of course, so is everyone here.

Mean robot is ‘Torq.’

First host segment: the ‘We-Zone;’ a world that revolves around the bots and only the bots. It’s mildly amusing; the bots make Joel do a lot of tricks. And some very fake Joel-legs. (incidentally, this segment refers to something that hasn’t happened in the film yet. They do that sometimes.)

So, the Dark One notices the old guy could breath, but not the hero-guy. Not very observant for an evil overlord.

I like how no one reacts to hero-guy grabbing the girl.

Girl: “Who are you to keep me from my father?”
Crow: “Dave,”

So, the annoying-robot guy talks for the hero (whose name is ‘Neo,’ by the way). No, wait, he’s talking for himself now; that was a short-lived plot point (thank goodness).

Wait, why does the breathing thing go in her temple?

Neo sounds like he’s reading his lines off a cue-card (which he probably is).

Servo: “I guess it’s a wasteland, if you ignore that big city behind you.”

Well-tended wasteland with a clear foot-path. Right.

Time-wasting encounter with Amazons.

Amazon: “I am yours to do what you want with me.”
Crow: “Alright!”

Man, these people cannot act at ALL!

Valeria: “Dew yew untersand?”
Joel: “No, none of us understand!”

Valeria is probably the worst actress here; and that’s REALLY saying something.

Jorn (old guy): “I have nothing to say.”
Joel: “Except for what I just said.”

Valeria: “Torq, take him to the Room of Questions!”
Crow: “Where is the Room of Questions?”

Underground cavern. Why? Because we need to pad out the running time.

Sock-puppet monsters! Joel is moving his hands like the puppets!

I really can’t follow the story here; but the film is so ridiculous it really doesn’t matter.

Extra gets bitten because of his own stupidity.

Servo: “This whole movie is just socks and violence.”

Servo: “This is some good work for the out-of-work hand models.”

And now they’re outside; the tunnel was apparently about a hundred feet long.

Valeria: “Dew yew wich to sey anyting?”
Joel: “Yes, do you know Elmer Fudd?”

Mutant-cannibal attack; kind of random, of course.

That one guy just kind of touched the guy with his knife and killed him.

Second Host Segment: Servo has a date with the McGuffy Triplets (?). There’s a laugh track here; I guess they’re parodying sitcoms. Cam-Bot’s Sitcom simulator malfunctions, so he has to shut down for a second. Not bad.

Valeria sounds like she can barely remember her lines. The same with Jorn.

The scene kind of peters out.

Very obvious matte-painting.

Neo finds his dead father (this is the first time we’ve heard of it).

Joel: “A being so hideously expensive that we couldn’t afford to show it in this scene.”

Servo: “Of course you’re being watched, you’re in a film, idiot!”

Crow: “How did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get into this film?”

The plan the slaves come up with here is ripped-off from “Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster” (which will be shown in the next season).

What the...what happened? Where are they? I think they skipped a scene or two.

Crow (on Torque): “A Cylon wanna-be.”

What the…she’s ‘caught in the web’, but is barely even touching the web, and she’s on the other side from the direction she ran…and the ‘Beast of the Web’ is a single spider-leg-rod-puppet! Come on!

And they camp out in the basement. Really, they made a campfire in the evil-overlord’s basement (I think; it’s hard to tell what’s going on at times).

Random guy wanders off for NO REASON WHATSOEVER!! (except to die)

Servo (on a skeleton): “I think I found Granpa, though,”

Crow (as an evil robot-monster attacks: “Kitty! Bad Kitty!” (possibly the very first ‘kitty’ line; one of Crow’s catchphrases).

This is the third time those two guys have reviewed their heroic plan! We get it already!

Dear God, there’s still about twenty minutes left!

Servo: “Somebody’s been watching ‘Alien’” Yep. Major rip off.

Amazon sets off the alarm system. Please say this means we’re getting towards the end!

Joel: “Can the balloon-juice, sparky, just do something, will-ya!”

Servo (on the annoying comic-relief robot): “A week before that guy was playing ‘Hamlet’”

Crow (as the comic-relief robot goes nuts): “That, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the liberators of Earth. Pathetic.”

You know, why don’t the robots (who have laser guns) just go and shoot the heroes? They could crush the rebellion in about a second! Come on here!

Again, I have no idea where they’re supposed to be in relation with the other characters.

What the…what is happening?

Crow: “Boy, oh boy, if I weren’t a light fixture…”

In the close up you can see Neo glancing down occasionally; is he reading his lines?

Time wasting bomb-disarming scene. Frankly I’m with the Amazon, who wants to just let the bomb go off and kill the random guy.

Joel: “Taking someone out of an omnipresent being’s sight is pretty tough to do when you think about it.”

Third Host Segment: Servo tells the story of the human rebellion; Servo gives himself the best role (“Servo the Bloodletter”) and assigns Joel as Geekor the Animal Sidekick. It’s pretty amusing; Servo’s personality is completely intact here.

What the…why do these robots have SWORDS!!?? We saw Torque using a laser earlier in the film! Who wrote this thing?

Torque vs. Neo; standard hero vs. dragon fight (except it’s lame).

Crow: “In the future, all robots will act like Don Knotts.”

Joel: “I saw Darth Vader do that once.”

Joel: “Always get a contract when you’re dealing with a dark, omnipotent power.”

Crow: “Joel, if we ever get like these bots, will you please shut us down.”

Valeria gets burned, reveals she’s a robot (I would have thought the Dark One would have known that), so she decides to take everyone down with her.

Random guy gets killed; which makes that bomb-scene look even more pointless (except as padding, of course).

Now Comic-relief robot takes evil robot out.

Wait, I thought the Dark One was about to be destroyed; he still has time to chat with the girl.

Torque finally uses his laser and hits the Amazon. Then he just kind of walks off. Man, this is the lamest evil overlord organization ever!

Haha! Jorn is turned into…like a big potato thing.

Crow: “Hey, honey, remember my torso? It’s chip-dip now.”

Torque, you moron, just shoot him! You tried once before, now get it right!

And she shuts down the air. Okay, whatever; I don’t care!

Comic-Relief Robot shoots Valeria.

What the…our hero tries to strangle Torque, who, in case you’ve forgotten, is a ROBOT!!

Neo is clearly in Torque’s field of vision, but he still gets the drop on him.

The Dark One tries to pull the ‘we can rule together’ trick on Neo. Has that EVER worked?

Comic-relief robot turns the air on. Which, if I’m following this, has been off for about five minutes now; I think it’s a bit late for that (although all the humans seem happy enough).

Okay, the Dark One’s dead, Jorn’s dead, girl is angry at Neo, but everyone is free and happy, except for the girl.

A lot of the time when they watch the credits, their conversations kind of wander; like it does here. They really should have skipped the credits and kept the rest of Cody. They sound bored.

Servo refers to the ‘heating grid’ which is the in-show explanation for why Joel has to carry him in and out of the theater.

Come on! The credits keep going after they leave! Why the hell didn’t they keep Cody? Very occasionally they do things like this that just make no sense.

Final Host Segment: They present the ‘plant guy’ contest, which culminates in the final segment of ‘Women of the Prehistoric Planet.’ And a letter.

Movie Quality Rating:

1. The Crawling Eye
2. Mad Monster
3. The Crawling Hand
4. The Corpse Vanishes
5. The Slime People
6. Project Moonbase
7. Women of the Prehistoric Planet
8. Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
9. Robot Holocaust
10. Robot Monster

Conclusion: Riffing is only so-so, host-segments only so-so, and annoyingly pointless editing decisions kind of bring down the episode. The simply hilariously bad movie saves it, though.

Final Rating: 6/10

MST3K – Episode 109: Project Moonbase (with shorts: Commando Cody & the Radar Men from the Moon (two episodes))

Well, I had no real expectations going into this one, except that the ‘Amazing Colossal Episode Guide’ really laid into this one for being sexist. I thought the Brains (the informal name for the MST3k crew) were exaggerating, as they often do in shorts from this era, but it turns out they really weren’t. This movie is occasionally painful to watch because of how openly condescending it is towards its female lead.
Otherwise, the film is a lame, dull, largely plot-less but somewhat interesting look at how the film industry viewed the space program before it really took off (no pun intended). The film starts off showing a sinister foreign organization intent on sabotaging the US Space Program (SPACOM), but this plot point steadily dies away as the film goes on. The whole film is kind of like that; they set up problems and then solve them shortly afterwards (or just forget about them). Anyway, eventually the two main characters land on the moon, become the first moonbase, and are married by the general. And…that’s it. It’s not much of a movie, and I really don't have much to say about it.
Fortunately, it’s preceded by two episodes of Commando Cody. The Brains comment several times in both the episodes and the episode guide that they hate Cody, but I’m liking him better and better with each episode. Like most serials, it’s just so insanely idiotic, yet so earnestly eager to entertain that you really can’t dislike it.

Thoughts while watching;

Opening: Joel is cleaning the bots.’ Nothing much to it, but the bots look cute. Especially Servo in the laundry hamper. Although they don’t say a word.

Invention Exchange: Joel has a new way to juggle water. Unfortunately, the film quality here is too poor for me to really appreciate it. The Mads have the ‘insect-a-sketch.’ Meh, alright. Dr. Earhardt is wearing worse and worse each time. I’m frankly glad he didn’t last that long.

Commando Cody again! Hooray! Ah, serials…

The first time Joel and the Bots acknowledge Clayton Moore’s presence.

Joel continues his ‘little rabbit’ jokes.

And…yup, he just turns on his flying suit. Rather slowly, I might add for someone plummeting off of a cliff which is, at most, a few hundred feet tall.

Servo: “Al’s Café; serving the underworld since 1923.”

Interesting; Cody’s doing some actual investigations. In these things they generally just lay traps and get into fist fights; this ‘Law and Order’ stuff is kind of unusual.

My God, these encounters are contrived! The bad-guys come in at just the time Cody is in the garage too! C’mon, you guys can come up with something better than just ‘they ran into each other and fought’ over and over again.

Joel pulls out ‘Batman’-esque sound-effect cards. Pow! Oof!

Some good puns during the fight. ‘He bench-pressed him!’ ‘he’s getting tired’ (when they hit Cody with a tire).

Joel’s phone comment is actually what the phone person was supposed to have said! (well, to some extent). That’s really unusual.

Well, at least the bad guy is using a rifle, but still, he’s shooting from a moving car at a flying object.

The ‘Who is it?’ ‘It’s me!’ gags are pretty good.

What the…Cody just flies up to the plane and climbs in! Cool!

Crow’s right, those are ridiculously small bombs!

The plane just blows up in mid-air! Of course, need I remind you that Cody has a Flying Suit?

Another episode. I like Servo’s little Cody theme song. Joel joins in, and then Crow. It falls apart a little bit more with each character. Crow forthrightly admits he can’t think of a rhyme.

Joel’s quick news-flash line is pretty funny.

And, yup, Cody and his friend just jump out of the plane.

That shot of Cody coming at the screen is pretty cool.

And they’re going back to the moon.

Joel: “You know, they should invest in a control tower.”

I love how the Space-ship is piloted by a guy who looks like a cross between an airline pilot and a cab-driver. Hank the space-ship pilot.

The Moon-man has more equipment than Cody.

And…they’ve got the moon-man captured…and they’re feeding him! This has got to be one of the more ridiculous things I’ve seen! You’ve got to see it for yourself, it’s unbelievable!

Joel: “These Moon-men have uses for plywood we haven’t even dreamed of yet.”

And Cody and his friend steal the moon-car.

Wait, how do they know how to drive the moon-car?!

And now they know how to fix it? Come on!

First Host Segment: Servo is playing Commando Cody and makes Joel carry him around at arm’s length. Crow is Krog. It’s mildly amusing.

Now the feature. The old future is in effect, as the film is set in far-off 1970.

Interesting, the film opens with the bad guys. I didn’t really expect that.

I…frankly can’t follow this. It looks like the bad guys are right outside the good-guys room.

The tracking is really messed up here.

Crow: “Sitting sir. Taking it easy sir.”

And the colonel they’ve been talking about turns out to be…a woman! Accompanied by a ‘full-figured’ reporter.

In the Amazing Collossal Episode Guide they call the movie sexist. I thought they were exaggerating, but they weren’t; the scene with the Colonel and the General is genuinely unpleasant. He specifically belittles her accomplishments and threatens to spank her.

Second Host Segment: The Ties of the Future. It’s pretty good. Servo: “Don’t talk to me, I’m a high-fashioned model from the future.”

General: “Now that we have a space-station.”
All: “Or Frisbee.”

Naked exposition about the space station.

Standard old ‘G-Force’ scene, where the characters act all tortured as they take off.

Joel makes porno music as the spaceships dock.

The colonel is the most professional person in the film! This makes everyone’s belittling of her all the more annoying.

Rather interesting set design; the characters walk around on the walls and ceiling and even sit down on the walls. It’s obvious how it’s done, and it’s pretty cheesy, but kind of cool. (plus there are rather funny signs everywhere saying ‘please don’t walk on the walls’

Crow: “The technical term ‘shoving off’”
Yeah, really!

So he knows the guy is a spy because he doesn’t follow baseball.

Well, this movie is really just kind of going through the motions; they just keep moving, which gives the plot a pretty inconsequential feel.

Third host Segment: SPACOM. It has some really remarkable production values, particularly for an episode this early; the way the SPACOM goo changes color is really well done. It’s pretty amusing in a typically random way.

The girl immediately blames herself. Then the guy tells her to powder her nose. C’mon, you just crashed on the moon! Can you be serious for one minute!

Crow: “Hey, look, a walk-in trash can!”

Servo: “Meanwhile, back at Frisbee-Four.”

And he takes the spy with him to help. Right.

The Astronaut falling off the Moon-cliff is pretty funny in its execution. By the way, since they’ve established that he’ll be low on oxygen on the way back, why doesn’t he take the dead guy’s oxygen?

Hey! I think that was the first ‘My lungs were aching for air’ line by Crow!

And now the good-guy can’t get back to the ship. Frankly, it’s less ‘oh my god, will he make it?’ and more ‘god, this guy is a puss.’

And, of course, the colonel is portrayed as more or less incompetent. Again, this isn’t the sort of thing I tend to be sensitive to, but this is indeed a painfully sexist movie.

‘Shirty?’

So, the general orders (or ‘advises’) the colonel and the guy to get married. And he sends her out of the room to give him the message.

Guy: “The General is through,”
Crow: “and so are my wild bachelor days.”

I like the guys prompting the hero to ‘ask her.’

What the…what are we seeing?

Hah! The rocket landing is hilariously bad!

Crow: “Remember, never try to remove the bees from the hive without the proper protective gear.”

Crow does part of the ‘emergency supplies’ speech from ‘Dr. Strangelove.

And they get married.

Minister: “Til’ death do you part?”
Crow: “Or until the oxygen runs out.”

Female President. Perhaps one of the earliest examples of this. And for some reason, she’s British.

Lame ending; they just kiss and that’s it. You know, now that I think about it, there’s really no plot to this movie; no problem-resolution. It just kind of…goes on and then stops.

Final host segment; Crow’s walking upside down like in the movie. So is Servo.

It’s kind of interesting; in these early episodes they just call it the ‘Fan Club,’ but they soon will rename it the ‘Information Club.’

There’s some complaints about there not being any color movies so far, which, if you don’t count ‘Women of the Prehistoric Planet,’ is true. The very next film, though, will be in color.

Movie Quality Rating:

1. The Crawling Eye
2. Mad Monster
3. The Crawling Hand
4. The Corpse Vanishes
5. The Slime People
6. Project Moonbase
7. Women of the Prehistoric Planet
8. Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
9. Robot Monster

Conclusion: A mildly interesting old sci-fi flick marred by unabashed sexism, some amusing, but not brilliant host segments, and okay riffing. A very middle-of-the-road episode, at least for Season 1.

Final Rating: 6/10 (mostly just because serials are awesome).