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.

MST3K – Episode 204: Catalina Caper

            This is a rather unusual episode in that they’re riffing an intentional comedy. Catalina Caper (AKA, Never Steal Anything Wet) tells the rather disjointed story of a group of thieves; a married couple and their dim-witted, bright-hatted sidekick, Lawrence, who steal a valuable scroll (with embarrassing ease) from an art museum, intending on copying it, selling it to an evil art-dealer/millionaire named Lakopolous (I had to look it up; the name sounds different every time someone says it), then returning the scroll to the museum while all concerned are on vacation in Catalina. This is hardly a fool-proof plan, and it goes south when they lose the genuine scroll. They then stage a dive party for some local teens, hoping they’ll find the scroll. Well, they do, but the bad guys show up and take it. There’s some very confusing switching and trickery (I couldn’t keep track of which scroll was fake and which was real) and in the end the scroll gets put back, the friendly-thief family gets off the hook, and Lakopolous leaves his henchman to drown.

            That’s only about half the movie, though; the rest deals with the teenagers (lead by Tommy Kirk playing ‘Don Pringle’) as they swim, flirt and, most of all, ‘dance’ to some generally awful music. Little Richard has a cameo and Robert Donner is on hand playing a goofy investigator who contributes nothing but a bunch of generally unfunny pratfalls. So, a lot of very bad dancing and bad music, plus a lot of failed comedy makes this a pretty bad movie.

With that being said, however, I personally found it to be pretty inoffensive. To me it was like a joke told by a six-year-old; it’s not at all funny or clever, but it’s too harmless to really bother about. I found I actually kind of enjoyed the movie when it focused on the thief family and the dancing was far off screen. Again, it’s pretty harmless and even a little amusing at times.

Riff wise, this is a pretty good episode, especially given the limitations brought by the fact that the move itself is a comedy. Jokes about how confusing the movie is and the beach-antics are pretty good, as is Tom Servo’s love-at-first-sight with the ‘Creepy Girl;’ an accented beauty who captures Tommy Kirk’s heart. On the other hand, there is a very annoying series of ‘white-male-reality’ jokes which quite frankly don’t fit the movie at all (more on that below).

Host segments are generally pretty good; the best being Tom’s song about the Creepy Girl. So, all in all, a pretty fun little episode.

 

            Thoughts while watching:

 

            Opening: The Bots say their prayers. The mostly pray for other robots. And they look so cute in their little pajamas.

 

            Invention: Dr. F. “We don’t want you to pray for us, we want you to pray to us!” Mads invention: Tank Tops; the latest in fashion artillery. Joel: Tickle Bazooka. They’re both pretty good, but I prefer the Mads’ invention.

 

            Wow, it’s kind of weird to see a real logo with these movies (here it’s Warner Brothers)

 

            Like ‘Moon Zero Two’ this one opens with an animated credit sequence. This one has much more to do with the movie, though.

 

            (as the movie cuts from animated to live action)

            Joel: “Wow, that is really good animation.”

 

            Crow: “Meanwhile in a dark, impenetrable void, Jean-Paul Sartre was a-moving and a-groving.”

            Servo: “No exit, baby!”

 

            Come on! That statue was right in front of him and he ran into it?

 

            Don (introducing himself): “Don Pringle”

            Crow: “Heir to the potato chip fortune.”

 

            Man, Don’s friend only needs an armband to look exactly like a stereotypical Nazi.

 

              Don meets the Creepy Girl, who is really pretty. Tom Servo falls for her too. He’s kissing her a lot!

 

            I’m almost afraid to ask why the girls find Nazi-guy so attractive.

 

            Little Richard shows up! I assume he’s a real celebrity, but I’m not familiar with him at all, not being a fan of that type of music (and don’t ask me what type it is; party music, I guess).

 

            And the kids all ‘dance.’ It’s gotten even worse from the dancing in ‘Untamed Youth;’ here they just kind of stand in one place and jerk around in a completely unrhythmical fashion.

 

            Crow: “Little Richard; the only genuine talent in this film.”

            Yeah, he’s pretty clearly a professional entertainer, and as such is not bad to watch.

 

            And three girls immediately latch onto Nazi-guy.

 

            Now we get the plot, such as it is.

 

            Wife (to Lawrence): “You’re a credit to your profession.”

            Crow: “Village idiot.”

 

            Okay, there’s a goofy guy here watching the thieves who does a lot of lame pratfalls.

 

            Lawrence: “How come a millionaire like Dino Lakopolous wants to be a crook?”

            Joel: “’Cause he’s un-scropulous!”

 

            So, here’s the plan; they steal a valuable Scroll, copy it, sell the copy to Lakopolous and return the real one. This doesn’t really sound like a sound plan to me (what happens when Lakopolous hears that the scroll’s been returned?)

 

            First Host Segment: Joel on the sixties. This is a pretty popular one, but it doesn’t do too much for me. It’s amusing, but not great; it gets better as it goes on, especially Joel going off the rails towards the end. Maybe you had to live in the sixties or at least not utterly loathe them.

           

            And Nazi-guy’s sister shows up as a beta romantic interest.

 

            Servo (on goofy-guy): “Thank goodness his briefcase is a personal flotation device.”

 

            Really, the thief family is pretty pleasant; I like them. Except for the fact that the father has some really weird speech patterns.

 

            Joel (as thief kid): “You know Dad, Mom is really hot."

 

            Tad (thief-guy’s son): “When you talk like that, I know you’re up to no good.”

            Crow: “And when you smell like that, somebody must die!”

 

            Joel buffs Lakopolous’ head! (he’s bald, of course)

 

            Servo (as girl snuggles up to Lakopolous): “Hi, Kaiser Wilhelm, you kooky monarch!”

 

            (as Don bursts back up after a scuba-diving attempt)

            Joel: “Ah, it’s all blue and wet and stuff!”

 

            (after weird sound-effect)

            Joel: “Oh, that’s my watch, it does that every half-hour.”

 

            Crow (bubbly-voice as a diver surfaces): “Hey, there’s a world out there!”

 

            Okay, bad guy scubas out to the thief boat, tries to get the scroll, there’s a struggle, and the tube with the scroll goes into the ocean.

           

            And Don goes after the fleeing bad guy…and Nazi guy goes after him.

 

            Now there’s an under-water fight…bad guy wins by taking off Don’s respirator.

 

            Joel: “Oh, look they’re standing four a-breast.”

            (I think you can guess the context here)

 

            Joel: “Gee, what a wimp; can’t even take a seasoned diver with a knife.”

           

            (as they climb onto the boat)

            Crow: “I’m afraid you boys will find only evil here.”

 

            Theif: “Larry will you please settle down!”

            Crow: “Get married, have some kids, and take that ridiculous hat off!”

 

            Second Host Segment: Tom Servo sings the fifties-style Creepy Girl Song. This is a great song and a really good demonstration of just how good Kevin Murphy’s voice is; he can really hit those high notes. Joel and Crow dance in the background. 

 

            And another dance scene. Man this dancing sucks.

 

            Oh, and Nazi guy picks up two more chicks! Come on, he’s not even attractive! He’s just creepy (and not like the Creepy Girl)!

 

            Yeah, the band isn’t very good here (the one guy kind of looks like an adult Eddie Haskell…)

           

            (on the band)

            Crow: “I think they sent the wrong people to ‘Nam.”

 

            Joel: “Could someone do us a favor and push that guy’s amp into the water?”

 

            And they split to the beach for volleyball.

 

            Servo (as Don sits oddly on the beach): “Darn and I forgot my shins.”

 

            Yeah, I know Creepy Girl is attractive (and Servo immediately claims her), but they’re not exactly starved of attractive female company here, so the scenes where she comes in and everyone stops to gape at her are pretty stupid even for this film.

 

            Servo threatens to take all the kids on over the Creepy Girl.

 

            Crow (as Nazi-guy’s sister grabs Tad): “Remember that ‘last man on Earth’ thing I told you? Well it’s time.”

 

            Servo tries to get into the movie to help Creepy Girl (she lost her bikini top).

 

            Crow: “Join the party and we will rule the world!”

 

            (during a low-angle shot of bad-guy)

            Crow: “And I’m a thousand feet tall!”

 

            Ah, the standard jerk fiancée; you always have to wonder with guys like this why the girl ever got engaged in the first place.

 

            (as the Creepy Girl sits down with the group)

            Crow: “Hello lower-life forms.”

 

            And sister pretends to drown to redirect attention onto herself; goofy-guy gets there first. Hilarity ensues.

 

            Crow (as sister): “Oh, saved…by the stinky guy!”

 

            Somehow this makes all the girls turn on their guys.

 

            Crow: “This is like a strange version of ‘Lysistrata’”

 

            And goofy-guy snags a bikini. Ha ha.

 

            Sigh. The girls and guys stand on opposite sides of the boat, the music starts up and they make up while dancing.

 

            God, this dancing makes me want to shoot someone! It’s just wrong! And the worst part is I know that dancing will get even worse over the next few decades! Arrggh!

 

            Servo (as the music staggers): “Oh, sounds like the tape’s being eaten.”

 

            Now a random girl we’ve never seen before sings a particularly bad song.

 

            Okay, I’ve got to say this: they’re making WAY too big an issue of the ‘whiteness’ of the cast. Guys, it doesn’t make the movie racist just because it has an all-white cast (with the exception of Little Richard’s cameo) and was made before 1970; it’s just a stupid beach movie, alright? I don’t see a single thing in the film to legitimately label it as racist. The last movie was racist, this one isn’t. Just stick with jabbing at stuff that is actually there, alright? Quite frankly, I found their repeated ‘white-male-reality’ jokes to be much more offensive than anything in the film itself.

 

            Crow: “Why did the ‘Titanic’ have to sink and this didn’t”

 

            (over a shot of a bunch of kids lying on the beach)

            Crow: “The youth of today spent like so many shell-cases on the battlefield of love!”

 

            Thief guy comes up with a plan to stage a scuba-party to find the lost scroll. It’s actually not a bad idea.

 

            Servo (as a girl-scuba-diver surfaces): “Hey everybody, I found a new script! And this one’s funny!”

 

            (as the bad-guy-scuba-divers surface)

            Crow: “We’re here to spoil everything.”

 

            Man, really weird bit where the goofy-guy gets sick and hallucinates a band at the bottom of the ocean.

 

            Third Host Segment: Joel has to field-strip Crow to fix his sarcasm sequencer (he rips his arms off!) Cut to Deep 13 for Frank’s Tupperware party with the Mole People. Dr. F. get’s Frank’s name wrong! Frank keeps spilling stuff on Dr. F. It’s kind of amusing, but not great, and goes on a little long. Is this the first time Dr. F. maims Frank?

 

            Is it wrong that I like the bad guy’s beating up Nazi-guy?

 

            And the thieves are loudly talking about their plan in front of the kids.

           

            The kids come up with a plan; Nazi-guy is reluctant because he’s worried about loosing his ‘good-looks.’

 

            Crow: “For those of your following along with the ‘Seigfield Screenplay Workbook,’ that last scene was the plot-point setting up the third act. Now this.”

 

            Uh, sister? I don’t think the middle of a dangerous mission is the right place to have a heart-to-heart apology.

 

            Creepy Girl: “Angelo, what are you doing here?”

            Servo: “Working, being evil.”

           

            They get Angelo (Creepy Girl’s evil ex-fiancée), other bad guy runs off with the scroll. Don runs off in pursuit.

           

            So, why does the bad guy run to the end of the pier? And since he has about two minutes to get out of the way, why does he let Goofy-guy run into him?

 

            Goofy-Guy is an investigator after thief-guy. But they took the scroll out of the tube-thing, so he doesn’t get to arrest thief guy.

 

            Tad puts the scroll back in a very obvious way. He just walks in and puts it back. He even talks to the security guard when he’s done!

 

            And one more dance scene for the road; the kids are all paired off nicely: Don get’s Creepy Girl (sorry, Servo), Tad gets sister, Nazi-guy gets his three fan-girls, even Lawrence and Goofy-guy get chicks!

 

            The ending, with Tad helping his parents out of trouble, is actually kind of sweet.

 

            More dancing! Gah! Everyone dances!

 

            Final Host Segment: figuring out the film.

            Crow: “I had only one question really.”        

            Joel: “What?”

            Crow: “What the Sam hill was going on?!”

            Joel produces a chart of the film. I didn’t really find the film that confusing; it was just stupid and padded. Joel eventually gets frustrated and smashes the chart on the bots. He really was kind of mean sometimes. Now letters, of course. It’s actually a kind of nice letter; a couple who say they met and fell in love while watching Mst3k.

 

I just noticed Dr. F is eating Frank’s eye!

 

By the way, the sort of ‘Gyuhk-ewww!’ sound effect became a Frank trademark.

 

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.   Robot Holocaust

17.   Robot Monster

 

            Conclusion: A difficult-to-riff movie, nevertheless riffed rather strongly (despite some jokes that don’t fit the film), with some decent host segments makes for a decent episode.

           

            Final Rating: 6/10.

MST3K – Episode 203: Jungle Goddess (with short: The Phantom Creeps; Episode 1))

            Jungle Goddess is, for me, a rather middle-of-the-road episode; it’s not brilliant, but it is very amusing and enjoyable; a nice ‘basic’ episode.

            The story revolves around Bob and Mike; American charter pilots in Africa. Bob gets the idea for a get-rich-quick scheme to find a millionaire’s long-lost daughter, who had disappeared over the jungle at the start of WWII. Mike is reluctant, but Bob convinces him and they start their search. They land and are found by natives, one of whom Bob shoots (as Mike later says, he’s ‘a little trigger happy’). They get captured and brought before the White Goddess, Greta (who, of course, is the millionaire’s daughter they’re looking for), who sentences Bob to death. Mike and Greta talk and she tells him her story, plans to escape with them, and falls in love with Mike.

            Meanwhile Bob, who is stupid and evil, wants to ditch the girl and shoot their way out with his revolver. They argue, fight, Bob ‘accidentally’ shoots another native and they have to flee. Bob beats up Mike and takes the gun, then when they’re back at the plane he attacks Mike again and gets a spear in his back from the evil Witch-Doctor (is there any other kind?). Mike and Greta escape and plan to return to strip mine the place and get rich.

            The movie is preceded by a short; the first episode of ‘the Phantom Creeps’ starring Bela Lugosi. The serial itself is nowhere near as fun as ‘Commando Cody’ was, despite the presence of Bela and a giant robot; mostly it’s hampered by a very bad script, even for a serial, which is clunky in the extreme. Still, it’s not a total waste of time; Bela is always fun to watch and the guys have some fun with their Lugosi impersonation. Still, you can see why they’ll soon abandon serials.

            The movie itself is kind of fun in an old-jungle-movie way (that is, your mileage will vary greatly depending on your tolerance for out-dated racial and cultural attitudes). Bob is so stupid and evil that you really have to wonder how he got any job or partner in the first place, and the movie has kind of a lazy, paint-by-numbers feel to it. The riffing is pretty good, particularly the many jokes at Bob’s expense and the occasional Superman joke (Mike is played by George Reeves). It gets a bit preachy at times, but considering the movie that’s not really to be wondered at. The host segments are generally pretty good, with the exception of the kind of lame ‘Bela’s OK discoveries’ one, which doesn’t really go anywhere. My favorite is the visit by the White Devils; Mike and Jim are hilarious.

 It is also nice to see Kevin Murphy and Frank Coniff settling into their roles; both of them have great chemistry with Trace Beaulieu (for Murphy, this is particularly noticeable in the ‘scope’ sketch).

 

 

Thoughts While Watching:

 

Opening: Joel and the bots play hide-and-seek with the ‘elusive and inexplicable powers which govern the universe.’ Amusing, and we get to see Tom’s extend-o-neck again.

 

Invention exchange: Joel: The radio arm-saw; a circular saw attached to a remote control car. The Mads: Dr. F is attached to a baritone sax. This is a great exchange on both sides; Joel gets to do a ‘Loony Toons’ style gag, and Dr F’s is just weird as all get-out.

 

Another Serial! This one is the Phantom Creeps staring Bela Lugosi.

 

They do the cast list in their Lugosi voice.

 

Crow (as Lugosi looks at a skull): “Maybe I shaved him too close…”

 

Lugosi gives some particularly naked exposition here.

           

Thug (on the robot): “I don’t see what good it’ll do, the cops’ll never let anything like that walk down the street.”

Crow (as Lugosi): “Shut up, it just plays tapes!”

 

Hey, is this the first mention of Richard Kiel? Kiel will show up with some regularity later on.

 

Rather ridiculous bit where Lugosi is so busy doing a villain speech he doesn’t notice the robot is trashing the room.

 

Lugosi’s ‘wife’ shows up (this is a rather interesting and humanizing element in a serial; they generally didn’t grant their villains much of a life outside of conquering the world).

 

They do the Lugosi voice ever for characters besides Lugosi!

 

Lugosi’s invention really isn’t that great…

 

Lugosi is kind of inconsistent here…this really isn’t a very good script even for a serial.

 

 Rather ridiculous bit where Lugosi tests his invisibility belt and it doesn’t work.

 

Crow: “Turn the dial on the electric dance-belt and pick up my manhood, it’s under the chair.”

 

Now it works! Well, you can still see an animated blur where he is, so it’s not that great.

 

Crow (As the robot): “If you guys don’t mind, I’ve got a Michilin Man reading in an hour.”

 

Good, Lugosi got rid of his goofy beard; it really didn’t suit him.

 

Servo: “I just love informing on people.”

 

Lugosi: Pick up that man!”

Henchman: “What, do you mean give him a ride?”

Servo: “No, ask him out, what do you think I mean?”

 

Okay, that was really confusingly edited sequence; basically Bela’s car and another, random car ran off the road and Bela’s car exploded (he’s fine, though).

 

The origin of the ‘How fortunate, that simplifies everything’ line.

 

Lugosi comes up with a rather ill-conceived plan to incapacitate his wife. It hits the pilot instead. 

 

Oh, for the days when the standard reaction to a crashing airplane was to grab a parachute and jump.

 

First Host Segment: Bela’s Okay Discoveries. Joel flubs his lines, there’s not much to this one, except for Tom and Crow’s accents. Also at the end for Dr. F taping his head back on.

 

Okay, now Jungle Goddess, staring George Reeves in his pre-Superman years.

 

Crow: “Enjoy the only exterior shot.”

 

Fintuzler again! What is that?

 

Look, I know you had to have a song in movies back then, but was it really a good idea to open with it? It doesn’t exactly grab the audience; maybe they were giving the audience time to come in.

 

Bob here flirts with the singer.

 

Servo: “Hey, did you take my red underwear with the big ‘S’ on it?”

 

Bob tries to convince Mike (George Reeves) to go after the lost girl for the reward (no, not that kind of reward).

 

Rather over-powered binoculars (they can see animals clearly form the air, and from a side perspective at that).

 

Servo: “Come clean with me Frank, tell me you haven’t had the urge to ram this baby into the ground.”

 

And they land in the jungle.

 

Joel (over a snake): “Hi, I’m Satan, enjoy the film.”

 

The natives close in…

 

And Bob immediately shoots one of them on sight; they get captured.

 

Cut to our heroine, the titular ‘goddess’ who is with her personal servant/friend, whom she’s teaching spelling.

 

She balls our heroes out and puts them on trial. Mike is pardoned, Bob is sentenced to death.

 

Bob: “I’ve been in better jails in my life.”

Joel: “That’s nothing to brag about, Bob.”

 

Mike is frankly being pretty insensitive here, reminding Bob about how this whole thing is his fault.

 

Second Host Segment: The different scopes; it’s very funny, especially Tom and Crow’s appropriate little sketches. It gets weirder and weirder as it goes on. My favorite is the ‘High-Powered-Scope-Scope, just for Servo’s dialogue.

 

Girl invites Mike into her tent to talk.

 

So, wait, the natives would treat them like gods if they just stood there and been nice, but when they demonstrate they have the power to instantly kill them they are shown to be mere mortals?

 

Back story. About what you would expect.

 

Servo (as old lady goes on and on): “My skull’s starting to hurt, could you clam up?”

 

Crow: “Uh, when you were in flight school, did they teach you how to scream?”

 

Servo (as the plane crashes): “So do you want to tell them or should I?”

 

Yeah, she was the only survivor…and completely unharmed, barely ruffled…right.

 

Crow does his ‘kitty’ bit over a lion.

 

Crow (as natives): “She thinks we speak English.”

 

Joel (ask Mike): “Does this story have a point?”

 

They plan their escape.

 

Mike (on his plane): “It’s about a mile from where your plane crashed.”

Crow: “Must be the accident zone.”

 

Greta: “Obey my every command, no matter how strange it may seem.”

Joel: “Oh wow!

 

Greta comments that she doesn’t like Bob, leading Mike to defend him. Uh, I really hope she doesn’t like Bob primarily because he shot a guy.

 

Fade away, open on the guys standing around…

Tom: “That was incredible.”

 

And Bob is still just thinking about money! Is anyone that stupid and paranoid.

 

Mike gets to eat with the girl, Bob with her servant/friend.

 

Wait, a tribe that lives in the jungle doesn’t like the jungle at night!?

 

The origin of the ‘hamburger and nice French-fried potatoes’ line!

 

Mike: “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

Crow: “Hey! You’re in luck!”

(turns out he is! Well, Zebra anyhow)

 

And Bob takes advantage of servant/friend’s limited English to make fun of them. Why don’t we want him to die again?

 

Servant/friend: “Why everyone say you white devil?”

Tom: “Because I kill indiscriminately.”  

 

Joel (on the ore Mike’s found): “It saps all your power if you’re a visitor from another planet.”

 

And they make plans to strip mine the jungle…if they get out alive. Truly it was a different time.

 

Bob: “I’d stake my life on it.”

Crow: “That’s already in the kitty Bob.”

 

And Bob wants to dump the girl and make a break for it. Man, this guy is so cartoonishly evil it’s a surprise anyone ever took up with him.

 

Man, Bob is as stupid as he is evil.

 

Tom (as characters defend Bob): “Yeah, he’s not thinking as clearly as when he shot that guy.”

 

And Mike and Bob fight over the one gun left. Joel and the bots make with the Superman jokes. “Far beyond mortal man, eh?”

 

Crow (as native): “Guano hit fan!”

 

And Bob accidentally shoots another guy!

 

So, wait, they take Bob but not the native friend girl? Why do they have to leave her again?

 

Tearful departure scene…

 

Tom: “Hey, Bob, there’s a living thing, why don’t you swing into high and kill it?”

 

Crow: “Hey, Bob, when you were a kid and you had pets did you kill them? And what did happen to your sister?”

 

The natives are clearly just standing still for about a half-second before someone yells action and they start running!

 

Third Host Segment: The White Devils visit. Mike Nelson and Jim Mallon are the devils (Mallon is also Gypsy). They’re hilarious! The sketch is a bit preachy, but still funny. The running gag with Jim’s gun is particularly good. The view screen now slides back up afterwards.

 

Tom says it perfectly: “Let me get this straight; you survived in the jungle for six years and now you’re telling me you just sprained your ankle on a piece of moss? Get real!”

 

Bob’s actually kind of reasonable here; frighteningly enough.

 

Bob: “White Goddess having trouble?”

Crow: “White Fascist getting smart?”

 

Crow (on a bunch of natives around a fire): “And there on handle was spear!”

 

Greta is primarily concerned with women’s hats?

 

Rather over extended scene of Mike being the only one awake…

 

Cut to them fighting; the must have cut a rather lengthy scene here. Anyway, Bob wins and takes the gun and compass.

 

Joel: “I have a confession to make; we lost the trail about four miles back.”

 

Guys, this is not the time to have a moment!

 

Bob panics and shoots at a coconut…

 

He panics some more…

 

And he attacks the good guys…

 

And the witch-doctor throws a spear into Bob, Mike shoots him.

 

“Poor devil?” Well, Mike’s half right…

 

Mike tells her about Colorado, all Greta can think about is hats!

 

Final Host Segment: My White Goddess; the sitcom sequel to Jungle Goddess. “Bill? Did he go on another wild killing spree?” It’s pretty funny, especially Tom Servo as Bill, the trigger happy friend. And this is the origin of Crow’s odd nickname, Art (Joel refers to him as ‘Art Crow,’ like in “The Honeymooners”).

 

And letters; again, it kind of interrupts the pace of the final host segment.

 

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.       Jungle Goddess

8.       The Corpse Vanishes

9.       Untamed Youth

10.   The Slime People

11.   Project Moonbase

12.   The Sidehackers

13.   Women of the Prehistoric Planet

14.   Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy

15.   Robot Holocaust

16.   Robot Monster

 

            Conclusion: A rather lame short, a kind-of-fun, but lazy and way outdated movie, and decent but not spectacular riffing and host segments make for a solid, but middling episode.

           

            Final Rating: 6/10.