Comedy Central episodes #501-524
#501 – Warrior of the Lost World (1984) Color
Originally titled Il Giustiziere della Terra
Perduta. "This was a Wednesday, he said 'How would you like to direct a
picture in Rome for me?' On Friday I went in signed the contract, got a
deposit, got on the plane, and Monday morning I was in Rome. No script." –
Quote from David North, director of this skunk oil of a film. My how the mighty
fall, as Donald Pleasance shows us as he stars in a post-Blofeld role here.
This Italian post apocalyptic disaster film starts with a Star Wars like
prologue that is hard to read. It continues with a very boring car chase. The
land really doesn't look like it's had a nuclear holocaust, though. There's a
car crash in a bunch of trees. The hero ends up in a junkyard where he gets
attacked. He meets up with a woman after getting hurt. Then they go into a
leather bar where semi-deviant sex is characterized in dance. The place is
controlled by Nazi types. Our hero gets small group together and shoots the
place up, killing quite a number of people. He pulls a guy out of the place,
and leaves the daughter behind. They go to a place where people fight. The
leader of the bad guys (Pleasance) tortures the woman. She spits on him, and he
slaps her. In the end, they try to rescue her, and she ends up shooting
Pleasance's character. It turns out they killed a robot double of Pleasance.
This movie is very confusing. You pretty much end up not caring about things,
and want everyone to off everyone else. There's nothing to endear you to the
hero. There's a lot of Mad Max-type driving sequences that pretty much drag
things to a screeching halt. If that wasn't enough to turn you off, the motorcycle computer's voice is unintelligible at best. You'll probably cheer when it gets creamed by a larger vehicle named Megaweapon. (The motorcycle is brought back without explanation later on.) There's also some repeated scenes (such as a car exploding,) shot from different angles.
In the hosting segments, Joel hands over the
welcoming duties officially over to Tom (even though Tom's introed the show
several times.) Tom goes through a long-winded monologue. Crow tells him he's
not funny. the Mads made the square master, an exercise device that really
doesn’t help you work out. It's a square. Joel creates the bittersweet hearts, candy
that's a more realistic version of the sweethearts. Joel puts wheels on Tom and
Crow, and makes them into slot cars. Next Joel and the bots wonder what it
would be like if the hero didn't have a driver's license. Tom does the lounge
singer thing, and Joel parodies the hero's hard to understand diction. Next
they talk about how life would be after the apocalypse. Then there's the Cough syrup commercial.In the end, Joel and the bots talk about Megaweapon, the large weapon that killed the motorcycle. Mike Nelson is the voice of Megaweapon as they call him. Joel reads a letter, and then Tom sings the address. Down in Deep 13, Frank and Dr. F have taken up tennis due to the Squaremaster.
IMDB link - Il Giustiziere della Terra Perduta.
#502 – Hercules (1958) color
Originally titled Le Factihe de Ercole. Steve
Reeves stars in this disaster. He rescues a woman from a runaway chariot. She
tells a story in flashback about a guy accused of killing Jason to get the
golden fleece. Then a woman tells a guy to beware a man wearing one sandal.
Then there's a contest to see how people would perform. Hercules naturally
wins. Later on, he goes onto a boat that lands on an island of beautiful women.
They're after the golden fleece, and fight Jason for it.
In the hosting segments, Joel has a casual day on
the SOL. Everyone's wearing pretty much what they always wear. They have
trouble of what to say next. the Mads invent the cellular desk. It's a desk
that straps onto the waist and allows a person to work anywhere. Frank gets a
performance review. Joel invents instant Karma. Tom gets strawberry licorice.
Crow gets a snickers bar. Then they have the bad karma. Tom gets Michael Bolton
tickets. Dr. F knocks Frank over with the cellular desk after telling Frank to
push the button. Next Crow and Joel debates the positioning of constellations. Tom comes up with new constellations. Next they talk about Hamilton Joe, Frank, and Reynolds the one-hit wonder band of the 1970's. Next they parody Match Game, a game show from the 1970's. Crow plays all the characters, with them leaving Gene Rayburn (The host) all alone. In the final hosting segment, the bots talk about the ratios of amazon women to men. Tom says it wouldn't be good, but Crow talks about the benefits of this. Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester) and Bridget Jones talk to Joel. They play amazons in a space bound minivan. (The idea was later turned into the Winged Autobus of Doom.) Joel asks them for a ride to earth, but they refuse. Down in Deep 13, Frank wears the cellular desks, and gets Dr. F in a private place with it.
IMDB Link - Le Factihe de Ercole
#503 – Swamp Diamonds (1955) color
W/ Short: What to Do on a Date (1951) black and
white
Originally titled Swamp Women. With the names
Roger Corman and Beverly Garland (Gunslinger, It Conquered the World) on it,
you know it's a formula for disaster. It also stars Mike Conners of Mannix
fame. It's set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Garland's character is in love
with some guy. It has lots of stock footage of a mid 1950's Mardi Gras parade.
There's a stock drunk, someone who's supposed to be comic relief but isn't.
Beverly is in jail with some other women there. They're trying to escape. She
and three other women succeed, and hijack a car. Then they change into a bunch
of skin-tight clothing, kidnap a guy and jump into a boat and ride down a
bayou. A catfight ensues. These women also drink too. At one point, one of the
women shoots at the other, who falls into swampy, muddy water. The scene then
cuts to her struggling in a pool. Another scene shows them bathing. The water
looks pretty good for swamp water, leading me to conclude it was faked
somewhat. There are lots of scenes where they drive the boat around the same
places. They're looking for some diamonds they buried there a while back. Once
they get the diamonds, a catfight ensues. More catfights and Beverly betrays
the others. In the end, the law ends up getting them. The film's philosophy
seems to be "We've got good-looking women in skin-tight clothing, we don't
need anything else." In other words, it's a 1950's male sexist fantasy
come to life.
The short, "What to Do on a Date"
concerns itself with 1950's dating etiquette. It stars a real loser of a guy
and a woman who really should know better. He takes her on a date to fix up a
scavenger sale. Lots of bad acting and a preposterous storyline shoot this one
down. The actors are really lily white too.
In the hosting segments, Tom wears a blonde wig
and Crow hangs upside-down and wears spock ears. They parody Star Trek. Joel
isn't amused by this. the mads invent the U-view, which shows what you'd be
doing if you weren't staying at home watching television. Joel invents the
Andrew Lloyd Webber grill, which burns musical scores. Tom wants to ask Gypsy
on a date. Tom nervously calls her up and asks her out. The date is a copy of
the short's date, except Crow tries to intervene. Meanwhile, Joel makes a
Dagwood-style sandwich. In the end, Gypsy rejects Tom's advances. Tom calls her
up and she brushes him off. The letter Joel reads about a woman about to get
married brings Tom to tears. Frank watches himself on the U-View have a date
with Michelle Pfiffer, and brush her off for television.
IMDB link - What to Do on a Date
#504 – Secret Agent Super Dragon (1966) color
Also titled New York Appelle Super Dragon. Secret
Agent Super Dragon (hereafter referred to SASD) is another James Bond clone
that tries to cash in on the bond success of those movies. It's a joint project
from four countries (a rule of thumb: The more countries involved in a movie,
the worse it is.) Monaco, France, West Germany and Italy had a hand in this
stinker. It starts off with the requisite blonde blimbo entering a backyard to find our hero meditating. Once he wakes up, they have a little romance and a dip in the pool. She gives him his next assignment: in a college town, there have been strange things happening. People are dying. He tells his supers that he doesn't want the job, but they tell him that he doesn't have a choice. He goes to the USA and talks to a stereotypical sheriff. Next he goes to a room where he gets a message. Next he's in a store interrogating the owner. He hears a car's engine roar, then fires a few shots. Next he goes to an apartment and searches the place. While he's searching, he finds that a fragment fits into a pot there. Then someone else enters and attacks. Afterwards, SASD tells his boss he needs a noted criminal. He's after some drug dealers who are distributing things. He says he has to go to Amsterdam. Once there, we're
beaten over the head with a non-stop barrage of every Dutch stereotype. Next
they're in a hotel room, confronting a redheaded woman that SASD has followed.
He hits on her, and strikes out. Then we have more gadgets. They're not very
awe-inspiring. SASD then walks into the redhead's bedroom while she's bathing.
They have the obligatory sexual tension scene. Later on we find out that she's
working for the bad guys. Then they get to the auction itself. The bad guys
have set things up so that everyone there would get drinks spiked with a drug.
This drug makes them shed their inhibitions, and they end up laughing and
fighting. Next somehow the bad guys capture the good blonde bimbo. They dress
her in 1960's lingerie and force her to stand there for a little, then strap
her to a bed. SASD gets captured by the redhead and taken into the base. She
gets offed while SASD rescues the blonde. SASD kisses the redhead as she dies.
SASD and the blonde takes one of the thugs and straps him to the same bed and
torture him to get information out of him. In the end, SASD has a romantic
liaison with the Dutch blonde and his assistant is out on a boat with another
bunch of people. One of the women in this film ends up playing the blonde bimbo
in Diabolik.
In the hosting segments, the bots invent a
miniature robot that has a very annoying voice. Unfortunately, they forgot to
include an off switch. Joel tries to smash this robot, but the bots prevent
them. The mads invent virtual comedy machine, which creates a virtual reality
environment in a comedy club. Dr. F programs a couple of hecklers in there. The
heckler's voice is Mike Nelson. Joel invents microgolf, which is microscopic
golf. They do a really bad jazz song about Secret Agent Super Dragon. Joel
tries to spice it up, but ends up making it worse. Crow writes another script
called "The Spy Who Hugged Me." It's a pretty bad, in the vein of Earth vs. Soup and Peter Graves at the University of Minnesota. Dr. F opens things up to a question and answer session. He tells us that the reason why the villain failed is because he didn't have an animal.
IMDB link - Secret Agent Super Dragon
#505 – Magic Voyage of Sinbad (1953) color
Originally titled Sinbad Contro I Sette Saraceni.
It's an Italian film retelling the legend of Sinbad the Sailor. The people are
being repressed. He goes around, telling people what they're doing is wrong.
Sinbad sings, which he can't. This brings a woman out of a lake. Things get
confusing from there. The people storm the castle. Next Sinbad has to catch the
golden fish, which he does. This was supposed to bring happiness to the people,
but it didn't. Everyone gets mad at Sinbad. Sinbad's girlfriend dumps him. Then
the golden fish turn into gold. That's still not enough. Now he has to find the
bird of paradise. Unfortunately, it's cooped up by an evil ruler. They play a
game of chess to determine who gets it. Sinbad wins, and then takes it home.
However, on the way, he hits a storm, and gets washed into the sea. Neptune
finds him, and they have more of Sinbad's bad singing. Neptune offers one of
his daughter's hand in marriage. Sinbad chooses his favorite daughter, and then
Neptune and his wife argue. In the end, Sinbad returns without the bird. Most
everyone looks like a reject from a Renaissance festival.
In the hosting segments, Joel and the bots host
the S.O.L.tie awards. Crow wins an award, and Tom contests this. Dr. F draws a
cleft chin on Frank. The Mads invent chinderwear, underwear for the chin. Joel
invents the Rat Pack chessboard. Next Joel and the bots try their hands at
being court jesters. They decide it's too rigorous of a job. Joel and the bots
don long beards and talk about the Sinbad problem. Next Crow decides to go on his own personal journey, and leaves the SOL. Unfortunately, he can't control the rocket pack he has on his back. He ends up crashing into the Theater of Pain. In the final hosting segment, Joel has one of the fish from the movie as a puppet. This proves that Joel isn't a good puppeteer. Tom "kills" the fish. Down in Deep 13, Dr. F comes up with a puppet named fistie, which is his fist with two goggle eyes glued to it. Fistie knocks Frank out.
IMDB link - Sinbad Contro I Sette Saraceni
#506 – Eegah! (1962) Color – RHINO
It's a shame Arch Hall and son will be best
remembered for this film, their first together. Some filmmakers become good
because they blunder quite a bit on their first time out, and learn from their
mistakes. This is certainly true of the Halls. In this, their first outing,
they have a guy named Tom Nelson (AH Jr.) dating a woman named Roxie. While
driving home one night, Roxie stumbles into Eegah! Eegah, of course, is a
caveman (Played by Richard Kiel,[the Human Duplicators, Phantom Planet.] who
also played Jaws in James Bond.) Next they have a poolside scene where AH Jr.
sings a song called Vicki to Roxie. (Why in the world this woman is flattered
by a song about another woman is beyond me.) Afterwards, Roxie runs into Eegah!
Again, who kidnaps her. Her father, (AH Sr.) goes looking for her, along with
AH Jr. Ah Sr. gets kidnapped by Eegah!, and reunited with his daughter. They
escape with the help of AH Jr. Then Eegah! walks to the city (and a caveman
living within walking distance of the city is yet another preposterous thing in
this film) In the end, Eegah! comes to a party where AH Jr. and Roxie are. Arch
walks out on the song he's playing to dance with Roxie, and the guitar part
keeps going. He then creates a scene, and gets killed.
In the hosting segments, Tom tries to freeze Crow
to absolute zero. Joel stops him and in the process, Crow falls apart. Joel
invents the porkarina, a device that provides the incidental music in many
1960's hick comedies like Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. Dr. F replaces
Frank's blood with anti-freeze. Joel talks about hell being subtitle while working on a shirt. Crow is the dummy. Tom has his head turned into a pincushion for this. The bots try to surgically alter the face of Joel to look like Arch Hall, Jr.
#507 – I Accuse My Parents (1945) black and white
- RHINO>
W/ Short: The Truck Farmer (1952) black and white
This film, we are told, was sent overseas to our
soldiers fighting World War II. They probably used it as a torture device.
"Talk, Nazi, or I'll show you more of this film!" I can hear them
shouting. A young man named Jimmy is accused of a crime, and brought before a
judge. He then accuses his parents. Flashback to show a young man in school (presumably college since he's really too old for high school) winning an essay contest. He rushes home to tell his parents the good news, but they're not there. Dad enters, and we find out that the family is dysfunctional. Mom's a lush, and dad's an overbearing idiot. They argue all the time. Jimmy gets involved with a gun moll, and then eventually leads to the crime. In the end, he says that if his parents had been kinder, then he wouldn't have committed this crime. THE JUDGE ACTUALLY LETS JIMMY GO! If that wasn't enough to turn you off, there's a song by the gun moll that's obscenely cheerful and very stupid.
The short, "The Truck Farmer" talks
about how agriculture has set up a system to ensure fresh vegetables are
available year round in northern states thanks to farmers in the South and
trucks. Strangely, there's only one thing that might be a truck in the film,
but it's so ambiguous that it's practically impossible to tell whether it's a
truck or not. Not surprisingly, it's associated with Texas A&M college (now
T A&M U,) the butt of many a joke in Texas. They also gave us "The Chicken of Tomorrow" short.
In the hosting segments, Tom gets Pinocchio syndrome, and has Crow paint him nude. Joel gets his cheek stuck to Tom. The Mads invent cake n' shake, a cake that you can eat and houses an exotic dancer. Frank bakes a dancer into the cake live. Joel invents the junk drawer organizer. Joel gives the bots art therapy. Crow's dad looks like him with a handlebar moustache, and is wrecking a city. He dispenses family values while destroying the earth. Tom's family consists of Haily Mills, Peggy Cass, and Gigantor. Gypsy's family has Richard Basehart watching over them all. Next Gypsy sings the obscenely cheerful song "Are you happy at your work?" while Joel and the bots parody the movie. Next they have a mobile to explain why Jimmy is crazy. The thing is very convoluted. In the end, Crow and Tom interrupt Joel reading a letter and hold him up for a hamburger. Joel tells them that he doesn't have a hamburger. They leave, and then Joel pulls out a hamburger and fries. After reading the letter, Crow and Tom enter with one of the tank tops seen in a previous episode. They point the gun at Joel, who gives up the hamburger to Crow and Tom. The tank top reads "Anne Blythe" on it. Down in deep 13, They manage to free the dancer from the cake, and he starts dancing with frosting all over him.
IMDB link- I Accuse My Parents
#508 - Operation Double 007 (1967) color
Originally titled OK Connery. It stars Neil
Connery, Sean's brother. Like Joe Estevez, Neil is the brother of a good actor
who can't act. It starts with a bunch of babes piloting a boat in a bay. Inside
is an older man who watches television projected onto the back of a blonde babe
while getting a massage. He goes around in a silk robe and smokes cigarettes
while beautiful women are affectionate to him. In other words, not too
politically correct. He drives a remote-controlled car into an airplane. After
the resulting explosion, they pull something from the wreck along with a dead
body. There's quite a number of blondes in this film. Another one working for
this bad guy kills a man and takes off with something else. Next we see a medical seminar where see a woman who was badly burned restored to perfect health and appearance. Next everyone suddenly gets in a fight for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, a Japanese woman that had the plastic surgery on her is kidnapped. Later they go to a convent where one of the bad girls is disguised as a nun. She shoots a gun that strings a cable to an ambulance. She then loads the plastic surgery woman down to the ambulance, which takes her away. Next we've got a boring chat between the plastic surgery doctor and a secret agent. They have a picture of the nun from the previous scene. Next we have the bad guy tell his plans to highjack the 6 largest concentrations of gold in the world (Shades of Goldfinger!) Next the doctor is recruited by the good guys to stop the bad guy. He then finds himself in Malaga, listening to cheap and very bad Beatles clones. He runs into a woman with (I kid you not) pink-feathered headdress, black lace dress with bright pink trim. (Mr. Blackwell would have a cow.) They go to a bullfighting ring where they find a dead girl. There's also a brunette babe whose sole job is to loose things so she can crawl around on all fours and be helped by Neil. He hypnotizes her and tries to get information out of her. Then they show the Japanese plastic surgery girl (Hereafter referred to as JPSG.) The bad guys torture her for no apparent reason. Connery goes to the place and shor-circuits the electrical fence around it. Neil rescues the JPSG while a bunch of good and bad guys fight in a Vietnam-like scene. Connery hypnotizes the JPSG and has her recall things he told her earlier. A brunette working for the bad guys shoots the JPSG. Then she gets shot herself. Neil tells us that the bad guys are about to steal an atomic nucleus. To do this, the bad girls dress in turn-of-the-century cabaret costumes and then shoot the soldiers guarding it. They change into tight cat-like costumes that show plenty of skin. They turn the truck into a carnival truck and drive off. The bad guy declares that the radioactive material will ruin everything mechanical. Now Neil shows up to a fancy party where he meets the head bad guy for the first time. The bad guy reveals a plan to a henchman: He's going to blow up the yacht at the beginning, with a bunch of beautiful women on board. Neil overhears, and tells some of the women this. Next we find a line of blind people being lead by the bad guys. They're taken into a weaving factory. One of the guys (pretending to be blind) is Neil. He finds an area where they have radioactive materials. Neil informs one of the workers of this, and starts a panic. Meanwhile, one of the women on the yacht informs the crew that the yacht will be blown up, and the crew leaves. Meanwhile, Connery is forced to operate on some guy. Before he starts, he attacks the chief bad guy. A fight ensues, and the bad guy escapes. Next Neil and a blonde woman travel to Munich to follow the bad guy there. At one point the woman takes her belt off,
the camera changes angles and she's got a spear that looks like her belt in her
hand. She escapes while Connery is captured. The bad guy succeeds in disrupting
the systems. Neil hypnotizes a henchman, and a fight ensues. Meanwhile, the
blonde who was with him leads a group of people on horseback to the castle.
They use bows and arrows and swords to fight the bad guys. Neil fights the
chief bad guy, and then kills him, but not before getting shot in the arm. The
good guys evacuate the area as an anti-magnetic bomb goes off, ruining a good
model. In the end, Connery refused an invitation to join the secret agent
society permanently, and goes off on the yacht with the babe crew. Not since
Moon Zero Two have I hard a theme song that was so annoying. It's called
"OK Connery" and is song by Khristy. If I had sung this theme song,
I'd want a pseudonym as well. This film is extremely disjointed, and many
scenes are non-sequential. In the end, I didn't care who won.
In the hosting segments. Joel shows off his 2nd grade piano recital. He has other old home movies as well. The bots get tortured with them. The bots manage to put a bulk eraser on the tapes. The mads invent lederhosen hosen, lederhosen with a garden hose in them. Crow invents Sara, the bobbing buzzard. The theme song to this is hilarious. Joel and the bots parody the bad guy of the film. While smoking a cigar, Joel kisses Crow, who wretches. The bots abandon him one by one. The bots contrast the lives of Neil and Sean Connery. Joel tries to hypnotize the bots like Connery did. Frank does a number on the accordion, and then Torgo shows up. He finally brings the soda pop that they ordered back in Manos. Of course, he got them wrong. He gives out coupons to make up for his mistakes. The bots get stuck to the wall thanks to Dr. F. He magnetizes the SOL, which attracts other satellites.
#509 – The Girl in Lover's Lane (1959) black and
white.
For some weird reason, this film starts out in a
train yard, where a guy gets knocked out. He's thrown on a train and sent out. He's
a hobo and he and another hobo journey on the rails to another town. After
arriving at this town, they go to a café where they meet two women. One of
these women falls in love with one of the drifters. Then the hobos get into a
bar and want to play pinball. One if them asks the guy at the bar for change
for a $50. Some hoods follow them out of the bar and end up fighting the hobos
for it. Later on, one of the guys hires a prostitute that drugs him and knocks him out. Only intervention from his friend saves the day. Next this guy gets a job at the same diner where one of the women he met earlier works. He's now in love with her, and vice versa. He decides in the end to leave her Afterwards, one of the thugs attacks the woman. Eventually, the thug kills the woman. Now the hobo is racked with guilt. Eventually a mob gathers and starts beating on the hobo. The other hobo finds the murderer. The main problem is that this film is as exciting as watching grass grow. Even the action sequences are done at a snail's pace. There's really nothing to endear you to anyone, or to make you hate anyone. In the end, you end up not caring about anything.
In the hosting segments, Crow and Tom get belly
buttons. The mads create the evil event days for baseball. Crossbow night,
slide whistles & Brass Knuckles nights, Fiberglass insulation night, used
syringe night, and Peppermint Schnapps and tire iron night are in this. Joel
invents the Don Martins, Doc Martins based on Mad cartoonist Don Martin's
shoes. There's a song as well.
IMDB link - The Girl in Lover's Lane
#510 – The Painted Hills (1951) color
With short: Body Care and Grooming (1955) black
and white
This film stars Lassie, and she's the most
intelligent one in the film. Everyone has an off day now and then, but in this
one, everyone has an off day. Lassie finds an old man trapped in some dirt.
They have a kid that cries over the death of something. The old man has a mine
in which there is supposed to be a large vein of gold. They construct a trough
to pan for gold. Trouble brews, naturally. One of the hired hands gets greedy
and steals stuff. There's also a crusty and not-too-lovable preacher. One of
the miners finds the vein of gold, and gets the others to go mine it. One of
the old men slips, and falls down a mountain. Lassie goes and gets help. Later
on, one of them men tries to poison the dog, but she won't eat the food he's
poisoned. Later on, she does, and dies slowly. The kid's heartbroken over this.
Lassie gets the kid to find the old man's hat. The brat then confronts the
murderer, and it's Lassie to the rescue again. The brat tries to tell the
preacher that the man killed the old man, but the preacher believes the
murderer, who says that the old man's death was an accident. In the end, Lassie
ends up forcing the murderer over the same cliff. Most of the guys look like uncle Jesse from the Dukes of Hazard.
The short, "Body Care and Grooming"
concerns itself with personal hygiene. According to the film, if you don't
bathe daily and clean yourself, you'll be unpopular, and then get sick. They go
into excruciating detail about how to wash oneself. Everyone is very lily white
and the narrator is very boring.
In the hosting segments, Crow makes several jokes
about Congress as Jay Leno. The Mads invent a generator powered by a person's
heart. Joel invents a backmasking machine that allows one to help remember
things. The bots have a debate on whether a woman is better sloppy or neat.
They resolve it by a spitting contest. Crow does a report about Rutherford B.
Hayes that's pretty much made up. Tom tries to melt Crow down to get the gold
in him. Unfortunately, Crow is gold tone, not gold itself.
IMDB link - Body Care and Grooming
#511 – Gunslinger (1956) Color – RHINO
The first Western to be sent to the SOL was
directed by Roger Corman (too many films to mention) and stars Beverly Garland (It
Conquered the World, Swamp Diamonds.) In a small town somewhere in the old
west, the local sheriff is gunned down. When the deputy is mowed down as well,
the sheriff's wife takes over as sheriff, vowing to bring in the man who killed
her husband. She goes around, along with her new deputy, killing a bunch of
people and then killing the bad guys. If that wasn't enough to turn you off, at
one point one of the people goes into an office, then suddenly reappears on his
horse milliseconds later.
In the hosting segments, Joel turns Tom into a
very unsafe game called Kaboom! Dr. F invents a way to hypnotize and brainscan
people. Joel invents whiffle hat, whiffle glass (which has a few holes in it)
and whiffle cheese. Joel and the bots lie in a casket and discuss what their funerals would be like. Gypsy and Crow parody the Pony Express. Tom tries to convince Joel and Crow that it's possible to suddenly transfer oneself from one point in space/time to another. The bots fry up a bunch of letters. Dr. F blows up Frank's head.
#512 – Mitchell (1975) color - RHINO
Joel's final episode on the SOL has several stars
in it: Joe Don Baker (Final Justice,) Linda Evans (Dynasty,) Merlin Olsen
(Father Murphy,) Jack Palance (Outlaw [of Gor,] City Slickers) and John Saxon.
Linda really earned her pay as the sexy hooker that gets seduced by the bloated
and flabby Joe Don Baker, and has several romantic scenes with him. There's
also a bratty kid Joe Don has to deal with as well, when he tries to bring down
the bad guys Palance, Olsen, and Saxon. One of the songs from the film,
"Oh My My My Mitchell" was done by Hoyt Axton (Gremlins.) Palance,
Saxon, and Olsen are a bunch of organized criminals that do some bad things,
and it's up to drunken cop Mitchell to stop them. A corrupt supervisor tells
Mitchell to lay off, but nothing doing. They send Evans over to seduce
Mitchell, and that fails. Olsen's role as the strong thug is very limiting and
somewhat ill-suited to his acting ability.
In the hosting segments, Joel creates a building
from toothpicks. Naturally, the bots destroy it. In Deep 13, temp worker Mike Nelson comes to Deep 13 and helps them straighten things out. Joel invents the Doctari stool, a zebra print stool. Joel leads the bots on a trip to rough it elsewhere on the SOL. Frank and Dr. F plot to get rid of Mike, and Gypsy overhears them, thinking they're going to off Joel. She goes off on a tirade on how to save Joel. Mike helps Gypsy by telling her there's an emergency escape pod in a box marked "Hamdingers." (if you've ever had one of these things, you know why they didn't bother opening it.) After giving control of the pod to Gypsy, she gets Joel into the pod and ejects him. Frank is left to tell Dr. F that Joel escaped from the SOL, landing in Australia. ("Let's hope he landed on Yahoo Serious" Frank says.) Without their usual lab rat, Dr. F knocks out Mike to be the new lab rat for him…
#513 – The Brain that Wouldn't Die (1962) black
and white - RHINO
Mike's first episode is about a prominent surgeon
and his wife. While going on their honeymoon, they get into a car accident. He
manages to survive, but she's decapitated. He then takes her head and puts it
into a liquid he's developed so that she can live. Then they hunt down a new
body for her. It turns out this surgeon's been conducting some hideous
experiments, and created some monsters too. The surgeon looks in a nightclub
for a woman to transplant the head onto, and a catfight ensues. He also goes to
a beauty contest to find the right body. In the end, the assistant gets his arm
torn off by the monster. Then the surgeon gets killed by the monster. This episode introduces the woman in stuck in the pan. Her name is known to MiSTies everywhere as Jan in the Pan.
In the hosting segments, Mike has been training
for the experiment by the bots. They show him The Beast of Yucca Flats as
training material. Mike invents gutters for an umbrella. The Mads invent the dream buster, a device that ruins the day of a kid. Frank is dressed like a kid and holds two balloons, which pop. Mike doesn't bring in Tom initially. Mike and the bots also try to invent things for this poor woman who's now bodyless. Gypsy invents a wearable crown roast, and balls on string that would use her head inside them. Tom invents a lazy Susan hat. Mike and the bots debate the values of the film. The bots try to get Mike to tell them an embarrassing moment. In the end, Mary Jo Pehl plays the head Jan in the Pan in a visit to the SOL hexfield viewer.
IMDB link - The Brain that Wouldn't Die
#514 – Teenage Strangler (1965) color
W/short: Is this Love? (1957) black and white
Originally titled Teen-Age Strangler. The man playing the character Mikey never made another movie before or after this. The main female character is a stewardess by trade, not an actress. She did it solely as a favor to the producer. It really shows. It opens up with a love scene between them. Then another young woman interrupts them. She's got a southern drawl as phony as a three dollar bill. She gets caught by the strangler and strangled. They then have a boring scene of taking the body away. There's also a policeman named Anderson assigned to find the teenage strangler.Next they show a woman talking to the policeman. She's obscenely cheerful. Anderson wants to talk to their daughter. Eventually the daughter comes down and talks to Anderson. The family gets into an argument about a boy named Jimmy. Later at a malt shop, the same woman runs into a motorcycle gang. Three's a little scuffle. After this, there's a very bad female singer that sings and dances. Then a man enters and orders that the music stop. (this is, of course after the woman stops singing. "If only he had come a minute earlier." I thought.) It's Anderson, who is trying to find out more about the strangler. He finds a jacket from the gang, and runs the gang in. Next they have a very boring newscaster who talks about the strangler. At home, one of the bikers gets yelled at by his father, and sent to his room. In his room, he bullies his wimpy younger brother. He sends his younger brother to the woman's place, and gives her a note. Later at the same diner, the woman comes out again. Another skirmish ensues again. The owner, a Drew Carey clone, breaks things up. Afterwards, the bad female singer sings again. Once home, the heroine strips somewhat, and enters the shower. Then TAS gets her. Then there's a car chase. Next at school, everyone seems to just loaf around. Mikey tells the heroine that Jimmy got arrested for the murder of the girl that was strangled. Next we see a drag race in 1960's cars. It's not very fast. It ends with a big crash. One of the car's occupants is thrown from the car, and hurt. Next a woman searches a school locker, and finds the symbol of the biker's gang. She searches somewhere else and finds the leather jacket he wore. The janitor then corners the woman, and makes advances on her while telling her about what's going on. He is in fact the strangler. Anderson shows up and shoots him. In the last scene, Anderson shows back up at the restaurant with one of the bikers. Then as the credits roll, lots of go-go dancing happens. Filmed in Huntington, West Virginia, and it shows. It sounds like the feature was filmed in a school gym, with the semi-echoes that go on in many places. There's also cheap 1960's music that's pretty bad.
The Short, "Is This Love?" concerns
itself with choosing the right mate. A woman tells her college roommate that she's in love and she's getting married. Her roommate injects a bunch of doubts into her. After meeting her parents, they ask to meet the man. She refuses, and then runs off with the guy. After she leaves, she gives them a note saying she's going to elope. Pretty bad acting and a silly plot throughout this. Filmed in West Virginia, and it shows.
In the hosting segments, Mike tries to call his
grandmother on the phone, but cannot use his calling card. He tries to get his
Grandmother to rescue him, but he can only say his name before the answering
machine cuts him off. The mads have invented the Frank enforcer. It has sharp
spikes on the ground, and holds an infant suspended over it. The bots invent
the waiter waver, which hails a waiter for you. Mike reads the bots the poems
of e. e. cummings. The bots talk about what is love. Mike mentions Burt and Loni, and then Tom breaks down and cries. Next Crow and Tom parody the biker scene. They use modern gangster term. Mike interferes and tries to resolve things. We find out that Mike is from Lilchute, Wisconsin. Crow and Tom invent a pair of glasses that turn Mike into Mikey from the movie. Mike puts them on Crow, and turns Crow into Mikey. Later on at the school again, another scuffle ensues with several people and the bikers involved. Mike sings a song about being a janitor as Crow and Tom parody the movie. Frank swings to the Janitor song and gets sick. They show a big pile of sand at his feet as Dr. F pushes the button.
#515 – The Wild World of Bat Woman (1966) black
and white - RHINO
W/ short: Cheating (1952) black and white
"This is like they threw a bunch of movies
into a blender and turned it on!" – Crow. Man, does this one STINK! Then
again, usually the stinkier the film, the better MST fodder it becomes. This
film is about a bunch of buxom bimbos who are dedicated to fighting crime.
However, in the opening scene, when they actually see a crime in progress, they
don't get involved! Then we're told they're against some villain named Rat
Fink. RF's henchmen (one of whom is a dead ringer for Dr. Forrester, and is a
mad scientist) capture one of Bat Woman's girls. They also show how they turned
a man's mind into a beast. Then it gets confusing. There's a séance scene where
Bat Woman tries to contact the spirits, but the spirit she gets only says
"Have a happy new year" in Chinese. Then there are some aliens involved in a cave. Bat Woman and her friends are given a happy pill drink, and start go-go dancing. In the end, Bat Woman rescues the captive, and they have a scene that is incredibly stupid. "This makes the Monkees look good." Tom notes. Rat Fink is revealed to be a businessman that Bat Woman had trusted. One of RF's henchmen betrays him after he falls in love with one of Bat Woman's assistants. Pretty much everyone on the cast was chosen for their looks and not their acting ability. When the plot drags down (which is quite a lot) they have women go-go dance.
The short "Cheating" is by Centron,
(What about Juvenile Delinquency, Why Study the Industrial Arts?) so you can be
sure it's awful. It tells the tale of John, the popular boy on the school's
council. He's so involved with his side activities, he doesn't have time to
study and keep his grades up. So he turns to his girlfriend Mary, who helps him
cheat. They get caught and John is thrown off the school counsel. Lousy acting,
stupid and very predictable plotline shoots this one down. Every guy in the
film is skinnier than a rail. The narrator is very boring.
In the hosting segments, Mike tries to play
blackjack with the bots. Crow takes several decks of cards before doubling
down. Frank invents the atomic hairdryer. This invention turns Dr. F's hair
into a mushroom cloud. Mike invents a razor to shave one's back hair. They parody the cheating short by having a report. "Cheating is bad. Richard Basehart is good." Gypsy, then Crow says. The others have a meeting about this, and Tom and Gypsy say Crow should die. In the end, Mike decides that they should all have Hostess® snowballs instead of Crow.
IMDB link - The Wild World of Bat Woman
#516 – Alien from L.A. (1987) color
Kathy Ireland and Linda Kerridge star in this
disaster. Considering Kathy's the best actress, that's not saying much. In the
beginning, Kathy Ireland's character is a nerdy misfit in L.A. that speaks in a
very annoying voice. I recently saw her on Hollywood Squares, and her normal
speaking voice isn't too far off from this fingernails-on-a-blackboard. Her
father is an archeologist who disappears in a ruin in Africa. Kathy goes to
investigate the death. Once in Africa, she explores the place where her father
disappeared. Although it looks like a bottomless pit, it's actually a portal to
another area. She runs into a very annoying miner with a thick Australian
accent. He takes her to an underground city where they run into the miner's
girlfriend, played by Kerridge. Together the miner and Kathy go and search for
Kathy's father. Most of the cast in the underground scenes looks like rejects
from the Plasmatics. Kathy is then drugged and kidnapped. The miner comes and
rescues her. Then a series of kidnappings and mishaps land her with her father.
They manage to get home, and give Kathy an excuse to be in a bikini. As Tom
notes, the action sequences slow the movie down. Kathy also has a very limited
range of emotions, which was lampooned in a hosting segment. I found it very
tough not to tune the movie out and concentrate on what Mike and the bots were
saying.
In the hosting segments, the Mads invent the
vend-a-gut, a vending machine that dispenses human organs. Mike invents the
refrigerator utter. The bots say Kathy Ireland reminds them of someone, then
can't remember her name. Mike spits out a lot of model's names, but they aren't
right. Then Crow remembers the answer: Clara Peller. Mike informs them that
she's the "Where's the Beef?" woman in old Wendy's commercials, and
they insist it's her. There's also an Irish ballad to Kathy Ireland called "My Wild Irish Ireland." Next The bots make various pictures of Kathy and ask Mike to tell what emotion she's expressing. They're all dull surprise. The bots talk about really femme movies. In the end, they read a letter on the SOL. Frank tries to put more money into the vend-a-gut to get another liver and is in the middle of it. Dr. F interrupts him and then Frank has to start all over again.
#517 – The Beginning of the End (1957) black and
white RHINO
Poor Peter Graves. While his brother, James Arness was getting rich off of Gunsmoke, he was having to do some pretty bad films. This is one of them. He stars as an etymologist who is experimenting with radiation on plants, to make them grow bigger. (I know, etymologists work with insects…) Unfortunately, when some crickets eat the mutated food, they become giants themselves. Peter figures out a way to destroy them, but not before they rampage through Chicago. They show the supposedly giant crickets crawling on obviously cardboard cut-outs of tall buildings that don't look very big. In the end, Peter manages to lure them into Lake Michigan, where they drown. Slow pacing and a contrived plotline shoot this one down. Not surprising, since the director and producer were Bert I. Gordon (King Dinosaur, The Amazing Colossal Man, The Magic Sword, Tormented, etc.)
In the hosting segments, Mike leads the bots in singing "the Yellow Rose of Texas." Then Mary Jo Pehl guests stars in a woman who calls up. She's trying to get some guy to sign some papers. Mike tells her she has the wrong number, and hangs up on her. She calls again. The mads invent the comfy bike. A bicycle that has a nightstand, radio alarm clock and the like on it. Mike invents a new set of cards. Mike invents the 8 of Chris Lemons. Tom invents Todd, a card that doesn't have a place in the hierarchy. Crow invents the Crow of Diamonds. Mike calls the Mads. Dr. F exercises while Frank wears a makeup mask. They act like women, much to the shock of Mike and the bots. Crow writes a play called Peter Graves goes to the University of Minnesota. It's pretty bad. (although Peter Graves' real name is Peter Arness. He didn't change it until his brother became more famous.)
IMDB link - The Beginning of the End
#518 – The Atomic Brain (1964) black and
white - RHINO
W/ Short: What about Juvenile Delinquency (1955)
Black and white
Originally titled Monstrosity, and that's also an
accurate summation of the movie. An elderly woman wants to be young again, so
she gets a mad scientist to plant her mind into the body of a young woman.
Extremely bad acting follows. In one very sexist scene, a young woman, we are
told, has the mind of a cat inside her. She is forced to act like a cat, and
it's very degrading. She catches a mouse, and they imply she eats it. Bleah.
Later, one of the women selected finds the cat-brained woman, and gets
attacked. The other finds the same cat-girl on the roof, and goes to her. The
cat (now having the woman's mind) manages to turn on the machine as the doctor
is inside it. It stars nobody important. Everyone acts stupidly and in the end,
you just don't care about anything.
The short, "What About Juvenile
Delinquency" is about the growing problem of teenagers getting out of
control. It tells us there are gangs of teens out there, roaming the streets,
waiting to cause trouble. The gang wears matching jackets and look like Fonzie
clones. The town counsel is debating a bill, and the kids interrupt. It was
made by Centron, (Cheating, Why Study the Industrial Arts?) so you can be sure
it stinks.
In the hosting segments, Crow and Tom read a list
of love letters. Mike dresses the bots up like the mads. Frank dresses up like Tom Servo and Dr. F dresses like Crow. Tom turns himself into weather Servo 9,
a weather-reporting machine. He goes outside to get hit by a comet. Mike
demonstrates the chin puppets for the bots, and they call it "odd and
disturbing." Magic voice talks to the voice-over for the movie, and she's not enjoying it.
IMDB link - What about Juvenile Deliquency?
519 – Outlaw (of Gor) (1989) color
Jack Palance and Playboy Playmate Rebecca Ferrati
star in this stinker. Yet another reason to outlaw sequels, this stinkmaster is
the sequel to Gor. It starts out in a bar where a loser guy tries to hit on
every woman there, and they walk away. He's wearing a tie wide enough to land
aircraft on. Then they focus on a guy that has a glowing ring. Next in a
montage that has Ferrati in it, they flashback to the original Gor. They recap
the original movie. Back at the bar, loser and the guy with the ring drive
home. They get caught in some time vortex and travel to the desert. They're now
in the planet Gor. The loser starts whining as they walk around the desert.
Then some marauders come for them, and they fight. The dude with the ring
manages to get a sword out of thin air and fight them. Next they show Palance
with a guy and a glowing red rock. Back with Kevin the guy with the ring, he's
at the town bazaar. In the tower, the guy gets a buxom brunette and spots
Kevin. Hearing the guy scream out, Ferrati sees Kevin. Kevin meets a dude and
Ferrati. Ferrati and Kevin hug (she really earns her pay here) and kiss. They
meet the king and go into a feast. At the feast, Kevin meets Ferrati again and
watches some flat-chested women dance badly. They drink and actually find a
woman for the loser dude. Ferrati confides in Kevin that she distrusts the
queen. Then there's more bad dancing. Then a short Rick Flair clone jumps out
of a barrel. Then we meet Palance again. After that, the old man talks to
Kevin. Then we see Ferrati in bed with Kevin. Then loser gets hit on by the
queen. Then loser and Kevin talk. Kevin wants to marry the princess played by
Playboy playmate Rebecca Ferrati. Next we see Palance make a
brew. The queen takes it to the king, and she starts kissing him (actresses
probably were paid quite a bit for this.) He collapses, and she kisses him.
Then Kevin and the Rick Flair clone (hereafter referred to as RFC) enter to
find the king dead. The queen comes in and accuses Kevin of murdering the king.
(Bad call: she stabs the king from the front, and then we find the dagger in
the king's back.) Loser sticks up for Kevin, who has to battle guards. Ferrati
is also taken prisoner. Then the old man tries to stop her killing Kevin, but
she ends up killing the old man. Next the queen sends loser into the prison.
Meanwhile, Kevin and the RF clone walk around in the desert, the same area we
saw earlier. Two warriors then talk to the queen. She orders them to capture
Kevin. Next Ferrati has to fight two amazon women. They fight very badly.
Ferrati wins, and the queen has her taken away. Then there's more waking in the
desert by Kevin and the RFC. They walk over THE SAME AREA OF DESERT. Kevin
tries to drink from an oasis, but the RFC shows him the place is poisonous.
Walking further, they come upon a band of marauders attacking a bunch of
people. They watch as these people are put in chains and dragged off. So Kevin
and the RF clone follow. At the slave auction, Kevin and the RF clone disguise
themselves and watch some more. They then rescue one slave girl out of a bunch
of slaves (Probably because she had the biggest chest.) At the dinner that
night, she comes onto him. But he says no. They sleep in each other's arms.
However, the slavers find them and capture them. The queen comes in on a slave
pit looking for Kevin. Palance is with her. A cave-in sends everyone fleeing
for the exits, but the queen orders the exits closed. Once Kevin is brought
before the queen, she orders he and his friends be imprisoned. When Palance
questions her, she says Kevin shouldn't be a martyr. In prison, Kevin is
tortured and told to serve the queen or die. He refuses. The queen finds out
about this, and she gets upset. Kevin's brought before the queen, and she tells
him the same thing. He refuses again, and so she has him whipped. She then
takes Kevin to her bedchamber and offers herself to him. He still refuses, even
when she kisses him. She then throws him to the floor and has him whipped some
more. He refuses to confess to the murder of the king. Back in jail, loser gets
roused up and herded to the slave pits. He's thrown at the feet of the queen
when she's with the slaves, along with RFC. Then a beaten and bruised Kevin
comes out, dragged by two guards. They force him to kneel before the queen.
Palance suggests they drink a toast to the victory and the Gods. The queen
stabs Palance, then throws the goblet away. She then orders Kevin's death, and
he resists the guards sent to kill him along with RFC. RFC gets put into a net
and hung on a rack. The queen suddenly dies for no reason whatsoever. Ferrati
and RFC are freed. Next Kevin and Ferrati make out in bed. He gets a feel or
two of her. Then we see loser wandering around in some European country. Two
policeman grab him and take him away. Ferrati's only a so-so actress, and the
role she's in stretches her limited abilities. The queen can't act at all,
especially being angry, which she does a lot. Palance desperately tries to save
the film, but he can't do it himself.
In the hosting segments, Crow and Mike play
piggyback. Gypsy comes in and breaks up their fun. Mike picks up Tom and tosses
him into the rafters. When Tom comes down, Mike misses him. Dr. F invents the
evil time machine. This is a cheap-looking time machine. Mike invents the Fabio
costume. Gypsy enters and laughs at Mike and the bots. Back in Deep 13, Dr. F
is dressed as a caveman wielding a club while Frank is dressed like a roman
senator with a Deep 13 shirt on. Next the bots go through the scrapbook of
Mike's. He's in a sailor suit doing various plays, even Oh! Calcutta. The bots
tell him this, and Mike panics. After that, Mike and the bots dress like 1890's
barber shop quartet, and sing the Toobular Boobular Joy song. It's a parody of the Disney song "Bibbity Bobbity Boo." Next Mike comes in with the autobiography of Jack Palance. They read it in a Palance-like voice. They talk about movies made for the USA network. In the end, they review all the crotch shots seen in the film, saying that there were more shots here than in all previous movies combined. Down in Deep 13, Dr. F and Frank dance with each other, then do the Charleston, the swim, the twist, then the Tango. Frank fall on the floor when Dr. F does a dip of him.
#520 – Radar Secret Service (1950) black and white
With short: Last Clear Chance (1955) Color
"Boy radar sure can do a lot – except save
this movie." – Quote from the IMDB. After a long and boring introduction about radar, they show two guys talking about radar. There's a shipment of Uranium going through this town, and they need radar to track it. Some thugs decide to steal the Uranium. They manage to do so, and radar tracks them down. Several scenes are repeated and stock footage is used. It has pretty bad acting as well, especially from the gun moll.
The short, "Last Clear Chance" was a
little piece of trash made to scare drivers at railroad crossings. It concerns
itself with instructing people to look both ways before crossing a railroad
track. Each year, a lot of people are killed by trying to beat a train across a
railroad track. Even Manos' cast had more acting ability then these people do.
The star is a no-talent policeman who also narrates this disaster. Filmed in
Idaho for no known reason. Brought to you by the Union Pacific railroad, who
also gave us "The Days of Our Years."
In the hosting segments, Mike gives Crow an
overhaul. Mike makes a bad move and turns Crow into Horshack. TV's Frank talks
about Hypno Helio Static Stasis, something that combines Deep Hurting and Rock
Climbing. Tom Servo parodies the short.
IMDB link - Radar Secret Service
#521 - Santa Claus (1959) color
The second really bad yuletide movie to be sent to the SOL actually predates the first. Starring nobody important, this skunk of a film hails from Mexico, where Santa really isn't as popular as he is here. (In Mexico, the Magi deliver presents into the kid's shoes instead of Santa and the stockings.) It seems Santa here lives on a cloud by the North Pole. He appears to be Mexican in ethnicity. He has hired a number of racially offensive kids to help him out. Many of the kids look pretty unhappy and bored here as they sing somewhat out of tune. The songs are mainly rip-offs of popular children's songs and done VERY badly. I must say I never saw a redheaded Mexican kid until this movie. Santa lights up a toy devil, and this causes a bunch of real demons to dance badly. The devil tells his minions to go to Earth and ruin Christmas for children. Next we see a bunch of people windows shopping. One of the demons latches onto three brats who attack Santa Claus. Santa has a bunch of gadgets that he uses to know everything. He zeroes in on a poor girl named Lupita. She's watching a show of puppets hugging each other. She then steals a doll at the request of the demon; however, she puts it back and frustrates the demon. A rich kid opens two large presents to find his parents in them. Next scene, look for the boom in the shot, right above Santa. The demon jumps into Lupita's dream, trying to tempt her into doing evil. Santa then intervenes in three kids who are bad, and tells them he does care about them. Santa then gathers a bunch of letters from kids together, and sorts them by their telling the truth or lying. Santa's pre-journey talk to a kid is pretty bad. Then a lot of kids put a lot of presents into Santa's bag. Everyone, especially Santa sings out of tune. Santa winds up the reindeer and takes off. His sled has 4 moderate sized white-headed reindeer. (Count the number of mistakes in that.) Santa lands in Mexico City where one of the demons waits. This is the semi-recurring character in MST3K named Pitch. He tries to push a chimney out of place so that Santa can't enter a house. Santa climbs down a ladder with his stuff and then tries to go down the chimney. He doesn't get far, and realizes that there's a demon nearby by the smell of sulfur. Santa takes out an umbrella the size for a palmtop pc and goes down to the room. There're two kids waiting for Santa. Santa blows a magic powder at the kids, and they fall asleep. Santa blows up the chimney and engulfs the demon in smoke. Trying again, the demon is in the home of another family. He ignites a fire in the chimney, and nearly burns Santa's behind. The demon then turns the doorknob red hot. Santa enters through a window, and the demon is oblivious to this. Santa delivers the presents, and discovers a toy cannon. He fires it at the demon, hitting him in the bottom. In the next house, he finds a boy sleeping on a chair. Using his magic powder again (and this is a reference to cocaine.) Santa wakes the kid and reveals himself to the kid. This good boy is then led to bed. His parents are then given a drugged cocktail that causes them to go back to the kid. Then the three Mexican brats help the devil out some more. However, they go to their shoes and find coal there. They turn on each other and fight. The demon tries to steal Santa's sleigh, but the reindeer won't listen to him. Then the demon cuts the bag containing his magic powder and the flower that turns him invisible. A mean dog then corners Santa in a tree. The demon wakes people up while Santa calls for help. The demon tries to create a lot of havoc. Merlin comes to the rescue of Santa. Merlin sends Santa a very fake looking cat that Santa uses to distract the dog. The cat takes off on wheels, and the dog follows. Then the police and the fire department show up. The fire department shoots a water blast at the demon, causing him to smoke and run away. Meanwhile, Santa's flower has landed at Lupita's house. Their family is despondent; Daddy's out of work. Lupita remains cheerful despite everything. She goes to the front door and finds a large doll, a doll about her size. In the end, Santa returns home and everyone has a good time. The narrator is very annoying and Santa is obscenely cheerful. Lupita can't act at all, and neither can the girl whom they used to dub her voice with.
In the hosting segments, Mike leads the bots on a
carol, and disaster ensues. The bots attack each other. Crow's eyes get knocked
out, and Tom's head falls off. The mads exchange gifts. Frank shaves his head
to buy Dr. F a gift, and Dr. F gets frank a $25 savings bond. Mike and the bots
also exchange gift. Mike and the bots play a Christmas song as the band Santa Klaüs. Mike's a good enough singer to sing badly here. Mike is supposedly reunited with his family. One is Mary Jo Pehl. They're not Mike's family. Mike and the bots sing a carol for all faiths, proving Mike can't sing tenor like Tom can. In Deep 13, Santa (Kevin Murphy) and the demon Pitch (Paul Chapin) fight each other.
#522 – Teenage Crimewave (1955) black and white
Originally titled Teen-Age Crime Wave. A pretty
boring intro introduces a pretty bad movie about kids who commit crimes. A
young woman lures a man to a back alley where he's mugged by another man. The
woman is sentence to a juvenile home. A catfight ensues (have you noticed that
pretty much any movie made in the 50's or 60's with a catfight in it turns out
pretty bad?) They show more and more examples of how teenagers are getting out
of control. There's a jailbreak, and then two of the women and a guy go to a
farm where they hole up. The old couple there are taken hostage and held. The
police eventually show up but don't do anything. Pretty bad acting and silly
scenarios follow. Especially stupid is the scene where one of the women gets
friendly with the son of the farmers. In other words, this movie is very
forgettable.
In the hosting segments, Mike and the bots try to
escape. Tom dresses in cammo and the others dress like artists. The mads invent
designer mace, which Dr. F uses on Frank. "When you're sampled, sample
back with our designer mace mousse." Dr. F says. It comes in the following
fragrances: Satan's jackstrap, Velvet Cudgel, Delerium, and Essence of Detroit.
Mike invents a jet pack to allow him and the bots
to escape. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Next They do a salute to the doughy
guy, the first guy to get offed in the film. They present a list of doughy
guys. One is Dan Ackroyd. After that, Mike and the bots open a deli. They have
several sandwiches, including Miles O'beef, the Mr. B Natural diet plate, Joe
Don Baker Baked Potato, The Vince Van Patty Melt, and the "Manos: The
Hands of Fate Ruben." Next Mike and the bots parody the Mentos commercials
with Mystos candy. Gypsy here wears a very bad looking blonde wig and Mike
plays paparazzi. In the end, In the end, Tom brings in the letters while wearing a US Mail uniform. They read a couple of letters. One is from a New Hampshire prison. Down in Deep 13, Frank becomes doughy guy, and then gets
sprayed with the designer mace. He shuts the monitor off, but it comes back on
to do this to him five times. Dr. F swings on a rope the third time. The fourth
time, Frank gets the can of Satan's jockstrap away from Dr. F, but aims it the
wrong way and ends up hurting himself.
#523 – Village of the Giants (1965) color
Shame on you, Bert I. Gordon! You made the same
movie twice with only slight plot variations! (This is basically a slight
variation on The Amazing Colossal Man.) This stinker stars Ron Howard (Happy
Days, The Andy Griffith Show, American Graffiti.) the Beau Brummels, and Beau
Bridges. This is based on a H. G. Wells novel. Food of the Gods. (Much like
Project: Moon Base and Hamlet, this proves that even the best of literature can
stink when in the wrong hands.) It starts of with a bunch of people go-go
dancing. Then we see a car accident. Out come a bunch of teens into a rainy
day. They're pretty drunk, but that doesn't stop them from go-go dancing in the
mud. Everyone gets muddy and wet. Next Ron Howard is shown with a chemistry
set, making something. He shows it to some uncaring people, who are more
interested in each other than what happens him. Ron then makes something that's
orange in color. A cat goes and eats some of it, then turns into a giant. The
Beau Brummels perform on a stage that is barely big enough to hold them, and
they're crowded together. Soon the area is populated by big animals that take
over. One of the ducks gets killed and barbequed. Next some kids steal a sample
of the formula, but one of them sets off the burglar alarm. The other takes the
stuff back to his place, and several teens eat the formula. Naturally, they
grow large. They then go to a party where everyone stares them, then hates
them. The local sheriff tries to stop them. Frankly, there's nothing to endear
you to the heroes. Eventually, one of the giants is captured, but released. The
people fight the giants, who fight back. In trying to replicate the formula,
the kid finds a way to shrink the giants back to normal size. In the end, they
meet a bunch of midgets who want to use the growth formula. This is a film that
really is very dated and doesn't stand up to the test of time. I found it tough
not to tune the movie out and listen to what Mike and the bots were saying.
In the hosting segments, Mike has a workout. Crow
works out as well as Tom is in a miniature Turkish bath. Mike throws a medicine
ball at Tom, despite the protests of the latter. Mike makes juice with eggs,
bacon, sausage, and butter. Mike takes a bite out of the stick of butter much
to the disgust of the bots. An incident forces Dr. F to fire Frank. Mike and
the bots rally behind Frank to save his job. He gets a going away present: a TV
dinner. Next Mike checks on Frank. Frank has turned into a skid row bum. To
replace him, Dr. F puts an ad in the paper. The first applicant is Torgo.
Torgo's resume and list of references are written on rotten tissue paper. Dr. F
hires Torgo. Frank turns into a bum with no life. There's a montage of Frank's
life at deep 13, with a song about him. Mike and the bots convince Frank to get his job back. The show
is dedicated to Frank Zappa.
IMDB link - Village of the Giants
#524: 12 to the Moon (1960) black and white
W/ short: Design for Dreaming (1956) color
Francis X. Bushman stars in this disaster. After some boring credits, an equally boring Victor Borge clone delivers a monologue about traveling to the moon. It was hard not to tune him out. They introduce the 12 people destined to travel to the moon. It's an international cast of Americans. They also have some animals with them too for no apparent reason. They take a good while to suit up and take off. Once they take off, they show some very boring stock footage and then the actors in the space capsule. The doctor is a Swedish blonde woman whose primary function is to be eye candy. The ship runs into a magnetic field, but nothing exciting comes of it. Then meteors enter the picture. They look like little Styrofoam peanuts. Next they show the Japanese middle-aged woman from the neck up showering. One of the men enters, gets embarrassed, and then exits. Then they take a good, long time to land the ship. Once on the moon, they have some of them exit the ship and travel on the surface. (Bad call: they have steam coming from one of the craters.) Several meteors crash. Then they find a rock formation that explodes. They call this stuff the Medea stone. Then the blonde and the leader kiss. Next they shoot off an explosive and it releases a reservoir of acid. Then they find some footprints leading into a cave. They go into the cave and find a wall of ice. Then one of the people gets sucked under. Then they find some alien thing with writing on it. The Japanese woman translates it. It talks about how aliens live on the moon and they don't like the humans being there because they can be in love. So our adventurers leave, and take a moonrock with them. The moonrock catches fire, so they jettison it. Then we have more meteors. Once they get near earth, they see that the weather has gone crazy. Communications have been disrupted. The atmosphere has frozen. To get back, they devise a bunch of small a-bombs. One of them, the German, tries to sabotage this. They have to pilot the a-bomb, so they draw straws for this. This goes wrong, and fails initially. They get a message from the moon: the moon people are impressed the two of the crew would sacrifice themselves to let the others live. Pretty bad acting and really nothing to endear you to the heroes shoot this one down. If that wasn't enough to turn you off, Several shots are repeated throughout this movie, especially the exterior of the ship.
The Short, "Design for Dreaming" was put
on by GM to showcase their lineup of 1957 models. A severe lack of reality
shoots this one down. The whole thing is narrated in song and neither of the
singers can really sing. The woman bakes a cake by putting a bunch of stuff
into a machine, and then it comes out perfect, with lighted candles no less.
She's also shown next to a bunch of very ugly looking cars that didn't sell
very well as well. A guy in a mask leads her through this, and takes her on
"The highway of tomorrow" which is a very cheap-looking slot car race
set. This is included on Shorts 3 and Mr. B's Lost Shorts. It shows us the
woman from the future, Nuveena. Filmed entirely on a soundstage in Miami,
Florida, this film is nowhere near the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
In the hosting segments, Mike and the bots play
rich brats. Crow and Tom play tennis while Gypsy and Mike take tea and talk.
Down in Deep 13, they have a celebrity roast in honor of Dr. Clayton Forrester.
Clay has incredibly large cigar. After some disparaging by Frank, Dr. F knocks
Frank around. Back on the SOL, Mike and Tom play tennis, and Gypsy makes a
questionable call as the judge. Tom gets angry. Next, Mike and the bots parody
the takeoff when suddenly the woman from the short (played by Bridget Jones)
appears. She dances around and sings her lines. She won't respond to Mike
unless he sings his questions. The bots taunt Mike about having the woman fall
in love with him. Next they decide to move to the woman's planet. Next the
woman turns Crow into a mixer and Tom into a blender. Mike doesn't like this,
so he asks her to leave. She gives him an insulting gesture and vanishes. In
the end, Mike laments the loss of the woman. He reads some letters. Then the
future woman appears in deep 13, and goes off with Frank.