#k08

General notes

          This is our final Gamera outing of KTMA, and then we shall leave the giant flying turtle behind for a few seasons. Fortunately, as Tom says in the later version, this movie is “kinda goofy”, so there’s plenty to work with. There's actually not much to note in this one. They’re starting to fall into a groove with the episode format, now that we’ve established the Mads. Oh- (pointed out to me by somebody else) They don’t play any viewer calls in this one. But that’s about it. Let’sgo ahead and finish up Gamera, then.

Prologue/Movie intro

The copy of this one actually starts off with a promo/commercial thing for the episode that’s about to air, which I could do a section on, but I’m not going to because I’m lazy.

I like the way Joel pops up sideways from below the desk.

Joel got a haircut! Gone are the days of the semi-mullet that he’s been sporting for the past several eps. The new one is much more akin to the shorter style that he usually had in the show proper. I feel like he looks younger like this, not that it’s a bad thing.

Joel says it’s their sixth week in row showing Gamera (on) films, but this is only the fifth Gamera episode they’ve done. Maybe they skipped a week and showed a re-run? Or maybe in-universe there was another one we didn’t see- perhaps one from the giant stack that Dr. Erhardt had in the previous episode.

Actually, at the end of last week’s episode, Joel and the bots announced the movie for this week’s episode, which meant that they already knew what it was… I guess we’ll just pretend that didn’t happen.

Hm, the bots question Joel about how he brought them into the world just to help him watch bad movies. You have to admit, it does seem unfair on some level. Then again, perhaps they should be happy just to be alive at all. It gets a little bit morally complicated. Sort of a “My Sister’s Keeper” dilemma, except a lot goofier. Joel doesn’t seem willing to discuss it at this point, though. I wonder if they do later. I feel like they probably did. 

Also, Crow’s still making puns. They’re sort of becoming a bot trademark.

The Mads apparently like puns, too.

I just noticed that Larry’s weird flight and/or ski googles have red and blue 3-D glasses lenses.

Dr. F calls Joel “boobie” (or whatever spelling variation you prefer) for the first time. Now that one definitely becomes a trademark. According to the Unofficial Nickname List- which a) no, I did not make, and b) can be found here: http://www.mst3kinfo.com/ward_e/Listnick.html#b -it’s the second most commonly used nickname in the show. The list only covers KTMA through Season 6, but as it’s mainly a Dr. F thing, that’s probably still fairly accurate. Not that it really matters. (The most commonly used nickname is “Honey”, by the way.)

I really don’t want to know where Dr. F’s Barbie-doll-in-the-attic story was going. Apparently neither did Joel, since he interrupted.

“Overinflated-skinbag-of-chemicals-and-mostly-water” On the subject of nicknames, they tended to be longer and more complex in the KTMA days. Also tended to include the word “skanky” a lot more often. Go figure.

They don’t have any more Gamera (on) films? What about that giant stack of them you had last week?

Also, why do they seem to only have good movies to show now that they’re supposedly out of Gameras? What else do they have to do besides finding crappy movies to send up there? Did they prepare at all for their experiment at all? Actually, they probably didn’t. The whole thing comes across as pretty half-cocked from the beginning, but they just run with it.

The deck vs…something else that sounds similar to deck joke reminds me of the “peanuts” riff from Touch of Satan. But that’s a long, long ways down the road.

What do they want Joel to do to improve ratings? Be funnier? But that’s not the point of their experiment- they want him to lose his mind. Maybe they’re broke and are trying to make some more cash before continuing the experiment more as originally envisioned? Comes back to the whole thing being pretty poorly thought out. I get the feeling that the characters never thought it through as much as I am right now.

In the very early days, Joel and particularly the bots tend to be a lot more disgusted and frustrated by the Mads’ evil jerkiness. They seem to get pretty used to it after a while.

Movie pt. 1

They take a really long time to get into the theater. Maybe it’s not that long, but it really seems that way with the silent, looming, blue title screen.

The section about stars (do they mean planets?) at the beginning of the movie is cut out of the Season 3 version.

Servo (Josh) reads the Roman numerals as 1979. Actually the film came out in 1969, so he was little bit off, but still, that’s fairly impressive if it was off the cuff.

Movie note: I just have to say this- The DUBBING IS JUST. SO. BAD. THE PAUSES. THE CONJUGATION. THE BIZARRE INFLECTION. WHY.  Ahem. That is all.

At 8:52, Crow makes a “Uranus” joke. This would not be the last time- see the “Servo’s Planetarium” sketch from The Skydivers (609), not to mention the whole of Hercules and the Captive Women (412).

Wizard of Oz reference spotted at 13:46.

The “Pi-Li Herman” joke at 15:02 is kind of terrible, but I’ll admit that made me go "Pffft.'

At 18:31, Joel punches the little girl in the face!

When they start singing along to the Gamera song, you can hear the beginnings of the lyrics we all know.

Servo extends his neck at 25:51, maybe to get a better look at Akiyo?

At 25:59, Joel pretends to squish (movie) Tom’s head, which hilariously fits the timing of an explosion in the movie.

At 26:44, Servo states that they’ve seen seven Gamera movies in a row. *whispers* There’s only been five! Maybe it just feels like seven.

When the SpaceGaos gets its leg sliced off, the bots go off on another string of puns.

Another Wizard of Oz quip at 29:21. (Yes, I am going to note them all, at least until I get annoyed with it.)

Servo’s still able to leave the theater on his own.

Host Segment 1

What exactly are Crow and Gypsy trying to do? Obviously some kind of maintenance on something, but specifics are unclear.

This segment is clearly the prototype version of the “alternate universe S.O.L.” concept that was eventually fully realized in Last of the Wild Horses (611). In the ACEG, they do say they’d been wanting to use the idea for a long time- at least six years, if this is any indication.

I can only assume, based on their budget or lack thereof, that the Mads’ Satellite of Loathe costumes are the same as their Gizmonic Institute costumes, but they look much grayer in the different lighting.

Crow falls into the evil villain role quite easily. Although it was a dream/hallucination, so maybe that’s not how it would have happened if that had actually gone down. Then again, maybe it is.

It seems that Gypsy’s fled the scene of the crime by the time Joel arrives to wake Crow up.

Movie pt. 2

Okay, movie thing again- Tom correctly calls it a planet, and then in the next sentence Akiyo calls it a star again. !?

When they first come into the theater, it looks like Joel spends a little while securing Servo. Josh must have been having trouble with the puppet again.

WoO reference #3 at 34:21.

Snippy, sarcastic Crow at 36:15. His later self would probably approve.

At 44:25, when the space lady gets out the food card, Joel remarks how he wishes they had cards like that on the ship. So, we may not know how he eats (and breathes), but apparently not like that.

Based on his comments at 44:41, it sounds like Crow’s still bitter about the whole suspended animation thing.

Host Segment 2

Crow’s still on about his crazy mirror-verse dream.

Joel didn’t expect his robots to be able to dream. You’d think he’d be less skeptical about it, considering how abnormal his robots are, but I guess you learn these things over time.

I’m not sure what to think about Tom’s desire for the native girls to be naive. Also, I understand the coconut oil, but wouldn’t being rubbed with mango juice get pretty sticky? Apparently not a concern of his, although maybe he just hasn’t had a lot of experience with the properties of juice.

Poor Crow’s getting confused by all the terminology. They’ve been more self-sufficient for the past few episodes, so it’s easy to forget how little they still know about some things.

Movie pt. 3

A lot of the riffs in the doughnut section are very similar to the Season 3 version. I guess why change it if it’s good?

Wow, they all start losing it at about 58:00, when the space ladies start shaving Akiyo’s head. Cute c:

At 58:38, Crow says that his dad used to give him bad haircuts when he was just a diode. Does he mean Joel, or this more like his imaginary, giant, moustachioed, laser-shooting dad from I Accuse My Parents (507)? Or he also could have just been joking completely.

I love Joel’s weird delivery of “Let’s go get brains.” at 59:10.

Servo ducks out of the way of the volcano at 59:46. Or maybe the puppet just fell over- it’s hard to tell.

The riff speed really picks up when the Gamera vs. Guiron fight gets going. Starts to feel almost like a normal episode, at least in riff volume.

At 1:02:44, Tom makes some very accurate callbacks to the plot of last week’s movie, Gamera vs. Zigra. Kind of impressive on Josh’s part, since this was before they watched every movie five or six times, and he had probably only seen it the one time. Okay, so maybe it’s not that impressive, but I think it’s kind of fun.

Crow’s riff at 1:04:18 is verbatim the one used in the Season 3 episode (although Joel’s the one who says it). Again, I guess why change a good thing?

Movie note- This movie has some of the weirdest scene transitions. They look like PowerPoint slide transitions. Also they’re really inconsistent with their pronunciation of Gaos and Guiron.

At 1:11:18, Servo ask Joel’s permission to leave to “drain his radiator.” The whispering is cute, but he also sounds a little bit like Nick Nolte (I fully blame RiffTrax for causing me to make that association). Crow goes with him- does he carry him out of the theater? I guess he wouldn’t have to, since at this point Tom could still get in and out by himself, but it would cute, so part of me chooses to believe that he did.

Host Segment 3

I believe the line about feeling groovy comes from “The 59th Street Bridge Song” by Simon and Garfunkel.

I kind of have a hard time imagining Joel at a Metallica concert. But I guess it was just a dream, and he wasn’t even at a concert, just getting tickets. So this whole bullet point was pretty pointless.

Seems like the bots were pretty much planning on learning to be human right from the beginning. Maybe they decided that on their own, but they also seem a little unconvinced that it’ll be worth the effort, so maybe Joel sort of coached them that way.

Joel calls Gypsy “Gypsum” again. I thought they’d figured that one out by this point. Maybe it was just a line flub. It is Joel, after all (and we love him that way c: ).

Hey, wait a second- in the previous host segment, Joel was saying that robots can’t dream, but here he’s asking Gypsy what she dreams about? And apparently he programmed her to do it? Unless he only programmed Gypsy for it, and he was only talking about Crow and Servo when he said that earlier, but that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I think Joel’s a little mixed up.

On a semi-related note, I kind of like how the KTMA host segments often follow a single topic/train of thought throughout the episode. It probably has to do with the way they were quickly thrown together just prior to taping written, but there’s something I like about the consistency of it. They did that sometimes in the show proper, too, but it was less common. Of course, I also love the less connected ones, so I don’t think either one is better, but I do like the feel of the discussion-snippet style.

Movie pt. 4

Crow takes his time getting into the theater, and apologizes for it. Apparently he was “off-loading”. I’m…not sure I want to know what he means by that.

At 1:15:18, in sympathy for Gamera, Crow recalls his unpleasant head-injury-crazy-dream experience from earlier. I like how Trace and Josh will play along with each other’s references to the host segments. It really adds to Joel’s original concept of the hosts going into the theater with you- sort of gives it a point. The silhouette idea is fun by itself, but actually having the feeling that it’s the same characters you saw earlier watching the movie with you it one of the things that really makes MST work.

At 1:17:15, Crow mentions “the wrestling show”- I wonder if he was specifically referring to the local wrestling show that recorded in the TV 23 studio directly after they did on Friday evenings. Probably was.

Joel directly uses the word “riffing” at 1:18:26. Is this the first time they say it? They didn’t call it that in-universe very often. I wonder when Joel decided to call it that. It’s kind of an interesting usage of that word. It’s been used in jazz and rock music for a long time, but was is used in the context of making comments/jokes based on another source/idea before MST? Does anyone know? I’m very curious.

In the “official” unofficial episode guide at Satellite News, they insist that the song they sing along to the Gamera song must have been pre-prepared, thus they must have been previewing the movies by this point. I suppose that’s possible, but I don’t think it really seems any more prepared than any of the rest of the riffing. I definitely think it could have been ad-libbed. Same goes for the other little song from earlier in the episode, if that’s the one they were talking about. It doesn’t really matter, but I thought I’d throw my two cents in.

They dance along to the music on the way out of the theater.

Conclusion

Joel closes the doors manually this time. Apparently, they’re on the fritz.

Gypsy’s line about the doors sounds kind of ad-libbed, like many the lines from KTMA host segments. Seems like they were pretty casual about them, which on the one hand made them seem a little less polished, but on the other hand often led to hilarity.

They sing Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love”, which I assume all of you know about, it being the origin of the S.O.L.’s name and all. Gypsy gets really into it at the end there.

I really don’t know how to feel about Joel’s little dance, haha.

Joel mentions Ken (possibly Ken Fournelle? I have no idea) setting up a survey for them. That’s one of those logistical things that doesn’t make much sense in-universe that you just have to ignore. Just relax and whatnot.

Gypsy and Crow start fighting in the background at the very end! Seems like Gypsy’s winning. Also, you can hear Josh laugh out loud as they fade out.

“Mr. Crow of Beverly Hills” is credited with hair design in credits.