#mst3knitathon

The blanket I was marathon-knitting was for a bridal shower that actually happened 10 days ago. As I went radio-silent, I was actually frantically knitting every day when I got home from work trying to finish on time, and did make it through half of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 top ten list without writing anything up ... but frustratingly close to finishing (seriously I was 4 inches from the end), I had to face reality and accept that even if I finished the actual knitting, there was no way the blanket would actually dry in time after being washed and blocked. So it's now going to be a wedding gift, which means I have until the middle of June to finish it.

The good news is, I still have enough knitting to make continuing to watch and write about the top 100 episodes of MST3K worth it. The bad news is that I am now resting my hand and arm to prevent repetitive strain (no pain, but I am experiencing signs that I may have overdone it), so no more knitting for me for at least another week and a half.

I plan to write up the retrospectives for the top 50 and top 25, and then I will start watching again with the beginning of the top 10 since I didn't write anything about those and they all stand up to rewatching. I may put one or two up before the knitting hiatus is over while folding laundry. Then it's back to the blanket and some sort of regular schedule!

I knit a little bit more during virtual DnD on Friday before deciding it was too soon, so I have 4 remaining pattern rows left, an I-chord bind off, and then picking up stitches along the cast-on row and doing another I-chord bind off there because I didn't realize I was going to want one and therefore didn't do an I-chord cast on. Then it's just weave in ends, wash, and block.

Here's how close I got to the end before I finally stopped knitting and gave up on finishing on time for the shower:

75. Episode 701 Night of the Blood Beast

Content warning: there’s a number of jokes about Wilbur the guardian angel reading as very queer-coded.

Summary: We start with the short, Once Upon a Honeymoon, which is one of the kookiest they’ve ever done. Wilbur, a hip but clumsy guardian angel is sent down to help Jeff and Mary, a couple who’s year-delayed honeymoon is in danger of getting cancelled when Jeff’s boss calls to demand that Jeff rewrite the melody to one of their big songs so the picky prima donna will sign the show contract. As Mary fights her outdated kitchen to make coffee for a stalled Jeff, Wilbur inspires her to go into a big musical fantasy number about redecorating her entire house with modern fashions, including a brightly colored telephone in each room to match the decor. Later, as Mary tries to dial Jeff’s boss to tell him the song isn’t working, Wilbur blesses the telephone and Jeff realizes that speeding up his existing melody to match the tempo of the rotary phone clicking will fix everything. The honeymoon is saved!

In the movie proper, it’s … an mpreg retread of It Conquered the World? An alien hitches a ride to Earth on a satellite, it stops all electrical power including self-contained systems like cars and wristwatches, scientists argue about whether it’s coming will help or hurt mankind, and at the end, the pro-alien scientist switches sides and causes its downfall. The “bullets won’t hurt it but fire does” is even the same. In this one, the satellite was manned and the astronaut implanted with something that exists first as foreign particles in his blood, then coalesces into shrimp-like aliens incubating in his body. The other NASA scientists immediately want to kill the creature that implanted him, but the infested astronaut has a psychic bond with the creature and insists that it means no harm and they should talk to it first. It speaks to them in the voice of an older doctor it killed earlier in the film, but when the astronaut hears its plan to save humanity by having the offspring bond with everyone, he realizes that it means to sacrifice human civilization to rebuild its own. The astronaut stabs himself to kill the space babies, and the other scientists kill the alien with fire. (The NASA scientists have wanted to kill it with fire for the whole movie, because that’s how they naturally react to first contact). ((The creature in this one is a charbroiled parrot thing.)) (((Only six people work at NASA)))((((This is also a Roger Corman film that came out the same year as the other one.))))

MST3K lore or notable moments: one of each! The short is one of their most notorious delightfully weird ones and deserves a watch on its own even if you don’t watch the whole episode. And this episode is I think the only? - one to premiere during a Turkey Day marathon. Every year, MST3K did and does a marathon during US Thanksgiving with recorded bumpers that, during the cable days usually, involved an ongoing plot about the characters celebrating Thanksgiving and/or reacting to the marathon. (Dr. F always seems to think that getting large numbers of people to watch his experiment during the marathon will result in him taking over the world somehow.) So this episode was filmed with two different sets of sketches - ones that continued the Turkey Day storyline, for initial broadcast, and ones about the movie, for reruns. In the Turkey Day sketches, Dr. Forrester’s mother, Pearl (introduced as a one-off guest character in season 6), has come to visit, but before ascending to second banana heaven, Frank had invited a bunch of guest characters from past episodes over to Thanksgiving, and Dr. F has to unexpectedly host. Pearl Forrester calls Crow “Art” and seems to know him, which will remain a running gag that is never explained. (Having now watched it, I think it’s somewhat ambiguous whether she does actually know Crow as someone named Art somehow, or whether she’s mistaken him for someone else and Crow is masterfully playing along.) In the end, Pearl helps Dr. F poison his irritating guests, but also announces her intent to stay with him indefinitely until he can get his life together. The regular sketches establish the dynamic between Pearl and Clayton as Pearl takes her place as one of the official Mads for the first time.

What do I think about it’s place on the list? It’s really a shame that Dr. and Mrs. F only got one season to run the experiment together, because Mary Jo Pehl is so note-perfect right from the get go as this toxic, overbearing, bingo-loving mother figure. When Pearl Forrester has to transition to main mad scientist in the SciFi seasons instead of playing off the dynamic with her son it’s, in my opinion, a bit more hit or miss. Both sets of sketches are very good and the episode is strong, but not quite strong enough for me not to mildly regret my decision to watch the episode twice with the different sketches instead of just watching the Turkey Day sketches as a compilation on YouTube. But a good top 75, especially with that amazing short.

Update: @punchdrunkklovesickk came in clutch in the replies with info about Pearl calling Crow "Art:"

ALSO!!! I CAN EXPLAIN THE THING PEARL DOES WITH CALLING CROW ART SOMETIMES! so basically! during an older joel era letter read (i believe it was jungle goddess?), joel and the bots do a send up of an older sitcom whose name i cant remember rn. this send up involved calling the bots by the actors on that old sitcom - crow gets introduced as "art crow." i cant name the next episode offhand (ik its a joel one) but there was a letter read from a kid who saw that end sketch, thought crow's name was art, and called him such in their fanmail. why best brains called back to this in later seasons idk

24. Episode 908 The Touch of Satan

Summary: Someone made half of a potentially good movie, but instead of finishing it, just filled in the blanks with a lot of portentous pauses. In the 1970s, Jodie, a young man taking a gap-year road trip while he decides whether to follow his father into law practice or pursue another trade, drifts on to a walnut farm where he meets beautiful Melissa, her parents Molly and Luther, and her mysterious great-grandmother Lucinda who carries a doll like a child, has facial burn scars, and secretly sneaks out of the house to murder people with farm implements. But actually, Melissa and Lucinda are sisters, both over 120 years old. When they were teenagers, plague came to their town and a mob tried to burn Lucinda as a witch, prompting Melissa to sell her soul to the devil for the power to save her sister, and she has lived with this terrible secret ever since. Who, then, are Molly and Luther (since they are not the girls' parents), and what is their relationship to Melissa and Lucinda? The movie never tells us. Was Lucinda ever actually a witch, since Melissa is the only one who seems to have powers? The movie never tells us. Are the secret murders related to the witchcraft, and if so, how? The movie never tells us. What does Melissa mean in the beginning of the movie when she tells Luther that there's "a way" to stop the murders, given that she seems to be the one keeping Lucinda protected, and why does Lucinda tell Jodie to "go away" when she's the one attacking people? The movie never tells us. At the end, Lucinda knocks over an oil lamp while attacking Jodie and Melissa finally lets her burn. Repentance will not get Melissa her soul back, but sex with Jodie somehow does. But when this causes her to decay rapidly to her true age, Jodie sells his soul to restore her youth, and the cycle begins anew. Given this sequence of events, and the heavy featuring of Amazing Grace in the soundtrack, there's a potential for this movie to be saying something about grace. What is it? Instead of adding scenes to address or clarify any of these questions, the movie just pads time by making all the actors take significant pauses before reacting to or saying anything.

MST3K lore or notable moments: Pearl is away on vacation this episode, so the MST3K costume and prop mistress guest stars as Bobo and Brain Guy's babysitter Steffi, who thinks that Brain Guy is a toddler and Bobo is a dog. We hear her over the closing credits admonishing Bobo not to bark.

20. Episode 813 Jack Frost

Summary: This is an amalgamation of several traditional Slavic fairy and folktales that have been edited and reworked to follow one plotline. Sweet and beautiful young Nastenka is forced by her cruel stepmother to do all the chores in her household so that her stepsister Marfushka can be idle and spoiled - she is also given impossible tasks and unreasonable timelines so that her stepmother will have an excuse to punish her by yanking on her braid, out of resentment that Nastenka is more beautiful than Marfushka. But Nastenka is so kind and obedient and polite that the very sun and flowers will help her if only she asks nicely. When the men and mothers of the village want to arrange marriages with Nastenka (whom they can tell does all the cooking, cleaning, and textile work) instead of lazy Marfushka, the stepmother commands her henpecked husband to leave his daughter in the woods to freeze - but she is so polite to Grandfather Frost that instead of freezing her to death, he takes her to his own house to warm up.

Meanwhile, Ivan the widow's son is handsome and mythologically strong, but also arrogant and boastful. When he refuses to thank a generous forest spirit for a present, Grandfather Mushroom curses him to have a bear's head until his character changes. He runs around doing good deeds, but none of them count because his motives are selfish.

Ivan and Nastenka met in the woods before any of this happened and fell in love at first sight, so when Ivan finally breaks the curse in a moment of unselfish kindness, he sets out to find her again. He finds Baba Yaga (translated in the dub as "the hunchbacked fairy")'s hut and torments her for information until she leads him to Jack Frost's house, but she sends her wicked cat ahead of him to trick Nastenka into touching Frost's magic scepter that freezes her instantly. Ivan's true love melts her back again, and Grandfather Frost gives her treasures and jewels for a dowry. Seeing what's happened, the stepmother sends her own daughter out into the woods, but she's rude to Grandfather Frost, so he insultingly sends her back on a pig sled with crows for a dowry. This public humiliation cows the stepmother enough for her husband to regain ascendancy in the house, and after Ivan wins one last battle with Baba Yaga and her bandits, he and Nastenka are wed and live happily ever after.

MST3K lore or notable moments: Pearl is still absent for the first part of the episode on her trip to return the space children to their parents as we saw in episode 812, and Mike *very nearly* tricks Brain Guy into taking his place in the theater while acting as mediator for him and Bobo.

Just over a year ago, I started this project of watching the fan-voted top-100 episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 while frantically knitting an afghan for my close friend's wedding. Fifteen months and ninety-nine episodes later, I'm watching the top-rated episode of all while knitting a new blanket for that same friend's baby shower. It must be the will of Manos! And now it's time for the final episode of this top 100 list. Do we all know what to do? That's right: You, put a handkerchief on your head! You, swat at imaginary elves! You, rock on the porch all night! Let's get this party started!

1. Episode 424 Manos: The Hands of Fate

Content Warning: The movie involves a cult that is attempting to take over people's minds to enforce servitude, particularly women for sexual slavery. One of the potential victims is a *very* young child who, if the cult is successful, will either be killed as being of no use or taken and raised by the cult to become a sexual slave as an adult. There is also some onscreen pawing at unconscious (or frozen in terror) people, and the death of a dog.

Summary: We start with a short, the second part of Hired!, the beginning of which we saw all the way back at number 79. during Bride of the Monster (a criminally underrated episode.) In Part 1, new hire Jimmy feels like he's spinning his wheels as a salesman for Chevrolet cars, while his frustrated manager complains to his own father that none of his new employees seem to know what they're doing. Here in Part 2, Dad passes on his folksy wisdom that no one knows how to do a job unless they've been trained, and reminds his son that when he was green, his own boss worked closely with him to show him how to do the job right. (Petition for weird porch-rocker dad to explain to all those five-years-of-experience-for-an-entry-level-position companies that everyone serves an apprenticeship for every job). The boss returns to the Chevrolet lot determined to help his sales people grow with hands-on guidance and management.

In the film proper - I don't know how to explain how weird this movie is. We have had incoherent films and surreal films and weird films and incompetent films, but this - somehow seems to become a more bizarre viewing experience the more times you watch it.

A family - a mature dad, his significantly younger wife, and their little daughter - drive through endless alfalfa fields to a completely inappropriate jazz soundtrack while looking for a place called Valley Lodge. Dad misses an opportunity to ask for directions from teens necking at a crossroads, but when he goes back, they've been chased away by the local cops. We will periodically cut back to what the teens and the cops are doing throughout the movie, although it never becomes relevant. (I think they're trying to tease the audience with the hope that the cops might figure out that something's wrong and come to the family's rescue, but the editing is so poor that everything just feels very random.) Dad finally stops for directions at a mysterious ranch house that wasn't there the first time they drove by, and the very odd caretaker Torgo (with an even more inappropriate theme) reluctantly allows the family to stay the night while making creepy comments about a "Master" and ogling the young wife. In the night, the family poodle runs outside and is killed by desert animals, Torgo creeps on the wife, the car refuses to start so they can't leave, and daughter Debbie discovers a secret room where the Master and several wives unconscious in ritual poses around an eternal flame. (That last one gets only about 20% of the reaction it should.) Now when I type it out like this, it seems obvious that the death of the dog is to establish that the desert is dangerous and explain why the family doesn't run into it the second they find the cult room, but I cannot stress enough how much the editing of this film is so odd that it makes it hard to put together cause and effect.

Eventually the Master wakes up and starts talking about a sacrifice to the god Manos, he wakes the wives and they begin fighting about whether to kill Debbie along with her father or convert her into the cult along with her mom, Torgo says that he wants the new lady for his wife and threatens rebellion when he is refused, the first wife repeats "your power fails you" a couple of times, and then everyone kind of wanders around aimlessly for a bit? Eventually, the Master uses his powers to kill Torgo and the first wife, and the family flees into the desert. When the wife tires, they try to trick the pursuing cult by doubling back to the house. The Master appears, is shot by the husband several times but is immune to the bullets, and we cut to a new group of vacationers arriving at the house where the dad is now the creepy caretaker and mom and Debbie are both among the wives.

MST3K lore or notable moments: The whole episode is iconic. This is their most famous one. But if I have to pull a few things, it's that Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank both sneakily apologize to the SoL crew for the badness of the movie, and this is the introduction of Torgo, one of the shows most iconic recurring guest characters, who appears at the end of the episode to deliver a suspiciously warm pizza to Deep 13. Honorable mention to Joel's Manos costume with the feet robe.

23. Episode 513 The Brain That Wouldn't Die

Content Warning: Sadly, this is another episode with some transphobic riffs, as the riffers decide that one of the women in the strip club looks like a man in drag and make jokes about it. At least she only appears in one scene. (Also, the movie's whole vibe is kind of gross.)

Summary: In what's possibly the sleaziest movie they've ever done, a young doctor whose experiments in preserving human tissue for the purposes of limb and organ transplants have perhaps already gone too far accidentally decapitates his fiancee in a car accident on the way to the country house where he conducts his secret experiments. Preserving her head in a tray of his new "serum," he now has 50 hours to save the woman he loves by locating a suitable female victim and transplanting Jan's head onto her body. Most of the movie is occupied with the camera leering at his potential victims as he tries to pick out the body he wants to have sex with while it wears his future wife's head. Gross! Meanwhile, the conscious and horrified remains of Jan grows bitter and resentful over her unnaturally extended life, and she forms a psychic bond with a "thing" that was formed from an amalgamation of amputated limbs that her fiance tested earlier versions of his serum on and that he now keeps locked in a closet, vowing that together they can exact revenge on both the doctor who created them and his assistant, a former surgeon who lost his dominant hand in an accident and is hoping the experiments will lead to a successful arm transplant that will allow him to resume his calling.

MST3K lore or notable moments: It's Mike's first episode as host! In the previous episode (we will get to it in the top ten), Joel escaped from the Satellite of Love and the Mads replaced him with their temp worker Mike in order to continue the experiment. Since then, Tom and Crow have been training Mike for his first experiment by making him watch Night of the Lepus (I bet Rifftrax has covered that) and The Beast of Yucca Flats (which will be featured in the following season, voted #63 on the top 100 list). Between film segments, Mike tries and fails to gain control of the ship, but does sweetly promise not to escape without the bots, who feel kind of abandoned by Joel. We are also introduced to recurring guest character Jan in the Pan, played by Mary Jo Pehl.

38. Episode 519 Outlaw (of Gor)

Summary: Cabot, an Earth professor who has had a previous adventure in the leathery sword-and-sandals fantasy world of Gor, is called back there by a magic ring where he is greeted as a returning hero and reunites with his true love, Princess Talena. Unfortunately, he has accidentally brought along his annoying colleague, Whatney-Smith. Cabot was recalled to Gor by the Elder who suspects the High Priest (played by Jack Palance) of conniving against the king, but before he or Cabot can do anything about it, the sexy young queen seduces Whatney-Smith into giving her an alibi while she murders the king and sort of lazily frames Cabot for it by accusing him without evidence. The queen and the priest start arguing about their coup, and it becomes clear that while the dead good king wanted to end slavery in Gor, the sexy new queen wants to make it even worse! Cabot and a little person friend of his from the first adventure wander around the desert in too little clothing for a while before getting captured and forced to fight to the death, but the annoying Whatney-Smith saves them at the last minute by accusing the queen without evidence of murdering her husband, which changes everyone's minds. Cabot stays in Gor to marry Talena and become the new king, while a dazed and confused Whatney-Smith is dropped back into a modern city.

MST3K lore or notable moments: There are two notable sketches in Mike' and the bots' Fabio costumes (used in promotions a lot), and their montage of all the "buffalo shots" in the movie. (The song about all the flesh on display in this movie is very fun too, but I don't know if I'd call it notable. They had lots of good songs.)

During this episode, I managed to finally refold and put away everything from a Marie Kondo-ing of my T-shirts, that have been draped across my armchair for the past 2+ weeks. This is why she recommends laying everything out on the bed that you sleep in so that you have to put it away before bedtime. Welcome back to MST3Knitlaundryfoldathon, where we're watching the fan voted top-100 episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in reverse order while doing whatever needs to be done. Everybody sing along! 🎶Pumaman, he flies like a moron!🎵

6. Episode 903 Pumaman

Summary: Centuries ago, ancient aliens visited the Aztec empire and were worshiped as gods, and left them with two symbols of protection for both the Aztec people and all humanity: a high-tech golden mask that can psychologically control people, and their own genetic material in the form of the Pumaman, a part-human son of the "gods" who inherited superhuman abilities from them and would pass these powers on to his own son, creating an unbroken line of protectors throughout the ages. Why didn't the Pumaman protect the Aztecs from colonization? ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ In the modern day (1970s), the golden mask has been stolen from the Aztec temple and fallen into the hands of a bad guy played by veteran Bond villain Donald Pleasence, who intends to use it to control world leaders and decide the course of global politics. Why did the alien gods who (we later learn) don't intervene in human affairs because they want all men to be free and masters of themselves give the Aztecs a mind-control mask in the first place? ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ Knowing that the current Pumaman is the only one who can stop his evil plan, Donald Pleasence attempts to find and eliminate him by throwing potential candidates out windows to see who falls like a cat. Meanwhile, the high priest of the remaining Aztec temple contacts the actual Pumaman, an American (part-Aztec?) paleontologist living in London who knows nothing of his heritage or his late father's superheroic identity. How did his dad, the previous Pumaman, die so early given all his supernatural powers, and why was his son raised in ignorance? ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ The high priest explains that Tony already has the powers of a puma: to fall gracefully, see in the dark, instinctively sense danger, and possess the strength of a great cat. Then he gives him a belt to enhance his powers that allows him to fly, astral project, and walk through walls. You know, like a puma. Can the high priest teach the whiny paleontologist how to control his powers in time to stop Donald Pleasence's plans for world domination? (Also, why wasn't he the real hero of this movie?)

MST3K lore or notable moments: The makers of this film did not seem to know how to use the flight harness they were able to get their hands on properly, so Pumaman in flight flails about like an idiot. It's laughably unconvincing and really puts even the oldest and cheapest Superman effects into perspective as successful endeavors. It's one of the most well-remembered and iconic moments from the show.

[Edit: Also, another visit from Ortega, who visits the castle to watch Sliders with Brain Guy]