103 Mad Monster

103 Mad Monster:

MST3K finally gets it's first werewolf movie and boy is it bland! The werewolf is extremely lame, the plot is predictable, and the pacing is very slow indeed. There's not much else to say about this one it's just stale.
Verdict: 1/4 Awful! A bland been there, done that monster flick.

The riffing has picked up a bit from last week, but it's still weak. There where some really good lines in the theater, mainly in the beginning and around the end. There where some spots where the riffing would pick up, but shortly it would die back down.

Opener: Invention exchange-Joel's hell in a handbag and the mad's thunder lizard.
Seg1: Tom romances Joel's blender.
Seg2: The boys discuss the wolfman.
Seg3: Tom and crow have their heads switched.
End: Good thing and bad thing about the movie for ram chips.
Overall: We have another batch of winners this time around! Seg1 is even better here than it was in the KTMA days and it still cracks me up! Seg2 was pretty funny as well, but Seg3 was probably my favorite of the bunch. Servo-Crowatian! Gotta love it!

Verdict:  A few gems in the theater and some great host segments save an other wise sub-par episode.

102 Robot VS The Aztec Mummy

102 Robot VS The Aztec Mummy: 

The Aztec Mummy was in a ton of cheesy Mexican horror flicks. This was one of his latter films, and it's probably not they one that he'd want to put on his resume. This film is three things: silly, boring, and disappointing. It has some really hammy acting and some goofy as all get-out effects, but it's slower than a narcoleptic snail in molasses.
Verdict:1/4-Awful! A silly, but extremely boring flick.

I've heard nothing but bad things about this episode and I'm here to say that...yeah it's pretty bad. The riffing is weak here, even for a season 1 venture. I will admit that there where some pretty good riffs in this one (mainly at the villain's lair), but sadly they are a bit too few and far between. Even the short was weak.

Opener: Invention exchange-Joel's helmet airbag and the mads' chalk man
Seg1: Demon dogs attack the SOL and Tom tries (and fails) to fight them off.
Seg2: Enotch, the king of the demon dogs visits the SOL and offers to send the demon dogs away..until Gypsy eats him (WTF?)
Seg3: Crow tries to impersonate Enotch and convince the demon dogs to leave.
End: Joel uses a game of fetch to rid the SOL of the demon dogs.
Overall: I really liked the host segments. The only time that we ever saw the demon dogs in the KTMA days was in the opening. It was neat to see them finally worked into the show proper.

Verdict: This was not a very impressive episode. While the few great riff and clever host segments keep it from being a complete failure, but the majority of the theater segments are very weak and they can get a tad bit tedious.

101 The Crawling Eye

101 The Crawling Eye: And so it begins. After being canceled from KTMA TV 23, the Brains pitched there little puppet show to a fledgling HBO-run channel called The Comedy Channel.

While KTMA harbored the series genesis, it was here where brilliance was born.

Trollenberg Terror was an old BBC TV serial that was eventually edited down into the film "The Crawling Eye". I found this to be a very interesting little flick. I like that the eyeball monsters can mind-control people into doing their bidding. I also like the film's atmosphere, although the film's low budget keeps it from being too atmospheric. I also enjoyed the ending with the all-out giant eyeball attack on the ski-lodge!
Verdict: 4/4-Fun! A neat and cheesy monster flick.

The riffing in this one is hit-and-miss. There are a bunch of very funny lines and it's a LOT more professional and witty than the riffing of the KTMA days (with a few exceptions, of course). We'll see better theater segments latter on in the season, but this one managed to keep me chuckling and cracking up a bit.

Open: Joel's eclectic bagpipes and the Mads' canine antiperspirant.
Seg1: Joel talks to the bots about why people can't take off their heads.
Se2: Gypsy uncoils herself
Seg3: The boys talk about what makes giant eyes scary.
End: One good thing and one bad thing about the movie for ram chips.
Overall: I didn't find this batch of host segs to be particularly enthralling. However, I really got a chuckle out of seg 3.

Verdict: I found this to be a very middle of the road episode. There are some great moments in the theater, but it's a bit too slow. The host segments where not bad (especially seg 3), but they weren't very good either.

Format change and other news

I didn't much care for the 1-6 score system, so I changed it to the more popular A-F grade system. I may go back and re-write the KTMA final verdicts, but if I do it will be a while before I get around to it. I went ahead and translated the scores into the proper grades in the episode guide though. Also, for my new reviwes I will only write the random thoughts about the season when I actually have random thoughts to put down. It's just a pain in the load-pan to try and thing of something to say about a season in general for every single review.


The KTMA season overview will be comming later on, in the mean time the blog will still enter it's SEASON 1 phase. Also, I may post a few non-review realted content on the site from time to time.

K21 The Legend of Dinosaurs

K21 The Legend of Dinosaurs: Here we are, the final episode of the KTMA season. I'll say this: It was a very interesting ride. While not as funny as many of the nationally aired seasons, there was still enough laughs to be had to make the experience far from painful. Even though there are a lot of rough episodes, there are still times where you can see the brilliance start to seep out. This is the final episode, KTMA's send off. It's time to say goodbye to TV 23, and hello to a new beginning....

I love giant monster movies. I love "Jaws" knock offs. This would lead one to think that I would love this movie. However this flick fell into the hands of Sandy Frank. We stared with Sandy Frank and we're ending with Sandy Frank. This is a silly giant monster flick with strange editing and inappropriate music. Much like the Gamera films before it, "The Legend of Dinosaurs" exists in another USA cut titled "The Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds". I've never seen that cut, but from what I heard it's far more enjoyable.
Verdict: 3/4-Watchable! It's silly fun...but the inappropriate music and bad edits get a bit annoying.

There have been a few episodes that managed to get a good laugh out of me, but this episode surprised me. To be honest, the riffing here doesn't feel like it should be in a KTMA episode. It feels more like riffing from a season 3 episode! The riffing here was hilarious! I never expected to laugh so hard at a KTMA episode. The humor was spot on and there where some real sidebusters in the theater. The boys really managed to surprise me this time.

Open: The mads try to use the Beatles' "Paul is dead" rumor to their advantage and try to come up with evidence that Joel is dead.
Seg1: Joel shows the bot's how you can make something look huge when I giant boy attacks the SOL.
Seg2: The SOL as a cheesy sitcom with bad puns an laugh tracks galore!
seg3: Joel shows the bots some more special effects with the help of his fire breathing dinosaur toy.
End: The boys talk about what they're going to do over the summer.  
Overall: I got a bit of a kick out of the Opener and seg 2. The later was a pretty decent parody.

Verdict: 5/6-Great! While the host segments are just a bit meh, the boys rocked the theater. This is defiantly KTMA's magnum opus.

K19 Hangar 18

K19 Hangar 18: Here I go, I've only got two episodes left with KTMA. I must admit, while this has been a bit of a rocky experience, I still had my fun. Particularly in the host segs. They seemed to have a lot of fun filming them and these later episodes have some really clever ones. Sure, the later seasons had some classics, but I'd rather take a KTMA host segment over any of the season 7 segments with Pearl *shudders* we'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

Hangar 18 was a little 1980's sci-fi flick that actually surprised me! It's got some convincing acting and some really smart writing. I actually got into this one quite a bit! The plot is very intriguing, even to the point of having a twist that doesn't suck! There's even an intense scene or two. The worst they can find? I don't think so...
Verdict: 4/4-Fun! A neat little sci-fi flick that had some talent behind it, and a clever script.

This episode started out really good! Sadly, it slowed down after a bit. However, there where still plenty of steady chuckles and a bunch of good, hard laughs to be had. Josh seemed to be especially one top of his game for this one. At one point he practically dominates the theater, while trace and Joel are all but mute!

Opener: Joel says "The movie is Hangar 18, MOVIE SIGN!!". Huh.
Seg1: Joel prepares for a meteor shower while Crow bombards him with questions. Mostly just "Why?", much like a five-year old.
Seg2: Joel and the bots delete some of Crow's memory, including every episode of Punky Brewster.
Seg3: The boys check out Crow's first memory. In said memory they find out that Crow's name stands for Cybernetic Remotely Operated Woman!! However, it was just a joke.
End: Joel announces that the fan club is close to 1,000 members! The 1,000th member will win a demon dog. Lucky schmuck...
Overall: What the heck was up with the opener? That has to be the shortest host segment in all of MST3K history! We got a batch of winners this time around. I really like seg 2 and seg 3. Crow's one lucky bot for having every episode of "Punky Brewster" deleted from his memory.

Verdict: 3/6-Fine! This was another tuff call. It pushes the line between 3 and 4, but in the end, a few slow parts land this right at the halfway point.

K18 The Million Eyes of Su-Maru

K18 The Million Eyes Of Su-Maru: One of the (thousand) things that I love about MST3K is how much character the bot's puppeteers put into them. I don't just mean verbally either, the bots physical expressions work very well on their own level. It took quite a while for Josh and Trace to really get things down and the KTMA bots where very clunky. But, eventually they started to catch on.

This movie just didn't settle well with me. Mabey it was the obnoxious womanizing hero. Mabey it was the fact that the only way that these women where able to be defeated without being shot was to be easily seduced. Mabey it was the line about the strong and independent female crime lord Su-Muru saying the line about needing "a man to force himself on her". I just can't quite put my finger on it....
Verdict: 2/4-Bad! Yeah, it's a sixties spy flick, but it's also incredibly sexist.

This started out as your run-of-the mill KTMA giggle fest but then Servo has to leave to bake brownies for the Pinewood Derby. With arguably the biggest laugh generator absent from the theater, the quality of the theater segments quickly drops.

Opener: The mads find Joel outside of the SOL. Joel finds a way back inside.
Seg1: Joel punishes the bots for not letting him back inside in K17.
Seg2: The boys play some strange courtroom and game-show thing.
Seg3: The boys play an acoustic version of the theme song.
End: Joel has to move Servo's mouth for him.
Overall: I found most of these segments to be rather forgettable. Well, except for seg 2. What the heck was that about!?

Verdict: 2/6-Meh! I got few giggles, but after Servo left it stared to tank.