106 The Crawling Hand

106 The Crawling Hand: One night, when I was but a young lad of 12 I went on YouTube in search of trailers for old B-movies. I found quite a few, 'Godzilla VS The Smog Monster', 'The Killer Shrews', 'TNT Jackson', ect. I eventually found a Trailer for a film called 'The Crawling Hand'. One the side bar I found a link to a Video titled 'Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Crawling Hand 1/8'. It looked curious, so I went ahead I clicked it....

A killer arm crawls around strangling people and bugging a young college student that is beginning to be taken over by the same evil space power that now posses the hand. EGADS! Now that's a plot! It's also a cheap and extremely silly movie. Also, I think that it should be called 'The Crawling Arm', but that's a nit pick.
Verdict: 3/4 Watchable! Complete with overacting and silly production.

I really love the riffing in this episode! This is by-far the best job that the boys have done in the series this far! A lot of the time it's a swift and witty as the riffing from a season 2 or 3 episode. There where a lot of big laughs to be had and it makes for one of the best riffing of the season! It may not have left me completely intoxicated with laughter, but I'll be damned if it wasn't a fun time!

Intro: Joel explains the show.
Opener: Joel's safety saw, the mads' limb lengthener
Seg1: Bowling (from a KTMA ep)
Seg2: The boys act like Shatner w/ some crawling hands.
Seg3: The boys discuss the crawling hand and why it's not scary.
End: Good thing and bad thing for ram chips
Overall: I gotta say, I really like this season's trend of having host segments that revolve around the boys talking about the film's monster(s) (ie seg 2). It reminds me of the kind of conversations that I have with my friends a lot.

Verdict: This episode is just short of an A. It's really a very much above-average episode. Especially for season 1.

105 The Corpse Vanishes

105 The Corpse Vanishes:

 Bela Lugosi is a hunchback-whipping, corpse-snatching, mad scientist! If that doesn't get you attention then I don't know what will. This was a pretty basic little caper with a silly plot.
Verdict:3/4-Watchable! A cute little spook flick.

Coming off of 'Mad Monster' and 'Robot VS the Aztec Mummy' (keep in mind that 104 is actually the season finally, it was just aired out of order) I was hoping to be seeing more signs of MST3K's soon-to-be magnificence. Sadly (to some extent) this episode isn't too much of a step up from the last. The riffs are a bit less sparse, but quite a bit of them (notably in the short) seem to fall flat. However, much like the last episode, there are still a few howlers among the theater. Joel's Bela impression got some of the biggest laughs out of me in this one.

Opener: Joel's chiro-gyro and the mad's flame throwing flower.
Seg1: Servo and Crow talk about Tiger-bot magazine.
Seg2: Tag (as seen in a KTMA ep)
Seg3: Joel and Crow at the barbershop (also from a KTMA ep)
End: Good thing and bad thing for ram-chips.
Overall: I loved Seg 1. It's so rare to see Crow and Tom just hand out and get along. It also fleshed out their personalities a bit. Speaking of which, the relationship between Josh's Tom Servo and Trace's Crow was a bit different than the ones between the bots while under their other puppeteers. Trace and Josh's bots got along pretty well (as opposed to the slight rivalry between Trace's Crow and Kevin's Tom) while still feeling a bit like siblings (unlike the roommate vibe of Kevin's Tom and Bill's Crow). The other segs where cute, but I really dig seg 1.

Verdict: The riffing was still a bit sparse, but there where just enough just enough good/great lines to keep this from completely sinking.

ABOUT THE LACK OF UPDATES

I am sorry for the lack of updates in the past two weeks. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but let's just say that life kinda got in the way. On my list of things that I have to take care of and the blog is kinda low on the list. Updates will resume as soon as I can get around to it, but I can't promise that that it will be too soon. Yeah, I know it sucks, but that's just the way things go. =/ 

104 Women of the Prehistoric Planet

104 Women of the Prehistoric Planet: This episode was originally the season finale, but The Comedy Channel, for whatever reason, decided to air it as episode four. The letters read at the end reference "Project Moonbase", "The Corpse Vanishes", and include the winner of the "name the avocado guy" contest from "Robot Holocaust". further evidence lies within the credits, where there are considerably more writers than in the earlier episodes.

There are women, there is a prehistoric planet, but the women are not OF the prehistoric planet! Thumbs down! Zero stars...... nah! I wouldn't do that to you guys. This is a really low budget sci-fi movie that ripps off of elements from Star Trek and has one of the dumbest twist endings in the history of MSTed movies. Oh, and it has some epically annoying comic relief.

Verdict:2/4-Bad! It's annoying and unoriginal.

The theater segments are quite refreshing, after two weak episodes it's nice to see some decent riffing. The boys are very sharp and the larger staff of writers (including Mike) means that we'll get more quality riffs and we sure do! The theater segments start out smooth and funny and stay strong until a little while near the end, but it picks back up again.

Opener: Invention exchange- Clay and Lar's Flesh Barn and Joel's TP in a bottle.
Seg1: Joel brings a doomsday device aboard the SOL!
Seg2: The boys try to disarm the Isaac Asimov Literary Doomsday Device.
Seg3: The boys fail to disarm the device and it turns them into Isaac Asimov(s)!
End: Letters (see review intro)
Overall: I had a lot of fun with the host segments. There wasn't a rotten apple among them! I even got a kick out of the invention exchange!

Verdict: This was a pretty good episode, with strong riffing and some fun host segments.

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.