What are your favorite repeating jokes on either MST3K or RiffTrax? It is unbelievable how often both joke about the JFK assassination. Even Sting of Death had a JFK joke, although it wasn't about his death.

My lovely wife says to me a few days ago, "I think I'm ready for another one of your dumb Mystery Science movies." I was blown away, hottest thing she has said in a decade.

As always I seriously respect the opinion of this group, as I am one of you. She has seen a number of shorts and the following movies over the last couple years, with her reviews tonight:

Time Chasers-"Stupid" she hates any time travel movie
Pod People-"Unwatchable" is she wrong?
Mitchell-"Decent" It's grown on her!
Final Sacrifice-"Pour beer on it" She's not wrong
Puma Man-"Instant Classic" She came home to me watching it recently and actually finished it with me
Girl in the Golden Boots-"That's Pretty Good" The music helped

She enjoyed Puma Man from the start and has created a drinking game that everytime Puma Man is said, you gotta drink.

So I ask of all of you perpetually stuck in the Satellite of Love like myself, what do we watch next???

But I do know a lot, why shouldn’t I talk? They should be grateful for my knowledge. They say things, I don’t mind.

So I pretty much always have mst3k running thanks to their livestreamed videos on the youtube channel. The other day i had the mike episodes running while i was working. Tom said "Is it too early to kill myself" and I cannot for the life of me remember which episode it's from.

Gypsy's long time love interest was billionaire industrialist Wilton Knight in Knight Rider. One of his last on-screen appearances.

Hi, I'm Peter Graves, here at the university of Minnesota.

S10E12

Experiment #36

Episode 421: Monster A-Go Go

Rewatch Date: Sept 9th, 2023

There was no giant, There was no monster, No thing called ‘Douglas’ to be followed

In Spring of 2005, Satellite News announced two of the titles that would be featured on the next Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD set. One was Hobgoblins and the other was The Phantom Planet.  Not long after, the site and Rhino home video held a poll to see which episodes people most wanted to most see released. I remember my votes well: 418 Attack of the the Eye Creatures (some day), Last of the Wild Horses (Took a while but Vol 23), High School Big Shot (Even longer, Vol 38), Beast of Yucca Flats (Sooner at Vol 18)  and The Incredibly Strange Creatures… (Which will be on the next DVD set). The results of the poll were published. #1 was The Pumaman and #2 was The Final Sacrifice. It was interesting to see which eps people most wanted. But the other two titles that were ultimately chosen for Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD Collection Volume 8 were The Dead Talk Back and Monster A-Go Go.

INSTERT Monster A-Go Go PLOT SYNOPSYS HERE

This film was a project originally started by Latvian born, Wisconsin based producer, Bill Rebane. Rebane worked on the film and recruited vaudeville performer Henry Hite to play the Monster. A good chunk of the film was complete before funding ran out. So, on the shelf it stayed for several years. That is until Herschell Gordon Lewis needed a double bill for Moonshine Mountain. Lewis bought the unfinished project, shot a few more scenes and released the film.

There are discussions about what the worst film ever featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 was. A lot of people will cite Manos, The Coleman Francis films or Castle of Fu Manchu. Monster A-Go Go is also mentioned a lot, and for good reason. During Manos, Joel remarks, “We survived Monster A-Go Go, We can survive (Manos).” And he is right. If you can survive this movie, Manos is a walk in the park. It’s a real trial. There is no sense as to what the heck is going on. It’s almost like someone was able to film a dream they had one night and published it as a movie. Bill Rebane has said he didn’t have much to do with the finished product. So, I’ll hold off on talking about him til we get to The Giant Spider Invasion. That said, I was able to follow this a lot easier than The Hellcats.

This is one of the worst movies the show ever featured and one of the best episodes the show ever produced. It’s amazing how they’re able to take a film where nothing happens and turn it into magic. There is of course the John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt runner (do kids still sing that?), the “unimaginable horrors” that the narrator warns about, but never seem to occur and the Polio Vaccine joke. Some stand out riffs: When the police are on the radio and the voice is super muffled, “He’s talking to Charlie Brown’s Mom.” When news of Frank’s disappearance reaches his family, his wife inquires as to what happened, “Two words: ‘closed casket’”. “Hey Jimmy” Joel chimes in, “You’re uncle Frank’s Dead!” “A word no nuclear scientist ever wants to hear” Servo “Oops!” My favorite riff is when we see the space capsule that allegedly took Frank Douglas into orbit. The whole thing is basically a 4-foot tall, narrow cone. Servo reminds the audience that “Douglas was pear-shaped, short and stood the entire time.”

We also get a short: Circus on Ice. The fine circus folk of Toronto display their skating prowess in spectacular form. The stuff these guys are doing is actually pretty impressive. Which is why they should stand tall and proud over the mockery from Joel and the Bots. The ornate skaters take aim at a skating dragon and slay the creature. After the narrator says the skaters, “bravely slew the ferocious beast.” Joel pipes in, “Ferocious? He was just grazing.” We get the nightmare in pink song. Favorite riff: “She’s wearing a saggy diaper and it leaks.”

The sketches were famously written because there was absolutely nothing in the film to go off of. Thus, we get the famous “Crow, I don’t get you” sketch, the keep away sketch, The breakdown of the Pina Colada song sketch, and the movie induced depression sketch. It’s amazing how accurate the description of going to your “Aunt Ruth’s house” is to every child’s most boring days. This is also the episode that bore Johnny Longtorso: The man who comes in pieces, “He’s Long.” Was there really never a Wilma Rudolph doll released? She was a big enough figure; I would imagine some forward-thinking toy company would have done so.

A lot of people can’t survive the inanity of this film. I get that. Maybe it takes a certain warped brain to enjoy. Same with the Coleman Francis films. But for me Monster A-Go Go is one of those episodes that just does it. It proves that even the most abysmal of films, if written correctly, can be winning episodes. I give Monster A-Go Go my rating of “I’ll probably watch it again after the experiment is over.”

But what do you think? Where does Monster A-Go Go rank on your “worst ever films” list? Do you know what in the Sam hill the plot of this film is? Do you know what the deal with the Pina Colada song is? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

To remind everybody, this is part of my experiment where I’ll be watching a different MST3K episode, every Saturday evening/night, until I’ve watched all 176 episodes of the show’s original run in the exact order that I watched each for the first time (with 3 or 4 liberties taken). I will be consuming NO MST3K, RiffTrax, Cinematic Titanic or anything that could be construed as MST3K type programming outside these viewings until this experiment is over. Crazy, I know. We shall see what come what may. Will I crack? Will I make it? Will I ever figure out what makes this show so great? Keep reading and find out.

Next week, we go to the next episode on the DVD set and the most mysterious film ever featured on MST3K. That’s right, we watch the, made in 1957 but not released until 1993 drama, The Dead Talk Back. Looking forward to writing about it and I hope you’re looking forward to reading about it. Til then, thank you for reading and keep circulating the tapes.

36 Down 140 to go

I admit I had to do a bit of a double take when I saw this! Who knew he was operating out of Wisconsin? Oh and Packers win the Super Bowl!!!!

I purchased this last week from Materia not quite sure knowing what it was, but its the full Manos soundtrack on an audio cassette tape inside a nice clamshell case (think Disney VHS tape case but audio tape sized) and included is a digital code to download a digital version of the soundtrack and a 1080p file of the full movie (it's not the recent blu-ray quality, more "grindhouse" quality). Not bad for $4.80.

I wanted all my episode previews to have the same card so with a lil Paint magic finally managed to get a new card for Sting of Death.

I went with Experiment number 231 since the last two episodes of the Gizmoplex were 229 & 1313.
So im treating 1313 as 230.

I remember listening to a crackly off the air recording of it in RealPlayer. I know it was a rerun of a segment recorded during the Joel era, but in this version the host read a statement by Mike on the end of show over the “Love Theme” that made me tear up.

Just found this thanks to you who recommended Werewolf for a Halloween watch, now it's my jam ! (Just gotta figure out how to make it into a format that will play on my phone)