901- "The Projected Man" (color-1966) - The SOL comes out of the wormhole in orbit over present-day Earth as Pearl, Bobo and Observer Corbett move into Castle Forrester, Pearl's ancestral home.
       The film, a Universal release of a Protelco-MLC production is a boring retelling of the theory of breaking down the molecular structure of an object, capturing it in a cell as "pure energy," and then sending it back complete to a "target area." There is no explanation WHY this is necessary, but Professor Paul Steiner (played by pock-mocked actor Bryant Haliday, "Devil Doll") thinks it's something to dedicate his, and his assistants, Pat Hill (Mary Peach) and Chris Mitchell (Ronald Allen), lives to.
        During an experiment before noted Dutch scientist "Lembach" (Gordon Heinz), his machine fails due to sabotage, so he has himself "projected" by his secretary, Sheila (Tracey Crisp) to seek revenge. Of course, she screws up and he comes out looking like a "pork roast" with the power to electrocute people.
        With this new-found power, he manages to zap some Cockney idiots, a security guy named Latham (Derrick de Marney) and his lab boss Dr. Blanchard (Norman Woodland). He also is able to break into a pharmacy and steal a pair of rubber gloves and a black coat, as well. In the end, though, despite Hill and Mitchell's attempt to help him, the clown destroys his equipment and himself. On the whole, a completely pointless movie with no message at all.
        The gang makes the best of it, however, throwing such bon mots as "Man, VCRs were complicated back then."; "You know, at this point, I really have to agree with cutting off the funding."; "Everything's an inuendo to the Cockney gits!"; "The death of Steve Winwood."; "Yes, England. Famous for noisy light switches and telephones."; "Joy Buzzer of death."; "Ya know, on the bright side, maybe he'll kill Oasis."; "The Projected Haggus is more like it."; "Geesh, he's been projected 10 minutes and already he wants to kill everyone and everything."; "Yes, he now has the power to jog slowly away from cars in his pajamas!"; "Well, after 50 years I have to admit that huge, long eyebrows DON'T attract women." "The Projected World Of Arthur Brown!"; "Crap Draft."; and "Ah, the movie finally admits it's dead."
        Skits include Crow and Tom "projecting" (burning up) some of Mike's prized possessions (he gets them back by roasting Tom's autographed photo of Shirley Jones); Mike calling "Lembach" (his own voice) and trying to get him to stay (he declines), while Pearl finds an ancient diary that shows her family has always conducted weird experiments ("Amathos Forachenta Forrester trapped a man in a cave and pushed in bad paintings of the hunt"); and Crow has the "Touch Of Death" and kills Mike, but he recovers in the theatre.
        The closer shows Grant Day on the Satellite of Love. Tom needs $50 (to complete his "water engine"), but Crow get the money to purchase two leafblowers and a hat. While this is going on, Pearl reclaims her destiny. Not the greatest episode in the world, but adequete for the needs of the basic MiSTie. A grade C-, at best.

902- THE PHANTOM PLANET (1961) - B&W -As the occupants of the Satellite of Love are having an "Andy Rooney-Off," Pearl is moving into Castle Forrester. But, while unpacking her "World Destruction Device," she discovers the "thing" to it has been delivered to Mike and the Bots by mistake.
    The film, directed by William Marshall, begins with really cheap animation and goes downhill from there. The "action" takes place in the "old future" of 1980, once again revealing the falicy of predicting the future in 1950s and '60s movies (see "Project Moonbase" and this movie's credits, which indicate that the "Electronic Space Equipment" used was provided by "Space Age rentals"), as two very unattractive astronauts, Captain Frank Chapman and Commander Frank McConan (Dean Fredericks, who MiSTies will remember as the annoying Polish Jew from "12 To The Moon") are searching for a vanished Pegasus rocket.
    McConan is soon killed off during a space walk and Chapman and the ship are captured by the tractor beam of an asteroid, the planet Rayton, that look like a piece of Fuddy Duddy. He's shrunk to the size of a booger and then put on trial by another alumni from "12 To The Moon," Francis X. Bushman, as Sasoon (who also appeared in the original "Ben-Hur," among mean other silent films),  for "causing injury to someone," found guilty by a few buxom ladies and sentenced to be "a free person of
Rayton," whatever the Heck that  means.
    He soon falls for Sasoon's daughter, Leanna, which illicits the jealousy of her boyfriend Arum (Tony Dexter from "Fire Maidens From Outer Space"). Several boring scenes of Chapman and Leanna eating, arguing and lying occur before Chapman and Arum have a thrilling "Combat Rod" battle that lasts less than 30 seconds.
    While another rescue ship is sent for him, Chapman manages to help the Raytons fend off an attack by their sworn enemies, the Solarites ("They're from a Sun satellite," get it?!). Far from being a formidable foe, the Solarites, at least judging from the one  we're shown, are nothing more than Richard Kiel ("The human Duplicators," "Eegah!") dressed in a lame "Mole People/This Island Earth" costume (described by Tom Servo as looking like "just a Sharpia with a divided Afro and a pizza slicer), who
escapes and does little havoc.
    Later, Chapman is restored to his full size and is rescued. The End. To make it all go down a bit easier, however, Mike and Co. get off a few good lines at the screenwriter's expense, such as "So, you can just take a sharp left in space?!" "Cool huh, watching him check things of which we don't know what they are," "Good thing there's so much gravity out in space," "There's a French-burnt peanut of the port bow!", "It's a SPAZtronaut!", "No! A colony of tiny mimes!", "So people are just balloons?!", "Anonymous similar guys away!", "Look at this guy. George Schultz is more expressive," "They've really got to cooperate to kill each other," "You can still see Combat Rod fights in Mexico City," This movie is a filibuster!", "Yep, the movie's circling the drain at this point," "Come on! We didn't like these (flashback) scenes the first  time!", and "No fair! You can't flash back to something we saw 10 seconds ago!"
    The sketches, Servo fixing his attention on the good (a Nut Goody bar) and the beautiful (Anna Nicole Smith, of all people); Mike. like Joel during a KTMA episode, trapped outside the ship while Bobo (supposed to be Pearls' disembodied ancestors) groans away; and Mike playing tunes on wine glasses, are okay, but nothing to write home about.
    The closer has crow dressed like a Solarite, but it's just a psychological scene, while Pearl questions whether taking over the world is really worth it. Not bad, but certainly not up to the level of other shows this season. Give it a C- and move on.

903 - "THE PUMA MAN" (1980)-Color-Mike's introduction is interrupted by a semi-macho Servo, who has a lift in his hover skirt and is suffering from "Short Man's Disease."  Pearl, on the other hand, is planning a grand ball in the castle, but no one shows up.  People, including Ortega (Paul Chaplin) and his friends, do come to visit The Observer (Bill Corbett), though.
Below sewer-level movie, directed by Alberto De Martino and starring once-decent thespian, Donald Pleasence ("Fantastic Journey," "Halloween," "The Changing Of The Guard" installment of "The Twilight Zone") as the villain, and non-talents Walter George Alton (a person not worthy of one name, let alone THREE), Miguelangel (no relation) Fuentes and Sydne Rome. Minuscule plot has Alton as paleontologist Tony Farm who finds an ancient Aztec mask, and thanks to a huge, square-headed mongoloid (Fuentes, with a Moe Howard haircut), who keeps following him, he reluctantly becomes Puma Man, one of the lamest super heroes since William Katt. Pleasence makes his second MST3K bad guy appearance (see "Warrior Of The Lost World," made that same year) and is just as lisping an inept as he was in Season Five.  Needless to say, he and his moronic henchmen are out to retrieve said mask because it has the power to make people fly at odd angles and rip through cardboard sets.
To say that this film is bad would be an insult to the term.  Horrible, beyond ludicrous "special" effects, insipid acting, unbelievably stupid dialogue and cheesy 1970's TV soundtrack music make the entire enterprise hilarious on its own, without Mike & Co. firing verbal darts at it.  And Alton's turn as the lead  consists of an hour of wooden sleepwalking followed by an idiotic ten-second outburst.  Ultimately, however, it's the block-headed Aztec who turns out to be the hero, and the concluding "battle" is the silliest since the end of "Santa Claus Conquers The Martians," all set to the tune of a bouncy commercial jingle making us all agree with Crow that a "call to Ted Nugent Man" was in order. Despite total absurdity of movie, the gangs gets off some classic riffs, such as "It's S & M day at the field museum,"; "I hate when Aztecs force themselves into hotel rooms and make you try on belts"; "Don't lose your footing-uh, I mean FLYING POWER"; "Help! I'm falling at a 60 degree angle breaking all the laws of physics"; "Puma Man can rip through pure contact paper"; and "Constantly Out-Of-His-League Man."
Thanks to these and decent skits (Mike gets a new hairstyle-a desert; he's chosen as Colossamundy Man; and the 'bots make a replica of the head of British songster, Roger Whitaker, "The Last Farewell," but it looks more like a cross between Leonard Maltin and Kevin Murphy). This helps, however, when Murphy shows up at the end, as Whitaker, to attend Pearl's party.  Nice show, plenty of laughs an a solid "B" from this humble scribbler.

904-Werewolf (1996)-C-In the opening scene, Mike thinks he's James Lipton of "Inside The Actor's Studio, and is interviewing Ray Liotta (Crow). Later, he tries to escape by climbing down a long ladder into Castle Forrester, by a cannon chases him back up to the satellite.
 As silly as that sequence was, the film, written, produced and directed by Tony Zarindast (the poor man's Cy Roth), is one of the worst post-1990's movies since "Hobgoblins." Plot goes something like this, a human skeleton with a dog's skull is unearthed on an archeological dig in the Arizona desert. This event causes two idiots to get into a fight, where one of them is scratched by a bone, and turns into "the least successful werewolf of all-time." Actually, it wouldn't be fair to use the term "wolf," or any other member of the wolf family, since it resembles more of a bear, a bat, a cat, or a monkey in various incarnations.
 During those crucial scenes, Martin Sheen's dumpier, homelier brother, Joe Estevez, make a few cameo appearances, and just like his nephew's careers, disappears quickly and mercifully.
 While villains Noel (Richard Lynch) and Yuri (George Rivero) take the bones and explains the legend of the Yomiguchi, or "the man who walks around on all fours" to a disinterested audience, dim-witted Natalie (Adrianna Miles-who conjures up vivid memories of Angelika Jager, the bizarrely-accented chick from Season One's "Robot Holocaust"), stands around, dull-eyed with mouth agape, uttering lines like, "This is fascinating," and "You and Paul is a weer-wilf."
 Halfway through the film, two more inane characters appear, Paul (Fred Cavalli), who looks like Andy Kaufman's "foreign guy," and a goofy, bearded clown named "Sam the Keeper," a cross between Fidel Castro and Santa. At a party, Paul humiliates Yuri, so, in revenge, the latter gets a security guard drunk and turns him into a lycanthrope, who crashes his car into a pile of oil drums. Later, Paul proves his ultimate effeminacy by being beat up by Yuri, hit with the canine cranium, and transforming into the second-least successful werewolf of all-time.
 In the meantime, Rivero is going through multiple hairstyle and color changes, until the final scenes where he looks like Joe Pesci in "JFK." So, basically, this picture is nothing but bad hair, bad accents and worse acting, all the better for Mike and the Bots to aim some perfectly-timed bon mots at the screen.
 Classic riffs include, "This is where Billy Jack should come riding up," "Louis Leakey in 'Every Which Way But Loose'," "Steven Tyler's skull!" "Chia Estavez," "I've gone back to my darker, shorter hair now," "Oh, so they put suspected werewolves in the neo-natal unit," "What, he became a bat, a bug? What IS it?!" "It's a guy with a wolf hand puppet!" "Wait! It's a gorilla with a dog mask on," "Come on, 'The Sheltering Sky' moved quicker than this movie," "He's a Rent-A-Center Andy Garcia," "Gee, a big, drunk, passed-out security guard, who's surprised?!" "Now this clown's got Brian Ferry hair!" ""I was gonna go home and watch TV, but I feel like sniffin' butts all night," "An American werewolf-in traffic," "This is just like that time I hit the reporter with Piltdown Man's thighbone," "Oh, if I could just fart," "Will you just transform already, geesh!" "You get a lot of dirt with werewolves, you get a lot of clean with Tide," "He's become a were-Daniel Stern," "So, werewolves are basically Jackson Browne," "He's ALMOST as hairy as Robin Williams," "Yep, bikers LOVE harpsichord music," "Oh great, a random citizen that can kick a werewolf's ass," and "Fortunately, the director WANTED no reaction in this scene."
 The sketches (prompted by Joe Estevez's appearance, the trio casts other celebrity siblings in their own wolfman movie-Spike Knotts, Chip Hitler, Ray Liotta, etc., Susie and the Bots sing "Where, Oh Werewolf," and Mike cuts himself and becomes a Were-Crow, but he's "perfectly comfortable with that.")
 The last skit continues into the closer where Mike is still Crow, and Pearl (Mary Jo Pehl) wants to inject the essence of a wolf into a peasant. The Observer (Bill Corbett) finds the peasant, but Professor Bobo (Kevin Murphy) can only find an adorable Cocker Spaniel. Very funny episode that more than deserves it's B grade.

905 - "The Deadly Bees" (British-1967)-C-It's "E.R." time on the Satellite of Love in a great opening number featuring Mike as George Clooney, Gypsy as his nurse/lover, Tom as a dying patient and Crow disappearing into a vat of cheese sauce.  Later, after a series of nauseating dandruff, hair loss and acne commercials, the two original Observers (Mike Nelson and Paul Chapin) return and are immediately recognized by Bobo who exclaims, "I know who you are.  You're those really white other guys who have their brains in pans, too, only you're the MEAN ones!"  Attempting to prove he's still one of them, Corbett "blights" Mike with a new tie.  As he is leaving with the others, Pearl feigns disinterest while Bobo slobbers, "Oh, don't leave Brain Guy!  I love you!" As far as the film (a British Paramount release of an Amicus Production), it stars Suzanna Leigh (best known as a stewardess in the Tony Curtis/Jerry Lewis flick, "Boing, Boing"), Frank Finlay (a cross between Paul Benedict of "The Jeffersons" and James Colburn), Guy Doleman ("The Ipcress File," "Thunderball"), and a dozen or so other boring English thespians.  There is also a brief (thank goodness) cameo by a truly awful band called The Birds (not EVER to be mistaken for The Byrds!).
Leigh plays Vicki Robbins, a "singer," who after collapsing on stage is sent to recuperate on "Seagull Island."  It's no wonder she passed out, having to sing "My Baby Asked Me To Dance Last Night," one of the single worst movie songs since "The Ha-So Stratosphere Boogie" (from "The Skydivers"), or ANY of the tunes in "The Incredibly Strange Creatures......" Taken in by the owners of a small bed and breakfast, Leigh has to put up with the most tediously disturbing couple in film history.  Mr. and Mrs.Hargrove (played by Doleman and Catherine Finn) are like those constantlybickering Brit couples parodied so often on "Monty Python's Flying Circus."  She's a cigarette hag and he keeps bees.  Leigh meets another beekeeper, Manfred (Finlay), who is competing for the villages honey market with Hargrove and also seems a bit retarded.
The plot takes longer to develop than the Earth's crust, and when it does, no one cares, anyway.  Needless to say, "Tess," a floppy cur and Finn are soon stung to death, which I'm sure they appreciated as much as the audience, and a bee-burning bathroom scene adds to the festivities. On top of it all, Finlay reveals himself to Leigh as the guilty party in a silly, Columbo-like conclusion featuring a long and unnecessary flashback of scenes which occurred only minutes before.  And, of course, like all stupid villains, he is ultimately destroyed by his own creation.
As horribly dull as the movie is, Mike and the Bots make it go down smooth with just the right slings and arrows.  Great riffs such as, "No, please, according to physicists, we can't fly!", "Well, that's the 'Hee Haw' font, how can it be 'deadly'?", "Guys, just skip the music and go straight to the heroin." "Why's she wearing a pinata?" "What? A pop star afraid of a NEEDLE?!" and "The drones keep going on and on and on about how many were killed.", among others are tossed screenward throughout the show, making it quite enjoyable. The sketches, including Crow's sonnet to Lady Hargrove ("Sitting, smoking with thy dog......"), Pearl and Bobo singing, "Please Stay," to Observer Corbett, and Mike, in a bee costume, doing dances that signify economics, poetry and literature, are all fine, but it's the closer that puts this one over the top.  The bowler-wearing idiot that appears at the end of the movie (for no reason whatsoever) is featured (in the form of Jim Mallon) on the SOL and in Pearl's castle along with the idiotic incidental music that follows him.  There is also a battle of wits between the Observers Nelson and Chapin and a reluctant Corbett. Thankfully, with the help of Bobo's chili dogs, the two are vanquished, and as a final punishment, are forced to become Wisconsin residents and Green Bay Packers' fans.  A nice B+ continuation to Season Nine, which has already had some triumphant moments, what with "The Phantom Planet," "Werewolf" and "Puma Man" already in the books.

907 - "HOBGOBLINS" (1988)-Color-Mike, Tom and Crow don't mean to turn each other on, but thanks to Robert Palmer's 1986 number two hit, they just can't help it.  Meanwhile, Pearl, who is refurbishing the Great Hall, sends her couch to the SOL for safekeeping. Film is an American Cinema Marketing (codeword for "crap") piece of garbage feature such non-talents as Tom Bartlett, Paige Sullivan and Steven Boggs, among others.  There's also a "musical" group called "The Fontanelles," but more about them later.
A doddering old security guard is keeping watch over an abandoned movie studio where tiny, unseen demons dwell in a vault.  They should have stayed hidden, because once revealed (almost an hour into the movie), these cheap, barely movable hand puppets are about as frightening as Lamb Chop and make King Friday and Meow Meow Kitty look like Lucas effects. Evidently, these sock puppets have the power to grant people's fantasies, and then kill them.  I'm not sure how they accomplish either one.  You do know when one of the "actors" is fantasizing, though, because he or she is bathed in a red spotlight. Before all this, though, we're forced to watch five of the most sophomoric teenage retards in the history of motion pictures.  The "hero," the whining pansy Kevin (Bartlett), his idiotic squeeze, Amy (Sullivan), the ugly and slutty Daphne (who makes Cyndi Lauper look tasteful), her military jerk of a boyfriend, Nick, and semi-gay fifth wheel, Kyle (Boggs), who spends the entire film in embarrassing red shorts. Once the "creatures" escape from the vault and into the city, they immediately latch onto these losers, and, unfortunately, none of them are killed.  What a waste.

You know a film is terrible when puppets are involved, but a surer sign is an advertisement reading, "Hey low life, come party at Club Scum. Beer, girls, live acts.  Shows nudely 'n' nitely."  Far from that build up, however, we're treated to a master of ceremonies that looks like a cross between Joel Grey in "Cabaret" and Bill Corbett's Observer, and who sounds like Nathan Lane in "the birdcage."  And the house band we spoke of earlier is about as hardcore as Kajagoogoo.

Although this is not the worst thing shown on MST3K, it has to rank up in the top ten.  Mike and Co. knew this from the beginning, even trying to leave during the opening credits.  Pain is eased by great MiSTings such as, "Oh, just sing the 'St. Elmo's Fire' theme song and get it over with"; "They made love in their Chevy van and that's NOT alright with me"; "I just wanna be brave for my horrid, frigid, non-supportive girlfriend"; "Ah, he's found Ben Stein's money"; and "I think we stumbled onto 'Mel's Rockpile.'" But Tom summed it up best when he said, "This movie's giving me giving me current traumatic stress disorder!" Those, coupled with the sketches, which included Crow's film on women for boys and young men ("And then, this woman, well I THINK it was a woman, she uh married me"; Crow's crisis hotline for people watching this film (only Bobo calls, however); and Mike's replacement of the three with cardboard cutouts, make this a first-class "A" show all they way.  Even the closing skit were Crow plays director Rick Sloane's cutout while Pearl obsesses over the couch is hilarious.  Here's hoping for more shows like this with what's left of the season.

909 - "GORGO"
        The opening sequence has Crow nesting a couple of Spinx's Macaw eggs on his head while Bobo continues to beat Observer Corbett in arm wrestling. Pearl, meanwhile is in Los Angeles and introduces the movie, "Gorgo," with the help of "Entertainment Tonight" critic Leonard Maltin (another sign, along with the MST3K's Oscar and Summer Blockbuster specials, that the show was finally being recognized in the mainstream, before being cancelled by the Sci-Fi Network).
        Film, from 1960, and directed by Eugene Lourie, is a not very regal production of a King brothers release telling the tale of two dopey and unattractive scrap divers (William Sylvester-"2001: A Space Odyssey," "Riding With Death," "Devil Doll") and Bill Travers, who discover a monster off the coast of Ireland, and, inexplicably capture and take it to London, where it is exploited by Dorkin's Circus (an annoucer describing the festivities surrounding this event, adds to the unintentional hilarity by saying, "Gorgo, as he's called. We don't know why."). This, despite a stern warning from the picture's conscience, an 11-year old waif, Sean (played by Vincent Winter), who plaintively intones, "It's a bad thing yore doin', a terrible bad thing, Mr. Ryan."
        Of course he's ignored, but later it's revealed that the beast is merely an infant, and an irate 250-foot mom comes wading across the Atlantic, destroys the British fleet, and does to London what Hilter only dreamed of, levels it and takes the babe back home with her. Obviously, mama doesn't believe in Ghandi's non-violent philosophy of passive resistance, and proceeds to wipe out millions of goofy Brits in a most satisfying sequence.
        Nothing more than an Anglo-Saxon version of the classic Japanese giant mutant movie, like "Mildred Pierce Meets Godzilla," only Joan Crawford is MUCH more frigthening than the mother dragon. Travers' brother is killed by a swipe from the baby monster's tail, but it's Sylvester that shows regret for bringing the beast to London in the first place. He does this by getting drunk and trying to release the monstrosity into the city.
        Movie is okay on it's own, but the riffs are first-rate. So many classics are fired off, that one cannot keep track, but here are a few -  "So, did Gorgo cooperate and just wrap himself in the net?!"; "Poor Robert Shaw, eaten again."; "Sorry. I'm a little lost. Can you tell me how to get to Tokoyo?!"; "Look at this. The poor Irish. Ya know, if they're not being invaded by Cromwell, or infested with leprechauns, they've got THIS guy!"; "McRoar! O'Growl!"; "Go play on Gamera's back, kid, I'm not into it!"; "Now the rest of the story is the Cray brothers looting London."; and "Oh! Dorkin was a PERSON! A CHARACTER!"

        The sketches were fine, too. Gypsy, as Diana Rigg introduces Crow and Tom in "Waiting For Gorgo (Mike, in a cheap dinosaur costume)"; Mike's excitement over his new William Sylvester version of Trivial Pursuit; the Nanites' Spectacular, Gargantuan Dorkin Combined Aviotic Circus & Carnival Of Souls (which Mike destroys with a few carelessly-tossed quarters); and the closer, Mike and the Bots search for women in the film, while Maltin hawks his 1998 video review guide.

       All in all, a very good episode. Not great, but a solid B effort, which, in context of some shows, isn't bad at all.

910-The Final Sacrifice (aka Quest for the Lost City-1991) -C- The power goes down on the Satellite of Love while Gypsy works on the "main switching unit," causing the Bots to loot their own possessions. Meanwhile, in a grotesque close-up, Pearl attempts to rule the world one person at a time, beginning with a "Todd Gunderson (Peter Rudrud)," and then Tom, but to no avail.
 The "movie," a Flying Dutchman Production of a Tjardus Greidanus film, is as bad as any the 1990s had to offer. Lensed in the brown, drab, barren wastelands of Alberta, Canada (which, has some beautiful scenery I'm led to understand, they just didn't shoot any of it), it tells the boring tale of a lanky, jug-eared loner, Troy McGreggor (Bruce Mitchell), who discovers, through flashbacks, that his father was an archaeologist (played by Randy Vasseur) who was killed by a demonic sect over some kind of treasure map, or something like that. Of course, this is explained over a long, drawn-out scene extends past the first commercial break and adds nothing to the audience's interest or enjoyment.
 He decides to find out more, and even an argument with his mom/aunt/grandma doesn't deter his determination. He hits the road after escaping from several overweight clowns in black masks and tank tops (certainly the worst-dressed cult since Jim Jones' Guyana brigade). While fleeing, he meets a guy named "Zap Rowsdower" (Christian Malcolm), one of the single-most unattractive leading men in the history of motion pictures (with the possible exception of Pauly Shore and Martin Lawrence).
 He takes Troy under his flabby, sweaty wing and the two have a few misadventures together that usually end with them running away or being beat up. The cult that is pursing them is known as the "Xeons," who once ruled North America. It's hard to believe these portly, inept idiots could have ruled a bridge party, considering their trouble in capturing this equally-imbecilic pair. Perhaps it's because they are led by Satoris (Shane Marceau-why couldn't it have been MARCEAU Marceau), who looks like a blend of Count Dracula and a member of The Knack, and whose acting is almost as bad as the effort to make him sound scary by slowing down his vocal track.
 Finally, Rowsdower and Troy duck into a cabin and meet an even more repulsive character than themselves, Mark Pipper (played by a skinny, bearded loser named Ron Anderson, a cross between Lenin, Larry Fine and Yosemite Sam), who fills in the unnecessary back story. When it's revealed that Rowsdower was once a member of this sect, Troy pouts for a few minutes, but ends up saving him by shooting Satoris, who bursts into flame (and who I thought was supposed to be immortal. The "lost city"(a cheap effect) then rises from the ground while the two birdbrains stare up into space.
 Like Josh Weinstein's hair, this movie is limp, lifeless and unfunny, with no interest to ANYONE, ANYWHERE at ANYTIME, populated by fat, homely, sweaty non-talents with bad hair and unintelligible Canadian accents. I can see no audience that would have found this even remotely intriguing, but Mike and Co. get off a few solid blasts, such as "Randy Bachman is pursued by sado-masochists," "You know, this has the bacony stink of Canada all over it," "So, we're just watching someone fritter away their afternoon, here?!", "Can I discipline you?!" "Don't you love our health care system?!" "Now is this touching or boring?!" "And I'd like to thank Dan Akroyd for doing that last line," "The Canadian Nick Nolte," "And so it is, with a heavy heart, that I must resign from Chess Club," "It's the 'Wizard Of Id' biathlon," "Well, it's a pretty good cult, but hockey season's startin's and all," and "I can't believe the new city's kicked us out already."
 The sketches include Mike and Crow bashing Canada, but Tom (dressed as a mountie) trying to defend her; Bobo giving everyone (except Mike) hockey hair; and Mike getting "Grizzled Old Prospector Syndrome." Closer has Tom and Crow in a muffin-baking cult, while Pearl tries to rule Karl (Paul Chapin), who's just been taken over by The Travelers group. King of silly in spots, but overall a very enjoyable B- episode.

911-Devil Fish (Italian-1984)-Color-In the opening scene, Mike's life and identity are restored when the Bots find his lost wallet. Pearl and her two idiots (Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy), meanwhile, have turned the castle into a cruise ship, having duped two passengers, Norm (Patrick Brantseg) and Ann (Beez McKeever). It's pretty silly, and the film, horrible Jaws knock-off , doesn't make it any easier.
 Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was shot and hung upside down for much less than this movie subjects the viewers to, and ANY picture that features a shark-octopus hybrid and a hulking, pea-brained security guard ("Cortez") from a local gym would make ANYONE put on a black shirt and invade Ethiopia.
 Thin, big-headed Euro-stud Michael Sopkiw plays Peter, a Key West electrician who designs underwater tracking devices for the locally-based World Oceanographic Institute (WOI). He works and lives with Sandra, a horny black chick (who does nothing but look pissed off and make bizarre noises), but has eyes for equally-emaciated Stella (Valentine Monnier), whose colleague, Marc Cohn look-alike Dr. Bob Hogan (John Garko) is a drunken idiot.
 The group is searching for a killer fish that has eaten a couple of losers, but a Dr. Davis and a Dr. West are trying to prevent them from finding it for some reason. Shark, which Paul thinks is prehistoric, chows down on a few more people, but this wholesome violence in no way offsets the nauseating, slow motion loves scenes between Paul and Sandra, and Paul and Stella, who, incidentally, makes Calista Flockhart look like Totie Fields.
 Later, another woman researcher, Janet something, appears, as well as a thick-headed Lou Reed clone, and the fish turns out to have been a manufactured creature, complete with a cheap set of tentacles and the intelligence of a dolphin, while Dr., West gets shot in a library and takes 10 minutes to explain everything before dying. Also, the underwater fight scenes make one long for those in "Thunderball," or even "Catalina Caper."
 It's also the first time the MST3K logo was used to cover up a buffalo shot, and we also get to see Paul's repulsive rib cage and skeletal structure over and over again. At film's conclusion, several rednecks set fire to a swamp, and to add a cherry to the cake, credit is given to an Ovidio Taito for being the "creator of the monster shark.
 Despite this crap, the gang makes it a bit easier with such riffs as "Something vague this way comes," "This is the dawning of the age of SEAQUARIUM," "When dumb guys snorkel," "You know, just because you CAN edit, doesn't mean you SHOULD," "Welcome to downtown Shackville," "He threw a little Euro-tantrum," "Thanks, Kotter's wife," "Personal trainer to Paul Reubens," "Enjoy the soft-core porn soundtrack," "Blake Edwards' point ten," "Underwater fights are like the drum solo of movies," "At least its poor editing covers how badly it was shot," "Yeah, it's a movie that constantly reassures you don't have to be concerned with this," "Okay, that's quite enough male heiny shots for me," "Still, a better edited movie than 'Batman & Robin'," "Ed Wood's octopus scene was a lot more convincing than this," "So, the Coast Guard just rolled over for the Italian film industry?!" "Please, Francisco Franco died quicker than this," "Farrah Fawcet-MINOR," "The Ox-Fish Incident," and "I bet they hired every nature-hating psycho in Dade County."
 Skits, including the whole cruise ship thing, Mike insulting dolphins and electricians (and forced to apologize) and Mike and the Bots turned into Italian stereotypes, are pretty pathetic, given the high quality of recent shows, and the overall grade of C- reflects this.

912-The Screaming Skull (1958)-B&W-Tom becomes a beautiful butterfly, describing his metamorphosis to an increasingly-disgusted Mike ("I rolled my skin off towards my rear exposing the front, soft parts of the pupa."), who, nevertheless, gives him some nectar. After the commercial, however, Servo is back to normal after having his wings torn off in an industrial accident, his legs ripped off by an extruder, and the fat of his antennae leeched off by his arms. While this silliness is going on, Pearl, Bobo and The Observer are dressed like penguins trying to pull off a lame practical joke.

 One of three short features come before the movie, and it's one of the best of all-time. The Best Brains finally got the rights to something everyone has heard of, and they go nuts with it. "Robot Rumpus," a Gumby clamation film that has the lead character (with a most irritating voice) and his horse, Pokey, using robots for slave labor. When the automatons go crazy, Gumby and his father are forced to destroy them.

 Great riffs, such as "Don't! That's Wallace and Grommet's yard!" "Close-ups reveal the weakness of the whole premise," "That squares my breasts," "Davey and Goliath just moved in next door. There goes the neighborhood," "They hung his head! Ohh! This is worse than 'Seven'!" "Now I'm ready for years of powerful Adlarian Therapy, Mike." Main movie is another American-International release which opens with the producers offering a free funeral to anyone who dies of fright while watching ("It's impact is so terrifying that it may have an unseen affect-it may kill you."), to which Servo says, "Guys, I'm gonna get a free coffin, put some ice in it, fill it with beer and have a great theme party. That's what I'm doin'."

 Plot of this turd has Eric (John Hudson) trying to drive his second wife, Jenni (Peggy Webber-"Space Children") crazy after obviously murdering his first, Marion. But, then again, Jenni is so dopey, annoying and depressing, so know one will care much about her fate. Support is added by two irritating neighbors, the Rev. and Mrs. Snow (Russ Conway and Toni Johnson), but it's the retarded gardener, Mickey (director Alex Nicol), who looks like a cross between Peter Tork, David Spade and Shaggy, from "Scooby Do," with a little bit of Mike Nelson thrown in, and sounds like Snagglepuss of the Hanna-Barbara cartoons, and was in love with Eric's first wife.

 While some suspicion is focused on this idiot, it's clear to see it's Eric who is behind the goofy hauntings, in this hybrid of "Gaslight," "Blythe Spirit," and "The Ghost & Mr. Chicken." First she is plagued by mysterious lily pads, opening cabinets, strange sounds, disembodied voices and a goofy skull that follows her around.

 Mickey, on the other hand, is depicted is just as a simpleton. In one scene, he cries while attempting to pick up a bunch of flower pots (causing Crow to scream, "Get a box!"), and one in which he and Jenni's visit to visit Marion's grave (in the backyard), which is marked by a large oblisk with the face of Emily Bronte carved into it. There Jenni confesses that, as a little girl, she used to wish she was a butterfly.
 Another riveting sequence has Eric and Jenni on the wedding night discussing a book she's reading called "Beast in the Jungle," where a guy waits all of his life and then she dies. Anyway, there's really no reason why the guy is trying to get rid of her, but in the end, he gets his comeuppance, thanks to a ghost that looks like Katherine Hepburn in "On Golden Pond."
 Some great riff like "Ahh, Van Gogh's 'Howdy!'" "Flat drab passion meanders across the screen," "It's like they have two servings of tension that they're trying to stretch out to seven people," "Okay, I think they've set enough mood, we can move onto plot now," "And now my dead wife will scream. Listen to the difference," "I gotta go and stare at things in my shed," "It's the Irene Ryan monument," "You know, they weren't really expecting anybody to watch this, everybody was supposed to be necking by this point. Sooo, Mike?!" "Remember folks, if you die of boredom, you do NOT get a free coffin. Sorry," "The movie that dares to graphically depict sometimes seeing peacocks and sometimes NOT seeing peacocks," "Alas, poor Yorick, she threw him well," "Why did my husband and I agree to sleep in different movies?!" "Mickey's trying to lead him away from his eggs," "If you image it's (a painting of Marion) a Leroy Neiman, the scene plays a lot better," "Apparently, he killed a cross-dressing beekeeper, as well," "It's Mr. McFeely's music," "If Ed Wood directed 'Rule of the Game'," "And the moral of the story, never get close to anyone-EVER!" and "It's like a scary Benny Hill sketch,"  are thrown around with perfect accuracy.

 The skits, especially when the Bots, still ticked at how their co-workers were treated in the short, invite Mike to their "wonderful, clay-based world of whimsey and wonder," where the "two wretched lumps of filth (Gumby and Pokey, no doubt) carry out a campaign of terror and savagery on the handsome, helpful robots. And even though Mike knows they're hurting, the two insist that he "work the lumps."

 In another, Tom calls the producer's of the film, tells the operator (voice of Barbara Tebben) that he died while watching, and wants his free coffin. The longer he stays on the phone, though, the creepier the whole idea gets. Finally, Crow, disguised as a skull, tries to scare Mike, but he reacts by beating him with a baseball bat and a golf club. In the closer, Patrick Brantseg delivers Tom's free coffin (from Coffins Etc.), while Bobo is dressed in a monkey costume before getting shrunk. Pretty stupid ending, but the rest of this A- episode more than makes up for it.

913 - "QUEST OF THE DELTA KNIGHTS" (1993)-Color-Crow is temporarily replaced by a smoking loaner while Pearl gives Mike and the 'bots their annual check-up, before taking Mike's place in the theater for a segment. Film, one of the newest to roasted by Best Brains, has a medieval kid, Travis (a real historically-accurate moniker), played by cute-as-a-button Corbin Allred, whose acting makes Tor Johnson look like Olivier, rescued from the slave block by a wizard named "Baydool." That part is played by David Warner, best known as the guy who was decapitated in "The Omen." Both are then pursued by villains culled from "The Blade Master" and "Deathstalker III," and are equally inept. Script even calls for him to save the boy again-this time by tossing a pan of scalding urine in the face of one of the bad guys. Bad acting, laughable plot, ridiculous fight choreography, costumes that would embarrass clowns from the Society for Creative Anachronisms, and confusing story (movie isn't sure just WHAT time period it takes place in, as there are medieval guards toting guns, villains wearing Viking helmets, Olde English inns, Robin Hood-type highwaymen, and Romans fighting Greeks, send this one in the crapper fast.  Leonardo di Vinci (David Kriegel) even shows up as a young loser who tags along. Movie is so cheap, Warner had to play TWO parts, the good wizard and the evil Lord Vulture (this dual role means, of course, that he's twice as bad as everyone else), and halfway through movie, the good one is killed.  Plot has something to do with people fighting, a kid running away and the lost experiments of Archimedes, or something like that.  Oh, and there's a teenage prostitute, Thena (Brigid Conley) and a Queen "Manna Ray", played by Olivia Hussey ("Romeo & Juliet), for a brief scene or two.  Movie ends with an explosion, but we're still not sure just what the heck was going on. Steven Schuer calls this film "enchanting and funny," but the only humor is when Mike and th 'bots fire such zingers as "Witchepoo cracks down on Puffenstuff"; "Now I'm gonna attach Rosie Greers' head to your shoulder"; "Sir, are we Saxons or Vikings?  What are we?  Let's settle on that"; "At least it's not 'Quest Of The Delta BURKES"; and "I think I'm starting to like'Willow'."
Sketches include Mike, Observer and Bobo sitting around drinking Scotch and bad-mouthing Pearl; Sir Thomas Neville Servo's "Just After The Plague" Choir; and a wise-guy-like Leonardo di Vinci (Kevin Murphy) visiting the SOL and stating the obvious-that the film is bad, the guy who plays him is a wimp and Servo asks too many questions. Closer has Pearl and a "Mr. Eggelston" (Patrick Bransteg) checking the movie for pain leaks.  Pearl goes berserk and begins smacking everyone with a huge mallet and then enjoys a pancake breakfast with the rest of the Delta Knights.  Fairly decent show, not without its faults, but a solid "C" effort my book.