Available on YouTube as of this writing.
Really good stuff: even the worst shorts aren’t THAT bad (bad as in unfunny). They all suck, of course, without riffing.
The riffing on them seems to be at a really high level pretty consistently.
Just minimize the boring/annoying ones, they’re pretty…short.
Grade: A-
5/2/24: Shorts-a-thons come and Shorts-a-thons go, but Shorts lists are forever.
Unfunny bordering on embarassing.
I was worried it might be this bad, and it is. I only have one episode to work with, because I refuse to waste more time on this when I can be wasting it somewhere else.
At no point do I get the feeling of “hey, that was inspired” or “hey, nice message in joke form”.
By now there are so many people doing this sort of thing that it’s just another failed re-creation.
Let it go, guys.
Inspirational Quote from a long-ago MST3K sketch: “It stinks.”
The worst Herc in another really bad Herc movie. The riffing isn’t very good either.
Grade: D-
Another cheezy Herc flick. Riffing’s not so great.
Highlights:
X’s of Y’s
Grade: D
Cheezy/boring “adventure” movie. They seem to be up for it, so the
riffing makes it tolerable.
Highlights:
Instant Karma powder
constellation sketch
mostly decent riffing
Inspirational Quote: “I love my dead Greek son!”
Grade: C+
Boring “action-adventure” flick. A few bad-funny parts and a few good riffs.
Highlights:
Space Mutiny warmup
Herc’s enjoyable violence
Inspirational Quote: “…and under the evil influence of Uranus…”
Grade: D
A lot of tedium, a few good jokes, a bunch of ok ones. Most of the riffs pretty much completely provide themselves.
Highlights:
NO! time to lose
T. Servo’s rant
horrendous fish argument
Gamera dancing
Grade: D+
Another Gamera movie. A few good jokes and a sh1t film.
Highlights:
the itchy angle
Grade: D
More of a comedy (on purpose) than the previous ones. Still horrible, but the riffing is noticeably better.
Highlights:
the Gamera song
horrific dubbing
Gamera’s brief exercise routine
traffic accidents
Grade: C
Basically one good joke and Joel doing some palooka talk.
And the rest is useless.
Grade: F
A giant spinning fire-turtle with split personalities confuses the general public.
Movie’s boring, riffing isn’t so great. Took me three tries to get through this awake.
Highlights:
SLEEP!
the occasional decent riff
the theme song, on attempt 3
Grade: D-
I’ve decided, since a few of the few I haven’t watched are on NF
streaming, that I’ll watch a bit more MST3K and review ’em.
Absolutely no Elvis sightings, though.
Ed Wood’s riveting portrayal of the danger men face from violent girl gangs. His message: with a dress, caress. And so the MST reviewing ends.
Great holdup scene re-creation in the ending host segment.
Highlights:
Young Man’s Fancy short
Wood jokes
brilliant direction
brilliant acting
girl jokes
Ministry samples (sounded vaguely familiar…thanks, A.S./cute kitty)
pretty good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “Hundreds of men flock to crime scene”
Grade: B
Cr@ppy wanna-be Hercules type guy leads a stupid adventure. Lots of stomach clenching, lots of padding.
Highlights:
NummyMuffin CooCooButter
oily cheesesteak
Interesting bridges (Temple of Doom, a foot over shallow water)
dance for the Gods of Awkward Movie Padding
decent riffing
Inspirational Quote: “For the first time people don’t know where to look.”
Grade: C+
Features some diabolical acting and some diabolical music but not much diabolical laughter.
The show’s plotline is that Mike and the Bots get home. Watch it for that if you want.
Inspirational Quote: “Mmm…something non-penis.”
Grade: D
Unbearable German version with obvious jokes.
Grade: F
Merlin comes to modern times to sell stuff; Ernest Borgnine alternately bores and traumatizes a small child.
Highlights:
cheezy drama/music
barren jokes
Borgnine jokes
monkey jokes
pretty good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “He blamed your wiener.”
Grade: C+
Bulky guy and a bunch of dancers quickly get stranded on an impeccable lifeboat, forced to resist the urge to eat one another. Then there’s an island and sort of a spider thing, and persistent half-nakedness.
Highlights:
SEXY horror music
intense dance auditions
horrific dialogue
decent-to-pretty-good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “We can’t hold out much longer”
Grade: C
A man suffers through an unfortunate trauma after keing kitten ky a kat.
Highlights:
totally serious-intended movie totally sucking
cheezy FX/tension/tension music
if the hospital bracelet doesn’t fit, you must noughta bit
decent riffing at times
Inspirational Quote: “Please don’t succumb to the urge to eat each other.”
Grade: D+
It’s about war…OF THE FUTURE. With exploding dinos.
Because I don’t really want to watch them, I’m finishing these last MST reviews slow and steady, like the noble crab.
Highlights:
Fee Tines A Mady
AHHs
a few good jokes
Inspirational Quote: “Well, I am Belgian.”
Grade: D
Lame road movie turns into lame crime movie. With LOTS of dancing, and bad music. Mostly dancing, really…just watch the intro credits for the general plot.
This movie is really scraping and so is the riffing.
Grade: F
PearlTV bits are surprisingly ok.
Raul Julia brings a small level of interest and class to an otherwise dumb “future”/fascism movie.
“Well, it is an unpleasant (movie), certainly. But I don’t think we had enough of the really gross awfulness we’re looking for.” – Lady Organs
Grade: D
It’s about an ugly, unappealing hypnotist/ventriloquist who shows plenty of eye and lid action. Just a lucky coincidence for me after the last one.
It tries to be really dark and scary. It succeeds at dark, and somewhat creepy – reminiscent of a pretty good, extra-long Twilight Zone episode in a way, although it becomes more tedious and less creepy as it goes along.
Highlights:
the movie itself having a mild interest factor(!?!)
Brit jokes
two-person one-man scene
decent riffing
Inspirational Quote: “Smell it. It has a lovely bouquet.”
Grade: C-
Pearl hijacks brainguy’s brain in a fairly amusing opening sketch.
Movie is non-scary horror, or non-exciting thriller featuring an ugly, unappealing hypnotist. Lots of AA closeups with plenty of eye and lid action to showcase this.
Highlights:
lots of SLEEEEP!
newspaper mocking
brilliant standing around and not-acting
pretty good riffing
Inspirational Exchange:
“I shall touch you and soon you’ll be asleep.”
“Oh, like every night.”
Grade: C+
See Frank on his fairly quick but time-staggered journey to second-banana Heaven, accompanied by Torgo. And an old cheezy slowwwww-paced Mexican horror flick.
Could have been a lot more inspired for a last hurrah.
Highlights:
horrific dubbing
sudden chunky masked guy with spiffy cape
solid evidence that the WWF/E originated in Mexico
decent riffing
Grade: C
Pearl and Mike switch places for part of the movie, which isn’t all THAT bad as these go. But it’s pretty boring, and so is the riffing. And the move reeks more of desperation than inspiration.
Grade: D-
Robot Rumpus isn’t very funny, but it does demonstrate the value of Old Glory insurance. Then there’s the usual cr@ppy movie.
Highlights:
cute Servo butterfly
Crow T. skull
ultra-pretentious movie intro
death jokes
surprisingly good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “I invite you to join me in marital intercourse.”
Grade: B-
A young Michael Landon gets mad a lot and then gets hairy. Gets kinda dull in the second half.
Highlights:
some of the ‘Alien’ encounters
canine jokes
decent first-half riffing
Grade: C-
Dull old adventure/”action” flick, dull riffing, dull host segments.
That would be “fading away”.
Grade: F
Crow gets a new voice, Bobo appears, Pearl takes over. Movie sucks.
Riffing starts off bad, gets ok after way too long.
Grade: D-
Another dumb, boring spy flick. The movie is terrible and the riffing mostly sucks, so really the only reason to watch is for the entire-episode-length (gee, I wonder if that’s a coincidence) trial of planet-destroyer Mike. It’s sort of amusing, but that’s it. Skip the movie.
Grade: D-
The movie is bad but not horrific, the riffing is decent and never painful, the entire thing is mildly pleasant and completely forgettable.
Grade: C-
Really sucks. Cheezy and bad adventure/horror (quotes assumed by now).
Riffing is rarely funny, rarely EXTREMELY annoying, and the rest ok.
If you must watch (and you mustn’t), for the LOVE OF GOD turn it off RIGHT AFTER the movie ends.
Grade: D-
Another fine example of how Bond movies have done as much damage to cinema as Romero’s ‘Night’. It really sucks, but the riffing is ok at best.
Highlights:
appearance by Torgo
peaceful (and funny!) death ray
Billy’s sfx
Grade: D+
Really cheezy, “groovy” high school crime drama/love story.
Highlights:
Frank’s mild scolding of little dino
Out Of This World short – a fairy tale about bread
boozy dad/effeminate heterosexual son
really bad fake walking
good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “I’ll win a Tony one day…”
Grade: B+
Why did I review this MST3K episode? Because I FELT LIKE WATCHING IT.
Ah, sweet freedom.
The story arc shows Mike destroying a planet and Pearl acquiring an ape. It’s not PARTICULARLY interesting, but it’s decent.
Highlights:
cr@ppy Cold War references
military jokes (easy, but still)
pretty good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “Do you have to have your area right near me, Sir?”
Grade: C
Well-meaning, honest politician with lots of integrity who is totally faithful to his wife is taken advantage of by conniving young vixen and her rowdy non-voting friends.
Co-funded by all male politicians everywhere. (That one’s for you, MM).
Highlights:
kitten jokes
overacting by AM
philosophical rebel leader
Mike’s come-hither look
pretty good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “Oh, GREAT…we can’t have nice arms!”
Grade: C+
The Amazing Colossal Sequel.
Highlights:
militant food exchange
Mr. B Natural short/debate
Insensitive Redux
Glen-taunting
KTLA-taunting
good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “Oh EXCUSE ME sexless man-woman.”
Grade: B+
Perhaps Bert I. Gordon’s BEST huge stuff flick.
Highlights:
Insensitive Hospital
Insensitive Bots
Joel’s huge skit
good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “Oh, you mean old peel-and-eat Manning.”
Grade: B
The complete ineptitude and incoherence of the brilliant villain and his plan may be of interest to some, but pretty much the only thing I got out of watching this was the knowledge that sidehacking caught on with one guy somewhere in Florida.
The final battle sequence is, admittedly, one of the most pathetic attempts at compelling I’ve ever seen.
Grade: D-
*point* THERE.
What?
*point again* There…wolf.
Features the very rare occurrence of a man telling a woman to spit it out.
Highlights:
canine jokes
persistent gas station
decent riffing
cute doggy
Inspirational Quote: “aaaaAAAAHHH!”
Grade: C-
Movies:
Invasion U.S.A.: A-
Manos: The Hands Of Fate: A-
The Rebel Set: A-
Shorts:
A Date With Your Family: A+
Body Care And Grooming: A+
Last Clear Chance: A+
Why Study Industrial Arts?: A
What To Do On A Date: A
The Home Economics Story: A
Chicken Of Tomorrow: A
Mr. B Natural: A
Hired! (Part Two): A-
Catching Trouble: A-
The Days Of Our Years: A-
Cheating: A-
MST3K Shorts-a-thon: A-
Last Updated: 5/1/24
Dull, boring, and predictable.
And the movie isn’t very good either.
Rated so highly because I fell asleep about 3/4ths of the way through and can’t bear to watch it again.
Grade: D-
Ummmm…cr@ppy sci-fi. So nothing you haven’t seen before, including many times on MST.
Season nine, and not really inspired. So nothing you haven’t heard before.
Inspirational Quote: “Well, that said, enjoy your cr@ppy sci-fi.”
Grade: D-
Quinn Martin presents: Really cr@ppy spy/action flick, sort of like a Bond film without the gadgets, excitement, sex, and intrigue.
Highlights:
A Day At The Fair short
T-V MO-VIE stupidity
terrible music/sound FX
“Life Without Mike” sketches
good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “He realizes he had not known cow until this day.”
Grade: B
Really bad unscary horror flick.
Highlights:
Progress Island short
divining gun
Tor jokes
off-camera dialogue
pretty good riffing
Inspirational Quote: “Yes, no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid.”
Grade: B-
Why haven’t I reviewed the ‘Design For Dreaming’ short before? It’s a really stupid, annoying musical number that isn’t redeemed by riffs. And the riffs aren’t good.
Movie is a typical cr@ppy 50’s sci-fi exploration/drama flick.
Riffing gets mostly dull about halfway through.
THRILL as the writers intermittently prepare for ‘Space Mutiny’ naming.
WONDER if they came up with the whole ‘Space Mutiny’ names idea without re-watching this and the other prequely one the name of which I can’t remember and don’t care enough to look up.
EXULT with me in my brief moment of moderate inspiration.
Highlights:
Frank’s touching roast of Dr. F
PBS jokes
Inspirational Quote: “The moon is officially icky.”
Grade: D
Bert I. shows you how to make a “big stuff” movie:
1) Write a dumb script
2) Hire some bad actors
3) Make some cheap cr@ppy FX
Stick with just the host bits until around 32:00, at least. Then it’s intermittently amusing.
Highlights:
Mr. Torgo applies at Deep 13
Tom Servo’s mom
brilliant mumblings
Ode to Frank (repeated at the end)
Inspirational Quote: “I dreamed I was standing by a big dead duck in my underwear.”
Grade: D+
Very vaguely Batman-ish ripoff movie featuring dullness and dull cheeze.
Just watch the short.
Highlights:
Cheating short
Inspirational Quote: “There are not enough belltowers in the world for Johnny.”
Grade: D
Really horrible Corman western. Look for the frequent/flagrant mistakes.
Highlights:
Servo’s big fluffy head
two guys in a horse outfit
jeep tracks of the ollllld west.
Grade: D+
