Another holiday season, another heartwarming MST3K collection to purchase for your loved ones (or for yourself). This time, we’re treated to a couple pretty elusive Sandy Frank episodes, as well as an Ed Wood “classic” and a not-as-exciting tale of a disfigured, bitter old man getting to know a blind chick. There’s also a hearty helping of extras, most of which are entirely new and interesting, one of which is lovingly nostalgic, and all of which are 100% welcomed.
So, as usual, let’s get to my fairly disorganized opinions of each of the discs—including short summaries of the episodes themselves and some notes on the extras bundled with each.
Time of the Apes
“I don’t care.” –Badly-dubbed little Johnny.
With the success of Planet of the Apes, how could we not expect to see multiple rip-offs of the idea in its wake? Well, whether or not you saw it coming, this one features a terrible plot involving a family visiting a lab where animals are cryogenically frozen… and during the course of their visit, they’re trapped in the freezing chambers after taking shelter during an earthquake. Naturally, after waking in the future, they’re met with just what you’d expect to see: a bunch of master-race monkeys. Better yet, temperature now affects the shape of spacetime, and let’s not forget some guy named Godo who apparently transcends the new laws of physics.
Episode 306’s host segments aren’t the strongest of the series, but the riffs throughout are pretty funny, even considering the relative youth of the show at this point. There’s still a sizable portion of obscure references present (something which is common in the earlier episodes of the show), but as far as the Sandy Frank episodes go (he’s the guy responsible for bringing these Japanese films over to the US), this one’s as strong as they come.
Speaking briefly on that point, it’s not so widely known that Sandy Frank himself was actually so irritated by the show’s treatment of his offerings that he managed to prevent the re-airing of these episodes for many years, as well as stifle their chances for release on DVD. But that’s obviously the case no longer, as the last couple of sets from the Shout Factory have been dominated by those previously-elusive episodes.
Extras:
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Introduction by August Ragone (5:23) – A hilarious and shockingly frank history of the conception of Time of the Apes and its creators’ strange connections to other productions of the time.
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MST Hour Wraps (5:13) – Always hilarious, this segment (featuring Mike Nelson as Jack Perkins) lobs heavily sarcastic ridicule at the film while just generally being ridiculous anyway. I miss this show’s network television syndication.
Mighty Jack
“Johnny, quit splashing in the tub!”
Yet another Japanese film brought to America by the one-and-only Sandy Frank, this episode is widely considered to be one of the lost gems of the third season. The movie is downright incoherent, thanks primarily to the fact that it was derived from a couple of episodes of a Japanese television series condensed into an American feature-length film (a surefire recipe for success). As for the plot, an organization known as “Q” is planning to destroy an island and take over the world, and the Japanese government assembles a team of individuals led by the venerable Mighty Jack to stop them. Throughout the course of the film, Q launches an underwater plane thingie and even builds a base disguised as an iceberg—and people cook pineapple slices and pet their evil cats, all while the “A”s are
“way too high.”
Unfortunately, none of this is even remotely interesting in terms of the plot—though conveniently, there’s plenty of eye-candy cannon fodder for SOL gang to leverage. The riffs are consistent—if not occasionally sparse—and the host segments are pretty inspired (Mighty Jack Dog Food being my personal favorite of the bunch).
Extras:
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Introduction by August Ragone (7:05) – Our resident Sandy Frank expert returns to explain the origins of Mighty Jack (he does an infinitely better job introducing it than I have here).
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The DVD Menus of MST3K – A brief interview with the creators of the inventive MST3K DVD menus. Did you know it takes three days to make one of these things?
The Violent Years (with short: Young Man’s Fancy)
“I’m thinking of growing mushrooms in the basement.”
This Ed Wood pile is a laughably-cheesy tale of a few young female rebels who adopt a life of theft and crime. This initially means stealing from randoms and selling off the loot for profits, but it quickly escalates into a contract job of trashing some school classrooms (gangs pay big money for that, you know).
Unfortunately, the film does a comparably resentful job of pillaging the audience, with equal parts slow and dumb spearheading the effort. The dialogue and editing is just as disconnected and poorly-planned as you’d expect from an Ed Wood production, and there are more than a handful of scenes in this movie that drag on for far longer than they should (such as the thrilling gas station holdup scene, which is lampooned by J&tB during one of the funnier host segments). Having said that, a group of females raping a male is an interesting aside during the earlier parts of the film.
The prefixed Young Man’s Fancy is much quicker-paced and frequently hilarious (thanks, Jam Handy!). In it, a girl falls in love with her new-age electric kitchen with the help of a visiting stud who has a serious thing for appliances. Like every great short, when it’s over, you’ll be wondering just what the hell it was trying to sell you to begin with.
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Ed-ucation: Archival Interviews with Delores Fuller & Kathy Wood—These interviews were done (seemingly) a couple of decades ago and almost romanticize Ed’s career as a B-Movie icon. I personally didn’t find much use for them, but then again, I’m really not much on film history—even when it involves the likes of Ed Wood Jr. and his escapades.
The Brute Man (with short: The Chicken of Tomorrow)
“Rick Astley is selling newspapers!”
You may recall The Chicken of Tomorrow from the collection Shorts: Volume 1. It’s not one of the best shorts the gang did, but it’s certainly weird. It’s a 40s-era attempt at educating the viewer about the latest innovations in chicken farming. Sound fascinating? Then you’re wrong! It’s actually bizarre and stupid, and nevertheless much more memorable than the feature film itself.
Even Mary Jo admits in this disc’s extras that The Brute Man is one of their weaker episodes, mostly because it’s just so damn depressing. It’s dark, pessimistic, and difficult to relate to in any way. The main character is portrayed by an actor who was disfigured in real life (see my summary of the extras for more on this). And his love story involving a blind chick is hardly relatable—pitiful, perhaps, and again, just plain terribly depressing from start to finish. Meanwhile, some of the riffs aren’t bad, but they’re relatively infrequent, and many of them bunt with easy jabs at the Brute’s malformed appearance. Overall, this is a pretty weak episode.
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Introduction by Mary Jo Pehl – A short discussion with Mary Jo about the complete lack of soul/heart in the movie, and why it’s so difficult to enjoy overall. She feels like it’s one of their weaker performances because there isn’t much to joke about.
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Trail of the Creeper: Making of The Brute Man (30:01) – In typical slick-produced fashion, Ballyhoo this time brings us a complete exploration (per several film historians) of the history of Rondo Hatton as The Brute Man—and how he became disfigured in real life. It was all thanks to a pituitary gland disorder called Acromegaly, a terrible condition which led him to his role as the horrific creeper in the film. The poor guy had apparently fought in the military overseas and had been exposed to mustard gas, which some theorized to have triggered his terrible condition. Regardless, it’s an interesting tale for sure.
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The Making of MST3K (22:41) – Originally aired in 1997, this half-hour-long extra is a somewhat skewed historical recount of the show’s evolution, quickly travelling the various stages of the show’s life and its corresponding staff changes. Considering it was developed and aired during the Sci-Fi Channel era of the show, it isn’t surprising that not much discussion of the early days of the franchise applies—rather, it’s more of a forward-looking exploration of the current (circa 1997) state of the series. Nevertheless, we’re treated to participation by everyone from Mike Nelson to Bridget Jones, and it’s most certainly worth having in the collection.
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Lobby Cards by Artist Steve Vance – I’m beginning to love the packaging of these sets more and more with each one I receive. The individually-packaged discs once again are adorned with hilarious themed caricatures of the bots related to each particular film. Now that I’ve got a few dozen of these little nicely-decorated slim cases lining my shelves, it’s starting to look pretty awesome.