MST3K 822: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

For the final episode of the eighth season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the Best Brains were at last able to step away from the "somewhere in time and space" format imposed on them by the Sci-Fi Channel (or so I've heard). The "host segments" are built around a "Public Pearl Television" telethon (complete with the brief opening theme from the Mystery Science Theater Hour and Ortega working the phones) so that Pearl can scam the well-meaning; this connects to the "movie" in the episode itself. "TV movies" had been tackled by the series before (with a certain show of knowing derision), but "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" ("Ha ha ha ha, that is funny.") has the soft, muzzy look of 1980s videotape (I do sort of wonder if it always looked that way or it just got that way with age) and was made for a PBS station...
( 'I didn't want to bungle or bobble the Fingal dopple.' )