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Just one year after the "MST3K 25th Anniversary Edition" was packaged in a metal can, Shout! Factory put "MST3K XXXI: The Turkey Day Collection" in another can. Whether they'll find a way to offer "more value for more money" next year is an open question; maybe they'll include a miniature Satellite of Love or one of the various designs of "Cambot." Along with the can, we get a special introduction for each episode from Joel Hodgson, complete with appearances by Crow and Tom Servo (performed by Joel's fellow "Cinematic Titans" Trace Beaulieu and J. Elvis Weinstein, for that extra dose of nostalgia) against a setting with a dose of "product placement" in the form of two iMacs, identical to the setting of the online marathon held this (American) Thanksgiving. There's also a little documentary about "Turkey Day" in the context of Mystery Science Theater and all of the introductions done by the "Best Brains" themselves (leaving out the year Adam West provided them and the year they were taped at a fan party). I hadn't seen the "bumpers" where Dr. Forrester is forcing TV's Frank to eat a "themed" turkey for each episode, although I perhaps did get the impression I could agree with comments I've seen that they weren't as elaborate as the storyline from the year before.
In any case, I was conscious of this collection not leading off with another episode from the first season with all of them released on official DVDs at some point (unless Shout! Factory gets around at last to re-releasing some of the older Rhino episodes in its collections instead of just as "special orders"), but it's possible that "Jungle Goddess," led off with the first chapter of the somewhat hard-to-follow Bela Lugosi series "The Phantom Creeps," wasn't that much more involving this time around as an early second season episode than a random first season episode might be, even with Joel and the 'bots' indignation at the condescending racial attitudes of the movie. Things picked up with "The Painted Hills" and the somewhat dark take it winds up adding to a "boy and his dog" movie, though. As I got into the "Mike half" of this set, however, I did get to wondering if the "riffing" on "Robot Rumpus" was somehow quite "ready" to take on a clay-animation Gumby short just as I've seen occasional comments wondering if some of the "Joel episodes" were quite "ready" to joke about a few of the more gruelling movies from those years, and that feeling might have carried into "The Screaming Skull," which included a good many "riffs" about things being slow and dull until the final psychological climax. The DVD did include an interview with the son of Gumby's creator and a little documentary about the movie itself, which pointed out that the shambling gardner Mickey, one of the more notable features early on, was being played by the movie's director. "Squirm" finished things on a high note with its low-to-the-ground invasion, anyway; the DVD also included an interview with its star Don Scardino, who played the visitor from the north Mick, and who seems to have enjoyed himself during the production. The interview managed to include high-quality glimpses of the gruesome scenes cut from the Mystery Science Theater episode (where the bonus features for "The Screaming Skull" used footage taken from that episode); that Shout! Factory is now selling the unadulterated movie on Blu-Ray might have something to do with that.
In any case, I was conscious of this collection not leading off with another episode from the first season with all of them released on official DVDs at some point (unless Shout! Factory gets around at last to re-releasing some of the older Rhino episodes in its collections instead of just as "special orders"), but it's possible that "Jungle Goddess," led off with the first chapter of the somewhat hard-to-follow Bela Lugosi series "The Phantom Creeps," wasn't that much more involving this time around as an early second season episode than a random first season episode might be, even with Joel and the 'bots' indignation at the condescending racial attitudes of the movie. Things picked up with "The Painted Hills" and the somewhat dark take it winds up adding to a "boy and his dog" movie, though. As I got into the "Mike half" of this set, however, I did get to wondering if the "riffing" on "Robot Rumpus" was somehow quite "ready" to take on a clay-animation Gumby short just as I've seen occasional comments wondering if some of the "Joel episodes" were quite "ready" to joke about a few of the more gruelling movies from those years, and that feeling might have carried into "The Screaming Skull," which included a good many "riffs" about things being slow and dull until the final psychological climax. The DVD did include an interview with the son of Gumby's creator and a little documentary about the movie itself, which pointed out that the shambling gardner Mickey, one of the more notable features early on, was being played by the movie's director. "Squirm" finished things on a high note with its low-to-the-ground invasion, anyway; the DVD also included an interview with its star Don Scardino, who played the visitor from the north Mick, and who seems to have enjoyed himself during the production. The interview managed to include high-quality glimpses of the gruesome scenes cut from the Mystery Science Theater episode (where the bonus features for "The Screaming Skull" used footage taken from that episode); that Shout! Factory is now selling the unadulterated movie on Blu-Ray might have something to do with that.