Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

"Time travel" seems an irresistible theme in "stories of the fantastic." With it brought in, though, the thought of "changing history" lurks, and the potential loops and paradoxes there are obvious to pretty much everyone however smug they may be about bringing them up in response to the best attempts of stories to set their own rules. (There seems one logically unassailable way out in declaring any attempt to act with foreknowledge just leads to the inevitable conclusion, but this has its own troubling if not depressing connotations when it comes to "free will," even if something is said about "the best of all possible worlds.") When all of this combines with Mystery Science Theater, the results in this case are "Time Chasers" ("I'll have a Scotch with Time Chasers."), and the perhaps inevitable consequences are humour.
( 'The Adventures of the Average People!' )

After entering the "Mike era" of Mystery Science Theater 3000 by rewatching "Code Name Diamond Head" from the latest official DVD collection, I finished off the collection with "Last of the Wild Horses." (There is, of course, something mildly appropriate in it being the last disc of the collection...) The movie is one of the few Westerns the series tackled, but it just might be a storyline set up in the "host segments" and spilling into the "riffing" itself that makes the episode memorable...
( 'Lumpiest couple of cowboys I've ever seen.' )
( 'It's just like Gamera vs. Zigra... only with cowboys.' )
( 'The movie's just starting to mosey now.' )
( 'Her bullets say no but her eyes say come hither.' )
( 'People just wander from scene to scene in this movie.' )

Entering the fifth season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, I've made it to "Eegah." Along with "Robot Monster" and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," it's one of the three films in the MST3K canon also featured in the book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time," which I read in my home town's library at an early age. That book and its "Golden Turkey Awards" followups may have played some role in pointing me towards a Mystery Science Theater perspective, but I've also become aware of some criticism of their own take on "cheesy movies," perhaps more "conventional" and dismissive than the way the series grapples with them. Even so, I may have had taken some particular interest in the three episodes, and that's stuck with me over time.
( 'Richard Kiel as Eegah Templar, the Saint.' )
( 'He's like a Cabbage Patch Elvis.' )
( 'You know, even in crisis these two are dull.' )
( 'She gets picked up so much she should have a handle.' )

The most interesting thing about the movie in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Fire Maidens of Outer Space" ("Fire Maidens really grip the road!") might be the English accents a number of its astronaut characters have; otherwise, it might well be dismissed as just another in the string of "rocketing to another habitable world" movies the series featured. That dismissive conclusion might be easier to come by, though, because of the little story told in the episode's "host segments," one that ends up spilling into the movie itself...
( 'Is this the Hugh Hefner planet?' )

Still in the third season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, I've made it to "Viking Women and the Sea Serpent." The on-screen title is actually "The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent," but when referred to it usually gets cut down somewhere along the way. The movie itself isn't that long, though, so we start with the just perhaps thematically similar "The Home Economics Story."
( 'You lost the draw. You'll be rooming with the ice queen.' )
( 'How do Pop-Tarts work?' )
( 'Oh, Vikings always fade in the second half.' )
( 'Troma presents Viking Reform School Girls.' )
( 'He's kind of stoic for a Swede, isn't he?' )

Opening up the latest Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD collection, I also moved one season ahead into the series with "King Dinosaur." Our heroes were dismayed to learn they'd be getting another movie from the prolific Robert L. Lippert; they'd already been through three movies he was involved with in the nine episodes previously shown in the second season itself. Just as how with "Rocketship X-M" they had started off referring to it as just a "Lloyd Bridges movie," though, they aren't so concerned about Bert I. Gordon directing it. Gordon, of course, would direct a whole string of movies tackled by the series through the third season and beyond. Before the movie itself, the series takes a new turn. After eight (and a bit) chapters of "Commando Cody and the Radar Men from the Moon," which had very much worn out their welcome among creators and fans alike by the end, and three chapters of "The Phantom Creeps," we get a more or less "educational" short...
( 'Will you guys knock it off? I can't concentrate on my own lame wisecracks.' )

Although one thing and another did get in the way, I've made it to the second episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 featuring a "Union Pacific safety short." Once again, "The Days of Our Years" may somewhat overshadow "The Amazing Transparent Man." ("Am I that amazingly transparent?" "I'm glad it's not the Annoying Transparent Man.") Of course, that just might be expected with a title like that. As for the short, we move from road safety (with a particular emphasis on level crossings) to industrial safety...
( 'Now, let's get to the dismemberment.' )
( 'Oh, well. Who needs fingers?' )
( 'Honey, I Shrank the Audience's Interest.' )
( 'Fine. If I can't get near the fallout, I'll just smoke.' )

Taking early advantage of the Christmas holidays, I watched another Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode from the latest DVD collection. "The Deadly Years" falls into the category of "juvenile delinquency exploitation," and the deal is sweetened somewhat by it having been written (if not directed) by the legendary Ed Wood. ("Ed Wood? No! I have angora-phobia!") As it's not a long movie, though, the episode also includes a short featuring much less delinquent juveniles...
( 'All the fats are numbing my emotions!' )
( 'Well, how's our little gun-toting trollop?' )

Opening up the current Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD set, I launched into "Time of the Apes." Starting out as a Japanese response to Planet of the Apes in the form of a twenty-six episode TV series, then crammed down into the length of a TV movie by the infamous Sandy Frank to become something I imagine was intended as nothing more than cheap filler (whether for actual TV schedules or just movie packages for TV stations), it was found in the library of a local Minneapolis TV station by a group of young comedians working on a quirky little show, and embarked on a new leg of its odyssey...
( 'Must you scream every observation?' )
( 'Come on, run! Try and move faster than the plot.' )
( 'Do the words shallow grave mean anything to you?' )
( 'She passed out from the sheer length of the film!' )

I've made it to the last of the "Hercules" movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 that I still had to rewatch and comment on. While I've seen them promoted as "very watchable," at least in the relaxed content of the show's canon, I do wonder if they've ever quite appealed to me as much as they seem to others. Starting into "Hercules and the Captive Women," I might have been most interested in a sort of casual experiment involving the show's structure itself...
( 'Maybe if they pulled up the anchor the plot would move a little.' )
( 'Can God himself make a plot so complicated even he can't comprehend it?' )
( 'I'll tell you, this would be really exciting if I knew what was going on.' )