Disc One: Girls Town
This is a Mike Nelson episode
from 1994, and poor Gypsy is a physical link to Dr. Forrester back on Earth.
The movie the gang is forced to watch stars Mamie Van Doren, Mel Torme and Paul
Anka. And, yes, there are plenty of jokes about Mel Torme: “Mel always looked fifty,” “He’s like a youthful Jabba The Hutt.”
Paul Anka doesn’t escape their quips. “He
looks like a young Cher,” they observe. As a woman is chased by a man on
screen at the start of the film, the guys joke “Heidi in The Most Dangerous Game.” Then, after the guy falls to his
death, Mike quips, “Hey, I think the date’s
going pretty well.” When an unstable fan lunges at Paul Anka, the nuns stop
her and Tom Servo says, “Paul Anka’s
beefy security nuns step in.” The running jokes about that loony girl are
among the episode’s best. This movie has it all: Mamie Van Doren, The Platters,
nuns and even Mel Torme in a car race. Sheilah Graham is also in it, a name
familiar to you F. Scott Fitzgerald fans. (As an interesting side note, Girls Town was also given the title The Innocent And The Damned when it was
re-issued, a title close to Fitzgerald’s The
Beautiful And Damned.) There are references to Velvet Underground, Van
Morrison, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, The
Godfather and The Hotel New Hampshire.
The first disc includes Anatomy Of A Theme: An Interview With Chuck
Love, in which he talks about how he was approached to write the theme song
to the show. He also explains how the end theme came about. The trailer for Girls Town is also included.
Disc Two: The Amazing Transparent Man
This is a Mike Nelson episode
from 1995, and it has Crow as the latest insect in Tom Servo’s collection,
while Dr. Forrester has turned his laboratory into a bed and breakfast inn.
Everything is okay as long as no one gives matches to Mike. Before the main
attraction, this episode contains The
Days Of Our Years, a deliciously bad short film that Mike and the robots
enjoy skewering. A title card reads, “‘The days of our years are three score
and ten’…Psalm 90:10,” leading Mike to ask, “So we have seventy days in each year?” The short is narrated, and
the narrator tells us, “In those days,
Joe was about as average a young fellow as you’d be likely to meet.” Mike
responds, “He sounds great.” And when
the narrator describes Helen as “a
wonderful girl who wanted nothing in the world more than to be Mrs. Joe,”
Mike says “So his name is Joe Joe?”
In the main film, a character says, “We’re
completely equipped for our experiment.” Crow adds, “We got a grant from viewers like you.” As another character offers
an explanation of some apparatus, Tom Servo offers this comment: “Honey, I shrunk the audience’s interest.”
Throughout the film, the gang jokes about an organ that is in several shots but
is never played. There are references to Talking Heads, Psycho, Apocalypse Now
and Chinatown. They also make several
references to the short film.
The second disc includes Beyond Transparency, in which film
historian C. Courtney Joyner talks about The
Amazing Transparent Man and Beyond
The Time Barrier, and how these two films came about, and how American
International acquired them. The film’s trailer is also included.
Disc Three: Diabolik
This is the final episode. Mike
finds the Satellite Of Love employee handbook, and soon learns the ship will be
heading back to Earth, which makes Pearl unhappy. But first Mike and the robots
have to suffer through Diabolik, and
Tom Servo has to do some cleaning. As motorcyclists follow an armored truck,
the gang quips, “If Hitler had won and
hired Stu Sutcliffe as a fashion designer.” Tom Servo adds, “Some movies just won’t stop and ask for
directions.” As two characters enter an underground lair, Crow comments “Great hideout, but it’s hard to get your
Sunday paper delivered.” The gang also jokes about the difficulty in
getting contractors to construct a place like that, something I always wonder
about when I see something like this in a movie. The gang sings a delightful
song about going to earth. This episode contains references to The Graduate, The Wizard Of Oz, Dr.
Strangelove, The Avengers, Sesame Street, The Beatles, The Beach
Boys, Devo and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The guys even make a reference to Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie,
or at least to This Island Earth: “Welcome, Dr. Meacham.”
The third disc includes Showdown In Eden Prairie: Their Final
Experiment, which features interviews with cast and crew members about the
end of the series, as well as some behind-the-scenes footage. The Last Dance is a whole hell of a lot
of behind-the-scenes footage from the production of the final episode,
including some shots of the props room. The film’s trailer is
also included.
Disc Four: Satellite Dishes
There are eleven episodes that
have yet to be released, and likely will not be – six Joel episodes and five
Mike episodes. The fourth disc in this set contains the host segments from
those episodes (nearly three hours of material). Let’s hope the universe will
shift slightly in our favor, and those episodes will be released. But for now,
we can enjoy the host segments. In the Rocketship
X-M episode, Frank says he’s new. He wears a name tag and another tag that
says “Trainee.” The invention exchange includes Joel’s drum set that we see
toward the end of the opening theme sequence. And in the Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster episode, the gang sings a song about
Godzilla’s family. And later Mothra shows up at the Satellite Of Love. In other
segments, Joel works as Crow’s puppet, Crow wants to marry into posture, and
Tom Servo has some questions about making out. He must have learned a thing or
two, because in another segment he mans a kissing both. In one of the best
segments, the gang provides evidence supporting their case that the filmmakers
responsible for Attack Of The Eye
Creatures just didn’t care. In another episode, an alien lifeform attaches
itself to Tom Servo, and Mike makes a giant omelet out of the alien’s eggs. In the last of these missing episodes, Mike and Pearl swap places.
This disc also includes a
special feature, Behind The Scream, an interview with Daniel Griffith about Ballyhoo and Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXXIX is scheduled to be
released on November 21, 2017 through Shout! Factory.
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