Weasley's Guide to MST3K 5 Essential Episodes

Everyone who knows me knows I just love, love, love Mystery Science Theatre 3000.  The 90s cult show about a guy in space forced to watch bad movies with his robot palls.

It combined to  of my absolute favorite things vintage (in the form of cheesy old movies) and sci-fi, in one cute and quirky package.   In fact I'm so crazy about MST3K that for Weasley's 5th birthday one of his gifts was a Gizmonic jump suit like the one MST3K host Joel wears. 

Deb from Pug Possessed made it and she did an amazing job.  I decided Weasley's jumpsuit is the perfect segue way into an MST3K essential episodes post.  Now as you can see I have a lot of MST3K box sets:

and would you believe I don't even have all of them!  Some are really hard to find.  So it wasn't easy picking 5 essential episodes and these aren't even necessarily my favorites, they are just 5 I really like (this blog feature may have to be ongoing).  Here they are in no particular order:

1) Manos The Hand's Fate: The uninitiated bad movie viewer who asks the questions How bad can a movie really get? and How funny can a bad movie be?  Needs to watch this crazy thing.  It was made on a bet by an insurance and fertilizer sales man, he also plays father in the film.  I guess he won the best because the movie is pretty famous now..   The resulting film is completely incoherent and totally hilarious.  It also features a black toy poodle though he comes to a tragic end.

This episode also features the hilarious Chevrolet short, Hired!  Manos The Hands of Fate is available on Amazon for $12.99.

2) Cave Dwellers  This 1984 Italian fantasy film was featured in the first episode of the third season of MST3K.   It is a swords and sandals type film and a pretty dreadful rip off of Conan the Barbarian, but boy is it funny.  Along with a brain dead hero, a mute side kick, and heroine that looks like she is on the way to the mall, it features a snake that growls.  That alone makes it worth watching.  Here is Joel introducing the episode for a Turkey Day special he did in 2013.

Cave Dwellers is part of the volume 2 set of MST3K and is now horrifyingly expensive, but you can rent it from Amazon prime for a reasonable price.  Also Cave Dwellers is part two of a trilogy, yes there are three of these dreadful things, and part 1: Ator, The Fighting Eagle is now available on the Riff trax website.  It does not disappoint.


3) Laser Blast-This 1978 sci-fi film was aired during the 7th season of MST3K.  It has Roddy McDowell of Planet of the Apes fame in it and some seriously awful clay mation effects.  The bots and Mike make plenty of jokes about the fact that revered film critic Leonard Matlin gave this turkey two stars.   Mike also has a fun segment where he pretends to be Star Trek Voyager's Captain Janeway

Laser Blast is available as part of the MST3K 20th anniversary pack 
and it can be streamed on Netflix.

4) The Giant Gila Monster- This cheesy 1959 monster flick was shown during the shows 4th season.  Unsurprisingly there are a lot of giant (insert animal) movies shown on MST3K but this is my favorite.  The plot is typical 50s monster fodder, peppy teens are plagued by a giant Gila lizard (a very obviously normal sized Lizard walking past toy cars).  The songs and doofy dialogue make this a classic episode.

The Giant Gila monster is available as part of Volume 10.2 (now rare and pricey) or you can stream it on Netflix. 

5) Teenage Strangler-This 1968 teen murder mystery was aired during the shows 5th season.   Basically teenage couples are being viciously murdered and the prime suspect is Jimmy a high school student with an incredibly dweeby younger brother.  Then surprise!  It was the school janitor all along.  Hi-light's include the bots tricking Mike into wearing a pair of glasses that turn him into Mikey Jimmy's whiny younger brother from the movie:


  and Mike's hilarious closing song about janitors.

If you want a funny, silly, vintagey show you just cant  go wrong with MST3K it's like watching cheesy movies with your friends, if your friends where incredibly funny. 

Cinema Spotlight on The Weirdest and Worst Holiday Special of All Time-The Star Wars Christmas Special

Anyone who reads this blog knows what a devoted trekkie I am:

 

                                                           

 

 

On the other hand, I've never been much of a Star Wars fan.  I appreciated the original movies as fun, goofy, block busters but I never saw them as particularly great.  However, I have recently begun to enjoy Star Wars a bit more, I liked the Force Awakens a lot, and I loved Rogue One.  So maybe I've been seduced by the dark side a bit, and I even bought this:

40 hours of extras!  I mean what the hell could be on this thing.

Still Star Wars will never hold a candle to Trek for me and my absolute favorite thing in the Star Wars oeuvre is something that most people have either never heard of, or would rather forget.  The Holiday Special

It aired in November of 1978 after the first movie had become a mega-hit and it is incredibly weird and awful.  I pride myself on being a connoisseur of so bad there good, as in funny, movies and I'm a devoted fan of the make fun of bad movies show MST3K and its later incarnation Rifftrax, still the Star Wars special threw me through a loop.  Even after a life time spent watching bad movies, the weirdness of this one comes as a shock. 

The basic premise of the special, if you can go so far as to say that it has one, is that Chewy the Wookie is trying to get home to his family to celebrate the big Wookie Holiday Life Day 

Obviously it is a mistake to focus a television special on characters that communicate by grunting.  Never the less the producers of The Star Wars Holiday special did just this, at least half of the special is Chewy's family grunting at each other.

  At some point CBS must have realized they couldn't get by on grunted conversations alone and they threw in some guest stars of the kitschiest caliber and created a sort of variety hour.   Art Carney appears as the Wookie neighbor

 Bea Arthur sings in an alien bar

and  Disco Star Dihann Carol appears as some sort of virtual reality entertainment of a rather mature sort :

 The whole thing culmintates in the Wookies donning rather creepy red robes for Life Day and walking off into the stars while Princess Leia sings the Life Day song:

The special is so bad that it remained virtually hidden for years with George Lucas trying to bury it and erase it from the collective conscious.   It was never re-aired and never released, but it couldn't be destroyed and with the release of the Force Awakens the Holiday special crawled out of the wood work.  It can be seen on you tube as can all of the wonderful 1970s commercials:

   but if you are going to watch it, and I strongly recommend that you do because it is hilarious, you really need to see the Rifftrax version.  

It's just so bad and so weird that I'm afraid without the riffing it would be unwatchable, but with the riffing it may well be the funniest Holiday movie ever

Happy Life Day!

   

Kitschmas Decorating (And a Review of The Vermont Country Store Tinsel Tree)

I may never achieve my dream of a mid century home perfectly decorated for Christmas:

but I still enjoy decorating my urban home for the Holidays every year.   I generally collect much more vintage clothing then I do knick knacks and home wares, but over the years I have gathered a sizable collection of kitschy vintage holiday stuff.  In fact in our home I say we celebrate Kitschmas.  

The number one Kitschmas requirement is of course a tree in a color never found in nature: pink, white, or silver.   I've been in love with such trees every since I saw Edward Scissorhand's at age 12 and begged my horrified mother for a tinsel tree, she said no.

As soon as I grew up and got my own home I bought a vintage 1960s tinsel tree.  I loved that tree:

Sadly though it lost more and more tinsel each year until it had sizable bald patches and I began to worry about the dogs or cats ingesting shedded tinsel.  So last year I tossed it. 

 At first I planned to buy another vintage tree but in my research I learned lights on vintage aluminum trees are a major fire hazard (obviously I hadn't known that).  So I decided to go with the Vermont Country Store's reproduction tinsel tree that is pre-lit and fire safe.  The tree retails for for 170 dollars in the 6 foot option and ships quickly with no extra charge.  

Initially when I opened the box I was a little disapointed because the trees material is very different from the 1960s original, but then that is probably why it is fire safe.

 

Once I got it up and decorated though it started to grow on  me.  Silver is the perfect background for Star Trek ornaments and I have a lot of those (we celebrate Trekmas in our house too.)  My latest ornament is the Gorn Captain, I got it at the Star Trek Convention in Cherry Hill and I gave it a prominent spot on the tree.  Nothing like Christmas with the Gorn.

I have a lot of talking Star Trek Hallmark keepsake ornaments that John has gotten me over the years too and I never tire of listening to them.  The Tribble one is my favorite.

I have some mid century blown glass ornaments too.  I just got this little pipe cleaner angel on a pink ball for a dollar.

I had to take a selfie with the tree when I had finished decorating it.  You can see some of the blown glass ornaments I inherited from my mother in law.  

Once I saw the tree lit I had no more doubts.  I love it!  It's really, really bright.  

The color wheel is from Vermont Country store too.  I reviewed it here.  

Isn't it pretty?

Of course the tree is just one part of the Kitschmas decorating.  I had to put up the dog and cat stockings.

 and my 1950s punch bowl and Christmas corsages, and I have a lot of mid century greeting cards.

On the mantle I displayed most of my cards and my Christmas albums.  

I was so excited when John got me this Colonel Sanders album, I had wanted it for years.

The card on the end was made for me by a former student, my favorite ever.  I almost cried when I found it.

I also have a 1960s Christmas Dream Pet poodle, its so cute I want to leave it up all year.

My all time favorite decoration though is my geeky garland, its my one and only somewhat successful crafting attempt. 

Three years ago used photo shop to make myself cards form all of my favorite shows.  I posted about it here.   Talk about geeky!


What are your favorite Holiday decorations?