With Short: A Case of Spring Fever
First Broadcast - 11 pm Sunday, Aug 1st 1999
#95 in Mighty Jack's Top 100
Amazing Colossal Grade: "No worms!" *whistle*
Amazing Colossal Grade: "No worms!" *whistle*
Movie Pain: Low - Broad and silly
Riffing: Wildly funny
Skits: Mike Sprite was hysterical, the rest are low key cute
Riffing: Wildly funny
Skits: Mike Sprite was hysterical, the rest are low key cute
The south gets roasted again in this horror story about, pink sheriffs, too southern southerners, girls with muskrat killin' platform shoes and killer worms?
Director Jeff Lieberman has said of the MST treatment that "You can't goof on something that's already a goof". But he's dead wrong, comedians have done it for years: From an SCTV skit on Godzilla, a Mad magazine satire of the satirical "Catch 22" to Mike Myers goofin' on the fun but broad James Bond series. And if you laugh -which I do when I listen to M&TB riff on the never-ending search for Mr. Beardsley - and the acting by the buck-toothed, impossible to understand, Worm Face- then you've succeeded in goofing on a goof.
This experiment also has a hysterical host segment with the Mike Sprite which was Inspired by the weird short, "A Case of Spring Fever". A fair though not great short, 'Fever' sports a pudgy guy who's haunted by Coily (a hellish sprite). The experience turns the sweaty schlub into a spring zealot who talks nonstop about the dang things -"Well look, God has a spring" - Crow.
The second to last episode is rife with quotable riffs and caps off the season's southern theme quite nicely.
Off Note: In the Shout release, Joel and the Bots do an introduction - which includes a cute worm farm skit and Joel admitting that this was the one MSTed movie that he paid to see in the theater.
Host Segments
Intro: SOL safety inspection goes badly (Crow ate the ham radio). Segment 1: Pearl plans to take over the world, one Fair at a time. Includes Winston, the bots giant pig, and Bobo's "Ape Hair" booth. Segment 2: A visit from the Mikey the Mike Sprite. Segment 3: Servo's a Southern Belle Segment 4: Mike's fried worms. Alas, poor Emmett. End: Crow's wearing gigantic platform shoes and Brain guy bungee jumps. Stinger: "You gonna be da' worm face!"
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| "If Steve Young and Alvin the Chipmunk had a baby" - Crow |
Notable Riffs
Spring Shorts
* "Where does Coiley fit into God's plan for us?" - Crow
* "You'll be the first to die." - Servo as Coiley
* "Oh, I'll show Coily. I'm going to digitize everything!" - Servo
* "Well it's not as bad as the time I said "no muscle tone", never recovered from that." - Mike
* "I own your ass, Fat Boy, get back here" - Servo
* "So, Coily waited all eternity for this moment, and he backs down almost instantly?" - Servo
* "From then on, Coily visited him nightly until he was driven mad." - Mike
* "It's Coily's army of darkness" - Crow
Squirm Riffs
* "I accidentally married one of the sheep" - Crow as worm face
* "All his shirt needs is a Chianti candle and a menu." - Servo
* "If I see you one more time..." - "That'll be three times." - Sheriff/Servo
* "Maybe giant cows will attack, what's your point?" - Servo
* "Yeah, this is the night the lights went out in Georgia." - Mike
* "I won't sing any more, until the check clears the bank." - Servo (singing)
* "They're way over-southerny." - Mike
* "I gotta go play with the New York Dolls." - Mike as Alma
* "Hi, I'm Sheriff Pink." - Servo
* "Mr. Beardsley's bathroom." - Crow
* "Wow, this hurts more than when that butterfly struck me." - Servo
* "If we only knew whose bones those are." - "We better start looking for a boneless person." - Mick/Crow
* "This is a job for... Antique Man!" - Crow
* "The mind-meld doesn't work on dead people." - Mike
* "Oh, the fertile septic fields of the deep south." - Servo
* "If Roger can see? Do worms routinely blind people?!" - Crow
* "Thanks Hank Hills friend." - Crow
* "Alma, do you hear a noise?" - "Just your marbles rolling around." - Momma/Crow
* "Even after death he has irritable bowel syndrome." - Servo
* "The worms are playing Kazoo in there." - Crow
* "And if you do start a worm farm, do not raise flesh-eating, intelligent millipedes by mistake." - Mike
* "The worms got Roger" - "Well he's got a layer of topsoil honey, you can't blame them" -
"Ford to Fly Creek; Drop dead" - Servo
Servo says this during the opening scroll which tells of the town's loss of electricity. Tom is speaking a revised version of a Daily News headline which read, "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD". New York City had been seeking federal aid during a fiscal crisis, which was turned down by President Gerald Ford. He never actually said the words, but some say the negative slant didn't help the campaign, and Ford was not re-elected.
"Hey look at that, he's actually lost in the Wooly Swamp" - Mike
There is a song by the "Charlie Daniels band" called the Legend of Wooly Swamp (1980), which tells a spooky southern ghost story.
"The kid from "A Separate Peace" is up there" - Servo
"A Separate Peace" is a novel written by John Knowles and is about a couple of kids who fall out of a tree. Well, there's more to it than that so read it! lol
Stuff and Nonsense
* Director Jeff Lieberman revealed that Kim Bassinger, Sylvester Stallone, and Martin Sheen could have been the 3 leads as all auditioned for the film.
* Don Scardino, the pale city boy who is easily overwhelmed by thin sheets of plywood, also starred in and composed the music for the movie "Homer" (1970) Which featured Alex Nicol (Mickey from "Screaming Skull"). Don has moved on to become a respected director, and has worked on shows like "Law and Order" & "The Day's and Night of Molly Dodd".
Available on DVD: Volume 31
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