Special Guests: Grant Baciocco as the voice of the Punt Bunny, Mary Jo Pehl as Pearl Forrester, Bill Corbett as Brain Guy, Kevin Murphy as Bobo
Wizards is a sequel that's not really a direct sequel (though Lana Clarkson's playing a character she originated in Barbarian Queen - maybe Corman was trying to build a sword & sorcery universe, like Monsterverse, or the Marvel universe... eh, probably not).
One of the lesser experiments (when viewed in 2017) is now... still, one of the lesser experiments of the season. The flick is "trying" to be a comedy, which is a tough row to hoe for Riffers; not impossible, but rarely totally successful. I wouldn't say that the ep is a complete disaster, the sequence where Tyor is seduced by a sorceress was peppered with funny riffs (but the movie ruins the mood when a bad guy punches that woman in the face). David Carradine brings some laughs (Samurai Manos? Ralph Wiggum hair) and Jonah's "Fury Road" logic was cute - I'll credit the guys for doing their damnedest to keep this ep afloat.
Random thoughts: The rainy-day opening recalls a similar bit in Teenage Caveman, from season 3, and Mary Jo receives a writing credit.
Best Riffs: "This must take place before eyebrows were invented" - "If I had eyebrows I'd be raising them now" - Crow & Jonah | “Why can’t we make something useful, like...” - “A fast-forward button?” - Tyor/Jonah | "I'm going for the sword now..." - "The hot tub told me to" - Tyor/Servo | “Caedmon really puts the ‘can’t’ in ‘incantation.'” - Jonah
Best Host Segments: Punt Bunny was a riot; Patton's pained reactions were priceless. And nice to see the return of the sci-fi era Mads
Amazing Colossal Grade: 2.5 out of 5
1112 - Carnival Magic
#12 in Mighty Jack's Top 100
1113 - The Christmas That Almost Wasn't
#44 in Mighty Jack's Top 100
Special Guests: Joel Hodgson as Santa Claus, Elliott Kalan as Mr. Whipple
Several folks out there on forums and such didn't care for this one back in 2017, so I came into it with lowered expectations, and was surprised when I laughed and laughed and... so now with expectations considerably higher, how would it hold up?
Pretty well... it starts off solid, builds up a head of steam during Santa's song ("I'm barren don't rub it in"), and stays funny during the bits leading up to the children coming to see Santa in the store ("look, they created their own Thunderdome"), and after (Jonah, noticing Aubrey Plaza). And it doesn't lose a step when it shifts to Prune and Blossom's attempted sabotage of said event.
Throughout the experiment, we were given pop references ("Omar coming"), highbrow esoterica, and low brow innuendo (Servo's reaction to the movie line "We start from the bottom"), all of this material was funny as hell. And I like that it doesn't let up, there are no lulls, from the children's rollcall to the quips during the stills montage (man, that had me in stitches, that was about as brilliant as the Painted Hills montage).
So to answer my opening question - this is still the gift that keeps on giving.
Notes: The Info Club got the running 'baby man' gag wrong, it's not that Whipple LOOKs like a baby, the riff was that his Santa fanfic came true (in which he imagines himself the Clause's child. When Mrs. Claus baby's him, it was a dream come true). In that light, I thought it was funny, though overused. Also, an interesting bit of trivia, Joel mentions this movie in a riff during The Day the Earth Froze
Best Riffs: "I've been running away from children all my life... " - "As required by the court order" - Prune/Crow | "You can always tell when a building used to be an IHop.” - Jonah | “Wow this tea kicked in fast!” - Crow | “You sure you’re not confusing children with spiders?” - Jonah | "Elves love research" - Jonah | "And now we sue the store, my plan is working, see" - Servo as Mr. Whipple (a lawyer) | "You know, Milton Berle refused to steal this bit" - Crow | And the quips during Prune's song (and his chasing a child after that)
Best Host Segments: Santa's visit (love Joel's voice and manner), reenacting the montage (especially from the Mads)
Amazing Colossal Grade: 4.25 out of 5
#12 in Mighty Jack's Top 100
Special Guest: Mark Hamill as P.T. Mindslap, Matt McGinnis as Matt Claude Van Damme
Carnival Magic is a gift from the Gods - while not the funniest episode of this era (that's still Avalanche IMHO), it is the experiment from recent seasons that I've revisited and watched the most. The movie itself is a beautiful disaster - with that unfunny chimp and the power of "Gus", it's just so terribly, awfully entertaining. The riffers do a wonderful job reacting to the weirdness, and adding to -or questioning- the dialogue, like when Markov speaks to how Alex got him through his wife's death, Jonah asks, "What stage of grief is Chimp-play?"
The movie primarily circles around the same gimmick, but I never tired of it, or the guys mumbling chimp voices (and there are other characters and situations - the angry tiger trainer, a romance complicated by daddy issues... but yeah, talking monkey... right to the final act, with Alex on his deathbed, which was hilarious).
Host segments weren't that special, and Kinga's running marriage gag never caught fire, though Max's jealousy got a chuckle or two.
Best Riffs: "Is it just me or is this scene supposed to be like a hopeful autopsy?" - Jonah | "Now get in there and become a man, dad" - Jonah, as Ellen pushes Stoney into a trailer | "It's amazing how animals relate to you..." - "Two words, cattle prod" - Ellen/Crow | "The power of Gus compels me" - Jonah | "Stoney, what are you doing to yourself..." - "It's called peeing. Do you mind?" - Markov/Crow
Best Host Segments: The parade at the end?
Amazing Colossal Grade: 4.5 out of 5 (like fine wine, it only improves with age. Between the movie, the riffing, and the intangibles (its re-watchablility, and that weird vibe that puts me in an upbeat mood) - I think it's safe to call it my favorite Jonah era experiment at this point.
#44 in Mighty Jack's Top 100
Special Guests: Joel Hodgson as Santa Claus, Elliott Kalan as Mr. Whipple
Several folks out there on forums and such didn't care for this one back in 2017, so I came into it with lowered expectations, and was surprised when I laughed and laughed and... so now with expectations considerably higher, how would it hold up?
Pretty well... it starts off solid, builds up a head of steam during Santa's song ("I'm barren don't rub it in"), and stays funny during the bits leading up to the children coming to see Santa in the store ("look, they created their own Thunderdome"), and after (Jonah, noticing Aubrey Plaza). And it doesn't lose a step when it shifts to Prune and Blossom's attempted sabotage of said event.
Throughout the experiment, we were given pop references ("Omar coming"), highbrow esoterica, and low brow innuendo (Servo's reaction to the movie line "We start from the bottom"), all of this material was funny as hell. And I like that it doesn't let up, there are no lulls, from the children's rollcall to the quips during the stills montage (man, that had me in stitches, that was about as brilliant as the Painted Hills montage).
So to answer my opening question - this is still the gift that keeps on giving.
Notes: The Info Club got the running 'baby man' gag wrong, it's not that Whipple LOOKs like a baby, the riff was that his Santa fanfic came true (in which he imagines himself the Clause's child. When Mrs. Claus baby's him, it was a dream come true). In that light, I thought it was funny, though overused. Also, an interesting bit of trivia, Joel mentions this movie in a riff during The Day the Earth Froze
Best Riffs: "I've been running away from children all my life... " - "As required by the court order" - Prune/Crow | "You can always tell when a building used to be an IHop.” - Jonah | “Wow this tea kicked in fast!” - Crow | “You sure you’re not confusing children with spiders?” - Jonah | "Elves love research" - Jonah | "And now we sue the store, my plan is working, see" - Servo as Mr. Whipple (a lawyer) | "You know, Milton Berle refused to steal this bit" - Crow | And the quips during Prune's song (and his chasing a child after that)
Best Host Segments: Santa's visit (love Joel's voice and manner), reenacting the montage (especially from the Mads)
Amazing Colossal Grade: 4.25 out of 5
A clip from a movie scene they referenced.
Special Guests: Russ Walko as Growler, Mary Jo Pehl as Pearl Forrester, Kevin Murphy as Professor Bobo, Bill Corbett as Brain Guy, Joel McHale as Doug McClure, Matt McGuinness as Bonehead Cameraman, Paul Chaplin as Observer Hive Mind Manager
And Observer wedding guests played by... Patricia Adams, Mike Aronow, Kyle Bacon, Jordan Brown, Andrew R. Brunner, Nick Carlson, John Cookson, Jason D'itri, Larry Dunn, Zachary A. Forsyth, Tony Goggin, Dave Goldblatt, Spencer Goldrich, Jonathan Gorbach, Laura Gorbach, Ike Haldan, Jason Kirk Harder, Larry Hastings, Jeff Hill, Adam King, Darcy Madi, Guillermo Martinez, Juan Martinez, Colin McRavey, Andrew M. Minoff, Amber Oliver, Paul Denver Reynolds IV, Kathryn Rice, Joe Sherman, Ben Tobin
The return of Caroline Munro and Doug McClure... plus, Peter Cushing, making his MST3K debut? How could this be anything but glorious, especially with the hot streak they are on! Sadly, it's a ways from glorious.
It's curious, how we can all love the same show, love the style of humor, and yet, our reactions to a particular experiment can vary wildly. Why wasn't this a laugh riot for me? Where does it go wrong? I could suggest that it doesn't engage the movie and characters as well as better eps, the jokes were not as crisp and on target, expectations were not met (that's Peter 'freaking' Cushing in his first MSTed movie appearance, and you couldn't celebrate with some Hammer love! (you serve up Star Wars and Dr. Who for any and all, Hammer riffs would have been delightfully special). And yet, for other viewers this was funny, it was crisp and on target and met expectations, checked all the comedy boxes, some folks laughed at that awful smelting song, for example, while I sat there cringing. Why is that? I could fumble for explanations, try to analyze the hell out of it, but honestly, I don't know, it just is - you laugh, or you don't.
The Host Segments reeked - yeah, nice to see Paul Chaplin, but they didn't do anything special with him, the wedding thing was an unfunny idea to begin with, and it fizzles out terribly with this grand finale - there were a few funny lines, but the filming of it was awkward, and as poorly staged as one of those bad movies they watch (which killed the comedy).
Thankfully It's not all dire, and it would be unfair not to acknowledge the cute n' clever (The Sid and Marty Croft death march, the prog-rock enslavement riff), but man, so much of this was tired and gasping, they were running on fumes by the middle of the movie, and though it picked up a hair by the end, it wasn't the big explosion of laughs that Hollow Mountain provided.
Best Riffs: "Edgar Rice Burroughs. They're really trying to spread the blame around." - Servo | "We now take you to the world's quietest Gwar concert, already in progress" - Jonah | "How did that rock turn into an arrow?" - Crow | "hot, hot, hot, hot... this is a weird time to try firewalking!" - Servo
Best Host Segments: You're kidding me, right?
Amazing Colossal Grade: 2.5 out of 5
Summary of the season
I approached this as a kind of show diary, a recording of my personal thoughts at a particular moment in time, rather than a review page offering recommendations.
So, all told, it was a good season, but not one of the finest. There were no radical changes of opinion - a few episodes took baby steps backward, a couple, a few steps forward. Carnival Magic's climb to the top was not all that unexpected, as it was heading in that direction over the years. I've grown more comfortable with the cast and the way they riff, so that was not an issue this time out. Host segments were frequently the weakest part of the season, the riffing did the heavy lifting.
Rankings:
4.5 - Avalanche, Carnival Magic
4.25 - The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, Cry Wilderness
4.0 - The Loves of Hercules
3.5 - The Time Travelers, The Land That Time Forgot, Yongary, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom
3.0 - Reptilicus, The Beast of Hollow Mountain, Starcrash
2.5 - Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II, At the Earth's Core
So, all told, it was a good season, but not one of the finest. There were no radical changes of opinion - a few episodes took baby steps backward, a couple, a few steps forward. Carnival Magic's climb to the top was not all that unexpected, as it was heading in that direction over the years. I've grown more comfortable with the cast and the way they riff, so that was not an issue this time out. Host segments were frequently the weakest part of the season, the riffing did the heavy lifting.
Rankings:
4.5 - Avalanche, Carnival Magic
4.25 - The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, Cry Wilderness
4.0 - The Loves of Hercules
3.5 - The Time Travelers, The Land That Time Forgot, Yongary, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom
3.0 - Reptilicus, The Beast of Hollow Mountain, Starcrash
2.5 - Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II, At the Earth's Core
