Mystery Science Theater 3000: XVII

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XVII

Studio: Shout! Factory

US DVD Release Date: March 16, 2010

Rated: Not Rated

Running Time: 400 minutes

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 full screen

Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 (English)

Subtitles: None

In the not too distant future, somewhere in time and space…

Movie: 3.5 out of 5

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) was the brainchild of Joel Hodgson, a former prop comic and frequent guest on Saturday Night Live and Late Night With David Letterman. Basically an extension of the popular hosted movie format made famous by Vampira and Elvira, the original premise was that Joel (and later Mike Nelson), along with his robot companions Crow and Tom Servo, were sent into space, orbiting the planet and forced to watch bad movies by Dr. Clayton Forrester (Trace Beaulieu).

The show first aired on local Minneapolis-St. Paul UHF station KTMA in a very crude form in 1988, but was picked up by the Comedy Channel (now Comedy Central) as one of its first series a year later. The series survived for seven seasons, then moved to Sci-Fi for three additional seasons, finally falling out of first-run orbit in 1999.

Volume 17 is the fifth set of episodes to be released by Shout! Factory.

Disc One contains the very first episode of the series to be broadcast on the Comedy Channel, experiment #101, The Crawling Eye. Forrest Tucker of television’s F-Troop stars as Alan Brooks, a United Nations investigator visiting the town of Trollenberg at the request of Professor Crevett (Warren Mitchell). While travelling by train, he meets two young women, one of which is a psychic of some sorts, having visions of beheadings by indescribable creatures. As the first (scripted) episode of MST3K, the pacing of the riffs and sketches are slow, especially when compared to later seasons. Also, I had difficulty getting used to hearing J. Elvis Weinstein as the voice of Tom Servo. Weinstein would be replaced by Kevin Murphy at the beginning of season two, and would continue as the voice of Servo through the run of the series. I also found the exposition by Joel somewhat exhausting during the sketches, something that would later be dropped later on in the series. Many fans have been requesting this episode on DVD to replace their beat-up (and likely bootlegged) VHS copy. It is interesting to note that the series would come full-circle ten years later when Mike, Tom, and Crow find themselves watching The Crawling Eye in their apartment during the last scene of the series finale, riffing the movie out of habit.

Disc Two contains the second Joel or Comedy Central-era episode, experiment #415, The Beatniks. The film was written and directed by Paul Frees, a voice-over artist best known as the narrator of The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and as the voice of many beloved animated characters including Boris Badenov, Burgermeister Meisterberger, Ludwig Von Drake, and the Pilsbury Doughboy. The Beatniks follows Eddy Crane (Tony Travis) as a would-be singer on his way to the top, only to be held back by his thug friends. Joel and the bots do their best to riff this film as well as a short excerpt from an old kinescope of General Hospital. There are some good gags (including Tom Servo singing “Meet George Jetson” several times to the movie’s main theme) and some funny sketches (Joel and the bots discuss how to tell you are not a Beatnik). However, I would not consider this to be a stand-out episode of the series.

Disc Three features experiment #910, The Final Sacrifice, from the Sci-Fi Channel era. This 1990 Canadian import, written and directed by then-film student Tjardus Greidanus (who would later direct DVD featurettes for Miami Vice, Public Enemies, and Big Daddy), follows teenager Troy McGreggor (played by Christian Malcolm) as he searches to learn more about his murdered father with help from alcoholic drifter Zap Rowsdower (Bruce J. Mitchell), all while being chased through the Canadian wilderness by hooded cult members lead by Satoris (Shane Marceau). Mike and the bots get a lot of mileage out of Troy’s fascination with Rowsdower’s name, as well as trying to accept Rowsdower as the hero of the film. The host segments include Crow and Servo looting the Satellite during a power outage, Servo sings a song about Canada, and Pearl tries (and fails) to take over the world one person at a time. The Final Sacrifice is an above-average episode, and one of the highlights of season nine.

Disc Four brings us what was perhaps the best episode from the tenth and final season, experiment #1005, The Blood Waters of Dr. Z, a Manos-like mess of a film about a mad scientist who transforms himself into a humanoid fish monster (that kind of looks like Trumpy, sans fur, from Pod People) in order to terrorize a small town in Florida and begin a new race of sea creatures to ultimately take over and rule the world. I had forgotten how absolutely hilarious this episode was. The riffing is almost non-stop. Mike and the bots make endless remarks about the music score (Crow: No matter how much the movie insists that there’s tension, I must respectfully disagree with it), the mad scientist’s physique (Servo: Mark McGwire before creatine, Mike: He must have bought the James Stewart workout tape), and the laughable creature (Servo: He’s wearing a Betty Rubble skirt). The skits include Mike and the bots going deep space fishing, Crow enjoying the great taste and satisfaction of chewing tobacco, and Crow and Servo trying to convince Mike that nudity can give a scene more emotional weight, with some assistance from Brain Guy and Bobo.

Video: 3 out of 5

As I stated in my review of the 20^th Anniversary Edition set, judging the video quality of an episode of MST3K is difficult. The movies are usually in fairly bad shape, and that is especially true in The Crawling Eye, which looks like a 16mm bootlegged print. The only fair thing to do is to judge the host segments, and the quality improves as you get later into the series. Disc one has an overall softness to it, but colors are consistent. Disc two fairs somewhat better, with greater detail and color fidelity. Discs Three and Four are excellent, with increased detail and well-defined colors.

Audio: 3 out of 5

As with the video, the audio quality is best judged by the host segments and the actual riffing during the movie. The film audio track for The Crawling Eye is so bad, that Joel and the bots wonder if someone is using a pencil sharpener off set. All four discs include a Dolby Digital 2.0 track, encoded at 192 kbps. Discs one and two are mono, while discs three and four are stereo. Dialogue is intelligible and overall the tracks have good fidelity. The stereo mixes on discs three and four generally add some ambience to the host segments, giving the musical segments some added depth.

Special Features: 3 out of 5

As with Shout! Factory’s other MST3K boxed sets, the menu designs on each disc are themed with the episode, with decent CG animation, and are very funny. Also included in the set are a set of original comic book style mini-posters for each episode, identical to the DVD covers.

Disc One

Theatrical Trailer (1:24) for The Crawling Eye looks and sounds worse than the feature does.

Special Introduction by Joel Hodgson (6:28): The series creator talks about moving the show from local KTMA to the Comedy Channel, and actually writing a script for the show rather than the improvisation they did on the local show. He also talks about the learning curve on the series, and that if he could do the early shows again, he would make the host segments faster.

Disc Two

Theatrical Trailer (2:03) for The Beatniks is included, and narrated by the film’s director, Paul Frees.

Mystery Science Theater Hour Wraps (5:10): Mystery Science Theater Hour was a short-lived hour-long version of the series for syndication (splitting each original episode in half), with Mike Nelson, in his Jack Perkins character, bracketing each episode.

The Main Event: Crow vs. Crow (35:02): Ken Plume hosts a panel discussion from DragonCon 2009 in Atlanta between Trace Beaulieu and Bill Corett. The two men talk about working on the series and their approach to playing Crow T. Robot.

Disc Three

Interview With Bruce J. Mitchell (9:25): Zap Rowsdower himself shares his experiences making The Final Sacrifice on a zero budget in Canada, and is quite surprised and somewhat touched that the episode has elevated the film to a cult status. He also mentions that the end credits of the film have him listed as playing Troy McGreggor.

Disc Four

Original Promos (1:02): A set of three television ads for the film, under the moniker of ZaAt.

Original Trailer (2:32): The original theatrical trailer, again under the moniker of ZaAt.

Photo Gallery: The film’s press kit, this time as Blood Waters of Dr. Z, is presented here in a slideshow format. The press kit includes lobby cards, newspaper ads, and what appear to be fake news stories.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5

Shout! Factory continues to put a lot of much-appreciated effort into their MST3K sets, and the show’s fanbase will likely not be disappointed with this release.