DVD Review Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Turkey Day Collection DVD Review (1 Viewer)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Turkey Day Collection DVD Review

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day Marathon was a fixture on Comedy Central in the 1990s, devoting an entire day to some of the best episodes of the series, often with new, original bumpers created specifically for that broadcast. Shout! Factory tries to replicate that marathon with their latest collection of episodes by including new introductions By Joel Hodgson, with help from Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot (voiced by Josh Weinstein and Trace Beaulieu).

Studio: Shout! Factory

Distributed By: N/A

Video Resolution and Encode: 480I/MPEG-2

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Audio: English 2.0 DD

Subtitles: None

Rating: Not Rated

Run Time: 4 Hr. 0 Min.

Package Includes: DVD

THINPak keepcases in a metal tin

Disc Type: DVD-9 (dual layer)

Region: 1

Release Date: 11/25/2014

MSRP: $64.99

The Production Rating: 3.5/5

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.For this 31st volume (Shout! Factory’s 19th), the idea was to replicate the annual Turkey Day Marathons that aired during the show’s run on Comedy Central. While none of the episodes featured in the set were broadcast as part of the marathon (to the best of my knowledge), Shout! Factory did enlist Joel Hodgson, Josh Weinstein, and Trace Beaulieu to create new video introductions to each of the four episodes (see the Special Features section below). Unfortunately, the episodes chosen are a mixed bag.Jungle Goddess, Experiment #203, is another Robert Lippert B-movie cheapie, but does feature George Reeves, who would go on to play the title character on the Superman TV series in the 1950s. Two pilots (Ralph Byrd and George Reeves) set out to find a missing heiress (Wanda McKay), and discover that she has become the object of a tribe’s worship, believing that she is a goddess. The movie is preceded by Chaper One of the matinee serial The Phantom Creeps with Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist. For a season two episode, the riffing is good, but not great. The Bela Lugosi jokes get old fairly fast, and Jungle Goddess is corny enough on its own for the riffs to often fall flat. The host segments, which include the invention exchange (Joel shows off a radio saw, while TV’s Frank demonstrates a saxophone using Dr. F’s head as the horn), an infomercial spoof, a demonstration on GOBOs, and a sitcom based on the movie, are also mostly flat.The main highlight of Experiment #510, The Painted Hills, is the inclusion of one of the best riffed educational shorts to appear on the series, Body Care and Grooming, a 1950s look at college life, that has some terrific riffs (“An entire day spent grooming”) and always has me in stitches. And that is part of the problem with this episode (and the remaining two episodes in this set), that the short overshadows the feature. The Painted Hills is a western about a group of prospectors that includes Lassie, with one of the prospectors becoming something of a greedy bastard, killing one of his partners, then trying to kill Shep (played by Lassie). But he soon learns that you can’t put a good dog down (quite literally). The riffs in The Painted Hills become repetitious and get old quite fast (snausages, dog bathroom humor, etc.). And it doesn’t help that the movie is a bit dull to begin with. The host segments are a bit better, with Dr. F creating a generator out of Frank’s heart, but begin going downhill with a report on bearded men and Crow being crushed into a gold ingot.Experiment #912, The Screaming Skull, was the last episode to air on the Sci-Fi Channel. It also features a very funny short, Robot Rumpus, starring Gumby and Pokey who learn the hard way that it’s better to do your chores than to hire robots to do them for you. The Screaming Skull is a typical AIP horror film from the 1950s, a reversal on the Black Widow plot, where Eric Whitlock (John Hudson) brings his new wife (who is suffering from a mental illness) to the home where his previous wife died in a bizarre accident. This is another episode where the short overshadows the feature, but to a lesser degree than The Painted Hills. The host segments, though, are very good, with Tom Servo metamorphosing into a butterfly, Tom and Crow trying to scam the studio into its promise of a free coffin to any audience member who died of fright, and Crow (disguised as a Screaming Skull) trying to scare Mike.Squirm, Experiment #1012, was the next-to-last original episode of the series, and also features a fairly annoying industrial short about the importance of springs produced by Jam Handy for Chevrolet. Squirm is the cult killer worm movie from the 1970s, a film that is better than it deserves to be. Having reviewed the theatrical version of Squirm just one month prior, quite a bit was cut for the version used for this episode, some for content (the second shower sequence that earned the film an R rating), but most of it seemingly for time, allowing for some awkward jumps in the storyline (most of Rick Baker’s facial worm prosthetics on womr farmer Roger). The riffing by Mike and the ‘Bots point out many of the film’s flaws, and throw in some Southern jokes (with a few that could be considered inappropriate only 15 years later). The host segments are excellent, including a safety check aboard the SOL, Pearl throwing a Fair at Castle Forrester, Crow and Tom are visited by Mikey the Sprite (tricking them into wishing that Mike didn’t exist), Tom contracts Southern Belle disease, Mike attempts to create killer worms (but creates a tasty snack in the process), and Crow shows off his platform shoes.

Video Rating: 3.5/5 3D Rating: NA

As I’ve stated in my previous reviews of these sets, judging the video quality of an episode of MST3K is difficult. The movies are usually in fairly bad shape (especially The Phantom Creeps and The Screaming Skull), with sub-par transfers that the series’ producers had to contend with.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 some minor softness to it, but colors are consistent. The remaining discs are excellent, with increased detail and well-defined colors. Throughout all four discs, however, there are some brief minor anomalies inherent in the broadcast masters, such as dropouts, but these are few and far between.

Audio Rating: 3/5

As with the video, the audio quality is best judged by the host segments and the actual riffing during the movie. All four discs include a Dolby Digital 2.0 track, encoded at 192 kbps. Dialogue is intelligible and overall the tracks have good fidelity.

Special Features Rating: 4/5

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, created by Steve Vance. All five discs come housed in THIN-Pak keepcases inside a sturdy tin case (similar to the Gamera set).Disc One (Jungle Goddess):Turkey Day Intro by Joel Hodgson (2:15): Joel introduces the Turkey Day Marathon, then proceeds to introduce the episode, with help from Tom Servo (voiced by Josh Weinstein) and Crow (voiced by Trace Beaulieu), pointing out some trivia and his favorite moments. The intro then cuts to the episode.Inside the Turkey Day Marathon (11:10): Joel Hodgson, Frank Conniff, and Trace Beaulieu reminisce about the annual Turkey Day Marathons that were a holiday favorite on Comedy Central.Disc Two (The Painted Hills):Turkey Day Intro by Joel Hodgson (2:12): Joel introduces the Turkey Day Marathon, then proceeds to introduce the episode, with help from Tom Servo (voiced by Josh Weinstein) and Crow (voiced by Trace Beaulieu), pointing out some trivia and his favorite moments. The intro then cuts to the episode.Turkey Day Through the Years (56:30): A collection of Turkey Day bumpers and promos. The quality varies greatly, as they were “sourced from the best available masters.”Disc Three (The Screaming Skull):Turkey Day Intro by Joel Hodgson (1:23): Joel introduces the Turkey Day Marathon, then proceeds to introduce the episode, with help from Tom Servo (voiced by Josh Weinstein) and Crow (voiced by Trace Beaulieu), pointing out some trivia and his favorite moments. The intro then cuts to the episode.Gumby & Clokey: The Making of Robot Rumpus (7:59): Joe Clokey, son of the late Art Clokey, discusses how his father came to create the Gumby series. Some interesting points from the featurette: Art Clokey actually liked Eddie Murphy’s Gumby skits from Saturday Night Live, Joe Clokey finds the riffs by Mike and the ‘Bots in Robot Rumpus to be hilarious, and Joe Clokey wants to bring Gumby back but retain it’s stop-motion roots (which seems odd with the recent Honda Days TV ads featuring an obviously CGI’d Gumby and Pokey).This Film May Kill You: Making The Screaming Skull (10:35): Film historian Tom Weaver narrates this look at the making of The Screaming Skull, including interviews with actress Peggy Webber (Jenni Whitlock), horror host Mr. Lobo, filmmaker Larry Blamire, and film enthusiast Mark Martucci.Theatrical Trailer (2:50)Disc Four (Squirm):Turkey Day Intro by Joel Hodgson (2:24): Joel introduces the Turkey Day Marathon, then proceeds to introduce the episode, with help from Tom Servo (voiced by Josh Weinstein) and Crow (voiced by Trace Beaulieu), pointing out some trivia and his favorite moments. The intro then cuts to the episode.Squirm Talk with Don Scardino (12:27): This is basically a shorter version of Digging In: The Making of Squirm from the Squirm Blu-ray release, with all of writer/director Jeff Lieberman’s interview footage edited out.Theatrical Trailer (1:55)

Overall Rating: 4/5

This 31st volume of episodes gives fans a taste of what the annual Turkey Day Marathon was all about, although, personally, I would have chosen much stronger episodes of the series. The special features are a notch better than what were provided on the last two collections, so that is a plus.

Reviewed By: Todd Erwin

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It's too bad Shout Factory has never asked the fans for help, as better copies of many promos do exist.

It's a good thing the Turkey Day segments from episode 801 were released in a previous set, as they don't look as good here, and there's a noticeable lip sync issue going on. I doubt they would do a recall like they did for the Halloween 4 Blu Ray.