Mystery Science Theater 3000 - XXIII

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Volume 23, contains two episodes with creator Joel Hodgson as host and two with head writer Mike Nelson. All are from the Comedy Central era of the show. There's some good variety here in this set spanning seasons 2, 3 and 6. The variety of movie material used is also huge including an old low budget SF film, 1940s shorts, Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu, a western and a Quinn Martin TV movie.

* 210 KING DINOSAUR (with short: X MARKS THE SPOT)
King Dinosaur is a black and white 1955 SF film loaded with stock footage and endless walking scenes to pad it out in spite of its sparse 63 minute running time. Ordinary lizards masquerade rather badly as dinosaurs and the Tyrannosaurus Rex of the title is played by an iguana thanks to the animal enlarging talents of Mr. B.I.G. (Bert I. Gordon). A new planet, Nova (clever name for a new planet since it means "new", eh?), is discovered and astronauts are sent to explore Nova via some stock footage of post-WWII captured V2 rocket tests. A tepid romance between two of the astronauts is featured as the secondary plot. The astronauts do a lot of walking, male to female condescending, smooching, and panicking while exploring a planet that looks suspiciously like southern California. Bronson Canyon is again used as it is in so many movies of this type. A kinkajou appears prominently in the film and tags along with the astronauts though Joel and the 'Bots stick him with the monicker, "Joey the lemur", for many jokes during the film and one hilariously memorable host segment. Spoiler alert, amazingly the astronauts bring a nuclear device along with them because, you know, when you are exploring a new planet if you don't like the native flora or fauna you want to annihilate it rather than just leaving. X Marks The Spot is a 1944 driving safety short with the ulterior motive of keeping workers out of the hospital or morgue so they can stay at their jobs in factories to support the war effort. It's the first of many hilariously mocked short subjects used on MST3K. This episode is a MSTie must-have!

* 323- THE CASTLE OF FU-MANCHU
This 1969 (released 1972) color film features the great Christopher Lee and a bunch of lesser known European actors from a variety of countries that collaborated on this badly pieced together jigsaw puzzle of a film. This is one of those episodes that MSTies tend to love or hate and I'm in the love it camp. The movie is a bit of a convoluted collaborative mess and the dubbing on all the non-English speaking actors certainly adds to the confusion, but for my taste it's the good kind of bad that is perfect for MST3K. It's lively and silly fun and because you'll have zero emotional involvement in the characters or story and you'll be able to focus 100% of your attention on the jokes. Fu Manchu plans to freeze the Earth with his latest evil scheme and Nayland Smith sets out to stop him. Along the way much convoluted mystery and intrigue occurs. The biggest mystery is "what did I just watch?" when the film is over! Who cares, MST3K makes it extremely funny.

* 608- CODE NAME: DIAMOND HEAD (with short: A DAY AT THE FAIR)
This 1977 Quinn Martin TV movie pilot stars Roy Thinnes (The Invaders), France Nuyen (Star Trek, Elaan of Troyius), Zulu (Hawaii Five-O) and Ian McShane (Lovejoy). The pilot failed and did not go to series. It stars many well-known talented actors who luckily have all been in many much more exciting projects than this one. Based in Hawaii, counter spy Diamond Head must stop the evil Tree from stealing nerve gas. Sadly, the intrigue never gets particularly suspenseful or compelling, but the plot at least can be followed. One of the blander offerings from Quinn Martin, it does provide some laughs nonetheless from Mike and the 'Bots. Tom and Crow get to see what it would be like if Mike was not quite so nice in a variety of amusing host segments. The 1947 short, A Day At The Fair is particularly funny with lots of good laughs at the expense of this 1940s farming celebration. Are farm animals someone's dates? Is the fairground where the fair is held? Watch the short to find out. The farm fair short is more exciting than the spy thriller of a movie.

* 611- LAST OF THE WILD HORSES
This 1948 black and white film is about a cowboy trying to clear his name and bring a real criminal to justice. Romance ensues. Wow. The film is competently done if a bit formulaic and uninteresting. However, this is a MSTie must-see thanks to the Star Trek "Mirror, Mirror" episode themed host segments tying the whole movie watching experience together including a segment with Forrester and TV's Frank in the theater riffing on the movie! Plenty of good riffs and an in movie face whipping make this a strange and funny episode of the show.

This set is loaded with cool extra features including:

4 Exclusive Mini-Posters By Artist Steve Vance
New Introduction By Frank Conniff
The Incredible Mr. Lippert (a Ballyhoo Production)
Vintage MST3K Promos
Life After MST3K: Kevin Murphy (this is the first installment of a new series)
Code Name: Quinn Martin
DARKSTAR: Robots Don't Need SAG Cards
Original Trailers

This box set includes two of my favorite shorts: X Marks The Spot and A Day At The Fair. The shorts they've done have always been a highlight of the series for me, and these two don't disappoint. The first one is about traffic safety by way of 1940's New Jersey and the latter a look at the local fair from the perspective of a farming family. Between the two we get a glimpse of two drastically different shorts styles, with X Marks The Spot being a production with actors and sets and a plot, while A Day At The Fair is shot more documentary style and every bit as bland as life on the farm must have been.

Shout Factory's latest Volume - # 23 provides with more memorable episodes from the great TV series MST3K - This volume we get a break from the Season 3 movies from Japan and we go into Lippert land with a pair of Robert Lippert films , along with a TV movie and one of the worst films Best Brains ever did.
Looking at this set
EPISODE 210 - KING DINOSAUR - with the short X Marks the Spot.A popular Lippet movie from the 2nd season. 4 scientists go to the planet Nova to investigate life on their planet. We get Lippert lizards for dinosaurs sadly and love that famous quote "We brought civilization to planet Nova) the cast, film and effects are bottom of the barrel which is why this makes for a great episode. The short is about a man who gets killed in an auto accident and goes to heaven to await his fate with flashbacks of other automotive *sins* he did when he was alive. Host segments include Crow wondering if hes worthy, Joel doing Joey the Lemur , the Theramin and more
EPISODE 323 - CASTLE OF FU MANCHU - This was the last Christopher Lee Fu Manchu film and it was so bad it wasnt even distributed stateside for several years. Just a terrible slow moving film with Fu Manchu out to destroy the world - in his way are Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie. Even the great Christopher Lee couldnt escape the clutches of MST3K. Segments basically consist of Joel & the bots crying, weeping and suffering throughout the show. Its a good episode that finally can get some recombination because this is easily in the top 5 worst films they ever did. Not quite as bad or inept as Manos, buts bad.
EPISODE 608 CODE NAME DIAMOND HEAD with the short A Day at the Fair - - The movie- TV movie time - a pilot episode about a Hawaiian secret agency is out to catch the villainous *Tree* from releasing a deadly toxic nerve gas ..it was a failed pilot. As for the short, its a day at the fair - a typical MST3K short that is funny :)
Segments include a crash test dummy, Mike as the Frugal Gourmet and more
EPISODE 611 - THE LAST OF THE WILD HORSES - Our other Lippert film in this set-a low budget western. This show is best known for the bizarro theme taken from the Mirror Mirror episode from Star Trek where Dr F and TVs Frank get to do the movie riffing in the SOL while Mike (with a goatee) Crow , Gypsy and Servo are in Deep 13 thinking evil thoughts. The segments really shine here with all of the *role reversals* - we get a Joey Lemur callback as a segment (maybe thats why this episode was selected with King Dinosaur) plus more Mirror universe segments to make us all *LOL*...or howl or both. Great episode !
Extras include - as per the Satellite News Wewbsite
Extras:
New Introduction By Frank Conniff
The Incredible Mr. Lippert (a Ballyhoo Production)
Vintage MST3K Promos
Life After MST3K: Kevin Murphy (this is the first installment of a new series)
Code Name: Quinn Martin
DARKSTAR: Robots Don't Need SAG Cards
Original Trailers
4 Exclusive Mini-Posters By Artist Steve Vance
This set with the episodes and the bonus features make this very worthwhile for any MST3K collector. While the 4 films picked in this set may not be anywhere near the top 20 in that old Rhino - its a solid batch , plus we get some good supplements. I expect Shout to do a great job with this set and let the speculation begin about having Rocketship XM, Jungle Goddess and both Fugitive Alien sets on future volumes...

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