Mystery Science Theater 3000: THE PHANTOM PLANET

November 8, 2017 9:06 PM - Season 9, Episode 2

"Science Shocker of the Space Age!" "See!! A 6ft astronaut shrink to 6 inches before your very eyes! See!! The Moon Maidens! See!! The attack of the Fire People!" An astronaut is stranded on a planetoid that makes him small. There are other small people there, and he assimilates into their culture. Then they're destroyed and he's rescued. Film that for long enough and you have yourself a movie. You know, every year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and the best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful, if you just take the time to look at it. In Castle Forrester, Pearl gets her Mad Scientist kit. Promo YouTube (1h32m) Premiered March 21, 1998. 24 episodes left.

Episode 902 THE PHANTOM PLANET
Satellite News - Mighty Jack's Episode Review - War of the Colossal Fan Guide - TVTropes

Bill Corbett's offered his recollection of this episode in his entry to the ACEG:

For those of you who follow such things, we found Phantom Planet eerily redolent of the beginning of last season. For one thing, it featured Colleen Grey, otherwise known as The Leech Woman (show 802) playing another devious vixen. And it had more than a passing resemblance to The Mole People (show 803) -- the same tiny fake-cavernous set standing in for an entire underground civilization, and the same old-guys-in-robes factor. In this case, the main old guy was played by Francis X. Bushman, who in his younger days was a silent movie star (featured in the silent version of Ben-Hur). Would that Phantom Planet had retained more of a dignified silence.Though a pretty good movie for the show, I think, it had many scenes of non-stop expositional chat, which gives us all here a collective migraine when trying to write the show. On the plus side of this movie, however: John Agar was conspicuously absent!

Movie
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt
Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 11%) - Wikipedia - TVTropes
IMDB (1961, 3.3 stars)
"After an invisible asteroid draws an astronaut and his ship to its surface, he is miniaturized by the phantom planet's exotic atmosphere."
Directed by William Marshal. Written by him and William Telaak, Fred De Gorter and Fred Gebhardt. Starring Dean Fredericks, Coleen Gray, Anthony Dexter and Francis X. Bushman. The screen debut of our old friend Richard Kiel!

posted by JHarris (11 comments total)

This week begins our prior episode preroll feature! We've seen most of them now, but it's been a couple of years since we've shown Season 2 and 3 stuff, so we're going to start early and show an oldie before the main episode. These won't be in any particular order. If you have requests for next week's episode, let me know in comments! The requirements are: it should have been a good while since we've seen it, and it has to be watchable from YouTube.

The show this week is, again, at https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub.

Times are Eastern:
7:00 PM: 303 POD PEOPLE
8:30 PM: Intermission
9:00 PM: 902 THE PHANTOM PLANET
posted by JHarris at 9:11 PM on November 8, 2017

I have a strange fondness for slow-moving science fiction movies where the protagonist's actions have little to no effect on how things play out.
posted by jwgh at 6:11 AM on November 9, 2017

This is another one of my favorites. I think the riffing is strong.
posted by wittgenstein at 8:46 AM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

I will be controversial and say that I don't love Pop People, although I know many people do.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:51 AM on November 9, 2017

I don’t love pod people

It stinks!
posted by valkane at 11:29 AM on November 9, 2017

It's okay Chrysostom. I picked it in order to get the oldies thing started this week, do you have a suggestion for next week?
posted by JHarris at 11:38 AM on November 9, 2017

Oh, that's fine, just my two cents.

Lost Continent is a solid Seaon Two ep.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:49 PM on November 9, 2017

What? Rock climbing: The Movie?
posted by JHarris at 5:29 PM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

I think the first old timey episode that is a classic for me is Time of the Apes.

(I also am not a Pod People fan.)
posted by wittgenstein at 8:00 PM on November 9, 2017

Well then, who else is in favor of Lost Continent next week? Of Time of the Apes? Any more votes for either?
posted by JHarris at 1:33 PM on November 10, 2017

Deep hurting vs. the ape fashion show? I could go either way.
posted by valkane at 4:54 PM on November 10, 2017