FanFare

"FREE! We Guarentee To Bury You Without Charge If You Die Of Fright During SCREAMING SKULL!" A man and his new wife move into a house. Wait, the house was owned by his previous, now dead, wife? Who died mysteriously? And the new wife has a lot of money? Can you see where this is going? With short Robot Rumpus: Clayboy Gumby and his pony pal Pokey make robots to do his yardwork, but they run amok amok amok amok. Most say the movie's extremely drab and hard to watch, but the short is excellent, both fun itself and terrific riffing fodder. The bots do not well handle the sight of the fate of their claymation brethren: "This is how it is in the real world! Horrid lumps of discharge destroy beautiful, innocent robots with impunity!" In Castle Forrester, Pearl and company try to play a bizarre joke on Mike and his contingent, resulting ultimately in the shrinking of Bobo. Hah. YouTube (1h32m) Premiered August 29, 1998. 14 episodes left. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jan 31, 2018 - 6 comments

"From time unborn... a hideous she-thing!" Guy invents a machine that can send things to and from the future. One of the things that comes is a winsome young future girl who seeks a mate to save future humanity. Sounds good, right? Ha ha no it's a horrible radioactive hellscape and she wears a leotard with sparkly bits on it and kills people and must be stopped. At the end they wonder if they should have helped the future folk after all, and conclude they can do that by avoiding the nuclear apocalypse that created the bad future. Yeah, I'm sure that will happen. It's the last full episode on Observer World, and it's the last Observer-takeover stinger. Mike and the bots get up to some time travel adventures themselves. YouTube (1h32m) - Promo Premiered March 15, 1997. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jul 12, 2017 - 3 comments

"The Grave Can't Hold It... Nothing Human Can Stop it!" A psychic lady stumbles upon a Box of Evil on the ranch, evidently the cousin of Señor Wences' friend Pedro. It bends the very wills of the people there until it is reunited with its body... and then is instantly defeated, because apparently its demonic powers end at that moment. S'not alright! We just got done with The Beast of Hollow Mountain and now we've got another Weird Western! In subplot news, this is the episode that introduces the Observers, and one particular Observer as a regular character, played by Bill Corbitt. Episode 805 is unavailable on YouTube. Premiered March 3, 1997. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jun 28, 2017 - 6 comments

"No girl was safe as long as this HEAD HUNTING THING roamed the land!" An astronaut dies on reentry. Aliens are emerging from his skin, including one really big one that roams the countryside, stopping watches. Everyone wants to kill it except the astronaut, who is now not dead and full of shrimp. With short Once Upon a Honeymoon: More celestial interfering with mortal affairs, this time with an angel helping a composer write a jingle so he and his wife can go on their honeymoon. Roger Corman again, this is his next-to-last featured movie. Daddy-O informs us that the exactly same costume and location were used in 315 TEENAGE CAVEMAN. This is a weird episode because there are two sets of host segments. The first showing was on Turkey Day 1995 and an alternate storyline was written involving Thanksgiving dinner with many of the show's Comedy Central movie cameo characters, making this a nice retrospective on the CC years. Because this is the first episode of the infamous Season Seven, only six episodes long and the end of the show's run on that channel. 701 701T (1h32m) Turkey Day '95 extra bits & alternate host segments Premiered: 701T on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1995; 701 on February 3, 1996. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Apr 19, 2017 - 8 comments

"Land on the moon with the intrepid first astronauts!" An international team of smarties haul themselves and cats up to the moon, where Gidney and Cloyd make ridiculous demands of them (they want the cats) before freezing North America. With short Design for Dreaming: One of the more bizarre things ever screened on the Satellite of Love. An annoying musical lady goes with her masked suitor to see GM cars on display, pausing in the middle to engage in Jane Jetson domesticity. If the premise to the movie sounds a bit familiar, it's got the same general idea (for the first half anyway) as 211 FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS. BTW, if you like the "many names of David Ryder" from 820 SPACE MUTINY, this episode has a good number of toughguy lunkhead names too! It also seems it shares some production elements with the movie in 902 THE PHANTOM PLANET. The short is a highlight of MST's entire run, and is a great introduction point. Also, this is the final episode of Season Five. YouTube (1h35m) Premiered February 5, 1994. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Oct 5, 2016 - 7 comments