Mystery Science Theater 3000: GORGO

January 11, 2018 6:23 AM - Season 9, Episode 9

LIKE NOTHING YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE! A gigantic sea lizard emerges from the ocean off the British coast and wrecks stuff, but is captured. Then its mother shows up. Oops! Mormo could not be reached by press time. Note that the short intro blurbs often seen in these writeups are taken from advertising for the movie. I don't myself claim you've never seen something like this obvious British Godzilla clone before. Leonard Maltin (a good sport) shows up in a couple of host segments! This episode is not available on YouTube. Premiered July 18, 1998. 17 episodes left.

Episode 909 GORGO

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

Kevin Murphy provides the recollections in this episode's ACEG entry:

Leonard Maltin was very nice and sweet and a real pro when he did our show. He learned his lines quickly, had an instant rapport with Mary Jo, and rolled with many changes that came along. He is a charming, affable, thoroughly professional man. Too bad he gave Gorgo three stars, the dope.
Now on to Gorgo. It intrigues me to note that Steven Speilberg and Michael Crichton based their movie on the notion of a giant prehistoric monster smashing a city to bits while finding its offspring. But it only intrigues me for about a minute, then I work up a good belch and I feel better.

Movie
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt
Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 38%) - Wikipedia - TVTropes
IMDB (1961, 5.6 stars)
"Greedy sailors capture a giant lizard off the coast of Ireland and sell it to a London circus. Then its mother shows up."
Directed by Eugène Lourié. Written by Robert L. Richards and Daniel James. Starring Bill Travers, William Sylvester and Vincent Winter.


Notes:
Satellite News tells us that this episode aired only twice, both on the day of its original broadcast! Even the Sandy Frank movies got to run a few years before the irate Dating Game peddler snatched them back. Gorgo did eventually show up on DVD though, in the 25th anniversary collection. Both Mighty Jack and War of the Colossal Fan Guide rate this one pretty highly.

Wikipedia tells us that the movie was first going to be set in Japan as an homage to Godzilla, then in France, then Austrailia, which was rejected particularly because the producers figured it wouldn't matter much to audiences if Austrailia got destroyed!

posted by JHarris (8 comments total)

Actually, that intro blurb should be "Like nothing you've ever seen before." Someone should probably fix that. Someday. Or not. Either way.

Hey! You should come by MST Club tonight, at https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub! Tonight (Thursday) at 7 PM Eastern we're gonna watch a couple of episodes! That adds up to 4 PM Pacific, but you could just come by for the second part, beginning at 9/6 PM.

Tonight's episodes are:
7/4 PM: 322 MASTER NINJA I
9/6 PM: TBA (Gorgo is not on YouTube, arrangement/replacement must be made)
posted by JHarris at 6:27 AM on January 11, 2018

Oh, it's not like nothing I've ever seen before, so it mustn't be not like nothing I've never seen before!
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 9:32 AM on January 11, 2018

“O friend and companion of night, thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood, who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tombs, who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals, Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon, look favourably on our sacrifices!”

Oh, wait. That was last week.
posted by valkane at 10:01 AM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

If we can't acquire a copy of Gorgo, maybe we can just watch "Manos: The Hands of Fate" and make believe that Torgo is Gorgo.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:37 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

This was a lost episode to me for years because the power went out at my house about 20 minutes into the premiere of the episode and stayed off well into the night before it was repaired. I missed both airings! Thankfully our modern media era allowed me to right that wrong.
posted by Servo5678 at 3:24 PM on January 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

I like this one.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:13 PM on January 11, 2018

This is one where I think the host spots outshine the movie. Leonard Maltin is quite funny, and I really like Waiting for Gorgo.
posted by wittgenstein at 8:23 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

So, from Pearl and RogerLeonard's brainstorming, looks like there's four movies with Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts: Skin Traffik, The Expendables, Spun, and The Pope of Greenwich Village.
posted by ckape at 9:41 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]