Mystery Science Theater 3000: DEVIL FISH

January 25, 2018 12:56 AM - Season 9, Episode 11

"Sink your teeth into pure terror." "Wave goodbye..." Good luck making sense of this horribly-edited movie. A fish (with tentacles somehow) is terrorizing some folk, was made by a villain, and others are trying to stop them. There's some sex in there I think too. Pearl rents the castle out as a cruise ship (what) and Mike twice incurs the wrath of the Space Dolphin empire (what). In a host segment, Crow muses about combining a shark with an octopus, making him technically the ultimate origin of the movie Sharktopus. Thanks a heap, 'bot. Promo The episode itself doesn't appear to be on YouTube. Premiered August 15, 1998. 15 episodes left.

Episode 911 DEVIL FISH

Satellite News - Mighty Jack's Episode Review - War of the Colossal Fan Guide - Annotated MST3K - TVTropes

Kevin Murphy remembers for the ACEG:

Our own Peter Rudrud has been plugging his ears each time we pass and cry out "Pee-derrrr!" Boy, is that fun to do. Try it on your friends! You'll find it works best on people named "Peter," but what the hell, let it loose on your Gramma, or your parole officer.
It is a film like this that gives us license to Euro-bash until the sun goes down. Here we have represented Italy, England, Sweden, Germany, and I believe Andorra. Mix these together in Florida, with a cast and crew which collectively speak enough English to purchase Budweiser and Moon Pies, give them skimpy bathing suits and a bunch of camera equipment and you will naturally produce enough Euro-bashing cannon fodder to last at least two decades. What we do is as natural as your own hair.
Please enjoy this link while you read the next paragraph: http://www.discoverynet.com/~ajsnead/patriotic/midi/semper_mrw.mid. [note: URL no longer works]
And finally, a salute to whatever PR officer signed the Coast Guard up to bend WAY over and take it in the Stokes Basket for this film. It seems that a full compliment of Coast Guard helicopters was made available to this production without even a faint hint of mob involvement. So the next time I make a pathetic European movie involving stupid rubber monsters terrorizing our waterways, I'll know who to call! Semper Paratus!

Movie
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt
Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 16%) - Wikipedia (as "Monster Shark") - TVTropes
IMDB (1984, 2.4 stars)
"A marine biologist, a dolphin trainer, a research scientist, and a local sheriff try to hunt down a large sea monster, a shark/octopus hybrid, that is devouring swimmers and fishermen off a south Florida coast."
Directed by Laberto Bava (as "John Old Jr.") Written by him and Gianfranco Clerici, Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates), Vincenzo Mannino (as Frank Walker), Sergio Martino (as Martin Dolman), Hervé Piccini and Dardano Sacchetti. Starring as Michael Sopkiw (as "Peeder"), Valentine Monnier and Gianni Garko.

Notes:
This is the infamous episode where, when climbing down a ladder, a shorts-wearing male member of the cast "lets one slip," horrifying Mike and co. In the episode that made it to air, the Sci-Fi Channel censored the offending testicle with the show's "Spaghetti Ball" logo.

posted by JHarris (8 comments total)

It's time once again for MST Club, our Thursday showing of that week's episode. Well, usually, although, as noted above, this episode is not on YouTube. We'll have to see if other arrangements can be made.
In the meantime, this week's schedule (all times are Eastern, subtract three hours for Pacific):
7 PM: 506 EEGAH
9 PM: TBA
posted by JHarris at 7:26 AM on January 25, 2018

This movie is...very Italian.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:48 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love it when you play coy, rodney.
posted by valkane at 10:51 AM on January 25, 2018

I hope we get "Devil Fish" because I have plans to make myself some very appropriate viewing snackage. Background: My first afterschool job during High School was at a McDonald's that had just opened near my home. It was promoted as "the biggest McD's west of the Mississippi" with the largest kitchen hiring the largest kitchen staff. So cooking jobs were more specialized and I ended up being a "Filet-O-Fish Specialist". Sadly, business at this biggest McD's never matched expectations and they had to lay off workers after three months, including all the Filet-O-Fish Specialists. (Personally, I went a block away to a former-franchise fish-and-chips joint whose owner recognized my skill at dropping fish into hot oil, but the nearby McD's was bad for its business and that fast food gig didn't last long.) Anyway, I will be re-creating Filet-O-Fish sammiches made from "Ultimate Fish Sticks" from Costco, and backing them up with my homage to the movie's very fake fish... artificial crab.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:26 AM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Heh heh! That's a good story foop.

This is one of those episodes that I've seen before, but still don't remember very much about.
posted by JHarris at 2:35 PM on January 25, 2018

Hey, wouldn't it be nice if I posted the URL? It's the same one as usual, but for ease of access here it is: https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub.
posted by JHarris at 3:15 PM on January 25, 2018

This is about last week's episode, but I'll just put it here... there's an internet homage to the breakout character in "The Final Sacrifice": ROWSDOWR.COM (yes that's how they spell it because somebody else registered rowsdower.com and left nothing but an appropriate placeholder there) which is self-described as a "Cult Film & TV Geek Blog". Sadly, it hasn't updated since before last Halloween (with an appropriate 'Monster Cereals' post), but before it went inert, it discovered the Zap Rowsdower Action Figure!!
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:19 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Great show tonight, even though the movie was a difficult one. Pre-roll and afters were maybe the best part. Here’s some deep links that were required:

Fun in Balloonland

Wonderbug

And more importantly, from Wonderbug, John Anthony Bailey, kids show actor, Dark Bros. porn star. Who knew?
posted by valkane at 9:34 PM on January 25, 2018 [1 favorite]