Mystery Science Theater 3000: MOON ZERO TWO

December 3, 2014 3:35 PM - Season 1, Episode 11

(1969, Color, Sci-Fi, Warner Bros., British, Western, Comedy, Sixties, Moonopoly) In the near future, mankind has a base on the moon. The pilot of a moon ferry based there is hired by crazy richguy "Hundred Percent" Hubbard to crash a satellite made of gemstone into the lunar surface. Meanwhile, go-go dancers flail about in a "Moon Bar." "The first moon 'western.'" "An Asteroid Worth Millions. A Robbery. A Murder." Moon Zero Two is a weird one. Parts of the movie seem to want to be comic, which is something the guys shied away from in later seasons, and there's animated titles as in Catalina Caper. This is also a very sixties movie, with sexy moon dancers and a blaring trumpet soundtrack. It's still the first season, but the riffing is improving, and I think the movie helps out a bit from sheer strangeness. YouTube (1h37m) First aired around January 20, 1990.

Satellite News - Annotated MST3K - Club MST3K - Annotated MST3K - Daddy-O

IMDB [4.1 stars]
"A space salvage expert and his partner become involved with a group of criminals intent on hijacking a small asteroid made of sapphire and crashing it into the moon for later recovery. The only place that they can bring the asteroid down without drawing attention to themselves is a far side mining claim. But first they must dispose of the miner. Little known to them, however, is the fact that the miners sister has hired the same salvage team to help her locate her missing brother."
Director by Roy Ward Baker
Written by Michael Carreras, Gavin Lyall, Frank Hardman and Martin Davison
Starring James Olson, Catherine Schell and Warren Mitchell

posted by JHarris (8 comments total)

I misplaced the Amazon DVD link. It's on the 25th Anniversary Edition collection.

Michael Weldon writes in The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film:

The first outer-space Western. In 2121 astronaut James Olsen goes to a Moon hotel, shoots it out with bad guys, looks for sapphires, and helps Catherine Schell find her brother. With Adrienne Corri and the Gojos. It was made right after 2001.

Mike Nelson writes in The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide:

When compiling the writers' and performers' memories of Moon Zero Two, we discovered that not a single person had a single concrete memory to recall. Most doubted the authenticity of the program itself, even when confronted with the video proof that it was indeed made, by us! It should therefore be noted that while Moon Zero Two is, and probably shall continue to be listed as a Best Brains effort, it is considered by the staff to be a hoax.

Host segments:
Pre: Joel explains the premise.
Invention Exchange: Joel invents food that teleports into your stomach, the mads, celebrity toothpaste that gets vomited from PEZ dispensers.
1: The guys celebrate the space program, in the way they most often celebrate such things: via pageant.
2: They speculate on what games will be played in the future. Hopefully not "Moonopoly."
3: Everyone gets into a fight for the honor of their favorite women from the movie.
End: Good and bad thing about the movie again.

This movie shares with Catalina Caper the distinction of opening with animated opening titles, with American and Russian cartoon astro/cosmonauts fighting for who has rights to the lunar surface, followed by them hastily making amends then entering a moonbase built by all the other nations and the cartoon takes on a Beatles-esque flavor. It's the second of two moon-related films in the first season, and apparently intended as a kind of comedy. As the guys admit about the upcoming Catalina Caper, comedies don't really work in the MST3K model.

Don't have time to do a full recap, but there's a lot of goofy things in this movie. Watch for a Monty Python regular among the female cast, lots of pointless space ladies twisting about on stage, a Wild West week on the moonbase, lots of bizarre fashion sense, and half the crap in the movie being called moon-something.
posted by JHarris at 3:53 PM on December 3, 2014

We are doing our weekly showing tomorrow (Thursday) at 6 PM Eastern again. Sorry for the short notice. The link will again be up a bit before showtime.
posted by JHarris at 3:53 PM on December 3, 2014

Sadly, between work and travel, I'm going to have to miss out on this one, have fun watching everyone.
posted by hobgadling at 7:14 PM on December 3, 2014

I'm seriously considering buying a jumpsuit to wear while watching these again. I want one like the one Bruce Dern wears in Silent Running. You know, with all the Valley Forge patches and shit.
posted by valkane at 6:16 AM on December 4, 2014

With the possibility that Joel is reviving the Gizmonic Institute brand, maybe you could make one of those patches? Or maybe we could convince him to sell them? I think I'm going to tweet that suggestion at him....

hobgadling, remember that we run stuff before and after the episode. It's okay to show up early or late.
posted by JHarris at 9:09 AM on December 4, 2014

The room is open at:

http://sync-video.com/r/rNMOwONw

Show starts at 6 PM Eastern.
posted by JHarris at 1:56 PM on December 4, 2014

Thanks for showing up everyone, I think the most we had was five people tonight, which I put down to either the fact that there was a RiffTrax in theaters going at the same time, or that this is not the most popular episode of the show.

Next week it's 112: UNTAMED YOUTH.
posted by JHarris at 1:02 AM on December 5, 2014

Just realized I linked to Annotated MST3K twice in the extended description. Heh.
posted by JHarris at 1:04 AM on December 5, 2014