Mystery Science Theater 3000: CATALINA CAPER

January 28, 2015 8:38 PM - Season 2, Episode 4

(1967, Color, Beach, Romance, Heist, Comedy) Tommy Kirk and a gang of teens party and woo on Catalina Island, and also thwart art thieves. One of the few overt comedies the Mystery Science Theater guys covered. There's a lot of surprises in this one: a song by Little Richard, the guy who played Exedor on Mork & Mindy, goofy millionaire shenanigans and the enigmatic "Creepy Girl," upon whom a young robot develops an unhealty fixation. YouTube (1h37m). First aired October 13, 1990.

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

IMDB (1.9 stars)
"A group of swingin' teens take time out from having fun in the sun to try to foil a group of crooks searching for a stolen scroll."
Directed by Lee Sholem. Written by Clyde Ware and Sam Pierce. Starring Tommy Kirk, Del Moore and Peter Duryea.

posted by JHarris (23 comments total)

Charles Beesley wrote in the splendorous Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film:

Vacationing divers Tommy Kirk and Brian Cutler are hired to retrieve a rate Chinese scroll dropped overboard during a scuffle between thieves. The two college friends help get the artifact back to the museum after girl-chasing and musical fun. Little Richard does "Scuba Party," and Mary Wells does "Never Steal Anything Wet." With Del Moore, Peter Duryea, Lyle Waggoner, Sue Casey, Carol Connors, the Cascades, Michael Blodgett, and the Adrian Teen Models. Filmed on location on Catalina Island and in Malibu. T. V Mikels was the director of photography. (Director) Sholem directed Louisiana Hussey.

Mike Nelson wrote in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide:

Catalina Caper was a difficult effort for the writers, save for Frank (who was not only delighted by the opening theme song, but also by Arthur and his sidekick, Lawrence) because it contained a lot of music and attempted comedy. We were also so troubled by the hopelessly confused plot, the attempt to represent the weird blond kid as an irresistible lothario, and the pathetic descent of Tommy Kirk's career, that at the final viewing it was even more loathed than the reprehensible Sidehackers. As far as we know, the reference to an ad campaign for Neil Simon' The Goodbye Girl at the opening of the show ("Thank you, Tommy Kirk, for making us laugh about love... again") was the first of many.

Host segments:
Pre: The robots say their prayers before bed.
Invention Exchange: Mads: Tank Tops. Joel: Tickle Bazooka. "Bangy Banga Kabonga?"
1: Joel vaporlocks over the Sixties.
2: IT'S THE CREEPY GIRL SONG AAAAH SO GOOD
3: Frank's Tupperware party.
Post: Joel tries to chart out the plot.
posted by JHarris at 8:52 PM on January 28, 2015

This week's showing is again Thursday at 7 PM Eastern. URL will show up here shortly before the show. Join us, won't you?
posted by JHarris at 8:55 PM on January 28, 2015

Dim Your Lights Where Applicable.
posted by valkane at 9:05 PM on January 28, 2015

Following the Moon 02 tradition of the cartoon introductory credits
posted by hellojed at 9:28 PM on January 28, 2015

2: IT'S THE CREEPY GIRL SONG AAAAH SO GOOD

Scrolls and fish and tinkertoys and wine . . .
posted by creepygirl at 10:08 PM on January 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Here's a little fact for you to make the hurt richer... the animated titles to the movie were done by the company Murakami Wolf. You know what else they made?

Among other things, they made the original Saturday morning Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.
posted by JHarris at 12:16 AM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is the only thing my SO, who basically *tolerates* MST3K for my sake ..could not through. And he's sat through Manos twice.

I was there for Mary Wells but EVEN SO. Riffing a failed comdey just seems to make your own jokes worse.
posted by The Whelk at 12:19 AM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's odd how sometimes people get different impressions from things, because this is one of my favorites. I watched a bit of it tonight and yeah, I love this one. It's sort of a comedy, but it's played so broad that they dig into it pretty well, I thought, and there's also all the sexist 60s teen romance stuff to riff off of.

But then, I like nearly every 2nd and (especially) 3rd season episode.
posted by JHarris at 1:50 AM on January 29, 2015

I like it as a really atypical for the show kind of romp? and a bizarre time capsule? yes please. But making someone who isn't super-keen on the show to begin with sit through it gets you meh and agnst.
posted by The Whelk at 2:03 AM on January 29, 2015

I haven't watched this one in a long time, but I remember being sort of disappointed by it because I was so attuned to the Manos/Pod People/Cave Dwellers-style episodes. Next to those, Catalina Caper seems like a more or less benign relic. They do have some fun with it, and the Creepy Girl song bit is good, but as a film--dare I say it--I think it just isn't bad enough to register, really.
posted by Kosh at 5:35 AM on January 29, 2015

This is SUCH a Frank Conniff movie.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:42 AM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

The URL for this week's show: http://sync-video.com/r/rap8O32h
posted by JHarris at 2:26 PM on January 29, 2015

I was wrong it wasn't the "Carpenters," it was some group called "The Cascades." Rather different, I expect.
posted by JHarris at 5:09 PM on January 29, 2015

The room itself crashed -- we've managed to get back in. Same URL, resuming in a few minutes.
posted by JHarris at 5:33 PM on January 29, 2015

JHarris - I keep trying to join but I'm on an Ipad. Will the room work on one? I can't seem to get it to sync.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:42 PM on January 29, 2015

I don't think it'll work on iPad, unfortunately I think the syncing requires Flash or something. If it DOES work, I'd really want to know though.
posted by JHarris at 5:56 PM on January 29, 2015

I would swear I watched part of it on one of the other days you were setting up the room, but tonight it does not seem to be working on my first gen Ipad. Very cool that you guys are doing this, anyway.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:58 PM on January 29, 2015

Now that I think about it, maybe it's Turkey Day that worked on the Ipad.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:59 PM on January 29, 2015

Yeah, I've never had any luck getting into sync-video on an ipad. Chrome works on a mac, if you got that, as does Safari. Hopefully, we will see you next week!
posted by valkane at 6:37 PM on January 29, 2015

Just to be clear: you can get into the room on an ipad, or an iphone, and chat directly, but you can't watch the video. It's a flash thing, I'm pretty sure.
posted by valkane at 6:39 PM on January 29, 2015

Thanks for dropping by everyone, and sorry about the problems Wittgenstein. I'd like to use a more traditional streaming solution for this, but using sync-video has two twin advantages of not requiring a server most times and, because it's pretty much just a shell for the YouTube player, being less legally dangerous in most cases. We have a lot of episodes to get through, so risk management is a concern.

We got about seven unique people tonight and had a pretty good time riffing along with the guys. I wonder, if we could find a way to do this using voice communication, would you guys possibly be interested in that?

Next week is our 18th episode, 205 ROCKET ATTACK USA, a solid iron cube of gray cold war paranoia. See you then!
posted by JHarris at 1:40 AM on January 30, 2015

Sorry for disappearing, real life is stupid that way sometimes. I'll see everyone next week though :)
posted by hobgadling at 6:20 AM on January 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm watching this now - in the first theater segment, Joel is *awful*. He stumbles badly over almost every line.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:54 AM on March 24, 2017