The Gizmoplex's "Soft Open" continued this past Friday by riffing a short for the first time since the summer of '99, followed by a tribute to the ultimate episode, Manos: The Hands of Fate.
Not enough has been said about this odd ultra-cheap horror film made in El Paso in 1966 which was buried and forgotten until TV's Frank unwittingly allowed the curse to escape into an unsuspecting world in 1993
As Crow points out to Jonah and Servo, it's the one episode MST3K will forever be linked. Never mind stinkburgers like Castle of Fu Manchu, Monster a Go Go or Being From Another Planet. A movie that features a doomed family, a demon guy with an odd robe, a bellhop with suspect motor control and full-contact nightgown wrestling can curse anyone.
Just ask the Rifftrax guys, The Original Mads when they presented an HD print, and even Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. An episode of her seeing the movie (and realizing her mistake) is at Shout Factory TV.
Then again, the revival of the movie led to an interesting book by the youngest cast member, odd adaptations, a documentary (on the MST special edition DVD by Shout Factory) and an unexpected sequel.
Before that, Pearl and Synthia introduce the Short of the Month Club, where Gizmoplex Pass members were recruited the same way Putin "recruited" an audience to a recent rally where he tells people the War with Ukraine is a big success (or else).
No matter, though. Fans have been wanting the MST gang to riff shorts again, and they started with Pipeline to the Clouds. It's a General Electric short about the importance of water distribution. It showed what happens when we don't get enough rain, and how building better water plants will solve everything. Still, they show about half of the film because it gets tedious at 24 minutes.
The riffing, though is pretty good.
"There's no such thing as really pure water"
Ooo, rain, you nasty, girl
"We must have safe water, wherever and whenever we want it"
Brought to you by Nestle (really sharp comment here)
The short ends with lots of flowing water
Crow: I didn't even have a bladder and I gotta go.
There are also comments on TLC, Kool-Aid and beer.
This was followed by the showing of Manos, complete with half a short and very unexpected apologies. In between, Jonah and the bots just shoot the breeze like suggesting what kind of demon hunters they'd have.
Then the post-game show, with Joel and Mary Jo recalling how they encountered Manos for the first time, followed by a deep uneasy feeling about seeing it. Remember, this was AFTER Deep Hurting.
That was followed by a new interview from Jackey Neyman Jones, who played Debbie in the movie.
Although she has been in several recent interviews, including one with the Mads last December, she had some new details for everyone.
She says the cast, including her dad Tom (aka the Master), actually were in a local performance of Henry IV before the movie. The "wives", meanwhile, came from a local modeling agency.
Also, she found out the movie was on Comedy Central thanks to, of all people, her dad. Seems he's a big MST fan, and was as surprised as anyone the movie got on the show. She even called the channel to ask if she could get a copy, and the person who talked to her slowly realized he was talking to Debbie.
The episode was taken off the website for a while because the Gizmoplex bosses thought it had to be edited. That included removing a 20-minute countdown that featured the Mads in odd spacesuits while plugging some major contributors and featuring a recipe for Torgo's Pizza. This tweet from Frank gives fans an idea of how it worked.
The plan is still to feature a movie every month or so, then a short two weeks later. The next edition will be Robot Wars on April first, but it's not certain if this is Emily's first Gizmoplex movie. Thanks to the live tour, she will be ready.
By the way, the episode revealed "The Bubble" will likely be the last episode of season 13 just before the Christmas show...and proof Growler's still on the show (as music director, possibly).
Learn more at gizmoplex.com.
