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Movie: Rocketship X-M:
Rocketship X-M was the brainchild of Alameda, California, native
Robert L. Lippert, who fancied himself a futurist in the
tradition of Jules Verne. Lippert guides us through the
painfully overlong countdown, blastoff, flying and landing
scenes, the goofy weightless jokes and impossible meteor showers
that have become hallmarks of space exploration films. The
smooth, Mr. Whipple-esque Dr. Exum (John Emery) leads the
all-white crew of Rocketship X-M, short for "expedition moon,"
though it probably should have been Rocketship E-M; but seeing
as "X" is the least-used letter in the English language, it does
tend to sound more sciencey and futurish.
Lloyd Bridges is Floyd Graham, pilot of Rocketship X-M, an
avuncular and ceaselessly anecdotal jabberjaw, endlessly trying
to get into the breeches of Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen), a
cold, calculated scientist lady who breaks down to jelly at the
first sign of stress. Noah Beery, Jr., is annoyingly glib as
Major William Corrigan, engineer and comic relief. The
expedition gets knocked off course due to stupidly erroneous
fuel-mixture calculations, and the moon bound ship lands instead
on Mars. Our plucky crew gets out, and after finding the
remnants of an advanced civilization, they run into the
Martians, scare the bejeebers outa them, and get pelted with
rocks. Naturally our heroes start shooting, and the entire
expedition runs away. After launching themselves back toward
Earth, Lloyd Bridges and Dr. Van Horn get kissy-kissy and crash
in horrible flames. Hugh O'Brian rounds out the cast.
— Kevin Murphy
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Prologue:
Wow! the unveiling of newly redesigned Satellite of Love, and
poor Crow has a toothache.
Invention:
Tom Servo gets a new voice; in Deep 13, Frank replaces Dr.
Lawrence Erhardt as Forrester's assistant. Joel's invention is
the BGC-1.9 drum machine, The Mads' invention is the BGC-1.9,
um, drum machine. Frank ripped Joel off. Frank gets hurt.
Segment 2:
A tribute to the reporters of Rocketship X-M, attributing to
them really goofy names.
Segment 3:
Joel quizzes Crow and Tom on things that are funny or not funny
when floating, such as a woodchuck or Christopher Reeve kissing
Michael Caine in Deathtrap.
Segment 4:
The SOL is visited by a very butch Valeria (our own Chip
Nelson), the woman from episode
0110 - Robot
Holocaust.
Segment 5:
Joel and the 'Bots chide Forrester on the inappropriateness of
sending a crashing spaceship movie to a bunch or guys trapped in
a spaceship.
Stinger:
A Best Brains Production.
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Boy, if ever there was a template for
an MST movie, this is it. Big strapping white men, one
sexy but cold woman scientist, melodramatic plot, an expedition
that hopelessly screws up, everybody dies, and yet somehow it's
okay. Add in Lloyd Bridges, Hugh O'Brian, and Noah Beery, Jr.,
and hey! You couldn't make a film more perfect for us. One of
the most beloved and requested episodes of Season Two. This show
introduced the Hexfield Viewscreen, which at the time did not
have the sophisticated iris mechanism it has now, just a
hardware store—bought window shade. Mike had to work it himself;
then at the end of his "transmission" he had to stand real still
and we turned off the lights and dollied past him and kind of
pretended he wasn't there anymore. As anyone who has watched
this and future shows will tell you, we got a whole lot better
at this.
— Kevin Murphy
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