|
Movie: Space Travelers:
Despite a cast brimming with Gregory Peck, Gene Hackman, and
James Franciscus, this edited version of Academy Award—winning
Marooned moves along slower than a Grandma at the mall.
Three astronauts are stranded in space, and Gregory Peck, as the
leader of the ground control unit, finds it impossible to rescue
them. Gene Hackman blames himself for the failure of the
spaceship, and Gene Hackman is good in anything. There are
endless shots of the three astronauts packed together, and more
shots of their lovely, distraught, yet brave wives.
Meanwhile, David Janssen concocts a plan to send a spaceship to
rescue them, but—as luck would have it—the
astronauts are on their last quart of air. So Richard Crenna
sacrifices himself and hurtles into the great void so his fellow
astronauts can have his air. Eventually, they are rescued by a
Russian spacecraft driving by and the control room parties down.
— Mary Jo Pehl
|
|
Prologue:
The Great Crowdini tries to escape from an elaborate network of
chains with a canon aimed at him. Tries, indeed.
Invention:
Joel combines the instant cash machine with a Polaroid camera to
come up with the Dollaroid, which puts anyone's picture on U.S.
currency. Crow and Servo perform a playlet illustrating the
benefits of the Dollaroid. In Deep 13, the Mads have created
tissues with faces on them, such as Pat Buchanan and Sinbad.
Segment 2:
Joel, Crow, and Tom discuss products created as a result of the
space program, such as coffee table and Chia technology.
Segment 3:
Joel, Tom, and Crow reenact the gripping scene of ground control
communicating with the spaceship, but despite Crow's killer-Peck
impersonation, he wrecks it all.
Segment 4:
Crow, Tom, and Joel talk about how they'd allot their last
remaining oxygen, and Crow and Tom decide to give all theirs to
Joel.
Segment 5:
Joel shows Tom and Crow a magic trick with the Tony Franciosa
and James Franciscus action figures. In Deep 13, Frank and
Forrester show their dissatisfaction.
Stinger:
Gene Hackman contemplates a sleeping pill.
|
|
This first MST3K film with a
budget, and the only one ever to win an Oscar (for Special
Effects in 1969). Not long after this show aired, a few of us
were in Hollywood! Our friend Nick Bakay was working on the
exciting new Dennis Miller Show on Fox, and invited us
to see a taping and actually meet Dennis afterward.
This would be a thrill. We knew through Nick that Dennis was a
fan! Wow! So we excitedly watched the taping. It was really,
really not good. It was very bad. In fact, boy oh boy did it
suck out loud. The guests were boring, the sketches were slow
and unenergetic, Dennis' monologue was tired and humorless. But
I figured Dennis was in a little slump. Maybe he'd read all
those bad reviews of his show in the papers, so he was feeling
down. We wouldn't say anything but great things about the show
when we met him.
Nick brought us to Dennis' office. A short while later, Dennis
himself came in. He was a wreck. Gaunt, pale, looking like Keith
Richards in the junkie days before he'd fly off to Switzerland
to have all his blood replaced. Dennis mumbled something about
us slipping because we had done Marooned on our show and it was
a pretty good movie and maybe we'd lost our touch. In a word,
he'd slammed us. Then he just sat there, sweating, staring at us
blankly, and we smiled and stared back, then it was time to go.
That's my Dennis Miller story. Ultimately Dennis got a new show
on HBO and beat us out for an Emmy. Twice. He deserves it, poor
guy, for all he's gone through.
— Kevin Murphy
|
|
