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Movie: The Brain That Wouldn't Die:
A surgeon conducts bizarre experiments in his spare time, using
limbs he's stolen from dead bodies in the hospital morgue. While
he and his fiancée Jan are driving to their summer place, which
is also his laboratory, they get into an accident and Jan is
decapitated. The good doctor bundles Jan's head up in a blanket,
rushes to his lab, makes her at home in a casserole dish, and
goes out searching for another body to attach to Jan. He visits
strip clubs, cruises up and down the street, ogling women, and
insists to Jan that's it all for her. Meanwhile, the laboratory
is run by his assistant, who has a withered hand and hopes for a
new one so he can be a surgeon. But one of the experiments has
gone horribly wrong and the resulting monster is locked in a
closet in the laboratory. Jan and the monster hit it off, and
she urges him to break out of his cell. The monster breaks out,
trashes the place, and the whole movie goes down in a fiery
blaze.
— Mary Jo Pehl
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Prologue:
This is the first of the Mike Nelson shows, and the 'Bots brief
Mike on movie commentary. Sid Melton equals little monkey boy.
Invention:
The SOL invents the gutter-bumber-chute, an umbrella with a
gutter system. In Deep 13, Forrester uses his Dream Buster, a
device that pops the balloons of porcine, bratty kids from a
range of sixty yards. Dr. F. then tries to "snicker snag" on
Frank.
Segment 2:
Crow and Servo help Mike rig the SOL so they might get back to
Earth; Mike accidentally cuts the cheese compressor tube.
Segment 3:
Mike, Servo, and Crow design hats for Jan, the bodyless head
lady, including a crown roast hat.
Segment 4:
Mike shares a childhood memory involving an ice cream cone, a
long walk home, and a locked bathroom.
Segment 5:
Jan in the Pan (Mary Jo Pehl) visits the Satellite of Love and
talks about getting her life together. Forrester tries to remove
Frank's head with the help of a chain saw.
Stinger:
Sultry Manwoman: "Who's to tell me to blow if I don't want to?"
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This was the first show with our new
host, Mike Nelson as played by Mike Nelson. After several weeks
of brainstorming, we finally decided that Gypsy would engineer
Joel's escape when she thought his life was in danger.
Meanwhile, the Mads have a temp worker helping them get
organized for an audit. And that temp's name was Mike Nelson.
The Mads shoot Mike into space to make themselves feel better
about their bungling of Joel's escape. We altered the theme song
to reflect the changes, and that's our very own Mike Nelson
singing the theme song (Mike and Kevin Murphy are the only ones
with any musical ability, although I consider myself quite
proficient in listening to music. I have been known to listen to
two, sometimes three CDs in a row. Well, anyway—).
Since the
opening credit sequence had to be changed as well, we
reengineered the doorway sequence too. And the redesign of the
doorway sequence also needed to reflect the evolving art
direction of the show itself. The doorway sequence hadn't really
kept up. So Trace Beaulieu and Jef Maynard designed the new
sequence, and Jef and Patrick Brantseg built it, Then one
afternoon-cum-evening the entire staff—writers, performers,
production staff, and prop persons—gathered in the studio to
try to pull the whole thing off. The camera was mounted on a
dolly which was on tracks running through the miniature doorway
apparatus. It looked like a long tube, and it had been outfitted
with levers on the outside that could maneuver the doors on the
inside. Everyone had a station—some of us manned doors, one
person blew bubbles, one person operated the tongs, and one
person activated the bug that scurries across the floor. But it
all had to be coordinated in proper sequence with proper timing
as the camera dollied through the tunnel. So as the camera moved
through, Trace, watching on a monitor, would yell out the number
of the door that needed to open. It was all very, ahem,
challenging, and surprisingly it took us only a kajillion times
to get it.
Also, in this experiment—notice that the title at
the beginning of the film reads The Brain That Wouldn't Die,
while at the end it reads The Head That Wouldn't Die. There's a
part toward the end of this movie when you can see that the
monster's gruesome head is simply tied in the back.
— Mary Jo Pehl
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