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Short: Robot Rumpus:
Robot Rumpus stars Gumby, of "dammit"
fame. Gumby is a strange, disturbingly high-crotched, nude green
clay figure. He has elephantine legs tapering up to a thin, flat
body, on top of which is perched a head which resembles a
moss-covered Chippendale chair as designed by Salvador Dali, in
that one side appears to be melting. In this adventure, Gumby
and his equestrian friend Pokey - who at least in some sense
looks like a true horse - making us wonder what Gumby is
technically supposed to be, dammit: a reanimated blob of
spearmint gum? Sentient mucus? - well anyway, he and Pokey
enslave some robots to do yard work. Gumby's mother, who wears
clothes, is very pleased with her son's ingenuity, as long as
it's working.
But the robots run horribly amuck. They start tearing down the
whole world, dammit! Mom summons Dad, who is named Gumbo, though
I fail to see his resemblance to the tasty shrimp, okra and
sausage soup I had in New Orleans. (Gumbo also runs around
naked, in this universe with no rules.) But Gumbo gets trounced
by the robots until finally Gumby finds a way to kill them. The
delightful movie climaxes with the maiming and dismemberment of
many robots, and the white-hot rage of Gumby's parents, who by
story's end have taught their son that their love is always
highly conditional on his success in finding innovations in yard
work. And that his failure in yard work endeavors will be met by
blistering punishment and the withholding of their love,
replaced by the purest of hate. I'm glad I grew up watching this
stuff.
Movie: The Screaming Skull:
The Screaming Skull... Or (my preferred
title), I Swear Before All That Is Good And Holy I Will Never
Watch Another Movie Starring The Twisted Worry-Faced Mother from
episode 0906 - The Space
Children Ever, Ever Again, With God As My
Witness. The story: a shifty creep and his pathological
worrywart of a new bride move into a Southern mansion owned by
his late wife, and now bequeathed to him. His deceased wife died
recently from a bashed-in head, under mysterious circumstances.
This brand-new groom's new wife is loaded with family money too,
and is more than a little unstable. That is to say: HE'S GUILTY!
HE'S REALLY, REALLY GUILTY! HEY EVERYONE, HE'S GUILTY!
...This is clear in the first ten minutes or so of the movie,
but they go on spending an hour of our valuable time pretending
there's some real mystery at hand. Mr. Creepyhusband tries to
drive his wife batty by putting skulls in odd places. Mrs.
Looneywife repeatedly contorts her face in horrible twisty fear
(this is the scariest effect in the movie, by far) and bores us
to tears walking around looking for things in a nightgown
(making me think as I watched it: no, movie, yeah I know you're
from the fifties and all so we have to cut you some slack, but I
will never accept this fear-furrowed woman in her twelve-layer
peignoir as sexy. Damn you for even suggesting it!) Anyways, some
pie-faced minister and his mannish wife hang around a lot
listening intently and absorbing little. And a slow-witted,
Snagglepuss-sounding, Torgo-Lite gardener named Mickey is tossed
into the mix for a highly unsuccessful red herring.
— Bill Corbett
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Prologue:
Servo turns into a butterfly. Apparently all along the Servo we
knew had been a mere larva of what he was destined to be
eventually.
Segment 1:
Down in Castle Forrester, Pearl, Observer, and Bobo run around
in penguin suits, pathetically trying to pull a practical joke
on Mike and the bots, convincing them that they'd agreed to meet
them there, also with penguin costumes on. Mike and the 'Bots
throw together some makeshift animal costumes of their own, and
everyone looks pretty dumb in the end. (An editorial: As an MST
performer, what I find most refreshing about acting on this show
is the inherent dignity of the work: where else would one find
the challenge to one's "craft" of playing a fey omniscient
albino alien who then dresses up in a goofy penguin suit? Go to
hell, Shakespeare! ...This is the real stuff.)
Segment 2:
The bots work through the trauma of having to watch Gumby
mutilate robots by having their own clay figure show.
Segment 3:
Servo tries to scam a free coffin, as guaranteed at the
beginning of Screaming Skull for people who die of fright (not
boredom) while watching this movie.
Segment 4:
Now Crow tries to pull a joke, becoming a Screaming Skull and
frightening Mike. Mike freaks out and bashes both the bots with
a variety of sporting goods, screaming himself the whole time.
Segment 5:
Servo's coffin arrives. He has to pay the full delivery cost of
returning it. But no harm is done, as he uses Mike's credit card
for this. Down in Castle Forrester, Bobo dresses like a ape,
trying to fool them that he is an ape - that is, an ape other
than Bobo. At Pearl's request, Brain Guy makes him tiny. Why?
See below.
Stinger:
The Screaming Skull screaming...and then getting taken down by a
step stool.
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I dearly love my job and my colleagues
here, but permit me to whine a bit, as I am very skilled and
practiced at it. To wit: sometimes I wonder if we here at Best
Brains aren't the butt of our own joke. While producing a show
about a man and his robots who are tortured by watching bad
movies, we have become the real-life victims of our own
smarty-pants premise. Why do I say this? Answer: The Screaming
Skull. Making someone watch this even once is specifically
outlawed by the Geneva Convention. But many, many times, as is
our practice? That is the custom-fitted hell that we've brought
upon ourselves, worthy of a wry introduction by Rod Serling . I
found this movie to be the Deepest of Hurting: like watching
bacteria grow in extra-slow motion. This situation, I would
contend, is true irony, Classic Greek in nature -- unlike the
Alanis Morrisette version, which applies the word to slight
inconveniences and minor gross-outs. (By this Morrisettian
standard, then, it is "ironic" when one of her songs come on my
favorite FM station.) Thank you, my whining is over and I am
happy again.
The Gumby short, on the other hand, was a complete party to do.
Good clean fun, though disappointingly short at six minutes. I
always loved the shorts as a fan of the show, and hope we can
get more.
Other things: we all loved doing Segment Four -- the
Crow-as-Screaming-Skull -- though I ruined a few takes by
cracking up at Mike as he carefully chose a golf club while
yelling in stark terror. The Segment Five bit of Brain Guy
shrinking Bobo down into his fist was completely off the slight
story we had, but we got excited at it as a sort of tribute to
the many MST3K movies that have used this cheap
forced-perspective effect. I think we were no more successful
than they were - I kept trying to see it as something other than
Bobo standing on the other side of the room, but could not. But
it was fun to try, and fun is the most important meal of the
day. Lastly, a stunning acting debut by Barb Tebben, as the
officious free-coffin representative for AIP. Barb literally
phoned in her performance, which made us not want to cross
her. Those of you who have dealt with Barb on the phone or taken
the Best Brains tour know that she is the nicest person in the
world, but: there's obviously some demon inside her that I
wouldn't wanna tangle with. Don't hit me, Barb!
— Bill Corbett
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