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Movie: Merlin's Shop Of Mystical Wonders:
Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders is a couple of movies sewn
together with the flimsy thread of a recurring toy monkey.
Ernest Borgnine, looking just as fresh and girlish as his Marty
days, is a large grandpa who's babysitting his grandson and
letting him watch whatever he wants on TV. When the power goes
out during a storm, Grandpa B is forced to talk to the boy and
begins to tell him a story about magical Merlin.
In Grandpa's tale, willowy Merlin now runs a little shop with
his rubicund wife, Zurella, in a vague, Los Angeles-y kind of
suburb. One day two women with pointy voices come into the shop.
After a standard "Hihowareyou", one of the women goes into
graphic detail to the other woman about not being able to
conceive. The barren woman's husband follows them into the shop;
he's a store reviewer and a freelance asshole. He's anxious to
blow the lid off little mom & pop shops in strip malls. When the
man asks Merlin why the hell the shop even exists, Merlin tells
him he wants people "to experience their belief in magic again."
Mr. & Mrs. Merlin look at the barren woman knowingly and they
give her a wishing stone that looks like malformed Jell-o.
The antagonistic boutique critic threatens to shut down Merlin's
shop with a bad review. To appease him, Merlin gives him a book
of magic filled with spells and sorcery. The man and his wife
return home: she goes off to bed alone and he goes downstairs to
do some officing in his garage. He starts dabbling with the
spells in the book and wreaks havoc right and left: he breathes
fire, the cat levitates, and the devil visits him when he tries
to turn the cat into a familiar. As all this is happening our
friend is rapidly aging. We cut to Grandpa Borgnine who does
some back-pedaling to explain that when you mess with magic it
drains your life force and causes you to age.
When the man realizes how close he suddenly is to retirement, he
finds the rejuvenation spell to replenish his life force. The
recipe calls for fresh blood, which he takes from his pinched
and still barren wife. The formula de-oldens him so much so that
he becomes an infant. Voila! The woman finally has the baby
she's always wanted! On the down side, she has to raise her
husband. On the plus side, she's gotten rid of her husband. Or
has she? This is upsetting and confusing.
When this story fails to satisfy the kid, Grandpa B spins
another wonderful yarn which begins with a thief breaking into
Merlin's shop after hours, and stealing the creepy little monkey
toy. Out of all the useless stuff in Merlin's show, why the
monkey toy? Maybe the other worthless crap had ink tags.
The thief pawns the creepy monkey toy (hereafter, CMT) and a
pleasant woman whose name seems like it should be Susan buys it.
She goes to a birthday party where she gives the CMT to a child.
We don't know who the child is, we don't know what Susan is
doing there, we don't know if she's a girlfriend, we don't know
if she's a neighbor, we don't know who the guy is, we don't know
if he's the dad of the kid, and we don't know who the other guy
is either, and we don't know whose house it is.
Well, anyway... once CMT is in the house, there are foreboding
occurrences: plants die; flies die; goldfish die. These things
happen each time the malevolent monkey clashes his cymbals.
Meanwhile, Merlin is hunting for his monkey with a police sketch
in hand. CMT goes too far when he starts a fire in the garage
and kills Sparkle the Dog, the only character who we know who it
is. At a loss, Vague Dad Guy (I think his name is David, but it
should be Susan) consults a psychic who tells him to GET RID OF
THE MONKEY DAVID FOR GOD'S SAKE!
Susan the Dad tries to get rid of the monkey, first by casually
throwing it in the garbage. When that fails, he drives out to a
deserted area to bury the CMT. But the CMT, smiling ever
benevolently, uses his preternatural powers and conjures a
violent storm and an earthquake. Susan-man falls into a crevice
created by the earthquake, barely escapes with his blandness,
and returns home.
Meanwhile, Merlin, as he searching for his monkey toy, just
happens to run into a guy who just happens to be a traveling
trinket salesman who just happens to have sold Merlin's monkey
to an elderly woman who just happens to have paid by check,
allowing Merlin to stalk her. In the subplot of a subplot of
subplot, Mr. Susan's mother returns home from a vacation. And
Grandma has brought a gift for the kid! Hooray! It's the creepy
monkey toy! Hell hath no fury like a toy scorned and the CMT
brings about another earthquake. Just as his cymbals are about
to clang, Merlin magically appears, stops the CMT, and gently
rebukes him for raining hellfire on all around him. By this time
the Grandpa B's charge has fallen fast asleep. (Here you may
make the obvious joke to yourself or to the person on your
right.)
— Mary Jo Pehl
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Prologue:
The gang on the SOL is into 1920s college pranks. Mike is
swallowing goldfish; Servo is stuck in a phone booth with a
bunch of other hims; and Crow is flag- pole sitting.
Segment 1:
Pearl receives orders from the Institute of Mad Science for an
experiment to inflict on Mike and Les Bots. The theory is that
if one person is given complete power and authority over others,
that person will become corrupt. Before Pearl can even finish
her hypothesis, Servo has made himself autocratic ruler of the
SOL. In a personal touch, Pearl adds a variant to the
experiment: fire ants in the test subject's underwear, thus
proving that insects can change the course of governments.
Control group Bobo should have had no ants in his pants but,
Bobo being Bobo...
Segment 2:
Servo and Crow become niche reviewers and review each other.
They give each other virulent and vehement thumbs down.
Segment 3:
Servo, using a bogus magic book, accidentally turns Mike into an
adult baby but Mike doesn't realize it. Mike makes a present for
Servo.
Segment 4:
Mike has got the entire series of children's books written by
Ernest Borgnine, including Santa's Workshop of Shimmering
Delights which is anything but.
Segment 5:
Bobo is an ersatz toy monkey, sent up to the SOL by Pearl to
wreak havoc and disaster. Pearl calculates their pain quotient,
using a variety of standardized scales. Meanwhile, Brain Guy
beams Bobo back down to the Castle, where he surreptitiously
tries to get Bobo into a large bag. Bobo loves bags!
Stinger:
Kid playing with odd monkey toy, lost in some fantasy play
world, singing "Rock 'n Roll Martian.... Rock and Roll
Martian..."
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