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#807: Terror from the Year 5000!
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Craggy jarhead and former High School football coach Doctor
Robert "Bob" Hedges receives a gift in the mail from an his old friend Dr.
Earling which turns out to be highly radioactive. Meanwhile, in the fetid swamps
of Northern Florida, doddering Dr. Earling, his daughter Claire, and her
excessively oily fiancee Victor have created a time machine which can bring
knickknacks back from the future. Leathery "Bob" arrives and questions the
veracity of their experiment, which causes Victor to secrete unguents at an
alarming rate. Oh, "Bob" immediately hits on Clair, which for some reason causes
tension between him and Victor.
This goes on for a while, and somehow several of
the characters strip down to swimsuits, baring their milky translucent flesh, and
go romp and play in the nearby reeking backwater. The increasingly whiny and
oleaginous Victor manages to use his time machine to summon a human from the year
5000, the above-named Terror, who in a gesture of good will rips the face off an
unsuspecting nurse and hits on Victor, accidentally irradiating the poor dope.
Saponaceous, stupefied Victor, buttery emollients now streaming freely from his
every pore, agrees to go into the future with this murderous woman and sire her
children. The whole mess ends quickly when the time machine goes ker-flooey and
Victor and his new found love go up in a smoky grease fire. I guess they
tampered in God's domain er sumphin'.
The leering caretaker Angelo rounds out the cast.
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Prologue:
Having recently acquired a parka, and taking his cue from winter garment
catalogues, Tom Servo combs the Satellite looking for things to
"comfort-rate:" a basketball, bologna, you get the picture. Turns out
he's not very good at it, and he cries.
Segment One:
The Observers are fed up with Pearl and Bobo, and decide to dissect them.
But first, in true Star Trek fashion, they force the two to do
battle, apparently to the death. Pearl is armed with a deadly
double-bladed karanku, and Bobo with a sea snail.
Segment Two:
The Observers send the Satellite samples of their highly evolved
food, which comes in the form of pills. Of course, you don't eat one, you have
to eat bowl-full after heaping bowl-full, so really what is the point, I mean if
you're going to have pills and all, it's kinda stupid to... you know... have
to... eat... lots. Anyway, Mike manages to make a gourmet delight by crushing
them and making them into patties, in another hilariously food-based comedy gem,
from us to you.
Segment Three:
Crow volunteers to hop in Mike's freshly built time machine
and go back to tell Mike's family that he's all right. Crow does go back in
time, and spends eleven wonderful years with Mike's family before he returns, but
he had such a darn good time that he plum forgot to tell them about Mike. And he
hits on Mike's old girlfriend, Ginger, whom Crow calls "Ginger Sa-NAP!"
Segment Four:
The Observers, intent on demonstrating their musical prowess,
favor us with an old chestnut called "When I Held Your Brain In My Arms." It's a
delightful little ditty, although when they sing, the Observers sound a helluva
lot like Servo covering the Ink Spots.
Segment Five:
To teach the rascally libidinous Crow a lesson, Mike sets his
time machine to summon the radioactive and deadly Terror from the Year 5000! To
be Crow's blind date, and everyone has a good laugh and learns an important
lesson.
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I really like the Observers a lot. How often do you get to write
for Characters who talk like Jeremy Irons, sing like the Ink Spots and carry
their brains, unguarded and vulnerable, in bowls? One of my heroes, Arthur C.
Clarke, has often contended that a culture of sufficiently advanced technology
would seem to us indistinguishable from magic. If this is true, then perhaps
Galileo, upon seeing our modern age, would think of us all as wizards. The only
thing Mr. Clarke doesn't take into account is how incredibly stupid any creature
might be, no matter how advanced. We try in our own humble way to offer this
alternate perspective. I hope some day that Mr. Clarke might watch our little
puppet show, have a good laugh and perhaps, quoting Puck, cry "Shall we
their fond pageant see? / Lord what fools these mortals be!"
Hell, who am I kidding?
- Kevin Murphy
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