MST3K | MST3000: Experiment 822

#822: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank


	Raul Julia stars as Aram Fingal (yeah, right), a brilliant but bored data-input-something-or- other for the huge Novicorp Corporation, which acts really benign, but - gosh, wouldn't you know it - we find out that they're really kinda evil. After being busted for watching movies on the job (movies being cleverly renamed "cinemas," in a genius stroke of faux-Orwell), Fingal's essence gets lost in the corporation's huge mainframe during a mandatory "dopple," wherein his mind, or something, is put in to an aging baboon, for reasons known only to the screenwriter. Some creepy little sex-crazed kid switches Fingal's toe-tags in the operating room, and his essence goes running around the computer changing everything into some watered-down version of the movie Casablanca. And, oh yeah, when he does that...it's really "funny."


	Prologue: Crow decides he has a famous catch phrase: "You know you want me, baby!" He's already got LOTS of T-shirts printed up. Segment One: Following instructions from Pearl, The 'Bots try to come up with catch phrases for Mike. He keeps choosing the dullest ones. Meanwhile, Pearl has decided she has her own public television station, and can make lots of cold hard cash holding a pledge drive. Segment Two: Crow and Servo order a pet monkey for the SOL from Instant Monkeys Online. The monkey takes an instant dislike to Mike, and keeps throwing things at him. Funny, huh?! Segment Three: Mike is still having his dominance challenged by the monkey. Down at the pledge drive, Pearl is calling attention to some of the other fine programming on her public TV station, notably a stunning special starring well, herself. She shows an excerpt: she and Brain Guy performing a lyrically deficient love duet. Segment Four: Inspired by the movie, Servo decides to dopple himself down to Nannite world and mess with them. But he winds up in a tough Nanite neighborhood, and gets his dopple-butt syntho-kicked. Segment Five: The 'Bots have enlisted Bobo to come up to the SOL and talk the monkey down. But Bobo goes over to the other side, and in a show of simian solidarity, begins chucking HUGE things on the bridge. Meanwhile, Pearl is winding up her pledge drive, counting her greenbacks. She makes sure to tip her phone bank - which consists of Ortega, and only Ortega. Stinger: Raul Julia: "Mom my nuts." (That's sure what it sounds like.)


	The real problem here - rare indeed for our show - is that the lead character is played by an actor who is actually a very good and highly respected actor: Raul Julia. And the recently deceased Raul Julia, at that. So we spent much of the movie feeling a bit worried that we might be besmirching the late Mr. Julia's reputation. But in the end, we went light on Raul and hard on this extraordinarily dumb movie whose relentless "funny" techno-futuro-jargon was the screenwriting equivalent of water torture. And we felt buoyed by the happy knowledge that Raul's legacy outlived this early career train wreck of a movie (which was shot on horrible cheap-TV-looking video, no less! Not easy on the eyes). The Public Pearl TV sketches were inspired by the weird and disturbing fact that this movie was partially bankrolled by a New York PBS affiliate, WNET. It's in the credits! Look! They can't deny it! Think about that next time your local public television station fires up Riverdance again and tries to guilt-trip you into cutting them a big check! *- Bill Corbett*