Pak and Tyrant's quest to watch them all!

[Edward J Grug III]

Oh nice, good luck guys!

I'd like to do this myself!

[Tyrant]

MST3K Episode K05: Gamera (Tyrant's Take)



My take:

   Once again, we get to watch as Gamera kicks butt and takes names. We also get to witness the inexplicable trend in Japanese monster movies of young children obtaining access to top secret government military installations and science experiments merely by meeting the star monster at some point in the movie. Does anyone care about child endangerment laws at all in these movies? Half the time the parents (or adoptive parents as is the case in this particular film) themselves are even present to watch their kid in continual danger. I don't know about anyone else's Mom, but mine would have been rushing me to the nearest bomb shelter or across the Canadian border if a giant turtle was stomping all over the US of A. There's also the trend of everyone in the movie somehow knowing the kid in question, just for his/her having, again, contact with the monster. I guess, logically, that's how they can just waltz onto military bases with no security clearance. I can see it now....

Guard #1: Who goes there?

Token Japanese Monster Movie Main Character Child (TJMMMCC for short): Oh hi! It's me, Kevin! I've been saved on ten different occasions by ten different giant monsters!

Guard #2: Oh that's right.

TJMMMCC: Just thought I'd pop by to see how the top secret government plan to blow up Mothra's egg sack is going. Speaking of, how's the wife? She have that baby yet?

Guard #1: Oh she's great. Any day now. Yeah, you get in there, scamp. They'll be starting any time now. Oh, and here. Here's some rubber gloves, They should protect you from the ungodly amounts of radiation near that nuclear reactor over there.

  The picture resolution for the movie itself is not bad, considering it's black and white which minimizes the multiple recording distortion. The sound also seemed slightly better than K04's, and we could hear every line Joel had fairly clearly. Speaking of, he's a funny man on his own. There was about as much dead space in terms of riffing as in Gamera Vs Barugon, but when you consider that Joel didn't have the bots with him on this ep, it means he was doing 3xs the riffing to compensate. There's an amusing bit involving Crow being frozen and turned into a Christmas tree, which reminded me that I've actually got this very episode somewhere on VHS (but in way worse condition) that I got from a friend in college. The distortion was so bad on mine that I only ever watched it once, so this recording by comparison is far better despite the occasional tracking issues the original tape was evidently having.

Favorite line: "Ah, the ocean. Where all life began....." (this is a running gag throughout the ep).

Rating: 4.5 out 10  (for best stilted Japanese to English translation EVER)

[Tyrant]

Wow, I've never seen any of the KTMA episodes, but you guys almost make it tempting.

http://www.robertpreed.com/Entertainment_Links.html

Let me know if you want an introduction, a reason behind the episode guide, a picture, whatever added.   

The goofy GoDaddy.com site is ungodly slow tonight, so the cleaning up on the page may have to wait!

Now you are officially on the hook for seasons K-10!

  Thanks again. Yeah, if you think it will make more sense, Pak and I can hammer out an intro and what not to add to our little project. I think it'll be more fantastical that way. 

[Bob]

Wow, I've never seen any of the KTMA episodes, but you guys almost make it tempting.

http://www.robertpreed.com/Entertainment_Links.html

Let me know if you want an introduction, a reason behind the episode guide, a picture, whatever added.   

The goofy GoDaddy.com site is ungodly slow tonight, so the cleaning up on the page may have to wait!

Now you are officially on the hook for seasons K-10!

  Thanks again. Yeah, if you think it will make more sense, Pak and I can hammer out an intro and what not to add to our little project. I think it'll be more fantastical that way. 

Goshers, the more fantastical, the better.   After all, we are doing this FOR THE FUTURE, FOR OUR CHILDREN.

I used the MST3K globe as the hotlink to the review section.   If you would want another spiffy icon (but um, no glamour shots wedding photos) instead, let me know.

Thanks.

[PlayMSTie]

Pak and Tyrant, can I come live with you? Pretty please? I'll be really really good!

[SmilinJackRoss]

Good idea for a thread guys.  I've been toying with this idea, but I don't have all the episodes yet...and even when I do get them, it's apretty big commitment, so I'm reluctant to do it.  But I might follow along and watch some of the episodes you're doing, once you get past the KTMA stuff.

[Pak-Man]

You know, I'm getting to like the KTMA stuff. I'd watched a few KTMA episodes a few years back and couldn't bring myself to enjoy them, But now I'm watching them differently. (Maybe Rifftrax has given me a new outlook.) The quality makes it tough to watch, but once you get used to it, they're kind of fun. Not as many guffaws as in the later MST3Ks, but it's kind of fun to appreciate the movie for its own cheesy sake, with only the occasional interjection. I don't know if it'll hold up once we get past Gamera-country (3 more Gameras to go!) but for now it's fun to watch cheesy japanese monster flicks with some jokes mixed in. :^)

We should be getting to K06 tonight. :^)

[Tyrant]

Pak and Tyrant, can I come live with you? Pretty please? I'll be really really good!

  Sure, but you'll have to be in charge of feeding my turtles. We all pull our own weight 'round here.    Speaking of, I keep wondering why I didn't name one of them Gamera.

  PSLOwner, we'll be writing up an intro pretty soon. We'll be PMing it to you if you still want to post it on your site.

[RVR II]

Love the pic of the baby sea turtles there Tyrant (Loggerheads right?)..
Next time I go back to Xcaret in Cancun, all those sea turtles they have in their 'breeding area' I'll never look at the same now..

'Gamera is Friends to All children' 

[PlayMSTie]

Pak and Tyrant, can I come live with you? Pretty please? I'll be really really good!

  Sure, but you'll have to be in charge of feeding my turtles. We all pull our own weight 'round here.    Speaking of, I keep wondering why I didn't name one of them Gamera.

Tyrant, you're the best!  Look for me and a bag of turtle food on your doorstep shortly!

[Bob]

Pak and Tyrant, can I come live with you? Pretty please? I'll be really really good!

  Sure, but you'll have to be in charge of feeding my turtles. We all pull our own weight 'round here.    Speaking of, I keep wondering why I didn't name one of them Gamera.

  PSLOwner, we'll be writing up an intro pretty soon. We'll be PMing it to you if you still want to post it on your site.

Yup, I am posting there as soon as they arrive, hot off the press.

Gamera, he is made of turtle meat, he is really neat.

Heck, you have me interested in getting the KTMA episodes now.

[Tyrant]

Heck, you have me interested in getting the KTMA episodes now.

  I think it's worth it, and encourage everyone here who loves MST3K to join us on our journey through history, here. It's lots of work so far (mostly by way of waiting for downloads and for someone to show up with the file requested), but it's fun . 

Special thanks to JoshWay for making covers and dvd labels, by the way. He's making the project go a lot smoother in terms of our personal collection.

[Tyrant]

MST3K Episode K06: Gamera Vs Gaos (Tyrant's Take)



The Movie:

  From the depths of a cavern near a small village rises....GAOS!! A laser beam shooting, fire-extinguishing, nocturnal flying monster who really, really hates getting a tan. Our (anti) hero Gamera returns to fight off the beast, make friends with a small boy, and overall protect the planet (usually by doing as much damage as the monster he's fighting). Also, the grandfatherly leader of the small village feels threatened by the building of a road nearby.

The Episode:

  This episode is full of firsts, and seems to be the Homo-erectus before the Homo-sapien of the Comedy Central material as it sets up what is more typical of a MST3K episode. The main thing is that there is far less dead space in terms of the riffing, even if it does still sound somewhat improvised. The biggest change is Tom's voice. Joel decides it's time for Tom to go through "puberty" and, in the first so far example of a true host segment bit (ie: does not involve viewer messages, is longer than most segments to date and was obviously rehearsed), he adjusts the robot's voice from the weird Kermit The Frog warble to the voice we all know and love (at least until Kevin Murphy takes over, wherein we all know and love again).

   This also seems to be the first time Tom refers to himself as "Tom Servo", going only by Servo for the first couple of episodes (and even in the robot roll-call). With a grownup, radio-announcer like voice to go with a grownup name, Tom joins Joel in the theater to riff on the movie (Crow is still frozen, but starting to thaw). The Mads also show up for the first time in the actual content of the ep, but in a still shot only (thanks to JoshWay for making a note of this on his DVD cover).

My favorite riff:

 Some bad editing in the movie makes it look like the grandfather/leader of the village moos like a cow. Moments later there's a callback to the scene when an unseen cow moos again...

"Grampa, shut up!"

  Were they doing stingers at this point, this scene would be a definite contender.

Overall:

   This is an important episode for multiple reasons, and I would recommend that any MST3K fan wanting to skip over most of the earliest material should at least include this part in their viewing. The movie itself isn't bad either and is actually one of the best Gamera movies I've ever seen. The riffing occurs much more frequently so you're less likely to get pummeled with dead space and the overall feel of this episode is much more on par with what one expects of a typical early Comedy Central-era MST3K episode.

Rating: 6 out of 10 (we're not cooking yet, but we're starting to simmer)

[Janitor]

(usually by doing as much damage as the monster he's fighting)

U S A!!! U S A!!!
U S A!!! U S A!!!
U S A!!! U S A!!!
U S A!!! U S A!!!

[RVR II]

(usually by doing as much damage as the monster he's fighting)

U S A!!! U S A!!!
U S A!!! U S A!!!
U S A!!! U S A!!!
U S A!!! U S A!!!

What's up with the 'Hacksaw Jim Duggan' chant??