Mike and robot friends Crow and Tom Servo are forced by evil mad scientist Doctor Forrester to sit and watch the 1955 stink bomb This Island Earth. They make the best of it, assaulting the film with every fiber of their beings in this, their grab at the big-screen brass ring. I make the most of it as well, delivering calm, cool analysis all along the way, such as comparing this film to Citizen Kane and explaining why I’m not commentating on Mystery Science Theater 2000 or Mystery Science Theater 1000. I also provide a limitless stream of cold, hard facts, including, but not limited to:
- How the film is based on real experiments conducted in the American South in the 1940s
- How gross budget overruns were caused by building and launching into space an actual satellite for the filming
- Crow T Robot’s origin as an assassin android during World War 1
- What makes Mike rush to the theater when he gets movie sign
- Why all controls in an airplane’s co-pilot seat are labeled backwards
- The history of interoceter broadcasting, such as the original Howdy Doody, before he died and was replaced by a puppet
- How the term “booby hatch” was derived from the Italian swannery “Bubaria Haccieria”
- How Flipper was only one of several “fish story” TV shows, including fish private eyes and fish lawyers
- Famous people who have suffered from pantophiliamania (the compulsion to horde underpants)
- Why many Bostonians consider depictions of the circulatory system to be pornographic
- Why scientist Niels Bohr was trapped by glue for his wedding ceremony
- Which homicidal movie stuntman was the subject of the bio-pic Halloween
Join me.
Wait for my countdown to start the film with the Universal title logo. (37 MB)
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This island Earth is not a bad film……. Forits time the special effects were very good. The story is fun to watch. The professor
…(Gilligans islaned) in cast. They could have picked many more worse movies than this one……