Where you eat square hamburgers with chopsticks
Film watched: The Castle of Fu Manchu
This was the only Fu Manchu movie that Joel and the Bots watched and is arguably one of the worst films they ever had to endure.
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
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The Segments:
Prologue- Joel leads the 'Bots in a happy and confident marching song aboard the Satellite of Love, but they have no idea what they are about to endure in this experiment.
Segment 1/Invention Exchange
- Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank are especially happy today. They've gotten their mitts on The Castle of Fu Manchu, a movie so horrible that even the videocase itself is a biohazard. For the Invention Exchange, Dr. Forrester shows off the Stinky Bomb, which turns Frank into the spitting image of Joe Besser. Crow and Servo present a new Long-Distance Telephone Transducer while Joel, having forgotten to invent something, brings out the Big Head, also having forgotten that he already used that one.
Segment 2
- Crow reads an editorial about the dangers of "Miss Saigon Syndrome" while trying not to break down crying from the agony of the movie. By the time he's done, Crow is a sobbing wreck. The Mads are smug in their success.
Segment 3
- The crew are putting on a sketch about Shriners on magic carpets in an effort to try and find some humor from the fezzes that a few characters are wearing in the movie. Servo points out that the whole sketch is stupid and breaks down in tears. The Mads order out for a victory dinner.
Segment 4
- Joel tries to tell the 'Bots an illustrated story about who Fu Manchu really was, but the horrible movie weighs so heavily on him that even he can't take it anymore. The Mads share some pie as they anticipate Joel's final defeat.
Segment 5
- The movie is finally over, but the crew can't even read a letter due to how miserable they are. As Dr. Forrester and Frank share a toast and anticipate Joel's formal surrender, he suddenly comes out and challenges THEM to watch the movie. The Mads can't even get through a minute before they snap from the agony, prompting the SOL crew to get the last laugh.
The MST3K presentation of the atrocious The Castle of Fu Manchu provides examples of:
- And I'm the Queen of Sheba: Invoked near the end, when Smith tries to summon help:Nayland Smith: "This is Nayland Smith speaking from Fu Manchu's headquarters..."
Servo: (as the radio operator) "Yeah right, and I'm Mickey Mouse broadcasting from Disneyland." - Big "WHY?!": Crow's editorial on the portrayal of Asian characters by white actors is derailed by a rant that Regis Philbin shouldn't had taken a walk off Joey Bishop's talk show.Crow: How could he do that?! WHY, WHY, WHY?!?
- Cannot Tell a Joke: Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank attempt to riff on The Castle of Fu Manchu themselves (specifically the scene where Dr. Cox arrives at Dr. Kessler's building), but they're terrible at it, making trite observations ("Here comes a car you could say something about."), Captain Obvious statements ("Get a load of this lady, she's... gonna get out of that car."), and lame injections of catch phrases ("Uh... uh, bite me!").
- Comically Missing the Point: Just after the Mads humiliate themselves trying to riff a scene of the movie:TV's Frank: You know, we could have made funny comments, but the movie wasn't that good!
- Ending Fatigue: Invoked. Riffs for the final eighth of the film just fall apart.Crow: Meanwhile in—Oh who cares?
- Heroic BSoD/Not So Stoic: Joel and the Bots rarely ever lose it over movies, and this one has them losing it by the first break from the movie.
- Not only that, every host segment falls apart due to the horribleness of this movie. Compare Manos, where they got through two host segments without breaking up.
- Surprisingly, the first one to break is the usually snarky and easy-going Crow, who was delivering great joke after great joke throughout the first 20 minutes of the movie, and furthermore seems to be the least likely of the bots to lose it over anything. And yet, despite his valiant efforts, he collapses into hysterical tears while reading aloud his editorial on the Miss Saigon Syndrome.
- It says something when Joel is nearly broken by the movie. This is the same man who didn't falter through Manos or Monster-A-Go-Go and helped Crow and Servo hold together through both films, but even he ends up nearly getting reduced to tears by the end.
- Joel has a brief BSOD moment when he realizes he's forgotten the Invention Exchange for the week, and all he can come up with is the Big Head, which he did already. Fortunately, Tom and Crow had their own invention handy.
- Hollywood Darkness: Spectacularly averted.Servo: (grumbling) I can't watch this. I mean, I can't see this!
- Let's See YOU Do Better!: Joel's challenge to the Mads after the movie. They fail miserably.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Joel and the Bots are so sick of the film that by the end they've actually started snapping at each other.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: On the really bad British dub.Joel: Why are they dubbing the British?
Servo: I don't know, this is terrible! - Pun: Quite a few about barges and fez hats.
- During a horribly underlit scene in Fu Manchu's dungeon:Servo: What is this? Kirlian photography?
Crow: Yeah, Moe, Larry, and Curly-an photography.
- During a horribly underlit scene in Fu Manchu's dungeon:
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: At the end of the movie, as Forrester and Frank are celebrating and awaiting the official surrender from the Satellite of Love, Joel comes back with this rant."You haven't won, Dr. Forrester; you've lost. And I feel sorry for you. You're nothing but a sad little man in a hole in the ground who can only feel power by hurting others. Well, we won because, we survived, and we survived because, well, we're Robinsons, roughly. That's what Robinsons do is survive, basically, and well, you know what, if you think it's so easy, well, YOU should give it a try once! Yeah, YOU should try to watch a movie sometime!"
- This leads the Mads to try and watch the film. They don't do so well.
- Running Gag: Due to one of the characters looking like an Asian Marlo Thomas, Joel and the bots repeatedly say, "That Girl!"
- Saying certain backdrops are Midwestern towns.
- Saying Dr. Heracles looks like Burt Young.
- Shallow Parody: Servo's in-universe criticism on the attempted Shriner sketch."I can't do it, guys. I just can't do it. I can't go through another sketch loosely based on some vague reference of the movie. There were only a few guys with fezzes in this movie and suddenly, we're the Sahara Shriners riding flying carpets on Maxwell Street Days!"
- Start of Darkness: Parodied as Joel attempts to tell a deliberately light-hearted origin story for Fu Manchu, trying to paint him as a hopeful young man trying to make it big on Broadway. He makes it to Fu Manchu getting a role in a short-lived off-Broadway musical before he gives up on the idea.
- Stylistic Suck: The Mads' attempt at riffing is pathetic.
- Take That!: Joel and the bots challenge Forrester and Frank try to riff the film. They fail miserably. This was in response to critics who claimed that anyone could riff the movies like Best Brains did.
- And they have a go at William Shatner for directing Star Trek V: The Final Frontier as well.
- With Lyrics: Tom Servo does this with the opening credits theme of the movie.Servo:My Lord, I'm bored with these credits already...
- And then, when the producer's name comes up
Servo: Harry Allen Towers ... Harry Allen Towers ... Harry Allen TOWERRRRSS!!1 - The Woobie: Both of the bots in the host segments.
- Molybdenum-and-Kevlar Woobie: And yet, despite the fact that the movie breaks them, they just keep going!
- Yellowface: Discussed in Crow's editorial "The Miss Saigon Syndrome".
