"These people will be exploring issues that are teens' issues." note
Film watched: The Brain That Wouldn't Die
This episode is notable for being Mike Nelson's first turn as host. The movie itself also happened to be what clip was seen in the intro during the latter half of season 5 and all of season 6; specifically, Jan in the Pan smiling.
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
, and on the MST3k YouTube channel here.
The Segments:
Prologue- As the Satellite of Love's new meat, Mike is trained in the art of riffing by the 'Bots. He calls Crow "Tom" and Gypsy calls him "Mr. Nielson" as he tries to get settled in.
Segment 1
- Mike shows off his first invention, an umbrella with a gutter system he calls the Gutter-Bumbershoot, but Dr. Forrester isn't impressed. He shows off his Dreambuster, a device that produces sounds specifically calibrated to pop the balloons of small children. In spite of his training, Mike is still clueless about Movie Sign and carrying Servo into the theater, but he learns.
Segment 2
- In a hard-hat area of the bridge, Mike and the 'Bots are trying to escape by gaining control of the SOL. Mike finds numerous sandwiches, Servo's extra heads, and copies of The Picardian before accidentally cutting into the "cheese compressor line" and getting sprayed with foam. Crow and Servo reveal that Mike wasn't going to escape in this way, because they were scared about being left alone again after Joel left, but Mike promises that he's not going to ditch them.
Segment 3
- For his first arts and crafts project, Mike leads the 'Bots into presenting their ideas of headwear for "Jan in the Pan". Among them are a bowling bag, a crown, a Chianti hat, a crown roast, Newton's balls, and a lazy Susan.
Segment 4
- After thinking over the film's messages about trust, Crow and Servo encourage Mike to tell them an embarrassing secret from his youth, claiming that he can trust them. Mike then proceeds to tell them about a time when he suffered from Potty Failure while on a walk-a-thon when he was a little kid, after which the Bots immediately make fun of him.
Segment 5
- Crow and Servo introduce Mike to the letter readings, but as they do so, Mike gets his first visitor in the form of "Jan in the Pan", who has a much better outlook on life and even enjoys jokes about her condition, to an extent. Dr. Forrester ends the experiment by trying to decapitate Frank with a chainsaw.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment of The Brain That Wouldn't Die provides examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming:
- Newcomer Mike is variously addressed as "Mr. Nielsen" (by Gypsy), "Mark" (Crow), "Mitch" (Dr. Forrester), and "Marv" (Forrester again). When Mike corrects Crow, Crow dismisses him with a sarcastic, "Whatever."
- Mike himself offends Crow by calling him "Tom" at one point.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Servo is impressed Mike gives the first riff, and it's pretty good.Servo: Right out of the gate!
- Adults Dressed as Children: Frank dresses as a Buster Brown-suited schoolboy, complete with all-day sucker, to help demonstrate Dr. Forrester's "Dreambuster".
- Applied Phlebotinum: Discussed.Crow: Doesn't she need lungs (to speak)?Servo: No, she's got neck juice!
- Berserk Button: Mike, in order to distinguish himself as a rebel, waits at least 10-15 seconds before answering Dr. Forrester's call. As it turns out, Dr. Forrester does not like to be left waiting...Dr. Forrester: Ah, Mr. Nelson. Mr. "El Relax-o". That's nice. Maybe I should make you do your INVENTION EXCHANGE FIRST! FIRST, YOU HEAR ME?! FIRST!
- Black Comedy: When Dr. Cortner approaches the crash and Jan’s hand slips from view, Mike cries out “Honey Roasted!”, it takes a moment, but Tom cackles and Crow groans.
- Bound and Gagged: The new opening suddenly cuts to Mike tied up and pleading to be untied. The camera pans to Gypsy, Crow, and Tom who are all shaking their heads.
- Brick Joke: Two episodes ago Frank had a gigantic lollipop, and when Dr. Forrester tried to psychically make his head explode, Frank hit Forrester over the head with the lollipop, shattering it. In this episode, Frank has an identical lollipop, and this time Forrester snatches it and breaks it over Frank's head.
- Brown Note: Dr. Forrester's "Dreambuster" produces a high-pitched noise designed specifically to pop party balloons from a distance, thereby tormenting the children holding them.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: During the opening scene in the operating room.Mike: Just a normal Tuesday for Cher.
- Call-Back: When Kurt walks armless:Servo: ...MITCHELL!!
- Call-Forward:
- One of the films used in Mike's training gets riffed properly in season 6: The Beast of Yucca Flats.
- Servo's line of "Not with radar!" is a nod to Radar Secret Service, a later season 5 episode.
- Church of Happyology: During one of the host segments, Mike claims to have "achieved a state of Clear."
- Continuity Nod:
- While trying to escape, Mike finds several of Tom's old heads.
- When reassuring the Bots that he won't leave without them, he notes that there are no more boxes marked "Hamdingers" on the ship, alluding to Joel's escape in the prior episode.
- Establishing Character Moment: Mike waiting to answer when Dr. Forrester calls, demonstrating he will resist at every opportunity. It only takes him until the second segment for him to desperately try to escape by taking control of the satellite, unlike Joel's acceptance of his situation. Not only that, but he does so not so that he can escape, but so that he and the Bots can escape.
- Fan Disservice: When the brunette stripper starts to change her clothes, Mike and the Bots beg her to stop, and then scream when she turns around in just her underwear.
- Geek: Crow once again shows he's One of Us, as the cast and crew all are: he collects the TNG newsletter The Picardian. "Those are going to be valuable someday!"
- Hand Wave: Crow reveals why Servo can't enter the theater himself and must be carried in—there's an air grate that fouls Servo's hoverskirt. Mike apologizes to a grumbling Servo for leaving him outside.
- Here We Go Again!: When Dr. Forrester decides he wants to make his own disembodied head in a pan, TV's Frank shrugs and says "Oh well, here we go again!" as Forrester revs up a chainsaw.
- Hey, That's My Line!: Leading into the first commercial break:Servo: And we'll be right back.
Mike: Isn't that my line?
Servo: Don't push it. - His Name Is...: Parodied during Kurt's death scene.Mike (as Kurt): The money's in the...-
- Hurricane of Puns: Kurt gets an arm yanked off (his good arm, no less), and the "arm" jokes fly thick and furious.Mike: I guess you'd call that A Farewell to Arms.
Crow!Kurt: I'll bet you've got your one-armed jokes all ready, don't you, Jan?!
Mike: And, ironically, he collapses into an armchair. - Hypocritical Humor: While demonstrating his "Dreambuster" during the invention exchange, Dr. Forrester begins to describe its technological properties before stopping himself saying, "Well, it would take a scientist to explain. Just watch."
- I Ate WHAT?!: While we never find out what was being sprayed from the "cheese compressor line", Mike and the Bots are disgusted when Gypsy chimes in:Gypsy: Guys! Guys! That's not chee-eese!
Mike: [later, back in the theater] ...Well, if it's not cheese, what is it?
Tom: It tasted like cheese.
Crow: Smelled like it, too... - I Have My Ways: They have a field day with this one.Dr. Cortner: I've got to find (Jan) a body.
Kurt: How are you going to go about getting one? [Cortner turns and walks off, Kurt seizes his arm] Bill, how will you do it!?
Cortner: There are ways.
Servo: [Evil Laugh, with a side of Large Ham]
Cortner: [after shaking off Kurt's hand] There are ways.
Mike: Lots of... ways, many... ways... Did I mention there are ways?
[as Cortner is leaving the lab, he turns around and looks back briefly]
Crow: Ways. - Inappropriate Hunger: Servo makes a joke about this while the father-and-son doctor duo are digging around in a patient's torso, complete with gross squelching noises:Servo: [as Cortner's father] This reminds me, son — are you making stroganoff for dinner tonight?
- Inherently Funny Words: “Gutter bumbershoot! Gutter bumbershoot!”
- Late to the Realization:
- Late in the movie, after Bill convinces Doris to come to his house (where he plans to kill her so Jan can have a new body), Mike riffs, "You know, I don't like this guy anymore. That's it," and when he serves up the drugged cocktail, Crow says, "You know, this guy's kinda evil?"
- On a meta-level, after the experiment is over, Mike realizes that being trapped in space with two robots "kinda bites". The Bots quickly affirm this is the correct attitude.
- Mid-Season Upgrade: In addition to introducing Mike as host and a reworked opening theme, this episode debuted the newer, more visually impressive door sequence that would be used for the rest of the show's original run.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Mike's first invention exchange: the Gutter Bumbershoot. It's an umbrella with gutters. The Bots are actually impressed with it while Forrester is cheesed off at how excited they are.
- Plug 'n' Play Friends: Subverted. Crow and Tom convince Mike to open up to them by sharing a particularly embarrassing Potty Failure episode from his childhood... and then they mock him mercilessly for it.
- Also played straight-ish earlier, when Tom and Crow break down crying while watching Mike try (and fail miserably) to get control of the Satellite of Love, because they're afraid that Mike might leave them, too. Mike promises that he's looking for a way for all of them to escape.
- Rearrange the Song: The theme song, now sung by Mike instead of Joel. The lyrics change to reflect the fact that Mike is a temp they hired and "a regular joe they didn't like", rather than "just another face in a red jumpsuit" working for Gizmonic Institute. (Joel retained the rights to everything Gizmonic, so they wrote it out, with the Mads now just working "way down in Deep 13".) Other changes include:
- "So they conked him on the noggin and they shot him into space..."Mike: Get... me... dooowwwn!
- "Now keep in mind Mike can't control when the movies begin or end / so he'll try to keep his sanity with the help of his robot friends."
- "So they conked him on the noggin and they shot him into space..."
- Recursive Adaptation: Invoked by Mike, when he has Dr. Cortner say, "Ha ha ha, have you seen Frankenhooker?" to Diana. Frankenhooker was inspired by this film.
- Running Gag:
- Jan's "neck juice" and the "Jan in the Pan".
- Freaking out whenever Dr. Cortner's suddenly in a close-up shot filmed against a blank background that doesn't match the previous scene:Tom: [as Dr. Cortner] Help me, I'm in another dimension, aaaAAAA—! ...Hey, at least there's some cocktails in this dimension. Thank you!
- Sanity Slippage: Dr. Forrester noticeably becomes more insane from this episode onwards.
- Schmuck Bait: Mike realizes too late that the Bots begging for him to tell them an embarrassing story from his past as a "bonding exercise" was an obvious ruse.
- Selective Enforcement: When "Jan in the Pan" chats with Mike and the Bots over the Hexfield Viewscreen, she cracks a bunch of jokes about her condition as a disembodied head, to show that she's gotten over her earlier angst. Crow and Tom Servo chime in with their own jokes, and she laughs along. Then Mike makes a joke ("So, when you were in that fire... did you make your own gravy?"), and Jan immediately gets offended and cuts the call short.
- Sexophone: Prompts several comments from Mike and the 'Bots.Servo: [as Radio DJ] Mornin'! It's a sleazy morning out there. You're listening to K-PORN, Holmes and Reems in the morning... sleazy, slutty music all morning long. Here's one from Skinny and the Sweat Beads.
- Shout-Out:
- Dr. Forrester's Dreambuster plays the Flint ringtone.
- Kurt's deformed hand inspires Mike to call him Johnny Tremain.
- During one of the scenes in which "The Web'' plays while Cortner is trolling for women they crack a remark about Johnny Hodges.note
- Servo, as the doctor and Jan veer wildly over the twisting highway: "What's this? Our fanatical physician and his fickle fiancee, speeding to their country cottage?!" He's imitating producer Bill Dozier's excitable narration from Batman (1966).
- "Mrs. Webb, you're doing very well, now, uh — you're over the center line, Mrs. Webb!" A bit from Bob Newhart's standup act where he would do one side of a conversation by himself, in this case as a nervous driving instructor.
- The Picardian was a real Star Trek: The Next Generation fan newsletter during The '90s.
- Crow quotes Eric Idle: "So, you a goer? Nudge nudge, know what I mean?"
- Mike as Bill: "Ha ha ha. Have you seen Frankenhooker?"
- When Bill walks into the lab and sees Kurt slumped against the door: "Lucy, I'm ho-- LUCY, OH MY GAAWW-AAUUUGGHH!"
- The crew notes a Celebrity Resemblance with the photographer who makes a pass at Doris after her modeling session.
- Dr. Forrester's Dreambuster plays the Flint ringtone
- Sick and Wrong: When Bill starts amorously feeling a dance hall girl's neck to see if it's the right size, the crew groan in disgust until Mike blurts angrily, "This is sick!"
- Special Effects Failure:
- Upon Mike seeing the monster turn around whilst carrying Doris:Mike: Look at that. The mask is just tied in the back!
Servo: Eh, it's nothing we haven't seen before, Mike. - At the start of the film, Servo mocks the bad brain surgery prop.Servo: (amused) He's got a canvas skull! A heavy rain'd kill him!
- Upon Mike seeing the monster turn around whilst carrying Doris:
- Sudden Downer Ending: During a close-up of a bloody, dying Kurt slumped against the wall.Servo: The Ropers: The Final Episode.
- Take That!:
- "Luke, join me, or you'll star in Corvette Summer."
- When Kurt is trying to decide:Servo: Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.
- Bill goes to a beauty pageant, and Crow is quite unimpressed by the third model.Crow: Obviously someone's sister!
- Goes without saying, but Mike does not think highly of his first experiment.Crow: Why do you wanna leave so bad? You just got here!
Mike: You guys are watching the same movie I am, right?
- This Is Gonna Suck: After the experiment, Mike states that being forced to watch bad movies with two wisecracking robots while trapped in space by mad scientists "kinda bites". Crow approves: "You're startin' to catch on, kemo sabe!"
- Title Confusion: Crow lampshades the conflicting title cards at the beginning and end of the film.Titles: The Head That Wouldn't Die: THE END
Crow: Don't you mean the brain that wouldn't die, the end? - Title Drop: Jokingly done by Tom in the movie's first scene. ("Look at this brain. See, it won't die!") At the very end, Crow sees the title "The Head That Wouldn't Die" in the end credits, and corrects, "You mean, The Brain That Wouldn't Die."
- Too Dumb to Live: Invoked near the film's end, Servo and Mike note that Dr. Cortner opening the monster's closet would have been the biggest mistake he could possibly make.Tom: Now this could be the single stupidest thing this clown's ever done in his life, and he's done some pretty stupid things.
Mike: [as Bill] Well, there seems to be no need to move away from this door. I can see no reason at all in the world why I shouldn't just stand right here in front of UHLPFF! - Training from Hell: Tom and Crow apparently put New Meat Mike through a crash movie-riffing course in the period between Mitchell and the start of this episode, involving watching The Beast of Yucca Flats and Night of the Lepus.
- Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: One host segment sees Mike and the Bots discuss how the film is shockingly cynical and has a lead character who gives a disfigured woman hope just to set her up to be murdered.
- Wangst: Another running gag has Mike and the Bots' complaints towards Jan in the Pan's whining. They even cheered when Dr. Cortner tapes her mouth shut.Tom: [as the closet monster] Oh, like you're the only person here who's ever had their head cut off. Quit whining!
- Waxing Lyrical: When Jan in the Pan demonstrates her telepathic link with the Closet Monster, Tom riffs "Why, you're a freak, a super-freak! You're super-freaky!"
- Wire Dilemma: Part of Mike's first escape attempt by gaining control of the inertia system:Servo: You have to cut the big red cable!
Mike: Which one? There's about twenty.
Servo: Uh... the green one.
“I told you… you should have let me die. Hee hee hee!”
—Jan "in the Pan" Compton
Brunette Stripper: Who's to tell me to blow if I don't want to?
