I saw the Undead at Unalpine Unvalley.
Film watched: The Undead
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
, and on the MST3k YouTube channel here.
The Segments:
Prologue- Mike tries to bring the audience back up to speed regarding his and the others' current situation. At the 'Bots' insistence, he keeps going back further and further, explaining everything that's happened to him in excruciatingly vivid detail. Mike then gets locked in a memory of one of his old temp jobs, and his growing bitterness makes the 'Bots nervous.
Segment 1
- The Observers give both the SOL crew and the Mads intelligence tests to determine whether they're dissected and mounted, or merely sliced up, as well as so they can see exactly how inferior they are compared to themselves. A frustrated Pearl claims the test is biased and refuses to participate, while Bobo, being less intelligent than a mollusk, proves his intellect by stacking boxes. Gypsy does moderately well, Crow sleeps through his test, and Mike is too busy reminiscing to finish. Servo, on the other hand, not only aces the test (missing only one question by a misplaced decimal point), but he manages to outscore one of the Observers, whose brain is sent to the Enrichment Chamber.
Segment 2
- Servo has been invited to the Observers' planet to join their ranks after acing the test, substituting an olive for his brain. He's not really that good at observing as he can't read Pearl's mind, didn't remember to fill out his non-existent reports, and is revealed to have been stealing the spoons from their silverware drawer, prompting the pissed Observers to chase him and beam him back on the SOL.
Segment 3
- Livia, the sultry witch from the movie, appears aboard the SOL to steal the crew's souls. Unfortunately for her, she can't control her shapeshifting, switching between a myriad of different forms before ultimately getting stuck as a bleach bottle.
Segment 4
- Mike recognizes Smolkin, the singing gravedigger from the film, from a cover album he bought, putting it on for the 'Bots to hear. They learn that Smolkin can sing in a wide range of genres, but he peppers his verses with random shouts of "filth", "rat", and "corpse", even his "straight" cover of "Greensleeves".
Segment 5
- While Crow pretends to be an imp, Servo learns that Leonard Maltin gave The Undead three stars in his Video Guide, so he has Mike dress as Maltin and read a highly unflattering script while Servo yells at him. On the Observers' planet, Bobo sneaks out of bed to make a midnight snack. He mistakes the Enrichment Chamber for a refrigerator and uses the earlier Observer's brain as the meat in his sandwich. After realizing that every slice and bite into the brain has resulted in a scream, Bobo rushes back to bed... but not before taking the mayonnaise jar with him.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of The Undead contains examples of:
- Batty Lip Burbling: During the lengthy and involved STAYYY!! climactic final choice, right in the middle of Diane-or-Helene's big speech:Diane/Helene: I must have help... [sobs] but it can come from none of thee. If I die while here, dozens more beyond that veil of death...
Servo: [as Diana/Helene] What I'm saying is *bbbilboblbldldy* - Be Careful What You Wish For: The opening segment has Servo and Crow pressuring Mike into remembering everything that happened to him up to the current plot, and they get really nervous when he regresses too far back to that mysterious temp job.
- Brain Bleach:Servo: You know, Smolkin's naked sometimes, Mike.
Mike: ...Oh, damn you, Servo. - But Wait, There's More!: When Satan appears in the graveyard, and people line up to sell their souls to him:Servo: If you pledge your soul, you'll get a Satan tote bag.
- Call-Forward: Sort of — Bobo sings the first few bars of "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano" over and over while making his midnight snack. The next episode, Terror from the Year 5000 has the Observers doing their best Ink Spots impression with "When I Held Your Brain in My Arms".
- Continuity Nod:
- Damned by Faint Praise: When the Observers are looking over the results of the IQ tests given to the castObserver: The one called "Gypsy" did rather well. 80th Percentile among robots of her kind, of which there is only one.
- Flashback Stares: The 'bots insist that Mike provides a COMPLETE recap of events up to and before his employment at Deep 13 — unfortunately, they send him back too far (complete with Kubrick Stare.)Mike: Never figured out why they fired me... hmm. Ah, yeah... I was late a lot, there was that... quite a bit, actually... showed up that one time from that kegger — I was all stinky, I hadn't showered... punched that guy from accounting that one time...
Tom: [nervous] Th-this isn't helping, Mike...
Mike: Someone really had it out for me, though... think I know who it was too... Oh, yeah...
Crow: M-Mike, honey... you're... you're scaring us... - Genius Bonus: Bobo stacking boxes to find a reward is a reference to Sultan the chimpanzee, one of the early success stories in measuring problem-solving and learning capacity in apes. Bobo: HEY! Where's the banana?
- Got Me Doing It: The constant mispronunciation of "Pendragon" eventually spread to Crow. His reaction was so natural it's hard to tell if he did that intentionally.Crow: If I were starting a pyramid scheme, I'd start with PENdra-gun. Dragon.
- He Really Can Act: In-Universe: Mike and the Bots are as surprised as anyone when Digger Smolken busts out with a (mostly) straight rendition of "Greensleeves."
- Ho Yay: Invoked by Mike when PENdra-gun is describing his encounter with Quintis:Pendragon: Oddly he spoke. Oddly he looked upon me.
Mike: Oddly did I feel down there. - I Ate WHAT?!: More or less Bobo's reaction when he learns the "lunch meat" he sliced up for his sandwich was actually Brain Guy!Observer's brain.
- The Imp: During the final segment, Crow dons an imp costume and pretends to be the imp from the film, which consists mainly of cackling and periodically exclaiming, "I'm an imp!".
- Insistent Terminology: Servo insists it's Pen-DRAGon, as opposed to PENdra-gun, or Pendra-GON. (He's right.)
- Male Gaze: They eat it up when Livia is introduced with a slow pan up her body. And as Helene walks onscreen in her dress that draws your eye to a certain location:Servo: Showcasing: Breasts!
- Misplaced a Decimal Point: The only reason Servo got a single question wrong on the Observers' intelligence test.
- Nightmare Fuel: Crow's reaction upon seeing the cackling imp is one of the Trope Namers. (The other is their riffing of Santa Claus.)"That’s some good old-fashioned nightmare fuel."
- Overly Long Gag:
- Bobo taking his sweet time making a sandwich with Observer's brain.Bobo: [singing] When the swallows come baaaack to Capistrano...
- Crow is an imp. Repeat ad nauseam:Crow: Heh heh heh heh, heh heh heh heh, heh heh heh heh — I'm an imp!
- Bobo taking his sweet time making a sandwich with Observer's brain.
- Playing Games at Work: Mike mentions that before he was sent to the Satellite of Love, he had a really good temp job where he mostly ate bearclaws and played Doom. He has no idea why he got fired, though.
- Power Incontinence: Livia, a witch from the film, escapes into the SoL, but is unable to control her powers and winds up transformed into a bottle of bleach. (She does make Crow scream in terror when she briefly turns into Pearl.)
- Running GSTAY!!!!ag
- Benjamin Franklin quotes whenever the bust of Franklin in the office is visible.
- The Lord of the Rings jokes for PENdra-gon. "Gotta help Strider move a couch."
- STAAAAAAAY!!!
- Portraying Professor Olinger as Mel Cooley.
- Shout-Out:
- When the knight who gets Mugged for Disguise first appears, Servo sings "Me in white satin..."
- When Livia decapitates Scroup, the tavernkeeper:
- When the hypnotized Diane starts speaking French, Servo says "Tish! That's French!" and mimes kissing her.
- Simpleton Voice: Mike and Crow affect these upon finding out that Tom proved himself intelligent enough to join the Observers.
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: One of the knights goes a little farther in his broken Ye Olde Englishe. Mike takes full advantage when he gets jumped.Mike: Me help! Attacked I'm being! Hitting me stop you must! God dear bleeding am I! Break my leg think I did you!
- Stylistic Suck: Digger Smolkin's standards album in Segment 4, where every song is disrupted by his corpse/rat/filth Verbal Tic. To the tune of "Send In The Clowns":Smolkin: Isn't it rats? Aren't we a corpse? Losing my coffin this time of the filth~
- Subverted in the last song of the album, in which Digger sings "Greensleeves" accurately with only one utterance of "filth" at the very end.
- Take That!:
- Servo has Mike put on Leonard Maltin-esque glasses and fake beard and then read a Humiliation Conga statement in Maltin's voice so that Servo can yell at him as retaliation for giving The Undead three stars in his Video Guide.
- A younger Mike having been a big fan of the music of Shaun Cassidy is treated as a shameful admission by everyone but Mike.
- And then there's this little bit...Witch: Wake the Emperor of Hell.Crow: You know Michael Eisner?
- This Is Gonna Suck: Crow has this reaction upon seeing Roger Corman's name in the credits.Crow: Well, that's it, we're doomed.
- Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Mocked thoroughly whenever it appears, for instance:Servo: [as knight pulling Smolkin over] Pullest thy vehicle to the curb and showest me thy driver's license and registration. Did thou knowest how fast thou was driving?
- Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb: Once again, Mike opens himself up for mockery by revealing yet another snippet of his dorky '80s lifestyle when he pulls out his record collection:Mike: Yeah, I told you guys, I thought Digger Smolkin sounded familiar, so I dug out this old album I bought at a garage sale the same time I bought my beloved copy of Shaun Cassidy's Wasp.
Servo: Mike, every single reference to your past paints an ever-darker picture of a damaged, lonely little man.
[Beat]
Mike: ...Ahh, says you. Do you want to hear Digger Smolkin or not?
Servo: Are you kidding? Slap that on there, you wonderful man! - WTH, Costuming Department?:Mike: (as a character who just put on a ridiculously oversized knight helmet) There. Sure glad I don't look stupid in this.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Nobody's impressed with Pendragon stabbing Livia, satanic Evil Sorceress or not.Mike: And our brave knight stabs an unarmed woman! Way to go, Pendra-GON.
