The short starts with an old guy talking about people dying. Odd start, but it leads into the true skit. They bring up Joe and his car. He gets pissed when someone bumps him, but he hits another car and pulls out as a car is passing. Great driver. Then it shows his stop at a curve thanks to a red light, speeding, and reckless driving. So the person on the corner does the incredibly stupid decision of going through Joe’s car (he moves through the back seat then out) to get to the other side instead of just walking around his car. Then Joe is speeding like a mad man and swerving and guess what he dies. Joe is brought to god with his guardian angel. The GA declares him as the worst driving in New Jersey and says without him Joe would have died years ago. Now here’s the weirdest thing. This entire short is talking about how his poor driving may not accept him into heaven. So the rest of the skit is talking about how awful a driver he was. He is super safe around schools. Decent guy I guess. Then we go over this for a while until the GA is relieved of his duties of guarding Joe’s driving soul. The judge tells us to consider all that we have been shown before we pass judgment. Hang him. The end of the short is pretty funny cause everyone, but Crow leaves and Crow is actually invested in the short.

Now onto the movie! Distributed by Libbert Films. Same people who distributed Jungle Goddess, and made Rocketship X-M, and Lost Continent. Also a Burt I. Gordon movie. He makes big monsters and his name spells B.I.G. Starts with an opening narration about space travel. Then we get to see funny stock footage of planes falling apart. It is nuclear powered and it could explode into a nuclear bomb. This won’t end well. We meet out crew. 2 ladies and 2 dudes. All of them know each other. They chose the cutest people to shoot into space. They get shot into space and thankfully we don’t see 20 minutes of rock climbing and we don’t spend all movie in a rocketship. We land down and see two of them dressed in their hilariously bad costumes. The helmets obviously have giant holes in them and they have no oxygen tanks on them.

Upon landing they find stock footage. Lots and lots of stock footage. They come to the conclusion that it is extremely similar to Earth. Animals and people can exist on the atmosphere. Wow all the trees, plants, and living animals didn’t tip me off. The stock footage of animals become very, very apparent. They wander for a bit and see an island. Black haired lady wants to go, but they say no. They start trekking through the forest and find lots and lots of stock footage. The footage of the sloth slowly climbing a branch is a great symbol for this film. A snake slithers up next to the blonde girl and she just explodes into screams and tears. They make a shelter and the men opt to take all the shifts. Cause they’re dames and all. Sometimes I chose to forget just how misogynistic the 50s were. Just a few more shooting bullets at everything you see and we’ll be on Jungle Goddess territory. The blonde girl and the blonde dude roam the forest for a bit, until a gator attacks the man. It’s pretty funny just how terrible the effect it is. He just rolls around with it and then they tear some of his clothes between edits. How did he get those back wounds when he’s been beneath the gator the whole time? Then he sleeps for a few days as he rests. When he wakes up he sees a giant bug. Not sure which one though. Bee, hornet, wasp, ant.

I don’t know. Well they’ve got breakfast. Then we see the lemur. This thing moves along the plot for stupid reasons. Sadly they don’t eat the lemur. The black haired girl still pesters them to go to the island. They finally cave and the black haired couple goes next day with the lemur in hand. The blonde couple stays by the ship. They wander for a bit until they find the King Dinosaur. Which is stock footage of an iguana. They claim it’s a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but no. That’s a giant iguana.

They flee into a cave, but the idiots run back for the lemur and the man gets wounded! Also all the times he knocks the girls down he really is shoving them. These aren’t pratfalls! Also the ‘dinosaur’ now knows where they are. The dude’s priority is taking a picture. Well nothing else they can do. A giant gator distracts the iguana. Instead of leaving the two dumbasses decide to watch. This footage is A: Very stupid, and B: Reused from One Million BC. They wisely decide to send a flare to the blonde couple. The come over to them with the nuclear bomb and we watch more lizard fighting. This time with the iguana fighting a komodo dragon. Unlike before they do actually try to run when the lizards are distraced. Like before the iguana wins and it starts chasing the group. They set off the nuclear bomb to explode within the hour. They escape after shooting at more stock footage. The bomb goes off when they get back to the ship and they declare that civilization was brought to the planet. Then they leave. The end!
The opening skit is Joel and the bots doing beat poetry. Eh. Invention exchange is the Pocket Scientist for the Mads and the Incredible Stinky Sweatsocks. Pretty funny. Next skit is an absolute gem. Crow is considering everything and wondering how he’s qualified and how much he can change the world. He learns to stand for himself, think for himself, change the world, and celebrate life. At the end of it all he makes suggestions like drop of vanilla behind both ears to smell like a cookie all day and to meet everyone on your block. Wipes away tears. He truly is an inspiration to us all. Next skit is dumb. Joel is playing with a toy Lemur named Joey. Described as the Gilbert Gottfried of the animal kingdom. The bots sing about how great he is, but it’s not convincing, interesting, or all that funny. Sure is weird though. Next skit sucks. It’s called the emotional scientist and Joel calls it out for being very stupid. The bots try to do it, but they break down when they realize that it’s stupid. Stupid is as stupid does. The last skit is them talking about Libbert Films and how much they had to watch. Joel talks about how the thermin had a key role in the films and Joel gets pretty into it. This episode is mediocre. The short is funny, a few of the skits are funny and a bunch of the jokes are funny. On the flip side of the coin a lot of jokes aren’t funny and half the skits aren’t funny. It was Burt I. Gordon’s first movie so I can give it a bit of leeway, but the lines are flat, the actors suck, the black haired actor is a jerk (I honestly got the feeling he was just beating the hell of out the women off camera), the cinematography is eh, the editing is awful, and there are several cuts that’s are a black screen for a few seconds then cuts to the other scene. Oh how could I forget the awful dinosaur effects? If nothing else this is a decently funny episode with a laughable movie. I’d give it a viewing. Preferably as the start of a MST3K marathon. Build up a slow start then lead it in with some damn funny episodes.
Episode Rating – 5/10
Movie Rating – 2/10
Favorite Riff – “Why is he blow drying the grass?”
Stinger – A crewmember faceplants after the fight with the gator.
Episode – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNQRfn0GpjY
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilm_VgYUmcM