Season Two Episode Four: Catalina Caper
Network: Comedy Channel
Riffers: Tom Servo, Joel Robinson, and Crow
Mads: Dr. Clayton Forrester and Frank w/Assistants Gerry and Sylvia
Plot Synopsis: An ancient Chinese scroll is stolen from a museum in Los Angeles and teenager Don Pringle arrives on Catalina Island simultaneously. Although approximately half of the film involves swimsuit-clad adolescents dancing on yachts in several different dance montages, Pringle and his friends investigate the scroll's theft and discover that the parents of one of the boys is responsible — also while attempting to woo a mysteriously depressed young woman Katrina Corelli from her vaguely threatening boyfriend Angelo. After wrestling the scroll away from Angelo and his cohorts, bent on more dangerous results (in an underwater scuba diving action scene), the boys secretly return the scroll to the museum to the relief of the repentant parents.
Host Segments:
Prologue: The Bots say their nightly prayers, including god blesses for a number of fellow robots, including at Joel's insistence, Twiki.
Segment One/Invention Exchange: While willing to reluctantly pray for Twiki, the Bots refuse to pray for the Mads. The Mads have invented literal tank tops. Joel turns a bazooka into a fun generating tickling device.
Segment Two: Joel talks about the 60s for the bots. It eventually falls into the BAD things that happened to Joel as a kid.
Segment Three: Tom sings "The Creepy Girl".
Segment Four: Joel tries to fix Crow, while Frank's attempt to sell Tupperware for evil purposes to Gerry and Sylvia goes badly once Dr. Forrester decides to sit in and watch his sales technique.
Ending Segment: Joel attempts to explain the film with a handy chart, but loses it when the Bots disagree on what is the emotional center of the movie. Servo tries to sing Creepy Girl again.Joel reads a letter from two people who met and fell in love because of MST3K, including their wedding announcement.
Review:
Like Moon Zero Two, this movie is a Warner Bros. flick that has an opening animated bit. Unlike Moon Zero Two, it seems like the main plot of the movie is thrown away so they can go into the pointless beach party stuff. At least Moon Zero Two tried to keep relevant. Here, we had a random beach party fluff, a portrait stealing bit, and a plucky comic relief thta nearly killed kill Slapstick. Somehow the movies tried to throw all of this into one coherent plot. It didn't work.
The riffing wasn't as strong as the other early season two episodes, but they were still funny. The host segments were pretty good as well. Despite the weaker riffs, this was another good episode. 7/10
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I repeat the cheese is in the grater!