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in: MST3K Episodes, Season 9, Foreign Film,
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MST3K 911 - Devil Fish

Revision as of 20:48, 22 October 2014 by Dmitrioi (Message Wall | contribs) (→‎The Movie)
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“ It features many nautical themes and many Italians pretending to be Floridians. ”



The Movie

Synopsis

A French-Italian co-production which tells the tale of a "shark with tentacles" that is terrorizing the waters off the Southern Florida coast. For reasons that are never fully explained, it turns out that the "Devil Fish" was genetically engineered by researchers at the World Oceanic Institute in order to protect the oceans from being exploited, which would somehow bring about a massive rise in profits for the organization. [1]

Information

One scene of this film contains a brief glimpse of a male character's genitals, which the Sci-Fi Channel censored by superimposing the MST3K logo. And like all the R-rated movies shown on the show, there were two key death scenes removed due to being impossible to edit.

This movie is one of many where the premise is taken from another, more successful film. This time the source material stolen is Jaws. Years later, RiffTrax coincidentally had its music counterpart RiffTones do a hilarious tune inspired by Jaws, the movie they were parodying that month.

Trivia

The film's director, Lamberto Bava (under the pseudonym John Old Jr.) is the son of famed Italian director Mario Bava, whose 1968 film Diabolik! was later featured in Season 10.

The original, uncut version of the movie (titled Monster Shark) features considerably more violence, but is much more coherently edited.

During the commercial promoting this episode on the SciFi Channel; the clip of agitated dolphins was shown while Tom screams: "Dolphins won the Super Bowl! Yaaaayyyy!!" Ironically, the year before the release of the movie Devil Fish; the Miami Dolphins actually LOST the Super Bowl  to the Washington Redskins. And after the year Devil Fish was released, the Dolphins lost yet another Super Bowl  to the San Francisco 49ers. In fact the Dolphins haven't won a Super Bowl since Super Bowl VIII. (See The Final Sacrifice and the numerous Larry Csonka references alluding to this.)  It's also a callback to the running "Packers won the Super Bowl!" gag used in The Giant Spider Invasion.

The Episode

911 2

Italian Vision

Host Segments

  • Opening Scene: Mike has an identity crisis, thinking that some government agency has erased it; it turns out that he lost his wallet.
  • Segment One: Pearl has to convince a couple that the castle is a cruise ship because Bobo forgot to tell her he took 2500 reservations when their number was mistakenly put in an ad for a cruise. She has the crew make ice sculptures: Crow uses four cubes to make Michalangelo's David; Tom puts his in a drink; and Mike tries to weld his.
  • Segment Two: When the crew make fun of dolphins and their intelligence, some dolphins attack them in a space ship until they apologize.
  • Segment Three: An electrician shows up to repair some stuff. Mike, Crow and Tom taunt him too, until the dolphins come back; seems that after this movie came out, electricians made a deal with dolphins to protect each other. Mike apologizes.
  • Segment Four: Because the couple don't understand what the crew does, Pearl tries to make them more Italian. It works until Bobo and Pearl mess with the filter, and it turns the crew into a dangerous stereopype.
  • Segment Five: Bobo is too busy eating to hear when the couple asks about something on the ship; when Pearl whacks him on the head to get his attention, he goes nuts and she has to tranquilize him. Observer, meanwhile, does his best Isaac Washington impression: he points a lot.
  • Stinger: Janet: 'It's right underneath us!' Peter: "I knooow!"

Quotes & References

  • "Bebe Rebozo's home movies!"

Charles "Bebe" Rebozo was a Floridian businessman and personal friend of Richard Nixon's, who often took him on fishing excursions in his boat.

  • "Aw poor Robert Shaw. Eaten again!"

Robert Shaw was the actor who played the grizzled sea captain Quint from Jaws.

  • "Same picture of Mark Spitz, even."

Mark Spitz was an Olympic swimmer.

  • "Devil Fish: The Story of Aleister Crappie!"

A reference and play on words to both famous occultist Aleister Crowley and the crappie, a common freshwater fish.

  • "Hey, temp workers!"

​Dolphin Staffing is a temporary office staffing service based in Minneapolis.

  • "Don't say/Things you're gonna regret..."

A lyric from the Alan Parsons Project song "Eye in the Sky".

  • "Too much time on my hands..."

The chorus from the Styx song "Too Much Time on My Hands"

  • "i've located a Gary Wright song."

The sound that whatever the hell that piece of equipment is supposed to be makes sounds vaguely like the synths at the beginning of Wright's song "Dream Weaver."

  • "Is that Fab or Rob?"

Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus made up the disgraced pop duo Milli Vanilli.

  • "You colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is 'enuf'!"

A reference to the play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.

  • "I'm listening to Shonen Knife!"

Shonen Knife is an all-female Japanese rock band.

  • "Kick, punch, it's all in the mind."

Referring to a lyric in the video game Parappa the Rapper.

  • "I can't believe I directed 'North'!

North was a critically panned 1994 movie directed by Rob Reiner.

  • "What's that?" "Kraftwerk."

Kraftwerk is a pioneering electronic music group from Germany.

  • "Dolphins win the Super Bowl!  Yaaaaay!" 

A callback to the "Packers win the Super Bowl!  Woooo!" bit from "The Giant Spider Invasion ."

Mike is comparing the female lead's appareance to the character of Jack Skellington in the movie.

  • "I got the Amiga working!"

Amiga was a line of computers made by the now-defunct Commodore company, which still have a devoted following to this day despite never being as popular as PCs or Macs.

  • "This guy dubbed by J. Peterman?"

J. Peterman is a retail and fashion company that does most of its sales through catalogs. The riff here however is based on the infamous "I knoooowww!" line. This is more an allusion to a fictional portrayal of the company's owner on Seinfeld; Jacopo Peterman.

  • "I'm going to try and put him to sleep!" "I'm going to read him something from Joan Didion."

Joan Didion is an American author and literary journalist.

  • "What's going on? I say hey-ey-ey-ey! Hey-ey-ey..."

A reference to the song "What's Going On?" by 4 Non Blondes.

  • "Now it's '10' as rewritten by Terrence McNally!"

'10' was a feature film directed by Blake Edwards, best known for its scene of actress Bo Derek walking out of the water onto the beach in a tight wet bathing suit. Playwright Terrence McNally is known for exploring gay issues in his works.

  • "Please, Francisco Franco died quicker!"

A reference to Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and the many premature announcements of his death, which was famously parodied on Saturday Night Live.

  • "The Ox-Fish Incident!"

The Ox-Bow Incident is a Western novel in which three innocent men are accused of cattle rustling and lynched.

  • "B-baby, we ain't seen nothin' yet, over"

Lyric from BTO's song You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.

  • "Southern Man, gonna EAT YOUR HEAD!"

A spoof on Neil Young's song Southern Man.

  • "Someone threw a match on the Cuyahoga River!"

The Cuyahoga River is a river that flows through Cleveland, infamous for its heavily polluted water. It was so polluted that it caught on fire on several occasions.

  • "You know, I don't need Neil Young 'round, anyhow."

A reference to Lynyrd Skynyrd's song Sweet Home Alabama, written in protest to Southern Man.

  • "You know, that door isn't even red, and I want to paint it black."

A reference to the first line of the Rolling Stones song "Paint It Black", which is "I see a red door and I want it painted black.

  • "Ed Wood's octopus scene was a lot more convincing than this."

A reference to an infamous prop in Ed Wood's movie Bride of the Monster, a mechanical octopus with a motor that didn't actually run, forcing the actors to sort of flop around in the water as they held its tentacles to themselves.

  • "Get your flame-throwers out, grab a stick of Juicy Fruit!"

Juicy Fruit is a brand of chewing gum. During the 80's each commercial for it would begin with a jingle similar to the one Mike made up based on whatever activity the commercial depicted, such as water-skiing.

  • "Janet?" "Oh, I forgot, I'm nasty..Miss Jackson!"

From this line in in the song "Nasty" by Janet Jackson: "No, my first name ain't baby/It's Janet/Miss Jackson if you're nasty."

"

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