MST3K 506 - Eegah

506 - Eegah
Air/Release Date	August 28, 1993
MST3K Director	Joel Hodgson
Running Time	90 min.
AKA	Eegah! The Name Written in Blood
Movie Director	Arch Hall Sr.
Year	1962
Cast	Richard Kiel Arch Hall Jr. Marilyn Manning
Preceded by	505 - The Magic Voyage of Sinbad
Followed by	507 - I Accuse My Parents

“	(Over yet another disgusting close-up of Arch Hall Jr) I figured it out, he looks like the bat from FernGully.	”
	- Joel

The Movie

Synopsis

While driving through the desert, a teenage girl (Manning) is frightened by a 7-foot giant (Kiel) who appears in her path. After escaping, she returns to the site with her boyfriend (Arch Hall Jr.) and her father (director Arch Hall Sr., billed here as William Watters) in an attempt to find the giant. They do, and it proceeds to terrorize them and the rest of Palm Springs, California. By the way, watch out for snakes! [1]

Information

• Filmed in and around Palm Springs, CA (as evidenced by the pool and party scenes at the Ocotillo Lodge ) and at Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park (Los Angeles). Many of the films used on MST3K shot at Bronson Canyon, including Experiment 107 Robot Monster. Eegah's cave is Ro-Man's headquarters seen from a different angle.
• Mr. Fishman, the character tossed into a pool by Eegah, was played by Arch Hall Jr.'s friend and Mixed-Up Zombies star/director Ray Dennis Steckler.

• 

  Steckler also worked as assistant cameraman for the film.
• This movie was made on a budget of about $15,000 - an astonishingly low budget for a color film, even by 1962 standards. Much of the dialogue was lost during filming; large sections of the film are dubbed. Surprisingly, these disadvantages didn’t hurt profits any. By 1980, the film had grossed more than $1 million.
• In The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, the cast considered the scene in which Eegah lolls his tongue around and laps up shaving cream to be one of the most disgusting things they've seen while working on the show. There was also speculation that some kind of romantic relationship existed between Arch Hall, Sr. and actress Marilyn Manning (who was Hall's secretary at the time of production), due to the non-familial chemistry the pair exhibited.

  File:Eegah2.PNG

  Richard Kiel as Eegah

• In the late-80s, Richard Kiel attempted to get funding to remake this movie as a "Christian" film with a more positive ending in which the caveman finds religion and settles in the city.  That project eventually became The Giant of Thunder Mountain (co-starring Jack Elam from The Girl in Lovers Lane) which bears some similarities to Eegah!, but is not a true "remake."
• This was the second movie featured in Turkey Day '15.

The Episode

Host Segments

Joel patches up Crow

Prologue: Servo tries to bring Crow's temperature down to absolute zero. Joel realizes it will probably kill all of them and tries to rescue Crow, who is so brittle from the cold he falls to pieces when Joel touches him

Segment One (Invention Exchange): Joel patches up Crow, who laments his lack of resale value. For the invention exchange, Joel and the Bots play their rebuilt Pork-orinas which was used to create the incidental music in rural-themed shows like Green Acres. Meanwhile, in Deep 13, Frank is late for his ice-dancing lesson, and drives Dr. F just batty enough to inspire the mad doc to replace Frank's blood with radiator fluid.

Pork-orinas

Segment Two: Joel & the Bots talk about the full-service gas station from the film and their disapperance in recent years. This leads them into a discussion of the many subtle forms hell has taken in the last few decades.

Segment Three: The Bots play doctor and alter Joel's face to look like Arch Hall Jr. with their sinister device. But Joel doesn't want to look like Arch Hall Jr...thank goodness for anasthetic.

Segment Four: While making Jiffy Pop, Joel and the Bots ponder why most 1960's sitcom families were run by single dads. Crow points out the SOL crew isn't much better off.

The Bots try to make Joel look like Arch Hall Jr

Segment Five: The Bots feel dirty after watching the movie, so they take a hot refreshing show while Joel reads a letter. Dr. Forrester and Frank get into a fight over Frank's blood.

Stinger: "Fake it." "That's what I've BEEN doing. Now I'm getting sick!"

Callbacks

• “Glen was 50 feet tall!” (War of the Colossal Beast)
• “The Torgo school of fondling,” (Manos: The Hands of Fate)
• “To Live Like the Hu-Man” (Robot Monster)
• “Durn smoochers!” (Attack of the the Eye Creatures)
• “He tampered in God’s domain” (Bride of the Monster).

Obscure References

• "It seems to be exhibiting a sort of ineluctable defenestration..."

Servo is mimicking the lexical and vocal habits of the late William F. Buckley, Jr.

• "Excuse me, which way Bly seminar?"

Robert Bly was the author of the book Iron John, and a leading figure in the "Men's movement", which held that men should return to their more primitive roots. Some observers questioned the validity of Bly's philosophy, dismissing it as a crass money-making scheme.

• "Welcome to the Crypt, we've dug something up for you. Why not stick around and watch Dream On? It's the 'breast' show on TV. Heh heh Kill me!"

Crow is imitating The Crypt Keeper, the host of Tales from the Crypt, an HBO show. He also references Dream On, another HBO show that featured nudity.

• "(Ding!) Sex appeal!"

A reference to 70's commercials by Ultra Brite toothpaste.

• "I'm Charles Kuralt, and we're going to leave you with this shot of a flower..."

Charles Kuralt was the host of CBS News Sunday Morning, a morning news show that would end with a tranquil scene of nature.

• "Hey, it's Scattergories!"

Scattergories is a party game where people must think of things in a particular subject and beginning with a particular letter.

• "Glen was fifty feet tall...!"

​A reference to Col. Glen Manning, the Amazing Colossal Man . The quote is an observation made by his sister in the sequel.

• "Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?"

A slightly misquoted line from the Frank Zappa song "Camarillo Brillo".

• "I'm dead. Don't smoke."

A reference to an anti-smoking PSA that actor Yul Brynner filmed shortly before his death from lung cancer and had aired posthumously, in which he said "I'm dead now. Don't smoke."

• "Shakin' the bush, boss!"

A well-known quote from the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, about how members of the chain gang would step behind a bush to relieve themselves but shake it so the police escort would know they weren't trying to run off.

• "Is she really going out with him?"

A reference to the Joe Jackson song "Is She Really Going Out With Him?"

• "Shouldn't there be a Ramcharger up there?"

The Dodge Ramcharger was an SUV made until the early 1990s. Ads often depicted it at the top of a hill or mountain.

• "They took the whole Cherokee nation..."

Servo is quoting the song "Indian Reservation" by Paul Revere and the Raiders.

• "It's under a big W..."

The last words of the character played by Jimmy Durante in the 1963 comedy film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, indicating where a treasure could be found.

• "Brian Jones!"

Brian Jones was the original guitarist for the Rolling Stones, who drowned in a swimming pool in 1969.

• "He looks like the bat from 'FernGully'!"

A reference to the 1992 animated movie FernGully: The Last Rainforest. The bat character was spindly and bug-eyed with a wild mop of hair.

• "Hey, it's Schlepcar!"

A reference to the Sid and Marty Krofft TV show Wonderbug, in which a living jalopy named Schlepcar could magically become the dune buggy of the title.

• "Roxie!" "Music!" "Roxie!" "And Elsewhere!"

A reference to the band Roxy Music, and "Roxy & Elsewhere", a live album by Frank Zappa.

• "I am William Burroughs." "I am William Burroughs." "I am William Burroughs."

​An allusion to the game show To Tell The Truth; the late William S. Burroughs was a beat-era author (best known for The Naked Lunch ) who, due to years of heroin use, had a decidedly wraith-like appearance.

• "Put lime in coconut, drink it all up."

From the song "Coconut" by Harry Nilsson (the recipe in the song is for a hangover remedy).

• "Econo Lodge?! But why?!"

Econo Lodge is a chain of motels.

• "Richard Speck is there!"

Richard Speck murdered eight student nurses in a killing spree in Chicago in 1966.

• "Please turn into Sweeney Todd!"

Reference to the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Todd would murder people by cutting their throats with a straight razor as he shaved them.

• "He's Lawrence of Pasadena."

A reference to T.E. Lawrence, the British military officer whose life inspired the film Lawrence of Arabia.

• "It's Wilfrid Hyde-White"

Wilfrid Hyde-White was a noted British character actor. He is perhaps best-known for playing Colonel Pickering in the film of My Fair Lady.

• "Help me! Spock!"

In the Star Trek episode entitled The Savage Curtain, a recreation of Surak (the father of modern Vulcan civilization) calls out for aid in a similar, melodramatic fashion as in this episode.

• "When Edward Albee dabbles in beach movies..."

The work of playwright Edward Albee, whose best known work is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, often featured bickering couples.

Video Release

MST3K DVD Cover

• Commercially released on VHS by Rhino Entertainment in August 1997.
• Commercially released on DVD by Rhino in April 2000, the DVD also includes the original version of the movie. A feature of the DVD is a special mode where at certain part of the MST3K episode a icon of Crow's head will appear allowing the viewer to switch to the original movie to see what was cut out.

preceded by: Season 4		MST3K Season 5					followed by: Season 6
		1993 - 1994
501	Warrior of the Lost World	1993-07-24	509	The Girl in Lovers Lane	1993-09-18	517	Beginning of the End	1993-11-25
502	Hercules	1993-07-17	510	The Painted Hills	1993-09-26	518	The Atomic Brain	1993-12-04
503	Swamp Diamonds	1993-07-31	511	Gunslinger	1993-10-09	519	Outlaw	1993-12-11
504	Secret Agent Super Dragon	1993-08-07	512	Mitchell	1993-10-23	520	Radar Secret Service	1993-12-18
505	The Magic Voyage of Sinbad	1993-08-14	513	The Brain That Wouldn't Die	1993-10-30	521	Santa Claus	1993-12-24
506	Eegah	1993-08-28	514	Teen-Age Strangler	1993-11-07	522	Teen-Age Crime Wave	1994-01-15
507	I Accuse My Parents	1993-09-04	515	The Wild Wild World of Batwoman	1993-11-13	523	Village of the Giants	1994-01-22
508	Operation Double 007	1993-09-11	516	Alien from L.A.	1993-11-20	524	12 to the Moon	1994-02-05