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in: MST3K Episodes, Season 5, Teen Exploitation, Star Trek spoofs

MST3K 506 - Eegah

Revision as of 21:41, 26 January 2014 by Gunman6 (Message Wall | contribs) (→‎Information)
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“ Honey, why do we have an oven in the living room? ”


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), where Experiment 107 Robot Monster (1953) was filmed. Eegah's cavern is Ro-Man's headquarters seen from a different angle.
  • Marilyn Manning was Arch Hall Sr.'s secretary at the time of filming.[2]
  • 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.
  • 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 his on-screen daughter Marilyn Manning, due to the uncomfortably non-familial chemistry the pair exhibited.
  • 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 which bears some loose similarities to Eegah!, but is ultimately not quite a true "remake."

The Episode

Host Segments

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.

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.

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!"

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.

  • "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 doing 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 .

  • "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 classic quote from the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke.

  • "Which way to Bly workshop?"

Robert Bly is a Minnesota author who does workshops on the mythopoetic men's movement.

  • "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.

  • "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.

  • "Brian Jones!"

Brian Jones was the original guitarist for the Rolling Stones, and 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.

  • "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 refrence 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.

  • "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.

  • "He's Lawrence of Pasadena."

A reference to the classic 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 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.

Video Release

  • 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 un-MSTed version of the movie. The DVD also includes a special mode where at certain part of the MST3K episode a icon of Crow's head will appear allowing you to switch to the original movie to see what was cut out. In practice it's of questionable usefulness, with the icon handily appearing to inform us that MST3K ep has an entirely different opening titles than original movie...


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