Entertainment
 

Hamlet (episode)

From MST3K

1009 - Hamlet
Air Date June 27, 1999
AKA Hamlet, Prinz von Danemark
Movie Director Franz Peter Wirth
Year 1961
Cast Maximilian Schell
Hans Caninenberg
Wanda Rotha
Dunja Movar
Preceded by 1008 - Final Justice
Followed by 1010 - It Lives by Night

A German version of Shakespeare's Hamlet. This episode was released on DVD by Rhino Entertainment on the Volume 4 box set, and it's often the subject of debate among fans, many of whom claim the movie is too plodding and, well, boring to make for a good episode.

Contents

The Movie

Synopsis

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Schell), returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. [1]

Trivia

The Episode

Host Segments

Prologue: Tom reveals that he's changed his last name from Servo to the identically pronounced but differently spelt Sirveaux. When also reveals he's added a h to his first name, changing it not to the expected Thom but to Htom, he gets less acclaim.

Segment One: While Crow introduces his new name change, Pearl puts the finishing touches on her deadly virus. But Mike is only interested in playing three card monty to decide the choice of today's movie. Easily winning the rigged game, Mike selects Hamlet, but makes the the mistake of allowing Pearl the choice of which production...

Segment Two: Crow & Tom's plan to scare Mike by pretending to be the ghost of his dead father falls apart due to the fact his dad isn't dead. As is every other relative the pair can name.

Segment Three: With the dreary German version covered, Tom & Crow attempt to come up with their own alternate productions of Hamlet. Their percussion version isn't that much more successful than the scuba diving, buckethead or all furniture versions they've tried.

Segment Four: It's time once again to play "Alas Poor Who?", the game where you have to guess the identity of the person based on a single bone from their body. Problems are encountered as Tom doesn't trust his answers, Crow doesn't answer in the correct form and with the lack of codpiece for Mike's costume.

Segment Five: The Bots have made their own Hamlet action figure, with a voice box that has a really, really long string to activate it. Meanwhile down in Castle Forrester the character Fortinbras resents being dropped from this movie's version of Hamlet and demands his scene be re-enacted, giving Pearl a worthy test subject for her virus.

Stinger: Claudius does a double take.

Other Notes

Guest Stars

Obscure References

  • "Run-D.M.C. Everett Koop!"
Run-D.M.C. was a pioneering hip-hop group. C. Everett Koop was the Surgeon General of the United States during the Reagan administration.
  • "Hamlet will return in Thunderball!"
A reference to the "James Bond will return in..." taglines that frequently appear during the closing credits of James Bond movies. Thunderball was the fourth Bond film, released in 1965.

Video Release


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