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in: MST3K Episodes, Season 6, 70s Movie, PG-rated movies

MST3K 622 - Angels Revenge

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“ Finally, someone Jim Varney can feel superior to! ”
- Mike


The Movie

Synopsis

Angelsrevenge

The movie focuses on seven women who decide to fight the local drug cartel after the brother of Michelle Wilson, a Las Vegas pop singer, is found severely beaten. When taken to the hospital, the young man is found to have been on illegal drugs. The singer meets with April, her brother's teacher, and the two hatch a plan to destroy the local drug processing plant. They recruit four more women with special skills and connections to help them carry out their audacious goal. As they plan their first strike, they discover high-schooler Trish spying on them. The student gets relegated to phone duty, but eventually worms her way into their escapades. The "Angels" not only destroy the processing plant, but also manage to intercept one of the shipments. As a result, the women receive unwelcome attention from the local drug cartel.

Information

  • The "I know I have it here somewhere" teacher/group ringleader is the late Jacqueline Cole, wife of writer/director Greydon Clark.
  • Susan Kiger, who plays singer Michelle Wilson was a Playboy Playmate of the month in 1977.
Angelsrevengemst3k

Angels Revenge

  • Ironically, despite the film's supposed anti-drug message, actresses Robin Greer and Liza Greer (who played Elaine and Trish respectively) would write a tell-all book in the 1990s about their experiences with drugs and prostitution in Hollywood at the time this film was made.
  • In his autobiography "On the Cheap: My Life in Low Budget Film Making" Greydon Clark says that he's often asked about MST3K's take on his film. "Some of the stuff those guys did was very funny, some not so much. The same could be said for my film itself." He objected to editing out Neville Brand and he was most bothered that the movie had been sold by the distributor so he didn't receive any money for it. "If your film is insulted on national television, it would've been nice to at least see a few bucks from it."
  • Cast and crew roundup:
  • In 2017, this movie became a RiffTrax presentation with new jokes performed by Bridget Nelson and Mary Jo Pehl.
  • Twenty years after the episode's air date, Bruce Jenner would go through gender reassignment surgery, making the throwaway last riff of the episode during the credits with a group shot of the film's heroines between Mike and Servo prescient:
“ "Hey, where was Bruce Jenner in this shot?"
"He's the one on the left." 		”


The Episode

Host Segments

Angelsrevengehost

Mike & the Bots

Prologue: Crow proclaims that he has amnesia, yet evidence and his near perfect recall points to the contrary. Turns out it was Ambrosia.

Segment One: The Mads are dressed as their favorite 70's relief pitchers Tug McGraw and Rollie Fingers in an effort to boost ratings, but their plan to change the crew of the SOL into the cast of TV's Renegade (starring Lorenzo Lamas) has more legs. Initially skeptical, Mike and the Bots are indeed transformed, but the effect and the ratings spike last only a short while.

TugAngel

The Mads as Tug McGraw and Rollie Fingers

Segment Two: In the spirit of the 70's, Crow's latest movie script is for Chocolate Jones and the Temple of Funk, a blaxploitation film. Even ignoring the fact it's just a reworked version of his earlier script Earth vs. Soup with jive-y character names; the others are reluctant to take part.

Segment Three: Mike imitates the Fonz from Happy Days. The penalty is death by cannon. Mike is surprisingly understanding of having to be destroyed afterward.

Blackcrow

Chocolate Jones and the Temple of Funk

Segment Four: The SOL begins to shake as Aaron Spelling’s enormous house floats past, everybody staying quiet to avoid drawing it's terrible vengeance.

Closing (Segment Five): Tom has developed the Shame-O-Meter, which has more than enough test subjects in the film, but the Mads dressed as Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King outdoes them all.

Stinger: We are advised to shine our love.

Notes

  • In the Prologue, Mike is holding a copy of Swann's Way. This is the first volume of Marcel Proust's 7-volume autobiographical novel In Search of Lost Time (in keeping with the theme of Crow's amnesia). It is a notoriously long, dense and slow-moving work.
  • Frank tells Mike that their ratings are lower than "...reruns of The Duck Factory'." The Duck Factory is a NBC sitcom produced in 1984 that starred a young Jim Carrey. Only 13 episodes were produced, and it was quickly cancelled due to poor ratings. The series was was re-run on Comedy Central following Carrey's success in films. It was known for being extremely unfunny as Carrey was basically the straight man to a cast of grumpy old cartoon animation staff fearful of their jobs.
  • When Mike imitates the Fonz in Host Segment Three, he is wearing a black leather jacket, similar to what Marlon Brando wore in the film The Wild One. While the character of the Fonz was inspired by Brando, Fonzie's jacket was brown and did not have studs. Mike looks more like the hero from Cyborg Cop 2.
  • Crow mentions the TV show Fridays when the crew is recalling the significant elements of the 1970s. However, Fridays did not debut until April of 1980, making Crow's recollection of it being part of the 70s inaccurate.
  • Patrick Brantseg is credited as "Utility Infielder".
  • This was the last episode ever shown on Comedy Central, in late December 1996.
  • Marks the first episode for Bill Corbett as a contributing writer.
  • This episode was ranked #93 among backers of the Bring Back MST3K Kickstarter in the Top 100 Poll.

Callbacks

Obscure References

  • "Make a wish, baby!"

A line from the top 5 Ambrosia song "Biggest Part of Me", released in 1980.

  • "I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can..."

As the prologue begins, Servo is singing the opening lines of the pop song "Sunglasses At Night", a prog-rock song popularized by Corey Hart. Servo's rendition has more of a swing tempo.

  • "Oh no, this is gonna have Johnny Wadd in it!"

Johnny "Wadd" Holmes was a porn star during the 1970s and '80s.

  • "Robert Urich is Dan Tanna!"

Reference to the 1970s ABC detective drama series "Vega$".

  • "Dear Ranger Rick Forum, I'm a forest ranger in a small Midwestern town..."

A reference to both the children's nature magazine Ranger Rick and to Penthouse Forum, a spin-off of Penthouse magazine whose readers write in with stories of outrageous sexual encounters that are supposedly drawn from personal experience.

  • "David Mamet's 'Oleanna'!"

A two-character play by David Mamet, in which a male professor and a female student have a prolonged confrontation about her allegations that he has sexaully harassed her.

  • "Kelly LeBrock's Heroes!"

A play on both the movie Kelly's Heroes and actress Kelly LeBrock, who remains best known as the computerized fairy godmother Lisa from the movie Weird Science.

  • "This isn't as cool as Electra Woman and Dyna Girl."

​A Sid and Marty Krofft-produced live-action children's show lasting one season (sixteen episodes), Electra Woman and Dyna Girl was a purposeful lampoon of the Batman TV series, especially the tech-y gizmos called 'Electracoms.' A film version has been announced.

  • "I'll be very disappointed if Grant Goodeve isn't in this."

Grant Goodeve played eldest son David on the ABC series Eight Is Enough (1977–81). Goodeve took over the role played by Mark Hamill in the series pilot.

  • "James at 15...miles per hour!"

James at 15 was a short-lived TV series from the late 1970s.

  • "The Bad News Bears are gonna lose that game!"

The Bad News Bears was a 1976 comedy film about an inept youth baseball team.

  • "You're all fired, you've all lost your humility!"

A reference to Arthur Godfrey's 1953 firing of Julius LaRosa, claiming LaRosa had "lost his humility", and the subsequent dismissal of many regulars from the Arthur Godfrey show.

  • "The mean streets of Ojai!"

Ojai is an affluent city in Ventura County, California.

  • "You're ad-dicted kid, ten million strong and growing!"

A spoof on an oft-aired TV spot for Flintstones Vitamins.

  • "I've got Gambino ties!"

A reference to the Gambino crime family.

  • "Marjoe Gortner?"

Marjoe Gortner gained celebrity in the 1960s and 70s as an uncommonly young revivalist preacher. He was featured in a documentary that revealed the hypocrisy of his trade. He later became an actor and co-starred in Starcrash.

  • "You know what this scene needs? Eddie Deezen!"

Eddie Deezen is a comic actor who typically plays nerdy characters.

  • "This isn't Flip Wilson!" "Yes it is! It's that Geraldine character!"

Comedian Flip Wilson had a popular TV show during the early 1970s, and its most famous character was Geraldine, a role Wilson played in drag.

  • "Next on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, one of the greatest influences on the disco scene of the late '70s."

Don Kirshner hosted and produced a syndicated program featuring live performances from rock and pop bands. Kirshner's drab, nasal delivery, combined with his habit of thanking label executives more effusively than the acts themselves, made the show into a running joke.

  • "Tonight, on a very special 'All-American Girl'."

All-American Girl was a short-lived sitcom starring Margaret Cho. 

  • "Fox Force Five!"

In Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman's character is said to have appeared in a failed TV pilot called "Fox Force Five". The concept for the show was similar to Angels Revenge in being about a group of foxy female crimefighters.

  • (Trish appears in the van's monitor) "It's the Charlene Tilton channel!"

Charlene Tilton is a petite blonde actress best known for her role in the hit TV series Dallas

  • (While Maria is stroking the van-mounted bazooka) "Sometimes a bazooka is just a bazooka."

​A riff on a quote attributed to Sigmund Freud ("Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"). Freud introduced the concept of oral fixation, and was questioned about his own smoking habit.

  • "She gets more and more Tina Louise-y"

Tina Louise is an actress best know for having played the glamorous movie star Ginger Grant on the TV series Gilligan's Island (which co-starred Jim Backus).

  • "It's Dworkinfest '78!"

Andrea Dworkin was a radical feminist writer whose critics frequently accused her of demonizing the entire male gender and claiming that all heterosexual intercourse was tantamount to rape.

  • (shots of Jack Palance's character driving his car) "How will I make it on my own? Heheh..." etc.

Reference to the opening theme song of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", during which the protagonist Mary Richards is shown driving her car.

  • "These two make you long for the quiet dignity of the Hudson Brothers."

The Hudson Brothers were a musical trio who had their own comedy/variety TV show during the 1970s.

  • "The commode that fell from grace with the sea."

A reference to the Japanese novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima.

  • "Ride like the demon that drives your dream..."

Lyrics from the "Hardcastle and McCormick" theme, and a recurring gag.

  • "My Charlie Daniels T-shirt is in there!"

Country singer Charlie Daniels is best known for his 1976 hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia".

  • "Damn it!" "...Janet!"

A reference to the song "Dammit Janet" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

  • "I'm gonna put on the suit the aliens gave me!"

A reference to the 1980s TV series The Greatest American Hero, starring William Katt as a bumbling superhero who derived his powers from a costume given to him by extraterrestrials.

  • "Meanwhile, Richard Nixon is wasting millions on the Glomar Explorer..."

A reference to the Hughes-built GFS Glomar , a deep-sea drilling ship that was used to recover the K-129, a Soviet submarine sunk in 1968.

  • "Jane Campion's 'The Piano Stool'"

A reference to the New Zealand film The Piano, which features a grand piano deposited on a beach (the drug container looks like it could be used as a piano stool). It was directed by Jane Campion.

  • "This doesn't do it for me like that similar scene in The Violent Years."

A callback to episode #610 which featured the Ed Wood, Jr. film The Violent Years, in which a group of delinquent teenage girls sexually assault (off-screen) a young man at gunpoint.

  • "It's not MY fault J.F.K. stayed at Crosby's house!"

The crew makes a few references to Peter Lawford's former days with the Rat Pack which included Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., etc.

  • "The Kronos Quartet lives on this block, with Bartok. apparently"

The Kronos Quartet is a renowned string quartet based in San Francisco; Bela Bartok was a Hungarian composer who wrote, among other works, several pieces for string quartets.

  • "Without our tradition, our lives would be like a drug dealer on the roof!"

Paraphrased from "Tradition", the opening song of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof.

  • "We continue now with international hide and seek!"

Another "Monty Python's Flying Circus" reference: specifically, to this episode .

  • "Teacher's pet... I want to be... teacher's pet..."

Both the title and song to a 1958 rom-com starring Doris Day and Clark Gable (also Mamie Van Doren and Gig Young).

  • "I'm on a cycling tour of North Cornwall!"

A reference to an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, "The Cycling Tour".

  • "You think that's a stunt-person?" "No, that's Marnie Nixon."

Marnie Nixon is an opera singer and voice-double for musical movies.

  • "Hi, I'm Lyle Waggoner, may I help you?"

Lyle Waggoner is an actor who was a regular on The Carol Burnett Show and Wonder Woman. He posed as Playgirl magazine's first centerfold. Waggoner also appeared in the film Catalina Caper which was lampooned in an earlier episode (#204).

  • ("Baby!") "... I'm a-want you!"

​Baby I'm-a Want You is the title of a song and the fourth album by the soft-rock band Bread .

  • "Greg Louganis goes motorcycling."

American diver Greg Louganis won multiple gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics.

  • "Jim Henson!" "HI HO!"

Jim Henson was the talent behind The Muppets. "Hi Ho!" is the catch phrase of perhaps his most famous creation: Kermit the Frog.

  • "Kelsey Grammer was supposed to meet me here!"

Most likely a reference to Kelsey Grammer's second wife, Leigh-Anne Csuhany who was fifteen years his junior. At the time of their wedding, he was 37, she was 22. The marriage lasted one year.

  • "Right on, Willona!"

Willona was a character from the African-American sitcom "Good Times".

  • "It's Fran Lebowitz!... Still not writing..."

Fran Lebowitz is a New York 'personality' who is (in)famous for not completing a book called Exterior Signs of Wealth.

  • "Eat lead, Freddie Prinze!"

Freddie Prinze was the star of Chico and the Man, and is the father of Freddie Prinze, Jr..

  • "We will, like, bury you!"

A reference to a quote by former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. The reference is suggested from the way that April pounds the table with her fist: Khrushchev was notorious for violent outbursts when he spoke, including one incident in which he took off his shoe and started pounding his desk with it while listening to an anti-Soviet speech at the UN.

  • "...No, no, no. I meant Melanie Chartoff. 'Fridays' spoke to a whole generation, man."

Melanie Chartoff was a member of the cast of Fridays, a late-night sketch comedy show on ABC. Duplicating the format of NBC's Saturday Night Live, Ms. Chartoff acted as a newsreader (similar to Jane Curtin on SNL) during 'The Friday Edition', the weekly segment of topical jokes. Ms. Chartoff later appeared on the TV series Parker Lewis Can't Lose and voiced Didi Pickles on the animated series Rugrats.

Video Release

Angelsrevengevhs

VHS cover

  • Commercially released on VHS by Rhino Entertainment in July 1998, the episode was also released at the same time as a part of a 2-VHS set with Shorts Vol 1 and a pair of MST3K boxer shorts.
  • Commercially released on DVD by Rhino in Feburary 2003 as part of The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Volume 2, a 4-DVD set with Cave Dwellers, Pod People and Shorts Volume 1.


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