111 - Moon Zero Two
Air Date	February 1990
Movie Director	Roy Ward Baker
Year	1969
Cast	James Olson, Catherine Von Schell, Adrienne Corri, Warren Mitchell
Preceded by	110 - Robot Holocaust
Followed by	112 - Untamed Youth

The MovieEdit

SynopsisEdit

Imagine what would happen if Rowan and Martin were hired to film a Maverick episode using sets from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Well, Moon Zero Two is even worse than that.

What passes for a plot exists only to tie together a string of scenes that chock full of 60s cliches, flat characters and outrageous music.

By the time you see a group of implausibly attired and impossibly vacuous models playing "MOON"-opoly with a purple-shirted eye-patched bearded and ugly bad guy (the 'Baron') in a scene that makes James Bond's villains look realistic, you'll just shrug your shoulders and say, "It figures."

When dancers appear on stage wearing cowboy hats the size of Volkswagen Beetles, you'll be long past the point of caring.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around a down on his luck captain Kemp (a limp haired goob who was the first man on Mars, or so goes his backstory), anyway, the extravagantly foreheaded Kemp is hired by the Baron to crash an asteroid into the far side of the moon--provided he makes it look like an accident. Meanwhile, the Baron has also made a miner on the far side of the moon disappear in what appears to be an accident. Will these two plots collide? Of course they will. Will the denouement be paint-by-numbers and flavorless? Of course it will.

The movie's soundtrack? It's brassy, but not in a good way. No, no, no, certainly not in a good way. If Herb Alpert heard this soundtrack, he'd probably take his trumpet out to the driveway and back his car over it.

InformationEdit

Moon Zero Two was directed by Roy Ward Baker, who also made a number of pictures for Hammer Films, including the respected sci-fi cult film Quatermass and the Pit.[1]

Clementine Taplin was played by Catherine Schell (listed in this as Catherina Von Schell) who also was the Cosmic Princess in the KTMA episode of the same name. "Cosmic Princess" was a combination of two episodes of the classic sci-fi TV series, Space: 1999, which, much like Moon Zero Two, took place on a futuristic moon base as seen through a late 1960's/early 1970's filter.

The EpisodeEdit

Host SegmentsEdit

Prologue: Joel asks the viewers to think of him if they go to the refrigerator for a snack during the break, so he can eat vicariously.

Invention Exchange:

Joel - drive-by food (a step beyond drive-thru, food is teleported directly into your stomach).

Mads - celebrity mouth-to-mouth toothpaste (toothpaste tubes have doll's heads that represent celebrities who puke toothpaste onto your toothbrush).

Segment Two: Joel and the bots put on a play about the first moon landing.

Segment Three: Games from futuristic outer space (like Moonopoly).

Segment Four: Crow and Tom argue about which woman in the movie is more attractive. Joel makes them fight it out in zero gravity like in the movie.

Ending Segment: Joel and the bots name good things and bad things about the movie. Then Joel reads a letter.

Obscure ReferencesEdit

"Are those the Blue Meanies?"-

This is referencing the animated Beatles film, Yellow Submarine The Blue Meanies were the music hating villains that invaded Pepperland in the movie.

"Oh he's got V.P.L. in a bad way" -

Visible Panty Lines.

"Did he get that t-shirt at a Molly Hatchet concert?"-

Molly Hatchet is a 70's southern-rock band best known for their hit "Flirtin' With Disaster"

"Works every time!" -

A reference to a Colt 45 malt liquor ad campaign featuring Billy Dee Williams.

"I'm just wild about Harry..."

"I'm Just Wild About Harry" is a song written in 1921 for the Broadway show Shuffle Along.

"Snoopers and Blabbers"-

Snooper and Blabber was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon about a cat detective named Snooper and his mouse partner named Blabber. Servo says this line with a lisp, impersonating Blabber's speech style.

"You gotta marry her, Bill. She's got the Wedding Bell Blues."-

"Wedding Bell Blues" was a hit song for the group The Fifth Dimension in 1969.

"Hokay Meester Fawlty" and "He's from Barcelona"-

Both are references to the John Cleese Brit-com, Fawlty Towers, specifically the character of Manuel.

"Hey, it's Randolph Mantooth!"-

Randolph Mantooth is an actor best known for his role as Johnny Gage on the 70's paramedic drama tv show, "Emergency!". The actor on screen triggering this riff physically resembles Randolph Mantooth.

"Its Major Kong."-

Major T.J. "King" Kong is Slim Pickens' character in "Dr. Strangelove, or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb." Major Kong's iconic last scene involves him riding a falling atomic bomb. The scene riffed in Moon Zero Two has a man pushing a bomb-shaped engine through space, resembling the Dr. Strangelove scene.

"In space, no one can hear a wedgie" and "In space, no one can art direct"-

Paraphrasing the advertising tagline from the movie "Alien"; "In space, no one can hear you scream."