A group of space men from the planet Krankor are led by their leader, Phantom, to invade Earth. But a superhero named Prince of Space (actually a bootblack in disguise) arrives to defeat the spacemen. Although the weapons of the aliens cannot harm the Prince of Space, the Phantom continues to fight, and many plot twists (including capturing a group of elderly scientists) ensue. [1]
Information
The Episode
Host Segments
Prologue: Crow and Tom's game of Dog and Bear gets out of hand.
Segment One:Bobo finds a suitable spot to go to the toilet, but it turns out to be a wormhole, through which The Widowmaker and a unwilling Satellite of Love enter to chase after him.
Segment Two: Due to the effects of the wormhole, each member of the SOL is moving at a different temporal speed, which makes convesation problematic, but provides ample chances for the theft of Crow's chicken puppet.
Segment Three: Due to the effects of the wormhole, our Mike is replaced with version from alternate universe where he is also a robot. What little respect Crow and Tom have for Mike is lost as they can't take the ventriloquist dummy styled robot seriously.
Segment Four: Due to the effects of the wormhole, Mike and the Bots are transported to a lovely sylvan glen. Tired of all the wackiness, Mike just goes for a walk.
Closing (Segment Five): Everything appears to be back to normal, complete with a visit from Krankor, and they're even back around the Earth, but Pearl and Brain Guy have reason to suspect they've traveled back in time to Ancient Rome...
Stinger: The Phantom of Krankor's trademark laugh.
"So is this going to be a super violent porn cartoon?"
Crow's riff plays off the fallacy that most Japanese animation (Anime) is full of scenes heavy with gratuitous sex and violence; particularlly those from the late 80's and early 90's. Do keep in mind, this was a little before Anime became more mainstream to American audiences.
"OK...two Italian guys dodge mushroooms thrown by a monkey."
Most likely a reference to both Donkey Kong and The Super Mario Bros. (Though Donkey Kong threw barrels.) Mike's ad lib pitch could also be a reference to their creator; Shigeru Miyamoto.
("I'm Prince... of Space!") "Ah, hoo-hoo!"
Crow is singing in the style of the singer Prince.
"Hey! HO-Scale Japan!"
HO scale is the most popular of model railway scales.
"Hey look! Up there!" "It's Cheap Trick!"
Riff playing off the fact that the band Cheap Trick were at one point extremely popular in Japan. (Apparently they even referred to them as 'The American Beatles.')
"We were supposed to meet those Heaven's Gate people here."
Heaven's Gate was a small cult of people that believed that there was a spaceship carrying Jesus following right behind the Hale Bopp Comet. When Hale Bopp passed, they killed themselves.
Great Hall designed by The LEGO Corporation.
Reference to a toy company that makes interchangeable brick toys.
"The Gabe Kaplan brigade"
Known for his work on the TV sitcom "Welcome Back Kotter".
"Paging Mr. Herman"
Deep voice sounds similar to one in the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure.
"There goes a narwhal (Servo goes "Neee!")
Reference to the B-52's song Rock Lobster.
A police car's loudspeaker makes repeated announcements, Servo contributes theme music.
The music accompanies a bus' loudspeaker announcement at the beginning of "We're All Bozos on This Bus" by The Firesign Theatre .
"Truman Capote sent to fight Krankor!"
Truman Capote, author of "In True Blood", "Breakfast at Tiffany's", and other novels, was..well, how shall I put this, not exactly known to be the rugged type.
"The aliens have a Young Ones spaceship."
The Young Ones was a British sitcom about a group of students and their surreal misadventures. The remark most likely refers to Vyvyan, the punk rocker of the group, and how the fins on Krankor's ship look kind of like his hair.
