Entertainment
 

Squirm

From MST3K

1012 - Squirm
Air Date August 1, 1999
Movie Director Jeff Lieberman
Year 1976
Cast Don Scardino
Patricia Pearcy
R.A. Dow
Jean Sullivan
Short A Case of Spring Fever
Preceded by 1011 - Horrors of Spider Island
Followed by 1013 - Diabolik

The second-to-last episode of the series, Squirm is a horror film about worms running rampant in a stereotypically southern town. The episode also features the third and final Sci-Fi Channel short, the long-sought A Case of Spring Fever.

Contents

A Case of Spring Fever

Synopsis

By accidentally bad-mouthing springs, a doughy man runs afoul of Coily the Spring Sprite, a hellish little creature with a single tooth, pointed ears and a voice like a cartoon grandpa. Angered by the man's taking springs for granted, the demonic Coily shows the man a dystopian world where springs no longer exist. Whenever the man attempts to use something that once contained springs, Coily lunges out of the device, shrieking "No springs!" before chuckling demonically and disappearing with an odd whistling noise.

At the brink of insanity, our lumpy hero pleads with Coily to return him to the world he once took for granted. After a brief moment of consideration, Coily relents and brings him back to his own universe. After his epiphany, the he becomes a spring zealot, preaching about the marvellous wonders of springs and their importance in everyday life, much to the annoyance of his golf buddies. On the drive home, one of his friends makes the same mistake he once made- wishing to never see another spring again- but he is cut short by our spring-spouting preacher before Coily can strike again.

Information

This short is famous for Coiley's aforementioned quote which he repeats several times throughout the short.

Squirm

Synopsis

Start with the The Deadly Bees, but set it in the deep, deep, deep south, replace the female pop singer with a male lead who's also blonde and only slightly less feminine, replace bees with worms, and that's about it. There are lots of worms in this movie, and possibly the best stinger line in series history ("You gonna be da worm face!")

Unlike The Deadly Bees this movie has lots and lots of location shots. However they don't make the movie any better--only that much more sad and distressing. Like Roger Corman's films, the plot is revealed during extremely long stretches of exposition between disconnected bursts of action, making the film more of a slideshow than anything else. The hero isn't, the special effects aren't, and the plot revolves around the idea that a bunch of inbred hillbillies are too stupid to leave a dangerous situation (so at least the plot is somewhat plausible).

Information

The Episode

Host Segments

Prologue: The annual safety check on the SOL reveals that it's completely unsafe. And suggests an alternative use for HAM radios.

Segment 1: Pearl is happy! She organizes a fair at Castle Forrester, modestly beginning her quest for worldwide fair domination. She's not impressed by the Bots' prize pig, but she is wowed by some other offbeat attractions. There seems to be a lot happening on the satellite that Mike isn't aware of.

Segment 2: Mikey the Mike Sprite visits and shows the Bots a world without Mike, but they are unfazed by Mikey's powers.

Segment 3: Servo has contracted an extreme case of Southern Belleness! it's up to Mike and Crow to Yankee him back to his senses.

Segment 4 : Mike replicates the electrical experiment from the movie on his pal Emmett the worm. With delicious results.

Segment 5: Crow tries to poke fun at the gangly younger sister in the movie by way of his really tall platform shoes. It's not long before he realizes the drawbacks of this plan. Back at the castle, Pearl appears to have seriously misunderstood the allure of bungee jumping. Come to the fair!

Stinger: "You gon' be the worm-face!"

Obscure References

A Case of Spring Fever

  • "My Tamagotchi seems okay!"

The Tamagotchi or "digital" pet was a late 1990s fad that originated in Japan.

  • "This Edgar Kennedy one-man show is going good."

Edgar Kennedy was a popular comic actor during the 1920s and '30s.

  • "Merry Christmas, you wonderful old couch!"

Paraphrasing George Bailey's line from It's a Wonderful Life.

Squirm

  • "Roger!" "Ramjet!"

Roger Ramjet was a 1960s Saturday-morning cartoon about a comedic superhero.

  • "Most bizarre freak of nature...oh, brocciflower!"

Brocciflower is a genetically modified hybrid of broccoli and cauliflower.

  • "Uh-oh, he's gonna get Dave Barry all over his head!"

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist who had a widely syndicated newspaper column until 2004.

  • "The Jim Varney Library!"

Comic actor Jim Varney was best known for playing the character Ernest P. Worrell.

  • "He's actually lost in the Wooley Swamp.

"The Legend of Wooley Swamp" is a horror-based song by Charlie Daniels that is set in a swamp in the deep South.

  • "I'm switching it to the all-'Philadelphia Freedom' station."

"Philadelphia Freedom" is an Elton John song recorded in 1975.

  • "...and the yam that looks like Lyndon LaRouche!"

Lyndon LaRouche is an American political activist and perennial third-party presidential candidate, known for his bizarre, conspiracy-obsessed worldview and the cultlike movement that has grown up around him.

  • "The Ford station wagon: Unsmall at any speed."

A reference to Unsafe at Any Speed, a book written by Ralph Nader in the 1960s.

  • "Lowly Worm's Worst Day Ever!"

Lowly Worm was a character in Richard Scarry's Busytown children's books.

  • "It's Chuck Wepner's skull!"

Boxer Chuck Wepner challenged Muhammad Ali for the world heavyweight title in a 1975 bout that loosely inspired the first Rocky movie.

  • "Please, I need to get back into Gary Hart's closet!"

Former Colorado senator Gary Hart campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, but dropped out of the race after a heavily publicized sex scandal tarnished his popularity.

  • "...John Birch Society literature..."

The John Birch Society is an extreme right-wing American political organization.

  • "It's the skull of Mortimer Snerd!"

Mortimer Snerd was a dummy used by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, who was more famous for Charlie McCarthy.

  • "Rerun? Dwayne? Deedee? Shirley? Mama?"

Servo is listing characters from the 1970s sitcom What's Happening!!.

  • "Jame Gumb rents this shack!"

Jame Gumb, a.k.a. Buffalo Bill, was a transsexual serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs.

  • "Kevin McHale, Cross-dresser."

Kevin McHale played for the Boston Celtics during the 1980s and early '90s.

  • "Manute Bol's sister, Susan Bol!"

Manute Bol is a Sudanese-born basketball player known for his imposing height of 7'7".

  • "Letters to Der Weise Engel"

Reference to the book and movie Marathon Man. Laurence Olivier's character, former head of a Nazi concentration camp, was nicknamed "Der Weise Engel" (the White Angel) by his inmates, and in one scene is recognized by several Jewish citizens in New York who cry out his nickname.

  • "This is for Rudy Boschwitz!"

Rudy Boschwitz is a former Republican United States Senator from Minnesota who was defeated by Democrat Paul Wellstone in 1990 and then again in 1996.

  • "We're out of Billy Beer."

Billy Beer was promoted in the late 1970s by President Carter's brother Billy who was known for his love of beer.





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