513 - The Brain That Wouldn't Die
Air Date	October 30, 1993
AKA	The Head That Wouldn't Die
Movie Director	Joseph Green
Year	1962
Cast	Jason Evers (billed here as Herb Evers), Virginia Leith
Preceded by	512 - Mitchell
Followed by	514 - Teen-Age Strangler

Contents 1 The Movie 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Information 2 The Episode 2.1 Host Segments 2.2 Other Notes 2.3 Quotes & References

The MovieEdit

SynopsisEdit

It's 1962 in southern California. Intense, impatient Dr. Bill Cortner (Jason Evers) is a 40-year-old intern who plays by his own rules. "Nothing is beyond my control" he boasts - in other words, a typical doctor.

Cortner has been laboring in secret to perfect transplantation of limbs and organs with body parts poached from the hospital where he works while his father, also a surgeon, covers for him. Nurse Jan (Virginia Leith) is his lovely and amorous assistant and bride-to-be.

Bill's got a private lab in the country. One Friday, he receives an urgent summons at work from his lab assistant and experimental subject, Kurt. Dr. Bill and Jan race to the lab in his convertible. In a crash, Bill is thrown from the car, unhurt. Jan is decapitated, yet curiously still able to reach an arm out dramatically towards Bill's face as she falls into unconsciousness.

Bill nicks her noggin from the fiery Ford and dashes down field to his lab where he installs it in a lasagna pan filled with his brand-new special transplant solution. Mirabile dictu, it seems that all you need to perfectly perfuse a human brain is a couple of beakers, some 1/8 inch glass tubing, and a pan of combination anti-rejection serum/artificial blood/cerebro-spinal fluid. Jan will survive for fifty hours, he figures, time enough to find a new body for her head - and move medicine forward by light years!

Confident that Jan's bodiless head will get along just fine without his supervision, he returns to the city and begins a sordid search for a host body at a strip club, cruising the boulevards, and attending a beauty contest. Observe his lips twist with desire as he ogles the paraded flesh, while an alto sax wails a sleazy accompaniment and the camera lurches drunkenly.

Back at the lab, Jan, whose humor has, shall we say, soured considerably, begins planning Bill's comeuppance. She's quite miffed at not being allowed to expire with dignity, and she lets lab assistant Kurt know it in "Brenda Vaccaro-ish" tones. Guess what? It seems she has also conveniently acquired paranormal powers. She can not only communicate with but also command Bill's other creation - an unspeakable, mutated mass of grafted tissues that resides in the closet. I know what you're thinking... it's not Cher.

Meanwhile, Bill discovers a suitable body in the person of "Doris", a bitter, man-hating, facially disfigured photographic model from his past. He reels her in with utilizing his oily charm and by promising to "erase her scar... sanding away damaged skin tissues" - a revolutionary approach to cosmetic surgery. Once at the lab, he plies her with drugged liquor and prepares to operate, ignoring Jan's strident objections.

Will the hellish healer succeed in his plans? Can the fiendish physician get away with murder? Will Jan be denied a humane death and forced to continue life... as a monstrosity? And what of the thing in the closet?

InformationEdit

Eddie Carmel, who played the giant pinhead mutant, was billed at 8’ 9” tall, though he was likely at least one foot shorter. He toured with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, billed as “The Jewish Giant” and “The World’s Greatest Giant.”

The EpisodeEdit

Host SegmentsEdit

Prologue: It’s Mike’s first day on the SOL and the ‘Bots have been giving him training on the finer points of riffing.

Invention: Mike’s first invention is the Gutter-bumber-chute, an umbrella with a gutter system. The Mads are not impressed. In Deep 13, Dr. F invents the Dream Buster, which allows him to pop the balloons of bratty children from a safe distance. Mike and the Bots are unimpressed, as Dr. F manhandles Frank ("I'm your mother now, Frank!")

Segment Two: The Bots aid Mike in attempting to gain control of the ship and get back to Earth. He ends up cutting the cheese compressor line. Gypsy hollers, "That's not cheese!"

Segment Three: It's craft time as Mike and the Bots are making hats for Jan in the Pan, the bodiless lady in the film. Included in the hats is a Crown Roast Hat, to help give the illusion of height.

Segment Four: When discussing the depressing nature of the film, Mike is compelled to tell an embarrassing childhood story about a walk-a-thon. The story includes a long walk home, an ice cream cone and a locked bathroom door.

Segment Five: Mike and the Bots don’t read letters because none are addressed to Mike, and they are visited by Jan in the Pan. She has an incredible sense of humor until Mike offends her. In Deep 13, Dr. Forrester decides to lop off Frank's head.

Stinger: Unpleasant Stripper: "Who's to tell me to blow if I don’t want to?"

Other NotesEdit

Guest Stars

• Jan in the Pan: Mary Jo Pehl

Miscellanea

• Tom says the bots had Mike watch The Beast of Yucca Flats in preparation for this film. The Beast of Yucca Flats would be an experiment the next year.

Quotes & ReferencesEdit

• (deep voice) "But for Joseph Green, there would be another film."

A parody of NFL Films oft-used phrase: "But for the Green Bay Packers would come another season."

• "License plate? A boot? Tricycle wheel? This man was a bottom feeder!"

A reference to the "shark autopsy" scene from Jaws.

• [Tom buzzes when Dr. Cortner touches the patient's brain.]

A reference to the popular electric board game Operation.

• "It's 'Gnip Gnop'."

​Gnip Gnop (ping pong spelled backwards) was a toy/game released by Parker Brothers in the early 1970s.

• "Luke, join me or star in Corvette Summer!"

Corvette Summer was a 1978 film starring Mark Hamill.

• "You taste like Vince Edwards."

​Vince Edwards starred in the TV medical series Ben Casey .

• "Nick Mancuso IS Stingray!"

Stingray was a short-lived NBC television show produced by Stephen J. Cannell starring Nick Mancuso as the titular character, Ray.

• [Mike pointing to a road direction painted on the freeway] "A sign left by ancient astronauts!"

A reference to Erich von Däniken's book Chariots of the Gods?, and a popular phrase from the sci-fi oddity show In Search of... narrated by Leonard Nimoy.

• [Crow shouting to Mrs. Webb on the freeway.]

A reference to the Bob Newhart routine "The Driving Instructor", from the album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.

• "Think I'll have a Papa Burger. You?"

A reference to fast-food franchise A&W Restaurants, which in 1963 introduced introduced The Burger Family, which included a Mama Burger, Papa Burger, Teen Burger and Baby Burger.

• "Look out look out look out look out!"

A line from the 1964 song 'Leader Of The Pack ' by the Shangri-Las .

• "Thank you God, thank you so bloody much!"

One of Basil Fawlty's oft-repeated lines from the John Cleese series Fawlty Towers .

• "Hey, it's Johnny Tremain!"

Johnny Tremain is the protagonist of a children's book of the same name by Esther Forber.

• "I bet he's going to turn her into Mrs. Olson!"

Mrs. Olson was a Swedish-accented character in a popular Folgers Coffee ad campaign.

• "Oooooohhh, you put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up!"

A refrain from the popular song Coconut by Harry Nilsson.

• "An American in vitro..."

A reference to the George Gershwin symphony An American in Paris, or the Gene Kelly musical of the same name. In vitro is a scientific term for biological work done "in the glass". The opposite is in vivo which refers to work done in an intact body.

• [Rough voice] "Boss, you've broken the goofy meter again!"

Tom Servo is imitating Lionel Stander's character Max of Hart to Hart.

• It's the Diane Arbus cafe.

Diane Arbus was a photographer famous for images of people on the fringes of society, hence the reference to the sleazy strip club. A particularly sweet reference, as one of Arbus' most famous photos featured Eddie Carmel, the giant in this film.

• "So, are you a goer? Ay? Ay? Nudge, nudge? Know what I mean?"

A reference to the popular Monty Python sketch Nudge Nudge.

• "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me!"

​Knock Three Times is a single by Tony Orlando and Dawn . Released in November 1970, it went gold in both the U.K. and United States.

• "The powers of Matthew Star!"

​The Powers of Matthew Star was a forgettable, short-lived (Sept. 1982 - April 1983) sci-fi series on NBC. Why any of the MST writers were able to remember the show is one of life's greater mysteries.

• (Jan: "I'm only a head...") "... That can't say no..."

I Cain't Say No is a song from the musical Oklahoma! ("I'm just a girl that cain't say no / I'm in a terrible fix...")

• "Heh, heh, heh, have you seen Frankenhooker?"

Frankenhooker was a 1990 film about a scientist who kills hookers and uses their parts to revive his fiance's head. (Sound familiar?)

• ""Thank you God, thank you so bloody much"

A reference to Basil Fawlty's (John Cleese) line in "The Germans" episode of Wikipedia: Fawlty Towers

• "I love this place!"

​A reference to one of Burger King's more irritating TV ad campaigns from the early 1990s.

preceded by: Season 4		MST3K Season 5					followed by: Season 6
		1993 - 1994
501	Warrior of the Lost World	1993-07-24	509	The Girl in Lovers Lane	1993-09-18	517	Beginning of the End	1993-11-25
502	Hercules	1993-07-17	510	The Painted Hills	1993-09-26	518	The Atomic Brain	1993-12-04
503	Swamp Diamonds	1993-07-31	511	Gunslinger	1993-10-09	519	Outlaw	1993-12-11
504	Secret Agent Super Dragon	1993-08-07	512	Mitchell	1993-10-23	520	Radar Secret Service	1993-12-18
505	The Magic Voyage of Sinbad	1993-08-14	513	The Brain That Wouldn't Die	1993-10-30	521	Santa Claus	1993-12-24
506	Eegah	1993-08-28	514	Teen-Age Strangler	1993-11-07	522	Teen-Age Crime Wave	1994-01-15
507	I Accuse My Parents	1993-09-04	515	The Wild Wild World of Batwoman	1993-11-13	523	Village of the Giants	1994-01-22
508	Operation Double 007	1993-09-11	516	Alien from L.A.	1993-11-20	524	12 to the Moon	1994-02-05