101 - The Crawling Eye
Air Date	25 November, 1989
Running Time	91 min
AKA	The Trollenberg Terror The Creeping Eye
Movie Director	Quentin Lawrence
Year	1958
Cast	Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Jennifer Jayne, Janet Munro
Preceded by	K21 - The Legend of the Dinosaurs
Followed by	102 - The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy

Contents 1 The Movie 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Information 2 The Episode 2.1 Host Segments 2.2 Trivia 2.3 Obscure References

The Movie

Synopsis

At the remote Alpine village of Trollenberg, someone or something is killing off mountain climbers. The culprits turn out to be an army of one-eyed, tentacled beasts from outer space, who hide themselves in a radioactive cloud. Crawling along like snails, these horrific creatures attempt to neutralize their human foes by pumping a freezing fog at their pursuers. It matters not at all that some of the locals have been mentally enslaved by the monsters. It's up to American scientist Alan Brooks to save the day. [1]

Information

The Trollenberg Terror was adapted for the screen by Jimmy Sangster from the popular BBC TV serial by Peter Key. The Trollenberg Terror was retitled The Crawling Eye when it was released in the U.S. on a double bill with The Cosmic Terror.[2]

Trivia: A year before he did this movie, Forrest Tucker starred in a movie called The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas where he confronted psychic Yetis. [3]

The film itself was parodied in the first season of the Warner Bros. cartoon "Freakazoid!" as "The Cloud."

The Crawling Eye is mentioned at the very end of the final MST3K episode, 1013 Diabolik, bringing the show full circle. Crow comments that the movie looks familiar.

The Episode

Host Segments

Segment One (Invention Exchange): Joel explains the show and demonstrates the Electric Bagpipes. The Mad Scientists are introduced. Dr. Forrester injects Dr. Erhardt with an antiperspirant developed from dogs. It has some unexpected side effects.

Segment Two: Joel explains to the bots why it's a big deal for a human to lose a head.

Segment Three: Gypsy uncoils herself.

Segment Four: The bots are more horrified by Forrest Tucker than the giant eye. Joel explains why giant eyes are scary.

Ending Segment: Joel makes RAM chips, and will give the bots one only if they can tell him a good thing and a bad thing about the movie. Gypsy, of course, didn't see the movie, so Joel asks her what 2+2 equals. Gypsy answers Richard Basehart, but Joel gives her a RAM chip anyway because she answered.

Trivia

• Although this was the first show produced, it was the 2nd show to air on The Comedy Channel [4]

Obscure References

Multiple references to F Troop: F Troop was a comedy sitcom which aired from 1965 to 1967 on ABC. Forrest Tucker played Sergeant Morgan Sylvester O'Rourke on the show.

• "This must be a Paramount Picture."

A reference to the image of a mountain which is the title screen for the Paramount Pictures Corporation.

• "...he got that hat from Mike Nesmith."

Michael Nesmith is an American musician famous for being in the Monkees. His character often wore an iconic green knitted cap.

• "Duncan Sullivan, what a yo-yo."

Duncan is one of the earliest and most well-known yo-yo brands.

• "I am Mt. Svengali, you will do everything that I say."

Svengali is a fictional hypnotist from the late 19th century novel Trilby by George du Maurier.

• "It's Mr Haney!"

Mr. Haney is a rather short and portly character on the television show Green Acres. He was almost always portrayed wearing a white shirt, wide tie, and straw hat.

• "Meanwhile, back at Daniel Boone's house..."

Daniel Boone was an American frontiersman whose log cabin home is today preserved as a national museum.

• "It was a bizarre dream...and you were all there...Fannie Flagg, and Groucho, and Carl Sagan, and it was a Dick Cavett PBS special"

This scene resembles that of Dorothy waking in the film The Wizard of Oz with her bed surrounded by people who resemble those she met while "dreaming." The named references are of characters and personalities who resemble the actors in The Crawling Eye, including (from left to right on the screen) comic actors Fannie Flagg and Groucho Marx as well as astronomer and public intellectual Carl Sagan. Dick Cavett is a former talk-show host who presented a number of specials, some of them on PBS.

• "..."Four-hundred-and-twenty-five matches exactly."

In Rain Man, the autistic character played by Dustin Hoffman, is able to count numbers of small objects (toothpicks in the movie) almost instantly. He also repeatedly refers to his excellent driving skills.

• "Here's Johnny...Wendy, I'm home!"

This reference has two steps: it referrs most directly to The Shining, when Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) says the line while chopping down a door to attack his wife (named Wendy and played by Shelley Duvall) and child. However, Torrance is himself imitating Ed McMahon introducing Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

• "Young love, first love..."

Lyrics from a popular song from the 1950s called, surprisingly enough, "Young Love."

• "Just keep in mind you programmed me..."

A slight misquote from the 1980s film WarGames, in which an advanced computerized war-simulation is asked what the "primary goal" is by a increasingly anxious user and responds by saying "You should know, Professor. You programmed me."

• "Tora tora tora!"

From the film Tora! Tora! Tora!, a Japanese-American movie about WWII, particularly the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

preceded by: Season 0		MST3K Season 1					followed by: Season 2
		1989 - 1990
101	The Crawling Eye	1989-11-28	106	The Crawling Hand	1989-12-26	111	Moon Zero Two	1990-01-30
102	The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy	1989-12-05	107	Robot Monster	1990-01-02	112	Untamed Youth	1990-02-06
103	The Mad Monster	1989-12-12	108	The Slime People	1990-01-09	113	The Black Scorpion	1990-02-13
104	Women of the Prehistoric Planet	1990-02-20	109	Project Moon Base	1990-01-16
105	The Corpse Vanishes	1989-12-19	110	Robot Holocaust	1990-01-23