Entertainment
 

Time Chasers

From MST3K

821 - Time Chasers
Air Date November 22, 1997
AKA Tangents
Movie Director David Giancola
Year 1994
Cast Matthew Bruch
Bonnie Pritchard
George Woodard
Peter Harrington
Preceded by 820 - Space Mutiny
Followed by 822 - Overdrawn at the Memory Bank


Contents

The Movie

Synopsis

Nick Miller (Bruch) creates a time machine out of an airplane and a Commodore 64 and shows it to his friends by taking them 50 years into the future. Nick sells the technology to Gen-Corp, a high-tech firm run by J.K. Robertson (Woodard), whose office is in the mezzanine of a shopping mall. Robertson, however, turns out to be Evil and uses the time machine to plunder the future. With the lives of himself and his friends at stake, Nick needs to use his time machine to travel a week back in time and convince himself not to give the demo to Robertson. [1]

It helps if you think of the movie as Back to the Future II, but with a twenty seven dollar budget.

Playing the part of Biff is Gen Corp. There is no Doc, the Delorean is a Piper Cub, and Marty McFly is a guy with a chin butt, a bad haircut and too much pink.

In fact, there's just too much pink altogether.

Also, this may in fact be the only movie in the world where a K-car plays a substantial role.

Trivia

  • Director David Giancola was only 20 years old when he shot this movie with a miniscule budget of $150,000. The licensing fees paid by Best Brains for its use in this episode helped pull the original movie out of the red.
  • The movie also goes by the name, "Tangents"
  • According to David Giancola, Castleton College provided several free t-shirts for the film with the idea that they would be hot sellers after being featured in a movie. The demand for the t-shirts didn't come until a few years later, when the film premiered on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
  • J.K. Robertson's office is actually the foyer of a local opera house. [2]
  • Crow's comment that a minor character (played by Vicky A. Bourn) looks like Lisa Kudrow was mistakenly accepted as fact by many MSTies, and Kudrow was listed in the film's cast on the Internet Movie Database for several years. [3]
  • As Nick and Lisa are walking in an alley in dystopian future Vermont, you'll see some nearly-destroyed posters attached to the wall. One of them is for Back to the Future!
  • The Time Chasers cast and crew had a reunion party to view the premiere of the MST3K episode. While some knew what to expect, some were not pleased at the "savaging" of the original film.
  • If you're interested, you can visit Mr. Giancola’s Edgewood Studios website here [3]
  • David Giancola said that Best Brains planned to use Peter Harrington, who played Matthew Paul in the film, in a cameo role, but Harrington's schedule didn't allow for this to happen.
  • The movie receives a 3.5/5 star rating in the Video Movie Guide, making it one of the highest-rated MST3K films. And it won a Gold Award at the Houston International Film Festival in 1994. Not too shabby, considering.

The Episode

Host Segments

Crow talks with a young Mike

Opening: Tom wants Mike to say "Lost In Space".

Intro: Mike and Pearl have an ironically peaceful chat.

Segment One: Tom sends Crow back in time to convince Mike not to take temp jobs.

Segment Two: Crow returns and finds Mikes abusive brother Eddie there instead. Says he got that job since that 'sleepy eyed guy left.'

Segment Three: Crow returns to the past and convinces Crow not to go through with his plan.

End: Crow wants Mike to say 'Gilligans Island', but backfires. Mike chats up Pearl again, and realises that another Crow is somewhere in 80s Wisconsin.

Stinger: "Matt, it's time for you decide if you're gonna be one of my team players or not."

Quotes & References

Crow: I thought Night Court was on.
Night Court was a popular show from the 1980s - early 1990s about an urban city judge and the comedic cases he encounters.


Mike: Co-starring Bruce Springsteen's little brother, Wayne.
The actor shown very closely resembles a young version of New Jersey rock musician, Bruce Springsteen.


Mike: We could send Bob Saget to meet Charlemagne.
Charlemagne was the first Christian king of the Western world and ruled until 814; Bob Saget is a modern day comedian.


Mike: Come to Martin's. WHAT UP?!
"WHAT UP?!" was Martin Lawrence's catchphrase on his 1990s sitcom Martin.

Crow: They're in Dar es Salaam!
Dar es Salaam is the largest city and former capital of Tanzania.

Servo (singing): "When you get caught between the moon and New York City"
A song entitledArthur's Theme" (from a 1981 film called Arthur, starring Liza Minnelli) that has a very similar tune.


(A blonde, overweight extra is seen pacing in the background.)
Crow: I see Drew Carey's nemesis Mimi survived the Apocalypse!
Mimi Bobeck was a character from The Drew Carey Show, known for wearing colorful dresses and making cheap shots at Drew's weight.

Servo: You're gonna give me all your soylent green, man!
A reference to a popular dystopian film produced in the 1970s.


Servo: What, is this Ironweed all of a sudden?
Ironweed was a 1980s award-winning film starring Jack Nicholson.


Mike: That guy needs chinderwear.
A reference to the Mads' invention from episode 505 The Magic Voyage of Sinbad--underwear for people with cleft chins.

(Camera pans to a large, bearded Minuteman soldier.)
"Dr. Demento, Patriot."
Barret "Dr. Demento" Hansen is a radio host known for playing funny or silly songs on his show The Dr. Demento Show.

(A man rides on a horse, directing soldiers.)
(Unknown MST3K actor): A horse, my kingdom for a horse.
A quote from Shakespeare's Richard III.


(Nick is trying to foil Robertson's attempts to jump back to the present inside the transport.)
Nick: You wanna fly!? Let's fly!
Crow: I gotta million of em,' hot-cha-cha-cha!
A parody of the vocal stylings of the late actor Jimmy Durante.

(Nick is steadily taking his time climbing down from a tree that the transport crashed into.)
Crow: He's climbing an Ent!
 Mike: Ommm, hum, get off me.
A reference to Treebeard and the race of Ents from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Video Release


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