Monster A Go Go - Television Tropes & Idioms

You may come from beyond the moon,
But to me, you're just a goon!

—The Other Three, lyrics to Title Theme Tune "Monster A Go-Go!"

I recall this episode as being the first time we decided explicitly to write sketches having nothing to do with the movie. Really, we had no choice. (...A)ny topic that is about something (that is, any topic that exhibits "topicness") cannot, by definition, have anything to do with this movie.

—Paul Chaplin, The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide

Director Herschell Gordon Lewis needed another movie to round out a double-feature with Moonshine Mountain. So he bought Bill Rebane’s unfinished "Terror at Halfday," added a couple of extra scenes, some new dialogue, some narration, nothing else, and voilà: "Monster A Go-Go!", a half finished stinker!

When describing this movie, the word "why" inexplicably comes up a lot. Why does Dr. Logan protect the monster that killed his brother, Dr. Logan? Why do we never hear anything further from all the characters that lost friends and family to the monster? Why does it seem that the narrator is watching a completely different movie? Why can't I hear anything? WHY DOES THIS MOVIE EXIST?

When Mystery Science Theater 3000 played this movie, they crew agreed that it was the worst they'd seen to that point. When watching Manos The Hands Of Fate, this movie is mentioned as being worse. With Manos, one can at least say that Torgo is a saving grace for that movie — but this movie has no such grace. It's bad. Real bad. A 12.0 on the 10.0 scale of badness, and not in a good way.

This film provides examples of:

Blatant Lies - anything the narrator says.
Contemplate Our Navels
Cosmic Horror - ...maybe?
Dull Surprise - Rumors that this movie had actors turned out to be greatly exaggerated.
Dreadful Musician - The composer of the actual score.
Joel: What is this, Chinese Music Torture!?
Did Not Do The Research - Nothing works anything like this movie portrays it. Except, perhaps, the utter boredom of nothing in particular happening.
Fainting
Gainax Ending - There was no monster.
Info Dump
Last Name Basis - The Logan brothers.
Jerk Ass - Dr. Carl. Talks about how well a mission went when the pilot didn't come back alive, instructs a mother not to tell her son that his step-father is dead, and inexplicably disappears before doing anything useful.
Leitmotif
Mind Screw - Not because of symbolism, so much as complete incompetence combined with the fact that the film has nothing approaching even the incoherence of chaos.
Notable Original Music
Parody Retcon: H.G. Lewis claimed this movie was a parody of some sort, instead of a half-assed crime against cinema.
The Scream
Shocking Swerve
So Bad Its Horrible
Space Clothes - On the monster. Inexplicably.
Special Effect Failure
Narrator: Surely, this was the space capsule Douglas flew out on.
Tom Servo: [laughing] Douglas was pear shaped, very short, and stood the whole way!
- And of course, the infamous scene where the sound of a phone ringing was clearly made by someone offscreen mimicking it. This can be hard to catch, but MST 3 K calls it out:
  Joel: ...unbelievable.
  General: [answers phone] Yes?
  Tom Servo: [as general] I made that noise.
Stock Footage - The film would have been made out of scotch tape and Popsicle sticks, but they broke the budget.
Title Theme Tune
The Treachery Of Images - the ending.
Unreliable Narrator
The Unintelligible
Wall Banger - Even as bad as this movie is, the ending still sticks out as being particularly awful. In the words of Agony Booth's Albert Walker:
Words simply fail me here. There is no way to communicate how much this ending completely and utterly sucks.
What Happened To The Mouse - About half the characters disappear about halfway into the movie.

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation contains examples of:

Crowning Moment Of Funny:
Narrator: There is one terrifying word in the world of nuclear physics:
Tom Servo: "Oops!"
- Also, at the end:
Narrator: The difference between science fiction and science fact.
Crow: And science crap!
Gary Numan
Here in my car
I feel safest of all.
Ride Of The Valkyries
Running Gags
B.O!
Rupert Holmes: Joel and the Bots have skit overthinking about Escape: The Piña Colada Song
This Is Gonna Suck: spoken by Crow, when the opening credits end no less.