Hey, I didn't know the Russians had cartoons.
Dr. Forrester: Well, Joel. Your film today is called Moon Zero Two. It's a late 60's romp through the then-lunar-crazed consciousness of America.
Dr. Erhardt: And believe me, it doesn't stand up to the test of time!
Dr. Forrester: Stew on the broth of this one, lumpy boy!
Dr. Erhardt: And believe me, it doesn't stand up to the test of time!
Dr. Forrester: Stew on the broth of this one, lumpy boy!
Film watched: Moon Zero Two
During Turkey Day '18, Joel Hodgson made this the first movie of the event, citing that it had good writing despite being from the first cable season. This episode was chosen to be shown for the 2020 Live Riff-Along Special, with the cast of The Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour adding new riffs alongside the old ones.
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
, and on the MST3k YouTube channel here.
The Segments:
Prologue- Joel welcomes the audience to the SOL and asks them to think of him if they want to get a snack during the commercial.
Segment 1
- Dr. Erhardt is having a bad hair day, but he and Dr. Forrester don't sweat it as they introduce their new line of vomiting celebrity toothpaste for the Invention Exchange. Joel reinvents snacking with a new teleportation device that warps food right into your mouth.
Segment 2
- Joel and the 'Bots put on their own reenactment of the 1969 Moon landing, which ends with the astronauts locking themselves out of their Lander.
Segment 3
- Having seen the board game Monopoly be updated in the movie as "Moonopoly", the crew discuss what other recreational activities would be like on the Moon.
Segment 4
- Crow and Servo get into an argument about which woman from the movie they find more attractive. Joel settles it by shutting off the gravity controls.
Segment 5
- Joel has the 'Bots earn their RAM Chips by naming good and bad things about the movie. He then reads a letter, which misspells Servo's name as "Tom Sirbol".
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Moon Zero Two has examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Tom Servo admits to liking the groovy animated opening credits.
- Colour-Coded Characters:
- Lampshaded with the three astronaut goons who attack the heroes on the moon, who are given the nicknames "Lemon Yellow", "Raspberry Red", and "Lime Green" by Tom Servo.
- Taken a step further in the 2020 Live Riff-Along. When the goons appear, cast member Yvonne Reese (who plays GPC in the live shows) notes the spacesuit colors and calls them Joel, Mike & Jonah.
- Forehead of Doom: Quite a few riffs regarding James Olson's (Bill Kemp) large forehead.
-
Memetic Mutation: The Amazing Colossal Guide notes that no one remembers this episode ever being done, including the cast, crew and fans. Though funnily enough, it's since been the debut episode for Turkey Day marathons more than once. - Shout-Out: During one of the trumpet-driven space scenes a nod is made to legendary trumpet player Maynard Ferguson.
- Space Is Slow Motion: The low gravity bar fight in the movie, parodied in one of the host segments.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Inverted. Servo loves the cheesy animation and silly music during the opening credits, leading him to believe the movie will be at least So Bad, It's Good.
- Tom Swifty: In the film, Bill Kemp shoots one of the goons sent to kill him while on farside. The goon's space suit depressurizes, but the guy's body unrealistically deflates like a balloon, making his dead body limp and flat, regardless of the rigid flesh and bone that would still be inside the depressurized suit. Tom Servo gets in this quip:Servo: "Soup's on," he said flatly.
- Visual Gag: After the movie shows the antagonists playing "Moonopoly", Servo shows his disapproval by "mooning" the screen with his hoverskirt.
