"Oh, look! E.C. Buehler. Must be his day off."
Films watched: Speech: Using Your Voice (short) and Earth vs. the Spider
Speech: Using Your Voice is an educational short to teach people about how to control their voices and tones when publicly speaking.
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
, and on the MST3k YouTube channel here.
The Segments:
Prologue- Crow presents Inside the Robot Mind, with Tom as his guest, but Politeness Judo prevents the actual interview.
Segment 1/Invention Exchange
- Frank is the operator for Dr. Forrester's cheese phone; he hopes to make a curdless model in the future. The 'Bots demonstrate now-outdated predecessors to Joel's CD player/hair dryer combo, but Joel apparently forgot how loud hair dryers are on their own.
Segment 2
- Crow has written his first screenplay, Earth vs. Soup, and he ropes Joel and Tom into performing it. It involves some uranium-235 being stored in a greasy spoon's boiling pot of soup, and gets real repetitive real fast.
Segment 3
- The SOL crew are a hot new rock band dubbed Spy-Dor, but they're interrupted with a visit from the cranky Custodian from the Seventh Galaxy.
Segment 4
- Joel plays with some Creeple People and Creepie Crawlers, which leads to a discussion on the disappearance of "dangerous" toys from the past.
Segment 5
- The 'Bots were tasked with writing essays on Bert I. Gordon's films; Crow's is almost entirely made up. Frank ate too much of the cheese phone, and upchucks it on the console.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Speech: Using Your Voice has examples of:
- Running Gag: Portraying the necessity of a wire rack, like the one the speaking tips are mounted on, as a speaking tip in itself.
- Shout-Out: Noting that Professor E.C. Buehler is hosting the short, Servo adds, "Must be his day off."
- The Stinger: One of a handful of episodes where it's from here, rather than the movie.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Earth vs. the Spider has examples of:
- Big Eater: Joel complains that the spider keeps eating the opening credits.
- Continuity Nod: At one point, the spider eats a character who looks very similar to Dr. Erhardt (Dr. Forrester's previous aide, who had gotten brushed off with a simple "He's missing"). The crew immediately declares that this is where he wound up, and was the last mention of him in the series.note Joel: No, Dr. Erhardt, no! So that's what happened to him!Tom: Wow!Crow: (imitating Erhardt) Enjoy!
- Earlier, during the Invention Exchange, Joel expresses his disgust with the Mads. Dr. Forrester and Frank respond with a simultaneous "Thank you!" in the same way Forrester and Erhardt had done during the first season. Dr. F and Frank then uncomfortably stare at each other for a moment.
- And, of course, the return of a recurring season-one bit where Joel feeds the Bots RAM chips if they say good things about the movie.
- As Mike walks behind the prominent movie poster for The Amazing Colossal Man:Crow: What kind of sin must a man commit in a single lifetime...
- Gasshole: When Mike says that he and Carol can't currently go back in the cave to retrieve her father's bracelet present for her due to the gas (referring to the gas that was used to knock out the spider), Tom jokes "that was me".
- Lame Pun Reaction: The Mads' invention is a phone made of cheese... and Dr. Forrester announces that they're working on the "curdless" phone. Even Frank grimaces at that one.
- No Animals Were Harmed: Tom promises that no spiders were squashed, stomped on, flushed or suffered serious emotional trauma during the film. But one died from old age and two letters from doctors confirm it.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": The Earth vs. Soup screenplay has six pages of this, apparently.
- Rooting for the Empire: In-Universe. When the title appears on the screen, Crow says that his money is on the spider.
- Running Gag:
- This is where the saga of Crow's screenplay for Earth Vs. Soup started.
- Joel and the Bots constantly forgetting who Mike's father is.
- They also keep imitating the sheriff's derisive chuckle when he hears about the giant spider (though they do it for random comments).Crow: (As sheriff) So I was sitting by myself, and I said "spider"! (guffaws) Cracks me up!
- Shout-Out:
- Crow references Charlotte's Web when the titles appear in the spider's web.
Crow: Hey Charlotte, it spells a word!- One of the unlucky victims of the spider is said to be Mortimer Snerd.
- Stylistic Suck: In-universe, Crow's script reeks of it.Joel: Crow, she's just going "no" for the next six pages!Crow: Do you think that's enough?
- Take That!:
- When a "great movie" about puppet people is mentioned:Joel: Shame on you, Bert I. Gordon!
- When a "great movie" about puppet people is mentioned:
- Tempting Fate: While Forrester finishes preparing an injection for an ill Frank, he asks if he can hit the console. He does.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Frank pulls one of these when he eats most of the Cheesephone... including some of the non-edible parts, filling him with "enough salt and enzymes to kill a mule deer."Dr. F: (as Frank upchucks) Frank! No! Not on the console! Ohhhh. Jeez. (the button is pushed) Looks like I'm gonna have to get some sawdust now.
- With Lyrics: "Spider, spider! Spider, spider!"
