"Amniotic Lizards?"
"🎶Come along with me/Baby, then you'll see/My harnessess and my nets!🎶"
Film watched: Teenage Caveman with shorts Aquatic Wizards and Catching Trouble
One of three episodes in the series to feature two completely different short films played back-to-back.
Aquatic Wizards is a harmless demonstration of water-skiing acrobatics in Cypress Gardens, Florida.
Catching Trouble, on the other hand, is a harrowing and highly disturbing newsreel where naturalist Ross Allen manhandles wild animals in the Everglades, ripping them away from their homes and throwing them into cages to ship to the zoo.
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
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The Segments:
Prologue- It's raining outside (somehow), trapping the SOL crew in sheer boredom. Magic Voice tries to get the crew to do something, but board games are out of the question and books are lame. Gypsy bringing up poker sounds appealing, though.
Segment 1/Invention Exchange
- For their half of the Exchange, Joel and the 'Bots have written a book titled Rainy Day Ipecacs, filled with delightful home remedies to induce vomiting. Frank demands to be allowed to present the invention, but Dr. Forrester refuses, leading to a big fight between the Mads.
Segment 2
- Ross Allen is clearly the villain of Catching Trouble, so the SOL crew go hunting for him. A swift hammering is Ross' reward, followed by a visit from a giant rattler.
Segment 3
- Joel attempts to teach the 'Bots the history of technology, but is interrupted by the power struggle between Dr. Forrester and Frank, which ends with a cattle prodding. The 'Bots sleep through Joel's lesson, in which The Flying Nun is somehow involved.
Segment 4
- Watching the rain fall, Joel describes to Crow and Servo how progressive thinking was a problem even in prehistoric times.
Segment 5
- Crow and Tom pretend to be the ancient and heavily-irradiated scientist from the twist ending of the movie, claiming to be the last survivors of a horrible movie-viewing brought on by Roger Corman. Crow got slime on the fan letter this week, written by an L.A. stuntman. The Mads share a moment over coffee as they recover from their wounds.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Aquatic Wizards has examples of:
- Forgot I Couldn't Swim: Joked about.Joel: Miles from the dock and they can't swim, I love that trick!
- Gender Is No Object: Water-skiing is shown to be enjoyed by both genders, albeit slightly segregated for instruction.
- Male Gaze: Par for the course, considering the ubiquitous swim-clad women, with the narrator admonishing the viewer for (presumably) ogling the bare legs of multiple women presenting different types of water-skis.
- Mr. Fanservice: The camera takes a few lingering shots of the rather well-toned physiques of Alfredo Mendoza and "Chad Slabbody".
- Sink or Swim Mentor: Humorously implied.Tom Servo: And the incentive to stay up is... crocodiles!
- Take That!: The bots are eager to whip the piss out of the narrator after he refers to a Hispanic waterskier as a "Mexican jumping bean."Crow: This time, the white fascist narrator will make a racial slur!Tom: Hah, but what do I know? I'm only a fat hick announcer, mowing down pretzels and pinwheel cookies, and trying to come to grips with the tattered ends of a once promising life gone horribly wrong, God, God, why, why?!
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Catching Trouble provides examples of:
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Joel and the Bots definitely think this is the case for Ross.Tom Servo: We leave you with this question: If you enjoyed "Catching Trouble" in any way, there's something wrong with you.Joel: Any questions?
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Many towards Ross.
- The Bully: Ross is kinda one, but Crow carries it a little further.Crow: Throw him (bear cub) down a few times, Ross! What're you scared of him? C'mon, beat him up!
- Celebrity Resemblance: Joel thinks the Seminole looks like Emo Phillips. Crow runs with it and does a killer impersonation of said comedian.
- Egomaniac Hunter/Evil Poacher: How Joel and the 'bots view Ross, instead of the Great White Hunter he is supposed to be.
- Have a Gay Old Time: A couple of times, the narrator refers to Ross as "my boyfriend".Joel: Look, he likes you as a friend but he's not your boyfriend, okay?
- Humans Are Bastards:Crow: Joel, do they do this on Earth?Servo: Yeah, isn't this wrong?Joel: Yeah, guys. I'm deeply ashamed of my race right now.
- Mama Bear: Sadly doesn't appear, but boy do the 'bots really want to see her enter the fray. The fact that the bear cubs know how to drink from baby bottles suggests they're trained bears, which hopefully means she is too, because the alternative is that Ross shot her offscreen.
- Noodle Incident: Why exactly the "giant rattler" hates Ross or what happened when the two of them went to camp is never explained.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: In the "Catching Ross" host segment, Joel puts a rubber snake into the same bag as the Ross figure.Joel (as Ross): No, not the snake! He hates me! We went to camp together!
- Rooting for the Empire: The guys root for the wild cat and bear cubs when they try to escape. They root for the snakes to bite Ross, too.
- Shout-Out:
- To Apocalypse Now.Narrator: Well, this is a different assignment, and a true depiction of actually filling an order [Ross] recently received.Joel: Kill Colonel Kurtz!
- To A Night at the Opera: After the narrator lists the animals in Ross's order (one bobcat, two bearcubs, and three rattlesnakes), Crow adds "And two hard-boiled eggs! Make that three hard-boiled eggs!"
- Monty Python's Flying Circus:Narrator: Here's the shed. (in reference to a snake's shed skin)Crow: Two Sheds?
- To Apocalypse Now.
- Take That!: This short is followed with a host segment entitled "Catching Ross", wherein Joel brutally torments an action figure modeled after Ross while Tom mocks it. Fans complained when the short was put on a collection without "Catching Ross" included. Best exemplified by Tom saying, "If you enjoy Catching Trouble in any way, there's something wrong with you!"
- Vote Early, Vote Often:Narrator: Don't you know you're wanted in Chicago?Tom Servo: For voting twice?
- What the Hell, Hero?: Behind the jokes, there is a sense of great contempt towards the people who made the short in contrast to the show's usual ribbing, though this wouldn't be the only time (Invasion of the Neptune Men).
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Teenage Caveman has examples of:
- Call-Forward: The She-Creature, whose movie would be riffed years later in Season 8, is seen in the stock footage that runs during the dying scientist's final monologue.
- Continuity Nod: Part of the movie's Stock Footage (specifically: the part with two, ahem, prehistoric creatures wrestling one another) is the same as that in Robot Monster, a first season episode. Servo — who ironically
was voiced by Josh Weinstein and not Kevin Murphy in the referenced episode — takes a moment to Lampshade this:Servo: Haven't we seen this? I know we've seen this before. - Greaser Delinquents: For whatever reason, Frank starts acting like a mouthy teenage hood, prompting Dr. F to join in a screaming match with him when Frank pulls a switchblade.Frank: (In an eerily low and calm voice) I spent all night workin' on that bad boy. I'm doin' the invention exchange this week. (Motions with his head) Take the train.
Dr. Forrester: I've just about had it, smart-boy.
Frank: Oh, yeah?! (Whips out the knife and begins giggling madly) I'm gonna cut 'cha, man. I'm gonna cut 'cha, that's right.
Dr. Forrester: Yeah?
Frank: Cut 'cha bad, man.
Dr. Forrester: You want a piece of me? You want a PIECE of me?!
Frank: Yeah, I do!
Dr. Forrester: C'MON!
Frank: I'm gonna cut 'cha a second smile, Daddy-o!
(They begin wheeling around)
Dr. Forrester: I don't THINK so, Jackson! C'MON, sweet-cakes! BRING IT ON!!
Frank: I'M GONNA CUT YOU! I'M GONNA CUT YOU!! AAAAAH—
(The screen cuts away to Joel and the 'bots looking bemused and concerned)
Servo: ...What in the Sam Scratch is goin' on down there?
Joel: I don't know, but I don't like it. Not one bit. - I'm Your Worst Nightmare: The bots have a squirrel saying this to the Robert Vaughn character when he seems to have a remarkable amount of trouble actually catching it.
- Jitter Cam: When Frank pulls a knife on Dr. Forrester, the camera takes on a reality TV feel, complete with messy framing and occasional loss of focus as well as the hand-held jitter; whether it's Gerry or Sylvia shooting, they hadn't expected Frank to snap like that.
- Move Along, Nothing to See Here: Servo says this after the giant reptile fight ends.
- Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: Crow makes a crack at this toward the main caveman character.Crow: This is why the dinosaurs died out. You bored them to death!
- Running Gag: Joel and the 'bots keep singing the Bunny Hop as the cavemen go hopping through the jungle.
- Shout-Out:
- The music that plays as Frank and Dr. Forrester grapple with the gun, scissors and mallets is
a slightly re-arranged, softer synth-keyboard version of the battle ritual theme from "Amok Time". - Several references to F Troop, since Frank de Kova (who played the Black-Bearded One) was also in that show.
- And to George of the Jungle when Robert Vaughn is running across the landscape—"Bob, Bob, Bob of the Jungle", followed by "Watch out for that tree!" when Bob does indeed manage to run smack into a tree.
- As the tribe hunts down Symbol-Maker's-Son: "Warriors! Come out to plaaaay-ay!"
- The Symbol Maker's Son apparently dreams of Ilya and Mr. Waverly.
- The music that plays as Frank and Dr. Forrester grapple with the gun, scissors and mallets is
- Take That!: Roger Corman's quick-and-cheap filmmaking methods are the target of several quips, including a suggestion that Robert Vaughn not eat the squirrel he's cooking so Corman can use it as the monster in his next film.
- The Unreveal: We never find out what the Mad's super-cool-looking invention (it resembled some sort of robot) actually was.
