I have a feeling this is aptly named.
Film watched: Tormented (1960)
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
, and on Shout! Factory here.
The Segments:
Prologue- Tom and Crow have built another fort, this time in the ventilation ducts. Gypsy's far too big to fit inside, and she sends them all crashing down.
Segment 1/Invention Exchange
- Joel reverse-engineered a See & Say to create the Aunt Catherine Wheel, meant to help children learn about their extended family. Frank sports the Drinking Jacket, which comes with liquor-hiding pockets and covered with its own DTs.
Segment 2
- As Joel cleans the mess Crow and Tom left in the vents, he loses his balance and is left dangling by one arm. When he pleads for the 'Bots to save him, blackmail swiftly ensues.
Segment 3
- Joel asks the 'Bots about singers they'd like to see fall from a lighthouse, acting them out with little dolls. Kenny Rogers is bad enough to be recommended twice.
Segment 4
- Tom and Crow use Vi's "talking head" routine to scare Gypsy. When they attempt to try it on Joel, he just takes their bodies and leaves them alone in the dark.
Segment 5
- Driven to despair by the film's bleak tone, Joel gets everyone singing a happy upbeat song to combat it. Frank joins in with a song about how he's gonna kill Dr. Forrester and be best friends with the 'Bots, to which Dr. Forrester retaliates with a live grenade.
The MST3K presentation of Tormented provides examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: Invoked. In the opening credits, they misread "Vi" as the Roman Numeral for six.
- Credits Gag: When the grenade Forrester uses to blow up Frank goes off it makes the end credits skip.
- Didn't Think This Through: Tom and Crow's talking head routine. Instead of scaring Joel, it just mildly irked him and he walks off with their bodies, leaving them in the dark.
- Forgot the Disability: Tom in the movie "keeps forgetting" that Mrs. Ellis is blind. Tom Servo is particularly aghast at this latest bit of idiocy.
- Harmful to Minors: Lampshaded: "Sandy's grown up a lot this week."
- Leg Focus: After Joel spends a host segment dangling from the ventilation ducts, Crow compliments him on his calves.
- Long List: What famous singers would you like to see plunge from a lighthouse?
- Monochrome Casting: Memorably mocked by Crow: "It's a jazz musician's party and there's not one black person here!"note
- Running Gag:
- "Sessions presents...!" during the numerous, interminable padding shots of lighthouses and beaches, with impressions of famous easy-listening artists to fill out the time left in each scene. Ends up becoming an Overused Running Gag because, by the end of the movie, Joel's sick of it.
- Tom Stewart's Suspiciously Specific Denial and Freudian slips throughout the movie.
- Sarcasm Mode: Servo snarks at the shock there's a scandal involving a jazz musician.
- They Killed Kenny Again: TV's Frank gets blown up by a grenade.
- Two Words: I Can't Count: After Joel has called the Mads' drinking jacket the sickest thing they've ever created.note Dr. Forrester: Two words: Get! Over it!
- Viewers Are Geniuses: Joel's Speak'n'Say-like Aunt Catherine Wheel is named after the Catherine wheel, an old name for a cartwheel, which, in turn, references the breaking wheel, the infamous medieval torture device.
