"I know. It's a new band from Seattle, right?
You know, I got the nicest rebel set for my wedding...
Films watched: Johnny at the Fair (short) and The Rebel Set
In Johnny at the Fair, little Johnny is separated from his parents as they tour the 1947 Canadian National Exhibition. He proceeds to have all sorts of adventures as he wanders from one exhibit to the next, meeting all sorts of famous faces in the process.
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
.
The Segments:
Prologue
- Tom and Crow are tucked into bed. Joel tries to read them scary stories, but they’re far too jaded to even whimper. That all changes when Joel whips out Life's Little Instruction Book.
Segment 1/Invention Exchange
- The Mads’ invention this week is a portable styling station called the Quick Primp Kit. Frank demonstrates how it's both time-saving and pretty cumbersome. Joel goes in the opposite direction with the Mark Rothko Paint-by-Number Kit, taking all the hassle out of modern art.
Segment 2
- Replicating the aspiring actor from the film, Crow receives his special “Co-starring with Scott Baio – You!” acting lessons in the mail. He has some trouble finding the right way to recite his lines, however.
Segment 3
- Inspired by the film's four-hour layover in Chicago, Joel asks the Bots what they’d do if they had four hours to kill in the Windy City. Gypsy says she would go shopping, Tom claims he would rob a bank, and Crow has planned out a very long, very elaborate, and very boring schedule for himself.
Segment 4
- Joel runs a writing workshop with the 'Bots. In particular, he focuses on the “Merritt Stone Method”, where stories are only good if they involve trains.
Segment 5
- Impersonating Hercule Poirot, Tom devises a lengthy deduction process to decipher the true identity of Merritt Stone. Joel and the others end up bringing up conflicting factoids in his deduction process, confusing Tom until his head explodes. In Deep 13, Frank has also become obsessed with finding out just who Merritt Stone is.
The MST3K treatment of Johnny at the Fair brings us:
- Beard of Evil: When Johnny enters the Chemical Wonderland...Crow: A whiskery man hands him a small package. "The first one's free," he says...
- Black Comedy: Oh yes! A little boy exploring the National Exhibition becomes a full-fledged descent into madness.
- Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: "Oh look, it's the Arc de Full Retreat!"
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: When Johnny comes across people bicycling on tightropes, Joel and the bots suggest that this is how they punish drunk drivers in Canada.
- Eldritch Abomination: Tom cheerfully narrates, "Then Johnny transmogrifies! He's a shapeshifter! [Laughs] And he breaks the fourth seal..."
- Flat "What": The crew's reaction to the narrator pronouncing "helicopter" as "heel-oh-copter".
- For Want Of A Nail: Played for Laughs: It is eventually determined that Johnny getting lost at the fair is what caused the plot of The Rebel Set to occur.
- Hypocritical Humor: Joel admonishes the bots for their tendency toward dark humor at the beginning of the short, but doesn't criticize any of the jokes they make... and there are a LOT of them. Nor are any of his own wisecracks any less dark.Joel: [watching Johnny riding in a speedboat] Johnny's hydroplane disintegrates on impact...
- Ironic Echo: "'Jiminy,' thinks Johnny, 'if only I could get a ride in one of those!'" First said by the narrator when Johnny spots "a heel-o-copter airplane"; later repeated by Crow as Johnny is being snuggled in Barbara Ann Scott's bosom.
- It Was with You All Along: Mocked:Narrator: (Johnny's parents) have looked everywhere... everywhere except one place.
Crow: Their own hearts. - Parental Neglect: Ruthlessly and hilariously implied in the riffing. "Mommy had a little vacation while you were gone!"
- Sanity Slippage: Part of their interpretation of Johnny's adventure:Servo: Johnny feels dark hands pushing him onward. The voices in his head get meaner.
The MST3K presentation of The Rebel Set provides examples of:
- Absurd Phobia: The bots are utterly terrified by the harmless and uplifting Life's Little Instruction Book.
- Berserk Button: For Servo, it's Joel and Crow identifying the actor who plays the conductor as Merritt Stone (he's not, by the way).
- Boring Yet Practical: During the "layover in Chicago" skit Joel and Servo come up with the expected bizarre and criminal ideas, while Crow draws up a workable itinerary for a walking tour of the city's main attractions.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: Crow goes on for so long, not only does Tom out and out leave, but Gypsy outright falls asleep.
- Brick Joke: "I spent that dollar an hour ago!"
- Also: "So, all this happened because Johnny got lost at the fair?" referring to the episode's short film.
- Continuity Nod: "Tommy Kirk — assassin!"
- Also when Tom points out that Leland is played by the star of The Giant Gila Monster:Tom Servo: Hey, you know who that is? I'll give you a clue: Sing whenever I sing whenever I sing—Crow and Joel: Noooooo!
- Also when Tom points out that Leland is played by the star of The Giant Gila Monster:
- Counterfeit Cash: When George (the actress' estranged son) is looking at the money in his train cabin.Joel: Art Linkletter, they all have Art Linkletter on them!
- Faux Horrific: After being unfazed by the likes of In Cold Blood and Helter Skelter, Servo and Crow are frightened out of their wits by Life's Little Instruction Book (a then-bestseller; incidentally, all of the entries Joel reads out loud are real, but he numbers them far out of order).
- Foreshadowing: At first, it seemed like Dr. Forrester threatening to get back at Joel and the bots for indirectly driving TV's Frank to madness over the Merritt Stone debate was a hollow threat. But then you realize two of the worst movies the show ever did happened shortly after this one...
- Logic Bomb: Servo suffers one of these when the others counteract his attempts to prove the identity of the conductor in the film (for the record, it's Gene Roth); it leads to Servo's head exploding — again.
- It's actually a reference to how the crew noticed Merritt Stone's name in several of their films (all of which get referenced in the sketch in question) but none of them could actually spot the recurring face in all of them.
- It eventually got to the point where, in the ending bit with the Mads, TV's Frank has been driven to madness trying to figure out who Merritt Stone is.
- Finally, at long last, let us set the record straight: Merritt Stone appeared in Earth vs. the Spider (as the unfortunate dad killed in the opening scene), Tormented (1960) (as the priest during the ill-fated wedding), and The Magic Sword (as "King"). He also appeared uncredited as a cop in War of the Colossal Beast. While Gene Roth was also in Earth vs. The Spider (as the sheriff) and Tormented (running a lunch stand), as well as Attack of the Giant Leeches (as another sheriff) and this film.
- Nap-Inducing Speak: Crow goes on for so long over his itinerary, that it led to Gypsy falling asleep for a couple of seconds before Joel nudges her awake.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Parodied: By the end of the movie, it's determined the plot was caused by Johnny getting lost at the fair.
- Not Bad: During the scene with the slumming couple in the coffee house.Heckling Husband: Let's us go on a fool's errand before they throw a butterfly net over us!
Crow: (as beat poet) Hey, man, that's beautiful! - Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "He's NOT! MERRITT! STONE!"
- Shout-Out: When the struggling writer is at his typewriter, Servo says, "Let's see here ... 'A screaming comes across the sky' ." This is the opening line of Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.
- Several Get Smart riffs are made in reference to Ed Platt.
- Take That!:
- Joel attempts to scare Crow and Servo with "the 17 novels that Stephen King published this year".note
- Dr. F and Frank use the hypothetical situation of going to the movies as an example of the Quick Primp Kit, followed by this exchange.Dr. F: Now, say for demonstration purposes, Frank and I are in line to see, oh, Out on a Limb...
Frank: Well, in
that case, we'd be seated already.
- Train Problem: In the sketch where Joel tries to have the 'Bots write literature that would meet Merritt Stone's approval, Gypsy succeeds by reciting one of these.note Gypsy: (slowly) "A train leaves a station at 2PM, going 90 miles an hour. Another train leaves another station going the opposite direction at 5PM going 60 miles an hour. How long before they meet?"Joel: Oh, Gypsy, that is everything great literature should be. According to Merritt Stone.Tom: (offscreen; furious) HE'S NOT MERRITT STONE!
- They also call Tucker's plan "the SAT caper" after hearing the quote on the main film page.
- Write What You Know: Late into the episode, Joel has the bots do a creative writing exercise by writing short stories that Merritt Stone, who played the conductor (he's not Merritt Stone), would approve of. Crow and Tom's stories are deemed failures mainly because they aren't written with a train conductor in mind; Crow's story doesn't have tickets being punched, bags being taken, or any trains at all, and Tom's doesn't have any sense of place (via a conductor rattling off train station locations). Gypsy is the only one to pass the assignment, and that's only because she did the Train Problem instead.
- You No Take Candle: Accidental, courtesy of the film reel glitching.
