When spiders drink too much.
Original work: The Creeping Terror
Stirling Silliphant, brother of The Creeping Terror's writer Allan Silliphant, was tangentially involved in the creation of another MST3K classic, Manos: The Hands of Fate.
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
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The Segments:
Prologue- Servo is the Satellite of Love's new security guard, making sure all visitors sign in and out properly, though there's really nobody around but Mike.
Segment 1
- It's laundry day in Deep 13, and Dr. Forrester decides to hit the crew with a double-header of experiments. His first experiment is to turn the SOL into a coffee house and the 'Bots into pretentious customers, which suceeds with flying colors. His second is to send the crew The Creeping Terror, a movie stinkier than his socks.
Segment 2
- Crow has made a state flag for the SOL, complete with a pledge of allegiance he recites as Mike raises it. Mike is also given a cyanide capsule to be taken in the event of enemy capture. When he claims that he won't take it (because cyanide goes right to his hips) he's labeled as a torry and flagged for punishment.
Segment 3
- The SOL crew decides to knock Love, American Style down a few pegs with a series of sappy, split-second sketches.
Segment 4
- Mike has set up his sound system and shows it off to Servo and Crow. He then spends the rest of the segment enjoying the ambiance of the movie's repetitive dance theme.
Segment 5
- Servo has made Gypsy eat him and Crow in imitation of the movie's hungry monster, trying to convince Mike to join in. Mike declines the offer and reads a letter that asks Crow to do his old "Kitty!" riff. Gypsy soon discovers that she's allergic to Servo when she sneezes him out of her gullet. Down in Deep 13, Dr. Forrester literally runs Frank through the wringer as punishment for shrinking his clothes.
The MST3K treatment of The Creeping Terror provides examples of:
- Author Appeal:
- Mike and the bots surmise, from the decided fixation on women's legs as the monster devours them, that the director has a thing for vore.
- According to the Guide, Frank Conniff loved Leave the Camera Running Overly Long Gags such as the stereo scene in this experiment.
- Clothing Damage: See the movie's article for details. Apparently, the picture was too grainy to cut or alter, but the fact that Tom spots it means that they DID know it was there.
- Credits Gag: The crappy stock music from the movie plays over the end credits, and it continues to run through to the end well after the credits themselves have ended.
- Cringe Comedy: Mike's reaction to the geeky guy jumping around and spastically throwing his arms about:Mike: I feel embarrassed for him.(later)Mike: Oh, his date is so humiliated right now!
- Cyanide Pill: Mike was supposedly issued one in case he's ever captured, but Mike refuses to, saying it's too fattening. Servo accuses him of being a British loyalist.
- Dawson Casting:Mike: Y' know, everyone was forty back then.
- Does Not Like Men/Straw Feminist: The coffeehouse poet persona Gypsy takes on during the pretentiousness experiment overflows with hilariously misandristic jabs.Gypsy: (singing) You, the white male, are my personal oppressor!
- Hipster: Crow and Tom transform into shallow poseurs. Servo tries to argue that acknowledging their own pretension makes them genuine artists.
- Exactly What It Says on the TinTom Servo: Well, it is creeping, at least.Mike: The creeping part is apt, but the terror part just isn't happening.
- Fetish: Servo speculates that the director had a vore fetish.
- Hidden Depths: Turns out Mike is really into stereo systems. The bots are... not so impressed with his setup.
- Inflation Negation: Servo's apparently making $4.35 an hour as a security guard, which was minimum wage back in the mid-90's.
- Kuleshov Effect: A shot of a woman shaking her butt for the camera cuts away to the monster outside, back to the butt, back to the monster, back to the butt.Mike: I don't blame him for ogling.
- Leave the Camera Running: Mike listening to the film's stock music on his stereo system.
- Truth in Television: Audiophiles love listening to any sort of music, just so they can hear the clarity and audio separation. They will also use Sharpies to "clean" discs.note
- Mythology Gag: One of the clothes that Frank is handling is Joel's jumpsuit from the KTMA season. Another is Dr. Erhardt's black Deep 13 outfit in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment.
- Paper People: Forrester renders Frank cardboard-thin by running him through a laundry wringer.
- Running Gag: Tom and Crow repeatedly joke that the soldier seen standing right up against the spaceship is
forming a weird bond with it.Tom: The other guards don't understand you like I do, spaceship...
Crow: Tell me more secrets, little rocket friend — oops. Shh, here they come. - Satire: A parody of a parody: Mike and the bots spend an entire segment sending up Love, American Style, in the hopes that the producers will have the guts to show it and to have it taken off the air. They're a couple of decades late, and about as incisive as they are timely: the spoof sketches are every bit as tame and unfunny as the real show.
- The Talk: "Well you see, when a monster and a small car love each other very much..."
- They Killed Kenny Again: TV's Frank gets flattened by a handwringer.
- This Is Gonna Suck: The notorious rectal thermometer scene.Crow: (as baby) You're going to put that where?! I'm not sick, I'm fine!
- Too Dumb to LiveMike: Did anyone in the '50s ever think of running?
