"The Bill Clinton story!"
"Hey, what's this movie called, man?"
"It's called The Brute, man."
"It's called The Brute, man."
Films watched: The Chicken of Tomorrow (short) and The Brute Man
The Chicken of Tomorrow is an educational short meant to demonstrate everything there is to know about the poultry industry, including the life cycle of a chicken, how to properly raise them, and about how eugenics and gasoline mean bigger birds in grocery stores and on your dinner table.
The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here
, and on Shout! Factory here.
The Segments:
Prologue- On the phone with his agent, Sheri, Servo declares that he's bought a duplex in Philadelphia with no income. Mike has his doubts about this deal and claims Servo's likely going to prison, but Servo is confident that his lack of funds won't be a problem.
Segment 1
- Pearl has a date tonight with a greasy sleaze named Sandy, who Dr. Forrester admits isn't the first of his kind who's tried to score with his mother. She also puts Crow in charge of both her son and the SOL for the night, the 'Bot sparing no time in abusing his power.
Segment 2
- Inspired by the short, Servo has encased himself in a giant egg so he can hatch into the Chicken of Tomorrow. He and Crow intend to sell Cambot's recorded footage of the hatching to educational film companies, but the plan literally goes to pieces when Mike accidentally drops the egg onto the floor.
Segment 3
- Getting another idea to escape the SOL, Mike calls up his old high school girlfriend Carla to help. She puts her barely-intelligible son Matthew on the line to say hello instead, and Servo unfortunately makes the kid hang up as he's expecting a call from Sheri.
Segment 4
- Noting how Clifford Scott resembles Republican presidental candidate Tom Dewey, Crow pitches an idea to Servo and Mike. He aims to take the candidate's name and insert it into the old folk song "The Crimes of Tom Dooley", making it "The Crimes of Tom Dewey" instead. The latter two get annoyed and leave because of how Crow is insistent in showing them how the joke works.
Segment 5
- As Mike reads letters, Servo has finally found a buyer for his duplex. Within minutes, Servo has landed himself in hot water for being a problem landlord. Pearl and Sandy return from their date, and as Pearl freshens up, Dr. Forrester slips her date something that turns him into the Chicken of Tomorrow. Pearl is annoyed at first, but she respects Dr. F for trying to look out for her.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of The Chicken of Tomorrow has examples of:
- Ambiguous Gender: While a farmer is sexing the baby chicks:Mike: Hmm... another maybe.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In-universe. During the short, a chicken inexplicably ''flirts'' with the Narrator, "That's what YOU think, big boy!"note . The SOL crew is caught offguard.Crow: That was weird!
- Carnivore Confusion / Let's Meet the Meat: Invoked by Crow as a roast chicken is shown being carved:Crow: May I have a piece of my own white meat, please?
- Micro Dieting: The short includes a scene of someone carving slices of breast meat from a cooked chicken. Mike and the Bots crack several jokes about how ridiculously thin these slices are, calling it "Chicken sliced to the width of one electron," and concluding that these must be portions for supermodels.
- Rule of Three: During the short, Crow invokes this when Tom and Mike begin a pattern of ending their jokes with the word "chicken".Servo: The seedy alliance between big oil and big chickens.
Mike: That guy's escaping disguised as a chicken!
Crow: ...Chickens! - Take That!: The first riff uttered. Right at the title screen, no less:Crow: The Bill Clinton Story!
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Crow riffs this over a shot of a soggy-looking chick that has just hatched.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of The Brute Man has examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Mike and the 'Bots chuckle at the Brick Joke of the "passing the buck" Running Gag.
- Big "NO!" / Mood Whiplash: When Pearl leaves with Sandy, Dr. F has an odd reaction.Forrester: Mother, NoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooOOOO!!!! [sobs piteously, then shrugs, smiling] Ah, well. He's not the first oily man that's taken Mother to the mat.
- Continuity Nod: Crow identifies the Creeper's hideout as KTMA, the low-power UHF station where MST3K began.
- Cranky Landlord: In a matter of minutes after closing the purchase on his duplex, Servo officially becomes one of the ten worst landlords according to the Village Voice, which did indeed have an annual list.note
- Credits Gag: Sandy (as a chicken) can be heard clucking over the end credits.
- Exactly What It Says on the TinServo: Turns out you can purchase one of these babies with no cash!
Mike: With no cash?!
Servo: Yep. It's called the "no-cash" method. - Exact Words: Pearl makes Clayton promise not to kill her new boyfriend. He doesn't, but he does turn him into a chicken.
- Forced Transformation: After Pearl goes on a date with a sleazy Casanova Wannabe, Clayton slips him a mickey that turns him into "the Chicken of Tomorrow". Pearl is only mildly annoyed.
- God Is Dead: A crack about the crotchety old store owner. He looks at a newspaper:Crow: "God is dead"? GOOD!
- Hulk Speak: The Creeper doesn't actually talk like this, but sounds like he should. One joke as the Creeper heads down the street:
- I Always Wanted to Say That: About halfway through the film, as the camera pans in on the Creeper's profile, Crow finally blurts out, "Hey, fella — why the long face?" and giggles helplessly. The others are just disappointed in him.Mike: Oh, now, c'mon.
Crow: [laughing] I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I couldn't help—
Mike: I BEGGED you not to do that one.
Crow: I know, I know...
Servo: That hurts. - Most Definitely Not a Villain: When the grocer is reading over the Creeper's letter (left under obviously mysterious circumstances), Servo concludes it with "Signed: Not the Brute."
- Nonindicative Name: Referenced late in the film:Mike: [annoyed] Why didn't they just call this movie "The Creeper"? [derisively] "Brute Man"...
- Not So Stoic: Not perfectly stoic, but one of the few times Mike avoids a simple chuckle or snicker, instead doubling over, trying to muffle a series of laughs.
- No Sympathy: When Sandy gets turned into a giant chicken Pearl just admits it was for the best.
- Only a Flesh Wound: The crew remarks that Hal moved slowly before getting shot. Afterwards... he walks exactly the same: too slowly for them.
- Overly Long Gag: Crow laboriously overexplaining his joke about replacing Tom Dooley with Tom Dewey (the Republican candidate Harry Truman defeated to become president) in the song "Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley". The joke being, of course, that it's not much of a joke even before you start explaining it.
- Really Gets Around: When Helen tells The Creeper to go to her bedroom, to hide, Tom's reaction was pretty surprised.
- Running Gag:
- In general, the crotchety old grocery man really amused the crew, especially his apparent hate for his delivery boy ("DEAR GOD, I HATE YOU! I HOPE YOU DIE!!!"). Mike says "Creeper, creeper, creeper..." numerous times in the episode. Mike and the Bots then ship the grocery man and the old spinster who shops there ("Let's be crotchety together!")
- The lookout cigarette smoking guard gets good mileage out of Mike and the Bots.
- People casually greeting "The Creeper", mocking how outside of scenes where it actually mattered nobody gave a shit about running into him.
- Crow cooing over landlord Servo's newly purchased "drive-by cutie" like it's a new kitten.
- The many variations on "Moffet" / "toffet".
- Rondo's "Whassa matter? Don't you like it?" becomes an oft-repeated Call-Back in later episodes.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The Creeper's a distinctive figure on city streets, but people seem to pass him by without blinking an eye:Servo: [as random citizen] Hey, Creeper!
Crow: [as Creeper] Hey, person.
