"You know, not enough titles use Jimi Hendrix font."
Kinga Forrester: So, let's talk experiment. Take a submarine movie, some rubber dinosaurs, and Doug McClure's fists, and you've got The Land that Time Forgot.
TV's Son of TV's Frank: More like the movie... quality forgot.
TV's Son of TV's Frank: More like the movie... quality forgot.
Film Featured: The Land That Time Forgot.
The Segments:
Prologue- Jonah and the bots are celebrating Gypsy's birthday. Then Jonah starts handing out birthdays to all the bots.
Segment 1
- Invention Exchange time. Jonah invents M. Night Shyamalan Living, a better living magazine where every article has a twist ending. Kinga "invents" the Elder Pump—and even she doesn't know what it does.note The gig is up: Jonah realizes that Kinga's inventions to date have all been stolen from his and the bots' riffs in the theater.
Segment 2
- Jonah and the bots play a game of German U-boat, so realistic that an actual space-squid attacks the SOL by mistake.
Segment 3
- Jonah and the bots wonder what dinosaur meat tastes like. Kinga takes the opportunity to advertise her new restaurant, Mesozoic Ranch Dinosaur BBQ, serving up real dinosaur steaks and other crimes against nature.
Segment 4
- Crow wonders when he'll turn into a human. Fortunately, Jonah's able to turn off Crow's "turn into a human, eventually" function.
Segment 5
- Inspired by the movie, Jonah puts a message in a bottle and hurls it into space. Max finds it, but thinks it's from some other person trapped on a satellite.
Tropes featured in the MST3K presentation of The Land That Time Forgot:
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Von Schoenvorts wonders why Tyler is ordering him around again after he took back control of the sub. That's because the episode cut a scene where Tyler regains the advantage.
- Lampshaded beforehand. Ardy mentions that there was a leak in the movie's holding tank, hence why the version sent to the SOL is missing a few scenes.Ardy: I collected it in my wet-dry vac ... Hmm. Looks like people taking over a submarine?
- Lampshaded beforehand. Ardy mentions that there was a leak in the movie's holding tank, hence why the version sent to the SOL is missing a few scenes.
- Artistic License – History. The titular Land gets named Caprona, after Caproni, "an early Italian navigator who followed Cook, in 1721". Which would have been quite the feat since Cook didn't set out on his first voyage until 1768.
- Ass Pull: During the finale, Dietz makes an abrupt Face–Heel Turn—he decides to leave Tyler's party behind on the island, and even shoots his commander to accomplish this. Jonah doesn't think it was properly foreshadowed: "Okay, what gives? Dietz wasn't in two-thirds of the movie, and suddenly we're supposed to accept him as the big bad guy?"note
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Jonah sends a message asking for someone to rescue him from the SOL—but his message derails into talking about stuff that happened to him in fourth grade and how big a groin he needs in his spacesuit. The bots think Jonah doesn't actually want to be rescued.
- Bamboo Technology: "Follow me. I've been building my own little submarine out of palm leaves and clams."
- Bullet Holes and Revelations: "But I thought I shot you! The movie tricked me! And now I'm dead!"
- Call-Back: Crow gets credits-sick again.
- Captain Obvious:Bradley: Young Whitely managed to get through with an SOS, but he had no chance to tell them where our position was.
Crow: Did you mention the ocean? - Comically Missing the Point:
- When von Schoenvorts realizes the water on Caprona isn't safe to drink because of microorganisms in it:Crow: That's a good point. Jonah, what do you drink?
Jonah: Well, have you ever seen the opening of Waterworld?
Crow: Ew, you drink copies of Waterworld? - When Jonah sends out his own message in a bottle:Jonah: You know, that movie gave me a great idea.
Servo: Oh?
Jonah: I hurled a bottle into space with a note in it. Now someone will read it and come and save us.
Servo: Exactly what didn't happen in the movie.
Jonah: Well, yeah, true...
Crow: It's implied they'll just die there, isolated from the rest of humanity.
- When von Schoenvorts realizes the water on Caprona isn't safe to drink because of microorganisms in it:
- Complexity Addiction: After the cylinder floats across the ocean, and a salty captain pulls it out:Crow: Says here I'm supposed to scatter these ashes on the sea. Feels like somebody added an unnecessary step.
- Cursed with Awesome: At the end, when Tyler and Lisa are the only survivors of the crew, but trapped in Caprona: "So, you're in a beautiful land of plentiful resources with a hot blonde lady? Boohoo."
- Damned by Faint Praise:Jonah: This is my fourth-favorite submarine movie.
Servo: Really?
Jonah: Well, I only know of three others, so it's also my least favorite submarine movie. - Developing Doomed Characters: It strikes again, as this time even the guy who sends the movies is confused by how long it takes to get to the dinosaurs, and assumes another movie got spliced in.
- Dissimile: "You know, basically, war is just like a bunch of people playing pranks on each other, but at the end, they all die."
- Eagle Land: "Watch him. I'm the American, so I need to be at the center of the action. Look what I can do!"
- Earth All Along: "Plot twist! It was Ireland the whole time."
- Enforced Method Acting / Visual Effects of Awesome: Jonah is legitimately impressed that the explosive finale was achieved by actually throwing fiery debris at the actors.Jonah: All kidding aside, you really have to admire the willingness of the star to run through fire for the sake of entertaining us. He didn't have to do that.
- Erudite Stoner: Bradley is smoking a pipe when von Shoenvorts asks him a question, prompting Tom Servo to reply, "Give me a second. This sounds like a question only brother weed can answer."
- Esoteric Happy Ending: How the ending ultimately feels to Jonah and the bots.
- Extreme Omnivore: Tyler is reluctant to eat the Plesiosaurus meat. Tom Servo quips, "So you're really trying to convince us there's something Doug McClure won't eat?"
- Finale Title Drop: The last lines of the movie:Tyler: However, we are determined to move ever northward, ever forward, toward the greater mysteries that lie ahead, of this land that time forgot.
[Jonah and the bots all stand up and cheer.] - Fonts: Upon seeing that the movie's title is set in Davida (a 1965 design that was big in the late ’60s), Jonah quips, "You know, not enough titles use Jimi Hendrix font."
- God Guise:Servo: (as Doug McClure) Now remember, if we find any indigenous people, I'm the god.
Jonah and Crow: Yes, Mr. McClure.
Servo: But if it's one of those cultures that kills its god, then Bradley's the god.
Jonah and Crow: Yes, Mr. McClure. - How We Got Here: The movie opens with Tyler sending out a message in a cylinder, then shows the events leading up to that point—ending on the same shot of the cylinder falling into the ocean. At which point, Crow despairs: "Oh, no! It's starting over!"
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: When Dietz makes his abrupt Face–Heel Turn: "It seems the real dinosaur... was man."
- Instantly Proven Wrong:
- After Jonah shows off the magazine for his invention exchange, Kinga scoffs, "Like anyone would read that!" And Max, standing right next to her, is already reading a copy.
- At the end, Kinga gloats at the astronomical odds against anyone ever finding Jonah's letter in the vastness of space. And then Max walks in, reading Jonah's letter.
- Jingle: The increasingly-ridiculous lyrics for Kinga's Mesozoic Ranch Dino BBQ restaurant don't stop, even when she and Max are running for their lives from a hungry Allosaurus.Jingle: Never should have tampered in God's domain! Moon 14!
Kinga: Yeah, yeah, we're in serious danger. We don't need a jingle right now.
Jingle: Jingle's self-aware now and saying what he wants to! Movie Sign! - Just a Stupid Accent: "That's right. Doesn't matter what country you're from—if Doug McClure is there, you're speaking English."
- Made of Explodium: When the submarine explodes, the riffers conclude it was because "All the combustible dinosaur meat finally ignited."
- Message in a Bottle: At the end, Jonah is inspired by the characters in the movie to send one of these into space to see if someone will find it and help him. Max is the one who does.
- Mondegreen Gag:
- When Tyler tells everyone to "prepare to dive", Crow mistakes it for "prepare to die".
- When von Shoenvorts orders his crew to "Arm tubes one and two" (as in, arm the torpedo tubes), Jonah and the bots wonder what the heck "arm-tubes" are, and speculate that von Shoenvorts means "sleeves". This gets a payoff later, when someone grabs von Shoenvorts by the sleeve, and Servo quips, "Hey, hands off my arm-tube!"
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: As Crow points out at the end of the movie: "So basically [Tyler's] decision to board the German sub led to the deaths of everybody on board both ships and countless endangered species. The end."
- No Biochemical Barriers: When the submarine crew cooks a Plesiosaurus for dinner: "It's a new world with creatures we've never seen. Why wouldn't it be safe to eat?"
- Noodle Incident: "Just once, I'd like to hijack a submarine and be taken seriously. Just once!"
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: According to Crow: "The Land That Time Forgot will return in, The Land That Time Forgot 2: The Remembering."
- Old-Timey Ankle Taboo: As Doug McClure unrolls a map in the submarine:"Hello Miss November 1916! Check out those ankles!"
- One Last Job: As the Sto-lu accept Ahm into their ranks, Crow quips, "Alright, Ogg, one more job, one final score, and then I'm out of this cave game for good. I'm evolving out of this life, and this time, I mean it."
- Overly Narrow Superlative: It's Jonah's fourth favorite submarine movie...he only knows of four submarine movies.
- Padding: "If this takes any longer, the dinosaurs are going to evolve into birds and fly away."
- Running Gag:
- Jonah and the Bots catch on that all of Kinga's inventions have been based on one of their riffs in the previous episode.
- On the submarine, every order by the captain gets repeated as it's carried out. Apparently this starts to annoy the captain.
- Insisting that Bradley's full name is Milton Bradley.
- Humming "Baby Elephant Walk" over every shot of Styracosaurus walking.
- Stock riffs: the "Jim Henson's ______ Babies" gag returns in this episode, as does "it didn't come out of its tuck in time".
- Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times: Jonah's read The Pelican Brief six times... because it's literally the only book on the SOL. "I actually hate John Grisham."
- Screw the Rules, They Broke Them First!: When Jonah calls out Kinga for stealing his riffs for their Invention Exchanges, Kinga counters by saying corporations do it all the time. Tom and Crow feel equally violated by this.
- Shellshocked Veteran: When Tyler recoils at the sight of a Plesiosaurus, Servo quips, "He's still having flashbacks from Dinosaur 'Nam."
- Shout-Out:
- McClure's call for "more power" gets a Tim Taylor-style grunt.
- During the fight with between the Ceratosaurus and the Triceratops, Jonah and the Bots cry out "Worldstar!"note , "Freedom!", "Adrian!" and "Khan!"
- The logo for Mesozoic Ranch Dinosaur BBQ is a parody of the Buffalo Wild Wings logo.
- "I've got a shot of something living in a pineapple under the sea."
- "All these guys are cosplaying as the same Tintin character."
- Space Is an Ocean: Space has giant squids, and one of them latches onto the SOL, mistaking it for a submarine.
- Spotting the Thread: It's the Mads' inventing the Elder Pump and still not knowing what it even is that makes Jonah realize that they've been ripping off their riffs.
- Super Drowning Skills: In the initial submarine fight, the Germans immediately disappear when they fall into the ocean, prompting Jonah to quip, "It's a good thing water kills Germans on contact."
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: "Hey, hey, guys, did you see me take out that German singlehandedly without any help from a girl whatsoever? Don't act like you didn't see it."
- Take That!: On an almost totally blank shot of fog:
Jonah: This is what every Star Wars movie looks like before the CGI gets put in.
- Tastes Like Chicken: Crow guesses that dinosaur meat tastes like chicken. Tom Servo corrects him: it's more accurate to say that chicken tastes like dinosaur.
- Team Mom: Bradley, von Shoenvorts, and Tyler negotiate a cease-fire and delegate leadership positions for each of them. Lisa is right there, but no one even considers giving her a position, prompting Servo to quip, "And I guess Lisa's team mom?"
- Title Drop: Jonah and the bots cheer when Tyler, towards the end of the film, finally utters the phrase as part of his How We Got Here narration.
- Troubled Production: When a captain pulls some rolled-up pages from a cylinder he pulled out of the ocean:Servo: (as the captain) Script's coming in a little last-minute. No problem. I'm a pro. I can wing it. Would have been nice if they had given me at least some highlighted lines.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Due to editing, Whiteley and Benson just disappear (the scene where they're killed is missing). Jonah and the 'Bots wonder what happened to them.
- Worst Aid: "You seem dehydrated. Here's some booze."
