History Recap / MysteryScienceTheater3000S10E12Squirm

* ItsAWonderfulPlot: Both the short itself ("Merry Christmas, you wonderful old couch!") and the following host segment it inspires, where Mikey the Mike Sprite tries to show the Bots the horror of a world without Mike. It backfires -- Tom and Crow enjoy life without Mike quite a bit. Eventually Mikey starts badgering the bots into at least half-heartedly pretend they have learned their lesson and wish for Mike to come back.

* ShoutOut: When Alma and Mick are at the dentist's office looking thorough the records to identify a skull, a worm crawls out of it. Tom comments "Come on down to the snout. We got a pinochle game going!" This is a reference to a line in an old school yard jump rope chant. "''The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout.''"

** Also during the identification process, Crow says [[{{Hamlet}} "It belongs to a guy named Al P. Yorick."]]

* OddJobGods: Apparently there's a sprite dedicated to Mike (or possibly Mikes in general), and another to Mike's socks.

* SouthernBelle: The whole point of Naomi's character seems to be an attempt at this. Later becomes an actual ''affliction'' on the SOL, as Servo comes down with "severe Southern Belle-ness" and has to be subjected to "Yankee behavior modification" to snap him out of it.

* OddJobGods: Parodied when the trio invoke Mikey, the Mike sprite, and Mike's Socksy, the Mike's socks sprite.

* DeepSouth: A major source of their humor.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Lots of directors were upset that their films wound up on ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', but Jeff Lieberman was particularly miffed, even peppering his DVD commentary on ''Squirm'' with limp {{Take That}}s at the show.
** Even more amusing is, he once wrote an angry e-mail for The Brains telling them how they were idiots for riffing his movie. That's bad enough, but he [[WhatAnIdiot sent his e-mail to an [=MST3K=] fan site]]. The fans who received the e-mail had a field day with this.
** The man went on to write the screenplay of ''TheNeverEndingStory III''. '''[='Nuff said.=]'''

* ItsAWonderfulPlot: Both the short itself ("Merry Christmas, you wonderful old couch!") and the following host segment it inspires, where Mikey the Mike Sprite tries to show the Bots the horror of a world without Mike. It backfires -- Tom and Crow enjoy life without Mike quite a bit.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Lots of directors were upset that their films wound up on [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]], but Jeff Lieberman was particularly miffed, even peppering his DVD commentary on ''Squirm'' with limp {{Take That}}s at the show.
** Even more amusing is, he once wrote an angry e-mail for The Brains telling them how they were idiots for riffing his movie. That's bad enough, but he [[WhatAnIdiot sent his e-mail to an MST3K fan site]]. The fans who received the e-mail had a field day with this.

** According to Mary Jo Pehl, this is one of the reasons why they put off featuring this short on MST3K for so long, because they weren't sure if the 2nd half provided enough riffing material.

* ItsAWonderfulPlot: Both the short itself and the following host segment it inspires, where Mikey the Mike Sprite tries to show the Bots the horror of a world without Mike. It backfires -- Tom and Crow enjoy life without Mike quite a bit.

** Kevin even quotes the "No springs!" after a goofy spring sound effect in the short "One Got Fat" released through ''Podcast/RiffTrax''.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Mike and the Bots interpret Coily as an all-powerful EldritchAbomination.

* CallBack, RunningGag: Coily was the inspiration for Willy the Wonderful Waffle Guy way back in [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S03E17VikingWomenAndTheSeaSerpent Season 3]]; they'd been wanting to riff the short since back then and simply weren't able to get the rights until the show's final season. Also, references to Coily (along with his spring sound) are imitated in a host segment ("Mikey the Mike Sprite, they call me") and even a riff in the movie ''Squirm''.

* ItsAWonderfulPlot: In a spoof of the educational film "A Case of Spring Fever", Mikey the Mike Sprite tries to show the Bots the horror of a world without Mike. It backfires - Tom and Crow enjoy life without Mike quite a bit.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooke%27s_law Hooke's Law]] notwithstanding, a decent number of the mentioned uses for springs have since been made obsolete thanks to computer technology, so the riffing lampshades it.
-->'''Servo:''' ''(as Gilbert)'' I'll show Coily. I'm gonna digitize everything.
** Even then, nature and many objects rely on the Law of Elasticity. Things would even more seriously fucked than even portrayed in the short if there were no Hooke's Law, starting with [[BodyHorror the human body]]. {{Squick}}.

* ItsAWonderfulPlot: In a spoof of the educational film "A Case of Spring Fever", Mikey the Mike Sprite tries to show the Bots the horror of a world without Mike. It backfires - Tom and Crow enjoy life without Mike quite a bit.
** Mike does care about his socks, though. "No Mike's socks!" ''(whistle)''

** Kevin even quotes the "No springs!" after a goofy spring sound effect in the short "One Got Fat" released through ''{{Rifftrax}}''.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Lots of directors were upset that their films wound up on {{MST3K}}, but Jeff Lieberman was particularly miffed, even peppering his DVD commentary on ''Squirm'' with limp {{Take That}}s at the show.

!!The ''{{MST3K}}'' presentation of ''A Case Of Spring Fever'' has examples of:

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Coily is an all-powerful EldritchAbomination.

[[TheStinger "Now you're gonna be the worm face!"]]

* CallBack, RunningGag: Coily was the inspiration for Willy the Wonderful Waffle Guy way back in Season 3; they'd been wanting to riff the short since back then and simply weren't able to get the rights until the show's final season. Also, references to Coily (along with his spring sound) are imitated in a host segment ("Mikey the Mike Sprite, they call me") and even a riff in the movie ''Squirm''.