Recap / Mischief Movie Night In S 03 E 02 Wild Feast

Genre: Western Zombie Movie
Setting: Edinburgh
Awards: Most Difficult Stage Entrance, Most Dramatic Close-Ups
Featuring: Fergus Pickles who solves all life's problems with tickles

Original air date: 06/02/2021

Cast: Dave Hearn, Niall Ransome, Mike Bodie, Harry Kershaw, Ellie Morris, Bryony Corrigan, Nancy Zamit

Oscar: Jonathan Sayer

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Tropes in this episode:

• A Father to His Men: Rambo and Six actually have a pretty good relationship, he considers her a protégé and she seems genuinely excited to earn his praise. He comes off as legitimately fond and protective of zombies as a class, too.
• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: 'Scotland' is consistently pronounced as Scod-o-LAYND. Vaguely justified by them all being Fake Americans.
• And Show It to You: Rambo kills Tommy by tearing out his heart (and most of the rest of his organs) right in front of him.
• Arc Words: "(Always) have fun in life", which winds up being the philosophy Tommy and Mr. Pickles use to cure the zombies.
• Aside Glance: Played for Laughs with Niall desperately trying to look down a camera as they keep swapping between shots.
• Berserk Button: Rambo hates fringe shows.
• Break Them by Talking: Rambo and Six try to coax Stitch Junior into letting them turn him by giving a long spiel about his strength and potential and the prospect of eternal life. Presumably they wanted him to come willingly to hurt Stitch (unless they were being completely genuine in their Freudian Excuse of wanting to protect the young and abandoned), but they later lampshade that they probably should have just turned him when they could.
• Butt-Monkey: As usual, Harry Kershaw is this both in and out of universe. During social media corner, Dave declares that the "most difficult entrance" award will be done by just throwing Harry on stage and seeing what happens. Oddly enough, that is exactly how it happens. Twice.
• Catchphrase: "Eat your beans" is the only thing that Marie can consistently say. This is a Borrowed Catchphrase every so often by her family.
• Cryptic Background Reference: The last time Tommy and Stitch saw each other was a dark occasion, but it is never said what specifically it was that led to them being split up on bad terms. Tommy's past in general is this too; he was apparently a "dark man indeed" when last Stitch saw him, and has changed a lot since getting a wife and kids. This does not come up again after the first scene.
• Dark Reprise: Inverted with the "RAMBO" reprise.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Hinted at for both Stitch and Tommy. Stitch's more recent dark backstory is explored, but Tommy's is never elaborated on.
• Darker and Edgier: Compared to most MMNI episodes. Oscar, despite accepting Zombie Apocalypse as a genre, complains about this multiple times — the cast consistently turn his attempts to fix it into Black Comedy.
• Dawson Casting: invoked Inevitable when kids appear in MMNI, but parodied in Stitch Junior's case.
  Tommy: You're a small boy right now.
  Stitch Jr.: I'm so little!
• Death Is Cheap: After the typical MMNI bloodbath, practically everyone ends up okay because of the Stitch family's immunity and Tommy's zombie cure, including non-zombies who were eaten or shot. The hereditary zombie immunity apparently lets Tommy come back from having had all his organs ripped out.
• The Drifter: Stitch is a Stoic Woobie who has been wandering for ten years, so long that the indoors scares him.
• Dumb Muscle: According to Six Rambo “never really had much brains”, but he sure has a lot of might. He doesn’t disagree with her.
• Elite Zombie: Rambo, who rips people’s hearts out with his bare hands and No-Sells everything in Stitch Junior's zombie pack.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Rambo, particularly compared to the voices Dave usually goes with. Made fairly obvious during the Flashback... Back... Back... sequence where his kid voice transforms into his current voice over a few echoes.
• The Expy With No Name: By nature of being a parody of Westerns, the film includes a few references to the Dollars Trilogy, so naturally Stitch is a mysterious, self-serious, morally grey, gun-toting badass on the run with the obligatory cowboy voice.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Tommy's grand entrance.
  Oscar: The brilliant epic entrance totally not captured on camera! A man entered through saloon doors with total status and authority. It was Harry Kershaw, so obviously that authority was immediately removed from him.
• Female Gaze: The camera gives Rambo a long, lingering shot panning up his body◊ during the dancing at the beginning of RAMBO. Especially ironic given that Dave normally plays Mr. Fanservice, but in this one role where he’s playing a character practically impossible to thirst over, the camera crew take the initiative themselves.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Given Rambo's reaction, Mr. Tickles is this to the zombies.
• Freudian Excuse: For Rambo and Six (and potentially the zombies at large) who believe themselves abandoned by society and their families, in regard to both their general violence and specifically kidnapping Stitch Junior.
  Rambo: [to Stitch] You didn't protect me! You didn't look after me!
  Six: That's right. Everybody abandoned us, so you know what? We're gonna take him and look after him the way that we should have been looked after!
• Gun Twirling: Done by Stitch Junior the second he first holds a gun.
• Heroic BSoD: Stitch ran headfirst into the first hoard of zombies he laid eyes on from Survivor Guilt after Rambo was turned.
• "I Am Great!" Song: Rambo’s eponymous song "RAMBO" is a Boastful Rap about how badass, powerful, and vengeful he is.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Or rather, zombietarian, as Rambo and the zombies are very willing to eat their own.
• The Immune: Stitch (and, by extension, his entire family) turns out to be this.
• Innocently Insensitive: Downplayed in Stitch. He means well, but can be harsh and unfeeling after ten years on the run.
  Stitch: I didn't mean to upset the boy.
  Tommy: Well, you just shot his mother.
• Interrupted by the End: Tommy comes on to sing the next verse of "Always Have Fun In Life". He gets most of one word out before the music finishes and the lights drop. Since he’s played by Harry Kershaw, this is not surprising - as shown here.
• Invulnerable Horses: Averted hard.
  Rambo: ZOMBIE HORSE NOW!
• Knight in Sour Armour: Stitch towards his family, the town, and Rambo.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Tommy’s reaction to having most of his major organs torn out by zombies is to shout about his back pain. He even briefly shrugs off death to do it.
• Meaningful Echo: "Don't let him get in your head" is said by both Rambo and Stitch about one another to their respective Morality Pets, showing how similar they still are.
• Memetic Molester: In-universe, how Stitch first views Mr. Pickles and his tickles. Oscar quickly demands that this be averted.
  Stitch: What makes me think Fergus has just got out of prison?
• Mexican Standoff: The climax, in which even the zombie horse draws her guns.
• Mood Whiplash: Invoked by Oscar and played for comedy by having the uplifting "Always Have Fun In Life" number about having fun sandwiched in-between Stitch Junior seeing his father being killed and the final shootout. The horses even have a tap number.
• My Greatest Failure: Stitch is still haunted by letting Rambo be taken by the zombies, and even tried to kill himself immediately afterwards. Most of the film is Stitch trying to atone for it.
• Neck Snap: How Rambo kills Jill.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Rambo towards Tommy.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Averted hard.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: The two background bartenders in the first scene. Lampshaded by Oscar.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Exaggerated. These zombies are sentient, vengeful, musical, nocturnal, curable, and have seen Hamilton. At least one of them has Wolverine Claws.
• Parental Abandonment: Rambo's backstory and Start of Darkness from his Parental Substitute Stitch.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Stitch apparantly has these to his Dark and Troubled Past.
  Stitch: I know the meaning of the word "kill" so deeply that it haunts my dreams.
• Perky Female Minion: Six is nowhere near as angsty as Rambo, and is much more excitable and energetic. She's also quick to give up evil once the prospect of a cure comes up.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Downplayed with Rambo, who is impulsive and violent, and can only describe Stitch as a "bad, bad man" and gets surprisingly emotional very quickly when confronted with him. Justified given that he was turned undead young, and it's implied that he returns to his original age once cured.
  Stitch: I still see the eyes of a frightened young man who doesn’t know where his mommy and daddy are.
• Running Gag: Stitch will tell anyone and everyone that he has been on the run for ten years. He gets a few Stop Saying That! moments from Tommy, but that doesn’t stop him (or the rest of the cast, who never hesitate to mention that he has been gone for… ten years).
  Stitch: I've been on the run now for near on ten years.
  Tommy: How long you been on the run now? Ten years?
  Stitch: Ten years, that's right.
  Barkeep: Stitch! Have you been on the run for... Ten years?
  Stitch: I've been on the run for ten years...
• Sapient Steed: All the horses, even the undead one, but it's only shown in the second half of the film, during which they use this sapience to talk, wield guns, play bridge, and tap dance.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Dave as the moon. "SHINE!"
• Shout-Out: It's a Western, so Nancy adds a few obligatory The Good, the Bad and the Ugly whistles pretty early on. The rap number contains Hamilton references, and tick, tick... BOOM! is name-dropped. The zombies herald their arrival with Grudge noises.
• Secret Handshake: Tommy and Stitch have one, but, this being an improv show, it is pure nonsense. Oscar pulls a Rewind Gag to make them do it again, and of course it’s different the second time.
• Thicker Than Water: Tommy seeks out Stitch and takes him in after ten years on the run despite knowing about his Ambiguous Criminal History purely because “brothers is brothers”.
• Undead Child: Rambo, potentially. No one treats him this way except Stitch, but he was turned undead young and it's implied that he returns to his original age once cured, and he may well have been physically and emotionally that age the whole time.
• Undeath Is Cheap: Tommy ends the zombie apocalypse by injecting some antibodies from his blood into Mr Tickle, and then just having the zombies (and all the regular dead bodies) tickled. In fact Rambo seems to get up, completely human, before anyone has even gone near him.
• Understatement: According to Tommy, his wife being bitten by zombies is not a problem that can be solved with laughter.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Rambo is shown to be sweet and unassuming in the flashbacks, to the extent that Stitch had to teach him all his bombastic zombie leader confidence. Exaggerated in that Stitch suggests this happened just two years prior to the events of the film.
• Vague Age: Stitch Junior.
  Stitch: What are you? Seven?
  Stitch Jr.: Something like that.
• Weird West: The genre. Technically The Western was what was suggested, but with the all zombies and talking horses, the show definitely developed more into Weird West territory.
• Writing Around Trademarks: Nancy sings the iconic hook of the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme multiple times, but only ever the first half.
• You See, I'm Dying: In the first scene, Tommy tells Stitch that he's unwell and hasn't got long to live, which is why he's sought Stitch out to reconcile. Nothing ever comes of this.

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