"Oh, this is by Noel Coward."
Donuts?
Films watched: Design for Dreaming (short) and 12 to the Moon
Design for Dreaming, a truly surreal outing told entirely in song, follows a young woman who dreams about following a mysterious masked man into the 1956 General Motors Motorama to take in the Dream Cars of Tomorrow, as well as a brief detour into the Kitchen of Tomorrow.
The Segments:
Prologue- While Crow and Servo head off to play tennis, Mike is forced into an incredibly awkward tea party with Gypsy.
Segment 1
- Frank hosts a roast for Dr. Forrester, but soon gets punched in the gut for his insulting "jokes". Meanwhile, Mike and the 'Bots play tennis, with Servo channeling his inner McEnroe when his first serve is declared out.
Segment 2
- While Mike and the 'Bots pretend to be astronauts, Nuveena, the mysterious singing woman from the short, suddenly appears on the Satellite of Love. Able to talk to her via singing or otherwise speaking like the Mystery Man, Mike soon falls in love with her, especially when she promises to make him and the 'Bots away from the Satellite and back to her planet.
Segment 3
- With their things packed, the SOL gang is ready to move to Nuveena's planet. The 'Bots, however, have second thoughts.
Segment 4
- Mike is surprised when he finds that Nuveena has turned the 'Bots to kitchen appliances. With her neo-1950s mindset, she tells him that the 'Bots are machines, whose only purpose is to serve their masters. An angered Mike tells Nuveena to leave, which she does.
Segment 5
- Mike copes with the loss of Nuveena with some cookie dough and letters, which come from a girl who watches the show all the time, a guy who wants the show attached to his arm, and another girl who wants Crow to have an Austrian accent and Servo's head to be filled with gumballs. Nuveena appears in Deep 13 and turns Frank into her new boyfriend, but disappears after a brief dance.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Design for Dreaming contains examples of the following tropes:
- Call-Back / Continuity Nod: Crow responds negatively to the tennis outfit worn by Nuveena while her cake is baking, declaring:Crow: (horrified) It's a salute to Mr. B Natural!
- Compensating for Something: Crow describes the Firebird II as "The Extension of my Manhood Car!"
- Curse Cut Short:Nuveena: (singing) I want a Corvette!Mike: (singing) I don't give a tin sh...
- Freud Was Right: Invoked by Mike and averted by Crow in regards to Nuveena's beach outfit:Mike: I wonder what Freud would make of that sun hat!Crow: Well, sometimes a sun hat is just a sun hat.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Chorus Line 2: The Wrath of Chaka Khan.
- Running Gag: Every shot of a concept car is intercut with Stock Footage of fireworks. As such, Mike reads the credits to The Honeymooners, which similarly used fireworks footage in its opening.
- Shout-Out:
- When Nuveena's cake is ready, complete with lit candles:
- As Nuveena emerges through stage fog, Mike starts singing "Black Diamond" by KISS.
- The Unreveal: Lampshaded when the Masked Man's face is shown.Dreaming Lady: It's YOU!Mike: Who?
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of 12 to the Moon contains examples of the following tropes:
- Artistic License – Physics: "There is no steam in a vacuum!"
- Awesome McCoolname: Captain John Anderson is an early forerunner of Big McLargeHuge.Crow: I'm just gonna set this to Central Stud Time, 'cause I'm Sledge Riprock!
- Berserk Button: Tom Servo really hates the Artistic License – Physics in this one.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Nuveena, the "weird singing lady from the future", seems nice ("...AT FIRST!") and urges Mike and the 'Bots to come to her futuristic utopia. By the fourth host segment, she's turned the 'Bots into appliances, meant to serve humans and nothing more. It takes a point-blank rejection from Mike for her to leave and things to return to normal.Mike: [singing] Nuveenaaa, even though it breaks my heaaart, I'm going to have to ask you to depaaaarrrt.
Nuveena: [not singing for the first time] ...Well get bent, you robot-loving turd! [teleports away] - Brooklyn Rage: In the above scene, Nuveena speaks in a pitchy New York accent and tells Mike off with the Italian hand-under-the-chin salute.
- Call-Back:Henrich!Crow: Why it's a sampo!
- Continuity Nod: When Mike and the Bots are packing, two of Crow's crates include sensible brown pants (the 3rd of 6 crates) and spec scripts, labelled "A-F".
- Country Matters: They come real close to dropping the C-bomb when they call Heinrich a "Nazi crunt".
- Dull Surprise"In a few minutes Man for the first time will step upon the Moon.""Whoopie...""The excitement is great, yet controlled because of its momentous importance.""Yeah, right..."
- Eagleland: Many of the jokes surrounding beefy American captain John Anderson.
- Foreign Cuss WordCapt. Anderson: Martel, how are the engines?Crow [as Martel]: The engines?.... Merde, I forgot!
- Forcefield Door:"I am now turning on my invisible electromagnetic rayscreen...""Even I don't buy it.""...which forms a protective shield over our faces..."(giggling) Of course it does.
- Just a Machine: Nuveena's opinion of the 'Bots.Nuveena: Robots are machines like anything else. They're meant to be used and put on the shelf!
Tom: Hey, that's anti-robot! - A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll": Invoked by Mike.
- Mood Whiplash: Very briefly and played for laughs, when Nuveena is using the Bots as kitchen appliances; Servo is crying and struggling, and then when Nuveena opens his head and takes out a small cake his tone suddenly becomes one of cheerful interest: "Hey, I didn't know I could do that!" The very next second he's back to crying and begging for it to stop.
- Namesake Gag:"It's called Me-ite!""I saw that one first — I name it Bob's Rock!"
- Noodle Implements: After delivering a beating to Frank during Mike's invention exchange, Dr. Forrester asks him to wrap some oranges in a towel. The implication is that he's going to beat him with them, but then there's this couple of lines which looks like it comes out of a dominatrix's playbook.note Frank: What're you gonna do with these, Clay?
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Lemon Sisters 2: Dead By Dawn
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Nuveena turns out to be an anti-robot bigot, her neo-'50s mindset having her view all robots as mindless machines meant to serve humanity.
- Pun: "Hey, give Heinrich the Heimlich!"
- Reality Warper: Nuveena, in the short and out of it. She teleports, breaks the in-universe fourth wall, and eventually turns the 'Bots into appliances as part of her evil scheme to... have the perfect kitchen.
- Red Shirt: "Now I know why they brought twelve."
- Rhymes on a Dime: Nuveena doesn't speak, she just sings... until Mike pisses her off. She also only responds to singing, meaning Mike has to try to sing and rhyme as well.
- The Roast: Parodied in the beginning of the episode when TV's Frank attempts to hold a roast for Dr. Forrester, only to devolve into giving actual insults instead of comedy. Clay doesn't take it well.Forrester: Thank you, TV's Frank. Y'know, there's — after a beautiful tribute like that, there's only one thing I can say, and that's- [punches Frank in the gut] And, in conclusion — [punches him again] I knew I should have hired Red Buttons.
- Running Gag: Portraying the mission control room as the phone bank for a public broadcasting fund drive.Mike: If Are You Being Served? is the kind of programming...
- Schmuck Bait: Strange fluid flows out of a rock. An astronaut advances towards it alone as creepy music plays."Go on, touch it! I dare you!" [Astronaut sticks his hands in and screams in pain] "Well, fools rush in, Herb..."
- Shout-Out:
- Space Is Slow Motion: "Walk slow and stupid, we're on the Moon!"
- Stylistic Suck: Mike, channeling the male lead from "Design for Dreaming", sings in a deep and deeply goofy vibrato.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Some of the riffs surrounding Heinrich.
- Vampire Vords: When the Russian starts speaking."I've come to suck your blood!"
Heinrich: Bah, ridiculous.
