Recap / Mystery Science Theater 3000 S09 E07: Hobgoblins

"Hey, the end credits! Well, it was a terrible movie, at least it was short."
"These are the beginning credits."
"Oh, well, then kill me, please?"

Film watched: Hobgoblins

"Can you catch a venereal disease from a movie?"

— Tom Servo

While Hobgoblins is probably not the worst movie to ever be screened on Mystery Science Theater 3000, it is quite possibly the sleaziest.

Though director Rick Sloane requested that his film be featured on the show, it suffered some of the harshest riffing ever. Pearl had the film case removed from the Ark of the Covenant, and she explicitly uses the film as a punishment for Mike and his robot pals. It's so horrible that the 'Bots tried to flee the theater during the opening credits, Crow set up a hotline for people traumatized by the movie, the crew actually tried to escape in the middle of the movie by replacing themselves with cardboard cutouts and a tape recorder in the theater and on the bridge (it nearly worked, too). Crow impersonated Sloane during the end credits claiming that he was "high on crack" and had "[his] brain replaced with rat droppings" when he was writing the film, and finally, Servo tried, and failed, to go back in time to prevent the movie from being made.

The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here.

The Segments:

Prologue

• Taking after the Robert Palmer song "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On", Mike and the 'Bots find themselves accidentally and involuntarily turning each other on at the slightest gesture. They're getting pretty tired of it, but they blame Palmer instead of each other.

Segment 1

• The SOL crew keep turning each other on, and are now doing so intentionally out of malice. Pearl, meanwhile, is remodeling Castle Forrester's great hall, and sees that her rent-to-own couch arrived a day early. She has Brain Guy send it up to the SOL for storage, with explicit instructions for Mike and his mechanical friends NOT to jump on it. Naturally, the first thing Mike, Crow, and Servo do is don footie pajamas and jump on the couch, squirting boxes of stainable juice all over the upholstery. Thoroughly infuriated, Pearl punishes them with one of the most foul, cruel, and depraved films ever made; a film whose case is removed from a tomb of unspeakable horror, with its mere title making the crew wail and cry at Movie Sign: the 1980s sleaze-fest known only as... HOBGOBLINS!^note AAAAAGH!

Segment 2

• As Mike and Sevo read, Crow, disgusted by how one-dimensionally prudish and slutty Amy and Daphne are, creates Let's Talk Women, an educational film meant to clear up female misconceptions so women can be treated with respect. Thanks to his inexperience with women outisde of movies, however, Crow deems them cryptids and/or mythological creatures, turning his film into a paranormal documentary meant to clarify whether or not they exist. When the film ends, Mike reminds Crow that Pearl is a woman. Though Crow accepts this, he challenges Mike to prove whether any woman aside from Pearl exists, leaving him utterly stumped.

Segment 3

• Crow has set up a "People and Robots Who've Had to Watch the Movie Hobgoblins Crisis Hotline", meant to console people who have been traumatized by watching this utterly horrible movie. His lone caller is Bobo, who needs someone to talk with about a personal matter, espescially after all the other hotlines he tried hung up on him. Specifically, Bobo tells the 'Bots that, while watching the movie himself, he's fallen obsessively in love with a woman that's not his species: a chimpanzee named Emily.

Segment 4

• The movie manages to get so bad, Mike and the 'Bots' desperately sneak out of the theater (and intend to do the same with the SOL itself) at the 68-minute mark. To complete the ruse, they leave behind cardboard cutouts of themselves in their seats, which make stilted, generic riffs through a tape recorder. They're also shown to have done the same thing on the bridge as an additional means to fool the Mads, with the cutouts there singing an unoriginal Hobgoblins theme song. It works somewhat on Pearl and Bobo, who are able to sense that something's off about their captives, while Brain Guy tries to tell Pearl that these are obviously cardboard cutouts. To prove his point, the cutout of Mike falls forward and shuts off the tape recorder, revealing the real SOL gang in tropical apparel and with packed luggage behind it. Infuriated at their escape attempt, Pearl sends them back into the theater to endure the rest of the movie.

Segment 5

• During the credits, a passive-but-enraged Servo creates a cardboard cutout of director Rick Sloane so he (with Crow's assistance) can dress him down in an immensely unflattering interview. Not satisifed after returning to the bridge, Servo, in a last act of desperation, became a Terminator (with the requisite shades, leather jacket, and machine gun) and used the SOL's time machine to travel back to the 80s, intending to prevent Hobgoblins from ever being made by "taking care of" Sloane himself. When he returns, Mike discovers that Servo didn't terminate Sloane, but kicked him in the shins, since he hates guns. Checking the Complete Guide to Lesser Directors for his Sloane biography, Crow discovers that Servo's little trip to the past directly inspired Sloane to create the film. Sloane was also said to have called him "stout", which sends Servo into a seething rage and aching to go back and kill him for real. With her punishment concluded, an upset Pearl had her couch returned to the castle, and firmly reminds the crew NOT to jump on other peoples' furniture. Unfortunately for her, Bobo and Brain Guy promptly jump on the couch themselves, playing with huge containers of juice while they're at it, prompting Pearl to give them bombs in retaliation.

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Compliments of the pissed-off Pearl, the unspeakably depraved Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of... Hobgoblins^note AAAAAGH!, contains examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Rick Sloane, director of Hobgoblins, loved MST3K's treatment of the film. He even personally submitted the film to them.
  • Also, while being given fake IDs by the bouncer:
    Kyle: "Hey, this says I'm 40 and handicapped!"
    Roadrash: "What's the matter? You got a problem with that, Junior?"
    Kyle: "No... I'll limp."
    Crow: (halfheartedly) Ha, ha, funny.
• Anything but That!: Mike and the 'Bots beg Pearl to send them any movie but Hobgoblins for their experiment, but she's made up her mind.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Right after being attacked by the Hobgoblins (and barely surviving), Kyle, apropos of nothing, decides to call a phone sex line (which gets hijacked by one of the Hobgoblins, who then pretends to be the operator). In the original movie, there is an earlier scene (before the Hobgoblins show up) where we see him call the same phone sex line and hear the operator talk dirty to him for a bit before Kevin interrupts him, and he claims he was just calling his girlfriend, with Kevin complaining that he keeps getting a bunch of sex line services billed to his number (which also explains his annoyed "we'll talk about my phone bill later" after he saves Kyle from getting killed by the Hobgoblin.) As the first bit was cut out (likely because the MST3K team couldn't get away with showing it on TV), him calling the phone sex line comes across as a total Non Sequitur here.
  • Also removed from MST3K's airing for time is two scenes where McCreedy is confronted by his boss in the studio, the first where he complains about the recently-killed teen guard's "resignation" and explains that two guards must be on duty at all times so that he can collect insurance money from any incident, and a later scene where he fires McCreedy after the latter tries to warn him of the Hobgoblins. Both scenes tie into the ending when McCreedy blows up the Hobgoblins in the studio, hence the boss's sudden anger when he calls McCreedy on the phone afterwards.
• Artistic License – Military: Lampshaded. After army reservist Nick, fresh out of basic training, grabs a grenade out of his van:
  Servo: So, the army just hands out grenades, huh?
• Bad Butt: The intended effect of the Club Scum scenes is quite muted by the lack of payoff for any of the implied threats and promised nudity.
• Bad Guy Bar: One that looks suspiciously like a school gym or cafeteria dressed up to resemble a bar, at that.
  Servo: "Club Scum", eh? So why are there lunch ladies back there serving tater tots?
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • During one of the host segments, Bobo calls Crow's newly-created "Hobgoblins Crisis Hotline" to ask for advice about his crush on "a woman very close to me— a woman not of my species", with whom he is obsessed despite the fact that she abuses him. This is coupled with sneaky looks at an oblivious Pearl in the background. It turns out he's talking about a chimpanzee named Emily.
  • Tom, dressed in a leather jacket and sunglasses and holding a machinegun, explains to a suitably horrified Mike that he just finished going back in time to track down Hobgoblins director Rick Sloane and... kick him in the shins. Mike is relieved; he thought Tom was going to say he "terminated" Sloane.
    Tom: T-t-terminate? Are you nuts! I hate guns! I hate 'em! How could you ever get that idea?
    • Then Tom finds out Sloane called him "stout" and says he's going to go back and kill him. Mike holds him back.
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: A takeaway the guys get from the movie: Amy wasn't any fun until she put on a literal strip show and started giving it up like her slutty friend Daphne. The crew wastes no time in lampshading the Unfortunate Implications.
  Crow: (Sarcasm Mode) Yes, girls, this is the only way to make your boyfriends like you.
• Bookworm: At the beginning of Crow's "where are women?" video host segment, Mike (an avid reader, as seen in previous episodes) is reading again. This time it's Bleak House.
• Butt-Monkey: Bobo asks Crow to not hang up on him "like all those other crisis hotlines."
• Cardboard Pal:
  • Mike and the 'bots try to trick the Mads by placing cardboard cut-outs of themselves in the theater, along with a tape recorder playing some poorly acted generic riffs ("Okay. Here comes this guy. What's he up to?" "Boy, this is stupid.") and escaping. In the host segment, we see they did the same on the bridge. Only Observer isn't fooled. The cut-outs are based on the silhouettes of Mike/Joel and the 'bots that appeared on the back of Rhino VHS releases of Mystery Science Theater 3000 at the time (the "Pointing Mike" being the most obvious).
  • During the movie's closing credits, they used another cutout (hastily sawed out of wood) for their faux interview with Rick Sloane.
• Cartoon Bomb: Pearl uses a pair to blow up Bobo and Brain Guy at the end of the episode. She really doesn't want anyone jumping on that couch.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Much is made of Nick's military service. Naturally, when Nick runs away from the hobgoblins the second he realizes they're dangerous, Crow riffs "Oh, Nick's in the French army, I see."
• Chekhov's Gun: M&TB initially complain over the seemingly pointless "rake fight" scene early in the film, but then Crow notices that the scene may have actually had a purpose when Kevin grabs the same rake to fend off one of the Hobgoblins.
• Comically Missing the Point: Crow and Tom in response to Roadrash's sudden pull out of a sign to indicate his approval of Amy's "stripping".
  MC: Well, what do you think folks? Is she a Hit or a Miss?
  Roadrash: (Pulls out large premade sign that says "Hit")
  Crow:You know they should really add an "S" to that.
  Tom: "Hits"?
  Crow: ...um. Yeah.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Crow makes a documentary, Let's Talk Women!, that initially is supposed to counter the movie's portrayal of women and show how to treat the fairer sex with respect. Because Crow couldn't actually find any women, though, it turns into a conspiracy video.
  Crow: We begin to ask ourselves: "Where are all the women?" The overheated references in poetry, the images that dominate our media — is it all an elaborate fraud?
  • Complete with a grainy black & white photo of a woman in a fur coat that looks an awful lot like a screencap from the famous "Patterson Bigfoot Film". Here's "Patterson's Bigfoot"◊ and "Crow's Woman"◊ for comparison.
  • One person (who suspiciously looks and sounds like Crow with a fake handlebar mustache) claims he met a woman. Then married her.
    Crow: Did you have any children?
    Crow!"Man": I DON'T REMEMBER!
  • Mike points out that Pearl is a woman.
    Crow: ...Okay, so one woman exists! Does that mean all women exist?!
  • Crow then demands Mike name one other woman; Mike being Mike, he can't do it.
• Cool Car: Subverted with Kevin's car.
  Crow: Paint my muscle car prune color, please!
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: The SOL crew are sent this atrocious movie specifically to be punished after jumping and squirting juice boxes on Pearl's rent-to-own couch.
  Pearl: I am going to give you such a movie!
• Developing Doomed Characters: It sure does take a while for the title creatures to show up on-screen.
  Mike: Ah, hobgoblins, four hours in.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Noted above, Pearl uses this movie solely to punish Mike and the 'Bots for jumping on her rent-to-own couch while squirting juice on it; an act that's treated as beyond the pale even by her own henchmen.
    Pearl: Get... the movie.
    Brain Guy: NO!
    Bobo: AAAAGH!
  • A John Agar film festival? NoooooOOOOOOOOOoooooOOOoo!
• Dull Surprise: The patrons at Club Scum aren't exactly frightened of the hobgoblins suddenly popping up.
  Servo: (dully) Ah, hah, oh no.
• Educational Short: Shot in black and white with magazine-cutout props and Crow doing his best overly cheerful '50s Narrator voice, Crow's film about women starts out as a lesson on how to treat the opposite sex with respect before turning into a paranormal documentary (about whether or not women are even real) instead.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Both Bobo and Brain Guy are horrified by the prospect of forcing Mike and the bots to watch Hobgoblins. Bobo Screams Like a Little Girl every time "The Movie" is even mentioned.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend:
  Crow: Nick's a smoking husk right now, he wouldn't mind if we take his van!
• Funny Background Event: Kyle keeps dancing inside the house while Amy and Daphne argue outside. Crow supplies Jerry Lewis noises.
• Godzilla Threshold: After Mike and the 'Bots ruined her rent-to-own couch by jumping on it and spilling juice all over it, Pearl explicitly pulls out Hobgoblins for this week's experiment, solely to PUNISH the SOL gang.
• A Handful for an Eye: During the rake fight, Crow suggests "Throw some Miracle-Gro in his eyes!"
• Insecurity System:
  Mike: Tell me again why they have an elaborate security system but they don't lock anything?!
• Logic Bomb: "Okay, so one woman exists. Does that mean all women exist?" Hilariously, Mike is utterly stumped when Crow challenges him to name one other woman aside from Pearl.
• Made of Iron: After Nick's Unexplained Recovery after being blown up earlier in the movie:
  Crow: So the only side effect of his complete immolation is... mild redness and irritation?
• Makeout Point: Upon witnessing the movie's depiction of this, a scenic overlook with ample parking, Servo thinks they must have public funding.
• Mickey Mousing: The musical stings during the rake fight:
  Crow: Their garden tools make little Casio sounds.
• Mondegreen: Used mercilessly during "Kiss Kicker", with the SOL crew coming up with, among others, Swiss Knickers, Fish Picker and Pig Licker/Pig Liquor.
• Mood Whiplash: Crow's Educational Short about treating women right downshifts when Crow, suddenly serious, reveals the deep uncertainty over whether or not women even exist at all.
  Crow: For you young fellows fresh on the cusp of a blooming manhood, the questions abound! What are women like? What do women want? How should I treat a woman? Perhaps the thorniest problem facing any young man is finding a woman in the first place. It turns out to be... nearly impossible.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: When Pearl and Bobo Failed a Spot Check on the Cardboard Pals, a frustrated Brain Guy corrects himself using the complimentary version of this trope. Mostly out of fear of Pearl's wrath.
  Brain Guy: Listen, you idiots!
  Pearl: (gives him a Death Glare)
  Brain Guy: ...and Pearl, you, of course, too.
• My Girl Is a Slut:
  Crow: So, Mike, I learned from today's movie that Daphne was a slut, and Amy wasn't fun until she became a slut.
  Mike: Well, that's the fun message of today's movie!
• Nausea Fuel: Invoked. Mike and the bots get audibly disgusted whenever the slutty Daphne starts talking about her busy sex life with her meathead army recruit boyfriend Nick. They give the same reaction to the "Funny" Background Event where, as Amy berates Kevin for losing the rake battle, Nick's van is seen a-rockin' (and boinging, for whatever reason) furiously as he and Daphne get busy in it. Mike does make a joke about the Speed Sex implications when the pair reemerge after 30 seconds, though.
  Daphne: (singing) Everybody have sex tonight!
  Tom: Everybody throw up tonight.
• Parody Assistance: Hobgoblins director Rick Sloane personally submitted the film to MST3K.
• Precision F-Strike: "Kiss Kicker '99" contains the line "You shovel more shit!" This line is completely uncensored in the episode's cut of the movie, though the singer is so incoherent (and Mike and the Bots are talking over him) that the line is extremely easy to miss.
• Running Gag:
  • Whimpering whenever the young security guard is on the screen.
  • During the second half, Mike and the bots claiming the movie is actually pretty good, citing multiple "car pulling into the driveway" shots as inspired.
  • M&TB repeatedly getting the name of the Club Scum bouncer wrong. For what it's worth, it's "Road Rash".
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • During the opening credits, Servo and Crow repeatedly try to make a run for it, with Mike chasing them down to bring them back to their seats.
  • Just before the fourth host segment, the movie gets so bad that Mike resorts to an offscreen plan: distract the Mads with cheap Cardboard Pals and poorly done pre-recorded riffs and banter. By the time Observer has halfway convinced Pearl that these are in fact obviously fake, we see that he and the 'bots had changed into Hawaiian shirts and instantly packed their luggage for their vacation/escape.
• Ship Tease: When Bobo calls Tom & Crow's "Hobgoblins Crisis Hotline" for advice about the crush he had on "a woman... (looks at Pearl behind him) a woman not of my species", squicking the 'Bots out horribly. Turns out it's actually a chimpanzee named Emily.
• Shout-Out:
  • Pearl refers to Bobo and Brain Guy as "Pinky" and "Brain".
  • One of the characters says he's got all the time in the world to listen to a long story. Crow responds "Okay, then. Call me Ishmael."
  • At Club Scum:
    Mike: Wilkommen... bienvenue... welcome...
• Speed Sex: Though he and the guys are disgusted when Daphne and Nick get it on the latter's van, eagerly rocking in the background as Amy demeans Kevin for losing the rake fight, Mike quips that Nick must have suffered this when he and Daphne reemerge from the van seconds later.
• Stable Time Loop: Servo's attempt to erase the existence of Hobgoblins by going back in time and kicking Rick Sloane in the shins ends up being the latter's inspiration for the movie.
  • Appropriately enough, Rick Sloane's admiration for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation of Hobgoblins inspired him to create the sequel. According to an interview with Rick Sloane, he enjoyed the riffing until he got to the part with the faux-interview attacking him personally at the end: "I had never seen them rip apart any other director before on the show." Sloane had clearly not seen episodes like Mitchell or the three-movie ouevre of Coleman Francis, where creators involved with the original movies were savaged.
• Stylistic Suck: The prerecorded riffs that accompany the Cardboard Pals in the theater (which themselves are twice as big and unconvincing as the actual SOL gang) are very stilted and generic when compared to the gang's usual quips. This carries out into the following host segment, where they sing an equally uninspired song. Pearl is confused and suspicious, Brain Guy immediately recognizes that they're cardboard cutouts and Bobo thinks the song is a banger.
  Cardboard Mike and the 'Bots: Hobgoblins, hobgoblins / What do you do with those hobgoblins?
  They're over here / They're over there / Those darn hobgoblins are everywhere!
• Take That!: During the... ahem, striptease.
  Crow: Just as long as Demi Moore doesn't come out and start shaking her saline bags.
• Team Dad: Mike shows shades of this. For example, in the middle of the film, Servo pretends to bounce on the sofa that a couple of the characters have fallen asleep on, just like in the first host segment, and goes "Whee, this is fun, this is fun! (sobbing) No, it's not, no, it's not" and Mike consoles him.
• Technical Pacifist: Parodied. Tom has no problem kicking someone in the shins, but protests that he hates guns and would never have 'terminated' Rick Sloane... while holding a machine gun and wearing a black leather jacket and sunglasses. Then he finds out Rick Sloane called him "stout" and says he's going to go back and kill him.
• Time Travel: Tom uses their station's time machine, as seen in earlier episodes, to travel back in time, hunt down Rick Sloane, and... kick him in the shins, to stop him from ever making Hobgoblins. It results in a Stable Time Loop, as it turns out this incident was what inspired Sloane to make Hobgoblins in the first place.
• Three Chords and the Truth: "Pig Licker", the song at Club Scum. Mocked by Crow.
  Crow: Chord, chord, chord, chord, chord, other chord.
• Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Pearl's reaction when she sees Mike and the 'bots bouncing around on the couch and squirting juice boxes.
• With Lyrics: "It's The '80s! Do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!"
• You Can Leave Your Hat On: And the rest of it, too. The guys don't think very highly of Amy's hobgoblin-inspired striptease.

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[Hobgoblins in a golf cart]

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