Recap / Mystery Science Theater 3000 S10 E09: Hamlet

If there's a Reichsführer, I'm leaving.

Hamlet: To be, or not to be.
Mike: The verbal equivalent of "Duh-duh-duh-DUM"!

Film watched: Hamlet (specifically, a lousy 1961 German TV Movie adaptation).

This was a filmed-for-television version of a Munich stage production featuring Maximilian Schell the previous year, which had gained some notoriety in West Germany for its fairly loose (and politicized)^note namely, Schell and director Franz Peter Wirth wanted to stage the play as a parable about younger Germans living in the shadow of the Third Reich translation of Shakespeare's text. The movie was edited and dubbed into English at the behest of director Edward Dmytryk, who had worked with Schell on The Young Lions a few years earlier and wanted to help Schell establish himself in Hollywood. Schell regretted that the film had been dubbed into English, as he felt it removed the stage version's unique interpretation of the text, though to most viewers the dreary visuals and anemic direction are likely a bigger sticking point.

In the Amazing Colossal Guide, Best Brains acknowledged they found it strange Ricardo Montalbán did the English dub of Claudius.

The episode is available in the Gizmoplex here.

The Segments:

Prologue

• Mike introduces the 'Bots: Gypsy, Crow T. Robot, and... Htom Sirveaux?! It'll never catch on.

Segment 1

• Mike wins a bet with Pearl and gets to choose the week's movie, so he picks the Bard's masterpiece, Hamlet. Unfortunately, he doesn't specify which version, so Pearl chooses a particularly shoddy 1961 German television adaptation (starring Maximilian Schell) just to spite him.

Segment 2

• Crow and Servo decide to haunt Mike as Hamlet's father did. They run through his entire family tree trying to find a dead relative.

Segment 3

• The 'Bots have plans to make their own adaptation of Hamlet, pitching several iterations to Mike.

Segment 4

• Mike hosts "Alas, Poor Who?", where the 'Bots must identify famous people based on their bones.

Segment 5

• The 'Bots introduce the Talking Hamlet action figure, whose verbose and longwinded speech comes with a very long pullcord. Pearl is harassed by Fortinbras, who complains about his role being omitted and insists on performing it live.

---

MST3K's decidedly... different treatment of Hamlet provides examples of:

• Affably Evil: Pearl forwards mail to allow Mike to stay in contact with his family.
• Alas, Poor Yorick: One of the skits has Mike hosting a game show called Alas, Poor Who? where the bots are shown random bones and have to guess whom they belonged to. Servo guesses wrong in the final round, while Crow gets all of his right but is disqualified because he repeatedly fails to phrase his answer as "Alas, poor _____."
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Mike wanted to see a film version of Hamlet. Pearl complied... by presenting him with a poorly made and unbearably boring early 1960s German TV movie.
• Bedsheet Ghost: When the 'Bots try to pass themselves off as the ghost of Mike's father. Upon learning that he's alive, they try every other conceivable relative and get the same result.
  Crow: Don't your relatives ever die?!
• Call-Back:
  • When tricking Pearl into a fixed game of Three-Card Monte and raising the stakes for the final round, Mike imitates Geronimo's Catchphrase from Final Justice, the previous episode.
    Mike: You think you can take me? Go 'head on, it's your move.
  • Servo anticipates railing kills during the opening scene when the guards are patrolling the castle.
• Camp Gay: Fortinbras.
  Observer: He made me look butch.
• Cassandra Truth: Observer warns Pearl twice that Mike's Three-Card Monte game is rigged, the second time after she specifically pointed out he's omniscient and asked him which card was the winner. She insults him and ignores his warning both times.
• Continuity Nod: It's established that Pearl is a gambling addict, so her Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny! reaction to Mike's Three-Card Monte is in character.
• Credits Gag: After Mike finishes pulling the pullcord on the Talking Hamlet toy (which takes up the entirety of the final host segment), Hamlet's entire "To Be or Not To Be" speech is recited over the credits.
• Doomed by Canon: The first shot of Ophelia has Servo saying as her, "Oh, I love life!"
• Ending Fatigue: Invoked by the crew during Hamlet's (admittedly quite drawn-out) death scene.
• Exact Words: Mike should never have allowed Pearl to pick which production. He calls out Zeffirelli and Branagh, but gives Pearl enough wiggle (he DID, after all, say "your choice"...) and she chooses Observer's suggestion of one filled with "Germans" and "bratwurst".
  Pearl: Okay, you get Hamlet. Oh boy, do you get Hamlet!
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Instead of the usual lousy B-Movie, Mike and the 'Bots spend this episode riffing on HAMLET, one of the greatest works of literature/theatre ever made... via an equally lousy German TV Movie version.
• Freud Was Right: In-Universe, Mike and the 'Bots take the play's subtext to its funniest conclusion. It could also be they were just referencing another classic piece of theater.
  Tom: Hamlet, get off your mom!
• Glad I Thought of It: Pearl takes complete credit for the German version of Hamlet that Observer suggested to her; Observer is Genre Savvy enough to happily congratulate her for thinking of it.
• Godwin's Law: Servo mutters if he sees "Reichsfuhrer" in the credits, he's leaving.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Used in one of the riffs.^note "Bunghole" here means the hole in a barrel, of course. Interesting that using the word "bunghole" as slang for anus dates back to at least the XVII century, so Shakespeare quite likely knew the slang meaning as well.
  Hamlet: Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bunghole?
  Tom: Eww!
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": During Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" speech, Crow chuckles out "Heh-heh, you said 'bare bodkin'".^note A "bare bodkin" is a general term during that time to refer to any sharp instrument. Many have assumed Hamlet was always referring to a knife.
• Hypocritical Humor: During the play scene where Hamlet comments during the play, Mike and the Bots make jokes calling him out for being rude and talking during the play. Y'know, the activity that they've made a show out of.
  Mike: He'll be unwrapping candies next!
• Limited Wardrobe: Invoked as the riffers point out how Gertrude wears the same dress for every occasion.
  Mike: [During Ophelia's funeral] Man, that really is an all-purpose dress.
• Moment Killer: When Polonius walks in on Claudius and Gertrude flirting around, Crow responds "What is it, Cold-Water-On-The-Groin, I mean, Polonius?"
• My Nayme Is: In the first host segment, Tom declares that his last name is spelled "Sirveaux" (still pronounced "Servo"). Then he reveals his first name is now "Htom" (pronounced "Heh-Tom", though Mike had thought it would be "T-H-O-M"). Crow looks at Cambot in disbelief, then declares "Well, Htom, why don't you hlick me?"
  Mike: So, we should start calling you "Sirveaux" now?
  "Sirveaux": That's right.
  Gypsy: What if we called you "Servo"?
  "Sirveaux": I won't respond.
  • Hypocritical Humor: After the commercial break, Crow decides to start spelling his name Cröe.
    Crow: No no, Cruuuuuuue, Cruuuuuuuee; purse your beak.
    Mike: I'll purse your beak!
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Despite managing to beat Pearl in Three Card Monte for the right to pick what movie they would do that day, even picking Hamlet for good measure, Mike manages to louse it up with just two words: "Your choice."
• Only Sane Man: Brain Guy's the only one who knows Mike's going to hustle anybody who tries to play him, but can't get his cohorts in evil to listen.
• Pungeon Master:
  • Mike and the bots have a lot of fun with the now-archaic-sounding Shakespeare-lingo:
    Claudius: Forgive me my foul murder.
    Crow: It's just that that turkey was mouthing off to me.
  • And:
    Claudius: Bring us the foils!
    Crow: We shall some potatoes bake.
  • Also:
    Hamlet's father: It was murder most foul.
    Crow: He killed a chicken?!
• Railing Kill: Servo gleefully assumes based on the set design there will be plenty of these.
• Running Gag:
  • "Cut his throat in a church!"
  • Another is Mike and the Bots' disdain for the movie's many long monologues.
  • During Hamlet's meeting with the ghost of his father, 99% of the scene focuses on Hamlet himself (presumably interpreting the spirit as a delusion.) Mike and the 'Bots make jokes about the director making panicked orders to switch cameras to the ghost.
• Shell Game: Mike wins the right to pick this week's movie by beating Pearl at three card monte.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Ophelia whimpers "Woe is me...", Tom responds "Woah is me." in the same infliction as Joey Lawrence's character in Blossom. Jokes of the same degree would expand to RiffTrax.
  • As Ophelia is buried, :
  Laertes: Hold the earth a while!
  Mike: Stop the world - I want to get off!
  • During the end credits, "Danish consultant: Victor Borge."
  • Polonius is voiced by John Banner, which naturally invites a few riffs to Sgt. Schultz. Also makes for a fitting Stealth Pun, as the character they're spoofing is also German.
  • Claudius is dubbed by Ricardo Montalbán; at one point Servo squeezes in a riff based on one of the more memetic moments of his career.
  Claudius: I like him not, nor stands it safe with us to let his madness range.
  Servo: With rich Corinthian leather.
• Take That!: When Ophelia enters during her Sanity Slippage, warbling poetry, Crow moans, "Oh, no. It's Jewel."
  • "Yay! Garrison Keillor's leaving Denmark!"^note This refers to a time in late 1980s when Keillor ceased production on A Prairie Home Companion and moved to Denmark for a time with his new wife, a Danish woman who had been a foreign exchange student at Keillor's high school.
• Weirdness Magnet: Pearl brings up the trope directly.
  Pearl: [after dealing with Fortinbras] Is it me? Am I a magnet for these idiots?!^note Considering her son is a maniacal Mad Scientist, and her companions are a talking ape and a pale-faced omnipotent being who carries his brain around in a bowl, then yes, she is.

---

[Dazed Claudius suddenly looks to the right]

---