#mst3k the cancelled

[emilysidhe]

MST3Knitathon, watching the top 100 episodes of Mystery Science Theater from bottom to top while knitting:

75. Episode 701 Night of the Blood Beast

Content warning: there’s a number of jokes about Wilbur the guardian angel reading as very queer-coded.

Summary: We start with the short, Once Upon a Honeymoon, which is one of the kookiest they’ve ever done. Wilbur, a hip but clumsy guardian angel is sent down to help Jeff and Mary, a couple who’s year-delayed honeymoon is in danger of getting cancelled when Jeff’s boss calls to demand that Jeff rewrite the melody to one of their big songs so the picky prima donna will sign the show contract. As Mary fights her outdated kitchen to make coffee for a stalled Jeff, Wilbur inspires her to go into a big musical fantasy number about redecorating her entire house with modern fashions, including a brightly colored telephone in each room to match the decor. Later, as Mary tries to dial Jeff’s boss to tell him the song isn’t working, Wilbur blesses the telephone and Jeff realizes that speeding up his existing melody to match the tempo of the rotary phone clicking will fix everything. The honeymoon is saved!

In the movie proper, it’s … an mpreg retread of It Conquered the World? An alien hitches a ride to Earth on a satellite, it stops all electrical power including self-contained systems like cars and wristwatches, scientists argue about whether it’s coming will help or hurt mankind, and at the end, the pro-alien scientist switches sides and causes its downfall. The “bullets won’t hurt it but fire does” is even the same. In this one, the satellite was manned and the astronaut implanted with something that exists first as foreign particles in his blood, then coalesces into shrimp-like aliens incubating in his body. The other NASA scientists immediately want to kill the creature that implanted him, but the infested astronaut has a psychic bond with the creature and insists that it means no harm and they should talk to it first. It speaks to them in the voice of an older doctor it killed earlier in the film, but when the astronaut hears its plan to save humanity by having the offspring bond with everyone, he realizes that it means to sacrifice human civilization to rebuild its own. The astronaut stabs himself to kill the space babies, and the other scientists kill the alien with fire. (The NASA scientists have wanted to kill it with fire for the whole movie, because that’s how they naturally react to first contact). ((The creature in this one is a charbroiled parrot thing.)) (((Only six people work at NASA)))((((This is also a Roger Corman film that came out the same year as the other one.))))

MST3K lore or notable moments: one of each! The short is one of their most notorious delightfully weird ones and deserves a watch on its own even if you don’t watch the whole episode. And this episode is I think the only? - one to premiere during a Turkey Day marathon. Every year, MST3K did and does a marathon during US Thanksgiving with recorded bumpers that, during the cable days usually, involved an ongoing plot about the characters celebrating Thanksgiving and/or reacting to the marathon. (Dr. F always seems to think that getting large numbers of people to watch his experiment during the marathon will result in him taking over the world somehow.) So this episode was filmed with two different sets of sketches - ones that continued the Turkey Day storyline, for initial broadcast, and ones about the movie, for reruns. In the Turkey Day sketches, Dr. Forrester’s mother, Pearl (introduced as a one-off guest character in season 6), has come to visit, but before ascending to second banana heaven, Frank had invited a bunch of guest characters from past episodes over to Thanksgiving, and Dr. F has to unexpectedly host. Pearl Forrester calls Crow “Art” and seems to know him, which will remain a running gag that is never explained. (Having now watched it, I think it’s somewhat ambiguous whether she does actually know Crow as someone named Art somehow, or whether she’s mistaken him for someone else and Crow is masterfully playing along.) In the end, Pearl helps Dr. F poison his irritating guests, but also announces her intent to stay with him indefinitely until he can get his life together. The regular sketches establish the dynamic between Pearl and Clayton as Pearl takes her place as one of the official Mads for the first time.

What do I think about it’s place on the list? It’s really a shame that Dr. and Mrs. F only got one season to run the experiment together, because Mary Jo Pehl is so note-perfect right from the get go as this toxic, overbearing, bingo-loving mother figure. When Pearl Forrester has to transition to main mad scientist in the SciFi seasons instead of playing off the dynamic with her son it��s, in my opinion, a bit more hit or miss. Both sets of sketches are very good and the episode is strong, but not quite strong enough for me not to mildly regret my decision to watch the episode twice with the different sketches instead of just watching the Turkey Day sketches as a compilation on YouTube. But a good top 75, especially with that amazing short.

Update: @punchdrunkklovesickk came in clutch in the replies with info about Pearl calling Crow "Art:"

ALSO!!! I CAN EXPLAIN THE THING PEARL DOES WITH CALLING CROW ART SOMETIMES! so basically! during an older joel era letter read (i believe it was jungle goddess?), joel and the bots do a send up of an older sitcom whose name i cant remember rn. this send up involved calling the bots by the actors on that old sitcom - crow gets introduced as "art crow." i cant name the next episode offhand (ik its a joel one) but there was a letter read from a kid who saw that end sketch, thought crow's name was art, and called him such in their fanmail. why best brains called back to this in later seasons idk

Thank you!!!

[majingojira]

Sjbattleangel and Samasmith23 weren't interested in "self-serving" themselves at all nor did they ever want HellYeahHeroes, Ubernegro, TheFemaleFury, Farsight-The-Chad to delete their blogs nor were they ever tying to "cancel" or "tone-police" them. All they ever wanted was to make media discourse a better, healthier place because HellYeahHeroes, Ubernegro, TheFemaleFury, Farsight-The-Chad's misinformation and hyperbolic personal attacks against creators (Tynion, Snyder, Williamson, Aaron, Slott, Cates and many others) was not only toxic but outright disgusting. All I, Sjbattleangel, Samasmith23 and others wanted to ask HellYeahHeroes, Ubernegro, TheFemaleFury, Farsight-The-Chad was this: "Why did you do this? When was this ever acceptable?"

What they intended it to be and what it actually is are completely different beasts. They think they are making things better, but they are in fact causing harm in the name of their justice. Righteous Malice, plain and simple. I find it hilarious that you say that you don't want to 'tone police' them, but then go on to explain tone policing. When these objectional posts were made, it was largely acceptable. The thing you've forgotten is that these posts are pretty old, at the tail end of the rise of the caustic critic era (You know, AVGN, Nostalgia Critic, Linkara).

It may have not been acceptable from what you've seen, but it was an entire movement in casual media review in the early 2010s through to rather recently. Hell, you can even find it in MST3K. They go after the likes of Coleman Francis, Sandy Frank and Bill Rebane without any qualms!

And that was in the 90s! When the R-slur was in common use in PG movies as a 'safe' insult! Not to mention the entire plot of the Jay and Silent Bob movie. To ask that question, "When was this acceptable!?" is to proclaim ignorance of the past.

So, why did we do it? Because we were angry. VERY angry! People who are angry say awful, mean things. And it was largely acceptable for the reasons enumerated.

If you don't understand the past, then you are doomed to repeat it. I mean, the lot of you are basically engaging in classic Internet Harassment at this point in order to get someone to break. Ain't that a shot of the 90s "The Past Was A Mistake" BS.

[gangler]

They cancelled MST3K! I don't think you could even find a show with smaller budgetary needs.

It's one man and a couple of puppets on a set that must've cost pennies riffing and talking over the cheapest movies they could get the rights to.

How much exactly could it have cost them to air Cry Wilderness while Jonah Ray's silhouette makes jokes?

THE AUDACITY OF THEM TO SAY THIS, FUCK NETFLIX FR

[monkeypretzel]

I think most fans already unofficially knew this with how Joel has been talking in his interviews during this tour, but Beez said today on Facebook that Netflix is not picking up another season of MST3K. 

Everyone knows what I think of the new show so I don’t need to rehash it here. But I am sorry for those of you who enjoyed it. You deserved better than this. The TV cast and crew deserved better than this. All the fans who contributed to bringing back the show deserved better than this.

[gameraboy2]

Mystery Science Theater 3000, “The Batwoman”

[titleknown]

If y'all like MST3K and their old "Turkey Day" marathons, I'd highly recommend you check out Isle of Rangoon's playlist-equivalent, given it's a great channel in general run by @siphersaysstuff and friend of the blog @therobotmonster

Also, as a note, the latter's going through some... difficult times RN. Mental health issues and the financial stability that came with losing their day job will do that.

So, if you like what you see on the playlist; or at least want to see them do more Pixelated Beasts episodes (And if you're a fan of folks like @bogleech you probably do), check out their donation/buy-stuff-from-their-other projects post, maybe send a few bucks their way!

[c-h-stevens]

For the longest time, the mantra of the Mystery Science Theater 3000's fandom was "keep circulating the tapes". The show's creators endorsed it, because they knew it was the only way to keep MST3K relevant after it got cancelled.

And it worked! The only reason why the show got DVD releases and crowdfunded seasons was because of those homemade recordings distributed by hand, and later on Youtube. If nobody had circulated the tapes, MST3K wouldn't have become a cult classic.

But hey, the copyright sure would have been protected!

“To protect their copyright, streaming sites do not allow for screenshotting of any kind.”

Hey remember VHS where you bought a box to plug into your tv and you could legally record whatever was playing and then own it for free forever

[starstruckpurpledragon]

the more I read about the netflix anti-password sharing protocols the more i'm considering just canceling my subscription. If I want to log into netflix at my parents house, then I shouldn't have to jump through hoops just 'cause their PS3 is on a different network from my home; and if I want to leave that PS3 logged in so they can use the account I'm paying for - an account that allows for x number of screens already - then why shouldn't I?

and have they considered the college students this'll screw over? people who move somewhere new? people who live part of the year in one place and part of the year in another? people who share an account because they're splitting the cost? And so many scenarios that haven't occurred to me yet.

I mean, they keep upping the price but making the services more restrictive to where the service I get now isn't what I agreed to when I first signed up. If this isn't really the service I signed up for anymore... at what point do I decide their BS is no longer worth it and stop using it anymore? I really think this might be it.

I watch a lot of stuff on roku which is free, then there's stuff I already own that I've loaded onto plex - which also has a lot of free movies and shows available through it too. I also get hbo free w/my internet service and then there amazon prime. I've got plenty of tv to watch when I want to watch it. (Oh and I have a subscription to the Gizmoplex, can't forget the new home of MST3K where evil scientists torment people for entertainment.)

Like... I never bothered to get cable tv. I'm not afraid to 'cut the cord' on a streaming service either. If I want to watch something that isn't on a service I've got? Then I guess I'll just watch something else instead. i'd miss having access to some of the netflix shows, but at a certain point I have to say that they're shooting themselves in the foot and I'm not going to do even a small part of keeping them afloat anymore.

[emilysidhe]

MST3Knitathon, watching the top 100 episodes of Mystery Science Theater from bottom to top while knitting:

74. Episode 1009 Hamlet* (*not a typo)

Summary: Actually, for this one I have to do MST3K lore first.

MST3K lore or notable moments: The Satellite of Love crew picks the film! Mike defeats Pearl in a rigged game of three card monte and wins the right to choose the episode’s movie. He picks the best English drama of them all, Hamlet, but lets Pearl pick the adaptation. Rather than sending up Olivier or Branagh, she and Brain Guy locate a made-for-tv German version from the 1960s that’s been dubbed back into English, and is just as bad as their usual fare. Darn it!

Summary: Sing it with me if you know the words! Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, sees an apparition that appears to be the ghost of his father, the late king. The apparition accuses his own brother, Hamlet’s uncle and the current king, of having poisoned him to seize the throne and marry the widowed queen. Because this is a time period that fully believes in ghosts and revenge, but also in evil and trickster spirits who will do things like impersonate your dead father and tell you lies literally just to fuck with you, Hamlet’s sensible friend Horatio cautions him not to act until they can confirm the ghost’s story through non-supernatural means. Hamlet decides to pretend at madness to cover his investigation; but as he is torn between the pressure to act immediately if the ghost’s words are true, and the need to wait for confirmation, whether his erratic behavior is still an affectation of madness or a sign of real mental instability becomes harder to determine. And then everyone dies.

Mostly I agree that this particular rendition is bad enough to be worthy of a riff, but I did like the way they started each soliloquy as a voiceover narration of internal monologue and had it transition to speaking as Hamlet starts talking to himself. Way to take advantage of the format of filmed media!

Additional notable moments: In the final sketch, the bots make a Hamlet action figure with a pull string so long that getting to the end of it drives Mike off-screen into areas of the ship he’s never seen before, including a staircase and a squash court. Back in Castle Forrester, Fortinbras shows up to complain about being cut from so many productions of Hamlet, and Pearl poisons him for being annoying. A still off-screen Mike finally reaches the end of the pull-chord, and Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy plays over the end credits.

What do I think about it’s place on the list? This is famously a lot of fans’ least favorite episode, and even has a reputation for finalizing the show’s looming cancellation as so many people hated it so much. But I’ve always liked it! It’s refreshing to see them try something new in the final (cable) season, and watching them shift between playing with the bard’s language and mocking the dour adaptation is both fascinating and a lot of fun. To be fair to the haters, the riffers either have too much respect for the source material or are too worried about the audience getting lost trying to follow the archaic language to speak over any of the dialogue, so, arguably, the greatest strength of the SciFi channel episodes - how absolutely rapid-fire the riffing is - is lost for this one. But for me personally, that’s more of a feature than a bug. This plodding adaptation has enough significant pauses between the dialogue that they’re still able to make plenty of jokes, and having to pare down means that they’re picking their best riffs and making me laugh at least most of the time, which is not something I can say for all SciFi era episodes (see my review of Devil Fish). I’m really glad that this one eventually found its audience enough to be voted not just into the top 100, but into the top 75. Good job, MST3K fan voters of 2016.

[writebackatya]

Thinking about all the Netflix originals that I really enjoyed (the MST3K revival, Inside Job) and I still can’t believe that I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson is one that’s didn’t get cancelled after it’s second season

Like legit, this is a miracle to me

And I’m hoping that Netflix doesn’t pull any fast moves on me

[skyfire85]

MST3K is full of moments like this. Remember Crow's spec script "The Spy Who Hugged Me"?

Joel (Gary Diabolique): You don't get it, do you, you stupid moron idiot! I am going to control how people respond to me! I am going to rule the world!

"I am going to control how people respond to me!"? Neo-pronouns and Cancel Culture, anyone?

Or the "Man or Woman" debate over Mr. B Natural?

Crow: Mr. Servo, you've GOT to be kidding me! Let's assume for the moment that Mr. B Natural IS a man. My heavens! What a confusing message to send to little kids! Already, there's the painful feeling of isolation, the horrible, scarring acne - and Mr. Servo here would have us place a cross-dressing man with a clarinet slap dab in their bedrooms! Why not men in Little Bo Peep costumes with stinky cigars explaining the facts of life to our unsuspecting daughters? I, for one—

Joel: Mr. Servo, your rebuttal!

Tom: Yes! Yes! Mr. Crow! I don't think we should stop there! Let's break down ALL the barriers. Hairy men in Spartan costumes holding bake sales on shady boulevards! Naked jock-strap wrestling! Big, wonderful...

Yes, it's a comedy show (and a great one at that! I absolutely recommend signing on to the Gizmoplex and/or the MST3K Twitch channel), but Tom's there giving a perfect depiction of 2024.

MST3K - Bride of the Monster, 1993

[nerds-yearbook]

Appendix RiffTrax Live Events

The main Riffers (Michael J Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett) of RiffTrax and sometimes special guests Riff before a live audience, which is also simulcast to theaters across the country through Fathom Events. The 2020 season was canceled due to the ban on group gatherings and closure of many theaters by Covid 19. (Event, Real Life)

(Listed by oldest performance)

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Christmas Shorts with Weird Al

Reefer Madness

House on Haunted Hill

Jack the Giant Killer

Manos: the Hands of Fate

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Starship Troopers

Night of the Living Dead

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Sharknado

Godzilla

Anaconda

Santa Claus

The Room

Sharknado 2

Miami Connection

Santa and Ice Cream Bunny

Time Chasers

MST3K Reunion Show

Mothra

Carnival of Souls

Samurai Cop

Summer Shorts Beach Party

The Five Doctors

Space Mutiny

Krull

Octaman

Star Raiders

Giant Spider Invation

Hobgoblins

Amityville: the Evil Escapes

Return of the Swamp Thing

Point Break

[nemospecific]

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Don’t get me wrong, I love the gizmoplex, I’m just pissed whenever MST3k gets cancelled.

[popculturebuffet]

Pride Month: Queer Duck The Movie or Eh At Least I’m Not Praying For Death This Time (Commission for WeirdKev27)

Hello All You Happy People, and welcome back to my blog’s celebration of Pride Month! And welcome back to my second and thankfully final part of my  Queer Duck Duckololgy. 

Those of you just joining us, to quote a wonderful irishman who just hit 100 episodes, let’s get yo up to speed: Queer Duck was a crudley made flash web series created by Mike Reiss, former Simpsons writers responsible for the Bleeding Gums Murphy Episodes:

And co-creating the series “The Critic” with co-creator and writing partner Al Jean. That series ended up getting canceled after a season, moving to fox ,and getting canceled again despite a Simpsons lead in and a crossover episode that’s still one of my faviorite simpsons episodes. Fox proceded to hold up the show to prevent another network picking it up because they were dickkkksss. 

So naturally Reiss was a bit fed up with traditional models and wanted to see wha the could do with a smaller team, a lower budget and an internet distrbution, hooking up with early internet outfit Icebox.com, and creating two shows:  Hard Drinking LIncoln which sadly isn’t about Teddy Rosevelt traveling back in time to give Abe Lincoln an intervention then fight crimes, and this one Queer Duck. 

Now in Modern Day creators have made a great go of it breaking from the usual distribution models and going their own way: MST3K is currently making a go of releasing episodes themselves after a run at Netflix with the Gizmoplex and one of the best animated series of this year in my opinon is Helluva Boss, which is produced independently and released via YouTube, yet has gorgeous animation and an all star cast including such big gets as Richard Steven Horvitz, Cristina Vee, Alex Brightman and Norman Reedus. It also has one of the most iconic scenes in animation history:

Brandon Rogers may not be a big name but god is he glorious. Anyway point is what Reiss dreamed... is valid and the fact he was able to pull off a hit show with only three minutes of air time, ALSO get pretty big names involved (Ru Paul, whose only gotten BIGGER thanks to Drag Race did the theme, and voice acting legends Kevin Micheal Richardson, Billy West and Maurice LaMarche all did voices for it as did Jim J Bullock), get it on Showtime and get a movie greenlit, DTV or not. All in 2000 with the budget of a piece of string. He also made Queer Duck because he wanted to make a show laughing with Queer People instead of at them, a noble gesture. 

Thing was... Queer Duck The Series REALLY sucks. Even by the standards of the time i’ts regressive painting all gay people as promiscious drug loving sterotypes. 

It also wasn’t funny even for the standards of the time.  Instead of relying on Reiss’ rapid fire humor that made the Simpsons and Critic under his showrunning great he relied on jokes that amounted to

Not really leaning into the format and instead sticking to network standards despite not having one, as well as TRYING to make jokes out of inherently unfunny topics like Parents not accepting their child is gay, Gay Conversion Therapy, and “I don’t want to get married to my partner because I want to keep having sex with other people but am going to marry him anyway after my vows consisted entirely of loop holes to have sex with other people”. Yes that really was an episode. Given the very show Reiss had left , the Simpsons had done a VERY good episode bashing Homophobia featuring John Waters, and still managed to have fun with gay stertoypes without making me pray for death but death won’t come with the gay steelmill scene, Reiss had no excuse for how bad, uninetionally homophobic and trite this series was even for 2000. 

You can find the full review HERE. It was a chore to sit through and was comissioned by my finacial backer turned good buddy whose also still comissioning reviews from me, WeirdKev27. If you’d liked to comission reviews from me just hit me up in my inbox, prices are on my blog. 

So naturally he wanted me to cover both things and my reaction after wasting 60 minutes of my life on the web series to having to waste 90 MINUTES of my life on the movie was. exactly what your expecting. 

But I still had SOME small hope. The series biggest issue was it didn’t have the room for jokes that Reiss other shows had, so maybe with more space and a good 6 years since h’d come up with the concept Reiss would do better. Would he redeem himself or sink further? To find that out join me under the cut for another round of Queer Duck. Will it be better? Eh either way i’m FREEEEEEEEE FREEEEEEE after this so eh. 

Production Stuff:

I couldn’t find much on the making of the film. There was a making of feature on the DVD, but I watched this on Crackle instead so yeah. Out of luck there. The most I could find was on Wikipedia: the film was unsuprisingly originaly set for Showtime, which aired the shorts after Queer as Folk. But Showtime later backed out as they stopped producing gay content because the 2000′s were very stupid, and thus Icebox picked up full production. As a result teh Film’s animation is still cheap as all hell.. .but more fluid than the web shorts, if only by a smidge. The movie ended up going straight, pun untineded, to DVD, but did air on Logo soon after. So with that being all I got, I did genuinely try my best there just wasn’t a lot on this movie, shocking I know, let’s get into the movie shall we. 

MY EYES: 

We open with ... the Queer Duck Opening from the web series. 

I thought I was rid of this thing but nope... and if your wondering why this is an issue: 1) They barely change it and don’t even make a super special version of it they just literally use the opening from the series again and 2) I watched 20 episodes of the show in a row. The theme is wedged in my skull it did not need a refresher. 

We do get a specail bit introducing Queer Ducks friends as they party: QD, his partner Openly Gator, Paul Linde knockoff Bi-Polar Bear and saving grace of the original show Oscar Wildcat. We also get UTTERLY obnoxious flashing lights during this bit. Like HOLY SHIT...

What was WITH the 2000′s and flashing lights? It wasn’t like Seizures or epilpsy werent known. The Electric Soldier Porygon Incident was a well known thing even back then. 

Anyways the next day Queer Duck wakes up with Openly Gator and goes about his what i’m presuming is sunday given he works the next day: he finds two Pandas under the couch, who are gay pandas.. and speak with sterotypically chinese accents. 

Theres no excuse for this even back then. I mean its not as bad as the OTHER Icebox show they tried to give a movie, Mr Wong which had a buck toothed sterotypical chinese man as it’s lead. But it’s still just.. no. Chinese people deserve better, Asian people in general deserve better, and you can DO better.  I know the simpsons and the critic didn’t escape this, nor did their crossover episode but come the fuck on. 

So Queer Duck turns on the tv and finds it centering on Reverend VanGelderling, voiced by Jeff Bennet. Who while i’ve heard him in things genuinely didn’t recognize at first and it took me a bit, as the voice he was using sounded familliar.. and then it hit me....

YUP. Jeff is using his Johnny Bravo voice. Like i’ts SLIGHTLY less Elvis but it’s still noticable. And the show had only ended four years before this: It HAD adult fans along with the kids. Did.. did he think no one would notice? Was he trying to see if anyone would notice? Was he just trying to see if he could use the voice in other contexts?

He is good here though. VanGelderling is naturally our bad guy, talking to a dog he “””””””Cured””””””””. Val Gelderling is a hold over from the shorts, having shown up for one episode to try and convert Queer Duck , as is the dog he  “””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””cured””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””Queer Duck responds how you should to a bigot like that: by calling in to troll his ass, playing someone with tourettes and using it as an excuse to call Johnny No Homo what he is: a bigot, a fraud, an asshole etc> It’s not a bad bit honestly and were the series more of this and less spending an entire short talking about how santa claus is gay, maybe I wouldn’t of done this to my eyes. 

QD then sees an advertisment for Happy Land, a homophobic amusment park and decides to troll them by declaring it a “Gay Day at Happyland”. First off, as I said the series should’ve been more of THIS: Queer Duck getting into Daffy or Donald type shenanigans against homophobes. It would’ve fit Reiss style of hu mor and been way more intresting than 80 dozen gay jokes. 

Second Gay Day is a real event done at Disney every year with tons of LBGTQ+ people showing up every year from 1991 to present day. Seriously the year I was born was awesome: We got sonic that year and now I find out we got Gay Day at Disney Land too. It’s unofficial because as we’ve well established on this blog Disney is either only for gay rights if a creator fights tooth and nail to get them in their show or like most corpos they put on a show for Pride month.. which then gets wholly mocked by one of their most famous creators whose currently in a relationship with said creator that fought to get a queer romance on the air:

It’s been almost a month since he did that and I will NEVER not find that amazing. 

But yeah we get a song which is okay., though honestly most of the songs in this movie are REALLY good. And OF COURSE this is a musical, you think Mike would miss that stereotype about gay people: his main character is promscious, has a lisp, loves drinking, drugs, partying, musical theater, and sucks at sports. Why WOULD he start portraying Gay People with Subtley NOW.

The songs do help inject some energy into this though. So after a song about everyone being gay SHOCKINGLY the openly homophobic amusment park that Queer Duck was specifically trolling dosen’t let them in. 

So this kicks off Queer Duck’s arc for the movie: he starts to question his sexuality because of all the difficulty that comes with being out and proud. The IDEA isn’t bad: Queer Duck either wanting to present as straight enough so he can be accepted or finding he might be bi instead are not bad plots apart or together. I thought I was straight for most of my life and was in denial for some time. It takes time to figure out who you are and being an adult dosne’t automatically make things easier or mean you stop growing or discovering yourself and being queer IS hard when a good chunk of the world hates you for how you were born and assumes it’s a “choice”. And being bi or pan CAN have issues. I thankfully haven’t run into those, but in media alone the same year Queer Duck debuted, we had the Sex and the City Episode “Boy Girl Boy Girl” where it treated being bisexual as “a stopover on the way to gay town”. An actual line someone wrote and treate dit as some trendy thing kids did instead of you know, my fucking identity. A lot of queer people are assholes who assume just what that show did: that your not REALLY bi your just gay and saying you are or straight and saying you like men. It’d be intresting to explore that. 

This movie dosen’t do that though because it dosen’t know bi people exist. As for struggles... Queer Duck tried to go to a theme park he was WARNED was homophobic specifically to make a statment. While being denied service or tossed out for being gay is a good catalyst the way they set it up just.. dosen’t work. They don’t spend enough time on his emotinos over the incident or portray it properly, have him crestfallen that for once he DIDN’T win out in the end like the universe should go and lost simpl ybecause smoene’s homophobic and society favors THEM. The IDEA, Queer Duck gets rejected just for being queer is good: rejection by the world for the crime of being who you are is just the reality the entire LBGTQ+ spectrum faces, a risk you take every time you put yourself out there and tell someone who you are, a risk damn worth fighting for and a truth damn worth living. It’s just the execution dosen’t match: it tries to paint queer duck as someone who dosen’t realize how bad things are or is just TIRED of it.. seconds after he effortlesly trolled a homophobe and the thing that set this off was in itself a plan to get back at homophobes that simply didn’t pan out. Given all the horrors, rejections and shit Queer people face and STILL face this .. just isn’t enough. I’m not asking for it to go in the oppositie direction, for him to be chased by a pack of dogs or to fight the Klan (again), i’m just asking for a bit of realisim, something that even in a work like this isn’t much to ask for: the simpsons and jay sherman both lived in a cartoony as hell, bizzare world.. but they FELT real. It’s not much to ask that Queer Duck also feel like a real person. It really isn’t and what holds this film and held the series back is that Mike just dosen’t seem to get how to elevate him beyond HE’S GAYYYY. 

Smile Ya Bastards Smile: 

The next day our heroes go to work. And since I forgot to mention their jobs and it frankly would’ve fit more to introduce those jobs in this section of the movie anyway, let’s start with Bi-Polar Bear and Oscar Wildecat, who were introduced at work before the happyland stuff. Bi-Polar Bear works at a perfume counter, is laughed at by his boss for wanting to be on the baseball team, a dream he’s always had since he was a kid, passed over for Little Steven Hawking and Little Stevie Wonder.. who were born 8 years apart but eh, it’s a joke about one being blind and the other being in a wheelchair with a crippling disease. I’m not expecting high art.. or good taste. or anything. Point is Bi-Polar Bear wants to play baseball. He’s not in this movie much and even comments on it. Here are my thoughts on that:

Out of the main 4 he was easily the worst character in the original shorts, he has no personality other than Paul Lynde imperession and the name shows off how Reiss really dosen’t get that Bi People exist. He knows the TERM exists, but he doen’t get it. I’m not sad this character is BARELY in the movie in favor of the two characters with actual plot relevance and comedic timing. 

Onto my boy Oscar Wildecat. He’s actually been upgraded as in the shorts his only real personality trait was “wants to commit matricide” which, thanks to being played by Maurice LaMarche, somehow worked. Well apparently he finally killed her and got away with it because it never comes up in the movie, but he not only gets an intresting arc we’ll get to later, but is funny as ever even without his main gimmick, getting some of the best lines and getting a great throaway gag to play him in as he runs a Shirley Temple memrobilia shop> While that itself isn’t funny, the fact he has the ACTUAL Shirely boxed up like a doll is and this exchange brings it over the top

Shirley: Hey mister.. I can’t breathe Oscar: Quiet you. 

Back to the present of the movie: Openly Gator works at a TGIFridays type restraunt. God I fucking miss TGIFridays. Not going to lie. It’s still around just not in my area anymore.  It was one of my faviorite places and it was still great when I visited it on vacation. But Gator hates it and is rude to customers waiting for his big break. He also meets Conan O’Brien which kicks off a decent enough gag where Conan ends up unluckily being Gator’s customer over and over despite Gator prioritizing his own needs. Gator even calls conan up for help at one point because he has no one else to turn to, and Conan indulges him because while he is on show his guest is carrot top, whose drawn as some sort of monstrosity.. in other words they nailed it, flawless no notes. Conan is played by himself and is clearly game for this, god bless that man. Late Night will not be the same without you my sweet ginger prince. 

So finally we get Queer Duck who spends more time as a Male Nurse in this film than the entreity of the web series despite it being in the title, being depressed. It’s here he meets Lola Buzzard, played by Jackie Hoffman, a stage actress i’d never heard of before this, but who does a REALLY good job and a hilarious performance. Lola is an over the hill actress who soon bonds with our hero and the two perform a great number “Smile Ya Bastards Smile” where the two cheer up the ward and Lola cheers up a morose Queer duck and charms him. 

Lola is smitten with our hero and asks him to spend the day with her. We meet her driver, butler, chalet and ex husband (Twice over) , Peccary, a pig played by TIM. CURRY. 

Mymymymymymy how have we gone over a YEAR on this blog without Tim Curry showing up. The man is a legend in voice acting, acting and ...

The man is a fucking delight and the fact he HASN’T come up more on this blog, let alone at all as a voice actor till now is a fucking tragedy. The man is a genius and he’s no less good here as the poor put upon pig. The man also has the second sexiest voice in the world just behind Keith David. I don’t thirst over the man the way I do keith but lord do I respect the man as much, and when I say I respect someone as much as Keith David what i’m saying is I have the utmost repsect for them as an actor, legend of screen, and person. 

Anyways, the two hang out, enjoy each other’s company, we also get a really fun beauty and the beast bit,  and Queer duck is now into Lola.. emotinally at least. He’s still gay as a goose and ready to gander, but he’s conflicted now. He withdraws a bit from Openly Gator and Gator figures things out quickley. Lola however dosen’t notice his anmosity and invites the two to a broadway show, with comments on how Broadway’s gotten really gay, and wishes she coudl go back there but wonders if a bunch of gay men would really listen to an old industry legend spill the tea on b-listers she dealt with. Given one of the best shows this year has been Hacks, which is about a beloved industry vetran kiling it on vegas and getting encouraged to change up her act by her young, dosen’t want to be here in the slightest protege, and stars screne Legend Jean Smart. Yeahhh.

And Queer Duck proves this right as some time later, how much exactly?

Lola has become a hit with her show still ain’t dead, with QD taking his friends to the premiere and we get a decent musical number. Not very memorable but not bad. 

A Normal Life: 

Lola then drops a bombshell the next night and asks Queer Duck to marry her, knowing he’s gay and not carring. He makes her happy. She does give him a card for a conversion therapy guy which....

Yeah it makes her less sympathetic.... and feels out of character given she dosen’t seem to give a shit her possible husband is gay. So why give him this?  It dosen’t make a ton of sense and feels like a lazy way to bring our main antagonist into the plot. 

But Queer Duck is conlifcted and Oscar notices the next night at the gay bar. When Queer Duck explains his situation Oscar.. suprisingly relates. Turns out he also had a moment of doubt years ago: back then it being the 50′s gay bars weren’t exactly a thing and had to be kept underground to avoid literal gay bashing. Just ask poor Huckleberry Hound Sr. No seriously i’m not making this up for a gag, theirs an alternate unvierse comic focusing on Snagglepuss as an Oscar Wilde style play right dealing with the mcarthy hearings and featuring a violetnly closted Quickdraw McGraw too. It’s REALLY good. 

Point is he was at one of these clubs when he fell for a woman whose part of a trio of singers who sing about loosing a guy because he maasturbates too much. 

I have no response to that. They hit it off but the club was raided and Oscar never found her and encourages QD to go for it. 

So Queer Duck breaks up with Openly Gator.. by announcing his engagment. 

And OG is a trooper here taking it, just wanting him to be happy even if he’s miserable, depsite the fact Queer Duck was a pure uncut ass here abandoning his partner without a proper breakup and basically telling him “So yeah i’m dating a woman now sucks to be you”. 

So we then get the most obnoxious scene in the film, as Queer Duck tells his parents and Lebsian Sister he’s getting married to a woman. We do get a nice visual gag as said sister has brought her girlfriend with her whose a beaver. Is it a very clever gag? no. But they don’t bring it up so it ends up landing a bit as a subtle pun... not subtle though is her eating carpet... which is a nod to a certain slur against lebsians. 

That’s SUPRISINGLY not what makes it obnoxious. It dosen’t help but no the obnoxious part is his parents CELEBRATING.. to an annoying farty version of the queer duck theme. We just here it AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN until i’m driven mad.. for the second time with this friggin franchise. I’m not bringing the Ash gif back though this dosen’t deserve it. 

Queer Duck goes to see the conversion guy who turns out to be the Reverend. Me I prefer my reverends welcoming to all folks and transparently gay like they do up in canada. 

Anyway the Reverend tries takling Queer Duck back in time to see WHEN he started having Gay Thoughts. We get him as a sperm hitting on a bigger sperm that’s techincally his brother because fuck it at this point, and then a repeat of a gag from the series where he hatches saying he’s gay and his parents are in clear denial.

We then get the best song in the movie, a riff on the Major General Song from HMS Pentafore.. and not without reasons as Queer Duck fully realizes he was gay as a young lad seeing those bulges on the sailors, and it’s just a damn fun number, with both Bennet and Bullock just going for it. We also get an alternate version of his coming out, this time at his bar mitsfa. So the Reverend tries a clock work oranging Queer Duck, but it fails utterly as you’d expect. It’s something I LIKE: the Reverend’s methods really DON’T work, at worst they just brow beat into someone gay into living a lie about themselves and feeling what’s natural for them is wrong and evil. Conversion therapy like in real life is just tourture and gaslighting, pure and simple and while the movie dosen’t show it as horrific ENOUGh for my taste, it never paints it as anything BUT that, hence the clockwork orange analogy of using tourture to try and change him via an electroshock chair: it’s really what conversion therapy IS and i’ts an utter travesty it hasn’t been banned. I know i’m preaching to the choir here but it’s not like ti’s not worth saying. But it fails and Queer Duck goes to his wedding anyway. See what I meant about this feeling forced?

Johnny Bronco Does a Kidnappin:

So then it’s time for the wedding,. We get some awkard refrence humor... something tha’ts not sadly new to this series as the Critic would endulge in this from time to time too, though most of it’s jokes were designed to simply be funny on their own. And sometimes you’d get jokes about Woody Allen and Soon-Yi and Roseanne and Tom Arnold, though for the record Woody Allen is a rapist, a pedophile and abuser and deserves to burn the fuck in hell and Roseanne Barr is a racist abrasive trump suporter. They arne’t good people, it’s just the jokes were about Woody dating someone way yougner than him,  and Roseanne being obnoxious. It’s not exactly the kind of joke that dates well is what i’m saying. I mean again Roseanne IS OBNOXIOUS but she’s proved to be far WORSE than obnoxious in old age and at the time as we’d find out from Gilmore Girls Creator Amy Sherman Paladino, she used to NUMBER her writers because she didn’t like them getting egos. Yes really. ASP even used it for a bit on Gilmore girls to show that Paris was going mad with power. 

Point is jokes about MIcheal Jackson have not aged well nor have jokes about Rosie O Donnel. I just.. I got nothing their as trite and unfunny as you’d expect.  So while all this is going on Openly Gator is convinced to go chase after Queer Duck graduate style and Queer Duck himself.. is drugged and kidnapped by the reverend. 

Yeah the Reverend kidnaps him.. which begs the question why not just have him kidnap queer duck BEFORE over the phone calls, it not work and kidnap him again out of frustration of his therapy not working? It makes more sense. But this time he tries a potion to turn Queer Duck straight, something that WORKS and.. god i’ts cringe inducing. For one even if it’s temproraary a potion turning a gay person straight is just.. concernated nope. But it dosen’t help their version of straight: is a bro who wants to oggle every woman, acts like an ass and calls OG a homo. It’s just more awful sterotyping and while not as odious as this franchises usual gay sterotyping, it’s still pretty fucking bad and toxic to say all men are like this when we’re not. I’m horny as shit, I own that, but it’s not because I like women. I’m just lonely. Everyone is diffrent and this movie can fuck off with this. 

So Straight Duck beds Lola, and we do get some funny bits with there bein ga ton of stairs, an elevator and what not, before they finally do the deed... only for her to die. Yup that happened. 

So Queer Duck genuinely mourns over her death and is upset, even more so because he’s trapped as a straight man and miserable about it. Even a huge swerve dosen’t help: he finds out Lola left everything to him.. and dosen’t care. It’s like I siad, in his old self he may not have been attracted to her, but he LOVED her and this hurts. 

Pickering comes to the rescue though. Realizing QD wasn’t a gold digging asshat and genuinely loved Lola just like he had once, he helps QD get his Queer back with the power of barbra streisand, who helps him realize he can’t chagne who he is. It’s a nice message: no amount of bullshit or lies can change who you are. And who he is is gay. We then get a song about him wanting to bang every dude around because fuck this series. He TRIES getting openley gator back but OG rightfully rejects him because fuck him. 

Fairyland:

Queer Duck is naturally sad again, but Pickering encourages him to enjoy himself: He’s rich now, he can do whatever he wants. So Queer Duck’s first order of buisness.. is to rub it in the Reverend’s face... and bring some cops along since Gelderling naturally rants he’ll “drug and kidnap him as many times as it takes”. 

After that we get a riff on the queer eye guys as Queer Duck tries to have them redecorate and after doing it himself iwth PIckering, who he treats way better than Lola ever did and thus earns his loyalty, it’s really sweet, hangs iwth his boys. 

He gives both whatever they always wnated to make up for neglecting them. We do get a nice self dig as Bi Polar Bear wants more screentime, and Queer Duck offers him more in the sequel, which naturally did not happen. 

But Oscar’s wish does get fufilled: his own antiques roadshow style show where the first person he interviews is the dog the Reverend seemingly ‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘

“‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘CURED”‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘

He’s voiced by Andy Dick who SHOCKINGLY never showed up on the Critic... because it was headlined by John Lovtiz.. who rightfully haded that mop topped bastard as he helped get Phil Hartman’s wife back into drugs, a spiral that eventaully lead to her killing the both of them. Lovitz was a good friend of Phil and after too much shit from Andy beat the everyloving shit out of him. I will ALWAYS treasure that story. 

But unsuprisingly the Dog turns out to be the woman Oscar loved, he was a REALLY good drag queen and they have a live sex celebration on air. 

Given the baseball setup, Bi-Polar bear gets his own team and a number about how “baseball is gay” that’s suprisingly good.

So with all this joy spread, Queer Duck decides to go back to where it started for one last big fuck you gesture: he buys Happyland (We get a nice gag about the owner not only gladly selling out “family values” for money but hoping his dad is rolling around in his cryo tube) and turns it into Fairyland inviting all Gay, Bi, Trans and others to join him. The ONLY time Trnas people, one of the biggest parts of the queer community, are mentioned in this entire franchise... given how this franchise treats gay people and acts like bi people don’t exist, it’s a blessing in disguise. 

This enrages the reverened into escaping his minimum security prison. At the opening..

We get some recycled gags from the Gay Theme Park episode of the shorts and Openly Gator gets a job at the ass pirates place.. I prefer Pirates of the Pancreas myself. 

But the Reverend has one last scheme and has hyjacked the dergible QD is on, and plans to use it to spray his straight shit on them. Phrasing. 

The rest of the Queer Duck Crew convince Openly Gator to help, which he does because he loves him.. 

And upon finding out what’s going on heads up and tries resucin ghim. We also get some decent gags with the tiny jesus on the reverend’s cruafix, played by David Duchovney, who bites the guy and generally snarks at the bigot. Our heroes barely escape the burning blimp and reconcile and the reverend is left to get raped by a bull because the series dosen’t get rape is bad even when it’s male on male. 

So our main couple gets back together and we get the worst song of the movie: “I’m Glad I’m Gay” the title means well but it’s reptitive, not all that funny, and just.. ugh. The lonely hearts club shoutout is nice, hence why I used it for the page image instead of the lackluster dvd art, but otherwise it’s just whatever. The two get married, this time WILLINGLY, and our movie thankfully ends. 

Final Thought:

This was rough in spots as you can tell.. but it’s not HORRIBLE. is it good, even fantastic?

It still has too many of the original series problems to be actually GOOD: The gay casts are caractures of gay people clearly based on terrible sterotypes, not even disscussing Queer Duck might be bi, the conversoin potion somehow working even though it’s undone, the racist pandas, the bull rape... there’s still a lot of ERRRURUUUGHHH stuff baked into the dna of this movie that makes it not fun to watch. Even for it’s time it’s regressive in it’s treatment of gay people , with both Mission Hill and the Simpsons having done loads better.

But... it IS better than the series. that’s not saying a lot, the series was pretty shitty. But more time means we get more rapid fire jokes in the style of The Critic, so I laughed WAY more during this than the series, and it does share the second half of the series tone: it’s more well meaning and Queer Duck is SLIGHTLY more likeable, and the humor isn’t AS dark. There’s still some bad shit as i’ve said... enough to make the film not GOOD, but it’s not nearly as odious as some of the stuff the series did. Were the series this level of quality.  I wouldn’t of tried to see if I could gouge my eyes out with one of the goofy’s on my desk watching. Now saying it’s WATCHABLE isn’t high praise and I don’t mean it to be but if your curious the movie IS free on crackle and is only 70 minutes, probably more with commericals but hey, so I can at least say check this out if your curious or like laughing at a piss poor attempt at representation. 

So yeah that about does Pride Month for this year. I mean I still have a Della and Penumbra episode this week, but otherwise that’s all folks. It’s been fun. And does that mean i’m done looking at queer media? No. And that includes bad stuff. With Q Force premering soon and ... this still needing adressing at some ponit. 

As well as this

So yeah i’m sadly not done with bad faith attempts at representation or good ones. Countering both I have America’s recent mini series at some point and the Iceman solo series. So yeah expect all that at some point and until then, there’s always another rainbow and no matter what the color of yours is.. I support you, I love you and you are not alone. 

[pandor-pandorkful]

Anyway Thanksgiving is basically cancelled for me cuz I ended up having 3 different foot cramps yesterday and didn't trust my legs to play nice on a two hour drive to see my aunt & grandma for turkey.

Sooo yeah. If it's not super cold in the living room I might put on the MST3k turkey day stream, otherwise I'll see if I can wrangle together some sort of video game nonsense in my bedroom/the one room I can actually keep warm.

[aokozaki]

A big fancy revival, that they then cancelled after two seasons like they cancel everything after two seasons. Which, whatever, they do that a lot, and MST3K was at least able to continue after that by pivoting to crowdfunding...

Except Netflix was like "oh the special effects for the door opening sequence each episode? yeah you're not allowed to use that in your version" - so the crowdfunded season had to use its limited budget on remaking that entire sequence.

It's not just that Netflix cancelled it (after a second season that was intentionally shorter, with the gimmick being it was short enough to binge in one sitting), but also how spitefully they did it. Bastards.

Ooooohhh remembered what Netflix did to Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I'm angry again.