MST3K 1203 - Lords of the Deep

The movie

Main article: Lords of the Deep (film)

The crew of an undersea laboratory faces a strange new type of sea creature whose psychic powers lead to danger.

Notes

• This would appear to be the first feature film to be used by Mystery Science Theater 3000 that was directed by a woman.

The episode

Host segments

Prologue: While Jonah modifies the movie vault in Moon 13, Crow and Tom give him blueprints on the facility that they managed to find. Jonah barely has time to hide them from the Skeleton Crew before the Tube catches him.

Segment One: The Gauntlet is only a third of the way done, but Jonah feels confident that he'll make it through. For the Invention Exchange, the Hand-Dryer Air-Hockey Table provides fun on the go when you go. Kinga's is Drone Probes, allowing her to torment Jonah from an even more indirect level.

Segment Two: Tom and Crow find a strange life-form that seems to have a rather interesting power on Jonah.

Song in Theater: "Trippy Blob"

Segment Three: Tom and Crow try to settle an argument using an old-fashioned nursery rhyme (mimicking the lead-in that two characters in the movie had for rock-paper-scissors), while Kinga and Max plug their upcoming daytime talk show.

Segment Four: Jonah and the Bots wonder if it's worse to be stuck in the psychic world of the movie's sea creature or The Gauntlet (and the answer is pretty obvious). The first episode of Good Morning with Kinga and Max! debuts with special guest Dr. Donna St. Phibes of the Habitat for B-Movie Monsters, whose own sea creature puts all of Moon 13 into psychic agony. Next up... The Day Time Ended!

Stinger: The sea creature nuzzles Claire as she lays unconscious.

Obscure references

• "I can't believe I have to dress like a Minion for some stupid kid's birthday party."

Minions are small yellow creatures that, as the name implies, are the minions of the supervillain Gru in the Despicable Me animated movies.

• "Hello, Newman."

Jerry Seinfeld's spite-filled greeting to his neighbor Newman (portrayed by Wayne Knight) from the 1990s sitcom Seinfeld.

• "They're real and they're spectacular!"

Another Seinfeld reference, this one a quote from a woman Jerry was dating (played by Teri Hatcher) after Jerry spent the entire episode trying to determine whether she had breast implants.

• "Miss Clavel ran faster and faster!"

Miss Clavel is the nun who watches over twelve little girls in a school in France in the Madeline children's book series. It's common for her to run "faster and faster" when she suspects the girls are in trouble.

• "Yankee hotel foxtrot."

An album by the band Wilco; its title derives from a broadcast of a "numbers station", sending coded messages to secret agents.

• "It's the first iPod!" "Yeah, and it only plays Residents songs."

The Residents are an art rock band best known for disguising the identities of its members by wearing large eyeball masks that cover their heads (the front of the submarine resembles a large eyeball).

• "You say...I only glob what I want to..."

Crow's parodying lyrics from the song "Stay (I Missed You)" by Lisa Loeb.

• "So does it still fail the Bechdel test if the man they're talking about has turned into a blob?"

A test of gender representation in movies created by Alison Bechdel in her comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For." To pass the test, a movie must have two or more female characters having a conversation that is not about a man.

• "If I told you about her, what would I say?"

Crow is quoting the closing narration of the film The Shape of Water.

• "Barbara..." "They're coming for you!"

From the opening sequence of the original version of Night of the Living Dead (which later became a RiffTrax presentation).

• Crow: "James Earl Jones is a Capricorn!" Tom Servo: "And I say he's a Leo!"

Actor James Earl Jones' birthday is January 17th, which means that his zodiac sign is Capricorn.

• "Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Zeppo. Krypto, Streaky, Comet, Beppo."

The first four are the Marx Brothers (not counting Gummo, who never appeared in films), while the second four are the Super-Pets owned by either Superman/Superboy and/or Supergirl (Krypto was Kal-El's pet dog from Krypton, Streaky was a cat altered by a Kryptonite variant, Comet was a centaur cursed to be a horse with super powers, and Beppo was a Kryptonian test monkey who survived Krypton's explosion)

• "Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television."

This is a line from the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire" which refers to a number of people and things from the mid-20th century (the 1940s through the 1980s).

• "Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers - Dance on air."

This is a line from the Madonna song "Vogue" which refers to several celebrities from the golden age of Hollywood.

• "But there were promises made across this desk! You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away! A man is not a piece of fruit!"

A line from the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller where the main character (Willy Loman) lashes out at his boss for mistreating him.

• "The Undersea Adventures of Leslie Mann..."

Leslie Mann is an American actor and the wife of filmmaker Judd Apatow. She is slender and blonde, and has appeared in several films including Knocked Up and This is 40. Claire resembles her in this shot.

Behind the scenes

MST3K cast

Regular cast

• Jonah Ray - Jonah Heston
• Hampton Yount - Crow T. Robot
• Baron Vaughn - Tom Servo
• Felicia Day - Kinga Forrester
• Patton Oswalt - Max (TV's Son of TV's Frank)
• Grant Baciocco - M. Waverly
• Rebecca Hanson - Gypsy / Synthia
• Tim Ryder - Bonehead #1
• Zach Thompson - Bonehead #2
• Deanna Rooney - Bonehead #3 / Dr. Donna St. Phibes
• Russ Walko - Growler
• Joel Hodgson - Ardy

The Skeleton Crew

• Har Mar Superstar (Bandleader), Tony Bevilacqua, Matthew Compton, Denver Dalley, Jason Fabus, Charlie Erickson, Andris Mattson, Amanda Mndr Warner, Josiah Steinbeck

Guest cast

• None

MST3K crew

Full crew

Production

Goofs

Video releases

Gallery

References