A racer in the motorcycle sport called "sidehacking" goes on a rampage of vengeance when his fiancée is raped and murdered.
The Episode[]
Host Segments[]
Jerry (R) and Sylvia (L) get the Mads ready
Prologue: It's cleaning day aboard the Satellite of Love, and the Bots are being naughty.
Invention Exchange: The Bots promise to behave, so that they can stay up, for the movie (for some reason). Joel exposes a Slinky to radiation and ultraviolet light and creates Gretchen the Pet Slinky. Dr. Forrester creates a Slinky Body so he can be in two places at once. Joel criticizes the Mads for stealing his ideas again.
Segment Three: The SOL crew wonder where the sidehacking went, and come up with their own color commentary for it.
Segment Four: Everyone has Rommel hats, and JC and Gooch from the planet Fivethehardway drop by the SOL and decide to get Rommel.
Segment Five: The crew sings the stirring "Only Love Pads the Film", which is sad enough to nearly force Frank to land the SOL until Forrester says otherwise. After reading letters, Forrester decides Frank will push the button instead.
Trivia[]
This episode was the fourth to air during Turkey Day '91.
Obscure References[]
"And the rest!"
Crow quotes a lyric from the first season version of the Gilligan's Island theme song; where Mary Ann and the Professor were simply referred to as "and the rest". The lyrics were later altered to refer to them by name.
"Hey! It's Hunter S. Thompson! I didn't know sidehacking was so GONZO!"
One of the spectators is wearing a bucket hat similar to that worn by actor Jim Hutton in his role as detective Ellery Queen.
"... and bringing up the rear, Beetle Bomb."
From a comedy song by Spike Jones and his orchestra about a horse race. It's a version of the William Tell Overture where Beetle Bomb is in last place early on, but ends up winning. Vocals were performed by Doodles Weaver.
"Rommel, you magnificent son of a bitch, I read your book!"
A paraphrase of famous line - originally "you magnificent bastard" - uttered by George C. Scott in the film Patton. Scott, as General George S. Patton, says this line during a battle against Nazi General F.M. Erwin Rommel, whose classic book on military tactics - Infantry Attacks - Patton had indeed read.
When the Brains first sat down and watched this movie for their writing sessions, they were shocked to discover a graphic scene of Rommel's fiancee being raped and murdered, triggered as a flashback for Rommel from seeing Luke and Lois' children playfully roughhousing. They edited the scene out of the episode, and decided from then on to always watch movies in their entirety before deciding whether or not to air them. In order to make up for the plot holes this creates in the film, Crow simply points out "For those of you playing at home, Rita is dead." The role of screening the movies they were considering fell to Frank Conniff. He stated that he got the job because he was the only member of the Best Brains crew at that point that wasn't already doing multiple jobs for the show.[1]
This episode features a rare piece of comedy from Cambot when he puts an ESPN-style scoreboard up during the movie.
This episode is the origin of the often repeated "Chili peppers burn my gut!" callback.
In Host Segment Four, J.C.'s reference to the planet Fivethehardway is inspired by the film's alternate title (which remains the title of the opening song).
This episode follows the previous in the SOL crew complaining about the show having two straight movies with down-beat endings.
This episode aired 46th during the 1995Midnight MST Summer Countdown, where it ranked 11th.
Callbacks[]
"There was nothing left after the…Robot Holocaust." (Robot Holocaust)
As Lloyd Bridges: "Now that you’re dead I can tell you about a thousand wonderful hours…" (Rocketship X-M).
As with most of the riffed films, The Side Hackers was altered by having several scenes trimmed in order to fit within the desired time-slot. Notable changes to this film included:
The audio was briefly muted to omit J.C.'s use of a racial slur towards Nero. This is covered up by Joel and the bots shouting angrily at J.C.
The flashback sequence depicting Rita's rape and murder was removed, as was the scene where Rommel discovers her half-naked body upon regaining consciousness.
Scenes of Cooch joining Rommel's gang and all of them discussing how they're going to attack J.C. were cut. This includes Rommel establishing the "no guns" policy after Crapout suggests mounting a machine gun to a motorcycle.
When J.C. shoots Cooch, the bloody footage of him being shot multiple times was removed.
The set was re-released by Shout! Factory in September 2016 as Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume III.
The DVD features alternate takes for the host segments from this episode as a special feature and an interview with Ross Hagen (the latter only on the Shout! rerelease).
Digitally available through Youtube, iTunes, Vudu, and VHX.
Available for rent or purchase on Amazon's streaming service.
