The film centers around Rommel, a mechanic/sidehack-style racer, who turns down the offer of J.C., a hot-tempered entertainer, to join his act after J.C. witnesses a sidehack race for the first time. During this time, J.C.'s abused girlfriend, Paisley, falls for Rommel and attempts to seduce him. He rejects her advances and sends her away crying. Later, when J.C. and his crew return to their hotel, they find Paisley drunk and her clothes tattered, claiming that Rommel raped her. Angered, J.C. and his gang beat Rommel unconscious and kill his fiancee, Rita. Rommel then spends the rest of the movie plotting his revenge against J.C., who goes into hiding from the police.
The film's end is nihilistic in nature. After both Rommel and J.C.'s men have killed each other (while two of Rommel's men escaped on a sidehack bike), the two men brawl. When Rommel manages to gain the upper hand, he elects to walk away when the police are about to arrive, but J.C. picks up a gun and shoots Rommel from behind. The last images of the film are a flashback of Rommel and his fiancee rolling about in a grassy field, superimposed over a shot of Rommel's dead body.
Cambot joins in on the fun
Information
When the Brains first sat down and watched this movie for their writing sessions, they were shocked to discover a graphic scene of a female character being raped and murdered. They edited that 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 on MST.
Another edit occurred earlier in the episode in a scene when J.C drops the N-bomb on Nero after the latter tries to calm him down during a rage moment. This was muted as Joel and the bots loudly rebuke J.C.
This movie features a rare riff by Cambot, when he puts up "Cambot's Scoreboard", resembling the scoreboards that the sports network ESPN puts up to give scores and results from other sporting events going on at the same time as the one you're watching.
Gus Trikonis' wife at the time Goldie Hawn appears as an uncredited extra spectator at the end of the race in the beginning of the film. She had auditioned earlier for the role of Paisely.
The principle shooting for this film as done on weekends.
Directorial debut of Gus Trikonis.
While they joke about "The Mike Curb Congregation" at the start of the movie, Mike Curb himself wrote the music and all of the songs for the film
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.
Segment One (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 critizes 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 "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.
This episode features one of Cambot's rare riffs 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!" quote.
In Host Segment Four, JC'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.
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).
Crow quotes a lyric from an earlier version of the Gilligan's Island theme song; where Mary Ann and the Professor were simply referred to as "and the rest."
"Hey! It's Hunter S. Thompson! I didn't know sidehacking was so "GONZO"!"
"... and bringing up the rear, Fietelbaum." -Tom Servo during the side-hacking race scene.
From an old Spike Jones (the composer, not the director) song about a horse race. It's a version of the William Tell Overture where Fietelbaum is in last place early on, but ends up winning.
"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.
