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MST3K 507 - I Accuse My Parents

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“ Joel, why are you psychoanalyzing robots? ”


“ I accuse you, Joel Robinson! ”
  — Crow


The Short

The Truck Farmer

Synopsis

507s.jpg

The Truck Farmer (second edition) reveals how the advances of modern technology allow vegetable farming to supply the needs of the American public year-round.

Information

The term “truck farming” is used to describe the large-scale production and distribution of crops by road or rail. The word “truck” originally referred to the bartering of goods, and then came to mean the process of carrying goods to market, and eventually came to mean the vehicle used to haul the goods.

The Movie

I Accuse My Parents

Synopsis

Mild-mannered teen James "Jimmy" Wilson (Robert Lowell) appears before a judge on charges of manslaughter. When asked to speak in his own defense, he pauses and reflects to say, "I accuse my parents" for not giving him the home life he should have had.

The film flashes back to a day in high school when Jim was given an award for an essay describing the ideal home he supposedly has. Eager to tell his parents, he goes home to a house full of empty alcohol bottles and parents distracted by arguing with each other. Jimmy is embarrassed when his mother (Vivienne Osbourne) shows up drunk to the graduation planning committee. Later, his father (John Miljan) gives him money instead of celebrating his birthday with him. Jim gets a job selling shoes after school and meets torch singer Kitty Reed (Mary Beth Hughes). He delivers a pair of shoes to her house and then meets her later at the nightclub where she works. The two begin dating, Jim unaware that Kitty is also the moll of gangster Charles Blake (George Meeker), who specializes in fencing stolen jewelry. Blake identifies Jimmy as sufficiently gullible and recruits him to deliver packages and messages after work and school. Jim gets paid highly for his errands, so he never questions what exactly he is delivering.

I Accuse My Parents

Charles forces Kitty to break up with Jimmy after he realizes that their relationship is becoming serious. Shortly afterward, Jim drives two of Charlie's henchmen to a late-night "errand," which turns out to be a robbery where a night watchman is shot. Realizing what he's gotten involved in, Jimmy turns to his father, who ignores him. Jimmy confronts Blake himself, but Blake threatens to kill him if he does not continue working for him. Later, after the police identify Jimmy as the driver of the getaway car, Blake sends his men to kill Jimmy, but the execution is interrupted by two passersby who happen upon the scene, causing the men to flee and leave behind a beaten Jimmy. Fearing for his life, Jimmy packs a suitcase and spends an indeterminate amount of time hitchhiking and train-hopping. He eventually ends up in a small town where he attempts to rob a diner, but the kindly owner, Al (George Lloyd), recognizes Jimmy as a good boy in a bad situation and offers him safe harbor and a job, as long as he agrees to give up crime and start going to church. After a period of living and working for Al, Jimmy's life straightens up and he confesses to his crimes. Al agrees to accompany Jimmy back home to turn himself in.

Iaccusemyparents2.jpg

Back in Jimmy's hometown, Al takes him to confront Kitty, who confesses that she was forced to break up with him. Jimmy then goes to confront Blake one more time, in the hopes that Blake will also turn himself in to help clear Jimmy's name. Blake refuses and instead pulls a gun on Jimmy; Jimmy attempts to wrestle the gun away, accidentally shooting and killing Blake in the process. The police, alerted by Al, storm Blake's hideout and arrest his men, along with Jimmy. Back in the present, the judge, understanding why Jimmy accuses his parents, acquits Jimmy of manslaughter. However, the judge also finds him guilty on charges of possession of stolen property, gives him a five-year suspended sentence and two years' probation and remands him to the custody of his parents until he is twenty-one. The judge then addresses Jimmy's parents (and the camera), warning that any young man could suffer the same fate as Jimmy if left to neglectful parents.

The film concludes with a title card informing the audience that the production company is paying all costs to send the film overseas to entertain troops fighting World War II.

Information

  • Produced by PRC, the film was used to teach morals, specifically that parents should take an interest in their children's lives, as well as the consequences (both emotionally and psychologically) of child neglect.
  • It premiered on November 4, 1944 and was released generally on October 27, 1945.

The Episode

Host Segments

Tom Servo "Nude"

Prologue: With the aid of some pink paint, Tom Servo's wish of becoming a real boy, albeit a naked one, has come true. But it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Segment One (Invention Exchange): The Mads try Cake 'n' Shake, an instant stripper in a cake mix, but Frank accidentally baked the stripper inside, while Joel & the Bots invent the junk-drawer organizer.

Gypsy sings for Joel

Segment Two: Asking the bots to draw their families, Joel psycho-analyzes the results. It's not good news.

Segment Three: Inspired by the movie, Joel & the Bots get Gypsy to help them reenact the nightclub scene from it.

Segment Four: What's wrong with Jimmy? Joel and the Bots dig deep into the troubled boy's psyche.

Segment Five: Joel and the the Bots reenact the cafe scene from movie, though Crow and Tom choose to switch Jimmy's gun for a tank, and read a letter, while the Mads have finally finished digging out Rodney the stripper.

Cake 'n' Shake

Stinger: "What? What's so funny? asks Jimmy’s mother, as Jimmy’s father laughs at her ridiculous hat.

MST3K cast

Regular cast

Guest cast

Trivia

Goofs

Callbacks

Obscure References

  • "Charley Varrick is employed!"

Charley Varrick is a 1970's crime film featuring a crop duster turned criminal.

  • "Buffy and Hildegard are calling..."

Joel refers to the Mads as Buffy and Hildegard. Those were the two female aliases used by the characters played by Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari on the sitcom Bosom Buddies.

  • "I wonder if they sold this film door-to-door..."

Spoken over a title card reading "Encyclopedia Britannica Films", this refers to formerly common practice of selling encyclopedias door-to-door.

  • "Surrey... Cross the guernsey..."

This is a pastiche of the song "Ferry Cross the Mersey" which was popularized by Gerry and the Pacemakers in the mid-1960s. A surrey is a type of four-wheeled carriage. A guernsey is a breed of dairy cattle.

  • "I Accuse My Parents brought to you by Boone’s Farm."

Boone's Farm refers to a line of malt beverages and flavored wines.

  • "It's Killdozer! Clint Walker, NO!!!"

Killdozer is a short story by Theodore Sturgeon about a bulldozer that develops a violent mind of its own. In 1974, it was adapted as a made-for-TV movie starring Clint Walker.

  • "Teahouse of the August Moon!"

The Teahouse of the August Moon is a 1951 novel by Vern Sneider which was subsequently adapted for a play (1953) and a film (1956) starring Marlon Brando. It satirizes the U.S. occupation and Americanization of the island of Okinawa following the end of World War II in 1945.

  • "The John Bradshaw Story!"

John Bradshaw is a pop psychologist widely credited with popularizing the terms "inner child" and "dysfunctional family".

  • "Well as long as it's not John Hughes."

John Hughes was a screenwriter and director who was behind such films as The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink.

  • "Part IV: Citizens on Patrol!"

"Citizens on Patrol" was the subtitle of the fourth Police Academy movie.

  • "Sergeant, take the gun and shoot the corporal!"

A quote from The Manchurian Candidate from a scene in which a brainwashed army sergeant is made to shoot an innocent unsuspecting soldier.

  • "My dad is Gigantor!"

Gigantor, about a young boy who controls the giant robot of the title, was one of the earliest anime series to be broadcast in the United States.

  • "A young Al Bundy!"

Al Bundy was the protagonist of the sitcom Married... with Children, who worked as a shoe salesman.

  • "Cruel shoes!"

"Cruel Shoes" is a short story by Steve Martin. It was also the title of the collection in which said story was published as a book.

  • "I never had one myself, enough to remember." "I was torn from the thigh of Zeus."

Riff comparing Kitty's absence of a mother to one of the many origin stories of seemingly motherless gods, goddesses and other supernatural beings in Greek Mythology. Dionysus was such a god "torn from the thigh of Zeus"; even though he did have a mother named Seleme and Zeus had him sewn to his thigh after birth.

  • "Hey, Walter Lantz!"

Animator Walter Lantz is best remembered as the creator of Woody Woodpecker.

  • "In our audience tonight, Tony 'Big Tuna' Accardo!"

Tony Accardo was a Chicago mob boss.

  • "Jules and Jim!"

Jules and Jim was a 1962 French film about two bachelors wooing the same woman.

  • "Why is she dressed like Major Barbara?"

Major Barbara is a play by George Bernard Shaw.

  • "I lied."

Joel is imitating Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando.

  • "I am the Angel of Death. The day of reckoning is upon us."

Crow is misquoting a line from the Simpsons episode "Marge Gets A Job".

  • "Here, what are you doing in a Cocteau film, boy?"

Jean Cocteau was a French novelist, filmmaker, and playwright. His films had the same sort of dark, foreboding look as Ingmar Bergman's, but were a bit more fast-paced.

  • "But he was able to pick up a ride with the Joad family!"

The Joads (a displaced farm family who traveled with all of their possessions on a truck) were the central characters in John Steinbeck's dust-bowl novel The Grapes Of Wrath.

  • "And I fixed your chair, too. It doesn't squeak anymore."

Line from the Sidney Poitier/Anne Bancroft 1965 film The Slender Thread.

  • "I know I'd go from rags to riches..."

From the song "Rags to Riches", popularized by Tony Bennett, which is played at the beginning of the movie Goodfellas as a young Henry Hill begins his career as a mobster.

  • "I'm up here, honey, with the DT's!  Could you get the yellow lizard out of the bathroom?"

One of the main effects of Delirium tremens (the DT's) is hallucinations. It's usually associated with withdrawal from alcohol.

  • "Ah, J. Edgar Hoover goes shopping!"

A reference to allegations that the longtime director of the FBI was a transvestite.

  • "Oh, it's the three hard-boiled eggs she ordered."

A reference to a scene in the Marx Brothers' movie A Night at the Opera.

As the Bots drive their tank off at the end, one of them is heard whistling the theme music from the movie Patton, composed by Jerry Goldsmith.

In the final host segment, the tank the Bots are piloting has the name 'Anne Blythe' painted on the side. Anne Blythe was the married name of Anne Shirley, a character from the book series Anne Of Green Gables.

Video Release

MST3K DVD

External links


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