MST3K 509 - The Girl in Lovers Lane

509 - The Girl in Lovers Lane
Air/Release Date	September 18, 1993
MST3K Director	Joel Hodgson
Movie Director	Charles R. Rondeau
Year	1959
Cast	Brett Halsey Joyce Meadows Lowell Brown Jack Elam
Preceded by	508 - Operation Double 007
Followed by	510 - The Painted Hills

“	The eeeeentire creeeeeewwww Feels a sense of shaaaaame (shame) If only they had half a brain They could attain A measure of fame From a film like Shane But nooooo To their disdaaaain The Girl in Lovers Lane	”

The Movie

Synopsis

The Girl in Lovers Lane

Danny (Brown), son of a wealthy family, is running away from home. He meets Bix Dugan (Halsey), or "Big Stupid," a long-time drifter who agrees to "mentor" Danny. Danny's naivete leads him to commit gaffe after gaffe, leaving Bix to straighten things out. But when they stop at a diner in the next town, Bix finds himself attracted to the waitress, Carrie (Meadows), and is forced to re-examine his whole drifting career. Meanwhile, Jesse (Elam) goes around creeping everyone out.[1]

Information

• Actor Jack Elam’s characteristic eye was caused by an injury he suffered at age 12. During a Boy Scout meeting, a boy threw a pencil, and it jabbed Jack’s eyeball. Younger viewers might recogzine him as the perverse "doctor" character that accompanied Burt Reynolds and DeLuise in the Cannonballl Run.

• Actor Brett Halsey (who played Bix Dugan) had a tiny part in Experiment 801 Revenge of the Creature. He’s one of the young men who finds the female lead unconscious on the shore, and then promptly gets killed by the creature.

The Episode

Host Segments

Joel gives the Bots belly buttons

Prologue: Crow and Tom Servo attempt to give themselves belly buttons. Joel is initially against the idea (mostly because of the drill press involved), but finally relents.

Segment One (Invention Exchange): Tom and Crow contemplate their navels. The Mads present evil baseball promotion night ideas, such as Colorless Odorless Toxic Gas Night and Slide Whistle/Brass Knuckle Night. Joel and the Bots have Doc Martens for Don Martin, complete with nutty sound effects.

Segment Two: Joel and the Bots sing their own train song, "What a Pleasant Journey" in the style of Boxcar Willie.

Segment Three: The Bots plant some money and a pinball machine on the SOL bridge to try to trick Joel into reenacting the alley fight scene from the movie. Joel doesn't play along, so they accost him anyway.

Crow's Jack Elam impression

Segment Four: Tom and Joel attempt to do the old trick that sucks an egg into the milk bottle when Crow comes by to do his Jack Elam impression. He only wants to deal with Gypsy. Joel and Tom aren't impressed, so Crow extols Elam's virtues.

Segment Five: Furious about the extremely depressing ending of the movie, the Bots devise new, happier endings. Joel reads some letters as the Bots continue to ponder their new endings. In Deep 13, Frank writes a new ending as Dr. F delivers a moment of pain using a sledgehammer and a railroad spike.

Stinger: The prostitute in the bathtub says, "Are you waiting for a bus?"

Callbacks

• "Leather coat…" (The Beatniks)
• "To live like the E-lam…" (Robot Monster)
• "You’re stuck here!" (Fugitive Alien)

Obscure References

• "Mariette Hartley had *two* belly buttons in Genesis II!"

Genesis II is a 1973 made-for-TV sci-fi movie written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. The character did indeed have 2 navels, which was Roddenberry's response to the (nonsensical, he thought) censorship he had experienced on his previous series. Actress Mariette Hartley later starred in The Night That Dracula Saved the World, which became a RiffTrax presentation in 2015.

• "...with a film like Shane..."

Tom Servo refers to the film Shane, a highly-regarded Western. Shane co-starred Emile Meyer, who played Carrie's father Cal in The Girl in Lovers Lane.

• "Sneak, Von Ryan, sneak!"

A parody of a line from the movie Von Ryan's Express.

• "Hey, are we bound for glory right now, Mr. Big Stupid?"

A reference to the 1976 Woody Guthrie biopic Bound For Glory. Directed by Hal Ashby and starring David Carradine as Guthrie, it includes several sequences of the folk singer riding the rails. The riff could also refer to the gospel song "This Train (Is Bound for Glory)," which was the inspiration for the title of Guthrie's autobiography and the later film adaption.

• "Richie Brockelman, the lost episodes..."

Richie Brockelman, Private Eye is a short-lived spin-off of the TV series The Rockford Files. Brockelman was a naive, inexperienced recent college graduate who was attempting to build his reputation as a private investigator. It was cancelled after 6 episodes.

• "Is it a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford..."

Paraphrase of a lyric in "Take It Easy" by the Eagles.

• "Christina's World!"

An allusion to the Andrew Wyeth painting Christina's World.

• "It's Larry and Balki's apartment!"

Cousins Larry and Balki are the main characters from the sitcom Perfect Strangers.

• "Carrie is so very..."

Advertising slogan for Keri hand lotion.

• "Hey, Mel, kiss my grits!"

A reference to Flo, the sassy Southern waitress, on the TV show Alice, who was later spun off into her own series. "Kiss my grits" was her catchphrase.

• "They took turns with Big Stupid and there were three of them."

Paraphrase of a lyric in "Coward of the County" by Kenny Rogers.

• "The Color of Danny."

The Color of Money was a 1986 film about pool hustlers.

• "Frodo is in one of those barrels!"

Crow seems to be confusing Frodo Baggins with Bilbo Baggins, who hid in a barrel alongside his dwarf companions to escape the Wood Elves in The Hobbit.

• "Green-eyed lady, sexy lady."

Paraphrase of a lyric in "Green-Eyed Lady" by Sugarloaf.

• "Ah, stop da music... my eggs are cold! Ha cha cha cha!!"

The diner patron with his back turned bears some resemblance to vintage comedian Jimmy Durante. ("Ha cha cha cha!" was one of his most famous catchphrases.)

• "Hey! They're in the Land of the Lost!" "Watch out for Sleestacks!!"

Land of the Lost was a Sid and Marty Kroft show featuring a human family living amongst dinosaurs. The aforementioned Sleestacks were lizard-like humanoids that dwelt alongside them."

• "Gollum! Gollum!!"

Jack Elam's characteristic creeping puts Tom in mind of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings antagonist, Gollum.

• "He's as harmless as a puppy." "Yeah, Cujo."

Cujo is a novel by Stephen King, later adapted into a movie, about a rabid dog that attacks its owners.

Video Release

• The episode was released on DVD in the United States on 7 July 2009 as part of Shout! Factory's Volume XV along with episodes The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, Zombie Nightmare, and Racket Girls.
  • The DVD includes the special feature Behind the Scenes: MST3K Scrapbook Scraps II.

preceded by: Season 4		MST3K Season 5					followed by: Season 6
		1993 - 1994
501	Warrior of the Lost World	1993-07-24	509	The Girl in Lovers Lane	1993-09-18	517	Beginning of the End	1993-11-25
502	Hercules	1993-07-17	510	The Painted Hills	1993-09-26	518	The Atomic Brain	1993-12-04
503	Swamp Diamonds	1993-07-31	511	Gunslinger	1993-10-09	519	Outlaw	1993-12-11
504	Secret Agent Super Dragon	1993-08-07	512	Mitchell	1993-10-23	520	Radar Secret Service	1993-12-18
505	The Magic Voyage of Sinbad	1993-08-14	513	The Brain That Wouldn't Die	1993-10-30	521	Santa Claus	1993-12-24
506	Eegah	1993-08-28	514	Teen-Age Strangler	1993-11-07	522	Teen-Age Crime Wave	1994-01-15
507	I Accuse My Parents	1993-09-04	515	The Wild Wild World of Batwoman	1993-11-13	523	Village of the Giants	1994-01-22
508	Operation Double 007	1993-09-11	516	Alien from L.A.	1993-11-20	524	12 to the Moon	1994-02-05