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Well, Mike, got a good one for you today, it's a little thing called "Skydivers". It's kind of like "Manos" without the lucid plot.
- TV's Frank


(As the short ends)

This is the film the boys had to watch and the girls had to go to the gym and watch the OTHER film!

- Crow


(After half an hour of mumbled dialog and uneventful skydiving.)

Seems like they forgot to have things happen in this movie.

- Mike


The Short[]

Why Study Industrial Arts

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The Short Why Study Industrial Arts

Main article: Why Study Industrial Arts (short)

Synopsis[]

High school student Joe and his basketball coach explain to Joe's friends the many and varied uses for Industrial Arts in all aspects of modern life.

Information[]

The Movie[]

Main article: The Skydivers (film)

Synopsis[]

Intrigue and betrayal affect the lives of a married couple who operate a small airfield frequented by recreational skydivers.

The Episode[]

Host Segments[]

ServoShow

Tom's planetarium show

Prologue: Tom presents a bloviating and inaccurate planetarium show, which is disrupted by Crow's repeated gags about Uranus.

Segment One: Dr. Forrester challenges the SOL crew to a swing choir competition.

Segment Two: Shop class on the SOL is unsuccessful due to Tom's lack of working arms and Crow's refusal to observe proper safety procedures.

ShowChoir

Dr. F and Frank doing swing choir

Segment Three: Crow puts himself in a "double jock lock", explaining that it's something he needs to know how to get out of on his own.

Segment Four: Crow and his hot rod come under fire from a fighter-plane-flying Tom.

Closing (Segment Five): Crow and Tom persevere and struggle in their parachutes as Mike reads a letter, while Frank suffers through a dodgeball assault.

Stinger: The soon-to-die skydiver says, "I don't know. I feel real free up there in the high blue sky."

Shopclassmst3k

SOL shop class goes wrong

MST3K cast[]

Trivia[]

  • During Tom Servo's 'Planetarium Star Show' he calls Mars "The Brightest Star in our Galaxy." 1.) Mars is a planet, not a star. And 2.) The brightest planet in our galaxy is Venus. Also, the "brightest planet" would depend entirely on the observer's point of view. Generally speaking, people on Earth cannot directly observe planets outside our solar system, so "brightest in our galaxy" is about as meaningful as "Miss Universe."
  • In the beginning, Crow mocks the fact that the name of the actor playing Beth is "Kevin Casey" ("Kevin Casey as Beth, and Tony Cardoza as Nancy.") This is not an error: the character of Beth is played by a actress whose first name was Kevin.
  • This episode aired fifth during MST3K Anthology.
  • Segment four is another call-back to segment 2 of Zombie Nightmare, as well as segment 2 of Bloodlust!

Medley[]

DoubleJockLock

Crow performs double jock lock

'The Mads' vs. 'Mike & The Bots' "Battle of the Swings Choirs" consists of the following songs:

Callbacks[]

Obscure References[]

  • "Marlo Thomas, in That Guy!"
A reference to the 1960s sitcom That Girl and its star.
  • "I'm making it for the Grand Wizard."
Grand Wizard was a title bestowed onto the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan.
  • "Extruded Plastic Dingus..."
The product Norville Barnes invents in The Hudsucker Proxy is derisively called an "Extruded Plastic Dingus" by one of Barnes' detractors, but it later becomes the successful toy known as the Hula Hoop.
  • "Krazy Glue spokesman!"
A reference to a Krazy Glue commercial from the 1970s that shows a construction worker whose hardhat has been Krazy Glued to a steel beam.
  • "Tool operators... Tooool operators..."
A parody of the Sade song "Smooth Operator".
  • "Look up there! A pin-up of Kathy Bates!"
Referring to actress Kathy Bates and her award-winning performance as the psychotic Annie Wilkes from the film adaptation of Misery.
  • "Bravo respects the rights of the artist, but we cut their films anyway!"
A dig at a former slogan for the cable network Bravo. It was founded in 1980 as a network for commercial-free airing of programs "dedicated to film and the performing arts", but commercials were added in the mid-1990s.
  • "This is downright Hitchcock-ian." "Robyn Hitchcock."
British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is known for songs that are often surreal and quirkily humorous.
  • "I'm gonna go watch the Kefauver hearings anyway."
The Kefauver hearings were a series of Congressional hearings on organized crime held in 1950 and 1951.
  • "I wet 'em!"
A reference to the Monty Python sketch "The Visitors".
  • "The Red Baron is going to make an appearance."
This refers to Charlie Brown's dog Snoopy and his fantasy about being a World War I ace pilot fighting against the Red Baron, which often involves sitting at a small table with a single candle, much like the table in the scene where Beth and Harry are sitting.
  • "They should set a place for Eraserhead."
The dinner scene resembles a similar scene in David Lynch's first movie Eraserhead.
  • "She's got teeth like a Ferengi."
The Ferengi are an alien race from the Star Trek universe. One of their most notable characteristics are their sharp teeth jutting out from their mouths, to which this riff compares Suzy's crooked teeth.
  • "Amon Göth on guitar."
Amon Göth was a Nazi war criminal infamous for executing thousands of inmates at Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp. He is one of the main antagonists in Schindler's List.
  • "H.R. Haldeman on drums."
The drummer of the band bears a passing resemblance to H.R. Haldeman, a key figure in the Watergate scandal.
  • (Servo humming along with Jimmy Bryant's tune)
It reminds him of The Ventures' 1954 surf rock hit "Walk, Don't Run".
  • "I think it's this town's Passion Play."
Passion Plays are an old tradition, mostly in the Catholic Church, where locals put on a dramatic presentation during Lent depicting the Passion of Jesus Chris: his trial, suffering and death. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is a modern, filmed version.
  • "It's Polonius!"
Polonius is the father of Ophelia and Laertes in Shakespeare's Hamlet. He spies on multiple characters throughout the play, but it is during his last attempt to spy on Hamlet that he hides behind a tapestry in Gertrude's room.
  • [singing] "We're so glad we had this time together..."
Carol Burnett sang this song at the end of each episode of The Carol Burnett Show.
  • "What d'ya suppose that big brown thing coming up to meet me is?"
A passage in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy imagines the thoughts of an extremely short-lived sperm whale, suddenly "called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet": "Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like … ow … ound … round … ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?"
  • "Yeah! Take that paper! Make it swing, Junior. Junior tried to be a singer, but he couldn't cut it. Sit down, Junior."
Mike is pretending to be Frank Sinatra commenting on his son's singing career.
  • "It won the Palme de Butt at Cannes."
A spoof on the Palme d'Or, the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival.

Video Releases[]

  • Skydivers vhs

    MST3K VHS

    Commercially released on VHS by Rhino Entertainment in October 1999 as a single tape, and as a part of a 3-VHS set with Shorts Vol 2 and Catalina Caper.
  • Commercially released on DVD by Rhino in November 2002 as part of The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Volume 1, a 4-DVD set with Catalina Caper, The Creeping Terror and Bloodlust!. The DVD release is a double-sided disc, with the MST version on one side and the un-MSTed movie on the other. The MST3K side also includes a trailer for the original film.
    • The set was re-released in September 2015 by Shout! Factory.
      • The DVD's special feature is the film's original theatrical trailer.
  • Available for rent or purchase on Amazon's streaming service.
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