Grab Bag Week: MST3K: The Mole People

Greetings all and welcome to Grab Bag Week.  I randomly pluck a TV episode, TV series, Movie, Made-For-TV Movie and/ or video game PC or console and bore you to tears or make you belly laugh.   Today I thought I would rummage through my childhood memories to a delightful source of mirth, enjoyment and snark.   This round of movie mockery is brought to us by the fine folks of Mystery Science Theater 3000.   When a zany mad scientist felt the need to shoot a man into space and force him through some of the cheesiest films even compiled to stock.  The concept was to find the end all "bad movie" that would ensure him world domination.  Our story hails from the 8th Season of MST3K when they had just been transported from Comedy Central to the then named Sci-Fi Channel.  I think the current Syfy icon and name is just rubbish but hey that might be due to the lack of interest in watching paranormal pants piddling and wrassling.  This is The Mole People.

Too much coffee on the Satellite of Love.

John Agar: There's gotta be a scientific spoiler for all of this.
Crow T. Robot: I believe the Elf Princess put them there.






Keeping the steam still going after 7 years, Pearl Forrester (writer/actor Mary Jo Pehl of Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Adventures of Edward the Less, Darkstar: The Interactive Movie and Cinematic Titanic: War of the Insects), Dr. Forrester's beloved mother vows to carry on the experiments her son failed to accomplish and torments Mike Nelson (writer/actor Michael Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Adventures of Edward the Less, Mr. B's Lost Shorts, Cheap Seats: Without Ron Parker, Max the Hero and Rifftrax), poor schlep temp worker and bane of Forrester's existence in that he has yet to completely crack under the strain of bad movies.  With him his valiant robot sidekicks Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot are forced into the theater to stomach the bile that is The Mole People.   Deep in the Earth resides an ancient civilization under the Mesopotamian mountains, three archaeologists embark on a quest to discover a 5000 settlement of descendants derived from the earliest Sumerian culture (shot primarily on sound stages and the bloody Vasquez Rocks).

Oops, cinched that rope too tight. Well, I didn't want kids anyway.

Careful to not stumble on a Gunsmoke or Star Trek episode, our heroes led by Dr. Roger Bentley (John Agar of Sands of Iwo Jima, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Tarantula, The Brain from Planet Arous and Attack of the Puppet People) Ward Cleaver ..er... I mean Dr. Jud Bellamin (Hugh Beaumont of The Blue Dahlia, Money Madness, The Loretta Young Show, Leave it To Beaver and Night Passage) Dr. Paul Stuart (Phil Chambers of The Gray Ghost, Backlash, Bonanza and Father Murphy) and lastly the load known as Professor LarFarge (Nestor Paiva of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, The Creature from the Black Lagoonm Tarantula and Can- Can).   Seriously the Professor is about 50 lbs overweight and is forced to climb steep mountain ranges, spelunking in vast caverns all the while not having a heart attack every 12 seconds.

Mike and the bots foray into this little stinkburger with the usual wise cracks, a host segment of what is going on continuity wise in their show and introduces a few new characters.

And now the funny part of the film.   The continuity errors are a plenty from hands swapping from hidden treasure maps, a matte painting spun in the wrong direction and more than a few lighting and sound errors cropped up.  Best flub thus far was a writing error establishing Agar's love interest was named Adel but referred as Adad in the credits.   Our film takes at least a half hour just to get to the rest of the cast on a slow, tedious rope climb where I had to view John Agar, Hugh Beaumont and the load's butt for over 15 minutes.  Yup lot of man ass in the camera and lord it was not good.   The lengthy walking sequences leaves no stone unturned as our crew slogs through the caverns with dirt that looks like a combination of peet and coffee grounds.   Spoiler, our mole people are BARELY IN THE FILM!!!

So vast and majestic!!