MST3K Review

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109 - PROJECT MOON BASE with shorts: COMMANDO CODY PTS 7 & 8

Genre: Dated Space Flight Sci-Fi (1953, B&W)

Shorts: This experiment begins with two Commando Cody serial installments (just like ep #107) and they are decently riffed (I really liked Joel’s Batman TV show inspired fight-scene pop-up signs in the first one - “KAPOW!”) and are probably the most enjoyable chapters of all of the Cody shorts seen during Season One.

Synopsis: The feature is an extremely dated movie set in the futurist date of 1970 and is about a space station orbiting the earth on which everyone walks on walls via magnetic boots (despite the signs that say “Don’t Walk on Walls”). They are preparing for the first lunar orbital mission and are going to send a three person crew consisting of Major Bill Moore, the cute 90-lb female astronaut Colonel Breiteis (pronounced Bright Eyes... hmmm, sound a bit like Charlton Heston), and the scientist Dr. Wernher. But Dr. Wernher, it turns out, is not the real Dr. Wernher, but, instead, is an imposter put there by an evil outside power that wants to destroy the spaceship. The crew take off from the space station for the Moon, but Bill begins to suspect that Dr. Wernher is an imposter when he doesn’t know... who the Brooklyn Dodgers are! (well, actually, the fact that they moved to L.A. long before 1970 might have something to do with that). Bill’s suspicion is confirmed when the imposter Dr. Wernher attacks him and they struggle. Bill wins the fight and ends up tying up the spy. During the struggle, the lunar orbiter was knocked off course, so Bright Eyes is forced to land on the Dark Side of the Moon (typical woman driver... What? That was not a sexist remark! Ouch!! You don’t have to hit me!). Bill recruits the spy to help him set up an antenna array a number of miles from the ship so that they can contact Earth and the evil spy is accidentally killed when he falls off the hill on which they put the array (which solved two problems at once). Bill returns to the ship and they are able to contact the space station. Because they don’t have enough power to launch, the higher-ups back at the station declare them the first Moon Base and will send them an unmanned supply ship for provisions. And, because a man and woman living together is frowned upon by SPACOM (aka Space Command), Bill and Bright Eyes are asked to get married, which they do in an extremely long-distance ceremony.

Don’s Review: I enjoyed this Season One episode – the riffs were decent and both the two shorts and the dated feature were enjoyable to watch. Also the host segments were reasonable for Season One, but still not very memorable. So this was a pretty good Season One episode, overall, although still not up to the level of episodes from later seasons of the show.
Trivial Note: This movie’s script was co-written by famed sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein!

Don’s Rating: [ S1: S2: F: ]