317 - VIKING WOMEN AND THE SEA SERPENT with short: THE HOME ECONOMICS STORY

Synopsis:  As for the movie, it’s actually listed in the titles as The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (whew!).  It opens in some Viking settlement after the Viking men have been gone for three years with no word of what happened to them.  So the Viking women vote in the traditional spear-chucking method to go and search for their men.  They go out in a Viking ship, with a Viking dweebster boy named Todd (also sometimes called Ottar) stowing away, but soon run into stormy weather and a giant sea lizard thing-a-ma-creature.  Their ship is sunk and they have to swim to shore.  Once on land, another tribe, lead by a guy with a shag carpet on his back and a dog-eared hat on his head, captures them.  The Dog-Eared Tribe takes the Viking women on a boar hunt (no, they aren’t hunting Roger Boreman himself), and the Blonde Viking Woman saves the Dog-Eared Leader’s gay prince son from a boar.  Back at the Dog-Eared Tribe banquet hall, they throw a boar hunt party in which the Creepy Viking Girl does an Isadora Duncan dance.  The banquet is interrupted when Todd shows up and is chased around the hall.  The Dog-Eared Leader next shows the Viking women the coalmine in which the Viking men are slaving-away.  So, later, the Viking women break the Viking men out of their chains, but the jealous Creepy Viking Girl snitches them out to the Dog-Eared Leader and they are recaptured.  In the night, the Creepy Viking Girl goes to the Blonde Viking Man and tries to get him to run off with her.  But he won’t leave his true love, the Blonde Viking Woman, so the spurned Creepy Viking Girl asks the Dog-Eared Leader to burn the blonde couple at the stake.  At the Stake Burning the next day, the Creepy Viking Girl has a change of heart and prays to Thor, the Viking thunder god to save the Blonde couple from being burnt.  It begins to rain, which put out the sacrificial fires, and a stray lightning bolt zaps the gay prince.  A fight breaks out between the Blonde Viking Man and the Dog-Eared Leader, and the beaten Dog-Eared Leader agrees to let all of the Vikings go.  But, after the funeral pyre for his dead gay son, the Dog-Eared Leader changes his mind, and so his tribe pursues the departing Vikings.  The Creepy Viking Girl sacrifices herself to save the other Vikings, and then, on the beach, Todd drowns the Dog-Eared Leader.  The Vikings set out to sea in a boat, while the rest of the Dog-Eared Tribe pursue in another boat.  The sea then gets choppy and the Sea Serpent Thing pops up again.  The Vikings succeed in spearing its nose with a sword and, before dying, the Sea Serpent destroys the Dog-Eared Tribe’s boat.

Don’s Review:  Yet another Roger Corman borefest – this is a pretty lame movie.  The costumes seem like they were recycled from Teenage Caveman because everyone is, once again, wearing the shag-carpet and cut-up sheet wardrobe seen in that movie.  Even a couple of the dogs from the pound show up again here!  The riffing is very good, as J&tBs seem to be in a groove in this episode, but the dull Corman feature is still a bit of a drain.  And the host segments are an odd lot, as they all deal with a running joke on waffles.  The near constant waffle references get old after a while, but the segment with Willie-the-Waffle and the Waffle Song are enjoyable.  So, overall, this is a pretty solid episode.
Trivia Note:  The host segment featuring Willie-the-Waffle was inspired by the short A Case of Spring Fever, which won’t appear on the show until episode 1012 - Squirm (better late than never).

Don’s Rating:     [ S: F: ]

Related Link:
   (1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)