 420 - THE HUMAN DUPLICATORS
Genre: Sci-Fi (1964, Color)
Synopsis: An Unrealistic Flying Christmas Ornament
(UFcO) arrives at the Earth
and on board is an alien named Kolos (played by Richard Kiel, better known as “Jaws” in those cheesy ‘70s-era Roger Moore
James Bond movies, and as Eegah
to MSTies everywhere). Kolos first has a conference with some Andy Warhol pictures and then beams down to some scientist’s mansion.
Inside the mansion, Kolos meets the scientist’s blind daughter (played by the
hot-looking
actress who played the mute chick in Phantom
Planet) and then takes over the scientist’s dungeon (a dungeon?) for setting up a mass-production android copy-producing system, in which he will copy everyone except the scientist’s hot-looking blind daughter.
The next thing ya know, an evil duplicate android scientist breaks into some high security Motel-6 and steals... something.
Uptight police chief Hugh Beaumont puts detective Glenn Martin on the Motel break-in case.
Martin soon ends up at the duplicated scientist’s mansion/castle and is captured, duplicated, and locked a dungeon cell (a dungeon
cell?).
While his evil duplicate android is out investigating his per-diem, Martin is able to escape from his dungeon cell when the blind girl sneaks
him some dental floss. At the same time, the evil duplicated-scientist androids give up trying to figure out whatever the hell Kolos’ evil plan is and mutiny.
The escaped Martin shows up in the dungeon and aims a spotlight at the mutinous androids, causing them to fight each out and
then fall over and shatter. Kolos, unable to figure out his own inscrutable plans, gives up and declares his mission a failure, so he must now return to his planet and be destroyed because he too is an android.
(Yeah, whatever.)
Host Segments:
- Prologue: The ’Bots give suggestions on how Joel could improve them
- Segment One (Invention Exchange): Joel creates a goofy beanie copter; the Mads create an alarm to keep William Conrad away from your food
- Segment Two: J&tBs make crafts from things around the house (Crow, ironically, thinks
Joel’s is bad because it’s just made of Tupperware and plastic bowling pins)
- Segment Three: Servo clones himself
- Segment Four: An upset Hugh Beaumont visits the SOL
- Segment Five (End): Crow comes out of the robot closet; William Conrad comes to Deep 13
Stinger: The duplicates break apart while strangling each other
 Don’s Review: The movie in this experiment is a laughable bad bit of science fiction.
The one alien arrives at Earth to create androids that only then break into buildings for no apparent reason and
run away. Plus the android technology itself is pretty
suspect
because they are so fragile that simply pushing an android over causes
it to shatter like a cheap porcelain vase.
And what’s the deal with this L.A. mansion having a Medieval
dungeon? The riffing by J&tBs in the experiment starts a bit slowly, but then picks up the pace and is quite good for the rest of the way. (I love
the riffs in which they imitate Richard Kiel’s drawn-out speech patterns.)
And the host segments are pretty good overall, highlighted by a good invention exchange (in which Joel mentions the late great
Bob Clampett!) and a hilarious visit by an uptight Hugh Beaumont (played by Mike Nelson).
So this is a very funny episode that’s even better on repeat
viewings.
Don’s Rating: 
Forrest’s Review: I decided to have a clone back-to-back episode extravaganza, and so I watched
The Human Duplicators and parts: The Clonus Horror.
I will never forget the pain. The Human Duplicators is one boring movie.
I watched it just a few days ago and I can honestly tell you I don’t remember one thing that happened.
The riffing, was a bit of a let-down, with only a few really funny bits (like the Richard
Kiel impersonations). I will admit, however, that many of the jokes went over my head, so perhaps the only reason of why I
didn’t like this episode that much was because I didn’t get 30% of the jokes.
But coming from my sole perspective, I didn’t find the riffing to be that good, and I felt that it
didn’t pick up until the very end, and even then, I believe
there’s far too many better episodes. But, I’ll tell you, the
“riff-back” quip by Crow was hilarious.
The host segments were quite funny.
The invention exchanges were very amusing, and the visit by Mike as Hugh Beaumont was hysterical.
In fact, Mike as Hugh Beaumont was the funniest part about this episode.
The other host segments were funny too, but that’s typical for a
Season Four episode.
All in all, though, the riffing wasn’t all that great, and the movie felt more painful than cheesy, so I feel it was only decent in the realm of MST3K.
(Of course, it’s a masterpiece of comic genius when compared to Billy
Madison.)
Forrest’s Rating: 
Related Link:
(1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)
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