422 - THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE with short: HERE COMES THE CIRCUS

Synopsis:  The feature is a very strange fantasy story from Finland that starts off with an old hag witch named Loukhy kidnapping a woman named Anniky from a village by sending her magic blanket to attach itself as a sail and bring the Anniky’s boat to her.  So Lemminkainen, the kidnapped woman’s suitor, and her brother make a boat out of a tree and sail out to save Anniky.  When they get there, the witch has her people destroy their boat but the suitor and father cook up a new iron boat, and a horse while they are at it.  The witch finally agrees to release the daughter but only if the father can do magic, of which he must provide a sample... make that “Sampo” (which is some sort of salt making device).  The father obliges and, after he cooks up the Sampo, the daughter is released.  But as they sail back to their homeland, Lemminkainen dives in the water to go back and retrieve the Sampo for their own people.  He only succeeds in retrieving a small part of it, but the witch is now really PO-ed, so she come to their village and steals a spotlight – which turns out to be the Sun – plunging the village into a harsh winter.  The old guy who leads the village has everyone make a harp and they then march as an army of elevator-music playing harpists onto the witch’s land, putting all of the witch’s people to sleep with the boring music.  The witch is then frozen and they free the Sun from her cave, bringing light and warmth to the world again.

Don’s Review:  After seeing this film, I’ve got to say that this is one weird Scandinavian mythological story – it must read better than it looks in this film, which is extremely goofy (I’m guessing the story is to explain why winter happens and to be thankful for the Sun, but I’m not sure.  Did Joseph Campbell ever see this movie?)   The riffing on this is, once again, top-notch (I really liked the Bullwinkle riffs), but the host segments were a bit weak.  Still, despite the weak host segments, this is an episode that must be seen to be believed.

Don’s Rating:    [ S: F: ]

Forrest’s Review:  This is one classic episode.  The first time I saw this, it was on a tape that was about 10,000th generation.  And I simply could not enjoy the episode.  But then, I went to castleforrester.com and got The Day The Earth Froze on a nearly flawless DVD.  I then realized how incredibly good this episode is!  The film is one of the weirdest ever seen on the show.  Half the time it is an amazing movie, with great-for-its-time special effects, and some very impressive scenery. But then again, it’s the goofiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.  Take the scene where the witch is flying through the air. It looks cheesy now, but Puma Man’s flying SFX were light-years behind, and that movie was made much later.  The film, especially for a Russian film from its rough time-period, had what must of been a pretty big budget.  The film really is enjoyable on its own, and I could even watch this film without Joel and the bots.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great, but it is an interesting movie with a lot of imagination, and deserves credit for that.
      This is an example of a great MST3K episode.  The riffs were arguably the best to ever be heard on the show, as IMO every riff in this episode was funny.  In fact, I really think this is one of the very best episodes of them all.  I’ve seen this episode 3 times!  The first time wasn’t great, but I blame the bad VHS it was duplicated from.  But the second and third time (When I saw it on DVD) was great. The best riffs were delivered by Crow (of course), because his Finnish-accent riffs making fun of Leminkkimond were hysterical!  As were his Rocky and Bullwinkle riffs. Joel was also great as well (“A bag of Homer Simpson?”), as well as Tom Servo (“Uh...There is a burning moose blocking traffic on the highway.”)  But the best lines were in the beginning during the credits when they did a rare skit in the theater with Minnesota accents, talking about “The Day The Earth Froze” (Joel: “Oh cripes, I remember that day.”)
      The short, entitled Here Comes The Circus is, well, excellent. In fact I was laughing so hard, it had me on the floor at times, the riffs really were that funny (“We love it when he eats!” “Here comes..the devil!”).  There’s really nothing more to say on the short, because I have no complaints, and I look forward to seeing it many more times.  The host segments were above average and very enjoyable.  If I have only one complaint, it was Gypsy’s one woman show, which was nice and all, but was a bit boring and not very funny.  Still, the other host segments, especially the one about “What is a Sampo?” were very good, but I could live without them.  Oh, I almost forgot, the invention exchanges were great!  I really enjoyed Joel’s Snacktion invention, but Dr. F’s Un-Happy Meals were the best.  Still, despite Gypsy’s lame one woman show, the hilarious riffs in this episode conquer all, and it is a perfect episode that I look forward to seeing again.  In fact, I think it has just replaced my original favorite Finnish episode  (A pick between The Sword and the Dragon and Colossus and the Headhunters) as my now favorite Russo-Finnish episode, and definitely the second best episode of Season Four (the best being, of course, Manos: The Hands of Fate).

Forrest’s Rating:    [ S: F: ]

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