1010 – It Lives by Night
(aka The Bat People)
ééé
Things I liked in the movie:
Bums who are wise, gentle, and disposable.
Wives who let their husbands be themselves.
Seizures like you mean it.
Impressions
This is a decent episode. The laugh density is probably around 50%. There are some slower sections, but all in all, it’s pretty good. The acting is fair and some of the scenery is pretty good. It wouldn’t stand out as a really bad movie except the story itself is so ridiculous and the special effects are laughable. It’s essentially a werewolf movie except with a bat. Summary: unoriginal, bland, dumb, but production is fair.
Synopsis
A man who looks like
Mr. Bean and his wife sneak away from a tour group in what looks like Carslbad
caverns. The man, Johnny, gets
bitten by, and of course starts to turn into, a bat (Mike: If you’re bitten by a bat, you’ll turn into
one – scientific fact). They go skiing.
He has some rabies-like symptoms and goes to the hospital for
tests. He has extremely violent
reactions to the anti-rabies treatments. His hand turns into a bat wing
sort of thing.
When a girl dies at
the hospital at night near his room, a cop gets suspicious. Johnny is
released from the hospital and checks into a motel. Another girl dies near the motel and now the cop is really
suspicious. After going back into the hospital, he realizes what’s
happening. He steals an ambulance and
evades the police. After a long car chase, he winds up outside of town in
a barn, where he meets a strange, philosophical bum. He kills the bum and goes back to the bat cave where it all
started.
He steals a tape
recorder and records himself describing what happened apparently for his wife’s
edification or perhaps because he’s a scientist and feels compelled to pass the
information along. Once inside the cave, he embraces his battitude and
eats a rat. The cop somehow figures out what has happened and goes into
the cave looking for him. Happily this
results in the cop being killed. Johnny
comes home and tries to tell his wife that it's over, but they sleep together
and he bites her. They live battily
ever after.
Host Segments
1 Pearl is having the SOL sprayed with poison. Mike and the ‘Bots call her on it. She denies it at first but because of their persistence, she gives in and has them sprayed with antidote. Brain Guy is directing the crop duster with strange code phrases. The last one, after Pearl tells him to spray them with the highly experimental antidote is, “Give the babies their bottle.” I have no idea where this comes from.
2. Crow is looking critically at a photo of Mary Tyler Moore and Crow is indignant that the wife in the movie looks more like MTM than he does. (Crow is wearing an MTM wig). Mike is doing Ted Knight (impressively well). Servo is doing Lou Grant. Crow finally gets mad and says, "I should turn the world on with my stinkin' smile."
3. Mike is behind the counter with his feet up. Presumably, he’s had an accident or fainted. Crow discovers him and calls for help. Servo appears as a nurse. They give him rabies treatments. Mike gets up, has six needles in him and apparently foam on his lips. It was his pastry frosting. They're mad because they can't finish his treatment because he doesn't have rabies. Mike admits to being selfish for not having rabies and agrees to let them do the rest of the painful injections. (Very similar to the story line in the movie.)
4. Mike is the mustachioed doctor from the movie. Pearl has nair on her lip. Pearl says Mike looks ok. Crow then appears sporting the same mustache and Pearl gets very excited, calls him Art, and invites him to hot tub with her. Servo appears with a 3-foot mustache. He falls over. (In the movie the doctor and police sergeant both had large mustaches that made them look 70s-esque.)
End: Tom is
dissatisfied by his franchisee kit from the Buddy Ebsen Hat Distressing
Corporation; Pearl tortures Bobo and Brain Guy with slides from her many
honeymoons in which her husbands dies mysterious deaths. The hat bit is from the bum in the movie who
had a distressed-looking hat.
Stinger: Bat guy says "Well?" then convulses.
Funny Riffs
They fall into a hole. The camera looks at maggots.
Crow as maggots: Hey look! Eventual food!
The lighting is on his crotch area
Mike: There's a heavenly light on his groin.
Johnny flops around after a shot. The doctor looks worried.
Tom as doctor: I should really stop killing guys.
Mike as doctor: Um. Do you have any drug allergies?
Wife challenges the doctor’s choice.
Tom as doctor: Hey, that hits my erroneous zone.
After being bitten, he has dreams of attacking people as a bat.
Tom: Would it be a better movie if he'd been bitten by a cow?
Johnny's writhing around in the hospital bed.
Riff: I'm dilated to eight!
Johnny's acting mean.
Tom: Maybe he got bit by a jerk bat.
Johnny buys a nightie. He gives the counter girl a 20.
Crow as Johnny: Throw in a bag of bat chow.
Johnny sneaks out a window.
Mike as Johnny
sounding like an addict just giving in a little bit: I'm just going to
flap
once around the parking lot.
Jazz plays while Johnny attacks a girl.
Tom: Now I see why they call it scat.
Crow: Well, she got away from the bat; but ironically, a tornado tore through her park moments later.
An actor looks
apathetic.
Mike: I ought to be able to have a reaction to that, I'm an actor. Ah, it's not worth it.
Tom: Bat on the run. Bat on the Run. (To the tune of Band on the Run)
Cop: Suspect homicidal
Tom as Johnny:
Hey, I'm heterocidal!
Tom as Johnny: I really guano'd my pants on that one.
Johnny enters the barn and closes the door.
Crow: You leave the door closed? What? were you born in a house?
Mike: Just remember, if you're bitten by a bat, you'll turn into one. Scientific fact.
He gives the nurse a pint of blood. He’s too delirious to open it.
Johnny: Open it!
Mike as Johnny: It's got a bat-proof lid!
The “monster” is revealed in all his glory—a man in a monkey
mask.
Crow: Oh yeah, he was also bitten by an Ecuadorian bald-faced monkey.
Crow: So, who is this movie's target audience?
Servo: Well, I don't know, a bat fetishist named Stan, and even he missed it.
Crow as a bat: A human! He'll entangle my legs with his hair!