112 – Untamed Youth
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Things I liked about the movie:
The weird, supercharged cheering during the
girls’ fight.
The super tall “Abe Lincoln” dancer.
Jigglin’ wigglin’ wrigglin’ rock.
I don’t know what to say about this movie. It was an ok, if somewhat boring, movie about a forced labor camp in the south punctuated by the most incredible musical numbers. Imagine a typical episode of Perry Mason peppered with five or six excruciatingly bad parodies of the musical bits from Grease or West Side Story. The musical business seems to be a late addition like a monkey forced into the movie by the studio executives.
So as you watch this thing, you to through these stages:
As with most of season one, the heckling was weak. Most of the riffs were along the lines of “He looks dumb,” and “I like her.” The effort seemed to be focused on the host segments which were reasonably funny.
Setup: A handsome, ambitious farm-owner named Russ Tropp has seduced an unattractive, elderly lady judge, Judge Steele, so that she will sentence teenagers into forced labor on his farm. He abuses the workers by feeding them poorly, refusing them medical attention, and occasionally using the prettier girls as his “housekeepers.” Judge Steele doesn’t realize how badly he treats the workers and is blinded to his ambition because of her infatuation.
Steele’s son Bob goes to work for Tropp. He falls in love with one of the girls, Janey, who is the sister of Mamie Van Doren’s character, Penny. Janey and Penny were hitchhiking across the country to get to Hollywood so they could make it in movies when they got caught.
Bob Steele quickly learns how Tropp has been treating the workers and tells his mother what’s been going on. She refuses to believe him. She has one of the workers, Janey, brought to her. Janey tells about the bad food, cruel conditions, and how Tropp uses the girls. That last part is what sets her off. She confronts Tropp, has him arrested, and sets all the teens free.
We learn that Penny (Mamie Van Doren) makes it onto Mexican TV. She’s in the worst music video of all time.
Prologue: Joel explains the premise of the show. Tom’s head is off for repairs. He has a computer virus, the symptoms of which are magnetic tape wads clogging his innards. Invention exchange: Joel has invented a smoking pipe with a smoke detector that puts the pipe out if you try to light it by squirting water on itself. Dr. F has invented tongue puppets.
Second: Joel and the ‘Bots give a pageant for Greg Brady. They review his life as a character on the show and his post-Brady career spiral.
Third: Crow has a flashback about when the crew was programming Gypsy so they could see what she was thinking. Joel was wearing a magnifying mask that made his face look huge. It turned out Gypsy was just thinking about Richard Basehart and RAM chips.
Fourth: Gypsy is sick and pukes cotton all over the SOL. Crow is playing in the “snow.”
Final: Tom and Crow ask about the bespectacled weenie in the movie. Joel explains that he’s the character who wears his hat sideways, wears big glasses, and acts annoying and then usually gets killed in the haunted house. Nobody cares that he dies because the audience hates him. They read some letters.
Stinger: No stinger. (This whole movie was like one long stinger. Oj!)
Russ Tropp: Remember what I told you, Little Bit. You’re half way back to the pokey right now.
Joel: What about the Gumby?
A skinny kid is shirtless.
Joel: Body by Bob Denver
A bunch of teens are clapping and weaving awkwardly in the cotton field to a bad song.
Crow: There’s a lot of rhythm in this scene.
We see a scene where a harvester is driving too close to the laborers in the cotton field:
Joel: Watch modern technology rip through this field of teenage gals.
Tom Servo: Reaper madness.
Crow: Hey! You just harvested his sister!
During a particularly bad musical number:
Joel: This is probably the longest minute in film history.