ééééé
Things I liked in the movie:
Mitchell fighting with a little kid.
The wakka-ja-wakka music.
The giant cars.
Impressions
I have heard from many sources that this is the most popular episode of MST3K. It’s a good one, but not my favorite. This is also the last Joel episode. The host segments focus on a plot line in which Joel will escape and Mike will be sent up to replace him. It’s a bad movie, and Joe Don Baker is pathetic and all, but it’s not that bad. Oh wait, I mean, this is the worst movie panned by the crew yet! Disclaimer. The riffing makes it fun, though. What makes it work is how the savage “Joe Don Baker is a slob” theme gets funnier and funnier as it goes along. I heard rumors that Joe Don Baker got mad about the treatment. THAT makes it really funny!
Synopsis
Mitchell is a 70’s era vigilante cop movie patterned after Dirty Harry. The hero is Mitchell, a fat, sloppy, stupid Joe Don Baker character that spends most of his time drinking beer and eating. He does whatever he thinks needs to be done to catch the bad guys, which mostly involves pestering them incessantly and defying department policy and direct orders.
The movie starts with a burglar getting shot by a rich guy named Deany. Deany plants a gun on the burglar so he can say it was self-defense. Mitchell doesn’t buy it. His boss tells him to leave Deany alone and puts him on a 24-hour stakeout of a guy who is thought to be smuggling heroin into the country via his shipping business. Mitchell’s primary concern is that he won’t have access to food.
The guy he’s watching tries to bribe him with a hooker – Linda Evans. She gets paid $1,000 per night (according to the movie) to sleep with him, even though it’s obvious no one would do it for less than $100,000. She then claims to be stuck on Mitchell even though he arrests her for possession of marijuana the morning after sleeping with her.
There’s the requisite car chase, gun battles, and tough talking. Mitchell kills a bunch of people, some of them criminals.
The plot suddenly kicks into high gear in the last 10 minutes when the bad guy tries to flee the country in his boat. Mitchell somehow gets a helicopter pilot to go along with a plan to fly into the boat with a large tank hanging by a rope like a wrecking ball. The bad guy’s henchman shoots the navigator out of the helicopter but Mitchell is undeterred. He drops onto the boat, shoots both of the bad guys. The end.
Oh wait, he sleeps with Linda Evans again for free this time, and arrests her for possession again which is supposed to be funny. Hoo, baby! It makes my eyes water to think about it.
Host Segments:
Segment one: Joel shows the bots his toothpick sculpture of Monticello and they set it on fire. Mike is a temp who is helping audit the Mads. Joel’s invention is a Daktari stool.
Segment two: Gypsy is left alone and overhears the Mads planning to kill Joel (she thinks). She resolves to save him somehow.
Segment three: Gypsy is thinking hard about how to save Joel.
Segment four: Gypsy talks to Mike on the ground. He agrees to help. He discovers that there’s an escape pod named the Deus Ex Machina hidden in a box of humdingers. It can only be activated by a command from Deep 13, but he needs the keys. He tricks Frank out of the keys in a Who’s on First? sort of conversation and succeeds in activating the pod.
Final: Gypsy sends Joel back to Earth. The Mads can’t believe it. Where will they find another person to send up? Mike appears on cue.
The riffing in this movie is what makes it good. The movie isn’t all that bad except that Joe Don Baker is so repulsive. They positively trash the poor guy.
Servo: Any movie
with "wackacha-waka" in it is okay by me.
Mitchell shoots a
bad guy as he’s running across a golf course.
He falls down about 30 feet from the green.
Crow: He's landed
just short of the green. (imitating golf announcer)
Deany trying to schmooze Mitchell: How do you like your scotch?
Crow: By the quart!
Mitchell: Do you like wine or beer?
Linda Evans: Beer
Crow?: Is it ok if it’s half empty? And some of them have cigarette butts in them.
After a goofy car chase, Mitchell’s car rolls over down an embankment and comes to rest right-side up.
Joel?: That probably shook up the beers.
Mitchell’s apartment has Playboy magazines and beer lying around.
Servo: A very special Joe Don Baker Christmas.
The camera shows a normal-speed merge onto a highway that lasts about 15 seconds.
Crow: Hot Merging Action!!!
Joel: Oh thank God, they merged successfully. My heart... was in my throat.
Mitchell: There's a police investigation going on in here.
Joel: Oh there is? I thought there was just a big slob walking around my house.
Linda Evans and Mitchell romp under a sheet.
Crow: Why would anyone wanna do this with Mitchell, Joel?
Joel as Mitchell: Booze is good food.
Crow, as music from The Rockford Files plays: Hey, cut out that Rockford music, I'm Mitchell!
Servo: The new Chrysler Fury -- the car that thinks it's a house!