Impressions

Dr. F and Frank do the riffing during the first segment (about 10 minutes) while Mike and the ‘Bots are in Deep 13. That’s a long dry spell. Thankfully, they switch back after the second host segment. As Tom put it, “This is like Gamera vs Zigra. Only with cowboys.” Unfortunately, even when they come back, they’re not all that funny, either. The movie is bad, but it’s boring, too. The host segments are about a classic Star Trek episode called “Mirror, Mirror” in which the Enterprise crew is thrown into an alternate universe where the Terran empire uses an agonizer and an agony booth to punish people, a play on Mike and the ‘Bots’ situation in the Satellite of Love. When I googled “Agony Booth” I found a website www.agonybooth.com where reviewers pan bad movies. Yaaaaaaaay! All is right with the world.

Synopsis

This is a spaghetti western set in the Rogue River Valley in Oregon. A good-hearted robber, Barnum, goes around peacocking like there’s no tomorrow. He ends up staying with a goofy self-taught doctor nicknamed Remedy.

An old, disabled man, Cooper, runs the largest horse ranch in the area and he’s hogging all the wild horses. The small horse ranchers are worried that he’ll deplete the herd and they’ll be out of business. He agrees to lay off for one year to let the herd regrow. It would have ended there, except Cooper has an evil foreman, Riley, that has a secret agenda to run the small ranchers out and then somehow take the business from the old man.

Riley secretly manipulates the sheriff into deputizing Cooper’s men (whom he controls). They then go around framing local ranchers for theft of Cooper’s horses and then confiscate their herds. Too late, Cooper figures out the evil plan, confronts Riley, and gets strangled with a sweat-soaked bandana. Our hero, Barnum, is framed for the murder and goes on trial. Everything depends on the trial because if he goes down, the erstwhile Cooper’s men will take over the whole area like a Chicago crime syndicate. Barnum is found guilty, but the local ranchers bust him out.

Barnum sneaks back to the Cooper house to tell Jane, Mr. Cooper’s daughter, that he didn’t do it. She shoots him. Barnum goes back to Remedy’s house and Remedy puts him up in an old barn. Later, Remedy finds a blackmail letter that would set everything straight, but the ever lucky Riley happens onto him and shoots him, apparently fatally. Spoiler alert: Remedy doesn’t die and delivers the letter to Barnum.

In the final climax, Barnum and Riley duke it out stupid-fake-cowboy-style in a barn for 10 minutes and then both fall 12 feet to their deaths. Except Barnum lives and Riley doesn’t. Maybe. It’s hard to tell what happened.

Host Segments

Opening: Mike reprogrammed the ‘Bots to use different regional speech patterns. They degenerate into bickering about each other’s dialects until Mike steps in and says they’re just being stupid, to which Crow responds, “Irregardless . . . . “ The Mads have a matter transference device and send it up the umbilicus during an ion storm. The result is that the Mads are on the SOL and Mike is on the ground and has apparently become Kahn or maybe bad Kirk. Frank and Dr. F get movie sign and have to go watch. It’s an alternate universe!

Host segment 2: Frank and Dr. Forrester are still in the SOL (and don’t seem to mind at all) singing about Joey the Lemur. Meanwhile Mike and Crow act startrekkian down in Deep 13. Suddenly they switch places, but even though they’re on the SOL, there’s still something wrong. They’re still in the alternate universe.

Host segment 3: Tom and Gypsy are still weird. Mike realizes they’re still in an alternate universe.

Host segment 4: Mike and Crow are reading a how-to manual that explains how to undo the alternate universe problem. Suddenly Frank and Dr. F are back on the SOL and Mike and the ‘Bots are in Deep 13 again. Gypsy has the Mads send down the matter transference device and everything goes back to normal.

End: Tom and Gypsy are apparently themselves again. Back in Deep 13, Dr. F and Frank are enjoying the agony booth.

Stinger: Mr. Cooper laughing strangely.

Funny Riffs

When three riders are backing their horses up and turning around

Frank: beep beep beep beep beep

The hero is inspecting his horse’s hoof when a lady rides up.

Cowboy: Hello there. I just had a little trouble. My horse threw a shoe.

Frank: Made a ringer!

Sheriff: The westbound stage just pulled into Jacksonville a little while ago and reported seeing a masked man down near the big bend near the pass.

Girl: Sit down, Sheriff.

Frank as girl: That’s a long sentence and you’re probably tired.

The Sheriff suspects our hero of being the mysterious would-be robber.

Sheriff: What kind of horse was this man riding, Mr. Cooper?

Dr F as Mr. Cooper: It was just a head and a stick! It was weird!

Old man Remedy fixes up our hero by putting bandage on his head.

Girl: Will he be all right, Remedy?

Remedy: Course he will.

Mike as Remedy: He’ll be able to think in a month or so.

Remedy examines Curly’s mouth by using a shoehorn for a tongue depressor.

Mike as Curly: Now my mouth tastes like your foot.

Crow: I still like this movie better than Silverado.

Old man Cooper is pushing his wheelchair across the porch.

Mike as old man: I’m a formula one race car! Vroom! Vroom!

A tree has a big wedge out of it, but it’s still standing.

Servo: Huh! Procrastinatin’ beaver.

Barnum tries to sneak back to the Cooper home and explain to his love interest Jane that he didn’t kill her father.

She sees him and starts shooting at him.

Tom sounding like Adam 12: We’ve got a domestic down at the old Pooper place.

Crow: Everyone is so stupid! He could just go into town with a fake mustache. No one would notice.

Old Man Remedy volunteers to deliver a letter to someone on his way home. Of course, he opens it and discovers a blackmail letter that would blow the whole scam wide open and probably get the evil Riley convicted of murder. No sooner does he finish reading the letter than the very same recipient, the evil Riley, rides up! The old man hurriedly stuffs the letter into his pocket, but drops the envelope, and rides off. Later, the bad guys ride up to where he used to be and spot the envelope on the ground. Mind you this is not on a road, but just in an open field in a vast wilderness.

Mike: Ungodly coincidences of the old west!

Riley: He dropped something. See what it is.

Crow: It’s a plot device. It’s very flimsy, so be careful.

A giant barn is shown with a roof about 300 feet by 100 feet that takes up half the landscape.

Tom: In Wisconson, that barn would say “Diesel Cheese Gifts.”

After a goofy western fight in a barn, Barnum and Riley both fall from the loft onto the barn floor below.

Tom: I fought the loft and the loft won.

The Last of the Wild Horses IMDB Page

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