30 Days of TV Meme -- Day 6
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
This is tough, because a) I don't have just one favorite TV show and b) favorites are generally the episodes that you would watch over and over again. There are a lot of good scenes of different shows that I love to bits, and even more that I did love to bits once and don't love anymore.
But if we're going to go with an episode that I've watched multiple times because I love it, then I have to be honest and go with Episode 811 of Mystery Science Theater 3000...the Russo-Finnish co-production known as Jack Frost.
Now, I will be honest here. I love shows and sites that make fun of bad movies, bad TV shows, bad books and bad comics. I love Rifftrax, I love das_sporking, I love the Nostalgia Critic, Linkara, The Spoony One, I've participated in a couple of Rowling sporking comms...I love sporkings. I always have.
That said, this is not a bad movie. Okay, yes, it was made in 1964, so the production values and the special effects? Not great by today's standards. But it's not bad, say, like Manos: The Hands of Fate. Or, to give an example of a truly horrible bad movie, Highlander 2. (Both of which I've seen, yes.)
Jack Frost (also called Morozko, Father Frost and The Crystal Star) is based on a number of fairy tales and fairy tale elements; Baba Yaga plays a part in this, for example. It's pretty basic--a sweet modest Cinderella-type with a bossy stepmother, a lazy and mildly unpleasant stepsister and a thoroughly cowed father meets Ivan, an arrogant adventurer who makes the mistake of being rude to someone old and magical--NEVER a good move in fairy tales--and who gets turned into a man with the head of a bear until he learns to do a good deed without applauding his wonderfulness beforehand. After that, he finds Baba Yaga and her house on chicken legs (for some reason, the dub of this movie calls her "Hunchback Fairy"--I have no clue why), nearly gets shoved in an oven, shoves the witch in the oven instead, and ends up chasing a pig sleigh halfway across Russia.
Nastenka, meanwhile, gets dumped in a forest because Nastenka is pretty and domestic while her stepsister is neither, which means that Mafushka can't get married while Nastenka is around. She gets rescued by the personification of Winter, who takes her to his house--which, as one of the MST3K crew says, "looks like the Crystal Cathedral North." Then she freezes to death, turning into a translucent girl of ice. Don't worry, she's only mostly dead. She gets better. And of course it ends happily. It's a fairy tale, come on.
Yes, it's remarkably silly. We're not talking labyrinthine plots here. It's pure fluff, played straight. And as a conglomeration of fairy tales, that's not bad. What makes it funny as hell is that you have three guys in the audience fracturing the fairy tale. So you can enjoy the movie on two levels at once--rooting for Nastenka and laughing at Ivan for being a jerk, and loving the doses of reality that Mike Nelson, Crow and Tom Servo keep applying.
So no, not at all a deep or meaningful episode. Just a funny episode which can still make me laugh no matter how often I see it. Heck, it even made me laugh last winter when the furnace was broken and I was freezing to death. That's good television.
***
Day 1 - A show that never should have been canceled.
Day 2 - A show that you wish more people were watching (or that you wish more people had watched).
Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Day 4 - Your favorite show ever.
Day 5 - A show you hate.
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
***
This is tough, because a) I don't have just one favorite TV show and b) favorites are generally the episodes that you would watch over and over again. There are a lot of good scenes of different shows that I love to bits, and even more that I did love to bits once and don't love anymore.
But if we're going to go with an episode that I've watched multiple times because I love it, then I have to be honest and go with Episode 811 of Mystery Science Theater 3000...the Russo-Finnish co-production known as Jack Frost.
Now, I will be honest here. I love shows and sites that make fun of bad movies, bad TV shows, bad books and bad comics. I love Rifftrax, I love das_sporking, I love the Nostalgia Critic, Linkara, The Spoony One, I've participated in a couple of Rowling sporking comms...I love sporkings. I always have.
That said, this is not a bad movie. Okay, yes, it was made in 1964, so the production values and the special effects? Not great by today's standards. But it's not bad, say, like Manos: The Hands of Fate. Or, to give an example of a truly horrible bad movie, Highlander 2. (Both of which I've seen, yes.)
Jack Frost (also called Morozko, Father Frost and The Crystal Star) is based on a number of fairy tales and fairy tale elements; Baba Yaga plays a part in this, for example. It's pretty basic--a sweet modest Cinderella-type with a bossy stepmother, a lazy and mildly unpleasant stepsister and a thoroughly cowed father meets Ivan, an arrogant adventurer who makes the mistake of being rude to someone old and magical--NEVER a good move in fairy tales--and who gets turned into a man with the head of a bear until he learns to do a good deed without applauding his wonderfulness beforehand. After that, he finds Baba Yaga and her house on chicken legs (for some reason, the dub of this movie calls her "Hunchback Fairy"--I have no clue why), nearly gets shoved in an oven, shoves the witch in the oven instead, and ends up chasing a pig sleigh halfway across Russia.
Nastenka, meanwhile, gets dumped in a forest because Nastenka is pretty and domestic while her stepsister is neither, which means that Mafushka can't get married while Nastenka is around. She gets rescued by the personification of Winter, who takes her to his house--which, as one of the MST3K crew says, "looks like the Crystal Cathedral North." Then she freezes to death, turning into a translucent girl of ice. Don't worry, she's only mostly dead. She gets better. And of course it ends happily. It's a fairy tale, come on.
Yes, it's remarkably silly. We're not talking labyrinthine plots here. It's pure fluff, played straight. And as a conglomeration of fairy tales, that's not bad. What makes it funny as hell is that you have three guys in the audience fracturing the fairy tale. So you can enjoy the movie on two levels at once--rooting for Nastenka and laughing at Ivan for being a jerk, and loving the doses of reality that Mike Nelson, Crow and Tom Servo keep applying.
So no, not at all a deep or meaningful episode. Just a funny episode which can still make me laugh no matter how often I see it. Heck, it even made me laugh last winter when the furnace was broken and I was freezing to death. That's good television.
***
Day 1 - A show that never should have been canceled.
Day 2 - A show that you wish more people were watching (or that you wish more people had watched).
Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Day 4 - Your favorite show ever.
Day 5 - A show you hate.
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
***