Product Description
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How do you make fun of a bloody car wreck? By turning it into
the most popular MST3K episode of all time! Laugh along as Joel
and his bot buddies suffer through MANOS THE HANDS OF E. It's
a laborious piece of flotsam starting Torgo, a demented caretaker
who, as Joel puts it, "looks like a chainsaw sculpture." the only
saving grace, and probable reason this bore was produced, is the
scene with a group of nubile nymphs wrestling around in their
nighties. Well, that and the fact that it serves as fodder for
the MST3K's rapacious wit.
.com
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If 1966's Manos, the Hands of e isn't the worst film ever
made, it's certainly one of the strangest; the Texas-lensed
oddity, a vanity piece for writer-producer-director-star and
fertilizer salesman Hal P. Warren, concerns a family that
encounters a supernatural polygamy sect after an less drive
through the Texas desert. An obscurity to all but the most
dedicated "bad" movie fans, Manos was dragged into the spotlight
by Mystery Science Theater 3000, which spawned something of a
cult following. The Manos set pays tribute to both the film
itself and the fourth-season MST3K episode that set off the
revival with an impressive collection of extras. The episode, one
of the series' best, finds Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgson) and the
'bots pushed to their limits to poke fun or even make sense of
the picture (they are reduced to simply repeating the film's
title during the endless driving sequences), and even Dr.
Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) and TV's Frank (Frank Conniff) find it
necessary to apologize for inflicting the film on them.
Nevertheless, there are some stellar bits throughout the episode,
many of which address one of the film's most unsettling aspects,
the sect's twitchy, goatish henchman, Torgo: Joel and the 'bots
muse on whether Torgo's weirdly oversized thighs (which,
according to Manos lore, are due to his being a satyr) really
make him a monster, and head writer Mike Nelson turns up in the
closer as Torgo to make the world's longest pizza delivery. The
episode also features the second half of the Chevrolet training
film Hired!, one of MST3K's most well-loved shorts.
The two-disc Manos special edition includes both the original
1993 MST3K episode and the film minus the riffing, as well as a
number of solid extras. Chief among these is Hotel Torgo, a
terrific 2004 documentary that reveals the disastrous creation
and release of Manos through an interview with a garrulous
surviving cast member (Bernie Rosenbaum, one half of the "makeout
couple") and visits to the original locations. Hodgson, Beaulieu,
Conniff, and Mary Jo Pehl revisit their own tribulations with
Torgo in Group Therapy, an amusing interview segment that
examines the show's love-hate relationship with Manos. Both
halves of Hired!, complete with riffing (though without Hired!
The Musical, a hilarious song-and-dance spoof featured in MST3K's
take on Bride of the Monster), are also included, as is a new
feature short, Jam Handy to the Rescue, which looks at the
production company responsible for Hired! in an educational film
spoof starring and written by Larry Blamire (The Lost Skeleton of
Cadavra). A brief interview with Hodgson on MST3K's long history
of skewering short films and the original wraparounds from the
syndicated Mystery Science Theater Hour round out this stellar,
MSTie-must-have set. --Paul Gaita