Eight years after seeing the last episode, "Diabolik" on the Sci-Fi Channel, I've discovered on YouTube the very first MST3K shown on national cable-specifically on Comedy Channel (which eventually merged with rival Ha! to form Comedy Central), "The Crawling Eye". The main cast includes creator Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, and Josh Weinstein with the 'bots Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo, and Croooow. Loved the invention exchange with the vacuum instrument playing "Whole Lotta Love". Then comes the movie starring Forrest Tucker ("F Troop") and Janet Munro (Swiss Family Robinson, Darby O'Gill and the Little People). Loved the running fat jokes ("He's too fat to climb") concerning a heavyset character, some Popeye lines (about another character who's eye is squinting while resting), and a lot of bad eye puns after the title monster appears ("The sequel will be The EYE-ger Sanction starring Burl EYES"). The riffing seems to be a little slow in the beginning but picks up considerably by the last 30 minutes. I was a little disappointed, though, when Forrest mentioned something about a fort that Joel and the 'bots didn't ask in unison, "Fort Courage?" Otherwise, a good national start for a formerly local show from independent station KTMA in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
4 Reviews
The start of something great!
TheCloser1729 December 2018
Although MST3K actually began the year before this show was nationally, most people had never seen the show outside of Minnesota. The Crawling Eye was the humble beginnings to what became one of the funniest shows on tv.
The laughs start out slow, but gain momentum as the Crawling Eye carries on. This movie is a solid episode of MST3K, I wouldn't rate it in my top 30 probably. After seeing later episodes of MST3K before seeing the first season, it can be tough to get used to the original national cast which mainly concerns the role of Tom Servo, which was later recast, as well as Dr.Forrester's henchman.
The laughs start out slow, but gain momentum as the Crawling Eye carries on. This movie is a solid episode of MST3K, I wouldn't rate it in my top 30 probably. After seeing later episodes of MST3K before seeing the first season, it can be tough to get used to the original national cast which mainly concerns the role of Tom Servo, which was later recast, as well as Dr.Forrester's henchman.
IMDB made a mistake in the episode guide!
mhorg20184 December 2019
What is this mistake you wonder? What they have as Season one should actually be an entire separate entry for MST3K, perhaps as MST3K-KTMA, when it was only a local show. Most of these episodes have not been remade by the show when it went national on Comedy Central. So this season, considered as Season 2, it considered by fans to be Season One on Cable. I'm hoping someone at IMDB will read this and correct this problem. The Crawling eye is actually one of my favorite low budget monster movies. It is however, ripe for ripping on! And the boys (who did this on KTMA as well) do a great job!
The humble beginnings of MST3k as a cable show
ametaphysicalshark25 June 2008
The first "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episode to be broadcast on national cable as opposed to the local season that aired on KTMA in Minneapolis is alright, I guess, but mostly consists of Joel and the bots riffing on a stereotypically 'bad' movie (50's drive-in monster flick). There were the odd episodes where the MST3k crew chose movies that while far from great, were really relatively acceptable to riff, and this is one of them (two other notable ones are "Phase IV" from the KTMA season and "This Island Earth" which was disastrously chosen for the MST3k movie). Really, "The Crawling Eye" is far from abysmally bad, it's just a mediocre sci-fi offering with a ludicrous monster. Really, it's the last ten minutes of the movie that have the funniest riffs- the rest is fairly uninspired.
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