From: Springfield News-Leader

Date: June 4, 1992

Headline: Fun With Bad Flick

Author: Hughes, Mike

Page(s): D4

 

Even in the schizophrenic world of cable TV, this is strange.

The movie "Marooned" shows up twice in three days. It's offered as a good thing the first time, a bad one the second.

Believe the second.

The film shows up a 7 p.m. today on TNT. Then it reaches Comedy Central twice Saturday (9 a.m. and 6 p.m.), under an assumed name; there, it gets the mocking it richly deserves.

The latter, you see, is the season premiere for "Mystery Science Theatre 3000", one of TV's wittiest series. It's also part of a Saturday spurge on cable.

"Marooned" is a 1969 film that had Oscar-winning special effects and a once-respected cast.

Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman and James Fransiscus are stranded in their capsule.

Back on Earth, Gregory Peck moans that they're doomed and David Jansen snarls that we must keep trying.

They key people are rarely face-to-face; some aren't even mobile. Here's a movie that rarely moves, filled with somber bureaucrats.

The solution is to mock it...and Comedy Central has just the people to do it.

MST 3000 was created by Joel Hodgson, a Minneapolis comic with a dryly wicked wit.

We're told that he's in space with two robot pals. They're forced to watch the world's worst films; naturally, they offer a running commentary.

In the first two seasons, they've confronted such debacles as "Earth vs. Spider" and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians."

Saturday, they eye "Marooned," trimmed down and renamed "Space Travelers." A week later, they'll see "The Giant Gila Monster," which has a rock singer who doubles as a mechanic, raising money for his crippled sister's operation. (I'm not making this up.)

Then a monster--looking suspiciously like a pet salamander--attacks cars. The remarkable thing is that MST works both ways.

Whether its movie is a big-budget bore or something cheap and cheesy, the show is wildly funny.