Season Four Episode Twenty-Two: The Day the Earth Froze w/short Here Comes the Circus
Network: Comedy Central
Riffers: Tom Servo, Joel Robinson, and Crow T. Robot
Mads: Dr. Clayton Forrester and TV's Frank
The Short's Plot Synopsis: The circus is in town! Watch clowns scare you in ways you never imagined!
The Movie's Plot Synopsis: Finnish hero Lemminkäinen woos the fair damsel Annikki. When an evil witch named Louhi kidnaps Annikki in order to compel her brother Ilmarinen the blacksmith to build a Sampo, Lemmi and Ilm travel to the witch’s lair to rescue the maiden. Ilm builds the Sampo, then he and Anni return home. Lemmi tries and fails to get the Sampo from Louhi. Lemmi returns home. Lemmi and Anni get married. Lemmi’s attempt to steal the Sampo has angered Louhi, so she steals the sun, plunging the world into frozen darkness. Lemmi’s village bands together to bombard the witch with the music of sacred harps, which turns her to stone. Lemmi releases the sun and everyone rejoices!
Host Segments:
Prologue: It's family portrait time, and Crow and Tom just aren't cooperating. Crow won't wear his new dress slacks (which Joel bought for him in Killer Shrews), and Servo is being rude. They take the picture, but it's messed up.
Segment One/Invention Exchange: The Bots continue to misbehave. JatBs show off Snack-tion, treats based on various ninja weapons, such as ninja throwing cookies and the Five Ladyfingers of Death. The Mads have invested Frank's retirement money in Unhappy Meals, fast food meals that contain unfortunate surprises. Alas, they haven't sold as quickly as Dr. Forrester had hoped. Frank isn't too happy about it.
Segment Two: Inspired by the short, The Bots discuss putting together their own twisted clown act, which turns out to be extremely deranged. However, Joel gets the last laugh.
Segment Three: JatBs discuss what a Sampo might really be. They come to the conclusion they shouldn't worry too much about it.
Segment Four: Gypsy performs her amazing one-woman show: "Gypsy Rose...Me!"
Ending Segment: The Bots pretend to be imprisoned wind in bags similar to the movie while Joel reads a letter. Joel reads a letter and leaves them in their not-so-nice smelling bags. In Deep 13, Frank puts himself in a bag to sulk about his money, and Dr. Forrester cuts him loose.
Stinger: "What’s going to become of us now?!"
Review:
A huge step up in quality over the previous episode, though bizarrely both involve a Circus short. This is the better of the two, in my opinion.
The movie is one of several movies from Russia/Finland that is seen throughout the series (the others being Jack Frost, Sword and Dragon, and Magic Voyage of Sinbad) If you've seen any of the movies, you know these are some pretty far our there movies that make you wonder if the makers were on drugs at the time.
While it is strange, it was also really enjoyable. The riffing during the first half of the movie was pretty damn hilarious, and Crow's Bullwinkle impression was pretty spot on. The host segments were really funny, especially The Mad's invention exchange. This really gets the taste of Monster A-Go Go out of you mouth. 8.5/10
Favorite Riffs (short):
*At the circus, a man is giving out prizes to kids. One of the kids is on an older man's leg. The older man looks like someone pretty famous.*
Servo: It's Thomas Edison, and his electric child!
*We get several different shots of a hobo clown who doesn't do anything... but eat.*
Crow: All he does is eat?
*While a clown does acrobats*
Servo: Store this image away for a later nightmare!
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http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/61035294 - My MST3K Watchthrough topic.