Mystery Science Theater 3000/Recap/S10 E01 Soultaker

Film watched: Soultaker

"Servo: So your soul is subject to gravity? I have so many questions! Can souls get toe fungus? Can I still have butter if I'm a soul? Okay, can souls pit out their T-shirts? Does Retsyn work on souls? Help me!"

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation has examples of:
"Mike: So, there’s no middle ground with you? It’s either straining grain alcohol through toast in back alleys or a happy little world of rodents in feety pajamas?"
 * Actor Allusion: The riffers recognize Joe Estevez from Werewolf, but it only gets referenced in a few jokes. "Yetiglanchi!"
 * Badass Beard: Joel has grown a snazzy little goatee since returning to Earth.
 * Darker and Edgier: The bots' "alternate ending."
 * Fandom Nod: After hearing about how well Joel's life has gone since he escaped, Mike gets upset and starts asking questions like "What's he have that I don't?" The 'Bots advise Mike not to compare the two, saying it isn't healthy, in a nod to the massive Joel vs. Mike Fan Dumb that dominated online discussions of the series in the Internet's infancy.
 * Happily Ever After: Deconstructed to a ludicrous extent by Servo and Crow during the credits.


 * Johnny Cash: Referenced quite a bit, due to the Soultaker's outfit.
 * Missing the Good Stuff: Crow gets something in his eye and misses the footage of the heroine taking off her clothes. Mike and Tom intentionally invoke this trope by claiming that what happened was a lot hotter than what was actually depicted on-screen.
 * Mundane Afterlife: According to the riffers, Heaven is the boiler room of a hospital.
 * Mythology Gag
 * Nuns Are Funny
 * The Other Darrin: Lampshaded when Joel reacts to Crow's new voice, then approves, stating that proper maintenance means "changing your bowling pin" every so often.
 * Running Gag: Rocking, as it relates to Zach's friend Brad.
 * Mike and the 'bots get a lot of mileage out of Vivian Schilling's resemblance to Tonya Harding.
 * Shout-Out: Joel mentions that he'd spent a couple years doing pyrotechnics for the band Man or Astro-man?, which did its own Shout-Out by performing their own rendition of Mystery Science Theater 3000's closing "Love Theme" for their 1994 album.
 * As Joe Estevez tries to convince Natalie to come with him, Crow asks, "Aren't you due on the set of Werewolf?"
 * Special Guest/The Bus Came Back: Joel Robinson and TV's Frank make guest appearances; TV's Frank is stuck with being a Soultaker, while Joel returns to fix various problems aboard the Satellite of Love.
 * Took a Level In Badass: Joel - once a humble janitor, now manager of his own Hot Fish Shop! In Osseo!
 * Made funnier if one knew that the Hot Fish Shop franchise had closed long before the episode aired.
 * Took a Level In Jerkass: Gypsy, being hooked up to the malfunctioning satellite, rapidly develops something of an attitude problem.
 * What Could Have Been: As great as it is to see Joel back on the SOL, not having him join Mike and the 'Bots in the theater for some riffing is a major blown opportunity. Joel explained that he wasn't able to help write any of the riffing, and didn't want to do any scenes that were completely scripted for him.
 * What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Mike claims to have fixed the ship, and asks the question. "How about everything??"
 * Who Writes This Crap?: Inverted by Mike as Zach, to a confused Natalie: "Hey look, you wrote this crap.")