The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

(Oily “Hero” opens a curtain to find Oily Stripper spinning a spiral and thus hypnotizing him)
Tom loudly sings “Duh duh duh duuhhh duh duh duh!”

Whoo, my translation doesn’t do Tom justice. He was singing the theme from the James Bond movies, and actually did quite well. Dr. No started out with a hypnotizing black-and-white spiral on the screen, and James Bond would walk across it whip a gun out and shoot it at the camera, and everything would turn red. It was one of few aspects of Dr. No that was repeated through-out the franchise.


(Oily “Hero” stumbles around the ocean shore)
Crow: I’m going to Las Vegas to drink myself to death.
(at another point with the hero)
Crow: Where’s Elizabeth Shue?

There was also a mention earlier in the movie of the hero looking a lot like Nicholas Cage (Tom: “You will be Nicholas Cage”) and he does indeed look like the famous movie star. Crow’s line is a reference to Cage’s Oscar-winning performance as a suicidal drunk in Leaving Las Vegas. Cage’s character falls in love with a prostitute but for some reason (I never saw the movie) still ends up killing himself. Elizabeth Shue plays the prostitute, and I believe she won an Oscar for it also. You may not know this, but Nicholas Cage is closely related to director Francis Ford Coppola, and (naturally) his daughter, director Sophia Coppola. And the Coppola’s (including Cage, whose last name is actually Coppola, but he changed it so as not to be connected with the Hollywood dynasty) are related to Jason Schwartzman, whom you might remember as the kid in Rushmore (he also used to be the drummer for Phantom Planet). It’s a small world after all.


(Gypsy Woman splashes “skull juice” on the salesman’s face)
Crow: Elizabeth Taylor’s “Poison”.

The Gypsy Woman (isn’t that a seventies song?) does indeed look a bit like Elizabeth Taylor. Which is unfortunate for Taylor, I guess. Elizabeth Taylor is one of the few true screen legends still alive today—she’s been acting since she was a kid, in movies like National Velvet and Lassie Come Home. She’s also one of the few child stars able to shift into adult roles; she’s most famous for movies like Butterfield 8, Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (I’m only naming a few here). She was married—twice—to one of my favorite actors, Richard Burton. Not too long ago I watched a movie with the two of them, one of the lesser-known Taylor-Burton movies, The V.I.P.s. It’s actually a true soaper, incredibly soapy, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. And wouldn’t you know it, it was based on a true story—apparently at some point Peter Finch and Vivien Leigh tried to run off together but got stuck at the airport due to fog. Her husband Laurence Olivier got there before they could leave and took her home. Years later, Vivien Leigh was slated to star in the movie Elephant Walk but had to drop out halfway through filming. She was replaced with—Elizabeth Taylor. Spooookkyy…in a non-spooky way.


(High-pitched voice is on the radio)
Servo: This is Herby the Misfit Elf.

Herby is mentioned a lot in “MST3K”, almost as much as It’s a Wonderful Life. Herby is in fact a misfit elf, in the famous clay-mation movie Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This movie, along with Santa Claus is Coming to Town, has become a staple of holiday cinema. Sure, there have been others like it, but they don’t come close to achieving the brilliance that is Rudolph (sarcasm, perhaps?) Actually, it’s a fun kiddy movie, and I have a doll of Herby in my room at home, because he personally is a role model to me, having overcome prejudice and scary monsters to realize his dream of becoming a Dentist.


(girl in big hat and big glasses cases the palm reader’s joint)
Servo: Holly Golightly goes to the fair.

Holly Golightly is the character played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She wears a big black hat and big sunglasses. And she sports a really long cigarette holder. If you want a good lesson in the liberties one can make in adapting literature, read Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, then go see this movie. For those of you too lazy to do so: in Capote’s story, the narrator is gay and Holly seems to be bisexual, and they thus do not end up together at the end. Capote didn’t like this movie. I did however, despite Mickey Rooney’s stereotypical turn as Holly’s Japanese landlord. Even Mickey Rooney thought it was offensive.