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Five of the series’ key writer-performers—Joel Hodgson (aka Joel Robinson), Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Clayton Forrester/Crow T. Robot), Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester), Frank Conniff (TV’s Frank), and J. Elvis Weinstein (Tom Servo)—are now touring under the moniker Cinematic Titanic, and last weekend they settled into the Lakeshore Theatre for a three-day run, goofing on three different big-screen atrocities. On Friday, when I got a chance to see the act, their stinker du jour was the 1966 Filipino horror cheapie Blood of the Vampires, directed by Gerardo de Leon (or, as Hodgson identified him, “the man who discovered the fountain of shit”).
As on MST3K, some of the one-liners were inspired (“Sounds like someone is using the soundtrack for a coaster”), some merely functional, but the writers distinguished themselves in their willingness to reach for the most esoteric jokes imaginable. Among the cascading cultural touchstones were Citizen Kane, Betty Friedan, Extreme Makeover, Zelda Fitzgerald, Vatican II, World of Warfare, Loretta Lynn, Bonnie and Clyde, Eudora Welty, K.D. Lang, and SCTV’s Count Floyd. It must say something about television in the 90s that one of the most culturally literate shows aired had a character made out of a gumball machine.
