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Mystery Science Theater 3000

Phase IV

Episode 10, Aired Jan 15, 1989

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A group of researchers is attacked by ants.

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Cast & Crew

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Trace Beaulieu

Crow T. Robot & Dr. Clayton Forrester
Joel Hodgson

Joel Hodgson
J. Elvis Weinstein

Servo, Dr. Larry Erhardt, & Gypsy

Fan Episode Reviews (1)

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You know ants can carry entire watermelons and big chicken legs!

8.0

"Great"

By Lazlo25, Apr 28, 2010

[#44]

In the not too distant future, weird cosmological phenomena or something like that are picked up by ants and they start to become smart! Slowly they begin to invade a dome controlled by two scientist, and then comes the final phase! Something about ants ruling the world or new life or something. Even though Phase IV was directed noted title designer Saul Bass, this 1974 flick still makes the 50 worst films of all time list at number 44.

Whew, talk about a movie that stretches. I mean the close-ups of ants aren't really impressive (I've seen pictures of close-uped ants before), and phase takes longer than expected. As a result the movie goes along too slow and the film is long and boring. As our first non-Gamera movie in the KTMA era, it's nice to see J&TB mock something that isn't about a turtle fighting other monsters, 'cause doing five movies in a row and doing them slightly out of order can get tiresome. For a KTMA episode, the alb-lib riffing here is the best out of all the other episodes. There are those times where the dialogue and the riffing are jammed together, but when there's none (and there's not a lot of dialogue in the film), we get takes on the ants (Antstock to name a few). I liked Joel's theory that sources usually do predicate end of life, and Tom's "I see me" riff was a hoot. The guys get to take out their disappointment of the flick during the end credits with Crow quipping "Way to go, Miyo!", Joel, not believing the flick, pointing out "Who wants to produce a good movie when you're named after a bread slice", and Tom complaining that "It made flying turtles look good"! Great riffing here. Host segments are okay, the Mads have a nice bit, but doing the wipeout song was a little unnecessary, and the bots' plans when they go down to earth only provided a smile (Crow wants to kill Sandy Frank, the guy who releases the previous five Gamera films). Overall, the best episode of the KTMA era, but not the high class kind of best.

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (1)
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- Just after the third host segment, while Joel and the 'bots are in the theater, a loud noise is heard in the background. Joel asks what happened and Servo says, 'I think Gypsy dropped something again.' He then offers to go look, but Joel tells him to stay put.
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QUOTES (6)
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- Hubbs: In every ant colony... Servo: There's a silver lining.
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- (watching ants carry food away) Joel: Maybe there's a prize at the bottom of it. Crow: Yes, ants make your party mix more lively.
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- (after Davenport finds the animal's carcass) Joel: He's making a puppet out of it. Servo: What's a puppet? Joel: Oh, you wouldn't wanna know. Crow: A Haitian dictator.
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- Servo: (seeing a large group of ants) Antstock. They tried to have Woodstock, but the termites came.
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- Lesko: When the effects came, it was almost unnoticed, because they happened to such a small and insignificant form of life. Crow: Salesmen.
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- Crow: Looks kind of skinny. Must be a Carpenter ant.
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NOTES (1)
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- Some fan tapes of this episode contain commercials made by some of the MST3K crew. One is for a travel agency featuring Kevin Murphy, another is for Joel's stand up act at a local comedy club, and another is a commercial for a pizza place with Trace and Josh in character as Dr. Forrester and Dr. Erhardt.
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ALLUSIONS (1)
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- Crow: "She looks kind of skinny. She must be a Carpenter ant." Crow is talking about Karen Carpenter of the Seventies pop group, The Carpenters. She was a victim of anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia.
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