Perhaps...no, certainly...Mystery Science Theater 3000's watershed moment came halfway through season 5 when series creator Joel Hodgson left for the greener fields of TV Wheel and a website about ants. (But I kids the Joel, whom I loves.) Enter Mike Nelson, playing Mike Nelson, the new human aboard the Satellite of Love and a new kind of foil for the bots. It's been said that if Joel is a father figure for the bots (well, literally; he built them), then Mike is the genial but clueless big brother, prey to the bots' tricks and japes, usually willing to go along for a laugh, and decidedly more energetic and animated than the generally-laid-back Joel. "Joel or Mike" flamewars claimed the lives of over fourteen thousand MSTies in the great Discussion Wars of '93, and for years after the watchword on discussion groups was "Don't mention the war. I think I mentioned it once but I got away with it."Me, I'm a huge Mike fan: I believe that his fictional and real personas energized and goosed the show into some of its best shows (for me, the Golden Age of MST is the fifth and sixth seasons), and while Outlaw (1987) is certainly one of the worst films MST3K's ever riffed on, it's become one of their most-loved experiments. It's definitely not a show that should be shown to a newbie for their first intro to the series, but once you've got the tropes and beats down, well, roll out the Outlaw, I says.
Outlaw very loosely adapts John Norman's infamous and misogynist "Gor" sword and sorcery series that inspired approximately one bajillion naughty fan fiction stories on the internet, into a fantasy movie that could only be sexy to young teenagers sneaking a peek at it on Cinemax After Dark. Featuring quite possibly the world's most unlikely barbarian hero, Tarl Cabot:
Like Solo and Chewie, like Frodo and Gollum, like Kate and Allie, every fantasy hero needs a weird, creature-like comedy-effect sidekick, and Cabot's is the sleazeball coward Watney Smith. That's him on the right there, of course.
Sheesh, he looks like a slimier, Earth-3 version of my pal John.
Thanks to convenient flashback to an earlier film we've never seen, our brains are infodumped the backstory like a garbage truck backing up to a landfill: Cabot was once magically whisked away to a mysterious barbaric land called Gor, where the ladies dress in leather and he met Rufus from Bill and Ted.
Now, in a desperate attempt to have themselves a sequel, Cabot and Smith wind up in Gor again, where Cabot's reunited with his albino dwarf pal Hup...
...and with his one true love, warrior princess and professional hair product model Talena:
Meanwhile, high priest Jack Palance, wearing hats only Jack Kirby could have designed...
...and crazed killer queen Donna Denton...
...plot to overthrow the kingdom, kill the king and the princess and exile Cabot and Hup to the Moon Zero Two set.
That's pretty much the whole plot of the movie right there. Cabot, armed only with his dwarf and loincloth, fights back against the city's army, the forces of evil, and freaking Jack Palance to win the day and keep sexy fantasy B-movies safe for late night cable.
One creepy remnant of the original John Norman novels is the subplot that on Gor, women are possessions, and once Cabot reluctantly rescues a model-perfect slave girl, she belongs to him. "No thanks, I've already got one," should be the proper response, and you should ask if there's a gift receipt so you can exchange it for a blender or perhaps that boxed DVD set of David Attenborough's Planet Gor you've got on your Amazon.gr wishlist.
All the flesh on display in this movie doesn't go unnoticed by Mike and the bots. Even before they've settled down in the theater they're cosplaying as Fabio. Well, it gives Crow a chance to strap on the Jay Leno chin again!
But by far the highlight of the host segments, and one of MST3K's most beloved musical numbers, celebrates the expanses of epidermis on display throughout Outlaw:
Eh, it's got Palance in it, but don't hold that against him. Guy had to pay the bills somehow.
Oh jeez, I just looked up the Gor series on Wikipedia only to find out it's still being published. Curse you, John Norman! From Hell's heart I stab at thee!
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