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With Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein, Jim Mallon. Joel and the Bots have a tough time agreeing on how to spend their free time between segments of the teen sci-fi thriller "The Crawling Hand (1963)."
- (583)
- Comedy, Sci-Fi
- Jim Mallon
- 1989-12-16
- The Movie
- The Episode
- Obscure References
- Behind the scenes
- Video Release
Synopsis
An astronaut's ship is destroyed, and a portion of his arm is found and kept by a medical student. The arm has become inhabited by a hostile alien force that begins to mentally influence the young man. A series of grisly strangling takes place, baffling local police.
Host Segments
Intro: Joel explains the premise of the show to canned applause from Cambot. Invention Exchange: Joel invents the Safety Circular Saw, while the Mads create the Limb Lengthener. Segment Two: Crow bowls, Servo does voice-over. Joel wants to play other games, so they ditch him. Segment Three: Joel and the Bots do William Shatner impressions while being choked by an artificial hand. Segment Four: The Bots don't think a crawling hand is all that scary, until they meet one. Ending Segment: The Bots get RAM chips for saying a good thing and bad thing about the movie. A letter is read. The Mads are fighting it out.
Trivia
•This episode has the first instance of the “I thought you were Dale!” joke. •Segment 1 is recreated from episode K14 - Mighty Jack. •This is the first national episode (in production order) to feature Joel and the bots reading fan letters, which are stated to be faxed to them by the Mads. •This episode was the first to air during the MST3K Anthology.
Prologue:
No references made in the prologue. Joel only explains his predicament in space.
Host Segment 1•“Come in Joel Mite my spunky little space sock!” – Could be a reference to the Batman villain Bat-Mite, an irritating cartoon-y version of Batman from another dimension who first made his appearance in the 1950’s. He first appeared in Detective Comics #267 (May 1959).
•“Say you wanted to emulate Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four…” Larry is referring to Mr. Fantastic, the leader of the hero group the Fantastic Four, who first appeared in a Marvel comic book in 1961. Mr. Fantastic was given the ability to stretch his body after a space accident involving cosmic rays. Two of the later feature films based on the comics, Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, would eventually be used by RiffTrax.
•“It has the star from Gilligan's Island and one from The Big Valley and one from that Hamburger Helper commercial.”
•Alan Hale Jr. (1918-1990) who plays Sheriff Townsend in this film also starred on Gilligan's Island (1964-1967), a comedy television show about castaways stranded on an island. Hale played the role of The Skipper.
MST3K cast
•Joel Hodgson - Joel Robinson •Trace Beaulieu - Crow T. Robot / Dr. Clayton Forrester •Josh Weinstein - Tom Servo / Dr. Laurence Erhardt •Jim Mallon - Gypsy (credit only) •Jann L. Johnson - Magic Voice
Production
•This is the first national episode in which the control panel appears on the desk on the bridge.
Movie Edits
Like most riffed movies, The Crawling Hand was altered to fit the TV aspect ratio and several scenes were trimmed to reduce the overall length of the film for the desired time-slot. Major cuts include: •Marta returning to Paul's car after changing into her swimsuit, after which Paul refuses to tell Prof. Farnstrom where they're going because it's their "secret place." As they drive away, Farnstrom muses whether the caged rat will contribute more to science than those kids. •A scene in which Mr. Meidel from Security questions Steve and Dr. Weitzberg about Lockhart's fingerprints being found at the scene of a murder. Steve comments that he always thought "fingerprints don't lie," but they must be wrong in this case since Lockhart is dead. •The omitted line above is why Steve comments "Fingerprints don't lie" when he finds Lockhart's hand at the end of the film.
•Commercially released on VHS by Rhino Entertainment in March, 1999.
•Commercially released on DVD by Rhino in June, 2002. The disc has been out of print since at least 2009.
•Special features include a trailer for the original film, as well as the unriffed film itself on the second side of the DVD.
•In May, 2018 it was re-released by Shout! Factory in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Singles Collection.
The Crawling Hand is a 1963 American science fiction horror film directed by Herbert L. Strock, and starring Peter Breck, Kent Taylor, Rod Lauren, Alan Hale and Allison Hayes. It was later featured on the television shows Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) and The Canned Film Festival.
Nov 11, 2013 · MST3K - S01E06 - The Crawling Hand. "The hand of an exploded astronaut takes on a life of its own in this horror film that begins when the hand is discovered near the crash site by a naive...
- 97 min
- 333.3K
- Joey LaBartunek
Mystery Science Theater 3000The Crawling Hand (1963) dir. Herbert L. StrockSeason 01 - Episode 06 - aired on 12/16/1989
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Crawling Hand. 1989 · 1 hr 38 min. TV-14. Comedy · Horror · Sci-Fi. Joel and the Bots trudge their way through this teen sci-fi thriller about a disembodied appendage from space that embarks on a murder spree.
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"Mystery Science Theater 3000" The Crawling Hand (TV Episode 1989) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.
