Mystery Science Theater 3000/Recap/S10/E01 Soultaker

Film watched: Soultaker

"Servo: So your soul is subject to gravity? I have so many questions! Can souls get toe fungus? Can I still have butter if I'm a soul? Okay, can souls pit out their T-shirts? Does Retsyn work on souls? Help me!"

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 presentation has examples of:
"Mike: So, there’s no middle ground with you? It’s either straining grain alcohol through toast in back alleys or a happy little world of rodents in feety pajamas?"
 * Actor Allusion: The riffers recognize Joe Estevez from Werewolf, but it only gets referenced in a few jokes. "Yetiglanchi!"
 * Badass Beard: Joel has grown a snazzy little goatee since returning to Earth.
 * Darker and Edgier: The bots' "alternate ending."
 * Fandom Nod: After hearing about how well Joel's life has gone since he escaped, Mike gets upset and starts asking questions like "What's he have that I don't?" The 'Bots advise Mike not to compare the two, saying it isn't healthy, in a nod to the massive Joel vs. Mike Fan Dumb that dominated online discussions of the series in the Internet's infancy.
 * Happily Ever After: Deconstructed to a ludicrous extent by Servo and Crow during the credits.


 * Jerkass: Joel actually kind of comes off as one in his cameo. Perhaps it's just his laid-back personality contrasting with both Mike and the bots' more extroverted nature, but he really acts like he couldn't care less about what used to be his two best friends, and when asked if he'd take them back to Earth in the ship he used to get up there, he basically just says "No, I don't want to."
 * Johnny Cash: Referenced quite a bit, due to the Soultaker's outfit.
 * Missing the Good Stuff: Crow gets something in his eye and misses the footage of the heroine taking off her clothes. Mike and Tom intentionally invoke this trope by claiming that what happened was a lot hotter than what was actually depicted on-screen.
 * Mundane Afterlife: According to the riffers, Heaven is the boiler room of a hospital.
 * Mythology Gag
 * Nuns Are Funny
 * The Other Darrin: Lampshaded when Joel reacts to Crow's new voice, then approves, stating that proper maintenance means "changing your bowling pin" every so often.
 * Running Gag: Rocking, as it relates to Zach's friend Brad.
 * Mike and the 'bots get a lot of mileage out of Vivian Schilling's resemblance to Tonya Harding.
 * Shout-Out: Joel mentions that he'd spent a couple years doing pyrotechnics for the band Man or Astro-man?, which did its own Shout-Out by performing their own rendition of Mystery Science Theater 3000's closing "Love Theme" for their 1994 album.
 * As Joe Estevez tries to convince Natalie to come with him, Crow asks, "Aren't you due on the set of Werewolf?"
 * Special Guest/The Bus Came Back: Joel Robinson and TV's Frank make guest appearances; TV's Frank is stuck with being a Soultaker, while Joel returns to fix various problems aboard the Satellite of Love.
 * Took a Level in Badass: Joel - once a humble janitor, now manager of his own Hot Fish Shop! In Osseo!
 * Made funnier if one knew that the Hot Fish Shop franchise had closed long before the episode aired.
 * Took a Level in Jerkass: Gypsy, being hooked up to the malfunctioning satellite, rapidly develops something of an attitude problem.
 * What Could Have Been: As great as it is to see Joel back on the SOL, not having him join Mike and the 'Bots in the theater for some riffing is a major blown opportunity. Joel explained that he wasn't able to help write any of the riffing, and didn't want to do any scenes that were completely scripted for him.
 * What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Mike claims to have fixed the ship, and asks the question. "How about everything??"
 * Who Writes This Crap?: Inverted by Mike as Zach, to a confused Natalie: "Hey look, you wrote this crap.")