Mystery Science Theater 3000/Recap/S06/E12 The Starfighters

""So basically, according to themselves, the Air Force is a bunch of leather-faced, not-so-bright, heavy-drinking dull-witted speed freaks who poop in their pants and can't make it with women. Right? Am I right?""

- Tom Servo

Film watched: The Starfighters

The MST3K presentation provides examples of:
"Servo: So basically, according to themselves, the Air Force is a bunch of leather-faced, not-so-bright, heavy-drinking dull-witted speed freaks who poop in their pants and can't make it with women. Right? Am I right?"
 * Bawdy Song: The United Servo Academy Mens' Chorus begin an impromptu round of Mademoiselle from Armentières. For those who don't know the song, it's the tale of a French innkeeper's daughter and two German soldiers.
 * Big No: Crow, when tech support hangs up on him.
 * Broken Aesop:

"Mike: Ah, yes. This is much-needed comic relief from all the gripping drama.
 * Continuity Nod: This film provided continuity nods for other MSTied movies, like humming the jazzy music whenever a plane is seen flying, mentions of the "poopie suit," and the use of the word "refueling" as a synonym for any long, dull scene.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: Crow and Servo re-enact the refueling scene in a rather disturbing fashion.
 * Everything Is Online... except Crow.
 * Failed Attempt At Humor:

Crow: I wanna kick this movie in the groin, and snag on it, and give it a power sit-up!"

"Crow: Bob Dornan? The Congressman?
 * For Inconvenience Press One: Running gag as Crow tries to get his brand-new computer working. By Finagle's Law, he finally reaches an operator while he's busy with his beak stuck up Tom's hoverskirt (see Does This Remind You of Anything?, above).
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Robert Dornan.

Servo: They couldn't get Rush Limbaugh?"

"Mike: C'mon, steak, you want some?!"
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: The crew had used the term "poopie" for years, so it was a delightful coincidence Starfighters employed it as well.
 * Large Ham: Mike and the 'bots pull out all the stops while advertising COWBOY MIKE'S OWN ORIGINAL RED HOT RIC-O-CHET (BANG!) BBQ SAUCE!! IT'S BOLD!!!

"Mike: "Just Lie Back and Think of England's airspace.""
 * NOW AVAILABLE IN NEW EXTRY BOLD!
 * Dr. Forrester is disappointed that... it's not all that bold.
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: Mike's de-briefing. Still funny though.
 * Lie Back and Think of England: One of the "refueling" riffs.

"Mike: I think there's more nothing in this film than any we've ever seen."
 * Me's a Crowd
 * Notable Original Music: United Servo Academy Mens' Chorus singing the United Servo Academy Mens' Chorus Hymn with Word Salad Lyrics that has lyrics taken from other songs.
 * Padding

"Mike: Is your face odd, misshapen? Join the Air Force!"
 * Running Gag: The ongoing Double Entendre concerning the numerous "refueling" sequences. At one point they even joke about the fact that they've done every joke they can think of about them. (And then Crow comes up with a new riff anyway.)
 * Riffs about how ugly many of the faces are.

"Mike: Yes, we have a visual ID on Numbnuts...
 * Once, the "poopie suit" gets mentioned, Mike and Bots run with the gag. Bonus points for the theme song: "Flying high in the blue, free to do, number two, poop-oop-ee-doo!"
 * Bonus points for the fact that MST3K had been using "Poopie!" as an Unusual Euphemism before the film was riffed.
 * Sophisticated As Hell: When rescuing a pilot who screwed up and had to eject over the desert:

Crow: At ease, Lieutenant Loser!"

"Crow: We're gonna bomb 'em back to the Jazz Age!"
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: "...bringing you hot munitions and cool jazz."
 * Also leading to a Crowning Moment of Funny as the pilots practice bombing the absolute shit out of the desert while muzak plays:

"Tom: "Looking for UART at Fx1050", what does that mean?
 * Technology Marches On: Rather inevitable with Crow boasting about his 90mhz Pentium PC, with 32 MB RAM, 4x CD-ROM, Soundblaster 16 sound card with a 28800 baud modem.
 * And having to assign COM ports. MS-DOS sucked.

Crow: I don't know! I must have configured my COM ports incorrectly!"


 * Also a nice reminder of the days before we hadn't quite settled on what the Internet should be called given the massive array of protocols back then (HTTP not being as big as it is now) and a few (i.e. a lot of) people latched onto the clumsy term of the "information superhighway". It's buzzwordy!
 * And when Crow finally does get online, his running commentary is said to indicate that he has logged onto Prodigy (the self-contained online service, not the ISP it later converted to).