205 - Rocket Attack USA
Full Episode: | |
Best of: | |
Short - The Phantom Creeps part 2: |
Comments (82) Best Riffs (237)
Riffs you quote here will appear randomly in the above.
The general scratches his belly and thinks, his shirts are clean but his officers stink...
"The General would like a hamburger.... and some French Fried Potatoes!!"
"I'm Mr. Dirt. I come here every day and watch the filth. I'm a collector of the world's refuse."
"They were saving you for the big one." Me! "And here's the big one." ZZZZZIP!

"You know, I kind of like that Sting guy. He did that song about us and our children. He didn't have to do that."

"Don't let this building be a metaphor for our love."

"Could you say that a little more woodenly?"

"Dear Penthouse, I never thought I'd be writing you, but I met this college girl from Minsk..."

"But I didn't think Moscow believed in tears."

"Now dees' ees my interpretation of the specials for the evening. The flagellation from my arms will tell you to enjoy the roast pork, or the shish kabob."

"An amiable chap with soft skin and liquid brown eyes."

"Psst! Hey, when this guy quits passin' gas let's knock off for lunch!"

"'Crashing Timbers'? Isn't that a place in The Poconos?"

[Bela Lugosi voice] He's no good for light dusting, but on heavy jobs he's just wonderful

Suddenly, Ivan tells a salty joke involving an elephant and a ladder. i can't repeat it but the punchline is, "What, and give up show business?!"

Hey... woman was humiliated here! She was condescended to and then someone used sarcasm!
JOEL: Which early-'60s CIA covert operation was considered their greatest failure of the decade?
CROW: Uh, the Kennedy assassination!
JOEL: No, I'm afraid that one was a success.
Now, is creeps a verb or a noun in this?
I think it's a French pancake.
"On the surface Manston was calm...."
"...but underneath it was just like a bus ride in the tenth grade, if you know what I mean."
That's my boss - always goin' on about his life of danger, but look who does all the driving! We'll be right back.

"Well, I guess I have to trust you." You're the only other character.
This is the real Russia! After Hours! When all the lights are red!
"..this country will witness the most frightful disaster it has ever seen" You mean an actor becoming president?
Special agents are called in to slow the film down and grind it to a screeching halt.

"I have no need to tell you that if you're caught, we'll have to say that we never heard of you." -- It'll be as if you were on the Thick of the Night show.

(sounds like a hissing mic) "Hey, Mildred, c'mere and listen to this."
(hissing voice) I can't, I'm busy right now.

"This is an antidote that I prepared for such an event as this." -- It's an amusing little anecdote.
Movie guy: "Hard to believe that a group of civilized men could sit around and calmly discuss the murder of five or six million others."
Joel: "That's why we've GOT to CRUSH THEM!"
Slim Fast? One delicious shake in the morning and my hair falls out in the evening.
No one will be admitted during the breathtaking car parking sequence!
I wish we could see what's going on in that brain of his - well, let's crack it open and take a look.
One of our best pilots will take you in a special civilian plane - and then push you out the back, screaming.
We had a few rough moments - but we couldn't afford to show them in the film.

'When Joseph gets drunk he comes here...and for your own sake I don't think you want to overhear some of the things that happen!' "Hey Listen! I'll only watch till i run out of Quarters!"

Hey that couple came in after that guy and they've already eaten!

This is the real Russia...after hours...when all the lights are Red!

We also believe for every drop of rain that falls..a flower grows!

'Is he dead? No, just stunned!' "Stunned!!! He took 6 bullets!"

Well the old clock on the wall says it's time for Longines Symphonette...

'The man seems to be in a coma' "He watched the 1st reel of the film!"

'Captain West my paper would an official statement from you.' "Get Bent! Is that official enough for you?!?"
"Well, Captain, as long as he didn't get inside. . ."
"I got to third base, if that tells you anything."
"No, you can't print anything I don't tell ya." Oh a police-state, neat.
",,,with a death toll of over three million." Just another day in the Big Apple.
The general is asking for hamburgers instead of chili peppers; they burn his gut. He'd really like a hamburger and some french fried potatoes!
Ivan, uh, attempts to sell Amway products to his unwitting guests.
"I was counting very heavily on this." Why, I nearly expressed an emotion back there!
I wonder who that could be in the middle of Russia and everything...
You can't really tell from this shot, but that's exactly what he was thinking.
"The range of the little plane was not significant..." but it was the Little Plane That Could.
And the people who helped make this collection of stock footage possible!
1928 Porter. That's my mother dear.
Doesn't she help you through everything you do?
I'm so glad she's here.
"My car is back there in the trees." How'd it get in the trees??

"Well, thanks, Bob. I think we all have our cyanide tablets ready."
"You're going to have to die alone, Dear. I can't take you by the hand for everything."
Joel: Could you state that in a desperate cry to God to save you from an unholy death, please?' Tom Servo: DUCK AND COVER-AH-AH-AH-Ahgrah!!

Lots of Ansel Adams-esque scenery in this, isn't there?

I'm standing in a shotgun shack in another part of the world. But this is not my beautiful wife--

Meanwhile in a Frank Lloyd Wright building nearby...
Spit it out, son. You sound like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples.
Remember, the film is in color, it's just that everything is grey in Russia.
That's my boss, always taking us on these kooky adventures. But I'll be back later.
I was going to use his skull, but I welded a phone to it. Wasn't that puckish of me?

"Hey listen, I'll only watch until I run out of quarters, okay?"

"I... would like... to order... Please!"

"Remember, when you're taking snaps on holiday, don't cut off the subject's head!"

"Paris this year says, 'Newsprint, Newsprint, Newsprint-- Yards of it!!' "

"I toldja there was something queer about this place." Yeah, it's Oscar Wilde's birthplace. So what?
"Did Morris give you the TNT?" He gave me the T and the N, but not the other T...and I had the A.
"We've whipped the problem with the skin friction on the warhead..." Ummm, are we talking about the same thing here buddy?
"Because Helen's my imaginary friend, she not real, you keep doing this to me."

Let me help you. It's a child-proof bomb. You have to push down and turn!

[It's alright Captain, as long as he didn't get inside] Well, I got to third, if that counts for anything!
"Is he dead?" "No, just stunned." Stunned?? He took six bullets!!!
"Spit it out, man. You sound like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples."

Extra! Extra! Fire hydrant attacked by newspaper!

Try to move her spine around as much as possible.
Report
I like Tom's temporary flat top look.
2 replies
Report
I like they are obsessed with the guy getting bad service at the restaurant.
3 replies
Report
I refuse to believe that Gumby and Pokey were ever involved in any kind of Commie activities.
1 reply
Report
Cheese price supports? They're really going to go after low income people who eat cheese? Sure we'd all be starving, but at least we'd have nukes! Oh wait, that sounds a lot like the ussr now that you mention it.
8 replies
Report
I think this might be it: the worst movie they ever did. Holy cow. Completely incomprehensible and incompetent movie making.
4 replies
Report
I was practically screaming at the screen. ICBM's were adapted as orbital launch vehicles, not the other way around!
1 reply
Report
This movie sucks so hard it makes your head explode......
2 replies
Report
"All right, Captain, as long as you didn't get inside."
TOM: Well, I got to third, if that counts for anything.
Wow. As Mike might say, that's late night!
4 replies
Report
This ain't a propaganda film, unless it's trying to convince us that our intelligence assets are complete incompetents who are more interested in getting laid than saving lives. Instead of detonating his charges, he reveals his position and then runs away, thereby ensuring the charges can be neutralized and his and her sacrifices made totally worthless. Way to deliberately fail your mission.
2 replies
Report
1:14:22 i'm still pretty new to this show, so this ep is as far as ive watched, but that cosmonaut guy looks familiar. is he the guy in the picture in the top left of this page, in between joel and servo's pic? i'm guessing he's up there cuz he becomes a future presenter? if so its cool he was with the show back here. also, im missing josh, but i'll adit, the new guy is growing on me, i just miss josh as servo, the voice he gave him was so good. but i spose ill get used to it. just like ive got used to the new gypsie, and the old gypsie bod being used for cambot.
Report
This episode was edgy af!
1 reply
Report
At 30:26, the radio operator is in front of a flat earth map on the wall which is obscured by a globe. Why not have one or the other or neither?
1 reply
Report
funniest ''riff'' in the movie was by the radio announcer ''...the middle east, and the far east are quiet, at least temporarily...''
Report
"Hard to believe that a group of civilized men could sit around and calmly discuss how to murder five or six million others."
That's why we've got to CRUSH them!
1 reply
Report
Got talking to my friend Phil about the new MST3K. We both like it, but he said it was a lot raunchier! I told him to watch this episode then get back to me on the whole "raunchy" thing.
1 reply
Report
New Cinema Edition of, "Rocket Attack U.S.A." now showing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbIa0InlvQA
1 reply
Report
i think it would be fun if one of the links for each episode had the commercials. i like watching old commercials.
Report
6:40 ''this is my mailing list...'' the bit after that about ''now back to my etc etc transilvania choo choo'' line sounded weird, as if it was dubbed in afterwards. i feel sorry for these guys, cuz i saw a behind the scenes, and they said they watch the movies about 6 times or there abouts, to come up with jokes, so i suppose there are bound to be ones after filming they come up with too. i just love this show, would be cool to see a more adult themed one, i dont mean adult movies like ''hey, ive come to fix your fridge bow chika chika bow cika chika'' movies, but more adult riffs, because some of these films are just wide open to some real major roasting. but i like the pg13 riffs too.
Report
chapter one
not so long ago, on a laptop not so far away (about a foot from my face)...
i decided to look up word crawls. the opening crawl font with the word 'foreword' is also exactly the same font and style as flash gordon it looks like ,at least what i saw on wikipedia when looking up word crawl origins because, i also heard lucas created them first. but when i looked it up, it said his word crawls were inspired by word crawls from serials, so whoever said it was lucas first, was a wee bit off, unless he was the first to do them in a major motion picture? meh, who cares, they look cool.
Report
I remember watching and reviewing a thinly-veiled military propaganda movie back around 2012 (I think) for my college newspaper. The message was basically "Join the army, shoot big guns, die gloriously". It was stupid... but at least it HAD a coherent message!
Report
The Soviet Govt. was never run as it's shown here. This is obviously set in post-Stalin USSR where "Uncle Joe", among other things, basically had all or nearly all of his higher-echelon military types killed in a paranoia-fueled purge to eliminate any possible threat to his "absolute power" (that's why they (well a couple people) called him "the 'Red Tsar'". And make no mistake, Lenin (contrary to popular US opinion, was really not some "kinder/gentler" "leader" & also contrary to popular opinion, he was not untrusting of Stalin but agreed with him in many respects. The only Soviet or Bolshevik who had anything closely resembling an actual Marxist line of thought was Ivan Trotsky...and we know what his fate was: assassinated by Ramon whatsisname in Mexico on the orders of Stalin (amidst one of his murderous paranoid spats). Ice pick in the head, or something equally gory. Anyway, Even when Khrushchev took power, one of the 1st things he did was to have Lavrentia Beria, that sadistic sonofabitch who loved to watch the people he had ordered tortured tortured & killed, etc. Well, Comrade K. had him shot as part of the "de-Stalinization" program. But he too would've never tolerated the military to take so much control unless it was a real coup d'etat which the movie does not imply; only that it was some sort of "internal political power struggle". Besides when Ike was pres in the US although various machinations continued on both sides, at the diplomatic level, tensions were starting to cool off & there was more of a war of propaganda & such. These moviemakers obviously either had no clue or were just going by a script written by Allen Dulles or some spook like him!! This seems to be more US propaganda (of course it is) than any sort of "realistic" take on the USSR!!
Report
1:30:08---the number 33 on the printing press.
Report
In this episode you can really hear Joel whistling when he breaths..
Report
https://youtu.be/JD_A1efwgDY
This version here is slightly better quality
Report
Funny movie...but there will be an apocalypse
Report
I know Tom's new head was supposed to block less of the screen, but honestly it feels like the opposite happened.
3 replies
Report
They mention "The Conqueror" in the trivia segment. It starred John Wayne as Genghis Khan, which is one of the worst examples of a white guy imitating another race. It's also famous because it was filmed downwind from a nuclear testing site. By 1981, 91 people who worked on the movie developed cancer, and 46 died from it.
Report
holy crap, Tanya's acting is awful even by MST standards.
2 replies
Report
00:58:35 - Eh. Fake British Guy looks more like Dustin Hoffman than Bill Bixby... if you ask me.
5 replies
Report
The water polo foosball table actually looks like a really cool idea.
Report
TOM: Meanwhile in a Frank Loyd Wright building nearby.
I am an artist an custom furniture maker by trade, I love FLW's work and had the honor of building his "Wing Back" chairs. I worked off of his actual hand drawn sketches, it was really cool. You'll see them on the top row of pics on this link .
https://www.google.com/search?q=Frank+Lloyd+Wright+Taliesin+west+furniture&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJov7K8uLYAhUI9mMKHWPvDYEQ_AUICygC&biw=819&bih=377
3 replies
Report
Good Watch It Together for August 9th - 75th anniversary of the last attack on civilians using a nuclear bomb. Here's hoping that anniversary only gets older and older.
Report
Have those two ever even SEEN a foosball table before? It would not appear that this is the case.
Report
Hahaha! Joel is really struggling through this intro. Frank on the other hand is already swinging into high.
1 reply
Report
Oh cool! Mike Nelsons audition to be stuck on a satellite with two robots is on this one.
Report
The cold war artist renderings are just pure gold, basically how you explain the cold war to aliens or robots
1 reply
Report
"Coincidence? Read the book..."
A Time-Life books Mysteries of the Unknown reference...man, that takes me back!
9 replies
Report
One of the oddities of the universe, but I actually have issues 1 and 2 of Fat Freddy's Cat.
Report
Huh. After watching NYC get attacked, Joel reads a letter dated September 11.
Report
Newsie: Extree, extree!
Joel: ... Extree?
Yes, it's what the news is printed on.
Report
So this was the first episode to have a weird clip from the movie after the end credits.
1 reply
Report
When TV Frank first time came in? Was it Season 3?
Report
Total Failure. Both the main characters and the movie itself. another hard one for me to get thru.
Report
It's just a theory, but I believe there is a riff that was cut from this episode for being too "late night" for the basic cable of the innocent early 90's.
(During the exchange between the "chunkiest couple on the block" at approximately 1:17:30)
Chunky Guy to Chunky Gal: "I've got twenty bucks and I'll blow it all on you tonight."
CROW: "Geez, if I were her I'd hold out for more than twenty bucks before I let him do that to me..."
4 replies
Report
Ivan attempts to sell Amway products to his unwitting guests....does anyone remember Amway? I had a friends whose parents sold that crap and tried getting all of our parents to join...totally 90's reference that cracked me up.
Report
"Aren't these statellites just a good propaganda move on their part?" Nice to know the filmmakers knew the actual reason and significance of Sputnik but decided to use it for their own propaganda purposes.
Report
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
3 replies
Report
I wish they had done more Bela Lugosi films --- Trace's impression is spot-on and hilarious.
Report
1:08:54 I thought from the music that Darth Vader was about to walk into shot.
1 reply
Report
I can't stop laughing at that stinger at the end!
5 replies
Report
Don'tcha just love how the characters refer to Soviet propaganda with an obvious disdain when the film they're in is blatant US propaganda?
1 reply
Report
Loved the "Airplane" call back at 36:00. "The white zone is for loading and unloading only." I laughed until they took me to a hospital. A hospital, what is it? It's a big building with doctors and medical equipment, but that's not important now!
Report
I love it when Joel pretends to be the other end of a phone conversation. Hysterical!
5 replies
Report
Check out that jumpsuit that Mike's wearing as Joel's Russian counterpart-
it's Joel's old tan KTMA jumpsuit.
2 replies
Report
I don't associate belly dancers with typical Russian cafés .
Report
@15:25 Yes, Stanley?
3 replies
Report
I can't believe there's a reference to Samuel T. Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" poem in this episode. That is just downright esoteric!
2 replies
Report
Barry Mahon, the director of this movie, was also the director of Errol Flynn's last movie, "Assault of the Cuban Rebel Girls" (IMDB lists it simply as "Cuban Rebel Girls"). And for Rifftrax fans, he also directed the Thumbelina part of "Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny".
Report
0:22:08 'Arachnophobia' reference. As if I needed another reason to love this show!
Report
I have fallen asleep seven nights in a row trying to finish this one, maybe tonight is the night
Report
Oh man, I need to go get a Crest Complete!
1 reply
Report
Audrey Hepburn coming down the stairs in My Fair Lady = Gypsy looking drop dead gorgeous in her tin foil bow. For the first time I noticed her eyelashes!
Report
So... I gotta ask... where's Major Kong?
Report
Too funny! Countless references to at least 3 Kubrick films. Thank you MST3K
1 reply
Report
First 'stinger' episode!
Report
Ram Chips - Good things: Tom Servo's phone conversations and that North By Northwest was made the same year. Bad thing: The whole sorry ending beginning with Agent (What a dope) John getting gunned down in his inconspicuous white coat. As Crow said, Oh, I just don't understand this - we lost the commie threat? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!!!
Report
Frank @ 1:33:32-38. Iconic.
Report
I read somewhere that they gave Tom Servo a haircut because of complaints that his gumball head was a distraction against the movie screen. It didn't last long, fortunately.
1 reply
Report
"The Phanton Creeps" one of the best shorts IMPO
4 replies
Report
I like the idea of Crow's punctuation jokes, but as a grammar geek, I cringe every time because almost every one of them is incorrect. I gotta learn to let go!
1 reply
Report
always funny, never grows old
1 reply
Report
Wow, I actually did really great at the Nuclear war quiz show.
2 replies
Report
The Soviets made their own version of this film which was nearly a shot for shot copy of ours, except their “British Agent” had more of a Flemish accent and “any suburb USA” Hazlet was replaced by idyllic "easy livin'" Krasnoznamensk.
Incidentally: their chunky tie-shunning truck driver went on to serve as General Secretary of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, just before their 1991 collapse.
Report
Madame Sousatzka. Madame Sousatzka! MADAME SOUS--! Gotta love Frank's energy.
2 replies
Report
Shout out to everyone else who's been to Hazlet! :D
1 reply
Report
Heh, the rocket DOES have a shadow! It's shown for a few seconds before and after Crow's comment...just saying. :-P
3 replies
Report
Love the Charlie McCarthy hearings.
Report
Joel @ 34:20, hikeeba!
1 reply
Report
"The police are thick in this area." Yeah, they're like that around here too.
Report
"Is he dead? - No, just stunned." You stunned him just as he was coming to!
Report
There is nothing more rife for riffing than propaganda of the past...or present.
1 reply
Report
28:35 - Here's the hand-off, and... FUMBLE! I blame Servo's new aerodynamic shape for what happened; fortunately that didn't last too long.