Having now seen Ator: The Fighting Eagle (which is the first Ator movie), I gotta say that the quality went waaaaay down between movies. Ator: The Fighting Eagle is not a good movie. It's a clear Conan the Barbarian rip-off, but it remains internally consistent and seems to have been planned out in advance, where Cave Dwellers seems to have been written as it was being filmed, had no sense of what kind of world it was in and continually seemed to jump between the prehistoric era and the Middle Ages.

Villian: Let me introduce you to Sandor. Crow: You can call me Sandy.

Definitely my favorite episode. The timing of the riffs terrific. They nailed it all. I had to watch many times to get all the riffs I missed while choking with laughter. I wonder how I would have made through my second deployment without these guys.

33:24 why does Ator refer to that woman as if she were a man?

"Dahd?"

This is a hard one, guys, it's just so... dull... Oh man. I dunno how much I could bear this one if it weren't for Joel and the bots...

24:31 joel reminds me of ted mosby lmao

I heard that they originally cast Tor Johson for the part of Ator, but he didn't look good in tiny leather. They then asked him to play the father since he spoke haltingly and looked bored always, he went for the part of Beth in Skydivers (Time to have coffee....).
If I know the theory of flight can I make a glider in 2 minutes too ???
Just wish Gomez wouldn't step on other actors lines all the time.

Bit of trivia: Charles Borromel and David Cain Haughton (as David Brandon) were in "Caligula 2: The Untold Story" together (D'Amato directed both); before that, Borromel played Caligula in "The Last Gladiator". And, I have to admit: David was pretty cute back then!

Eeetz ze wango ze tango! Wango tango! Wango tango!

Joel & the bots were on fire with the riffs on this one. This film was like a grade school play. What was the cast taking, Valium, Xanax, or Benadryl?

The first half-hour or at least to the first host segment break, is the funniest and best-riffed opening stretch of ALL of the experiments.......................(that i've seen)

Thanks to not having Comedy Central (Channel? at the time) this was the only episide I had on tape for many years.

how does ravanni know ator is there and why did the villagers have a plan to trap him?

Why do they say "Puma!" (pronounced pew-ma)? It can't possibly be a reference to pumaman which is like 7 seasons from now. But that's the only instance I've heard puma mispronounced that way. In that episode they even say "It's pronounced puma." So it's not a Midwestern accent thing.

Oh my god I must have watched this episode at least three times and this is the first time I noticed the dog even though they announce it by saying "It's Marmaduke" and Crow's panting.

lol joel has to hold tom servo's sign so that it says Dr. Forrester instead of Frank.

"Grog just threw a bone into the air, and it turned into a spaceship!" I'm betting you recognize the reference to the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

http://youtu.be/qtbOmpTnyOc

The monolith appears, the apes evolve. They learn to use bones as weapons. This is the Dawn of Man. The ape throws the bone into the air, and, as it tumbles in freefall, we cut to a bone-shaped spaceship.

The scene was parodied in a Monty Python cartoon:

http://youtu.be/bLfN9psJo_E

And then, decades later, when a local TV show got picked up by a national network, they designed their spaceship to look like a giant bone in reference to those two clips. (An old sci-fi movie and a riff on it.)

So Crow's riff comes full circle to the Satellite of Love.

Just a couple of questions about that old man:
1) did he study under William Shatner, on using pauses to convey tension?
and
2) Did the guy chug a 2 gallon bottle of Robitussin and eat a box full of Benedryl before they started filming ?? The guy has all the emotional/facial expressions of the statues of Easter Island....

So you live around here much?

Is it just me or does everyone else think Gomez just talks too dang much ? : P
Where does Ator keep the bombs.....errr... sorry I really don't wanna know on 2nd thought.

Gomez is my favorite

An overlong piece of bomb stock footage, large noteworthy tire tracks, and a "triumphant" narrator cut short at the last possible second...
That's an ending so beguilingly bad it fails on ALL counts.

Although, it never fails to crack me up!

One of my favorite episodes of all time! The bit where they redo the opening credits gets me every time.

No Crow. The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!

why are the "cave dwellers" in this movie for a total of 2 minutes?? why isn't it named ator vs. the puppet snake or similar?

V for Vendetta?

The sight of Dr. Forrester with his hat on backwards pleases me more than it has any reason to.

The overacting in this experiment is really exceptional

In the magical time of Before
Lived the sculpted Blade Master, Ator.
The boys wearing mudflaps
And ladies in hubcaps
Were saved because beefcake can soar.

One MST3k riff that never fails to make me laugh REALLY HARD, like throw-back-my-head-and-slap-my-knee-and-not-be-able-to-breathe kind of laugh, is "I'm the best-lookin' man in the Middle Ages! My, my my!"

I come back to this one so often. Love it. "Ooh, how graphic!"

No!

I know that this is going to sound really crazy. But trust me, I'm telling the truth. The fourth movie in this series (so either the movie right after Cave Dwellers or the movie after that) is also a sequel to Troll 2. Apparently, it is listed as being sequels for BOTH the Troll series and the Ator series. This movie is called Troll 3 Part 2 (The Blade of Power). It doesn't feature Miles Okeefe, but it DOES still have a character named Ator. It also features the goblins from Troll 2, and there is a bizarre scene where one of the goblins makes out with Ator's wife.

Were i working on the writing staff, I would have been soooooooooo tempted to add the following line in the scene just before the big snake fight.

What'shisname (the dork antagonist): Do you have something to say?
Ator: I have one thing to say...
Whoever can do the voice of the antagonist in Highlander: It's better to burn out... than to fade away!!!!

QUID MALMBORG IN PLANO: I remembered this "Firesign Theater" reference and didn't know what it was about then. So....

A mysterious phrase which recurs in BOZOS. It was first exclaimed by the discoverer of FUDD'S LAW. No one (yet) seems to know its true origin, although it is said to have been written on a cigarette lighter that Phil PROCTOR used to have, and belonged to a person named Malmborg, who lived in Plano, Texas. This has since been confirmed by Peter BERGMAN. Another listener is convinced that he saw this pseudo-latin phrase inscribed in a drawing by Albrecht Duerer. The phrase seems to be a mixture of latin and middle-english: "Quid" may be translated from the latin root meaning "this/something/that", and "plano" simply means "flat/horizontal/smooth". The nearest translation of "malmborg" we are willing to conjecture is based on the Middle-English word "malm" which the OED tells us is a type of man-made chalky clay, which is often worked into "malm-bricks", so perhaps this phrase refers to the conversion of this(quid) clay into flat (plano) bricks, as consternation turns to lucidation. The mixture of ME and latin, together with the brick reference, may indicate a Freemason influence, but this is wild conjecture on the part of the editor. Many other theories abound. For example: malborg sounds suspiciously like 'malbolg' (malbolgia?). Malbolgia, as read-ers of Dante may remember, are the "bad pockets" of Hell, where the corrupt and treacherous souls simmer. Here one finds thieves, hypocrites, whores and panderers. Schismatics are ripped to pieces and reconstituted in an assembly-line manner, liars are steeped in a sea of shit. It is lower than that part of the Inferno where the sensual and brutal are found, and just above the lowest part, where Judas and a coterie of betrayers sit. Dante puts several nasty folks in Malbolgia, including a few popes. Nixon probably has (had) a reservation.

Between 49:00 and 50:00 did that mime soldier guy pantomime his own death? Cause I didn't see him get stabbed.

I know they discuss it, but the anachronisms of this movie just... get to me. When you have a berserker (they use the interpretation Bare of sark or bare chested, when I tend to believe the ber sark or bear shirt) from the... 8th... 9th century carrying a pair of katanas from the 15th century and flying a glider of the 20th century to attack a 17fh century castle owned by Genghis' third cousin (13th century), I think anachronistic is an understatement. Add on the sunglasses, the tire tracks, and the modern city in the background just for fun and I really want to ask the producer and director what the hell they were smoking when they put this thing together.

I think the best part of that host segment with the new and improved opening credits is when Joel swipes his swords and then takes off the top of Servo's head and tosses it over his shoulder.

Anal-retentive snakes lined up the skulls. And, it would appear, digested all of the other bones.

http://cdnvideo.dolimg.com/cdn_assets/dabda2f1b69a80123297e90244365cf49fc851d1.jpg

I cant catch my breath from the ripping. Non Stop dead on riffing that perfectly goes with this terrible movie! My personal fav. It gets funnier every time I watch it!

During the host segment at 22:00, can anyone else hear a woman talking in the background while the music is playing?

heavy metal punching bag

I want a gif of 1:34:08 - 1:34:11.

I wonder if that black bar covering half the screen during the opening credits was so the actors didn't need to wear pants. Just think, if they had raised it a little higher they wouldn't have needed actors either.

The host segment a 22:00 is amazing.

During a night of insomnia, I thought I'd try to original film, "Blade Master". Lesson learned: Some movies really NEED the riffs to make them bearable!!

I'm such a dork. Every time I watch this episode, I get annoyed when Tom says, "Dad, as long as we're at the mall, can we stop at the Gap and get some 501s?" No! Gap makes its own brand of jeans. 501s are made by Levi-Strauss. So no, you can't get them at the Gap. Fashion detail nerd alert!

Oh my, so what's with the atomic mushroom cloud at the end? Is there something I missed?

Love how Pec Boy -unties- his girlfriend from the "spider web" during the flashback. Feh!

Once and for all, the Dr. F glasses question has been answered! On a Facebook group called MSTies Militia, it came up and someone asked Trace, who answered thusly: Apparently they looked all over for them and couldn't find them. Then when his spare lab coat came back from the cleaners, voila, the glasses had been in the pocket. So that's it, folks. They were at the cleaners.

Thong! The fish is ready!

What was the point of the character with the beard who was introduced in the village scene and killed off ten minutes later in the snake pit. He didn't further the plot at all.

Mothers, Jugs and Speed.

We'll take them back to their village and speak to their people...The Village People???

Much evil has fallen on our village...bummer...

For the longest time, during the intro to the movie, I thought Forrester was saying "Enjoy it while, at last, Astro Boy Toy.." and always thought there was a jump edit there and he was supposed to say something else. It wasn't until recently that I finally noticed he says "Enjoy it WHILE it lasts..."

also, the 3rd girl being sacrificed has a scrunchie in her hair! :p

so... ator has an automatic cage door in his primitive cave??

"Maybe it was too hot. That should be enough for now. We ought to wait until it's cold." That's right up there with, "I'm so sleepy I can't seem to keep awake."

"You know, that exercise works. You're right. I can feel it here. The muscles are stronger." He's muscular but is still grasping the connection between muscles and all the weight lifting he's been doing for years?

...and I thought Conan the Barbarian was stupid enough. I can't believe I sat though this "film!"

Thong's original name was Banana Hammock.

"I am grinding the Basil and adding the Romano cheese." That line and the way it was delivered, still gets me.

'The Lucid Version of the Really Bad Opening Credits' host segment - FUN..NN..NNY (said while giggling). I particularly liked the way they went on and on and (yawn) on. Joel's Goose of Death hat has got to be the prop I would want.

Ram chips - Bad things: giant growling snake puppet, ridiculous hats, incredibly potent shields, invisible villians, the hang glider and the scene where Ator is fighting the wall. Good things: giant growling snake puppet, ridiculous hats, incredibly potent shields, invisible villians, the hang glider and the scene where Ator is fighting the wall.

I love it when the bots fall apart. Crow's arm has a mind of its own while cheering for Frank! I am watching these in order after many years and I wonder when I am going to come across the episode where Crow's eyes pop out onto the table.

In honor of this film earning its hundredth laugh, I went and reread the Wikipedia page for Ator l'invincible 2. I think they exaggerate when they say "citation needed" for the comment, "Film did not do well in critical reviews." Actually, sitting through any random 90 seconds of this turkey should be all the "citation" any human needs...

How to make chest-plate armor: Use a dinner plate.

So if Sonny Bono and Freddy Mercury had a kid, it would be the villain in this goober?

*Ridiculous* movie, great, great riffs, and that Mila chick is *hothothot!* Definitely one of my favorite episodes

Guys Tip: Employ Ator and Thong’s “invisible attackers” scam while in your front yard to impress neighborhood girls!

I don't know what it is but something about ator just drives me nuts. Maybe it's the custom and the hair, but its like they took the actors best features and displayed them in such a way that makes me think he has had botched plastic surgery and bad implants. It's not hard to make an attractive person ugly but it's really hard to make an attractive person look like an ugly person trying to look attractive. Maybe I just feel into a hypnotic state from too much bobbing pecs..... They are like eyes...... They follow you

Hey, what happened to Dr. F's glasses?

I love this movie, I used to watch these movies when I was a kid, I actually rented this at the video store, it is sooo much better when MST3K does it though. The bad 80's and 90's stuff is always my favorite because it is the stuff of my youth. I remember Master Ninja when it was a show on T.V., I was about 8, I loved it, so seeing this stuff riffed is just awesome for me.

I seem to recall reading that Miles O'Keefe is actually ashamed of this movie...

Thong's my hero.

This was one big chucklefest, this is great therapy after a day of mental dualing.

It's too bad for this actress that 'Twilight' didn't come out until so many years later--she's every bit the horrible actress that Kristen Stewart is, and hotter to boot.

This and Pod People are probably my favorite, go-to eps. Long live MST3k!

He had time to kill the deer, tan the hides, make the hang glider, make the bombs and take on the city , and in only 10 mins! Ah the classic funny that is still funny lol

Did anyone else get the Jimmy Carl Black reference?!?! The kung fu guy TOTALLY looks like him!!! "Hi, I'm Jimmy Carl Black, I'm the Indian of the group!" If you like Zappa, watch 200 Motels, its Jimmy at his best.

The kennedy reference by crow at the very beginning caught me way off guard. Wow that struck me as funny in my own stupid way!

Anyone else notice that Forrester's wearing different glasses here?

    HAMSTERS
DO NOT CRUSH

This movie is soo good at being bad, that it hurts just to laugh!!

So, this is a bad imitation of Conan, right? Different backstory for our main guy, of course.

Classic episode. The riffing is a cornucopia of pop culture, literature, and theology. Love it!

Hey, wait! Dr. Forrester already called Joel "Boobie"!
Geez, those robots would die if they ever saw Linkara's show.

I can't get over those handrails on the stairs. I mean, really? What, was there some kind of ancient OSHA?

I love Tom's beat boxing during the movie credits!

According to IMDB these are the alternate titles to this "movie":
Cave Dwellers (USA (TV title)
The Blade Master (USA)
Ator the Invincible (USA (literal English title)
Ator l'invincibile 2 (Italy)
Ator - Der Unbesiegbare (West Germany)
Ator - krigaren (Sweden)
Ator 2: el invencible (Spain (imdb display title)
Ator II (Finland)
Ator, o aoratos mahitis (Greece (video title)
Ator, o aittitos (Greece (video title)
Ator no 2, i epistrofi tou anikitou aetou (Greece (transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title)
Ator, o Conquistador (Portugal (imdb display title)
Ator, the Blade Master (undefined)
Day of the Sword Man (Pakistan (poster title) (English title)

Apparently Miles O'Keefe was amused by this episode. He knew the film was cheesy and enjoyed it being skewered.

I've always loved any episode where the 'bots are dressed in their jammies. Tom in his tiny robe always cracks me up.

Hey! What the goodness is up with Doc Forrester's glasses!!?!?! He's pulled a switcheroo on his frame choice! I prefer the green ones...

Funny. Funny!! FUNNY!!!!

Each time I see Ator take off on that hang glider out of now where- I don't know, it just makes everything in my life okay.

This episode is so hilarious I actually cried, I laughed so hard.