While I was watching this time, I noticed that the actor playing Joe looked a lot like the actor playing Hugo the janitor. I looked it up on IMDb and Joe is played by Troy Patterson. Hugo is played by Hank Patterson.

It doesn't say that they're related, but they easily could have been. Troy Patterson was born in 1923. Hank Patterson was born in 1888.

Oh, and Hank Patterson was in Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction.

Oh, boys and their wire racks.

18:18 Woah, guys, check it out! The writing on the chalkboard is in German!

Okay, we'll go back to the cave to look for your bracelet. Do you want to bring the flashlight or shall I? Tell you what, why don't we both bring flashlights. That will make it easier to see in the dark.

I like high-school student Joe's wedding ring.

This must be the VERY remedial school, lol. Some of these "high school kids" look like they're closing in on 40.

I don't know about everyone else but I find something oddly charming about these giant mutant what-have-you movies.

Wanna go for it in the truck, Simpson? LOL

Do you think soup is a biped?

Okay... what's up with the guy in the background at 1:21:47 saying, "Doesn't that belong to the drummer in Def Leppard?" Am I the only one hearing this? (I'm watching Link 1)

I don't know how many times I've watched this but only just now caught Frank calling Dr. Forrester "Your Trumpness." Oh Frank, you were wiser than we knew...

every suggestion the professor makes ends horribly; bring the spider to town, bad idea! tells wife not to leave the house, bad idea! blow up the cave, bad idea! why did anyone listen to that guy, idiot..

Get ready to root for the Bad Guy....

@ 1:17:35 Ummm, just in case there are any young marrieds watching, your actually watching YOUR marriage in just a few years.

Carol's dad, who has no lines and gets killed in the first moments...

THAT'S MERRITT STONE!!

I have to agree with Joel about some kids ruining toys for the rest of us. We all knew that fireworks and lawn darts and stuff were dangerous, that's what made them more fun to play with. Of course parental supervision was highly important but i remember being young and the only kids who really hurt themselves were the ones so dumb they would have gotten hurt somehow anyways. ( backyard wrestling anyone )

Jeez, her dad takes ELABORATE measures to masturbate in peace in a cave and she STILL finds a way to nose her way in and interrupt him during his ritualistic fapping! Dont listen to your wives gentlemen, never have kids!

"Toward Maple Street!"

EAT IT, MOVIE! Seriously, for shame! Turn your hideous face away and don't you dare even *think* of Mr. Rod Serling, you are not worthy!

I've said this elsewhere, but I think people are unfair to her about the bracelet. Think about it:

You're 17. Young enough to still depend on your parents, but old enough to have a more mature understanding of love. A child just getting ready to leave the nest. Your father, in his devotion to you, makes a long trip along dark country roads for the sole purpose of buying you a birthday present. Your worries about him prove true when you personally find a trail of clues that builds inevitably to you finding his dead body. The monster that killed him attacks, and, in the panic, you lose the gift. His last gift to you. He died trying to bring it to you. People tell you it's not your fault, but in your heart you can't bring yourself to believe it. He never would have risked that trip if not for love of you. You're still trying to deal with the shock and trauma of finding his body, and your grief at his sudden loss. That bracelet is the focus of it all. His love, his death, his sacrifice, your guilt... He died to bring it to you, and you lost it. There's nothing you can do to bring him back, but that bracelet... You have to get it back.

That's all established in the film. Why do people blame her and call her selfish and dismiss the bracelet as just another piece of jewelry?

Besides, she had no idea they were going to blow up the cave. At the time she left, the idea hadn't even been proposed. (Actually, at that point, didn't they think the pesticides had done the job?) She had no idea she was endangering anyone else.

How is the cave supposedly LIT?

Poor Dr. Erhardt

I actually kind of like this movie.

I love the way the 'Bots giggle during the short when the speaker say to "use plenty of lip and tongue action"...

EUGH, DON'T OPEN BEER BOTTLES WITH YOUR TEETH

E.C Bueller ? Must be his day off

Okay so there's this awkward pause after the Mads say "Thank you!" in unison during the invention exchange. Before, I always thought that they were supposed to have realized that Joel was insulting them, but it suddenly occurred to me that Frank and Dr. Forrester were making a reference to Season 1, and it made them feel uncomfortable.

Sorry, it's late at night and I hope that this comment makes sense.

When they are removing Carol's Dad's remains in the cave they ignore the other human remains, skeletons, skulls, and never broach the subject of these bones?

approximately 49:45
So let me get this straight. Her dad dies suddenly and horribly and her mom is just "Oh well, back on the horse kiddo. Do that homework and get those grades up."
.......The Hell?

WOW! My name is Cagle.

The kids are named Carol and Mike - and no Brady Bunch jokes?

Would there be copyright issues with showing movies other than his own in the theater? I'm sure there's some shameless self-promotion going on, but would Bert I. Gordon have been required to pay royalties if he showed the posters for other movies?

1:28:36 No, no, no, a thousand times no! The cilia on the spider's feet would be way too big for the Van der Waal forces to work! That spider just ain't climbing no wall!

I love their faces when they said "the CURD-less phone". I love bad puns!

In that short, the guy giving advice on speaking has one of the worst speaking voices ever, a dull monotone that's guaranteed to put listeners to sleep.

I can't believe they made it through the whole thing without referencing Spider-Man (was really expecting that when they found the giant web across the road) or Charlotte.

Also: *pushes up nerd glasses* The movie's supposed spider expert kept calling it an insect. Insects have six legs. Spiders are arachnids. Any high school science teacher should know that.

An ostritsh in the jungle? Poor thing must have been lost.

Boris! Boris! Boris! Boris!

So I watched "Speech: Using Your Voice" on Friday morning and later that afternoon heard Pierre Trudeau welcoming Syrians to Canada but ALL I COULD HEAR was his use of "uh" every other word. All I could think of was the "local static" in the headhunter's story about ostriches.

For those so inclined, 'Attack of the Puppet People' is available for free (with commercial interruptions) on Youtube. Apparently Bert I was really exploring cross advertising because Puppet People features John Agar and the blond of the moment, at a drive in watching 'The Amazing Colossal Man'.

1:23:20 I know you guys are stressed out, but there's no need to cuss!

Who's the guy that plays Mr. Haskell AKA the road foreman AKA Crackle? He sounds familiar, but I can't place the voice...

40:55 "PDQASAPUSOB"? Please Don't Quit Asking Sam About Poisoning the Uber-Spider, Oh Baby?

Anyone ever notice that the notes Dr. Forrester sifts through right before the invention exchange are actually slices of American cheese?

although the science teachers implies that while talking with the sherif on the phone.

Ooh... They compare the sheriff in this episode to Alan Hale. But in their next giant spider movie The Giant Spider Invasion the sheriff actually IS Alan Hale. Spooky.

Lawn Darts are a little bit different story The kid of the guy who got lawn darts banned didn't go running to daddy because she was dead. Lawn darts friggin kill people so I'm not putting those on the same shelf as creepy crawlers. .

I recognized the back lot this was filmed in from the movie Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and that giant teen movie with Tommy Kirk.

YOu know, it does seem a bit insensitive when her mom tells Carol that Mike is at his dad's theater as she's lamenting her dead pop. I mean, come on Mom!

Pause the movie at 56:05. The drummer's facial expression is possibly my favorite part of this entire movie.

While the kids are lost in the cavern with the spider, the sherrif reassures the girls mom. He says that the kids have good sense. Where's the evidence for that?

This episode is criminally underappreciated.

Sheesh ... another one. 38:40 - bat harmlessly flapping around in its natural habitat, and the moment the sherrif sees it he opens fire.
What is it with all these movies where everything the slightest bit unusual or unexpected is greeted with a hail of bullets from the good guys if not the hero? Anyone would think every problem can be solved by shooting it.

Ed Kemmer, our science teacher, was a fighter pilot in WWII. He evaded capture for two weeks after escaping a POW camp. Apparently there were a lot of greatest generation folks ( including Ed Wood) in those B movies.

Around, 50:00ish, when he's talking about that new picture, "something about Puppet People"...
http://www.rifftrax.com/attack-of-the-puppet-people

Joel's cheese phone was invented in the same month and year as I was born! Coincidence? Read the book.

Also, I like the nod to the Forrester/Earhardt days.

The really realistic part of this flick (once you get past the notion of a tarantula the size of a city block that doesn't collapse into jelly from its own massive body-weight) was the way it powered through the brick wall at the school to gobble up the janitor but was unable to make it through the clapboarding at the science teacher's house to get the wife and kid. The tragedy here is that I remember when these goofy 50's sci-fi flicks scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I hang my head in shame.

I just realized, they showed a clip from this movie in lilo & stitch.

Hey... was that a house glued to a Klingon ship with an American flag @ 46:23?
Genius!

What is that at 57:18? It sounds like Servo is saying something but Kevin's mike isn't picking it up.

at about 1:21 when the hand comes out of the rubble Tom says "Doesnt that belong to the drummer from def lepard" in case anyone was wondering

Did teenage actors just not exsist in the '50s?

"Don't you wish you had some women?" They have a Cybernetic Remotely Operated Woman.

DDT may not kill giant spiders, but at least they don't have to worry about any bald-eagles for a few generations.

42:33 Joel: Dr. Erhardt NO!! So that's what happened to him.
:)

Funny thing is, they did revive the Creepy Crawlers maker in the 90s, just a safer version. My friend had one, and I remember that smell! According to the internets, it came out the year after this ep was shown.

...but then, as he says, "I think I ate all the whole thing." Joel's invention exchange presentation only took a minute. It's funny to imagine Frank furiously gobbling cheese while Dr. F's back is turned watching Joel. That is all.

While watching this I actually had a spider crawl up my foot. Timing is everything!... and the spider was released into the great outdoors as I did not want its mother showing up looking for it (you never know...)

"Yes, Gentle Giant, King Crimson and Emerson Lake and Palmer" - some of my favorite bands! This episode just got much more respect from me

My computer gets a RAM chip for being such a good robot and playing MST3K for me.

Hahaha the spider is voiced by Roger Waters!

HA! The poster for 'The Amazing Colossal Man' at 50:18. Nice.

Movie: "What's that noise?"
Servo: "I dunno, maybe something unspeakably horrible."

I did an actual spit take. Thank you, mst3k!

I wonder if that 40-yr. old kid got his car back lol...P/S. and why did the spiders victims always have white hair? It suck there life juices outta them not aged them to death lol

Oh, great, so you spend your adolescence with a bunch of geeky losers and now that's our cross to bear?

I'm blowing my hair while I'm blowing my mind!

If they can't pronounce something, they should reference it, period

Crow's "Enjoy!" @~43m is the best Erhardt tribute ever.

"Earth vs. Soup" sounds way better than some of the turkeys they were subjected to.

I grew up in the 90s and played with Creepy Crawlers when they were revived. Now I feel like I owe Joel and the bots ...Of course, mine was much safer ...But I do remember a home smelter that made tiny figurines. That sounded like a fun accident waiting to happen.

45:38 Crow speaks the truth.

Good thing the janitor doesn't work at a hotel. Absolutely no chin at all. It would take him 30 minutes to change a pillowcase.

I JUST got "Carol'sDad's Caverns"... I've been to Carlsbad years and years ago, and I JUST got that now...

I will forgive the slams on KISS :)

Gary Bussy? what you talkin bout servo?

Between me and my two older brothers we had every toy mentioned in the creepy crawlie sketch except the lawn darts. I remember pressing silly putty on the newspaper cartoons, my brother waking me and my sister up for school with that ugly black air blaster and burning myself making Incredible Edibles (that tasted better than the cakes I 'baked' in my Easy Bake oven.

The spider sounds like Gypsy when Josh Weinstein did her voice!

Great acting by Hank Patterson AKA Fred Ziffel from "Green Acres."

I like a good Batman joke!

Nice 48 star US flag.(11:46)

I have to say I love every time Joel yanks Crow out of the theater!

the first part about good speech made me totally hysterical. Had to watch it twice.

Spy vs Spy... Cuz they look like Trumpy in black and white... Heh...

Sure was thoughtful of the spider to string up all those lights in the cave.

so we are looking for a drunk spider

This is my favorite short- ever. "Don't worry, we've had him put down."

Hey, is the guy in the Short the same guy on the Speech and Posture short in Red Zone Cuba?

So, it's either "Earth VS the Spider" or "Arachnophobia". Eitherway, some milquetoaste actor gets the boid... er, spider.

I'm using lots of lip and tongue action right now!

The short's the best part of this, but watch the movie-- you'll laugh (at the humans) you'll cry (for the spider.)