Directed by Paul Frees who did the voice characters on the Rankin/bass stop-motion animated TV specials at xmas time.

Lt. Mann tells Eddie, to his face, that the hotel manager gave him a description of... Eddie Crane. Not a very good description, apparently.

One of the most underated episodes

@20:40 I'm surprised they didn't riff on this one lyric: "Sideburns don't need your sympathy." What does that even mean? Does anyone here speak beatnik?

@1:21:53 -- They couldn't come up with something a little more official for Lt. Mann to say? "Okay." Seriously?

So, back then, juke boxes had records that had versions of the songs with the vocals removed?

"Any action? Chicks? Broads?"

Where did they find that guy???

Sure, they're beatniks. That crazy guy runs around beat'n on everything.

Gotta love how the guy gets discovered by singing somewhere between two and three notes strung together in the form of a hackneyed and meandering song. He's got all the musical talent of somebody who isn't tone deaf, and not an iota more.

After watching this movie, I still don't know what a beatnik is? Hang on, well maybe I do? Is it a redneck, a yah-hoo, a good ole boy, a hick, a country bumpkin, I know, I know.....just a plain old idiot! I got it :-D .....Trivia: I believe peter Breck was also in "The Crawling Hand" another MST3K episode.....with the skipper :-)

If u have 2 say u're a Beatnik, u're proooobably NOT a Beatnik....

Doesn't anyone care that the movie is mis-titled, or at very best represents a Hollywood so out of touch with youth culture that it thought throwing a trendy term out was enough to satisfy the more conservative movie-going public that these young people were ruffians? It is a good thing that Hollywood stopped pandering to, and misrepresenting, cultural trends soon after this film, and we never had this problem again...

1:00:55 they didn't say anything about the boom mic in the shot. maybe it was to easy for them. i saw it and i thought boom in the shot.

those general hospital episodes where sort. 6 minutes, like it was made for youtube.

Why, again, does Eddie feel any kind of loyalty to Moon? Was there any indication in this film that they were in any way close? Eddie looked like he would have been happy to send Moon to the big house in the first scene.

So, what happens to Harry Bayless then? He flat-out lied to Lt. Mann in the hospital regarding the whereabouts of Eddie Crane... who was standing right there. We needed a sequel.

This movie has one of my favorite skits. It's the one where Servo is discovered by Joel and is whisked away to a fabulous singing career. The rotating poster boards make me laugh out loud every time.

awww, Tony Travis died just a few months ago :(
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/181429097/travis-richard-kleefeld

I just realized that I own exactly two polo shirts. Quickly, pass me my bongos and pour me another cup of stale coffee before I slip any farther from beatnikness!

So.... when "Gypsy Crushes Joel!" does she throw in a well-placed "GymKATA"?

Here's a tidbit: In the General Hospital short, the engaged woman was played by Carolyn Craig, who was in The House on Haunted Hill, which has been riffed by Rifftrax.

This episode has some truly great riffs, but.. Why did Joel and the bots have to keep ragging on the girls' looks? Really off-putting.

40:13 I've seen more graceful epileptic seizures

@00:55:30 they missed a classic riff "one of us! One of us!"

I'll give Peter Breck ("Mooney") this much: he tries hard. He's as far from being a Master Of Not Acting™ as you can get in one of these crummy films. Too bad his character A) has no comprehensible motivation and B) no palpable aura of menace, intrigue, or magnetism whatsoever. Plus, his voice, build, stance, and pixie-like leaping would make him more credible as an embittered ex-dancer with a bum knee than a hulking street tough. We were at least halfway into the film before Eddy knocked him down. But anyone could have done it at any time. Including Iris, the fat barkeep, or some random seven-year-old on a Big Wheel™. It's my constant bewilderment at all this that keeps me watching, I guess. I want it to make sense, but it never does.

Best "push the button Frank"?

Unless I'm mistaken, this is Mary Jo Pehl's first outing as Magic Voice (previously played by Alex Carr).

I liked Big Eddie. He had a very real life decision between loyalty to his friends and seeking success doing what he loved. Also when Moony called him out he didn't back down or even hesitate. Very Gangsta!

Moony: brother of the Joker.
HEE HEE HEE HA HA HA HA HA!

The guy who sings is like a '50s Chris Pine

Look at Eddy and tell me he isn't Charles Grodin!

I really like that the title of the short for this episode is General Hospital 2. It's like it's a sequel. General Hospital 2, this time it's general. General Hospital 2, the generaling. General Hospital 2, modern... major... general.

Tom's reading Tiger Bot hahahaha of course Robots need heartthrobs just like anyone else ;)

This is one of those episodes that is so stupid that it almost frustrates me too much to watch it. The main character and "the crazy one" are two of the most irritating characters in the entire history of the show.

I just cannot understand why people fear the scrawny idiot who calls himself "Moon". He backs people down with his steely thin-ness again and again in this crappy film. Maybe he just has a foul odor?

"Stop him, he's got a drumset!"

I can't quite remember the first episode of MST3K I watched, because I watched them very sporadically with my step-dad back in middle school. I think it was probably one of the Gamera films, really tough to say which one.

However once hooked, I recorded this episode on VHS to watch at my dad's house (he didn't get Comedy Channel back then). So I watched and re-watched this episode so many times, because it was my only piece of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Kind of like a little security blanket of laughter and craziness to get me through until I could start buying the Rhino VHS releases.

I only thought of the boyfriend of the girl in the blue dress with the egg sack on her head as being goofy in this movie, until I saw Danger on Tiki Island where he played the character the exact same way. Now he pisses me off as much as any of the other characters in this pos.

Good to see so many fans here...be you beatnik or square!

I never knew there was a movie that wanted to be both Daddy-O and Wild Rebels, but here it is.

This is one of the movies they ever riffed that despite revolving around a cast of characters that easily would make a list of the ten episodes with the most annoying main characters, the genius of MST3k was their ability to find nascent entertainment in whatever they chose.

It's likely that silver dragees are what Dr. Unappealing (as inner-monologued by Joel) is referring to here when he mentions "BBs." Apparently, they've caused some dispute regarding their safety as "food." Maybe that was part of a later GH subplot. Personally, I'm hoping that Young Dr. Dickweed here was the one who got the fatal overdose.

Another station on my tour of unfinished eps. This movie never really grips, though Moonie's spaz attack (completely justified and plausible, by the way) does provide a moment of two of mirth.

Skits are terrific. I never warmed to the Gonohhreal Hospital spots.

Tony Travis fans: catch your hero in a nonsinging role on Perry Mason: The Case of the Waylaid Wolf, posted on YouTube. He's murdered, just like the fat barkeep.

I find it hard to say "shut up" without adding "Iris." Oddly enough, people rarely notice that I called them Iris.

The youths of today drive me frantic,
Be they j.d. or hippie or beatnik.
They have no moral core!
They keep robbing my store
And playing their horrible music.

I feel sorry for poor dumb iris :(

Can't watch it. Youtube says "This video is not available in your country". :(

I think my very favorite part of this one is when they cut to the stock footage of an audience during Eddie's performance, and they're clearly dancing to *waaay* better music.

21:02 Oh, Joel, you got the moves, baby!

39:08 "Come on, let's shake this town up tonight!" As only a bunch of 40-year-old beatniks can do!

52:00 "I'm hit, I'm hit! The bullet traveled from my ankle up to my shoulder, I don't know how it works, it just did!" Jeez, the guy is BALDING. Why would they cast an older, balding man as a teenager?? I realize they didn't really understand anything about teens in those days, but come on.

The singing scene at 1:08:50 has me laughing harder than almost any other sketch ever. "Love is a THIEEEF with a thiiing and a DEAL a-la-la-la!"

Given how obviously unstable Moony is, I can't figure out why anyone would want to hang out with him, EVER, let alone have him be a vitally important part of the group.

...dickweed.

"Toasts are to be drunk at marriages and weddings." Couldn't have said it better myself. ;)

To quote Jerry Seinfeld- "I can't watch a man sing a song. It's embarrassing"

Hahaha I had a good luck troll in the 90's

Love wears a mask! A tight leather mask!

Frank has the ducktail hair, I like Crow's lips and I'm a Beatnik.

The Sqaures should be the title of this movie.

I always knew my dad was a juvenile delinquent

Gypsy crushes Joel!

The people who wrote this were so square.

RIP- Peter Breck

"Uh, your little friend will still be in the garbage can when we're done."

"What about our continental breakfast?!"

Crow should carry a knife more. It really suits him.

When Joel stands up and does his "move"...one of most hilarious moments ever.

I like that meet George Jetson by Servo.I want that as a ringtone

Is that a microphone I spy at about 1hr 48 sec, in the top center of the screen, and again at 1hr 6min??

I KILLED THAT FAT BARKEEP!!!!

Love Tom quoting Tom Waits at the beginning, God this show is wonderful!

So let's take a look at our "Beatniks":

We've got our "leader": Eddy, a galactically bland lounge singer.

His lobotomized, emotionally abused squeeze toy, Iris.

Moony, a twitchy sociopath who's the closest thing this film has to an interesting character.

And two more characters (if you can remember their names, God help you):

Eddy's identical twin who was given a leather jacket and sideburns instead of a personality or dialogue...

And a middle-aged, balding lesbian who's only there to get shot and provide a plotline for the third act.

I had Servo singing "Meet George Jetson!" from this as my text tone on my old phone. Sadly, it won't transfer to my new one :(

I got schooled on what a true Beatnik is in this episode - it's what the movie characters are not!

Y'know, it just dawned on me that if this movie and The Rebel Set switched titles, they'd both make a lot more sense ;)