35. Prince
of Space (1959) - Season 8, episode 816
"What's wrong with bootblacking? We like it very much!"
Plot: An evil chicken alien comes down from space and attempts to
destroy Japan. And only the famed superhero The Prince of Space can
save the day and stop him.
Famous for: Krankor's stupid laugh.
Hawwwww hawwwwww hawwwwwwww
My favorite riff:
There's a fantastic running joke in this episode that the alien
weapons
are ineffective against the Prince of Space. And he keeps telling them
that. Yet they keep trying to use them against him anyway. The riffs
get really funny (and ornate) the more times it happens, to the point
that it's one of my favorite running jokes in any MST3k episode.
"I told you! Your weapons have no effect on me!"
"It is my considered advice that you discontinue your use of said
weapon! Ha ha!"
"Empirical data suggests the accuracy of my earlier contention that
your weapons against me are without merit! Ha ha!"
"Allow me to reference my earlier codicil on how your weapons are
ineffective!"
Comments:
When I sat down to create this countdown, I
asked my
friends who were MST3k fans if they had any particular favorite
episode they thought I should include. What I was mainly doing was looking
for
any older episodes that maybe I had forgotten about over the years.
Or maybe some random minor episode that maybe I had never
even
seen. I mean, I THOUGHT I had seen every MST3k episode
over the years, but maybe I hadn't. So I threw my question
out
there to see if anyone would come up with a "forgotten" MST3k favorite that
maybe I had managed to overlook.
Well, lo and behold, my friend Jessica
Liese replied with something along the lines of "If you don't include Prince
of Space, I'll kill you."
Prince of Space? What was Prince of Space? Wasn't that one with Rocky Jones and Winky where
they
are flying around in a spaceship? For some reason I
thought
that was Prince of Space. But no, that episode turned out to
be Manhunt in Space.
It turns out that, for years, I
was
getting the two episodes mixed up, because they had such similar
titles. And then to make things even MORE complicated, there is
also an MST3k episode called Stranded in Space. Which is a whole other thing.
Long
story short, I did a little research. And I learned that even though I had
been an MST3k fan for more than twenty years, I HAD NEVER ACTUALLY SEEN
PRINCE OF SPACE BEFORE. Here I was, all these years, thinking I had
seen
every single episode, multiple times... that I was some MST3k expert... and meanwhile there's this really
funny episode from season eight THAT I HAD NEVER EVEN HEARD OF!
And.... uh... wow. That doesn't happen very often.
Holy crap.
"Uh, sir? Did you forget something when you got dressed this
morning?"
So
anyway, I watched Prince of Space for the first time a couple of weeks
ago, and it
instantly vaulted into my top fifty episodes. Because Jessica was
right, it's so damn funny.
I know this is opening a loophole I might regret later, but
she was right to kill me if I left it off my countdown. I
believe that sort of murder would be legally justified.
In
any case, I've only watched it the one time, so at the moment I
can't really say where I am going to rank Prince of Space on my
countdown in the future. It might wind up in my top ten one day, it
might drop down and wind up around number fifty. Who's to say? I'm
going to have to give it a few years, and many many viewings, before I
finally decide. For now, I'm going to put it here, at #35. One spot
ahead of Manos. Because that's where it feels like it belongs.
One thing's for sure about this episode, though.
Like bootblacking, I like it very much.
Commander: Ah, Captain Manakata. Come in, please.
Mike: I understand you're stuffed with cheese.
