#46. The Day the Earth Froze
46. The Day
the Earth Froze (1959) - Season 4, episode 422
"Kids come running for the great taste of Sampo!"
Plot:
A witch steals the sun from the small fishing village of Kalevala, and
Finnish hero Lemminkainen has to build a horse, construct a Sampo, sail
across the sea, retrieve the sun, and defeat Father Wind.
Based
on a true story.
Famous for:
Being the first of an endlessly weird string of
Russian-Finnish mythology movies.
My favorite riff:
I don't really have a favorite riff from this movie, it's
all so goofy and weird that I
just love the whole thing. However, if you put a gun to my head, and I had to pick one...
[The bag containing the North Wind starts
moaning in pain - "D'ohhhhhhhhhhhhh"]
Joel: It's a bag of Homer Simpson?
Comments:
The Day the Earth Froze is the first Russian-Finnish movie that they
ever featured on MST3k, and man oh man, it is a
masterpiece. It's a
weird
masterpiece, of course. But compared to some of the other movies they
have featured on this show, it's practically Citizen Kane. I mean, it's
weird, but the production values are actually very high. And all
goofiness
aside, it's actually a pretty good movie.
If
you have never seen a Russian-Finnish fairy tale before, let me
describe them this way: They will all be set in the snow. There
will usually be a dancing bear, or bears. There will often be magic. They will always
be based
on some random Scandinavian folk tale you have never heard of
before. The production values will be incredible. Oh yeah,
and at some point during the movie, the main character will either fly and/or
be attacked by a mushroom and/or ride a giant seahorse and fight
Neptune.
There's really no way to describe a Russian-Finnish
fairy
tale. Except to say "Wow, that was beautiful. But what the fuck
did
I just watch?"
Sampo. When only brand name will do.
This
is one of those writeups you can tell I am struggling with, because I
don't know how to describe this movie to people who have never seen it
before. It's just goofy and pretty and weird. Although I WILL say this:
If you
ever wanted to introduce somebody to Mystery Science
Theater for the first time, and you wanted to show them how random and
goofy and funny it
can be, The Day the Earth Froze would be an excellent first
episode. It's one of those movies that just has a little bit of
everything. It's also an especially SMART episode. The riffs in this one are particularly well done.
"Guys, I wonder what her Myers-Briggs test was like."
Trivia: "The
Day the Earth Froze" was originally released in 1959 under the title
"Sampo." And as weird as it is to say this, it's apparently a fairly
accurate
retelling of the Finnish national epic, "Kalevala." Oh, and in
case you were wondering what a "Sampo" is, it's simply a magic
mill that ensures unending riches for its owner. And again, that's all pretty accurate to Finnish mythology. A Sampo was actually a thing.
Oh yeah, and I should also point out that as bizarre as this movie is, there are even
WEIRDER Russian-Finnish fairy tales that will show up later on the
countdown. They featured a bunch of these weird-ass foreign fairy tales over the years on Mystery Science
Theater. The Day the Earth Froze was actually one of the more
normal ones.
Witch: Forge a Sampo! Or you'll never see the face of your
pretty sister again!
Crow: Can we see the other parts?
