Laserblast - Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000

A pathetic androgynous blond kid from the California desert finds a ray-gun left by fat-assed aliens in the sagebrush, is harassed by strangely southern, dope-smoking cops, develops a large hole in his chest, kills Roddy McDowall, and eventually dies himself. Meanwhile, nothing happens. The aliens are the best thing in the film: they're cute. Eddie Deezen rounds out the cast as the hurtful geek.

Laserblast was featured in the seventh season finale episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a comedy television series. In the show, the human character Mike Nelson and his two robot friends, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo, are trapped in a satellite and forced to watch bad films as part of an ongoing scientific experiment. Laserblast was the sixth episode of the seventh season, which was broadcast on Comedy Central May 18, 1996. It marked the final episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on that network, before the series moved to the Sci-Fi Channel for its eighth season. At the time of broadcast, the MST3K creators did not know the show would eventually be renewed at a different network. Mary Jo Pehl, an actress and writer with the show, felt Laserblast was a particularly bad film: "The lead guy, Kim Somebody, is another sterling example of how filmmaking is not a meritocracy. The fact that this film was even made proves that 'anybody can do it.' You can find this either inspiring or depressing."

During the riffing of the film, the robot character Crow T. Robot claims the film "was run through a highly technical process called 'tension extraction'", and the other robot Tom Servo calls it so dull, "There's a point where it stops being a movie". Mike and the robots make particular note of film critic Leonard Maltin's relatively high two and-a-half star rating of the original film. The episode also makes several references to McDowall's performances in the Planet of the Apes films, and makes several jokes at the expense of Deezen and his stereotypically nerdy character, at one point dubbing him "heir to the Arnold Stang fortune". Mike and the robots repeatedly sang "Are You Ready for Some Football?" whenever Deputy Ungar appeared on screen due to his resemblance to country singer Hank Williams, Jr.

The Laserblast episode was included in the 2008 DVD box-set "Mystery Science Theater 3000: 20th Anniversary Edition", along with episodes featuring the films First Spaceship on Venus (1960), Werewolf (1996) and Future War (1997). They were also made available for instant online streaming through the Internet rental site, Netflix. Dan Cziraky of Cinefantastique, wrote, "If you've never seen Laserblast, this is perfect MST3K viewing! It typifies everything wrong with the late '70s." During a 2009 interview, Eddie Deezen said he loved the show's parody of Laserblast.