MST3Kd: I'm Working at the Brainwash, Yeah
Lisa D. Jenkins
MiSTied by Lisa Jenkins
DISCLAIMER:
_Mystery Science Theater 3000_, its characters and situations are copyright
1994 Best Brains, Inc. This publication is not meant to infringe on any
copyrights held by Best Brains, Comedy Central, its employees or the
originators of the material for this post. This article is free to distribute
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[Satellite of Love]
[MIKE wears a headband and wrist bands (yes, he's wearing the jumpsuit, too;
sorry, girls) as he follows along with some aerobic exercises in front of a
TV monitor. CROW and TOM enter stage left.]
CROW: I don't get it. Why do movie personalities put out exercise videos?
TOM: For the same reason TV personalities put out record albums -- their
career has faltered and their mortgage on their $7 million home is due.
CROW: Ah.
MIKE: Hey, guys. You ought to try this. [starts doing bend-over stretching
exercises]
TOM: Uh, no thanks, Mike.
CROW: Yeah. We don't get flabby and sweaty like you humans do. Heh.
MIKE: [comes back up from stretching] What's that?
TOM: He said, "We'd never look as sexy as you!"
MIKE: Oh, gee. Thanks! [bends over again]
CROW: Loser.
[Mads' light flashes.]
TOM: Uh, Mike?
MIKE: [still down in a stretch] What?
TOM: Mad light.
MIKE: [comes back up] Excuse me? I thought you asked for a Bud Light.
[notices Mad light] Oh.
[Deep 13]
DR F: Well, Simmons, keeping fit today? Then we have something for you.
FRANK: [enters with a mini-fridge strapped on his chest] You're gonna love
this. It's the Porta-Fridge.
DR F: With it's easy slip-on feeder, all your food is right at your
convenience.
FRANK: And clean-up's a breeze!
DR F: After all, why waste time going to the refrigerator during every
commercial break? Or worse yet, during the program itself? Now you can
relax in the comfort of your own couch and NEVER get up!
FRANK: Well, YOU never do. You always make me go an' get stuff.
DR F: Be quiet, Frank.
[Satellite of Love]
CROW: Oh, now THERE'S an idea.
MIKE: Tom, have you got an invention exchange for us today?
TOM: Yes, Mike I do. Now, if you wouldn't mind being my assistant, [chuckles
light-heartedly] considering that I don't have functional arms and all,
[MIKE prepares TOM's invention] thank you.
[MIKE holds up a see-through plastic box with the words "BALL-BEARING-SHOOTER"
on it. Inside are lots of ball bearings. There is a loader on the top, and
an exit tube at the front.]
TOM: No. You have NOT seen this before.
MIKE: Except for the last time you watched _Roseanne_.
CROW: And _Coach_.
MIKE: And right before that infomercial you thought was a real program.
TOM: If you PLEASE.
MIKE: Sorry.
CROW: Sorry.
MIKE: Really sorry, Tom.
CROW: Very sorry.
TOM: ALRIGHT already! [pauses as he makes sure the other two will be quiet;
CROW and MIKE smirk] As I was saying -- the Ball-Bearing-Shooter, a bit
like the Salad Shooter, will make your life easier. Are you tired of
replacing your old ball-bearings the old-fashioned way? Are your limbs
unmanageable with everyday tasks, so it becomes increasingly difficult to
replace the ball-bearings in your hoverskirt--?
MIKE: Wait a minute. Tom, you told me this had some practical use.
TOM: It does!
MIKE: But, Tom, the only one who can use it is you.
TOM: Well, not only ME, Nelson, but those countless other Servo 'bots whose
arms keep them unable to do the normal every-day tasks other robots are
want to do.
MIKE: Uh, Tom. You're the only Servo 'bot.
TOM: What do you mean, Mike?
CROW: He means, you're it, buddy! When the Creator made you, he broke the
mold -- willingly! Hahahaha!
TOM: [sobs] No! Say it ain't so! Make him stop, Mike! Make him stop!
MIKE: Now, Crow, that's not entirely true. I mean, I don't know if the molds
were PURPOSEFULLY broken, but there were some cracks that made them
unrepairable....
TOM: WHAAAAA!!!
CROW: Now look at what you did. You made him cry.
MIKE: Oh geez. Uh, sirs? Why don't you just tell us what our experiment is
today?
[Deep 13]
DR F: Gladly! Frank?
FRANK: Found cross-posted on our favorite USENET groups, it's a little
something we like to call "Truth is stranger than fiction." An
unauthorized reprint itself, the two enclosed articles of the post will
leave you asking -- "Why?"
DR F: That's right. It is also a preview of things to come. Deal with it,
Fly Boy!
[Satellite of Love]
TOM: No, not repost sign! WHAAAA!
[Door sequence]
[Satellite of Love Theater]
> Newsgroups: alt.politics.org.cia,alt.activism,alt.drugs,alt.conspiracy
MIKE: Look, it's Dr. Forrester's and TV's Frank's list of club affiliations!
> Subject: Can. Govt. Pays CIA "Brainwashing" Victims
CROW: Can government pay CIA brainwashing victims?
MIKE: Apparently.
> Message-ID: <2holuf$c...@ionews.io.org>
> From: zod...@ionews.io.org (Zodiac)
TOM: You are a fire sign. You will receive many flames after this posting.
> Date: 21 Jan 1994 08:39:27 -0500
>
> Found this wedged into page A24 of the Jan. 19 _Toronto Star_:
>
> *
CROW: There's Toronto's Star now!
>
> OTTAWA (Southam News Wire) -- The government has paid almost $7 million
> in compensation to the unwitting guinea pigs of federally funded
> brainwashing experiments in Montreal in the 1960s.
TOM: And those are very happy little guinea pigs right about now.
CROW: Aren't they the guinea pigs who are featured in that car commercial?
>
> That figure may increase as justice department officials sort through
> about another 50 applications from people who say they were patients of
> the late Dr. Ewen Cameron at McGill University's Allain Memorial
> Institute.
CROW: What's that? Free money? Sure, I was a patient there!
>
> Jan. 1 was the deadline for applications for the $100,000 payments
> announced in 1992 by then-justice minister Kim Campbell.
CROW: Darn it. Why aren't the Mads more timely in their reposts?
MIKE: It takes time to chop and channel evilness, you know.
TOM: You speak as though you know, Nelson.
MIKE: Well....
>
> Although there are believed to be only 80 patients who received
> Cameron's full "depatterning treatment" -- weeks of drug-induced sleep
> followed by massive electroshock treatments, reducing the patient's mind
> to a childhood state --
TOM: Come to cozy Cameron's cottage where you will receive full "depatterning
treatment"! Fun for the whole family!
CROW: Especially if you want to forget about them.
> 329 applications for compensation were received,
> justice department lawyer Lou David said.
MIKE: Let's see. A promise of money if they can convince the lawyers they
were a patient.... I don't see the connection, do you?
>
> So far, 69 people have received the lump-sum payments, while 214 were
> rejected, Davis said.
CROW: "I regret to inform you the position of guinea pig has already been
filled."
> Another 46 are still being reviewed by a
> four-member justice committee and Ontario Blue Cross which first screens
> applications.
TOM: Type -- "too stupid." Sorry, we need type "imbecile" and above.
>
> *
CROW: Look -- another Toronto Star!
>
> The article doesn't scratch the surface of this story -- though I'm glad
> they at least ran the settlement notice.
TOM: I'm still waiting for my check, however.
>
> What is missing?
CROW: Missing ']'?
> The _why_.
TOM: "U-V-W-X-Z." Yep. "Y" is missing, all right.
> Why did Cameron do these horrid experiments
> on unsuspecting patients?
MIKE: Ask Dr. Forrester. He was probably in on it.
>
> A: As part of CIA research into "brainwashing".
CROW: Canadians' Idiots Association?
TOM: Central Imbecile Affiliation?
MIKE: Clueless Idiom Additions?
>
> In the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA was powerfully interested in psychiatric
> reports suggesting that LSD could break down behavior patterns, for this
> raised the possibility of "reprogramming", or, colloquially,
> brainwashing.
MIKE: Or, roughly, getting someone else to get up off the couch and change the
channel on the TV for you.
>
> Let me quote you a few paragraphs
TOM: [sarcasm mode] Oh, WILL you?
> from Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain's
> 1985 book, _Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion_ that
> deal directly with Cameron and the Montreal experiments:
MIKE: Cameron did not choose an attorney; instead, he decided to represent
himself.
>
> If LSD temporarily altered a person's view of the world and
> suspended his belief system,
TOM: --then we could convince him "Highlander 2" was a really GOOD movie!
> CIA doctors surmised, then perhaps
> Russian spies could be cajoled into switching loyalties while they
> were tripping.
CROW: "Oh, this is so COOL! We want to become Americans so we can get access
to illegal drugs like THESE!"
> The brainwashing strategy was relatively simple:
> find the subject's weakest point (his "squeaky board") and bear
> down on it.
CROW: HARD! Heh heh.
> Use any combination or synthesis which might "open the
> mind to the power of suggestion to a degree never hitherto dreamed
> possible".
MIKE: Group therapy can do that, too.
> LSD would be employed to provoke a reality shift,
TOM: LSD, we'd like to hire you. You'll be working the reality shift.
> to
> break someone down and tame him, to find a locus of anonymity and
> leave a mark there forever.
CROW: Oh, would you look at that? Locus of anonymity left a mark on my good
sweater! I'll never be able to wear it again!
>
> To explore the feasibility of this approach, the Agency turned to
MIKE: --Satanism. The weekly blood sacrifices convinced a lot of people.
> Dr Ewen Cameron, a respected psychiatrist who served as president
> of the Canadian, the American, and the World Psychiatric
> Association before his death in 1967.
CROW: After his death, friends and family greedily divided up his estate. Who
said respect should follow you to the grave?
> Cameron also directed the
> Allain Memorial Institute at Montreal's McGill University,
TOM: He was a psychiatrist, but he really wanted to direct.
> where he
> developed a bizarre and unorthodox method for treating
> schizophrenia.
MIKE: He would dress up in a clown suit and dance before them. Sad, really.
> With financial backing from the CIA he tested his
> method on 53 patients at Allain.
TOM: Obviously the Canadian government had no idea.
>
> The so-called treatment started with "sleep therapy", in which
> subjects were knocked out for months at a time.
CROW: I've heard of "knocked up," but "knocked out"?
MIKE: Crow, you have a one-track mind.
CROW: Actually, my program started on an eight-track.
MIKE: That's even worse.
> The next phase,
> "depatterning", entailed massive electroshock and frequent doses of
> LSD designed to wipe out past behavior patterns.
MIKE: The treatment's quite harsh, but it's guaranteed to make you stop
smoking or your money back.
> Then Cameron
> tried to recondition the mind through a technique known as "psychic
> driving".
TOM: Hello, and welcome to the wonderful world of psychic driving! Remember
folks, psychic driving is a privilege, not a right.
> The patients, once again heavily sedated,
CROW: --were now quite awake and demanded to see their doctor -- or lawyer,
whichever came first.
> were confined
> to "sleep rooms" where tape-recorded messages played over and over
> from speakers under their pillows.
MIKE: This made it increasingly difficult to sleep.
> Some heard the message a
> quarter of a million times.
TOM: --and they STILL can't recall a single word of it.
>
> Cameron's methods were later discredited, and the CIA grudgingly
> gave up on the notion of LSD as a brainwashing technique.
CROW: Instead, they moved on to American television and its effects.
> But that
> was little consolation to those who served as guinea pigs for the
> CIA's secret mind control projects.
MIKE: I think $7 million is pretty good compensation.
> Nine of Cameron's former
> patients have sued the American government for $1,000,000 each,
> claiming that they are still suffering from the trauma they went
> through at Allain. These people never agreed to participate in a
> scientific experiment --
MIKE: I can attest to that.
> a fact which reflects little credit on the
> CIA, even if the Agency officials feared that the Soviets were
> spurting ahead in the mind control race.
TOM: Why should they be afraid? They were GIVING the information to the
Soviets all along!
MIKE: You got proof of that?
> The CIA violated the
> Nuremberg Code for medical ethics by sponsoring experiments on
> unwitting subjects.
CROW: Oh, like that stopped them before.
>
> Ironically, Dr Cameron was a member of the Nuremberg tribunal that
> heard the case against Nazi war criminals who committed atrocities
> during World War II.
TOM: Coincidence? We think not.
>
> *
CROW: And Toronto's Star signs off saying, "Thank you and good night. Enjoy
the buffet."
>
> Faith in psychiatry.
MIKE: [sings] "We're keeping the faith, oh yes we will."
>
> (For those interested in the fuller story of the CIA's interest in LSD,
> I will follow-up this post with the ascii-transcribed chapter this
> snippet was taken from.)
TOM: Oh no. Do you know what this means?
MIKE: This must be the preview of things to come Dr. Forrester was telling us
about.
ALL: NOOOOOO!
>
> --
> "Don't HATE the media... | K.K.Campbell
TOM: "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!"
> beCOME the media!" --*-- <zod...@io.org>
CROW: And spread malicious lies!
> - J. Biafra | . . . . cum grano salis
[Door sequence]
[Satellite of Love]
[MIKE stares at camera. CROW and TOM stand on either side.]
MIKE: [speaking to DR F via CAMBOT] I know what you're gonna do. You can't
fool me. I know you're gonna try and send us the rest of that CIA and
LSD thing. Well, let me tell you right now Forrester, it ain't gonna
work, DO YOU HEAR ME?!
[Deep 13]
DR F: Ah ha ha ha! You think you can threaten me with mere words, Nelson? Or
have you forgotten I control the movies and the atmosphere up there?
[Satellite of Love]
MIKE: [mumbles with head bowed] No, I haven't forgotten.
CROW: Man, turning off the oxygen in the middle of the night was really cruel!
TOM: [admonishes] Crow!
[Deep 13]
DR F: Good. Frank, push the button.
[FRANK enters eating food out of the Porta-Fridge.]
DR F: Oh, say. That looks good. I think I'll have some. [opens Porta-
Fridge, reaches in and takes some food out] Now, go push the button
Frank.
[FRANK looks down at the still-open Porta-Fridge.]
FRANK: Were you born in a barn! Shut the refrigerator door!
DR F: Oh, for crying out loud!
[DR F slaps Porta-Fridge door shut which sends FRANK spinning off who hits the
console.]
[Blackness.]
FRANK: [off-screen] Thank you.
--
Lisa Jenkins "The brainwashing strategy was relatively
jen...@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu simple: find the subject's weakest point (his
'squeaky board') and bear down on it."
--Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain
Colin Sebastian Roald
The funny thing is, to the best of my knowledge that was not a
crackpot article. Didn't appear to hurt its MiSTability, though.
--
colin roald | ...a danger to himself and others.