MiSTing "The Odyssey" (pt.1)
Tjats
All MST3K-related characters are trademarked by Best Brains, Inc.
This version of The Odyssey was taken from the textbook "Prentice Hall
Literature Gold". published 1994 by Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ and
Needham, MA.
The Odyssey origonally composed by Homer, c1000-700 AD(or BCE for all you
Non-Christians)
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episode 103 of MS-FT1B
Turn down your lights(if you want to)
In the not-too-distant future
At the end of season 9,
Mike Nelson and his robot pals
are doing real fine
They're still reading lots of bad stories
And throwing rude comments at them with please
They're being forced to by a woman named Pearl
Whose ultimate goal is to take over the world!
(evil laughing)
"I'll send them cheesy stories
The worst ever written.
(lalala)
They'll have to sit and writhe in pain
as if my dog had bit 'em."
(lalala)
Now keep in mind Mike can't controll
Which story she'll send them next.
(lalala)
He'll have to suffer through them all
With some help from his robot friends!
ROBOT ROLL CALL
CAMBOT(Action!)
GYPSY(Oh, my!)
TOM SERVO(Wait, there's one more!)
CROOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!(I'm the best!)
If you're wondering how they work and play
And all those science facts
(lalala)
Repeat to yourself it's just a MiSTing
And you really should relax!
for Mystery Sci-Fi Theater One Billion!
1...2...3...4...5...6...
The SOL. Crow, Servo, and Gypsy are wearing party hats and are next to the
time machine(from the MST episode Terror from the Year 5000) and party
decorations are strung all over the place. There's a cake on the counter that
says To Mike from the 'Bots. It's not very well-made, and frosting is all over
the counter.
Servo: Hello, and welcome to the Satelite of Love. It's party time today
because-
Crow: Shhhhhh! He's comming!
Mike walks in from the left.
Mike: Hey, guys. What's all this?
Tom, Crow, Gypsy: SURPRISE!
confetti and streamers are sent down to rain on Mike.
The bots make "congradulations"s and "He's ajolly good fellow"s.
Mike: Well, I'm really flattered, but...why?
Crow: Acording to my calculator, we have reached the landmark day of exactly 4
and a half years.
Mike: So?
Servo: Mike, this means you've been here exactly as long as Joel now!
Mike: Really? I wasn't really keeping track...
Gypsy: I had this idea to throw a party for you.
Crow: And I had this idea to bake a cake!
Mike takes a look at the hastily-made cake.
Servo: And, I had the idea of getting you a gift!
Mike: The time machine? We already have that...
Servo: It's not the time machine, Mike! It's what's going to come out of it!
Mike: And that is?
Servo: As a present, I'm going to bring someone from your illustrious past
here to watch today's experiment with us!
Gypsy: Yeah! And we've decided that we can't fit everyone in the theater, so
we're sending them through one or two at a time!
Crow: Okay, let's rev it up and see who's first!
Crow punches some buttons on the time machine, and smoke fills the bridge. Dr.
Forrister and TV's Frank pop out.
Dr. Forrister: What? Where am I?
TV's Frank[looking around]: Say, nice paint job!
Crow: Hey! I's Dr. F and TV's Frank!
Mike: How've you been?
Dr. F[confused]: Okay, I guess.
mad's sign flashes
Servo: Uh-oh![to mads] Get outa here! Go!
Mike: We can't let Pearl see 'em, it might destroy the timeline!
Castle Forrister. Pearl is sitting on a chair, weilding a knife.
Pearl: Well, well, well. I haven't forgotten, Nelson. It's been 4 1/2 years
to the date, so, I've decided to let you go off easy. Your story today is the
epic poem, The Odyssey. Have a nice experiment.
SOL:
Mike: Gee, thanks for the gift, Mrs. F, but, I read it in 7th grade! I
remember everything about it!
Crow: Mike, you can't even remember what color socks you wore yesterday!
Mike: Of course I can remember it! It's the greatest poem of all time!
Gypsy: Your socks?
Mike: No, The Odyssey!
Tom: Okay, then, what's it about?
Mike: It's about this love affair between this guy Romeo and this girl,
Juliet, and...
Mads enter, Dr. F looks at Cambot
Dr. F: Was that mummy?
Movie sign
Everyone: AAAHHHH! WE GOT MOVIE SIGN!
(a mix of the old and new doorway sequences)
Hospital doors... green doors... castle drawbridge... torch door... Gamera
door(at least, I call it that)(the one with the lock and chain on it)... the
vault door with Servo's car's stering wheel on it...
Mike, Servo, Dr. F, TV's Frank, and Crow enter the theater
Mike[to mads]: You're going to love this guys.
Frank: I'm already regreting it.
>The Odyssey
>by Homer
Servo[Homer Simpson]: D'oh!
>translated by Robert Fitzgerald
>(In the opening verses, Homer
Servo[Homer Simpson]: D'oh!
Mike: Okay, Tom, you can stop now.
>addresses the muse of epic poetry.
Frank: Muse of Epic Poetry, 396 Greene Boulevard, Springfield, New Jersey...
>He asks
Dr. F: For a cup of sugar
>her help in telling the tale of Odysseus)
Mike: Obviously, the story isn't about him.
Crow: Right.
>Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all
ways of contending,
Dr. F: Are you sure you're talking about Odysseus?
>the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on
the >proud height of Troy.
Servo: Oh, thats right! We were supposed to read The Illiad first to get the
back story! D'oh!
>He saw the townlands and learned the minds of many distant men, and >weathered
many bitter nights and days in his deep heart at sea,
Mike: So, all of a sudden, Odysseus is Christopher Columbus?
>while he fought only to save his life, to bring his shipmates home.
>But not by will nor valor could he save them,
>for their own recklessness destroyed them all-
Frank: Stupids.
>children and fools, they killed and feasted on the cattle of Lord Helios, the
Sun, >and he who moves all day through heaven took from their eyes the dawn of
their >return.
Crow: He just told us the ending!
Dr. F: Yeah! Thanks for spoiling it for us!
>Of these adventures, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
Mike: Now, how much trouble is it to say: "Muse, could you help me tell these
suckers about that idiot Odysseus? Thanks."
>tell us in our time, lift the great song again.
>
>
>Part One: The Adventures of Odysseus
>Sailing from Troy
>
>(Ten years after the Trojan War, Odysseus departs from the goddess Calypso's
>Island. He arrives in Phaeacia,
Frank: How do we pronounce this?
>ruled by Alcinous. Alcinous offers a shito Odysseus and asks him to tell of
his >adventures.)
>"I am Laertes' son, Odysseus.
Mike: We KNOW that already!
>Men hold me
Crow[as Alcinous]: Look, we didn't need to know THAT about you! Jeez!
>formidable for guile in peace and war:
>this fame has gone abroad to the sky's rim.
Servo: I don't mean to be picky, but, shouldn't a song rhyme?
Frank: It was translated.
Servo: Oh.
>My home is on the peaked sea-mark of Ithaca
>under Mount Neion's wind-blown robe of leaves,
>in sight of other islands-Dulichium,
>Same, wooded Zacynthus-Ithaca
>being most lofty in that coastal sea,
>and northwest, while the rest lie east and south.
>A rocky isle, but good for a boy's training;
Servo[as Alcinous]: Look, just tell your stupid story and leave!
>I shall not see on earth a place more dear,
>though I have been detained long by Calypso,
>loveliest among goddesses, who held me
Dr. F: Stop telling us about your love life!
>in her smooth caves,
all make gaging sounds
>to be her heart's delight.
>as Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress,
>desired me, and detained me in her hall.
Mike: This story is getting a little detained, too.
>But in my heart I never gave consent.
>Where shall a man find sweetness to surpass
Mike[TV anouncer]: Of Hershey's Kisses
>his own home and his parents? In far lands
>he shall not, though he find a house of gold.
Crow: That's good enough for me!
>What of my sailing, then, from Troy?
>What of those years of rough adventure, weathered under Zeus?
Mike: I think that will cover the topic for this section, on to the next one,
please.
>The wind that carried us from Ilium
>brought me to Ismarus, on the far shore,
>a strongpoint on the coast of Cicones.
>I stormed that place
Frank: What, he makes the weather now?
Crow: Maybe he has Storm on his ship.
Mike makes the X Men theme song.
>and killed the men who fought.
>Plunder we took,
Dr. F: Sounds like Yoda.
>and we enslaved the women,
Servo[as Yoda]: The women we enslaved, you mean. The Force helped us, it did.
>to make division, equal shares to all-
>but on the spot I told them: 'Back, and quickly!
>Out to sea again!'
Crow: Oh, no! They made a sequel!
>my men were mutinous,
Mike: See? He IS Christopher Columbus!
>fools, on stores of wine. Sheep after sheep
>they butchered by the surf,
All make surf music
>and shambling cattle,
>feasting,-while fugitives went inland,
Frank: So they're a bunch of Harison Fords?
>running
>to call to arms the main force of Cicones.
>This was an army, trained to fight on horseback
>or, where the ground required, on foot. They came
>with drawn over that terrain like the leaves
>and blades of spring. So doom appeared to us,
>dark word of Zeus for us, our evil days.
Mike: And they all died, the end.
>My men stood up and made a fight of it-
>backed on the ships, with lances kept in play,
>from bright morning through the blaze of noon
>holding our beach,
Dr. F: If they were busy holding the beach, how could they fight?
>although so far outnumbered;
>but when the sun passed toward unyoking time,
All: Huh?
>then the Achaeans, one by one, gave way.
Mike: Who are they?
>Six benches were left empty in every ship
>that evening when we pulled away from death.
>And this new greif we bore with us to sea:
>our lives we had,
Servo[as Yoda]: But desert us, the Force did.
>but not our friends.
>No ship made sail next day untill some shipmate
>had raised a cry, three times, for each poor ghost unfleshed by the Cicones on
> that field.
(commercial)
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Questions, concerns, comments, complaints?
e-mail Tj...@aol.com
Jim, the Mistie, Trekker, X-Phile, comic freak(take your pick)
"Watch out for snakes!"
Jeffrey Johnson
<all snipped>
You MSTed the Odyssey!?! I mean, the Fitzgerald ain't so hot, but...
Mebbe you should've read the Fagles instead...
JSJ1TG, note: I have not in fact read more than portions of the
Fitzgerald and so can't really talk. However, I have read the Fagles, and
it was wonderful.
-------------------------------------------------------
Top Ten Great Things About Cloning Jesus, by nicklby:
#4: We could conceivably hear these words: "Now batting
for the Dodgers, Number 33, the Lord Jesus Christ!"
-------------------------------------------------------
hei...@imap2.asu.edu
Jeffrey Johnson (ez04...@mailbox.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
: <all snipped>
: You MSTed the Odyssey!?! I mean, the Fitzgerald ain't so hot, but...
: Mebbe you should've read the Fagles instead...
: JSJ1TG, note: I have not in fact read more than portions of the
: Fitzgerald and so can't really talk. However, I have read the Fagles, and
: it was wonderful.
Huh. I have read the Fitzgerald...Iliad and Odyssey. I own them, in
fact. Love them. They're far and away better than any other
translations I've read...though granted, I haven't read Fagles. Is his
translation prose or poetry?
--
Sarah "Bookworm" Heiner hei...@asu.edu
Arizona State University
MSTie #53681 http://www.public.asu.edu/~heiner
"Wouldn't it be interesting to have an amoeba sitting
on this microphone making burping sounds?"
Richard Packard, physicist
Jeffrey Johnson
On 17 Apr 1998 hei...@imap2.asu.edu wrote:
> Jeffrey Johnson (ez04...@mailbox.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
>
> : <all snipped>
>
> : You MSTed the Odyssey!?! I mean, the Fitzgerald ain't so hot, but...
>
> : Mebbe you should've read the Fagles instead...
>
> : JSJ1TG, note: I have not in fact read more than portions of the
> : Fitzgerald and so can't really talk. However, I have read the Fagles, and
> : it was wonderful.
>
> Huh. I have read the Fitzgerald...Iliad and Odyssey. I own them, in
> fact. Love them. They're far and away better than any other
> translations I've read...though granted, I haven't read Fagles. Is his
> translation prose or poetry?
Poetry. Very vivid, at least to me. And it turns out I lied - I have
read the Fitzgerald Odyssey; it's the one my Dad owns. I had been under
the impression that it was a _not-Fitzgerald_, but I checked and found
otherwise. That being the case, the Fitzgerald Odyssey was my first intro
to Homer. I liked it, but it didn't reverb within me like the Fagles.
Of course, I was kidding above when disparaging the Fitzgerald (thinking I
hadn't read it), but I stand by Fagles as a personal preference.
JSJ1TG, I'd whip off a favorite quote if I were home, but I'm not...