Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 235: "The Mads Are Back: Bride of the Monster" (2022)

Some lovely artwork by Carmen Cerra for Bride of the Monster.

Much like Dracula, Mystery Science Theater 3000 will never die.

Sure, the long-running comedy series seems to be in limbo for now, with no new "official" episodes produced since December 2022. But the comedians and writers who worked on MST3K have launched similar series of their own and are still wisecracking their way through a wide variety of movies and shorts. In 2020, for example, MST3K veterans Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff launched a pay-per-view web series called The Mads Are Back. It started as a way for Trace and Frank to continue their touring act during the global pandemic, but they've kept the web series going to this very day, amassing four seasons and half a dozen specials so far.

You'd probably expect the films of Edward D. Wood, Jr. to be a part of any series like this, and, true to form, Beaulieu and Conniff have riffed both Glen or Glenda (1953) and Night of the Ghouls (1959) for The Mads Are Back. I was especially interested in screening those episodes because neither film had ever been covered on MST3K proper. On the other hand, I was aware of the fact that Beaulieu and Conniff had also riffed Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster (1955) in 2022. That movie had already been used on MST3K—way back in January 1993, during the show's fourth season on Comedy Central—so I was not as keen to see Bride of the Monster riffed on The Mads Are Back. I mean, what else is there to say about this film?

Recently, though, the Dumb Industries website (which hosts several MST3K-adjacent series) offered a special 4th of July discount on The Mads Are Back: Bride of the Monster, and I couldn't resist. Three years after the episode premiered, I finally sat down and watched it. Incidentally, Dumb Industries sent me links to two versions of the episode: a 70-minute cut that just contained the movie and a 130-minute cut that included a Q&A portion with comedy writer and visual artist Rachel Lichtman. 

The movie portion is exactly what you'd expect from an MST3K derivative. Apart from a few profanities and some topical 2020s references (Harvey Weinstein, J.K. Rowling, Steve Bannon, etc.), this is indistinguishable from an episode of that series. Beaulieu and Conniff keep the jokes coming at a furious pace, keenly aware that their viewers have paid for this experience. I am happy to report that there is no recycling of material between MST3K and The Mads Are Back. Frank and Trace came up with all-new riffs for this one. There are a few similar moments, however, including the inevitable Becwar/TekWar puns during the opening credits and some mentions of Ann Wilner's infamous disappearing/reappearing pencil.

Do the comedians have anything particularly novel to say about Bride of the Monster, thirty years after originally riffing the movie on MST3K? Occasionally, yes, but they also cover a lot of old ground in this latter-day treatment.

There are a lot of jokes about how slow the film's pace is and how Ed Wood seemingly let his camera run for minutes on end, whether or not anything noteworthy was happening onscreen. And there are the usual jabs about the stiffness of the acting, the flimsiness of the sets, and the stockiness (?) of the footage. In short, you get exactly what you'd expect from two wiseguy comedians heckling an Ed Wood movie. It's all pretty amusing but hardly groundbreaking. For novelty's sake, I would have advised them to use the colorized edition of the movie from Legend Films. (Unfortunately, that version of the movie is not in the public domain.)

But there are some fresh ideas here, too! One interesting moment occurs during a scene in which Ann Wilner as Tillie the file clerk talks to Harvey B. Dunn as Capt. Robbins. They're discussing the whereabouts of the film's heroine, reporter Janet Lawton (Loretta King).

ROBBINS: Did she find what she was looking for?

TILLIE: Well, I guess she did. At least she found the sales notice. I found it myself after she rushed out. She left the paper open at the November 26th date. Wanna see it?

ROBBINS: Very much.

TILLIE: Well, it's right up there. I haven't had time to put it back yet.

BEAULIEU: That's a lot of exposition for an old lady. Why don't you go home? I say "old." She's probably younger than I am.

CONNIFF: She is! She's younger than me, for sure!

For the record, actress Ann Wilner was only about 50 when she did Bride of the Monster. That makes her substantially younger than both Beaulieu and Conniff were when they did this episode.

"He tampered in..." well, you know.

The biggest difference between the 1993 and 2022 riffings of Bride of the Monster is that, in the latter, Beaulieu and Conniff are much more knowledgeable about Ed Wood's film and its notorious history than they were the first time around. Frank, in particular, is an avowed Ed Wood fan and says so proudly in this episode. When MST3K did its version of Bride of the Monster for Comedy Central, Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992) had only been out for a few months and Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) hadn't even been made yet. 

In recent decades, thanks to Grey's book and Burton's biopic, the making of Bride of the Monster has become nearly as famous as the film itself. For The Mads Are Back, then, Conniff and Beaulieu can reference all the behind-the-scenes lore, including how Loretta King and Tony McCoy came to be cast in the lead roles for financial rather than artistic reasons. The Mads also mention the rivalry between King and Dolores Fuller, plus the fact that the titular monster (a rubber octopus) was stolen from another production. In the post-movie Q&A portion of the show, Frank actually namechecks both Nightmare of Ecstasy and Ed Wood.

Having obviously watched Bride of the Monster numerous times, the comedians know in advance about the film's famous final line, as delivered with great solemnity by Harvey B. Dunn. Frank becomes impatient for Dunn to say the words we all know are coming. When Kelton (Paul Marco) tumbles down the hill during the film's finale, there's a closeup of Dunn looking disappointed, and Frank comments, "He tampered in... oh, I don't say that yet." A couple of minutes later, Frank just starts chanting, "Say it! Say it!" in anticipation of the line. Overall, The Mads Are Back: Bride of the Monster isn't necessarily something I needed to see, but I'm not sorry I watched it.

All three Ed Wood episodes of The Mads Are Back can be purchased here.

POSTSCRIPT: One added benefit of watching something like The Mads Are Back is that it causes me to ponder the plot of the original movie, even though I've seen it dozens of times already. This time around, what I noticed is that Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) fails time and again in his efforts to use atomic radiation to create a race of supermen. All his test subjects die immediately on the operating table. But, during the film's chaotic conclusion, the inarticulate henchman Lobo (Tor Johnson) straps Vornoff to that same table, turns on the same machines in the laboratory, and succeeds in turning Vornoff into a superpowered giant! What is Lobo doing right that Vornoff was doing wrong? Is Lobo secretly smarter than Vornoff?