The Experiment
This episode is ripe for the gags and the crew of the SOL takes full advantage of this.
One very funny segment is one where Tom presents the talking chimp, Crow. It perfectly satirizes the movie as a whole and how lame the premise truly is. Then there comes the segment where Tom and Crow are sitting in their cop cars and making up stupid metaphors for nonsensical calls to dispatch. Both segments are vastly amusing.
However, this episode is also notable for being the episode featuring Mark Hamill as a carnival manager wanting to purchase Tom and Crow. Again, we see a great talent go to waste in this very mediocre scene. He plays his part well, but his part is tiny and meaningless while also not really getting any laughs. Still, Mark Hamill is very public about being a MSTie.
Carnival Magic
A failing carnival finds out that the magician in their show has a talking chimpanzee. The magician saves their show, but the chimp is stolen by scientists for testing.
What makes this movie bad?
This movie is a hard one. The acting is nonexistent all around, the storyline is paper-thin and the pacing snail-paced. It's honestly hard to explain. Things just seem to happen for no reason and sideplots that get started just taper off, never to be seen again.
Let's be honest, there is no explaining it. This movie is a very different kind of bad. It's not as bad as Manos or Castle Fu Manchu, but it is definitely not an enjoyable kind of bad. It's unique, but not the kind of unique that should be replicated, it is the kind of unique that is to be studied and thoroughly avoided.
The Riffs
Despite how bad it is, the riffs are quite good. They play to the stupidity very well and they rarely missed a beat when it came to calling the movie out on its BS. The riffs are good, but the movie is still very bad. The stupidity of the chimp and his owner's condescending nature are perfect riffing fodder. The carnival manager's loser nature is also a strong source of the gags, as he's quite the slob that even Freud would be hesitant to analyze.
The Episode
The host segments are fantastic and the riffing is something to behold. However, the horrific quality of the movie is very hard to overlook. It is a mixed bag of an episode. The cringe factor of the movie is overwhelming in well over half the scenes. The SOL crew do their best with it, and it shows, but you can't make gold out of dirt. It still deserves silver, though.