This was another rough print. It was like going back to season 1, as far as movie quality goes. While it was decently amusing, I'm already having trouble remembering anything about it. And whatever there was to see was covered up by the intense graininess and poor print quality.

Probably one of the more boring "white guys go into the jungle and deal with savages" movies, the focus is mainly on the arguing between the two lugs at the center, one played by George Reeves. He and his compatriot argue over a girl and the obvious and two-dimensional heel wants to bring the girl back dead, more interested in quick cash than absurd blonde beauties hiding in the jungle. This film made Reeves' sad, sympathetic character in Holywoodland seem, somehow, even more tragic. Reeves' co-star, Ralph Byrd, shared the fate of his early death. Perhaps this movie was a curse in more than its shoddiness. I'm sure that few of the black actors cast as African savages and forced to stand around in loinclothes, yelling gibberish, thought too highly of the experience. But at least everyone involved tried.

This is probably never going to be considered one of the more interesting episodes of MST3K by anyone. I can't imagine who would list this as a favorite. The whole thing is a sort of shrug; it was neither bad nor good, though it was entirely watchable. Perhaps there was something funny in there, but my mind has already erased almost all traces of this episode. And maybe that's for the best.

I thought that I knew a little bit about "The Sidehackers". For some reason, I was pretty sure that it was one of those black & white 1950's biker gang movies. I definitely never saw this one (and was probably getting it confused with "Wild Rebels" or "Daddy-O" or some such thing). Instead, this one is much more in the '60's "everybody's a bit of a cool hippie cat" vein, with the typical villain who's less like a gang leader and more like a scenery-chewing parody of Charles Manson or Jim Jones.

Oh, and how the scenery was chewed in this one. Michael Pataki ate everything on screen in his role as J.C. (I'm left to wonder if "J.C." stood for "Jesus Christ", what with "Nero" and "Rommel" already being in the movie. Tony Huston was definitely no great writer; he also wrote "The Hellcats", appearing later in MST3K's second season.) Not that anyone else did a particularly good job of acting in this one. The people who had no other credits to their names seemed to be much more staid and normal in their capacity to exhibit genuine human emotions than the people who went on to have long careers in episodic television and crappy movies.

As far as episodes went, it was a bit of a step back for the writing. "Rocketship X-M", as perfect as it was for the show, immediately showed the flaws in "The Sidehackers". As stated in the episode guide, this is the last episode where they only watched part of the film before accepting it for production. In the midst of the movie, there turns out to be a "brutal" (their word; I found it to be fairly tame and not even vaguely shocking) rape and murder scene, which they weren't aware of when they chose it. You'd think it was in the time between J.C.'s arrival at the cabin and Rommel waking up, tied to the wall, but it was in that really strange moment where the beaten Rommel arrives at his partner's house and then runs outside for no good reason. While watching his buddy's kids roughhouse, he flashes back to his girlfriend being raped and then accidentally killed. That scene and another shot of her body had to be excised from the episode. It feels, knowing that, like they never quite recovered the appropriate mindset to find the last half of the movie to be funny enough. There was a dour note constantly hanging over the whole production, as if they couldn't get it out of their heads. As silly as the whole movie was, perhaps it just wasn't as inclined to be comedic as "Rocketship X-M". Though at least you can see them really getting a handle on how to make more amusing host segments.

Still, this episode was head and shoulders above anything in the first season, and rarely was there a color film that was boring to watch on MST3K. Even if it lacked a bit in the joke department and the lines were not coming in as fast and furiously as they should have, the pathetic production values and absurd plot more than made up for it. This was another one that went down much more easily.

Things finally get good. I thought I might be imagining it and setting myself up for eventual disappointment; the past season had been so bad, perhaps I was fooling myself in remembering "Rocketship X-M" being funny and on par with many of the later episodes of MST3K. It couldn't have possibly shifted so drastically in quality so quickly, could it?

But it did. That long break in between the seasons, the loss of Josh Weinstein, the addition of Frank Conniff, the more structured writing... It all added up to a smoother, better experience. The riffs came faster and harder than ever before. There were barely any moments of silence throughout the movie that weren't filled with a joke. Mike Nelson claimed that this was the perfect movie for MST3K and it definitely proved to be perfect for showing what they could do with the concept.

As far as movies went, it was surprisingly decent and was one of the higher-quality films that they'd show for quite some time. Lloyd Bridges made a good target for a variety of "Sea Hunt" jokes and no one can forget the Texas-related material throughout the movie.

Going back and watching it again after several years, the good lines are a little fewer and farther between than I remember, but there was a real quantum leap forward in the production value, writing, and sense of humor of MST3K in the span between this episode and the last (which was really "Women Of The Prehistoric Planet").

The viewing of this episode completely renewed my faith in this little endeavor and reignited my interest in continuing on. Woe to the poor bastards who watched the first season when it originally aired. I'm left to wonder if they even came back for the second. Kudos for The Comedy Channel for sticking with it, though. Perhaps we have a lack of good programming to thank for MST3K having the chance to grow into something great.