K07 - Gamera vs. Zigra

Observation: Joel has used the same "water the source of all life" joke in every episode thus far.

Movie description: Zigra, a giant sword fish/spaceship/name of the alien race is attempting to take over the world, Gamera attempts to stop him, mouth permenantly agape. They fight, one wins. The end.

Oh, you want more? Okay. Becides from Gamera there's a bunch of human characters, most of which work at, or are the children of the people who work at some sort of Aquarium sea park dealie that happens to be near where the Zigra spaceship lands. As they're the closest humans, he kidnapps four of them including two kids, looses the kids, and sends his minion to go capture them in several Benny Hill esque segements. Turns out Zigra can only be beaten by.... I have no idea. The end of the movie comes and he's not really defeated. Gamera flies off, everybody's happy and... That's it.

Movie Review: You know what I like about this movie as opposed to most of the other Japanese monster movies featuring little kids? The kids in this movie act like real kids. They don't save the day with clever ploys or their relationship with Gamera or scientists or what have you... No, other than outsmarting a really stupid but hot alien chick, they pretty much just get in the way and irritate everybody. Honestly, with these big monster type movies it comes down to: Are the human characters likeable? In this case, yes, in an extremely goofy way. And, are the fights cool? No, but luckily for this movie, they are very, very short, which, I suppose, is the best alternative to cool fights.
6/10

Sketches: Waaaay less reliant on the voice mails this time, and that's a good thing. Cute as they are, I was already starting to get tired of them. Doing them once and episode, like the letters, is just fine. While none of the sketches are particularly funny nor un-funny, they're very homey feeling, even if it appears nobody's quite sure what exactly they're supposed to be doing in them. For instance, Joel mentions writing the theme song and then they preview the next episode's movie. But in the same episode they introduce the mad scientists and start what small framework of a plot the show has. It's odd, but works in a small town goofy way.
5/10

Riffing: Crow is unfrozen, (which means, hopefully that we won't see the clip of him being frozen for the sixth time) so with all three of 'em in the theatre, the riffs come much more frequently, and funny. I laughed a lot, and was smiling through the whole thing. You could also see some early versions of later re-occuring gags, like Joel's "Saaay" for attractive girls, repeating the movie's odd sound effects, and interactions with the screen, like Crow trying to look up the villain girls' skirt. Good time had by all. I only give it a fairly low score because of the pure small number of riffs, not the quality.
Best riff: "They need to fit more people into this shot."
5/10

Final Thoughts: If not for the gaps in riffing, this might of been one of my favorite episodes, I am extremely pleasantly surprised. Only a few, niggles get on my nerves, and most of that is just because of the differences between the KTMA's and the later episodes. And some, like the fact that in the sketches they always call him "GameroN" bug me regardless of the later changes. I think I see the show clicking, but I'm going to probably have to wait until a duller, or less goofy movie to fully decide.
5/10

What I learned: Fire acts the same under water, as it does above.