Ah, Squirm. This was the second-to-last episode of the original run of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and seems to be a much lesser-known episode of MST3K--even some fanatics have not seen it and are not familiar with it. Ironically, the bizarre short which precedes the film is among the most well-known ("NO SPRINGS!").
Although I have watched this episode several times, it has never made it into my regular rotation of MST episodes. This episode is actually hilarious; there are a LOT of laugh-out-loud moments throughout and I do laugh every time I watch it. This episode has everything you could want: a funny short, an AWFUL movie, hilarious jokes, cute skits/host segments (Servo catching Southern Belleness is great) and some riffs you can use in everyday life, which I have done for years.
So after listing the reasons for how good the episode is, you may wonder why this episode has not been made part of my regular routine as so many others have. Or maybe you don't care, but I will tell you anyway. :P The only reason I can think of is that the movie is just so icky. Maybe "icky" is a childish word, but that really is the best word to describe this movie. The accents are irritating, the actors are unappealing--the "hero" of the film is just grating and annoying as all he77 (and not in an endearing Nick Miller, Castleton Snob sort of way), the setting is gross, the worms are gross, the color tone of the movie is gross! I feel like taking a shower after watching this mess. Unfortunately, I think these elements keep this episode from being among my favorites and made me knock off a star even though it is absolutely hilarious.
The bottom line is that this is a sure-fire episode in terms of laughs. All MSTies should check it out. In terms of being an example of the spirit of MST, this is a good episode as well so I think it would be an okay one to use if you are introducing someone to the show but maybe either immediately precede it or follow it with a "cleaner" episode, just in case someone should find this as unappealing as I do. :)
