Oldish pre-med students dare cold-fish frosh to visit cemetery and steal corpse's ring as a fraternity prank.
Beginning of the episode
Opening host segment
Invention Exchange
Movie begins
Frank Zappa's song "Centerville" from the filmusical "200 Motels."
"Look for the Union Label, when you are Buying" is the AFL-CIO's slogan to encourage Americans to buy products produced in shops where the employees are unionized under their auspices.
Sung to the tune of Harry Belafonte's "The Banana Boat Song"
J. R. "Bob" Dobson is the figurehead of the Church of the Subgenius, a tongue-in-cheek religious organization started in the '80s.
Betty White wrote, produced, and hosted the television show "The Pet Set" and the radio show "Betty White on Animals."
Parodies Mother Goose nursery rhyme "Little Miss Muffet." While Moffitt sat on a toffitt, Muffet sat on a tuffet.
A reference to the song "In The Year 2525" by Zager and Evans.
"Dick" and "Jane" taught millions of American children to read from the 1930s through the 1960s.
"Spleef" (or "spliff") is a slang term for a hand-rolled marijuana cigarette.
Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," (1934) discussed the author's sexual adventures in a frank and explicit manner unheard of for that era. It was subsequently banned (along with Miller's other works) from entering the United States, until 1961.
Resus-Annie is a doll used in demonstrations of cardiopulmonary resuscitation to help students develop proper technique.
MST favorite Ed Wood, Jr. wrote, directed and played the title roles in "Glen or Glenda" (1953), which explores transvestitism, albeit incoherently. The film is now a cult classic for fans of the angora loving B-movie director.
Running refrain of Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) to his wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) on classic TV show "The Honeymooners."
In "The Wizard of Oz," (1939) a living (and talking) tree in the magical land of Oz slaps main character Dorothy Gayle (Judy Garland) on the hand when she picks an apple from it.
"976" is a phone exchange associated with pay-to-listen services, especially paid phone sex services.
These instructions are typical of a theater "open call" style audition. New York City's "Broadway" is the most well-known theater district in the world.
Rock band "The Doors," responsible for the well known track "Break on Through (To the Other Side)" was fronted by ill-fated lead singer Jim Morrison.
Many full sized clowns exiting from a tiny car is a standard clown gag, probably taught at Clown College.
A takeoff on children's platitude "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," which admonishes children not to be pained by verbal abuse inflicted upon them.
Begin the Beguine is a Cole Porter song, from the musical "Jubilee" (1935.) A beguine is a particular type of dance rhythm, with origins in the Caribbean islands.
The house shown looks similar to the house in horror classic "The Amityville Horror" (1979) in which a house where a murder was committed terrorized its inhabitants to force them to move out.
Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the 20 month old son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Divine, a cross-dressing actor whose real name was Harris Glen
Milstead, appeared in several films directed by John Waters, notably
Pink Flamingos and Hair Spray, the latter of which she appeared in
playing both male and female roles.
The Warren Commission was the popular name of the US Commission to Report upon the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which formally investigated the assassination of the US's 35th president.
Echoes the protesting old man in 1975 film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
An homage to one of Bugs Bunny's speech impedimented nemeses, Elmer Fudd. Fudd's oft-repeated line was "Be vewy quiet. I'm hunting wabbits." He was never successful.
Puck, as he appeared in William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," was the sprite responsible for confusing the romantic lives of the comedy's four main characters.
Servo quotes the opening lyrics to Hollies' song "Bus Stop."
The opening lines of Edgar Allen Poe's famous poem "The
Raven" are:
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume
of forgotten lore"
"Jerry" was a pejorative term used by Allied soldiers to describe German soldiers in World War II. The lights shining on Lewis are similar to prison searchlights.
The "valley of the shadow of death" is a phrase from Psalm 23:4, one of the more often-quoted Psalms.
In the "Pink Panther" movies starring Peter Sellers, French Inspector Clouseau has a Chinese manservant continually trying to attack him in order to keep his skills sharp.
Third host segment
Short: The Phantom Creeps (Part 3)
Two parts of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" are mashed together here. "To be or not to be, that is the question" from Act 3, Scene 1 and Hamlet's speech to Yorick's skull in Act 5, Scene 1.
Servo utters the famous dying words of Charles Foster Kane, the title character of Orson Welles' masterpiece "Citizen Kane." The house pictured in this shot is perched on the side of a hill, just as Kane's estate, Xanadu was in the 1941 film.
Probably a reference to the Prokofiev hit, "Peter and the Wolf," one of the best-known examples of separate instruments representing characters in a story.
Monty Hall, host of TV game show "Let's Make a Deal" would give away cash to audience members if they could fulfill random requests like this one.
David Geffen is the "G" in "Dreamworks SKG," and is one of the top entertainment moguls in the US.