A troubled teen finds an alien's weapon and takes revenge on those who taunted him.
Beginning of the episode
Opening Host Segment
Reference to the title of the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Introduction
Film critic Leonard Maltin (1950- ) indeed gave "Laserblast" a two-and-a-half star review (out of four stars). Incidentally, Maltin also made a guest appearance as himself in episode 909 of MST3K ("Gorgo").
Generic Star Trek references.
Start of movie
The Charlie Daniels Band is a band that was most popular during the late 70's, early 80's, headed by none other than Charlie Daniels. Best known for their song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."
Parodies a phrase from Warren Zevon's 1978 song "Werewolves of London." Actual lyrics: "I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's."
"An American Tail: Fievel Goes West" was the 1991 sequel to the 1986 animated film "An American Tail". The original movie is about a young Jewish-Russian mouse who emigrates to America with his family.
Trent Reznor is the founder and singer of the band Nine Inch Nails. The character in this scene looks similar to him.
A reference to "Eegah", a 1962 sci-fi film about two teenyboppers who encounter a caveman living in the desert. The movie starred Arch Hall, Jr. and Richard Kiel and was featured in episode 506 of MST3K.
Reference to Norelco razor commercials in which santa rides an electric razor as if it were a jet. The "even its name spells Merry Christmas" line is apparently the tagline of the commercials.
Reference to the move Dirty Harry.
Amoco was an American oil/gasoline dealer. The company merged with British Petroleum (BP) in 1998.
Edgar Winter Group is a band from the early to mid 1970's, headed by Edgar Winter. Best known for their song 'Frankenstein', they only produced three albums before breaking up. The song in this scene sounds vaguely familiar of Edgar Winter.
Reference to the character Yukon Cornelius from the claymation TV special, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
In 1994, model Anna Nicole Smith (1967-2007) married 89-year-old billionaire and oil magnate J. Howard Marshall. Their marriage lasted until his death 14 months later, leading to speculation that Smith married him simply for his estate.
Lyrics from the song "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers.
Reference to the ABC Monday Night Football theme, sung by Hank Williams Jr., whom the deputy resembles.
A variation of the tag-line from the 1976 movie Eat My Dust!, "Ron Howard pops the clutch, and tells the world..."EAT MY DUST!"
An impression of Max Keller, the van-driving narrator/main character in the short-lived TV series "The Master" (later packaged into two short "movies" and riffed on MST3K in episodes 322 ("Master Ninja I") and 324 ("Master Ninja II")).
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was a famous American architect and interior designer.
Stephen Stills (1945- ): American rock musician of the bands "Buffalo Springfield" and "Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young)". Bill Gates (1955- ): founder of Microsoft Corporation... and, literally, the richest man in the world.
Host Segment 1
This whole segment is a reference to the Star Trek episode entitled "The Changeling" in which the Enterprise encounters a probe called NOMAD originally from earth.
Reference to the song "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas.
Another 70s music reference, this time the song "A Horse With no Name" by America.
An impression of the character Ralphie from the comedy movie "A Christmas Story". The film is about a young boy who wants to get a BB gun for Christmas (despite the repeated warnings from people that he'll "shoot his eye out").
Reference to the 1976 Peter Frampton album, Peter Frampton Comes Alive, the biggest selling live album of all time.
Reference to the movie Planet of the Apes, in which there is an area called the Forbidden Zone, which is set in a desert similar to this scene.
Reference to Mr. T who, among other things, starred in A-Team and is famous for wearing excessive amounts of gold jewelry around his neck.
Reference to the Hebrew Bible in which Moses hears the voice of God from a burning bush. Yahweh is God's name in Hebrew.
An reference to the lyircs of Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild, used as a common theme for bikers.
Likely a reference to the Hebrew bible in which Ba'al is a word meaning lord or master, but typically refers to a false god.
'(Don't Fear) The Reaper' is one of Blue Öyster Cult's best known songs, from their 1976 album 'Agents of Fortune'.
Host Segment 2
Another Stephen Stills reference, the song 'Love the One You're With' appeared on Stills' self-titled album, released in 1970.
Reference to the lyrics of 'I Shot the Sheriff', a song by Bob Marley & The Wailers, which first appeared on their 1973 album entitled Burnin'.
The Doctor in this scene, played by Roddy McDowall, also starred previously in Planet of the Apes as Cornelius. He also played various other monkeys in most of the later Planet of the Apes sequels.
Reference to the children's game, and possibly a commercial for, Operation.
Reference to the lyrics of the song "After Midnight", originally written by JJ Cale, but popularized by Eric Clapton on his 1970 self-titled album. The actual lyrics are "After midnight, we’re gonna let it all hang down."
The delivery of the investigator's line in this part comes off sounding a bit like Clint Eastwood in the movie Dirty Harry. Reference to a scene in which Eastwood is being reprimanded for infringing on the rights of a killer during an investigation.
From this angle, the actor in the scene looks a bit like the singer/songwriter David Bowie.
A line from the movie 'The Mask', starring Jim Carry. In this scene the character looks like The Mask.
Host Segment 3
In this scene Mike is imitating Captain Janeway from the series 'Star Trek: Voyager'. Mike is speaking 'technobabble', mostly meaningless scientific sounding buzzwords often used in Star Trek. Most of his references are to famous scientists.
Mike is making reference to the Tina Turner's version of the song Proud Mary, originally by John Fogerty of Credence Clearwater Revival, in which she sings similar lyrics.
Servo is (almost) singing the chorus of Charlie Daniel's song 'South's Gonna Do It Again', which sounds something like the song on the radio.
'Something touched me deep inside, The day the music died.' are lyrics from Don Mclean's 'American Pie'.
Antrhax is a band that was formed in the early 80's who helped define the sub-genre of Trash Metal.
Small parody of the Weathergirls song "It's Raining Men".
Reference to previous episode, #0705: Escape 2000, where the authorities continually prod the citizens of the Bronx to vacate.
Mark Hamill is an actor, best known for his role as Luke in Star Wars. Falling Down is a movie in which a man becomes frustrated with the minutia of modern life and begins lashing out violently. Mark Hamill does not actually appear in it.
Weekly World News is a tabloid that focuses on weird, ridiculous stories, including those of bat boy, a half human, half bat. The character in this scene resembles a famous front cover of WWN showing bat boy with a screaming face.
Halls are a brand of throat drops that work by means of 'vapor action.' Their commercials usually feature colored wavy lines representing the 'vapor action'.
"Shichinin no Samurai" (Seven Samurai) is a classic 1954 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. Like many reviewers, Leonard Maltin gave the movie a perfect rating (four stars out of four).
End Segment
Ivory, a brand of bar soap produced by Procter & Gamble, has been advertised as being "99-44/100% pure."
Stinger