Mr. B Natural (1956)

The Worst Film Ever

Sorry, this movie sucks

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a horrid 1950's marketing short for an instrument company, and to my knowledge cannot be found on its own on video today. But the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version can be found, so that's what I'm commenting on.IMHO, this is the funniest short ever covered by MST3k (Circus on Ice would be second). First, it's a Joel episode, and I always found those best. Second, this short is so psychotic that it provides almost limitless riffing possibilities. I wonder how many other jokes they came up with that just had to be thrown out because they couldn't fit them in. Let's hope Joel gives Mr. B another good going over with his new show, Cinematic Titanic. He did it for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.I was fortunate in that I recorded all the MST3k episodes shown on Comedy Central. I've been converting the tapes over to DVD and came across this episode today while doing so. I'd seen it many times in the 1990's, but found it has lost none of its impact. Drop dead funny!I've got too many favorite lines to list them all, so I'll just keep it short and leave you with this-Mr. B Natural: You've got to inspect your horn, boy.... Crow: ....And wash it every day.

This 20 minute short tries to show you the beauty of music and how you can express feelings with various instruments. That sounds like a nice premise, but the direction and characters disfigured the plot to the point of being unrecognizable. Mr. B Natural is as inane of a name as the character is. This person is a woman, but she's called a 'mister'. Is she a transvette then? Nobody will know what influenced the creation of this name. The story is about a nerdy college boy who wants to be accepted by his friends, and apparently takes a lot of drugs because when at home one day he hallucinates that he is talking to a woman dressed in a peter-pan esque outfit who is obsessed with all kinds of music. She/he is the most mentally disfunctional freak I've ever seen, prancing around like a moron in the most randomly generated dance routines. Her/his voice is also high pitched, to the point where Joel and the bots cringe when they see her in the screen. I think the director tried to make her seem like a perky, happy person who motivates the kid, but it is horribly overdone and turns her/him into a nightmare which can only exist as a bad hallucination. Imagine a woman whose eyes are wide open all the time, who always has a grin that stretches across her face and talks in a screechy voice about happy things, while dancing around maniacally. There you go.SPOILERS up ahead, tho you can predict the whole movie by just reading the summaryB natural 'motivates' Buzz, the kid, to take up a musical hobby and after a few days of mistake-free practice, he turns into an expert in the trumpet but the tunes he plays sound stupid anyway (as joel and the bots would agree). As you would expect there is terrible acting and so on. Mr. B Natural is very painful to watch and would be more effective as a device to use in threats and torture. However, watch this with MST3K and I guarantee it will turn this short from musical-gone-wrong into excellent comedy. To quote tom servo during one of the dancing scenes, "See Buzz? its really fun to be psychotic!"

This short was made the same year I was born, and when my music teacher in elementary school showed it to me, I didn't rush out and get an instrument. I went home, locked the window and checked under the bed for women who dress like Peter Pan and pass themselves off as guys. Actually, Betty Luster is sort of attractive in her own way, but she should have stuck to singing on variety shows. As Mr(s). B. Natural, she is so sickingly sweet, jovial and spirited that even Marcia Brady would have slapped her. The production staff must have been laughing under their breaths as she is forced to keep a painful, perpetual smile and jump around like Tinkerbell on acid. If this had been a movie, gawdforbid, I think she really would have ended her visit with sucking the lifeforce out of the boy and moving on to the next one.

This is by far the most disturbing short film I have ever seen. Mr. B Natural is supposed to be man, yet is played by a spritely, spirited, yet very annoying woman. She visits young Buzz and introduces him to the 'joy of playing music'. You will This is however, the greatest short ever shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I'm not saying that the short it self is higher quality than the others, but it is the funniest one with the heckling from Joel and the bots. The are just as frightened by Mr. B, whom Joel says is 'hot' when she/he/it is draped across a chair in a semi-sexual pose. They make the greatest want to take a long shower after viewing because it makes you feel so ill and dirty. jokes towards Mr. B. When Buzz asks where Mr. B comes from Tom Servo quickly inserts "Bellvue", which is a famous mental hospital. To sum up, do not watch for any reason unless you are watching the MST3K version. Ewww!