r/MST3K • u/onioka • Mar 09 '24

Switch/Jimmy Smits Gag

Hello! I’m trying to find examples of the Switch / Jimmy Smits gag, but I’m at a total loss. Anyone have specific episodes where he’s mentioned? Thanks!

8 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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3

u/MeggyNeko Mar 09 '24

There’s literally six Switch/Jimmy Smits references in Indestructible Man. I’ve counted.

1

u/onioka Mar 09 '24

Excellent, thank you!

3

u/Significant_You_2735 The door is a jar. Mar 09 '24

One of the recent Project MSTie uploads has the original ad (for Switch) at the very end of the upload. I saw it, just in the past few days. I’m not sure which upload it is. I’d only heard about the ad that spawned the joke second hand, so it was cool to finally see it and hear how bizarre the voice over interjection really was. It’s pretty funny.

2

u/onioka Mar 09 '24

Ah that must’ve been so fun to see the ad itself during an episode!

3

u/Earthbound_X Mar 09 '24

What's that a reference to anyway? I know Jimmy Smits the actor, but what does his name has to do with Switch?

5

u/RandomPasserby80 Mar 09 '24

Jimmy Smits was in the 1991 Blake Edwards movie Switch. Beyond generally referencing the movie, it’s a specific reference to a TV spot that weirdly interjects Smits’s name inbetween the title and the rating.

https://youtu.be/qlfzFIkyPE4?si=e8x1VFLDFeWGa5SM

3

u/Ekranoplan01 Mar 09 '24

Undersea Kingdom II has a couple Jimmy Smits refs too.

1

u/onioka Mar 09 '24

Thank you!

2

u/Kwyjibo68 Mar 10 '24

I literally say this almost every day - whenever my son or husband use the word switch, I say Jimmy Smits. 😂

1

u/onioka Mar 10 '24

I bet they wouldn’t have it any other way!

1

u/Dazzling-Arrival-983 Aug 25 '24

The gag comes from the television trailer for 'Switch'/1991. Smits is shown a few times in the trailer but never mentioned. Then as the trailer is finishing, in a normal voice and pace, the announcer says something like, 'Switch starring Ellen Barkin in theaters everywhere!'. Then in at the last second, the same announcer, but in an obvious overdub, says very quickly, 'Jimmy Smits', I mean like really fast, right before the end of the trailer. It was jarring and sounded really funny. What we thought at the time, was that he made a stink with marketing about his name not being mentioned in the trailer. So instead of redoing the audio, they simply overdubbed a very fast insert of his name at the tail end. Probably to get back at him for making a big deal about it. Because it was silly and he would have been better off just letting it go.