Tag Archives: mst3k

Mar 09

In the not too distant future….

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Our local Hollywood Video is closing, and at the going-out-of-business sale yesterday I picked up three episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), and two episodes of The Film Crew; each of the pre-viewed DVDs was $3.99.

I think most of my regular readers are familiar with MST3K, but in case you aren’t, the quick explanation is that it was a comedy series which started on local Minneapolis TV before running for seven seasons on Comedy Central (beginning when it was The Comedy Channel) and then three seasons on SciFi (now SyFy). The meat and potatoes of the show is that each episode is built around a really, really bad movie. Three characters (a human being and two robots) are silhouetted against the bottom corner of the movie and make a constant stream of wisecracks about it, ranging from pop culture references to complaints about plot holes, slow pacing and what have you.

Since MST3K went off the air, two different groups of alumni have done MST3K-like projects. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot, during last three years at SciFi), have stayed in Minneapolis. They produced a few MST3K-like episodes as “The Film Crew” for the DVD label Shout! Factory. Now, they have a similar project called RiffTrax, which allows you to download their snarky commentary online and synch it up at home while watching the movie on a DVD which you have rented or purchased on your own. The genius of RiffTrax is that they no longer have to acquire the rights to the bad movies, which was always a problem for MST3K. They can make fun of recent, big-budget movies as well as older ones. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t actually watched a RiffTrax movie, however.

My North Carolina brother and sister-in-law are also fans and actually went to see a live simulcast of RiffTrax for their anniversary last year.

The other MST3K alumni project is the L.A.-based “Cinematic Titanic,” with MST3K’s creator and original host, Joel Hodgson, along with Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Clayton Forrester, and the voice of Crow during the Comedy Central years), “TV’s Frank” Conniff, Josh Elvis Weinstein (Dr. Larry Erhardt and the original voice of Tom Servo, before Murphy) and Mary Jo Pehl (Mrs. Forrester). They release direct-to-DVD movies given the MST3K treatment; all five of them are silhouetted against the screen in a multi-tiered arrangement meant to suggest the ballroom of the Titanic.

Neither group uses MST3K’s puppets or other characters. Technically, of course, Mike Nelson is using his MST3K character name, but that’s because it’s also his real name. (Joel Hodgson used the character name Joel Robinson when he was on MST3K.)

The two Film Crew episodes I purchased, neither of which I’d seen before, will therefore be the first new pseudo-MST3K I’ve seen in years. I watched one of them, based on the movie “Killers From Space” with Peter Graves, last night and tonight. My brother tells me that the other, “Hollywood After Dark,” is kind of depressing. (I assume he means that the source movie is kind of depressing; hopefully, the Film Crew treatment will leaven that, or what would be the point?)

Mar 16

Thanks to Centron

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MST3K Shorts

While looking for another video tape today, I found my old VHS copy of “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Shorts,” the first volume of short subjects from MST3K. Although the show’s meat and potatoes was making fun of full-length movies, sometimes they’d have time to work in a short subject, usually an educational film from the 1940s or 1950s — and the humor that Joel (or Mike) and the ‘bots use during these shorts was often darker than the full-length features. I love a scene in “The Home Economics Story” when the young female protagonist is wondering what college will be like. Joel or one of the ‘bots interjects, “….will I smoke thin black cigarettes and reject the triune God?” For some reason, that line always makes me laugh.

In addition to “The Home Economics Story,” the collection includes “A Date With Your Family,” “Junior Rodeo Daredevils,” “Chicken Of Tomorrow” and “Why Study Industrial Arts?”

“A Date With Your Family” is about how children should be polite to their parents at dinner. (“Emotions are for ethnic people,” interjects Crow T. Robot.)

Feb 11

Keep circulating the tapes

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Newscoma found this … a promo clip for one of a couple of similar projects from alumni of the late and lamented MST3K:

This project, Cinematic Titanic, features Joel Hodgson, the creator and original host, along with Trace Beaulieu, who played Dr. Forrester and was the original voice of Crow, and “TV’s Frank” Conniff. The second host of MST3K, Mike Nelson; the voice of Tom Servo, Kevin Murphy; and the second voice of Crow, Bill Corbett, have a similar project called The Film Crew.

What we all really want is new MST3K, but all of the participants say that various rights issues make that unlikely to ever happen.

Oct 04

Picky, picky, picky

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And now, your unnecessarily anal-retentive commercial review of the week.

The new Old Navy commercial drives me crazy. It promotes their women’s sweaters, and in the background there’s this song. Thanks to the Internet, I have discovered that this song is entitled “The Way I Am” and is sung by Ingrid Michaelson. I’m not familiar with Ingrid Michaelson, and so I don’t know if that’s actually her singing in the ad, or if the ad agency got someone else to cover the song. In any case, here are the most notable lyrics from the song as it’s used in the commercial:

If you are chilly, here take my sweater….
Cuz I love the way you call me baby.
And you take me the way I am.

OK, so, here’s my problem. Who is offering their sweater, and to whom? The woman we see on screen (and she is a beautiful woman, so I should probably just shut up and keep watching) is wearing what are clearly women’s sweaters. Speaking on behalf of men, I have to say that we would freeze to death in the Yukon before putting on one of these sweaters, even if it were offered to us by the woman in the Old Navy commercial.

But of course, how many couples do you know where the guy gets chilly and the gal offers him a sweater, Old Navy or otherwise? I’ll tell you how many: zero.

The other possibility, I suppose, is that the song is supposed to refer to one woman offering another woman a sweater because she loves the way the second woman calls her “baby.” If so, that doesn’t match up with the visuals, which clearly feature a man and a woman. (Although, in the visuals, no one offers their sweater to anyone.)

It’s at times like these, that I have to sing another song — a theme song — which contains these wise words:

“Repeat to yourself, ‘It’s just a show — I should really just relax.’”