It was a sad day, seven years ago now, when Sci-Fi cancelled Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I was watching when Mike and the bots signed off for the last time, the credits rolled, and the haunting Love Theme From MST3K played.
Sniff.
What a great show that was. I and my college buddies had been doing the same thing in our living rooms for years (in fact, I can still annoy people riffing movies we’re watching on DVD), but this show did all the comedy work for you–so you don’t have to!
The show is too cool an idea to remain forever dormant, and it may someday make a return to the airwaves (or at least the coaxial cables).
And now the digital millennium has brought the show back! . . . almost.
In an age when TV show producers are producing podcast commentaries that you can download and listen to as you watch their shows, Mike Nelson and his pals got the idea of cutting out that expensive middleman–the TV network–and bringing their mstings straight to you!
The result is RiffTrax, a service where Mike–together with Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Sci-Fi’s Crow "I’m Different!" T. Robot)–produce mp3 riff-laden commentaries that you can download and watch along with the corresponding DVD (sold separately).
They even have a few DVDs that contain the riff-track ON the DVD, including a version of one of the most-requested movies that they never got around to doing on the show: Plan 9 From Outer Space! I know I’m going to get that one.
I’m pleased as punch to see these guys (a) bringing back their hilarious movie commentaries and (b) finding a way to make some money again after all these years, so
CHECK IT OUT.
(CHT: Catholic Whiteboy)
Don’t know what we’re talking about? Missed out on all the fun?
Incidentally, Mike Nelson is an Evangelical who has a special interest in apologetics. I’ve exchanged e-mail with him before, and he seems like a real nice guy. Some of the other regulars from the show, such as Kevin Murphy and Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester) were Catholic, and Christian and Catholic themes often showed up in the commentaries (along with other, less mentionable material on occasion, but you know what Ludwig Wittgenstein said about things we can’t talk about).
I loved MST3K. After it stopped, they did a hit-and-miss spoof of Lord of the Rings on Sci-Fi’s web page. It seems one of them wrote a book about the lameness of modern cinema-going, which sounds fairly uncontroverisal.
Great! My husband and I whiled more than a few Saturday mornings as newlyweds laughing along with MST3K. And every so often we run across a B-Movie we just can’t help wishing were subjected to Mike Nelson’s treatment!
Oh MST3K, how we need you to-day more than ever. You shall be missed, Joel, Mike, Tom, and Crooooooow!
One word: Yay!
“Teenagers from Outerspace” was one of my favourites, even better than “Mitchell!” BabyBro is still waiting for his favourite to come out on DVD: a James Bond rip-off starring Sean Connery’s son or brother or something.
I also loved MST3K.
I have also heard Mike Nelson on the Northern Alliance Radio show (which is hosted by various bloggers from Captains Quarters, Powerline, etc) a couple of times in the last year. He is just as funny live as he was on MST3K and it was nice to find out that he was a conservative.
Plan 9 from outer space is also in the Public Domain and can be legally downloaded from several sites very Bittorrent.
One question remains…Who was better, Mike or Joel?
The show was brilliant. Hugely good fun. Often thoughtful. If they dare to mist P9OS, “some things are sacred” I shall never forgive them.
“Who was better, Mike or Joel?”
Isn’t this rather like choosing a favorit Beatle? 😉
I’m a bit more of a Joel fan but by a very slim margin. Mike rocks, too.
“Who was better, Mike or Joel?”
I think I liked Mike better, but Joel got to do better movies. They were really scraping the bottom of the barrel when they switched over to Sci Fi Channel. A lot were not even worth making fun of. (See: “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies”)
Miss Jean, you’re referring to “Operation Double 007” starring Neal Connery (who was overdubbed with an American voice, no accent throughout the movie.)
I was introduced to MST3k in roughly 1992 or 93. We didn’t have cable, but a guy at Dad’s office started providing us with tapes (“keep circulating the tapes”) and we learned all about it. Then, a couple years later, a local TV station picked up the syndicated “Mystery Science Theater Hour,” in which Mike as Jack Perkins brought us 1 hour per week of early MST episodes starring Joel. Fast forward to 1997 when I went to college and had cable in the dorm. That was just when SF started running the episodes, and the earlier commenter is right – some of them were really bad. Some were great, though. Think Riding with Death and Time Chasers. And of course Professor Bobo’s infatuation with mayo-NAISSE!
I go back and forth on whether Joel or Mike was better. I respect Joel for pioneering the concept with Trace and Josh, and of course Jim Mallon. Without him there would be no gizmonic, and for that matter no robots. But, you have to remember that even though Mike came in after 4 seasons, he had been head writer since darn near the begginning. So from early first season on, Joel was essentially telling Mike’s jokes. Yes, Joel got better movies, but his delivery was nearly always so sleepy and mumbly that I really like Mike’s clarity, even though he plays the part of a big dumb guy a lot of the time.
Incidentally, there is a ton of MST3k stuff on YouTube. Or should we call it GooTube?
+J.M.J+
This is great news! Jim and I loved MST3K.
Trumpy, you can do stupid things!
In Jesu et Maria,
Chris, you rock! Thanks for giving me the correct title. I’ve been looking for it to give the BabyBro.
When the show finally ended, everyone thought it was sad but it had a very long run and so it was inevitable. To which I say: POPPYCOCK!
It is not about the ratings, folks. MST3K fulfills a necessary social function — defending us, the hapless viewer from the insidious personal violations we suffer from an uncaring and practically satanic film industry. What is really important is not how long the show ran but whether moviedom ever wised up to the fact that we hate about 90% of the product they make.
It is because of the absence of these valiant defenders of sanity that we still suffer lines like “Only a Sith thinks in absolutes!” (“Of that, I am absolutely certain!”)
Or what about the uber lame Matrix trilogy? Has anyone figured out that movie is just a slicker version of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank? Only Raul Julia could act circles around Keanu Reeves!
Oh how we have languished since their disappearance! The boar of the forest eats the fruit of our vine and no one will defend us!
I hope they have a riff track for the Da Vinci Code. If they do, I’ll be on that like crazy on Milingo!
*you know what Ludwig Wittgenstein said about things we can’t talk about).*
Well, I don’t. Would someone enlighten me?
Sorry, that was me.
“I hope they have a riff track for the Da Vinci Code.”
Hey, now they really can mystie newly-released Hollywood Craptaculars. Some of them are really begging for it.
Don’t you mean redivivus, not revividus?
Yet again, JAO points out an essential cultural touchstone that I had forgotten I had forgotten. You rock, Jimmy!
MST3K was also a Saturday morning ritual for my wife and I when we were newlyweds.
Or what about the uber lame Matrix trilogy? Has anyone figured out that movie is just a slicker version of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank?
Oh man you are right! I used to say it was a pathetic teenage-boys masturbatory fantasy film, but a slick version of OatMB is even better!
There was one time MST was in top form when they were ripping clips from Oscar nominees the year Titanic one. Brilliant stuff.
Scott
Scott, the good news is that OatMB contains a few teenage boys masturbatory references to boot.
“What’s the purple tag for?” “We’ll talk about that later” “Is it sexy?”
And of course when Fingal takes control of the computer and gets his office mate to head back to his apartment with him.
“It was eerie watching Fingal create his own reality around him.”
“Fingal, you are mine!” (to which Crow responds, “were we just yelled at by a pork roast?”)
Oh, they need to do DeLaurentis’ “DUNE” so bad…
Truly awful.
What De Laurentis film WOULDN’T be a great film to riff?
Too bad they are not still in character, though, I could really stand to see the bots’ take on the old animated Transformers the Movie. Is there any greater injustice in all moviedom than Optimus Prime dying because Judd Nelson was such a spazz? On top of that, he gets the Matrix of leadership when he should have been dragged across Cybertron by his transistors!
*you know what Ludwig Wittgenstein said about things we can’t talk about).*
Well, I don’t. Would someone enlighten me?
From Wikipedia:
As the last line in the book [Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus], proposition 7 has no supplementary propositions. It ends the book with a rather elegant and stirring proposition: “What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence.” (In German: “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.”) A very popular alternative translation is “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
+J.M.J+
Years ago, I caught the end of Last Temptation of Christ on the Bravo Channel (including the whole “temptation” sequence). I soon found myself spontaneously riffing it. That’s a movie that’s just screaming to be MiSTied, though I kinda doubt they’d do it.
In Jesu et Maria,
Thanks for the tip on this Jimmy! What a great show, glad they’ve decided to offer this. My favorite has to be the final Comedy Central episode (where would THAT channel be without MST3K?), Laserblast. Haven’t seen it on DVD yet, but I have almost all of the sets up to this point. I don’t think I’ve seen the final episode from SciFi.
Watch out for snakes!