Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie: The oral history

April 19, 2021 7:59 AM

"Looking beyond the narrative of creative difficulties and studio interference, the story of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is also one of resilience, creativity, dedication, and, of course, humor. To celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary, several of those involved in the creation of this beloved TV-show-turned-movie were interviewed—Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu, Jim Mallon, Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl, Frank Conniff, and Joel Hodgson—and current host Jonah Ray also discussed the film’s legacy and influence." -- Adam Carston @ AVClub
posted by valkane (56 comments total)

Everyone! Activate your interociters!

MST3K the Movie is an odd thing. Not as long as the typical episode, and because of cuts not even as long as the movie they're riffing, it's still a strong showing relative to the rest of the show. I'm kind of surprised they got Mallon to talk in this, I figured he was more or less done with matters mysteriously scientific and theatrical. Make sure to watch the clip of the deleted host segments!

Might I take this moment to tell people that there is another Kickstarter going, for a 13th season of the show, with them deciding to steer clear this time of relying on eager-to-cancel streaming services like Netflix, opting instead for their own virtual streaming site and apps, called the Gizmoplex! It's progressing to completion even faster than it did the first time, with it looking like a strong chance to make all its goals within its remaining 18 days. I am very interested to see how that turns out.
posted by JHarris at 8:51 AM on April 19, 2021 [15 favorites]

The movie was my introduction to MST3K. Our cable system either didn't carry Comedy central or we just didn't subscribe to the right package, and being super early internet I had no way of learning of the shows existence until the movie came out and was showing at the little arthouse cinema that my dad worked part time at (and later I would go on to work part time at though HS and College). The basic description of "people make fun of bad movie" and the price of free got me and a HS friend to go and we cracked up and saw it a few more times over its run and made me aware of the show an the back catalog of episodes.
posted by Captain_Science at 9:02 AM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Might I take this moment to tell people that there is another Kickstarter going, for a 13th season of the show, with them deciding to steer clear this time of relying on eager-to-cancel streaming services like Netflix, opting instead for their own virtual streaming site and apps, called the Gizmoplex! It's progressing to completion even faster than it did the first time, with it looking like a strong chance to make all its goals within its remaining 18 days. I am very interested to see how that turns out.

Already on board and pledged money to the cause.

As for the movie, yeah, it's an odd duck, but an enjoyable one. Given the recent discussion here on the Blue about "The Swarm", it would have been more epic if the movie subject had been, well, more epic (and epically bad) as an Irwin Allen film.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

My sister tells me MST3K played on one of the 12 channels our tv got at the time, but I don't remember seeing it until I got to university and met people who had episodes on tape (pretty sure the first one I ever watched was The Amazing Colossal Man). Which is too bad because my best friends and I spent most of high school sitting in various basement living rooms, watching bad movies and gradually working our way to the point where we understood they were bad and why they were bad, and developing our critical distance, shared jokes, etc....so basically, just like MST3K, only not nearly as funny, of course.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:11 AM on April 19, 2021

Even though I think I had already seen a few episodes on television, watching a vhs copy of The Movie someone snuck into school was what I remember the most if only for the moment of terror when a librarian passed by the room, noticed we were watching something on a media cart, and then, instead of narcing on us said "You're watching the show where the little people in the television make fun of the movies, aren't you?" before smiling and wandering off.

It's a decent introduction to MST3k. This Island Earth is just barely good enough that it's engaging in it's own right (there are some real stinkers that even the riffing can't save) and the host segments do a good job of getting the core concept across without being too much inside baseball.

One thing I also remember is that I saw The Movie shortly after seeing 2001 for the first time, and that opening which dwells on Mike wordlessly running around and randomly punching the air on what's eventually revealed to be a giant hamster wheel before he stops and takes a drink from that oversized hamster bottle was absolutely pitch perfect.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

Is this a reasonable place to go to find the... real situation of what happened to this whole thing? I watched religiously, recorded religiously, went to college with likely a dozen full VHS tapes of Joel and maybe some Mike at that point? Attended a Star Trek convention where Trace tried to hand an entire television to an excited fan after a heartfelt compliment. Call me an enthusiast.

But at some point everybody became either suspect (was it Mike who turned out to be an outspoken anti-choice guy? Someone else?) or reportedly unwilling to work with everyone else and I lost track.

I've seen accounts but never had the heart to go suss out the facts from the fandom and honestly don't trust the sources I've been able to find.

Any suggestions for an unbiased who won't work with whom and why timeline? I think it is not this, regardless of how interesting I may find it.
posted by abulafa at 9:41 AM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

I can't speak to Mike Nelson being outspokenly anti-choice...he is a conservative, I know that much, but otherwise I haven't heard. In terms of who won't work with each other, I think Joel is on pretty bad terms with Jim Mallon, but other than that, I think they all get along fine. But some of them are running RiffTrax and the Mads have their own thing and Joel is the sole owner of MST3K now, as far as I know, so they're all just...working in separate groups now? They have made public appearances together, so it's not like there's hostility (apart from the Hodgson/Mallon thing)...they just don't all work in the same place.
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:58 AM on April 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

This movie has one of my favorite riffs: "Give Uncle Scrotor a hug!"

Mike's a Republican and a Christian, and he's said stuff that's not cool. But he doesn't make a habit of saying it. He is (or at least has been) close friends of Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, who are outspoken left, and they work together on Rifftrax to this day. I try not to learn extra stuff about Mike's beliefs because everyone likes him and frankly, to me, he is the funniest. He's the most erudite and has the best delivery. But that's a very narrow scrape on a very high bar.

Jim "broke up" with the cast in the late '90s or early '00s. There's bad blood there. I'm not sure exactly why.

Joel, I think, was not really interested in MST3k anymore for a while after he left. He didn't want that to be his life, which was fair. But now he's back, and that's great too.

I cannot believe the Beatles rightsholders tried to shake them down for six figures over a joke. Preposterously fair use. (I don't think they have had anything to do with the actual Beatles for decades, but even so.)
posted by Countess Elena at 10:01 AM on April 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

Frank Conniff seems to be pretty lefty, too, from the occasional tweets that cross my timeline.

(Not really MST-related, but somewhat unexpectedly, Andy Richter has turned out to be one of the most outspoken resistance people among TV comics. I've enjoyed the various Conan shows over the years, but if you told me ten years ago I'd be following his twitter...)
posted by praemunire at 10:13 AM on April 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

But at some point everybody became either suspect (was it Mike who turned out to be an outspoken anti-choice guy? Someone else?) or reportedly unwilling to work with everyone else and I lost track.

I follow both Frank Conniff and Josh Weinstein on Twitter and I recall seeing some slightly bitter tweets made by both of them after the Netflix reboot was announced and it became clear the old cast wasn't going to be invited back as regular contributors.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:19 AM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Heh, I do the same thing about averting my eyes from Mike’s politics. I have real mixed feelings about the movie, because I was already a superfan when it came out, and you really feel the effort to make it entry level. I don’t think it really benefits from the bigger scale much, and I would much rather have the other half of season 7 that we missed out on.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

I may be wrong about this, but I don't think Nelson is a Republican of the Trump variety. Please don't correct me :(
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:30 AM on April 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

Maybe I'm the only one who would like to see Joel take another swing at his X-Box/TV-Wheel concept, done as a one-off for HBO lo these many years ago. I was so much older then.
posted by Flexagon at 10:48 AM on April 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

It is interesting, and vibes with other descriptions of what happened with the movie, that everyone involved thinks it was written and acted well, but ultimately the problem was with executive interference from Universal and Grammacy's nearly complete lack of interest in promoting it (part of the reason for which being they had Barb Wire debut at the same time, and they chose to pour all the resources they could into it to give it a good weekend before it sunk beneath the waves).

For the record, here is everyone's current work and attitudes. Keep in mind that all of these people wrote for the show at some point, probably for as long as they worked for it, so I've omitted that credit. Also, most of these fine folk have Twitter accounts, although I couldn't find all of them in a timely manner (I have linked the ones I could find below). A few little projects (like Mike's DVD commentaries, Jim Mallon's aborted attempt to revive MST as flash shorts, the cartoons Edward the Less and Max the Hero, Joel's prop work, etc.) have been omitted to keep a long list from being even longer:

• Joel Hodgson (creator, original host, current show runner and producer, creative whirlwind): Working on the Kickstarter mentioned above, also shepherded the revival (Seasons 11 and 12), running the original Kickstarter and brokering the deal with Netflix. After leaving over creative differences regarding the movie (that is the subject of this post), was largely responsible for reviving the show. Once made the "Gizmonic Antsite," a relic of the early web, the failed pilot TV Wheel, and the experimental short film Statical Planets. Helped create the short-lived MST followup Cinematic Titanic with several other former Brains. Joel has said that his brother Jim Hodgson is (somehow) even more creative than he is. Weirdest/coolest career details: with Jim, did props for the early web sci-fi comedy film Robot Bastard, and was the voice of Mayor Dewey on Steven Universe.
• Jim Mallon (original producer, original voice of G[omitted]): No longer involved in any capacity. For a long time sat on any revival attempts. Rarely does interviews. Seems to be the one person people who worked on the show may have animosity towards, largely because he kept the money from the show's amazingly long tail to himself. (These days, they get a cut from Shout Factory's sales, and Rifftrax sells MST episodes on their site as well.) Sold his rights to Shout Factory eventually. I hear he currently works as a councilor, of some sort, in Minnesota.
• Mike Nelson (second host, classic-era head writer, many bit parts during the classic Joel era, including Torgo and Jack Perkins): Currently with Rifftrax. Wrote Mind Over Matters and Death Rat. Created Film Crew with Kevin and Bill, which is a lot of fun but only got four episodes. One of the many classic Brains who tried to make a go of early web humor site TimmyBigHands. Has no current relationship with MST3K except for interviews like this and the occasional nod (like the 35th anniversary reunion show). Is known to have questionable politics (a fact that is the harshest buzz to most MST fans' mellow), and pals around with Doug TenNapel on a right-wing podcast out there somewhere. However, Kevin and Bill are friendly with him, and they're very solidly left, and his views don't come out in Rifftrax at all. I presume that means he's not a fascist or Trumpdroid. Form your own conclusions.
• Kevin Murphy (second and longest-serving voice of Tom Servo, Professor Bobo): Currently works with Mike on Rifftrax and is doing very well for himself. Wrote A Year At The Movies. Did review bits for NPR for a while.
• Bill Corbett (second Crow, Brain Guy): Like Kevin, works with Mike on RiffTrax. Is also a playwright. Weirdest/coolest career details: wrote the original screenplay for the movie that would become failed Eddie Murphy vehicle (har har) Meet Dave, and is a voice on Adult Swim animated comedy Tigtone!
• Trace Beaulieu (original Crow, Dr. Forrester): Wrote for America's Funniest Home Video for a while. Performed with Cinematic Titanic. Works with Frank Conniff as "The Mads," with a podcast and live shows (currently performing virtually).
• Frank Conniff (TV's Frank): I've heard him described as "a lion" of Twitter--he does have a very good feed. Performed on Cinematic Titanic. Has appeared here and there on shows and podcasts. Co-created Cartoon Dump with Jerry Beck (on which Joel sometimes appeared as well). Has amazing, encyclopedic pop cultural knowledge of old movies and TV shows. According to him, "I was fired from Sirius XM for being negative about Chris Christie[...]." At least he burnt that bridge for a good cause. Currently works with Trace as part of The Mads. Weird/cool career detail: was head writer on Invader Zim! He is very modest about that fact. Other cool detail: his father was a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist, who interviewed Nikita Khrushchev and appeared on panel game show Who Said That!
• Mary Jo Pehl (occasional Magic Voice, Pearl Forrester): Was part of Cinematic Titanic. Currently does RiffTrax with Bridget Nelson (their collaborations are highlights of the site's output).
• Bridget Nelson (occasional Magic Voice): Wife to Mike. Wrote for TimmyBigHands. Currently performing in Rifftrax with Mary Jo.
• Josh Weinstein (the original Tom Servo and Dr. Erhardt in his teens, now uses J. Elvis Weinstein professionally to avoid confusion with the Simpsons writer): Got a job writing for America's Funniest Home Videos. Wrote for and produced Freaks and Geeks, and was head writer for Later with Greg Kinnear. Performs standup, and has written material for a number of famous comedians.
• Paul Chaplin: the least-visible major Brain, he wrote for the show throughout but only ever appeared on-screen in bit parts (he played Pitch the devil). Is currently involved with MST3K's revival.
• Jonah Ray Rodrigues (current host Jonah Heston): oh, lots of stuff. Same goes for Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt (Really? Day and Oswalt are both on MST3K? I still can't quite believe it.)

Honorable mention: Mike Dodge, who sadly passed away some years ago, but played a couple of bit characters (including Bob Honcho on Film Crew) and was beloved by all.
posted by JHarris at 11:01 AM on April 19, 2021 [24 favorites]

A lot of the cuts came from this executive named Carr D’Angelo. If you look at the chainsaw that Crow holds in the movie, the name of that brand of chainsaw is Carr. That was done intentionally because he was the one that was cutting things. Ironically, he tried to get that prop when we sold all the props from the series.

I love digs that work their way into studio projects like this. Kind of like a Trent Reznor "eat your heart out, Steve" moment.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:04 AM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

BTW, I seem to make some version of the above comment every time there's a prominent MST post on the Blue. I kind of see it as my duty. Please forgive me for the text logjam, I will try not to clog up the rest of the thread with my strangely obsessive MST knowledge.
posted by JHarris at 11:05 AM on April 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

Another interesting career detail for Bill Corbett is that he played a role in the early-90's CD-ROM FMV game Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective.

Mike Nelson did appear on podcasts with Doug TenNapel, but recently stopped doing so, according to a recent statement. He does still appear on his own podcasts: 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back podcast with Rifftrax co-writer Conor Lastowka (Bridget appears some times as well), where they humorously dissect books that are not very good, and in a Christian podcast Like Trees Walking with his pastor Dave Berge.
posted by subocoyne at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Jim Mallon is, in fact, a therapist in Minnesota.
posted by holborne at 11:52 AM on April 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

As a supplement to JHarris' post:

Shout! TV's free streaming app has about 130 episodes of MST3K, 10 episodes of Rifftrax, all(?) 7 or so episodes of Cinematic Titanic, and all(?) 3-4 episodes of the Film Crew. There's also a dedicated 24/7 MST3K channel.

PlutoTV's free streaming app has a dedicated 24/7 MST3K channel and a dedicated 24/7 Rifftrax channel.

XumoTV's free streaming app has a dedicated 24/7 Rifftrax channel and about 100 episodes on demand (also free).

Finally, Amazon Prime usually has a handful of Rifftrax and MST3K episodes.

I think a few of the other free streaming apps also have a few MST3K episodes and/or the Shout!TV MST3K channel.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:03 PM on April 19, 2021 [6 favorites]

Every day we wake up and pray that Mike hasn't said anything about politics. I think his relative silence is probably a combination of being a bit more of a Bush II guy and being smart enough to know where his bread is buttered.
posted by Think_Long at 12:33 PM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

my best friends and I spent most of high school sitting in various basement living rooms, watching bad movies and gradually working our way to the point where we understood they were bad and why they were bad, and developing our critical distance, shared jokes, etc....so basically, just like MST3K, only not nearly as funny

Sounds like you successfully replicated MST3K season 0.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:34 PM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Long time fan - I am member 11338 of the fan club - someone who remembers the Comedy Channel days and watched the Turkey Day Marathons as they happened - but I gotta say that I am not supporting any more Kickstarting, and will, instead, clutch my circulated tapes and enjoy the days of old.

This is not to say that I will not support the cast - I enjoy The Mads, and wish they would come down here to St. Petersburg, Florida.
I love me some RiffTrax, and look forward to seeing their next Fathom Event, but the Jonah days are for a new generation that's just not me.

That whole season (and I paid $125 to bring it back) just was off and and rubbed me the wrong way.
To this day, I can't explain it, but I just won't watch it, nor any more new episodes.

Welp, that's all I got.
Time to get back to hollering at clouds.
posted by Bill Watches Movies Podcast at 12:43 PM on April 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

Oh, man, I haven't thought about Barb Wire in decades, apparently, but as soon as I read the words I remembered a fair amount of snarking about it on rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc back in the day. Memory is a weird thing.
posted by creepygirl at 12:45 PM on April 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'm kind of hoping the next season of MST3k has Emily (from the Covid-19 special and Turkey Day 2020) as the host.

Jonah's been great, but it might be nice to have a rotating test subject. Or maybe the mads have had an entire constellation of multiple Satellites of Love the whole time?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:47 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

I love Joel Robinson; I have mixed feelings about Joel Hodgson. And the new show is New Coke. No thanks. Still, good luck with the Kickstarter, everyone.

Oh, yeah. I like the MST3K movie just fine.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:20 PM on April 19, 2021

Really? Nobody's going to say "Then I ram my ovipositor down your throat, and lay my eggs in your chest! But I'm NOT an alien!"? What kind of discussion of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is this?
posted by dannyboybell at 2:21 PM on April 19, 2021 [12 favorites]

Or maybe the mads have had an entire constellation of multiple Satellites of Love the whole time?

There’s a moment in season 11’s “Carnival Magic” that strongly implies that Kinga is running multiple MST experiments and we only get to see Jonah’s run.
posted by Servo5678 at 2:23 PM on April 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

We tried to find a movie that Paramount had a license for. So it even got that far. I think we looked at When Worlds Collide, which would have been terrific but almost too good.

As a kid I loved This Island Earth. I remember being freaked out by the idea of inventing a light without a source (what?!) and grooved on the secret alien-backed super-science conspiracy.
posted by doctornemo at 2:25 PM on April 19, 2021

The original Mystery Science Theatre never made it as far as New Zealand, so my first exposure to this was my (at the time long-distance) girlfriend shipping me a copy of "I Accuse My Parents." It was funny, but not the best entry point to the whole concept. It wasn't until a couple of years later, when she finally got us a VHS of the movie, that I was hooked.

But I am not an alien.
posted by Paragon at 2:36 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

What kind of discussion of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is this?

That's an anagram for "direct to video!"
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:38 PM on April 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

I was in the audience at the Uptown for both the live version during the convention and for the premiere. I've never been in any single place filled with so much joyous, raucous love.

I too am a five-digit Fan Club member from way way back, and this article felt a bit like reconnecting with family from whom a pandemic has separated you. Thanks for the post, valkane!
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 2:53 PM on April 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

There was a point during the quarantine when we watched every single MST3k episode we could find on YouTube and discovered that there are more than a few episodes distributed between the Joel and Mike years where the riffing just doesn't work either because the source material and/or jokes are too cringey/offensive or because the movie just isn't interesting enough to follow along with.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:58 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

RonButNotStupid: I'm kind of hoping the next season of MST3k has Emily (from the Covid-19 special and Turkey Day 2020) as the host.

In this cast picture on the MST3K Kickstarter, there is a shadow denoting a “mystery cast member” that is vaguely Emily-shaped. My daughter and I are very excited at the prospect of more Emily.
posted by dr_dank at 4:02 PM on April 19, 2021

If you saw MST3K live, which I did, at the end of the live show Emily is implied to be taking Joel's place, though the live show featured Mega-Cynthia (sp), not Kinga.
posted by wittgenstein at 4:39 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Really? Nobody's going to say "Then I ram my ovipositor down your throat, and lay my eggs in your chest! But I'm NOT an alien!"? What kind of discussion of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is this?

(ahem) Nor-mal View! Nor-mal View! NOR-MAL VIEW! NOR-MAL VIIEEEWW!
posted by JHarris at 5:58 PM on April 19, 2021 [6 favorites]

Also, about getting Jim Mallon's current career wrong... One is always unsure how obsessive to be about a comment like this? Whether to Google up every fact before hitting the Submit button, when I'm already feeling self-conscious about spending so long with it? Most of it I could do from memory, but my memory has accumulated various errors over the years and the human brain doesn't even have parity checking. I'm glad when people can correct me when it turns out I am mistaken.
posted by JHarris at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2021

I'm glad when people can correct me when it turns out I am mistaken.

No, you aren't.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:09 PM on April 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

All I know is that I, too, was kidnapped by The Light FM after constructing the interociter.
posted by LD Feral at 7:42 PM on April 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

Possibly the only episode to air on Australian television, which made it my first. Which it good, because it's possibly the show's Least-Good Good Episode - the least-good episode that will still probably make a first-time viewer want to see more, which is important, because it maximizes the number of episodes that are better than it. (I suspect this may be MST3K's LGGE because - and I don't know if this is mentioned in the article - it's rumored that they reduced the number of jokes because test audiences laughed so much they missed a lot of jokes.)
posted by BiggerJ at 9:10 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Re: Jim Mallon - I was genuinely concerned during the first Kickstarter that because Mallon and sat on the franchise for so long and he'd played The Purple Robot Whose Name Metafilter Does Not Allow, they'd take mean-spirited revenge on him via that character. For example, a running gag where Kinga tortures an unseen and unheard offscreen victim, and in the season finale, she dumps the broken body of TPRWNMDNA in a trash bin labeled TRASH, which she then underlines - and double-underlines - with a marker (when asked by TVSoTVF, she says it's not so much a long story as a stupid one that makes her want to ultra-murder people who ask about it).

The thing is, I think they could actually pull off a mean-spirited joke about Netflix in Season 13... as long as they're self-aware about the mean-spiritedness and make it part of the joke.

CROW: Let's get those corporate jerks onscreen!
TOM: May they ever be verminous in appearance.
JONAH: Come on, guys, they're people, not mean caricatures. I'm sure they thought they had good reasons for doing what they did.
COMPANY PRESIDENT BOLUS: EHTHEHTHEHTHEHTHEHTHEHTHEHTHEHTHEHTHEH!
COMPANY VICE PRESIDENT HORSEFLOP: SNEHNEHSNEHSNEHSNEHNEHSNEHSNEHNEHSNEH!
posted by BiggerJ at 9:28 PM on April 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

Certainly more family friendly, yet no less discussion worthy, than the anal history of MST3K: The Movie.
posted by neon909 at 10:42 PM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

JHarris: do not be self-conscious, I am very appreciative of your thorough write-up!

Maybe it is time to introduce my brood to this thing that helped me survive much of high school and some of college. I almost mentioned turkey day marathons in my bona fides. And now I can't remember if I ever actually sent physical paper mail to sign up for the fan club.
posted by abulafa at 3:25 AM on April 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm glad when people can correct me when it turns out I am mistaken.

But wait, I wasn't correcting you, I was confirming what you'd said! You said you'd heard he was a counselor now, and I was confirming that yes, he's a therapist in Minnesota and here's the link. I apologize for coming across as obnoxious.
posted by holborne at 11:27 AM on April 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

One of my favorite memories is from when not-yet-Mrs.-Example and I went to Minnesota to attend ConventioCon ExpoFest-A-Rama 2: Electric Boogaloo (oh, and to meet her parents and tell her family we'd gotten engaged, but priorities).

The biggest event of the convention was a showing of The Movie, and as we all streamed out of the auditorium afterward, someone started it up and it spread to all of the hundreds of us: "Nor-mal view! Nor-mal VIEW! Norm-al VIEEEEEEWWWWWW!".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:26 PM on April 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

Is a counselor the same thing as a therapist though?

There is no force on earth as powerful as a bunch of serious MSTies in one place. At DragonCon every year (when it's not being done virtually because of disease and plague) they have a MST double feature. It does happen at the end of the convention, and pretty late too, when most people should rightfully be attending their final panels and parties, so it's only the most die-hard MSTies who stick around the whole time.

More often than not, one of those is me. I have won a total of three prizes at trivia at those events, including, Santa Claus (unriffed) on Blu-Ray and all of Season 11 on DVD. Winning answers: the villain in Deathstalker is Troxartus, and the song "Shine Your Love" is from Angels Revenge. I suspect that my presence is a source of annoyance for those who run it, but what am I supposed to do, just leave trivia prizes on the table?

I would like to attend a MST-focused convention some day, like the old ConventoCons. Somehow I doubt I'd find it so easy to win at trivia among that lot.
posted by JHarris at 8:30 PM on April 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

I grew up with MST3K on in the Comedy Central/SciFi Channel background, but the Movie was the only "episode" I saw multiple times, over and over, and . . . yeah, I know most of the riffs by heart, even though I haven't seen it in the last several years. It's a great intro to the series to get people hooked, and it has some excellent call and responses. The movie isn't too bad, and most of the humor comes from laughing that the broad 60s science fiction movie conventions of which it has in spades.

"Miss Interocitor!"
"Tang? I love Tang!"
". . . and why I have a picture of a burger on the wall."
"Did Doctor Seuss design their planet?"
"I fell on my keys!"
And a line I still say to my (MST3K-fan) partner: "Give Uncle Scrotor a hug!"

When I first watched it back in the 90s, I liked Mike's run more as I saw it more. When I started to go through the series again, I actually switched to being more Joel-friendly as his humor is more in my style now, but both are still great. Mitchell is one of my favorites.

The new series is great, and even if it's a bit uneven at first, it finds its (new) feet. S11E4 "Avalanche" is hilarious, and there's plenty of fun. Great acting and voice work by all the cast, and a few cameos by the old cast. I hope that we'll see more of them do host segments and even some riffing in the future. I threw down more for new Kickstarter not only because I want more episodes, but because the whole idea of a self-sustaining MST3K is in itself worthwhile. I hope some day, other shows or events will start to appear on the future Gizmoplex, like a traveling carnival that no longer is attached to a corporate brand, or an untethered SOL. It's a worthy dream, and seeing how many shows degenerate into corporate media, a needed one.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 5:22 AM on April 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

I couldn't agree more Lord Chancellor. Wouldn't it be grand if The Gizmoplex outlives the show, becoming its own whimsical force in the world of streaming services?
posted by JHarris at 2:42 PM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I love that having a movie go 'under the radar' apparently means having a budget the size of a postage stamp, getting line by line edits from the suits, and then having the resulting film buried in a shallow grave in the New Jersey pine barrens.
posted by StarkRoads at 12:39 AM on April 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

My first experience with Mystery Science Theater 3000 was getting a message on Prodigy by someone cold-emailing every Minnesotan account they could find and asking if we happened to have VHSes lying around of the KTMA episodes. (We did not)
posted by ckape at 12:03 PM on April 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

RonButNotStupid: I'm kind of hoping the next season of MST3k has Emily (from the Covid-19 special and Turkey Day 2020) as the host.

and to dr_dank and wittgenstein, Joel confirmed in an update just now that new MST will have more than one host, and in addition to Jonah we'll also have Emily riffing in Season 13!
posted by JHarris at 3:21 PM on April 22, 2021

(having read a little further) and she'll be riffing from elsewhere, with her own Tom, Crow and GPC! Jonah's bots will be Hampton and Baron, and Emily's will be the bot voices from the live show. They'll be taking turns riffing movies this season, it turns out!

I wonder if this also means we'll see Joel riffing once in a while, with the bot voices from that short he did recently, old school bot voices J. Elvis Weinstein and Bill Corbett?
posted by JHarris at 3:25 PM on April 22, 2021

As the email that just went out confirmed, if it meets it's 4.4 M goal, Joel will riff an episode, and if it hits 5.5 M, he'll riff two new episodes. He also confirmed that he reached out to all the old MST3K alum to come back either for a bit part or a whole episodes, but cautioned that most of the old alum have their own projects going on and as much fun as it is to think about getting the band back together, there's nothing wrong with folks wanting to go their own ways. For what it's worth, I do hope that some of them come back to do an episode or two, or if they can get the Gizmoplex to simply host an episode or so of their own shows.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 4:31 AM on April 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Both MST and Rifftrax do not lack for alternate ways to enjoy their material, between paid streaming services, Pluto tv, Twitch and YouTube. I hope this one allows the neoBrains to keep more of that sweet internet video dollar.
posted by JHarris at 1:07 PM on April 26, 2021

They just posted a large update about the vision of the Gizmoplex and how it's different from a standard streaming service. Good Q&A with it, too.

Part that they mention though is:

Plus, we're hoping to make the Gizmoplex a one-stop shop for all of your riffing needs, so we're also in talks to offer content from RiffTrax, Cinematic Titanic, Film Crew and more.

So, it sounds like they are trying to make it more than just the place for MST3K online. I'm very excited.

Also, throw in a few bucks if you haven't!
posted by Lord Chancellor at 6:06 AM on May 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm still a little confused by the notion of having a paid gizmoplex pass (to access live events and community features) but you still need to pay to rent the new features as they drop just like someone with the free pass? I certainly don't mind paying for individual eps given the amount of free content I've consumed over the years, it just feels like a curious and possibly unnecessarily complex structure to me. Joel is a 'dream big' guy tho so this is all subject to change.
posted by Think_Long at 6:37 AM on May 4, 2021

Of course. From what I understand:
- The primary purpose of the Gizmoplex that makes it unique from say Netflix will be the live events and private watch party hosting. If you have a pass, you'll be able to watch any live events such as new episode drops.
- That being said, it still will work also as a streaming service/video counter. All of Season 11/12 (and 13) will be available to anyone that has has a Gizmoplex pass. They also might add classic episodes in a rotation that will be freely available to watch (this is murky and depends on right issues).
- You can also just buy/rent episodes and watch them whenever, even if you don't pay for the Gizmoplex pass. If you buy an episode, you watch it through the Gizmoplex, but it's yours and totally connected to the paid pass/live event things. If you buy Time Chasers, watch that Castleton guy at your leisure.

As you point out and Joel and Ivan confirm, it's a big idea, subjected to change, and also hard to wrap our heads around without seeing it in the flesh in a year from now. I'm pretty excited about the possibilities though.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 10:11 AM on May 4, 2021 [1 favorite]