The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thread

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

I consider "Night of the Blood Beast", along with the short "Once Upon a Honeymoon", the finest thing the show ever did, narrowly beating out the likes of Manos, Werewolf, Prince of Space and Horror of Party Beach. I watched my tape of that episode until it was falling apart as a kid. I can quote it from memory but it still makes me laugh every time I watch it.

"This was back when NASA was family owned and operated"
"Honey, your cocaine is all over the phone"
"We've never shot a man into space before" / "With so little food, and no air!"
"I wish Hardware Hank hadn't done my kitchen"
"This is a stupid space program. I'm going to go work in my uncle's space program"
"We thought you were dead" / "And frankly we're getting pretty used to the idea"

I could keep going all night.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

"It's a Very Special Joe Don Baker Christmas."

And that's all I need to type for you guys to fill in the rest.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

I have all of MST3K on DVD and own pretty much all of the available VOD Rifftrax movies and shorts. Many of the MP3 audio-only riffs.

Love these guys.

And for those who may not know, Mystery Science Theater 3000 returns to Comedy Central tonight!

Well... sort of.

Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett will be the guests on the show @midnight tonight. If you've not watched it before the show is a "game show" with the guests making jokes centered around internet topics of the day, including humorous hash-tags and naming popular viral videos.

Should be a hoot!

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

I just watched it! It was a pretty funny show and Kevin was the brightest star of the three this evening. The guys still have the chops, that much is clear.

Mike looks a lot older these days, but that Mike Nelson smile and sense of humor never change. It's always a treat to see them joking around on a television screen and they bring back great memories of MST3K.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

It was a fun episode, and as funny as Kevin was, Bill won the Internet!!

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Trace Beaulieu will always be my favorite voice of Crow, but Bill Corbett was no slouch in the role. Some fans don't have very flattering things to say about his time on the show but I thought he was very funny snd brought more of an unhinged and smartass personality to Crow.

Bill's a hilarious and talented guy.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Agreed, I like Bill quite a bit and actually prefer his Crow over Trace's. He did bring an "edge" to crow that was very enjoyable.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Bill's Crow always seemed like he was an inch away from bitch-smacking Mike and Tom Servo, and just for the heck of it.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Sweet! A thread I can really get into!

My introduction to the series? Gosh, I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday. A bit more seriously, I probably first heard of the series when I attended some Atlanta based sf conventions during the 90s. Though I had cable (since 1977), my provider did not offer Comedy Central. Actually, it did, but only a few select hours during the week, sharing time with another cable network. I am confident CC did not have "control" when MST3K aired because I never saw it listed.

I did finally catch a few minutes of a Joel era episode when I visited a cousin in a neighboring town. Her provider offered a dedicated channel to Comedy Central. I "think" it was the one with Miles O'Keefe, "Cave Dwellers" was it? But I caught only a couple of minutes since my cousin wanted to go shopping and insisted I come along.

Okay, I'll admit it was not quite what I expected. Photos I had seen at cons usually depicted the "host segments" so I expected more of that, kind of a "saucy" puppet show. I also mistakenly assumed that the film footage would be totally dubbed with new, absurd dialogue, similar to Woody allen's "What's Up, Tiger lily?" or "Mad Movies with the LA Connection".

Jump forward to 1996. Visiting the video rental store, I saw a copy of "Mystery Science Theater: the Movie". Okay, I can finally see what had all the fans talking. Years later, I would read comments by fans pointing out how this was (debatably) a "watered down" effort compared the the televised episodes, how the "love theme" was dropped, etc. But having seen no episodes with which to compare, I found this screamingly funny. The moment that had me doubling over, almost literally falling from the couch was when Cal notes the number of parts needed for the Interositor (maybe 9,347...I can't remember)and how no piece could be replaced. Cue one of the riffers, *CRUNCH* "Uh, make that 9,346, sir!" then another "crunch" and the voice states "9,345..." Then, yet another "crunch". I don't know. It was the perfect riff at the perfect time and it made me a believer! I took the tape to a friend's house and that "schtick" had me laughing again, if anything, even harder as I was enjoying it with friends.

Let's leap one more year, to 1997. The Sci-Fi Channel, which my cable company finally offered only a year earlier, started playing promos featuring Mike and the 'Bots announcing they would soon appear. What? I'd finally get to see real episodes?! No way! A week before the official debut, SFC aired some lesser remembered Roger corman flick and fans who logged into the officila site for the channel "The Dominion" could use features to post "riffs" that woul appear during the broadcast. Again, I can't be certain, but given the broadcast was subject to FCC regulations, I feel certain the "riffs" were screened before displaying them. This of course, made the zingers miss their intended shots and/or dialogue. but it was an intriguing interactive experience.

Then, next week, the actual debut. But I'll have to save my "reflections" for another post as my lunch break is finished. I'll try to follow up this evening when I return home.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

I was fortunate enough to discover it during Season 1, back when The Comedy Channel was devoting 50% of its weekend time to the show. (Golden Age of Cable, right there.) Loved those early episodes like "The Crawling Hand" and "Untamed Youth."

Untamed Youth character with oddly-shaped head: "I'm not interested in what's fair!"
Tom Servo: "I'm only interested in stuff that makes my head look bigger."

Flash forward to the Season 2 premiere, "Rocketship X-M," which was already a cheesy movie favorite of mine. I didn't take to TV's Frank immediately, but soon came to appreciate him more than Larry. Lots of highlights in Season 2, including "Jungle Goddess," the Gamera stuff, and those biker films "The Side Hackers" and "Wild Rebels." It was a wonderful moment when they did their first full-blown musical number at the end of Side Hackers, "Only Love Pads the Film." That's Mike Nelson's influence asserting itself.

I love Mike, but have a slight preference for Joel as host. I thought the SciFi Channel episodes had lost their edge a bit... never cared for the Pearl character, though Bobo and Brain Guy were a lot of fun.

For some reason that I can't identify, the episode that makes me laugh the most is "Danger!! Death Ray" from Season 6. Bart Fargo Bart Fargo Bart Fargo Bart Fargo Bart Fargo Bart Fargo Bart Fargo!

MST3K. One of the reasons it's never been as cool as the Nineties.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

As you can tell from my name and avatar, I'm a big fan of MST3K.

I first discovered it on the UK Sci-Fi channel, around 1997 I think. I was having a lazy day getting high and watching TV with a mate (ah, college days) and the Space Mutiny episode came on. We were in absolute tears all the way through. It was right up our street, as we were huge fans of science fiction, horror and B-movies already, and we liked to "riff" on some of the crappier ones ourselves (although we just called it "taking the piss").

From that point on we checked the listings every week to see when episodes were on, and watched as much as we could. Unfortunately it was only a year or so after that Sci-Fi stopped showing it. Being students, we were too skint to purchase the few episodes that had been legally released on DVD/VHS over here at that time, and no-one else was airing the episodes, and thus our regular viewing of MST3K came to an abrupt halt.

It wasn't until around 2005, when I became a member of the torrent site Demonoid that I managed to get reaquainted with the show. A user on there had put together a mega torrent, which included some TV/VHS rips of the original KTMA episodes, as well as every other available episode. It took me about a week to download the whole thing, and after that I started working my way through all of them.

Since then, I've told anyone who will listen about the show, got a few friends into it by forcing them to watch episodes (much like Dr Forrester himself, hehe), and I've emailed SyFy UK a number of times asking them about the possiblity of them airing any reruns, but I always get the same "Thanks for your interest, but we have no plans..." response back, which is a shame. I think there is a whole new generation of SyFy viewers out there who would get a kick out of it.

I have enjoyed a lot of the Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic offerings, but I don't think they really match up to the best of MST3K, but then what does?

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

My first memorable MST3K music moment, and still one of my all-time favorites:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4QQY3in8CQ[/yt]

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Oh, you're right, earlier in the same episode as Only Love Pads the Film! Yep, that was and remains comedically epic.

Before The Side Hackers, I don't think they had done songs on any larger scale than Joel blowing blues riffs on his harmonica and reciting "I'm a Hu-Man."

There was also the square-dance call:

"Well, you grab J.C. and you swing him around,
Put him on the sidehack and throw him down.
Sidehack.
Well, you lean way down till you scrape your ass
And fill your butt full of prairie grass.
Sidehack."

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Fun fact: The psychotic bad guy J.C. in The Side Hackers was played by character actor Michael Pataki, who was also seen in three episodes of the Trek franchise (Korax the Klingon in "The Trouble With Tribbles (TOS)," Karnas in "Too Short a Season (TNG)" and in stock footage from the original 1967 episode in "Trials and Tribbleations (DS9)").

His own flesh he didn't love better!!!

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

I'm a big Pataki-spotter. First encountered him as "Count Malachi" in the Pinky Tuscadero demolition derby on Happy Days.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Rest in Peace, Sir Christopher Lee.

Lee was the star of arguably one of the worst and most painful movies ever riffed on MST3K, and while the film is very, very bad I think we should probably rewatch it again in his honor and have some laughs remembering the man and the legend.

Because let's face it: he's the best thing about that movie (and one of the only good things about it).

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zavop_wpgjY[/yt]

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

You are quite right. That's the first one I remember being absolutely painful to watch, so awful Joel and the Bots couldn't even make it bearable. They started out all peppy, singing their Satellite of Love march, and at the end they were shattered. Christopher Lee was indeed the only good thing about it. How did anyone get him to do that awful film?

(A qualification: Actually, I found "Catalina Caper" pretty unenjoyable before that, but that was a different phenomenon because the movie itself was trying to be funny and failing dismally, which made high-quality riffing impracticable.)

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Joel and the guys like to say in interviews and public appearances that the best and easiest movies to riff were the ones that tried to take themselves seriously (or too seriously) and failed miserably, whereas the tongue-in-cheek, bad comedies weren't as easy to take pokes at. They did a lot of the work themselves.

Village of the Giants with Beau Bridges is one such film. A hilarious riff, but the movie is so goofy and over-the-top to begin with that Mike and the 'Bots didn't have to put forth as much effort to make it funnier.

 

A word about Josh Weinstein

I liked Josh Weinstein's sense of humor as Tom Servo, but he seemed to dominate the riffing quite a bit.

My understanding of why he left the show was that he didn't like doing the rehearsals. Back at KTMA they used to riff the movies cold, and Josh was good with that spontaneous humor, but in the big leagues the multiple rehearsals plus having to work on building the sets got to him. I guess that amounts to "he was lazy." He seemed considerably younger than the other Best Brains, and maybe he just had some immaturity showing there.

 

Re: The Official and Most Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thre

Josh's character never quite got the love that he probably deserved considering he was the first and original henchman for Dr. Forrester. Dr. Larry Erhardt was a funny character, but he didn't have the multiple layers and fantastic comic timing that TV's Frank and Frank Conniff brought to the show starting in its second season on national television.

Weinstein had some decent musical chops. His character wasn't as strong, funny or as interesting as TV's Frank but he had his moments.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB1BMpD1nMc[/yt]