The Official and Very Rifftastic Mystery Science Theater 3000 Thread

[Trekker4747]

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

Loved this show! Can't remember when I started watching it exactly but I would have been in my teens.

Always preferred Mike to Joel (although that may be partly to seeing the Mike-era episodes first)

I think there are some real gems in the Scifi Channel era:

From Giant Spider Invasion

Unpleasant Farmer and his alcoholic wife standing in a field with dead, mutilated cows.
Servo - "Were we supposed to be feeding the cattle?"

An establishing shot on the couple's run-down, decrepit-looking farmhouse
Mike - "Guess they saved a lot by buying the old Gein place"

Farmer take a geode full of diamonds to his cousin, the town jeweller
Jeweller (Examining the geode) - "It's not from round here..."
Crow - "So lets beat it up!"

Two scientists taking geiger readings out in a field startled by sudden shots
Scientist (panicked) "What was that?"
Servo (boldly) - "It was Toursim, Commerce and Industry coming together in beautiful Wisconsin!"

Easily one of my favourites. It also had the running gag of the "Packers win the Superbowl!!" and I think Mike was from Wisconsin so the Bots made several digs about that as well which were pretty funny.

There's a lot of great moments in The Giant Spider Invasion:

The NASA guy and his buddy are laughing over some joke.
Crow: "They met discussing hair-oils. They've been friends ever since!"

The lush house-wife is taking her pants off, getting read for bed, while sitting on it.
Mike: "No, that's the bed!"

The NASA guy is saying something to the sheriff:
"Sheriff if you can handle it I'd like to show you..."
Mike(?) "... my vasectomy scar."

Alan Hale's treatment is merciless:
"Alan Hale literally phoned in his role."
"Oh, don't act with your tongue, Alan."

Squirm has some funny moments, many in how they treat the "hero" of the movie, some puny ginger kid, they're also pretty cruel towards the cute, but very skinny, lead actress.

The actress is talking to her screen-mother about the male lead coming over to visit, the overly-Southern mother says, "I just don't want you to be disappointed when he doesn't come."
Crow (as the daughter): "Mom, that's private!"

The credits riffing during "Soultaker" as the bots chide Mike over his "support" for the movie's optimistic ending by panting an overly bleak ending for the couple (involving the guy totaling his car, getting a frying job, eventually a DUI and reduced to making grain liquor in his soul by running rubbing alcohol through toast.) Crow, "No wait, Mike might think that *was* the happy ending." Mike challenges some more and Crow counters that 'Oh, everything turns out great. With lolipops and unicorns" and stuff like that. And Mike challenges them on their black and white take on alternative endings. Lots of funny moments in the episode, especially everyone getting excited over a potential nude scene with an extended tease, but Crow has to momentarily leave the theater during it to get some eye drops.

At one point she's nude but facing away from the camera:
Servo: "You know if she turns around..."
Mike: "I know, I know. If that happens just don't tell Crow."

God, there's so much funny in this series.

"The Legend of Boggy Creek II" is also a very quotable one, many great riffs coming from the guys picking on a skinny, often shirtless, kid in the movie.

I forget what episode it is off-hand, but there's also a great one that plays homage to "Mirror, Mirror" from TOS where a space anomaly momentarily puts Frank and Dr. Forrester on the SoL with the bots and a mustached Mike in Deep 13. Servo and Gypsy play the Krik and Uhura roles being the only ones aware of the change.

 

[cooleddie74]

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

^
The "Mirror Universe" episode of MST3K was for the movie "The Last of the Wild Horses" in Season 6. It's never been one of my favorite episodes except for the hilarious Mirror Universe host segments and the concept of Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank being the ones doing the riffing inside the theater.

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

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

I clearly remember the first MST3K I saw. It was Project Moonbase.

Instantly hooked when Tom Servo responded to the "SPACOM" sign with "Spacom: Combination wood filler and meat substitute!"

 

[cooleddie74]

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

I think "The Side Hackers" (the second episode of Season 2 on The Comedy Channel) may have been my very first episode, but it's been almost a quarter of a century and my memories of the earliest episodes I saw is a little hazy. If "The Side Hackers" wasn't the very first one it was one of the first two I ever watched.

 

[Trekker4747]

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

^
The "Mirror Universe" episode of MST3K was for the movie "The Last of the Wild Horses" in Season 6. It's never been one of my favorite episodes except for the hilarious Mirror Universe host segments and the concept of Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank being the ones doing the riffing inside the theater.

Yeah, the Experiment isn't great, but the host segments are really the focal point.

 

[cooleddie74]

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

Sometimes the movie itself is mind-numbingly dull to watch, even with the best riffing they could write. The Invention Exchange and/or the host segments save the whole episode.

 

[Trekker4747]

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

"Hamlet" and "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" are two episodes/movies that stand out to me as being pretty much unwatchable because the movies are just utterly too terrible to suffer through no matter the riffing being provided.

 

[cooleddie74]

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

"Monster A Go-Go" is an excruciatingly terrible movie no matter how you watch it, but somehow the writing and the riffing rise above every awful thing about the film and it becomes one of the funniest episodes of the entire series. It contains some of the most entertaining host segments from that year of the show along with some of the best meltdowns and reactions from Joel and the 'Bots that I can think of with the possible exceptions of "The Castle of Fu Manchu" and "Mitchell."

 

[Trekker4747]

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

I actually on some level enjoy "Monster a Go-Go" and along similar lines the Mike counterpart (a 50s "B-Movie" centered around a monster that suffered through numerous production problems and incompetencies leading to some spit and tape to hold it together at the end) "The Creeping Terror." A movie where the soundtrack was apparently lost, or never fully created, during production so much of the movie is narrated and the monster is simply a bunch of people in a really sad, low-budget, parade float that eats people by having people crawl into its mouth.

A lot of funny jokes in the episode with M&TB speaking for the Narrator. "Sorry folks, I forgot about the sub-plot," "Oh, hi. I'm the narrator, I was just on break and got back."

Then some of the oddities in it like a housewife tending to a crying baby by talking soothingly too it while it cries in the crib. The mom says something like, "Poor baby, you'll feel better soon."

Mike: "How about picking him up or maybe feeding him?"

The mother then gets out a thermometer and shakes it a bit.

Mike (as the baby): "Wait, you're going to stick that where?!"

the mother makes an "insertion" motion and Mike, or maybe Servo, makes a "insertion" sound, movie cuts to the baby crying, Mike: "Wahhh. You're going to pay for this."

The mother gives some other soothing words and leaves the room.

Crow (I think): "Well, that's done, now I have the whole day to myself!"

Also lots of fun stuff during an impromptu dance scene that's either a mid-afternoon school dance, a really sad wedding reception, or an even sadder church dance. The same, repetitive, public-domain/cheap song plays over and over again as people "dance" and Mike and the guys crack up making various "white people dancing" jokes.

No meaningful audio, crappy creature effects, over-exposed film and really not much of a story. The only redeeming thing about is that I'm pretty sure we see a newlywed wife give her sheriff hubby a handy on-camera. Which, naturally, doesn't go unnoticed by the guys.

 

[cooleddie74]

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

Mike: "I was afraid the monster was going to be GOOFY!"

That remains one of the best moments of that entire episode, and it had a lot of great moments.

 

[Trekker4747]

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

"Earth girls are greasy."

(before the monster starts "walking" off again)

(As the monster) "Is everyone okay back there?"
(Muffled, as the victims) "Yes, thank you Mr. Monster."

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

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

I think "The Side Hackers" (the second episode of Season 2 on The Comedy Channel) may have been my very first episode, but it's been almost a quarter of a century and my memories of the earliest episodes I saw is a little hazy. If "The Side Hackers" wasn't the very first one it was one of the first two I ever watched.

"I may be soft, but I'm still... FAST!"

"Chili peppers burn my gut!"

 

[cooleddie74]

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

"MY OWN FLESH I DON'T LOVE BETTER!!!"

I wish I could use that phrase more often without people calling the cops.

 

[Trekker4747]

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

I may have to give Side Hackers another shot, whenever I tried watching it I get quickly bored and can't bring myself to finish, I liked "Wild Rebels" (the other motorcycle gang movie) much more.

One of the bikers speaks of the gang's woman who's getting/giving attention from our her... "protagonist."

"You're messing with private stock, man. Our lady here is like the Virgin Mary."
Crow: "Well, sorta."

I'm not entirely sure what my first episode was. It was the Summer of, I think 1992, when I'd often stay up very late at night watching TV, flipping channels, and I came across what looked like an interesting, old, movie and I was enjoying it but -like many on first viewing- was confused and annoyed by the silhouettes on the bottom, the talking over the movie, and the occasional breaks they'd take from the movie. Often I'd surf channels and pop back in on occasion.

It took a few more viewings to grasp the "concept" of what the show was doing and then I figured out what time the show came-on and began planning to watch entire episodes. I still wasn't feeling the host segments, but the theater stuff was just killer for me.

One of the earliest episodes I saw, that I can think of, was "Teenagers from Outerspace" which still makes me laugh to this day. There were times when I wouldn't watch the show when the subject movie didn't "grab" me, but I became a regular watcher.

Was upset when Joel left and it did take me a while to get back into the show and warm to Mike, now it's harder for me to watch Joel than it is Mike because Mike's style and humor grabs me more and the show felt a little less "kid-like" with Joel's humor and the letter reading.

Interestingly, that same summer I got interested in TNG and Trek.

 

[cooleddie74]

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

Mike as host was a significant adjustment at first and while I got used to his style by late in Season 5 and the start of Season 6 I still prefer Joel's drier, more subtle approach to some of the host segments and jokes. Mike is the better actor of the two, though, and does physical and costume humor better than anybody else in the history of the show.

It's hard to imagine Mike doing most of Joel's Invention Exchanges and sketches like "Clown in the Sky," just as it's very difficult to see Joel doing the Time Chasers segments about time travel, alternate timelines and Joel suddenly becoming his nasty, mean, heavy-drinking brother who replaces him aboard the Satellite of Love in the new continuity. Each brought their own inimitable and hilarious gifts to the series.

 

[galleywest]

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

I actually on some level enjoy "Monster a Go-Go" and along similar lines the Mike counterpart (a 50s "B-Movie" centered around a monster that suffered through numerous production problems and incompetencies leading to some spit and tape to hold it together at the end) "The Creeping Terror." A movie where the soundtrack was apparently lost, or never fully created, during production so much of the movie is narrated and the monster is simply a bunch of people in a really sad, low-budget, parade float that eats people by having people crawl into its mouth.

I forgot about the human phone ring in Monster A Go-Go!

Someone off camera: "Brrring!"
Joel and the Bots start laughing at the absurdity of it.
Man on camera picks up phone: "This is Pat Conners. Yes--"
Servo: "I made that phone noise."

 

[cooleddie74]

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

Narrator: "Suddenly, there was no trail. There was no monster. No thing called Douglas to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness."

Crow: "There was no dignity for anyone who worked on this film!!"

 

[HarryCanyon1982]

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

Big MST3K fan since i was 10 years old seeing it on Comedy Central and i taped every episode since then, got every DVD, saw the movie in theaters in junior high and had t-shirts and books.

 

[Trekker4747]

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

"12 to the Moon" is another good one, an early Mike episode with a great short (the earlier mentioned "Design for Dreaming" which spawned a series of host segments with Bridget (Mike's either then, or future wife) playing Nuvena -inspired by the woman in the short.) The movie isn't *too* bad, really. It does honestly try. There's a couple pieces of "future technology" the movie talks about that causes Mike and the bots to snicker or to call "no way."

There's a scene in the movie, remarkably consistent with real-world space navigation, where the rocket has to turn around in accelerate "towards the Earth" in order to slow down for the moon approach. The guys, incorrectly, riff on this. It's a remarkably accurate detail in such a movie, in fact in the Apollo 13 movie we see a maneuver "re-imagined" in order for it to make sense to the audience. It occurs when the crew has to adjust a trajectory bias in their path. In the movie it shows them accelerating towards the Earth, which would do nothing to correct their trajectory. In reality they had to accelerate perpendicular to their flight path to change their trajectory. But showing that would be confusing to the audience so they changed it for the sake of clarity.

Anyway, in the movie near the end two of the astronauts use an escape shuttle to detonate a volcano in order to thaw the Earth (don't ask.) During one of the "effects shots" you can clearly see the model's manipulation rod. Mike, "There was clearly a stick involved!"

There's a number of effects errors in the movie, including seeing some of the sound stage's frame work in wide-shots of the moon's surface.

The movie also is the first use of the "Muscle Man Names" used for the American commander of the mission. A joke that would be used again to a much greater, and notable, degree for David Ryder in "Space Mutiny."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

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

Has MST3K ever riffed on an actual big-budget blockbuster (or not) film? The rights issues would probably be off the scale but I wonder if they've ever done a film that actually had a wide release and was popular.