MST3K Version 2.1

I’ve commented before on my generation, Generation Y. We are the late twenty-somethings to mid thirty-whatevers who grew up in the nineties. We spent our most formative years with Clinton in the White House, but not the one in the pants suit. Well, she was there but she mostly kept out of the headlines. She changed her hairstyle a lot. Most actors of the nineties did. The cast of Friends went through sixty five different haircuts, but I digress. Every generation has it’s cult followings. Not actual cults, mind you, like David Koresh’s in Waco (‘90s reference). I rather refer to obsessions with underground pop culture sources, often in the form of a movie. For some it’s Monty Python. Others like Rocky Horror Picture Show. Mine isn’t a movie, per se. It’s a television series that made fun of movies. Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a sarcastic and witty riffing session played over B movies. You know all those funny comments you think of when you watch a movie ? These guys got paid to say them.

MST3K went through many incarnations as cast members departed and were replaced, networks changed and the writers endeavored to reinvent the show. The basic story remained the same: a mad scientist forced an unsuspecting guy to watch bad movie after bad movie to monitor how this torture affected his mind. The hero was played first by show co-creator Joel Hodgson (his character was named ‘Joel’) and later by Mike Nelson (they called him ‘Mike’). Joel/Mike is trapped on a dog bone shaped space ship called The Satellite of Love, in a parked orbit over Earth. Joel/Mike only has the companionship of his homemade robots to preserve his sanity. The ‘Bots are made of parts of the ship (a.k.a. sports equipment, washer and dryer parts and a gumball machine). Gypsy, who looked like a robot pirana plant with a headlight for an eye, operated the Satellite of Love. Crow and Tom Servo assisted Joel/Mike in heckling. Every episode had a plot of some antic with the ’Bots, usually an escape attempt.

When movie time came, the Satellite rocked violently as klaxons blared and warning sirens wailed. The camera raced through a series of gates that counted down to the movie. Passing through the exotically themed doors leads to the darkened theater. Barely visible are the silhouettes of the front row of chairs. Joel/Mike makes his way to the front row from the right. He’s carrying one of the ‘Bots as the other made its way behind him. Now the show begins in earnest.

The B movies they watch would be unbearable without the commenting, but that’s the point. Heckling the screen, Joel/Mike, Crow and Tom Servo made scatological silliness and sarcastic needling a staple of their show. Complex wordplay and obscure references were intertwined with their riotously funny commentary. The series lasted eleven years and moved from Comedy Central to the SciFi network before ending its run in 1999.

Ten years later, the cult following for the show is still growing. Despite protests and innumerable campaigns to return the show to the air, it is now only available on DVD or VHS, or through downloadable sources to those who can find it. Most of the cast has reunited since to create a reincarnated version of MST3K, in two forms.

Rifftrax.com is the brainchild of Mike Nelson (his character was ‘Mike’) Kevin Murphy (a MST3K writer and voice of Tom Servo), and Bill Corbett (Crow during the SciFi channel years). Rifftrax does what MST3K could never do– make fun of blockbuster movies. The crew critiques and ‘riff’ on every epic movie, from Harry Potter to The Lord of the Rings. To get by copyright concerns the website only offers the downloadable audio tracks of the riffs– you must provide the movie. The riff track synchronized to your own copy of Willy Wonka provides you with all the Oompa Loompa jokes you can stand.

As a MST3K fan I’m more impressed with Cinematic Titanic. Almost everyone who wrote for the show came back to do what they do best: make fun of bad movies. The premise is simple: the crew is brought into a screening room to help ‘save’ a bad movie– a sinking ship, as it was– with their heckling. Thus the title. The old crew still has their magic, even after ten years of mothballing their wit. I’ve watched the first movie they tackled, a Roger Corman flicked called Wasp Woman. Without the riffing, agonizing to watch. With the color commentary, hilarious. Cinematictitanic.com has many movies available, all horrible, all funny.