Play MSTy for me

I was going to call this post "Thank YouTube" but it's more MST3k-based than YouTube-based. But YouTube started it when I was looking around on their site for TV series openings and stuff when I found that whole (well, segmented) episodes of were available. I've since been watching many of the episodes that I had not seen before but had always wanted too. It's not as nice as having it on DVD but I'll take what I can get. It just reminds me that Mystery Science Theatre 3000 is still one of my favourite TV series of all times.

Even before I had seen the series I was always very interested in seeing it ever since I heard of it on either the Internet (back when it was relatively new and relatively hideous) or on some crappy TV show that shows the funniest clips from other recent TV series. It instantly caught my attention because it was already quite similar to an 80's TV special I loved called It Came From Hollywood in which John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Cheech and Chong heckle clips from silly sci-fi and monster movies. I remember seeing it long ago, so I have no idea how well it holds up. Still, I was intrigued and when I stumbled on to a tape of it way back in late junior high/early high school at Strange Adventures I picked it up immediately. The episode was the Atomic Brain and it still remains a favourite episode of mine.

The show was created way back in 1988 by Joel Hodgson and some other comedian friends in the mid-west. It was put on a crappy little station called KTMA which, when MST3k was airing on it, air almost nothing but syndicated reruns of forgettable sitcoms and action shows. MST3k gained a quick local following although some people didn't quite get it (apparently one person called the show saying that he liked it except for the annoying people talking through the movie). The show was originally improvised and was really not very good (or so the creators of the show admit). Still, it proved popular enough to have their 13-episode season expanded to 21. Nonetheless, it was cancelled due to the station's financial woes.

The series premise was simple: Joel, a janitor at Gizmonics Institute (a crazy science place) is knocked out by two evil scientists (Dr. Forrester and Dr. Erhardt) and forced to watch crappy movies in an attempt to find the film that will drive him insane. Once the film that is bad enough to drive him over the edge is found, then the mad scientists (or Mads) will use it to conquer the Earth. To keep his sanity, Joel creates robots from the instruments that control the film. The robots are the slightly pretentious Tom Servo, the smart alecy Crow and the unlikable Gypsy (I'm sorry but this character just sucks. Bad). But really it's all about making fun of movies.

The series was eventually picked up by the then young Comedy Channel (now Comedy Central) mostly because it ate up a lot of time on their schedule. When it made it their a friend of the creators and TGIFriday's employee Mike Nelson started working on the show and became head writer one season later simply because of his talent. With season two Josh Weinstein AKA Dr. Erhardt (who is barely remembered by fans) and the voice of Tom Servo left the show so a new Mad was introduced (TV's Frank) and Tom got a new voice. The show continued and just as it got popular the shows lead Joel Hogdson left. Part of it was because he was not comfortable with acting and was really more of a reluctant host and the other was that he was disagreeing with producer Jim Mallon about the direction of the show. In the middle of the fifth season Joel's character bids a final farewell to the cast after being freed against his will, and is replaced by head writer Mike Nelson as host. In my opinion, Mike is a better host mostly because of his confidence and that the era he ushered in brought forth more polished riffing.

Well, the series continued with TV's Frank leaving (he enters Second Banana Heaven at the end of season six) and the series was seemingly cancelled at the end of a very short seventh season. Since it seemed unlikely that there would be no more show, the season finale had the characters reaching the end of the universe and evolving into pure love or energy or something (it was pure whatever it was). At this point, Trace Beaulieu (Dr. Forrester, Crow T. Robot) left the show and his character Dr. Forrester exited.

The series was later picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel, where the crew was given a few guidelines (a continuing storyarc throughout the season, sci-fi movies only) but for the most part it was business as usual. The series lasted three more seasons (which where easily my favourite) before being cancelled.

Since then the actors have been involved with many random projects and books. Most noticeable is that Mike Nelson is chief content producer for Legend films and while there has done some MST3k-style riffing for some of the films. Mike's still pretty funny but it's just not the same without the other cast members. Luckily, Mike's also producing RiffTrax, which include film commentaries by him and, in some cases, his friends Kevin Murphy (the second Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (the second Crow). Basically, they're MST-style film commentaries for more mainstream films (X-Men, Star Trek V, Road House) that can be downloaded and listened two while you watch the film. I found clips of them on YouTube and their pretty good.

The RiffTrax website can be found here. And some great RiffTrax previews can be found here, here and here.

Sorry, if my post isn't that great this week (or ever) but I'm tired and I had to start this one later than usual. Mostly it was an excuse to show that I love MST3k and that RiffTrax are awesome.