Bad Movie Week
Tribute to MST3K

If I had to hazzard a guess, I'd say that 35% of what Matt and I say makes absolutely no sense unless you've watched the episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 that we steal from liberally:

"I did the last challenge." "I got a bad knee."
"What'd you carve that boat out of a tree?!" "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Not being a native Minneapolis kid myself, I never saw the early shows on KTMA channel 23. By the time I got myself introduced to the bots and the mads and Joel/Mike in my junior year of college by an overzealous roommate named Lyndsay (he's a boy) they were well into their run on Comedy Central. So far in, in fact, that the episodes were showing at the prime time of 11PM. Did that stop us from watching every night? Not at all. We stayed up late, and a love of bad movies was born in me.

"How do you like your scotch?" "By the quart."
"Here's your Loser Actor Bouquet!"

The show's premise is beautifully simple. The mad scientists Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank shoot common man Joel Robinson (and later Mike Nelson) into space and force him to watch the worst movies they can find. The resourceful Joel builds two robots with which to watch the movies in order to save his sanity. The three of them (insert Mike after Joel escapes in the middle of season 5) do what all of us do when we watch a bad movie - they pick on it. The difference is that, unlike most of the yammering idiots you can't help but overhear in the theater, these guys are funny! That's it. They managed to crank out 10 seasons of movies on this premise, spawning an incredible cult following.

"A Tributary to the Upper Amazon... starring Pia Zadora... Gregor Mendel... and Beck!"
(This one's especially fun.... insert your own marginal celebrity/historical figure names, and go to town.)

Dr. F and TV's Frank, looking into their new gut options

In addition to the movie footage, there were also little comedy sketches coming out of the commercial breaks and kicking off each movie. I'll level with ya... I found very few of these funny. But the ones that hit were spectacular. I couldn't breathe the first time I heard the boys sing "Let's Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas", inspired by Crow T. Robot's favorite movie, Roadhouse. It's brilliant. For the lyrics, click here. It loses a little without the tune, but you get the idea... And hey, it's not like they had a huge budget to work with, so I can cut some slack for the sketch scenes overall.

"I've seen faster funeral processions!" "Oh good, the chase scene's pace car is here."

Dr. Forrester, about to perform a psychological experiment on Crow

What prompted me to reminisce about the ol' show tonight was my realization that, after inadvertantly stealing it almost two years ago, I still hadn't watched the full length movie that they made. So I popped it in the VCR, and waited for the hilarity... sadly, it was lacking. Sure, there were some good Captain Kirk impersonations... but overall the movie was too slow, and the comedy not nearly zany enough. I think they'd have been better off just going for the most extravagant episode they could do, and trust that the audience could figure out the show's premise (it's really not hard). In the end, there was too much story, not enough mocking. However, they did mock their own credits quite well. I'd have been disappointed paying to see this, but it was a decent 90 minutes on tape.

"He's a failure, la la la! Total loser, la la la!"
"Failed to bring back the sampo! We shall die of starvation!"

Sure, you can debate who was the better host, Joel or Mike. You can rip on how much worse the skits got after Dr. F and Frank left. You can take the show way too seriously... but in the end you're best off just obtaining a show or two, sitting back, and laughing at the masters of mocking. You can still find the espisodes that Rhino put out in stores... I'd suggest starting with "Mitchell!"... starring Joe Don Baker. ("You guys watch Joe Don Baker movies?") If you really get into the show... a Google search will turn up links for tape traders, and an eBay search will turn up episodes for sale. My personal favorites are "The Day the Earth Froze", "Village of the Giants", "Revenge of the Creature", "Hobgoblins", and "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" (from which the Patrick Swayze Christmas song was taken). The episodes from the last three seasons can also still be seen on the Sci Fi Channel...

Oh, and before I forget:

"Meet the Hobgoblins! Frankie! Sniffles! Bounce-Bounce! and, The Claw!"

Yep, if you're wondering how we stuck Bounce-Bounce with his nickname (I'm looking at you, JT)... there ya go.

This concludes my look at bad movies. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go sing the Purgatory Song...

7/10/2002