Hello All,
Well, we’ve made it. 300 Blog Posts. You know, when I first started doing these back in 2014, I had no idea how far I’d go with this thing. I’m glad I kept with this though, as it’s sort of forced me to go out and just see movie that, before doing this, I may not have had enough interest to see. The fact that I get to share these with you folks, and receive a lot of genuinely excited responses for some of these also just fills me with glee like you cannot imagine.
Now, I will also say, that I have seen a lot of bad movies along the way, but for any of you who saw my fifty shades live stream probably noticed that I tried my best to joke my way through that movie in order to make watching it less painful. I do that with a lot of bad movies, and while I know I’m not the only one who does that kind of thing, I will also admit that I got a lot of that influence from the subject of Today’s sort of review: Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Now for those of you who never heard of it, let me give you a basic rundown. Premiering on KTMA in Minneapolis in 1988, the show was originally about well….actually, the theme song can sum it up better for me here.
So yeah, there you have it. An ordinary guy, and his robots, are trapped in space and forced to watch the worst movies his captors could find. That was the intro for season one, by season two it had been picked up by comedy central, and it went under some slight tweaking. The show did really well, even after Joel Hodgson, who basically created almost every aspect of show, left part way through season five and was replaced by head writer Mike Nelson. The theme song changed appropriately to reflect this.
Mike replacing Joel is basically the Kirk VS Picard of the MST3K fanbase. They even had an MST3K movie in 1996, which was well received by critics and fans, but it sadly didn't do well financially because of it’s very limited release. For the record, I actually have a copy of this movie, it’s in storage at the moment, but I intend to review it when I can.
After season seven, comedy central dropped the show, which was then picked up by the sci fi channel. At this point, the antagonists of the show changed around quite a bit, as well as the narrative of why Mike was in space on the ship (which I just realized I have yet to mention was called The Satellite of Love.) The show would last until Season 10, which at that point it went into syndication.
The various cast members have since gone into similar projects, Joel Hodgson with Cinematic Titanic, and Mike Nelson with rifftrax, which fun fact: I saw some of their live shows when they played them in theatres.
Hodgson since 2010 however has been trying to revive MST3K, and actually succeeded on kickstarter. In fact, the new season (with a whole new cast aside from the returning robots) is actually on Netflix, and so are a bunch of the original classic episodes. If you’re interested, I actually have some recommendations based on what’s in the 30 classic episode catalogue (slight side note: it’s impossible to find all the episodes on dvd due to varying licensing issues, so Netflix is actually a really good start I’d say to try and get into it.)
If you want a more general idea of what the show is like, I’d recommend arguably their most famous episode “Manos: The Hands of Fate”. If you want to see what kind of episodes I prefer, I’d check out the episode “I Accuse My Parents”. If you think you might like a Mike era episode better, I would suggest the episode “Space Mutiny.” From there however, there are various episodes scattered throughout the internet, so any episode you can find, I’d say watch it.
Anyone who knows me knows why I love this show, but for anyone else here’s the gist: It’s just the most unique type of show most people will ever see. For film lovers, It’s a chance to see some of the worst films ever made in a whole new light. For casual viewers, it’s a silly goofball show about robots, and spaceships, with a comedy routine thrown in for good measure. It’s stood the test of time because nothing else like it has ever quite come along since, and it will continue to be around long after most of us are gone. For me personally, this was the show that allowed me to realize that you can still critique movies, but have fun with it, and to see the value in even the worst films out there. It’s the show that gives me the courage to go into any bad movie and say “At least it isn’t the Beast of Yucca Flats” (which is another great episode, my personal favourite to be precise), and it also basically taught me a lesson I like to tell others, watch any movie you want, even if everyone else says no, because if you are the only one who likes it, then you have something truly special.
Final Score - 10/10
I don’t watch much TV, but I’d watch any of these episodes over and over again. In fact, after this I’m going to watch the new season.
Next: Suggestion Box Review - The next review is the classic film The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I will be watching in April…...wait…..
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Until next time, I’ll see you folks at the movies.
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