Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax

[XYZpdq]

I don't really mind Felicia Day or Patton Oswalt but their segments did fall incredibly short of the original Mads stuff. In the old show the Mads / Idiot Trio would have a fairly large set that they'd move around in and interact with, plus props, and doing weird shit in general. The segments with Day and Oswalt, though, would usually just be them standing still in front of a camera reciting their lines.

I don't think Deep 13 was much bigger, it's sort of forced perspective iirc, but yeah there was also more stuff for them to interact with. Moon 13 felt like that prequel green screen limbo.

 

[Starscreams Cape]

I don't think Deep 13 was much bigger, it's sort of forced perspective iirc, but yeah there was also more stuff for them to interact with. Moon 13 felt like that prequel green screen limbo.

A microcosm of the whole reboot. A cheap facsimile of MST.

All of these A-holes live in LA, so sitting together in an ACTUAL writing room for a few months won't work because it's so expensive out there. It can only be a side hustle to them. Compared to MN where one could make a living on what CC and Scifi were paying them. And then there's the fact that they are mostly millenials who probably don't know how to interact with other humans face to face very well.

I think Joel is a lot like George Lucas, a gizmocrat who once had a great idea. But the longer the reboot went on it became apparent that, like Lucas, he was taken with a lot of the technical details that nobody else cared about. Did you know that the reason some of the movies were shorter in the reboot was because Ardie spilled some of the liquid? I'm pretty sure that was actually addressed. I would have preferred a little more chemistry from the leads myself.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

It's too bad because to be honest Mike era episodes were the only ones I saw as a kid and for all I knew at the time he was the only one to ever host it.

While I've since learned to appreciate Joel I still heavily associate Mike with MST3K.

Even in the Joel seasons Mike was the heavy lifter writer and pretty much everyone involved acknowledges it.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Even in the Joel seasons Mike was the heavy lifter writer and pretty much everyone involved acknowledges it.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Well, I guess that makes it ok for me to say then that MTS3K without any input from Mike Nelson just seems like a pale imitation.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

Frank Coniff was apparently also a huge workhorse trolling through obscure archives to find shit like Manos so I don't want to say it was all Mike by any means. Just that his writing is present in all the best seasons.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

iirc, the way they did it on the original seasons, the writers would all watch the movie together a couple of times, riffing it and writing down their jokes and comments, and then Mike, as head writer, would take it all and make it into a usable script. That, plus the all-hands-on-deck approach with everyone fulfilling multiple roles in production, is definitely what led to the amazing chemistry everyone had.

 

[XYZpdq]

iirc, the way they did it on the original seasons, the writers would all watch the movie together a couple of times, riffing it and writing down their jokes and comments, and then Mike, as head writer, would take it all and make it into a usable script. That, plus the all-hands-on-deck approach with everyone fulfilling multiple roles in production, is definitely what led to the amazing chemistry everyone had.

there were also outside writers doing stuff off site that they worked into the script too
but yeah if I had to point to a single linchpin issue I think it's that they weren't doing everything together day in and day out

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

A bunch of dudes that were mostly friends before they started on the show is going to inevitably have better chemistry than people that were hired to work together.

 

[XYZpdq]

A bunch of dudes that were mostly friends before they started on the show is going to inevitably have better chemistry than people that were hired to work together.

it's funny, in one of the KTMA episodes they make a reference to Frank despite him not joining the cast for another two seasons

 

[XYZpdq]

doubleposting, caught Road House
maybe I missed it in the credits or something but I was surprised they didn't do anything about the one guy being Terry Funk

 

[Kari Kamiya]

So I have watched some MST3K episodes that I could find on YouTube years ago, but I feel like I'm missing out on something, or whatnot. Maybe it's my fault for having it on in the background while I would draw (I'd still look at it here-and-there), or that exposure to random clips through TGWTG reviews was not the way to go, or that when I was about ten, I first saw it at a friend's house 'cause she had a couple seasons, and I was just confused the whole time (especially since she had a crush on Crow, apparently?). Regardless, though, I really do want to watch more and get into it, but I don't know which episodes are good for newcomers/second-chancers (I dunno what word is better).

Any suggestions? I'm well-aware of the Godzilla episodes being really popular, but I don't remember the Megalon one very well, and it's apparently infamous for getting flagged every time it shows up on YouTube. Is there also another way to watch the episodes outside of YouTube and tracking down physical copies, like a Google Drive folder full of them, or has that just never surfaced?

 

[Dubu Kimchi]

Shout Factory has put MST3K on twitch and on pluto TV, a nice place to start for just background enjoyment.

Shout Factory seems like a nice company overall, Trace mentioned with an interview on a Laser time podcast that once Shout Factory got the whole rights to MST3K they renegotiated with the old crew to give some royalty payments. Before it was 100% going to Jim Mallon.

 

[ln18]

I'd recommend Cave Dwellers. It's my favorite of the really popular ones.

 

[King Dead]

A lot of episodes are on Youtube, many of which are old VHS rips so you occasionally get to see an old Comedy Central bump. I found this playlist that's mostly complete. It's got a few gaps here and there, but there's more than enough to last for a long while.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Complete, Ordered MST3K Collection) - YouTube

My Lumps Plays aren't exactly MST, but the pop-up commentary style was heavily inspired by this show, and I really love it. I made this for my own personal u...

www.youtube.com

As mentioned, you can also watch on Twitch or PlutoTV, though the latter's commercial breaks are pretty damn repetitive. Seems like you get the same commercials every five or ten minutes. Beyond that, you can always search on your favorite tracker for torrents.

As for recommendations, Space Mutiny is a classic for the running gag of all the different names they come up with for the main character. I'd also recommend The Giant Spider Invasion, Mitchell, or any of the old teen exploitation movies like Girls Town, Teenage Crime Wave, or The Violent Years. The various short films they riff on are always a good choice if you don't want to sink a whole hour and a half into a full episode. Those always come at the beginning of an episode, so you'll either have to consult an episode guide or just watch the intro to find out if there's a short. Whether it's an educational film, a travelogue, or a bizarre long advertisement, you can't go wrong.

 

[XYZpdq]

Is there also another way to watch the episodes outside of YouTube and tracking down physical copies, like a Google Drive folder full of them, or has that just never surfaced?

Club MST3k

Watch MST3k! The most complete list of free online Mystery Science Theater 3000 videos!

www.club-mst3k.com

the Godzillas aren't bad, they're a little wobbly riffing-wise still in Season 2 but the draw of "it's a Godzilla movie" picks up a lot of the slack
Pod People from season 3 is usually regarded as a good start

If you're really interested in watching the whole thing you have the option to start back at Invaders From The Deep. By the second episode they're starting to get a feel for how things go, and it's Captain Scarlett which is pretty cool on its own.

 

[UnKillFill]

The format of watching a (presumably bad) movie, and shitting on it in real time is a funny one on paper, and I once saw a rifftrax on "The Room" in theater and enjoyed it... but I didn't really grow up watching MST3K, and I'm far more familiar with the wave of Channel Autisim people who aped the formula (with significantly less talent to start with), and have found myself actively hating that....

I'm willing to give MST3K a fair chance though, are there any stellar episodes that fans of the show would recommend? Preferably ones that are currently on Netflix...

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Thanks, fam. Guess skipping around is normal and to be expected. 'S not like I'm such a huge masochist I was going to start with the first episode and work my way up.

*beat*

Club MST3k

Watch MST3k! The most complete list of free online Mystery Science Theater 3000 videos!

www.club-mst3k.com

Fucking sweet!

 

[XYZpdq]

Netflix...

no clue about what's there but lol paying for things
link I posted has basically all of the old run

off the top of my head, ones that are usually regarded as good places to try it include
301- Cave Dwellers. Bad sword and sandal sequel
303- Pod People. Bad monster eating people movie that partway through production became also an E T ripoff

what sort of bad movies do you enjoy other than The Room?
-edit
also there's a number of episodes where the movie isn't particularly bad, like Space Travelers is a tv edit of Marooned, Phase IV was artsy ant attack movie by Saul Bass, some Soviet-ish stuff like First Spaceship On Venus and Humanoid Woman

 

[Tor Lugosi]

908 - The Touch of Satan is one of my favorites, especially among the ones I rarely see talked about. The movie itself is entertaining enough (in a bad, goofy way) and the riffing is consistent and great throughout the whole episode.

 

[UnKillFill]

no clue about what's there but lol paying for things

Right there with you. I don't pay for Netflix, and wouldn't because they have almost nothing now, especially in the US... (But they do have some MST3K it seems) I have it because they're too stupid to know that I live in a totally different state than my folks who are actually still paying for it, lol.

off the top of my head, ones that are usually regarded as good places to try it include
301- Cave Dwellers. Bad sword and sandal sequel
303- Pod People. Bad monster eating people movie that partway through production became also an E T ripoff

So last time I checked, MST3K had a TON of episodes on Netflix, now it looks like they barely have any... Maybe ignore that part, if there's any one episode you'd call "the best" I'll see if I can find it through other means...

what sort of bad movies do you enjoy other than The Room?

The "bad movie" I saw most recently and enjoyed (which isn't to say the most recently released bad movie, because it seems to be fairly old, but I saw it recently and loved the fuck out of it...) was called "ManBorg."
It was so good...

Just call me Number one man.