Thursday, January 7, 2010
Mystery Science Theater 3000
I have to admit that on the nerd-dom scoring for just how geeky I am, I’m not on the upper tier of those who speak Klingon, I’m not dressing up and LARP’ing in a park, but I am absolutely addicted to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (aka MST3K). When I want a guaranteed laugh, my sense of humor takes me to a few staples; any George Carlin standup, “Big Bang Theory,” “MST3K,” and because not all my humor is intellectually based, I also adore “America’s Funniest Videos.”
This cult favorite TV series ran from 1988 to 1999. Eventually, they got in trouble for showing a movie and putting themselves on top of it and reselling it with the movie content in it, so now they do “RiffTrax” that can be downloaded from online and played on your IPOD along with the movie. The one for “Twilight” is to die for! This has given them the opportunity to not just do B-movies any longer, but to ridicule pop movies, as well. It’s sometimes hard to line up the RiffTrax, but it’s worth the effort.
If you’ve never seen it, however, you’ll want to see the loads of episodes they made during their 11-year run. The premise is a guy and two robots trapped in a space station by a mad scientist who forces them to watch horrible B-movies. While stuck watching them in the theater, the three make fun of and mock the movie throughout. If it doesn’t have you laughing until you’re crying, I’d be really surprised.
Some of my favorites are:
“Time Chasers”
“Werewolf”
“Tormented”
“The Touch of Satan”
“Legend of Boggy Creek II”
In fact, my son and I are such MST3K freaks that we call each other “Rowsdower” (an insider line from one of the episodes, “The Final Sacrifice” above--a movie that repeated that name over and over and over again). We sometimes put on awful movies and do our own MST3K dialogue.
Bad movies happen, but when they do, I think of them as happy blessings. They give us lots of material for future satirical practice!
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I watched the video. Not bad at all. I expected to be a lot worse. I wonder how much the on line video will grow in the next few years. Probably a lot. Now with the advent of the flip cameras...You are right: is very difficult to make an A movie but we can still have fun searching for one.
ReplyDeleteSome of the movies they do spoofs of are so abysmal it's hilarious! They pretty much say the kind of smarmy things we all want to say while we're viewing at home.
ReplyDeleteI must admit that I am a nerd, also. I am one of those nerds who dress up and go to ren faires, and can quote cheesy movies. My hubby and I do our own version of MST3K at home all the time. So much fun!! :)
ReplyDeleteHey, renaissance festivals--very sexy! I always wanted to do reenactment stuff. I'm such a dork! I'm a costume nut, but I'm not so much the space SciFi type, more of an "olden" times type. I'd love to see pic's of you all decked out. I knew there had to be others at home doing MST3K to movies. Oh my gosh, the Rifftrax for "Twilight" was priceless! I was laughing so hard I was crying and couldn't see the screen!
ReplyDeleteI'm an old fan of MST3K. I even have TAPES!
ReplyDeleteSome of my faves:
The Giant Leeches ("Oh, I'm a danger to myself and others...)
Manos: The Hands of Fate (Torgo!!)
Yor, The Hunter From The Future ("How much Keefe is in this movie?" "Oh, Miles O'Keefe!")
But my all-time favorite has to be Eegah! ("Watch out for snakes!")
Actually, I liked "Eegah" even before I saw the MST3K version.