Mystery Science Theater 3000: C/D, S/D.

Or: "Now here the director's beginning to lose control of his film. This is characteristic of many young directors: too many ideas. Or, in this case... none at all."

I use this one all the time.

It's Chicago's "Saturday in the Park."

Thank you! One mystery less. :-)

"Buzz off."
"Huh?"
"Buzz off, HUH!"
"No you buzz off!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

(That exchange was also of course the source of the 'tonight on Crossfire' reference I used a little while ago on a Fiddo/Aja exchange.)

"I dunno. You got an airbrush on ya?"

"The whole building just lost on Price is Right."

"My period!"

Ah, not quite -- it was the even better/more telling 'seen' rather than 'heard.'

"Now let's get those clothes off!"

That line has haunted me for years, in a comic sort of way.

"Time to settle in with the Book of Mormon."

"It's the DEVIL and it's FUN!"

News of Interest reported there:

Is it true that each writer had a "specialty" area, one for pop culture, one for sports, etc.? "Not really," said Bill, "although if we needed to know something about sports, we would go to Paul Schersten." Added Mike, "And if we needed to know something about obscure vaudevillian actors, we'd ask Frank. He was our 'go to guy' for vaudeville."

When asked if they had indeed heard from any angry actors or filmmakers, the inevitable shouting of "Joe Don Baker!" was heard from the audience. "We're not worried about Joe Don," replied Bill, "we can easily outrun him. Or should that be out-fast walk him?"

"I've got one thing to say to Joe Don," added Kevin, "Go ahead on." Kevin also mentioned that they had received an extremely angry letter from Gremlins director Joe Dante after they gave the MST treatment to Marooned, aka SPACE TRAVELLERS. "It's supposed to be some kind of monumentally epic tribute to Sixties space travel," said Mike. "Let me tell you something. It's not."

...

Questions were then taken from the audience. While nothing new was asked, there was one surreal moment when a woman angrily demanded to know why THE FINAL SACRIFICE was MSTed. It turned out she was Canadian, and actually liked the film. "Why?" asked Mike. "Because of its accurate portrayal of life in Canada?"

After the audience Q&A, the Sklar brothers wrapped things up by asking if there were any upcoming projects in the works. It turns out there are several. After the April 20th DVD release of Reefer Madness, Mike will be contributing audio commentary to the DVD of Carnival of Souls. Also, all three are in discussions to provide commentary for upcoming Three Stooges DVDs, and they're also all working together on a book about, naturally enough, the state of bad movies today.

Meantime, the Satellite News site sez a new DVD box set in March with Mike and Kevin both adding commentary. I liked Mike's brief bits on Vol. 4 so this could be fun. No word on what episodes in particular.

So meta I might have to watch it in mute.

I have no problem with more SciFi era stuff, but a box covering the shortened season seven -- say Night of the Blood Beast, Deathstalker, Escape 2000 and Laserblast if it could only be four movies -- would be spiff.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection Volume 5
We have more information about Volume 5 of Rhino Home Video's "Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection" series. The release date is March 9th. It will feature episodes 821- TIME CHASERS, 908- THE TOUCH OF SATAN, 1003- MERLIN'S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS and 1006- BOGGY CREEK II.

Special features on the set will include introductions by Mike Nelson (similar to those in the last set, but Mike tells us they will be somewhat longer), full-length interviews with Mike and Kevin Murphy, and the original trailer for "The Touch Of Satan."

Before you ask: Based on our conversations with our source at Rhino we don't think the contents of this list should be read as an indication that it's only Sci-Fi Channel episodes from this point on. Our source asked us which episodes fans would like to see next, and we referred him to the poll we conducted a couple of years ago, the result of which are posted HERE.

As soon as we know more about what's next from Rhino, we'll be sure to pass it on.

(In somewhat related news, the TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Invader Zim, both of which had MST vets working on them -- Josh, Trace and Joel on the first, Frank on the second -- are also coming to DVD.)

Also a reminder that the screening of The Screaming Skull coming up this Saturday morning is it, the final broadcast.

The biggest problem, however, is that HE wanted his own easy targets mocked without recourse to the realities of film licensing and TV broadcast, and the costs involved, which would have made it possible (and more than that -- the various cast members have spoken many times about how many different big budget/more modern idiocies they would have loved to have done). Which in turn makes him look like an uninformed twit.

They did a pretty good job although I'm not sure I liked Gypsy's voice done with an actual female type voice.

A recent article by Mary Jo Pehl, short but funny. And Kevin Murphy's irregular pieces on NPR have been great!

It's been forever since I read it -- but it was certainly pretty crusty.