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

"Bad touch."
"Does this mean I like guys now?"
"I feel ill."
"Spanking time!"

http://www.mst3kinfo.com/satnews/catalog/Basement.htm
http://www.mst3kinfo.com/daddyo/images/mrb5.JPG

Keep in mind that the fidelity on these files is sometimes suprisingly good considering the size, and sometimes fairly bad, but even the worst files usually have more than enough detail for a person to get what's going on.

I'm hoping the DVD is a Santa Claus vs. The Martians/Santa Claus double fun pak. It is going to come out late 2003, after all.

Later I may want to say something about MST3K in light of Mark's venting on Zappa, but right now I want to go to Central Park and maybe the Malevich exhibit before it starts raining (again).

goooch....goooch....

This show got me through middle school.

(current space on home PC C-Drive abt 700meg, it are old and small)

"Santa Claus, you're coming with us!"
"You're coming to town."

Because I'm not funny. And neither are you.

Fave all time moment ever, from any episode -- this snippet from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, delivered and timed JUST RIGHT:

MARTIAN: "What soft, and round, and you put it on the end of a stick --"

SERVO: "An elf?"

MARTIAN: "-- and green?"

SERVO: "Oh, a DEAD elf."

Chris Fujiwara (sounding a little prim), here.

Gamera Vs. Guiron is one of my most underrated favorites, with the Gamera song, Cornjob and the Zabriske Point ref. The "Hello/Thank You" scene with the mothers is my #1 funniest MST3K moment.

We both idly comment on stupidity of movie showing and the commentary from Joel + robots. Go back to reading book/half-watching.

15 minutes later - 'actually, this isn't that bad'

10 minutes later - we have both decided this is the best show ever created

I salute you!

I am still in fact missing Gamera Vs. Guiron, though happily I've seen it a number of times -- that along with Gamera Vs. Gaos, It Conquered the World and four season six entries are now the only things I'm missing from season two on...

ignoring realities of production? tedium?

I think Fujiwara scores some good points, but yes of course we must give no quarter to a fun-hater.

The show made me laugh but I can't love it.

(...when -- you want -- the flavor of bacon -- in a dip.)

The thing I like abt Fujiwara's thing (and yes I do realize what a humorless piece of writing it is [but bits make me laugh out loud so eh]) is that it's about giving a shit, about not letting something slide. He thinks the whole enterprise was deeply, offensively unfunny, and that seemed like a rare and valuable enough er perspective w/r/t ile & mst.

I have a strong affection for cranks and fuddy-duddies.

Now, railing about MST3K in its own style -- responding to it and heckling it -- that could be clever enough to be worth the time.

And when they *did* do that, as happened with the Little Golden Statuette thingummybob, it actually undercut a lot of the claims MST3K could make to somehow being a subversive force battling against whiteelephantHollywoodbullshit because the special arguably ended up being essentially more hype for the Oscars and the Hollywood machine.

IIRC, the central reason for Fujiwara's groaning and moaning about MST3K was due to the lack of respect they were giving to these oddly wonderful artifacts suitable for voyeuristic delectation. (Fujiwara once wrote up a list of the best movies of 1953 and included *Robot Monster* as his tenth best -- and seriously, the only reason I can imagine ANYONE doing that is to prove some banal point about hegemony and the canon blah blah blah FIGHT THE POWER!!! etc. As bad movies go, there are so many better ones, like *Monster A Go-Go* for starters) This is baloney on many levels. "MST3K involves people making fun of bad movies" is a good shorthand description of the show, but only that: most of the time, Best Brains aren't "making fun" of the movies (most of the riffs' humor are totally incidental to the badness of the film), nor are most of the films they riff on aren't really *bad.* A good chunk are, most are just utterly indifferent, and few are pretty good for what they are (say, the Lassie or Godzilla movies.), and a movie's badness is no guarantee of an episode's goodness. (I think *Monster A Go-Go* is probably the worst thing I've ever seen and most of the time BB was just struggling to say something, anything about it.) Most of the time I attribute BB's claims to a movie being bad as just a bunch of hyperbole for comedy's sake. (On the other hand, if *I* had to watch most movies with the kind of attentiveness *they* did in creating MST3K, I think most films would probably come up short, anyway.)

And ANYWAY, I knew a lot of hardcore MSTies who argued the 'essence' of the show wasn't the riffing but the relationship between Joel/Mike, the 'bots and the Mads.

Well, yes. This is why I stopped watching during the Sci-Fi years.

Kate I think l you’d really like the Mary Jo Pehl Show, especially the monthly episode where she watches some early-70s TV (without watching it first) and she’s just delightful at riffing off the cuff and it’s very not snarky but warm and kind of affectionate. Try watching her riff on “Bad Ronald” a movie worthy of having been a classic MST episode: https://dumb-industries.com/the-mary-jo-pehl-show-clubhouse-plus/v/movie-jo-night-bad-ronald

def agree about being an 80s kid for whom the 70s will always be this fascinating world just beyond the last visible hill, even though it left all these visible marks on the world i actually inhabited. MST may reflect a similar thing - Gen X kids who grew up in a world when the 50s and even 60s were in endless rerun rotation, and yet profoundly odd and alien, both appealing and unsettling, etc.

like, Joel was born in 60, Mike in 64. their prime monoculture breakfast cereal years were The Long 1970s, if you will. MST's most fertile decades are the 50s and 60s - stuff they probably saw on late night TV but not as "new" pop culture. and part of the special sauce was that they didn't (only) make fun of the lol lame old corny stuff, they also appreciated it. maybe one reason the Joe Don Baker stuff lands differently is they actually did know him as a present-day name headlining bad movies while they were old enough to tell the difference... idk