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

(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.

"He died as he lived: Loving his work."

"That's 40 pounds of butt in 30-pound butt capacity pants!" - Mike

"That may not really be Chinese."

Tep: I don't think it's the same at all (effort of making a film vs effort of making comments while watching films). It's just that renting B-movies with friends was already a popular pastime with people I knew before I ever knew of this show. MST3K seemed less fun than doing it in 'real time' with your own friends if that's what you want to do. I didn't think it added much to the experience or to the movies. And I guess I just didn't think they were that much funnier anyway (e.g. the "dead elf" line Ned quoted).

And their parody of Behind the Music with "The Band That Played California Lady" in Track of the Moon Beast is one of their best skits.