MST3K

Bad movies are a fact of life. For every work of art like Citizen Kane, there are a thousand craptastic Barb Wires. But for every thousand Barb Wires, there is only one Manos: Hands of Fate, the sort of movie that is so bad, it can only be endured by mercilessly mocking it. That's what Mystery Science Theater does. It takes all those awful cheesy movies and turns them into something worth not just watching, but watching repeatedly.

The show was the brainchild of stand-up comic Joel Hodgson. He was doing well with his career in the mid-'8s, appearing on The Tonight Show during the Carson years, co-writing an HBO special with Jerry Seinfeld, and entertaining audiences with his prop-heavy stand-up act. But it was going too quick for him, so he returned to Minneapolis to reassess his career. Meanwhile, Jim Mallon managed the lowest rated television station in the Minnesapolis area, KTMA-23. He invited Joel to pitch some ideas for a show. Joel came up with a variation of the hosted monster movie concept, an idea heavily influenced by the Bruce Dern movie Silent Running. Joel would play a guy stuck on a satellite in space, forced to watch bad movies by evil scientists. Their goal was to find the one movie so bad that it would make Joel go insane, and then they would unleash it on the world. Joel's only help were the robots he created for companionship. The real genius is that Joel would be seen in theater seats at the bottom of the screen while the movie played, riffing on the movie, accompanied by two of his robots.

Crow T. Robot, Joel Robinson and Tom Servo

Helping Joel out were two stand up comics he knew; Trace Beaulieu and Josh Weinstein. Trace was an experienced comic and Josh was a 16-year-old with a real genius for improvisation. Trace played Dr. Clayton Forrester and Josh played Dr. Laurence Erhardt, the two mad scientists who shot Joel up into space in the first place. They also voiced the robots Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo respectively. During the KTMA era, the shows were unscripted. They simply improvised to their heart's content. Host segments were created before the show and then edited in while the show was broadcast live. They never had a problem finding a crappy movie in the station's library. The station was so underfunded, all they could afford were the worst movie packages available, which was a boon to the show.

Drs. Laurence Erhardt and Clayton Forrester

After 21 episodes, an opportunity to take the show national presented itself. Two cable comedy networks had recently started up, HA! and The Comedy Channel. Both needed 24 hours of programming every day, and MST3K represented 2 hours, ready made. They were signed to the Comedy Channel, and surprisingly, were able to keep their copyright. Meawhile, KTMA was sold to a Christian broadcasting group, so they got out just in time. With the move to a network, it became necessary to script the shows. Local comic Mike Nelson was invited to be a writer, and he quickly became the head writer. Josh, unhappy with the lack of improvisation, left the show after the first Comedy Channel season. He didn't do bad for himself, ending up as a writer for The Simpsons under the name J. Elvis Weinstein.

Joel and Gypsy

With Josh moving on, more changes became necessary. Kevin Murphy become the new voice of Tom Servo. He was the floor director at KTMA and friends with Jim Mallon. When the show went national, Kevin worked as a writer, episode director and the lighting. He took to the character immediately, putting his beautiful Irish tenor to great use in several of the musical skits. With Jim Mallon having taken over the voice of Gypsy, a robot that runs the higher functions of the ship while everyone else watches the bad movies, the two buddies were finally able to work onscreen together. More writers were hired as well. Frank Coniff came on both as a writer and to play Frank (later TV's Frank), Dr. Forrester's assistant. Paul Chaplin and Mary Jo Pehl were also hired as writers.

Offscreen: "And I'm Danny!"

The show really started to take shape with the second season on the Comedy Channel (which was soon renamed Comedy Central). The riffing got better and was more frequent. But after a couple of seasons, Joel started to think about leaving. The show was successful and the ratings continued to rise, but Joel was feeling like the show was becoming less and less his. He finally decided to leave the show in the middle of the 5th season. It came as a shock to the fans. Mike Nelson took over as the host, having been introduced as a temp working for the Mads when Joel made his escape from the Satellite of Love. Mike proved himself as a host, creating a new dynamic between himself and the 'bots which was much different from Joel's fatherly approach. It didn't stop fans from having ceaseless Joel vs. Mike arguments on the internet. I find the arguments all a bit silly, since both were great hosts, but you know how the kids get when you give them an internet.

TV's Frank and Dr. Forrester

An MST3K movie was made between the sixth and seventh seasons. It was produced by Gramercy Pictures and distributed by Universal, who's only request was that they use a movie from their library, which would eliminate the problem of licensing. Kevin Murphy said writing it was one of the worst experiences of his life. While making the TV show, they had very little interference from Comedy Central. But every joke for the movie had to be run through a cubic mile of lawyers. The studio kept trying to give them "notes", every one of which simply proved that they didn't get it. But the actual filming of the movie was fun for everyone involved. Unfortunately, Universal decided to put their marketing budget behind Barb Wire, the sort of decision that reinforced my lack of faith in Hollywood.

"You want stamps with that?" "Nah, just the gas and the menthols, thanks."

Despite the changes, the show continued to gain ratings. But at some point, Comedy Central decided that a "cow-town puppet show didn't fit their image" any more, according to Mallon. The constant struggle to obtain and keep the licenses to the movies was probably another consideration in dropping the show. The seventh season was only 6 episodes long and that was it. Fortunately, they still owned the rights to the show, so they were free to shop it around to other networks. Jim Mallon, as producer, only made one phone call, the the Sci-Fi Network. It took a lot of hemming and hawing on their part. After all, it was a show that made fun of science fiction movies. Could the Sci-Fi Network survive mockery of sci-fi? Fortunately for fans of the show, Sci-Fi decided they could.

Crow, Mike Nelson and Servo

After season six, Frank Conniff left the show. He was replaced by adding Mary Jo Pehl as Dr. Clayton Forrester's mother, Pearl Forrester. When the show was restarted at Sci-Fi, she became the new Mad Scientist, as Trace Beaulieu had decided not to return to the show. The Sci-Fi Network had a lot more input into the show. They insisted that each movie be a sci-fi, fantasy or horror movie. It wasn't an unreasonable request, considering the network's demographic and the fact that there were plenty of awful sci-fi, fantasy and horror movies to choose from. But I always found it a bit odd that the premise of the show wasn't sci-fi enough for them. The bigger problem was that the network's producers for the show insisted they have a story-line run through each episode. As Frank Murphy put it, "We don't need a story-line. We're a puppet show. We just need an excuse to tell jokes!" Since the show was never shown in order, even in first run, they stor-line was never told in order making the point of having a story-line rather silly.

Observer aka Brain Guy, Pearl Forrester and Professor Bobo

With Trace having left the show, it was completely revamped for the Sci-Fi network. Pearl Forrester was the new Mad, and she was assisted by Kevin Murphy as Professor Bobo, an ape who comes from a future where apes have evolved from man in an obvious Planet of the Apes parody. He even refers to Pearl as "Lawgiver." Her other assistant is Observer whom she calls "Brain Guy." He's from a nearly omniscient alien species that carry their brains around in a pan. Despite his incredible intellect, he is completely subservient to Pearl. Brain Guy is played by Bill Corbett, a writer who was brought in at the end of the season six to replace Frank. In the first season and a half, Pearl, Brain Guy and Bobo chase Mike and the 'bots around the universe in a first generation VW Microbus converted into a space ship. In the middle of the ninth season, Pearl regains control of the Satellite of Love from Mike and returns to Earth, where she sets up shop in Castle Forrester, working to get board certified by the Institute of Mad Science, since you can't take over the world without it. At the end of season 10, the plug was pulled on the show once again, this time for good. Mike and the 'bots were finally able to escape and returned to Earth, where they got an apartment together and spent their time watching bad movies.

"My mom says I have to wear this 'cuz it's cold in space."

Through all of these changes, one thing remained constant: the movies. There was always a crappy movie to make fun of. It didn't matter who was hosting the show, who was voicing the robots or who was playing the mad scientists. It was always funny. The idea of putting the host between the show and the viewer was simply genius. The quips and riffing made the movies tolerable. Some were almost unwatchable on their own, such as Manos: Hands of Fate or Red Zone Cuba. Others were painfully silly on their own, like Space Mutiny and Future War. No matter the movie, their writing always made it funny. The show is one of the smartest ever on American TV. The jokes reference everything from movies and television to politics and religion. Some references are so obscure, there is a cottage industry of people annotating episodes, trying to explain what all the jokes mean.

"I'm sorry, Ray."

Another feature of the show is the shorts that often accompanied the movies. Some of my favorite moments come from the shorts. It's like everything great about the show distilled down into a 10 to 15 minute segment. Training films for Chevy salesmen, school movies about cheating and juvenile delinquency, promotional films for musical instruments, refrigerators and General Motors' Motorama and old serials from the 1930s and '40s all provided excellent comedic fodder. 

The shows have been coming out on DVD for about a decade now, but only about a third have been released. The problem is the licensing of the movies. A lot of studios simply don't want to license their movies to Rhino, the original distributor of MST3K on home video, or Shout Factory, who have taken over in the last couple years. But somehow, once or twice a year, another four-disc set gets released. I always snap them up as soon as they hit the market. Volume 10 was pulled after only a month. It included Godzilla vs. Megalon, something fans never thought would happen. Toho continually refuses to license the many monster movies featured on MST, but Rhino got the license through a third party. Toho didn't like that, and forced Rhino to recall all unsold sets of the show. I bought one when it first came out and mailed it to Mustafa who was living in Kyoto at the time. When I heard it was being pulled, I managed to find one more set at my local Best Buy and snapped it up. The set was rereleased as Volume 10.2 with The Giant Gila Monster replacing the Godzilla movie. Original Volume 10 sets now go for $250 on eBay. It's a lesson I didn't have to learn the hard way. Buy them as soon as they hit the store shelves. Go get some for yourself. This is TV at it's best.