We love a good movie. From the biggest Hollywood blockbusters to the best arthouse flicks (via, of course, the Collected Works of Statham), we savour them in the same way that normal people would a succulent sirloin, or the finest bottle of red that Lidl has to offer. But what of the awful movies; the cinematic atrocities for whom the phrase ‘straight-to-video’ is a kindness at best? Is it possible to strip any enjoyment from their decaying celluloid carcasses?
In 1988, American comedian Joel Hodgson was pondering the same question. He had been asked by Jim Mallon – then production manager at independent Minneapolis TV station KTMA – to help come up with a format that could fill a two-hour slot on a Sunday evening.
Hodgson pitched to Mallon what would eventually become Mystery Science Theatre 3000, or MST3K for short; a weekly show in which a human and his two robot companions were trapped in an orbiting space station by a pair of mad scientists, who would force them to watch a different terrible film each week. The trio would try to make the movie more bearable by cracking wise over them from the bottom of the screen, where they could be seen in silhouette. Each episode would be held together by a handful of short comedy sketches featuring Joel and the ‘Bots, with skits inspired both by that week’s movie and by Hodgson’s own stand-up routines.
Fortunately for Hodgson and co, KTMA had no shortage of bad movies to choose from. When most people think of an awful film, they think of something like The Phantom Menace, or Gulliver’s Travels, starring Jack Black. However, thanks to the station’s super-low budget and the fact that neither of those films had been made yet, Joel was able to plumb lower depths, choosing such gems as The Green Slime, Star Force: Fugitive Alien 2, and a whole host of Gamera movies (Think Godzilla, but with a giant flying turtle instead of a fearsome fire-breathing lizard).
Reaction to the first episode was not overwhelmingly positive; KTMA’s switchboards lit up with people complaining about the fact that someone was talking over the movie, and that they couldn’t see part of the screen because of the silhouettes. Luckily, the station also received calls and letters from people who had actually understood the show’s premise, and loved it. The team set up a fan club address, and were surprised when fans – or ‘MSTies’ – sent in letters by the sackload.
The following year, Jim and Joel pitched MST3K to new cable network The Comedy Channel (later to become Comedy Central), where they were commissioned for a 13-episode season. The budget was raised and the riffs over the film were now scripted rather than improvised, but the show’s objective remained the same: Find the worst that cinema has to offer, and make it funny.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Six more seasons on the network followed, with head writer Michael J Nelson taking the on-screen reins five years in; three seasons on the Sci-Fi Channel followed. In 1996, Mallon and Hodgson’s production company Best Brains Inc teamed up with Gramercy to release Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, which took on 1955’s This Island Earth and introduced Mike Nelson, the evil Doctor Forrester and the Bots to a whole new audience of film fans. From humble beginnings in Minnesota, MST3K blossomed into an 11-year national institution, with references in shows including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Powerpuff Girls and Futurama.
It’s not hard to understand why MST3K struck a chord with audiences; watching an episode is much like sitting through a bad film with a group of friends, but really funny friends who have gone through the film a dozen or so times beforehand and written 600 or more jokes about it. And they rarely just go for the easy laughs; there are entire websites dedicated to explaining some of MST3K’s more obscure gags.
And yet, even with so many jokes per episode, the programme is surprisingly respectful to the films it riffs; many of the jokes slot between gaps in the dialogue, so it’s still entirely possible to enjoy the film on its own merits, should it have any. This makes it a great way to discover movies that would otherwise have languished in the bargain bin. Films such as 1966’s Manos: The Hands Of Fate and 1988’s Hobgoblins have gained whole new fanbases because of their presence on MST3K, with the latter even receiving a sequel as a direct result.
As you might expect, not everyone has been pleased with receiving the MST3K treatment; many of the IMDb’s Bottom 100 movies are only on that list because they were featured on the programme. Indeed, actor Joe Don Baker threatened the team with physical violence should he ever run into them following their lambasting of 1975’s Mitchell. Others viewed being on MST3K as a badge of honour, however; the cast and crew of 1994 sci-fi film Time Chasers, for instance, actually held a reunion party to celebrate the airing of their episode.
As fun as the film riffing was, some of the series’ enduring appeal has to go to its own cast of characters. Both Joel and Mike injected much of their own personality into the show, proving (mostly) lovable film-watching companions. Trace Beaulieu excelled as mad scientist Dr Clayton Forrester, whose delusions of grandeur and mistreatment of not only the Satellite of Love crew but also his assistant, TV’s Frank, were a joy to behold. And of course, robot puppets Tom Servo (voiced for most of the run by Kevin Murphy) and Crow T Robot (voiced first by Beaulieu, and then by Bill Corbett for the Sci-Fi era) were classic comic creations, with their gloriously silly antics meaning they often proved as much of a foil for Joel and Mike as they did the movie itself.
MST3K was put to bed in 1999, but the programme’s legacy continues with not one, but two similar projects. In 2006, Mike Nelson founded Rifftrax, a company which provided downloadable film commentary tracks, and he was soon joined in the venture by fellow riffers Murphy and Corbett. Not content with just covering celluloid turkeys such as 1977’s Planet Of The Dinosaurs or the 2003 classic The Room, Rifftrax breaks with MST3K tradition by covering both newer movies and movies which aren’t necessarily bad to begin with (As well as the Twilight saga); the results, however, are no less entertaining.
Joel Hodgson returned to the riffing world after a long absence in late 2007, with Cinematic Titanic, a collaboration with former MST3K co-stars Trace Beaulieu, Mary Jo Pehl, Frank Conniff and J Elvis Weinstein. Theirs is more traditional fare, with their silhouettes on the screen and returning very much to B-movie territory, with releases such as The Oozing Skull, The Wasp Woman and MST3K favourite Santa Claus Conquers The Martians.
MST3K has never had much exposure in the UK, barring a short run on the Sci-Fi channel and some late night airings of MST3K: The Movie on ITV, but with the movie having just been released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK, and with a large number of classic episodes available to buy through Shout Factory in the US, there has never been a better time to turn down your lights (Where applicable) and enjoy some truly terrible movies with a comedy twist.
See you in the not-too-distant future…
