Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Satellite of Love News 01
Return-Path: rsk@chestnut.circ.upenn.edu
Received: from CHESTNUT.CIRC.UPENN.EDU by noc1.dccs.upenn.edu
id AA26548; Fri, 23 Aug 91 18:54:45 -0400
Return-Path: <rsk@chestnut.circ.upenn.edu>
Received: by chestnut.circ.upenn.edu
id AA21239; Fri, 23 Aug 91 18:50:40 EDT
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 18:50:40 EDT
From: rsk@chestnut.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
Posted-Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 18:50:40 EDT
Message-Id: <9108232250.AA21239@chestnut.circ.upenn.edu>
To: davida@syrinx.umd.edu
Subject: Satellite of Love News #1
==========
Item 1:
==========
From: rsk
Subject: Howdy, MST3K info club address, and theme lyrics
Well, the mailing list has gotten off to a roaring start -- there are
about thirty of us on it at the moment. I think that I'll bundle up
stuff as it comes in and send it out in batches/digests in order to
keep the number of mail messages relatively small; I hope to send out
something once a week or so.
I picked the name just for the heck of it; I kinda like Joel's occasional
references to his hellish torture-chamber exile-to-the-stars spaceship
as "The Satellite of Love". ;-)
Several people have asked if an episode guide exists; if anyone has one,
or a start at one, please send it along, and I'll combine whatever I get
and send it out. A few other people have asked what the fan club address
is -- it's below -- and what you get if you write them (I don't know).
There's also been some interest expressed in tape-swapping arrangements;
if anybody has ideas on how we could/should handle it, drop me a line.
If you put "MST3K" somewhere in the "Subject:" line of your mail to me,
my autosorter (the "filter" program from the "Elm" mailer) will have
an easier time figuring out what to do with it.
"Do you realize that you just watched a robot sing a love song to a turtle?"
--- Crow, from "Gamera"
Cheers,
---Rsk
MST3K
Information Club
PO Box 5325
Hopkins, MN 55343
"Love Theme from Mystery Science Theater 3000"
In the not too distant future,
Next Sunday A.D. [??]
There was a guy namd Joel,
Not too different from you or me.
He worked at Gizmonic Institute,
Just another face in a red jumpsuit.
He did a good job cleanin' up the place,
But his bosses didn't like him,
So they shot him into space.
We'll send him cheesy movies,
The worst we can find (la la la).
He'll have to sit and watch them all,
And we'll monitor his mind (la la la).
Now keep in mind Joel can't control
When the movies start and end (la la la),
Because he used those special parts
To make his robot friends.
Robot Roll Call: Cambot! Gypsy! Tom Servo! Crooooow!
If you're wondr'ing how he eats and breathes,
and other science facts (la la la),
Then repeat to yourself,
"It's just a show, I should really just relax
for Mystery Science Theater 3000..."
==========
Item 2:
==========
From: David Arnold <davida@syrinx.umd.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 91 09:17:33 -0400
Subject: Article from Washington Post on MST3K
I thought you might be interested in this...
>From 'TV Preview', the Washington Post, 8/17/91:
On Cable, Three Jeers For B-Movies
By David Mills
For now, the Comedy Central cable channel is available only to about
250,000 households in Fairfax and northern Prince Georges counties.
[Suburbs of Wash. DC -ed.] Alas, that means the rest of us must do
without a weekly dose of inspired silliness called "Mystery Science
Theater 3000." And we don't even know what we're missing!
Every Saturday at 10 a.m. (with a 7 p.m. repeat), "Mystery Science
Theater" features a bad movie. Maybe an old American sci-fi pseudo-
thriller like "It Conquered The World." [airing this Saturday, 8/24 -ed.]
Or maybe more recent foreign films dubbed in English, such as today's
offering, "Fugitive Alien," which actually consists of strung-together
episodes from a 1986 Japanese television series.
Of course, cheesily-costumed local TV personalities everywhere have made
fun of B-movies for years. (Remember D.C.'s own Count Gore DeVol? [a
local quasi-Elvira (albeit male) -ed.]) But "Mystery Science Theater"
goes them one giant leap better. We see host Joel Hodgson and two jerry-
built robot puppets, Tom Servo and Crow, in silhouette at the bottom of
the screen *throughout* the movie, as if they're sitting in a row of
theater seats/ And they engage in a mocking commentary from the opening
credits until "The End." It's a brilliant concept.
When the title of "The Amazing Colossal Man" comes on screen, for instance,
one robot quips, "You wish."
When we see a close-up of the fat, bald head of our radioactive mutant
hero, we hear a raspy voice: "The horror. The horror." Get it? Marlon
Brando in "Apocalypse Now."
Hodgson, the show's creator, is a stand-up comic with a dry, winsome style.
With a staff of writers let by Michael J. Nelson, Hodgson keeps "MST"
chockablock with pop culture references -- song lyrics, old commercials,
cable TV in-jokes.
Some of the humor is downright highbrow. In a stupid sort of way. In
"It Conquered The World" next Saturday, when Beverly Garland pulls away
from Lee Van Cleef with the words "Tom, stop it!" Crow turns to his
buddies and cracks, "Tom Stoppard? What is she talking about?"
There are even fleeting flirtations with current events. In "Fugitive
Alien," when a space woman points a ray gun at the traitorous guy she
happens to love, she just can't bring herself to pull the trigger. "It
took me seven days to get this gun, and now I can't even use it," says
one of the "MST" wisenheimers.
Some of the jokes will certainly fly over the heads of youngsters. But
the audaciousness of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" should prove infectious
of kids as well as adults. Space aliens descend wearing inexplicable red
wigs; Crow says, "How humiliating. Earth being taken over by Judy
Garland impersonators."
Begun a few years ago on a small Minneapolis-St. Paul UHF station, "Mystery
Science Theater" is still taped in suburban Minneapolis on an apparently
teensy budget. A testament to American ingenuity, it should encourage
anyone who has ever dabbled in public-access TV production.
"MST" does have it weaknesses. To pad out each show to two hours, Hodgson
has concocted an elaborate setup for the whole enterprise, something about
a guy being shot into space and forced by a mad scientist to watch bad
movies as part of an ongoing "experiment." This provides for weekly in-
studio interplay between Hodgson, his robots and his captors, which is
always less funny than the bad-movie jeering. Those jeers themselves tend
to lose their punch toward the end of the movie, and Hodgson and company
sometimes repeat themselves.
Still, here's hoping more Washington area viewers soon get the chance to
jeer along.
