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Satellite of Love News 22
From rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu Sun May 31 16:39:51 1992
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Date: Sun, 31 May 92 16:39:40 EDT
From: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
Posted-Date: Sun, 31 May 92 16:39:40 EDT
Message-Id: <9205312039.AA23180@gynko.circ.upenn.edu>
To: rsk@aspen.circ.upenn.edu
Subject: Satellite of Love News #22
From: Your editor
Subject: New season about to start / New FAQ released
I'm sure that nearly everyone knows that the new season will be starting
next weekend, so get your VCR's ready.
Thanks to numerous contributions from list participants, the FAQ has
grown to nearly 1000 lines. I'll be sending a copy to everyone shortly.
If you would like to make additions, comments or corrections to the FAQ,
please send them along. It would be most helpful if you send FAQ-related
correspondence separately from newsletter-related correspondence.
---Rsk
From: jenkins@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu (jenkins lisa)
Date: Mon, 11 May 92 10:35:55 CDT
Subject: faces again!
One evening John "The Quack" Shull and I created some MST3K "smiley faces."
Here they are in all their full glory! Please feel free to use them in your
letters!
Guest Villains:
>B-{ <-- Dr. Clayton Forrester
@:o <-- Frank
The "good guys":
[]= <-- Cambot
'
O^=| <-- Tom Servo
*;-o <-- Joel Robinson, movie sign face
\__
() <-- Crow, side view
o()- <-- Gypsy
From: burtonr@qso.colorado.edu (Richard Burton)
Date: Mon, 11 May 92 13:45:27 -0600
Subject: MST3K and the Boston Celtics
A few weeks ago I was in a sports bar with four friends watching an NBA
playoff game between the Boston Celtics and the Indiana Pacers. Now,
these friends of mine like MST3K, and I had just circulated a tape with
Pod People and Rocket XM to them. Now, for those of you who don't know,
the Celtics have a center named Robert Parish whose nickname is "The
Chief." So whenever one of the announcers said something about Parish
using his nickname, we responded appropriately. For example,
ANNOUNCER: That's a foul on the Chief.
US (in our best Crow-like voice): McCloud!!!
The rest of the people at the bar of course had no idea what the hell
was going on, which only made it funnier. However, the best part came
toward the end of the game. The Pacers have a little-used reserve
guard named George McCloud who was put in the game. On one play, he
got the ball about 20 feet from the basket and went in for a dunk, but
he was blocked by Parish. Then the announcer screamed:
The Chief blocks McCloud!
I just wish you all could have been there.
From: Mark Holtz <mholtz@sactoh0.SAC.CA.US>
Date: Mon, 11 May 92 21:16:28 PDT
Subject: Various Tidbits
Some more tidbits for you perusial....I hack into Frank's PC and
found this..... (actually, I called Comedy Central)....
* New season starts June 6th with SPACE TRAVELLERS. Nope, this
isn't a Sci-Fi movie, this is a biker film with bikers terrorizing
a Florida town.
* It appears that the schedule is now permamently Fridays (actually
Saturdays) @ 12:30a, and another film on Saturdays at 10a and 7p.
* Comedy Central does publish a good newsletter of programming for
the money you spend for it (nothing). Besides listing all the Mst3k
movies, it also lists other programming, including Saturday night
live programming. Call CC at (212) 767-8600.
* Speaking of SNL, does anyone know which guest (including musical)
included Joel's appearance?
* Now watch it, I'll get so hooked on this show that I'll create a
MST3K List of Lists. First, Microsoft has to fix their bug with the
Generic Printer Driver...... (That's what's holding up the Trek
LoL)......
* Speaking of which, is the Mst3k production staff TNG fans? It
seems that so far, the jokes that I have found regarding TNG
include:
-> Frank using Fram air filter to imitate Geordi
-> While Crow and Tom pray, they ask the almighty to bless Data
-> During one episode, Crow and Tom read TigerBot magazine,
specifically about Data
Oh well....
From: jordan@castor.cs.uga.edu (CHARLES JORDAN)
Date: Tue, 12 May 92 21:21:35 EDT
Subject: Re: Satellite of Love News #21
RE: Are the torches in the tunnel to the Mystery Science Theater actually
Reach toothbrushes?
E - I - E - I Don't think so. Really, wouldn't they be too small in scale for
a camera to go through? Unless they use a proctological camera for that
sequence, that is. I would imagine that they're probably those Aim-N-Flame
things that they use to light all the other fiery inventions they have on the
show. Don't hold me to this, though.
Speaking of proctological cameras, though...
The dirty quote file seems to be coming along nicely! (So to speak.) Keep
'em comin! Monkey love pile on me!
Here are some that I would like to add. (And some of the ones
that you guys have been using aren't dirty at all, or I'm really naive. Come
on, guys, get your mind out of the gutter!) Excuse (or edit out) any repeats:
GAMERA VS BARUGON:
[scene of a line of rockets slowly rising]: Good Morning. Good Morning.
THE SIDE HACKERS:
[JC starts rubbing Gooch's (THAT'S COOCH!) shoulders]
"Oh, you're so tense. Chicka chicka-WOWMP! Chicka-chicka WOWMP!" (The
fusion jazz that so often appears in dirty movies. Or so I'm told.)
GODZILLA VS THE SEA MONSTER:
Native Girl: There's only three of us left! What do we do?
"Chick-chicka-BOWMP BOWMP! Chick-chicka-BOWMP BOWMP!" (See above.)
PROJECT MOONBASE:
[scene of a rocket ship moving slowly back and forth across a screen]
"I guess now they have to watch marital aid films."
The Quack adds, from SANTA CLAUS VS THE MARTIANS:
> "Lower the landing legs!"
> Tom Servo: I said DON'T call me LEGS!
I also like "*I've* got the landing legs!" (But how are these dirty?)
> (Moffit's girlfriend [I can't remember the names! And after I got so attached
> to these characters!] is speaking of her recent experience with a rattlesnake)
> Crow: "Did you touch it?"
This is used twice. At the beginning of the movie, Resussca Annie is talking
about her date and Joel pipes up: "Did you touch it?"
> (Moffit and whatsername are making out in da bushes)
> Tom Servo: (as whatsername) "OK, now tilt my head back. Blow in my mouth three
> times and press down on my chest three times. OK, I should be
> breathing on my own now."
This isn't dirty, either. It's a reference to how moffit's girlfriend looks
like Russusca Annie.
> Johnny: "Godo! Godo, help!"
> Crow: "Go to hell?!"
How about in Fugitive Alien II, after Ken has taken out a troop of guys with
his astounding Wolf Raider karate, he runs, gasping, and lets out a gasp that
sounds suspiciously like "Shit!"
TOM SERVO: What? Ken!
And now this is the part of my letter I like to call, "I Had to Ask." Here's
still more references I wasn't quite hip to:
> -Go to bed, old man!
Okay, can anyone say what this is from?
And how about the line "Do you want to go... faster? Raise your hand if you
want to go faster!" I was hoping this would be a reference to "Faster,
Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" (a very very enjoyable stanky movie, if you have a
free weekend to improvise your own MST party, with mine being the grandest of
all!) but the line's not nowhere in that movie.
ALSO, in the Where are they Now? File, I'd like to say that I (unfortunately)
spotted JC (from the Side Hackers -- "my own FLESH I don't love bettah!") in
the little cinematic beauty "Hollywood Hottubs 2: Educating Crystal." Yes,
he's aged a little since his side-hacking days, and his range has improved
dramatically! In the Side-Hackers, he played a psychotic motorcyclist guy,
and in Hollywood Hottubs 2, he plays a psychotic school teacher. Don't ask
me why I was watching Hollywood Hottubs, but let's just say it's not a pretty
story.
Chuck
--
Everybody knows smoking kills, but it's cool! What are you gonna do?
Everybody loves tar, sure who doesn't? But doctors have known for well
over a year that it's bad for you... -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
From: ijpc!ianj@PacBell.COM
Date: Sat, 16 May 92 12:16:11 PDT
Subject: New member of the list / MST3K "cookie" program for DOS
Hey, folks! I'm not only new to the MST3K mailing list, I'm also
new to MST3K proper. Been watching it for the last 2 or 3
weekends or so, and I think it's growing on me a lot! I've seen
Rocket Attack USA, coined "The Feelgood Movie of the Cold War",
Gamera and Wild Rebels all the way through, and boy, are those
three movies DUMB, and Joel and the 'bots made them well worth
watching.
I picked all the fortunes out of the back issues and set up a
version of cookie (which I assume is kinda like fortune) on my
DOS box and what will happen is that every time I boot up, I will
get a nice little cookie. I have a version of Cookie I've
compiled for MS-DOS so if anyone wants it, just holler.
I look forward to conversing with you folks in the future.
"Hey, Pastrano! My favorite sammich!"
-Crow during the opening credits of "Wild Rebels"
From: mturyn@psyche.mit.edu (Michael Turyn)
Date: Wed, 20 May 92 00:21:38 EDT
Subject: Opening scenes from "Stranded in Space"
Remember the cheap movie scenes appearing under the credits for ``Stranded
in Space'' (a.k.a. ``The Stranger'')---``Look out for that transporter!''
The scenes that had nothing to do with the movie?
I 've seen that movie, and Senator, it 's no Dan Quayle. For awhile, it
showed up every few weeks on the early morning movie on WHLL (``The station
from Hell'') Worcester/Boston.
It 's about a kick-boxer, a TV-show-hostess, and a scientist who accidentally
get transported into a strange world where guns had been unknown (before the
professor made some for a warlord) but there are living compressed-air
capsules you can load into bamboo to make air-rfles...
I just can 't remember the title---it 's something like ``Warriors of the
Lost World''.
At least one Roger Corman movie has credit-shots taken from other Roger
Corman movies dating from the early '60's to the lates 1970's.
From: naka@elan.com (James "Naka" Nakamura)
Date: Wed, 20 May 92 12:44:35 PDT
Subject: Jim Mallon, Pail And Shovel
Is Jim Mallon (aka Gypsy) the founder of the now legendary Pail and Shovel
Party?
I noticed in a back issue of Rolling Stone (March 19th, 1992) that a Jim
Mallon (along with Leon Varjian) founded this political party on the
University of Wisconsin in the late seventies.
He was actually elected student body president where he left a memorable legacy.
The Pail and Shovel Party campaigned in clown suits; pushed to flood the
stadium to have mock naval battles, have all the students' names changed to
"Joe Smith" so that professors in large lecture halls would know everybody
by name, and to bring the Statue of Liberty to Madison.
When they were elected, they covered the grass "quad" area with pink flamingos,
had public payoffs (instead of back room "bargaining") and paid a small fortune
to build the Sunken Statue Of Liberty. Failing to get the real Statue Of
Liberty, they built a wood replica on a frozen lake that had just the head
and her raised arm "sticking out" of the water.
If both Jim Mallons are one and the same, I'd like to suggest that all Misties
vote for Jim in November and get the Pail and Shovel Party back in power!!!
[ There was a wave of this in the late 70's/early 80's. Purdue's student
government was led for a while by Dow Jones, who was also the lead singer
of a punk-rock band, "The Industrials". Among their accomplishments were
"The Great Ganja Giveaway", where a lucky student was sent to Jamaica,
and the War against the University of Wisconsin student government, which
ended victoriously when they kidnapped the UW student leaders with water
pistols, and demanded 1 trillion dollars ransom. ---Rsk ]
From: scottso@panix.com (Liquid Light)
Date: Tue, 26 May 92 13:58:18 EDT
Subject: sexual jokes & more
GeeZ o PeeZe....I just got all the back issues of the news letter
(I am gainfully under-employed) and I started through them (thanks
for all the work involved Rich!) and in the latest, jdshill@eos.ncsu
included a list of all the veiled sexual references on the show.
One that I saw while watching the tape of Wild Rebels occured during
the opening titles. When the credits get to written and directed by
William Grefe the exchange goes as follows:
Joel: "Hey, what's the extra "e" for?"
Crow: "Well it's for extra..."
Tom : (clearing throat) "Ixsnay"
Crow: "I'll tell ya' later."
What this is a refernce to is an commercial that appears on
Manhattan Cable channel "J" (the adult late night channel here
in lower Manhattan. The commercial is for a phone sex (?) line
dealing with water sports with the number 970-PEEE and the voice
over says "The extra e is for extra pee."
And there you have it.
Thanks for adding me to this list....more useless drivel to follow!
From: lablues!lazer@mother.bates.edu (Patrick Delahanty)
Date: Fri, 29 May 92 18:57:00 EDT
Subject: MST3K sounds on FTP
I'm the one responsible for the ZIP sounds in the FTP site (syrinx...).
[Note: I did not do the au's] If you have any questions, E-mail me at
patrickd@wpi.wpi.edu and I can help you out.
The ZIP sounds are in IBM VOC (SoundBlaster) format. Some are compressed
and must be played with VoxKit. However...I will (in the next month) be
sending up sounds in Macintosh format. These will be uncompressed and
any computer who can hear Mac sounds can hear them (Amiga, Apple IIgs,
IBM, Mac...). However...my video library is lacking. I only have 7
episodes and "Play MST for Me" on tape (so far). I should be getting a
few new ones soon...but since my area doesn't have Comedy Central (yet)...
I will call the sounds "MSTware". If you like them...tell a cable
company without Comedy Central to get it! :)
From: sparky%polari@uunet.UU.NET (Sarah Skovronsky
Date: Tue, 12 May 92 18:31:23 PDT
Subject: Looking for sheet music for MST3K theme
Hi all! Tell me, does anyone own (or can anyone GET; from reading the SoL News
it seems that a bunch of you are close to Joel and the gang at Best Brains) the
sheet music to the Satellite of Love Theme? Especially that part they play
during the ending credits--my friend has a synthesizer with a voice that almost
exactly matches the one they use at the end there. Kind of startles me every
time I hear it--I think, "Hey, MST3K isn't on yet, is it?" :) Thanks for any
info you can dredge up about this.
From: LAMBERT001@WCSUB.CTSTATEU.EDU (Z.M.O.T.E.M.F.)
Date: Fri, 15 May 1992 13:21:03 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Unsubstantiated rumor
COMPLETELY UNSUBSTANTIATED RUMOR:
A weenie in my desktop publishing class walked in yesterday with a Comedy
Central folder. I asked him how he got it, and he said that he was going
to do an article on the network for the school paper, so they sent him
some promo tapes. This was in February. Included were a couple of MST3K
episodes, he said. One was Gamera Vs Guiron (big deal), but he said the
other was "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". I expressed EXTREME disbelief,
but he stood by his story. I'm waiting to see if he'll produce the tapes
or not. He said that he may have sent them home already... could Tomatoes
be a potential Season 4 movie? I know February was a long time ago, but
since during Turkey Day they showed clips of the making of Santa Claus
Conquers the Martians, it MIGHT be true... I'll keep ya posted.
Bryan Lambert
Relevant MSTQuote...
<Santa makes baseball bats>
Hey, those must be for the LAPD! -Joel.
From: jenkins@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu (jenkins lisa)
Date: Fri, 22 May 92 11:04:47 CDT
Subject: those darn articles, again!
Just when you thought you had read enough about MST3K, there came more!
Enjoy! ldj
From: Minneapolis (Minnesota) Star and Tribune
Date: December 19, 1988
Headline: TV Supplies Witty Companions to Help Watch Bad Old Movies
Author: Matheny, Dave
Page(s): [unknown]
WARNING!: A *few* MiSTie comments by typist! }B-)
This is an unauthorized reprint.
Not all great cultural innovations begin on the East or West Coast. Sometimes
they start in the land that the typical New York or Hollywood impresario sees
only from 30,000 feet up.
On Thanksgiving Day a small local TV station, KTMA (Ch. 23), began airing a
breakthrough in entertainment forms called _Mystery Science Theater 3000_, in
which a human and as many as three robot friends watch a bad old science-
fiction movie *with* the viewer, creating a whole new comic form. [Ah! So
this is where Ron Rosenbaum of _Mademoiselle_ got that term! ldj]
The man and the robots are visible from behind, in silhouette, as if you were
in a theater and they were seated a few rows in front of you. They make the
kinds of comments you wish you had said yourself, as when one of the robots
remarked about a Godzilla-like monster crashing through Tokyo, "That creature
just does not know the meaning of the word *around*."
The human, and creator of _Mystery Science Theater 3000_, is Joel Hodgson, a
30-year-old local comedian who in the early '80s had a skyrocketing career in
the national limelight, with appearances on _The David Letterman Show_ and
_Saturday Night Live_, and who had NBC president Brandon Tartikoff after him
to participate in a proposed new situation comedy.
But Hodgson, whose shy demeanor and gentle, goofy-science humor are genuine
and not just put on for a camera, dropped it all and returned to the Twin
Cities in 1984, saying he just didn't care for the show-biz life style and
wanted to live here.
As he said in a recent interview, "You go on Letterman so you can get booking
in clubs in places like Columbus, Ohio, for two weeks. I hate having to be in
some place like Columbus when I want to be here." In any case, he said, he
had heard it takes 10 years to make a good comedian, and after only two years
he had been approaching the upper reaches of the profession. It was somehow
too soon.
But after a year or two of making and selling robot sculptures and repairing
Gobot costumes used in Tonka trade shows, he co-wrote a comedy special for
cable TV and returned to the stage, and he now appears Monday nights at Scott
Hansen's Comedy Gallery, in the Brown Ryan Livery Stable adjacent to
Riverplace.
Probably no other comedian who has appeared often on network and cable TV
lives in a small stucco bungalow in the Twin Cities. Few, if any, haunt the
salvage shops around town looking for material. Hodgson rounds up *things*
from places like Salvation Army stores and Ax-Man Surplus and Bank's, and
hauls them home to his basement workshop. (In fact, part of what bothered him
about living in Los Angeles was the terrible traffic jam every day just when
he needed to go out and scrounge up some PVC tubing.)
His workshop, outfitted with big power tools, looks as if it once was used by
a serious home-improvement type but then taken over by a 13-year-old boy who
never met a squeeze bottle, plastic sword, or half a bedspring he didn't like.
When those things come out of his basement, they have been transformed:
"Oh, this one is neat, if I can get it to work," he said, unscrewing the cap
of a plastic soap-bubble bottle. He slowly drew out a white wand five times
the length of the bottle, with a long loop of some kind of dressmaker's
material attached to the far end. Slippery liquid spilled on the basement
floor as he squeezed the loop closed, then spread it apart and waved the
arrangement to produce the biggest soap bubble in the Western hemisphere,
which sank sedately to the floor, bursting with an almost audible sound.
Gadgets are his trademark, but the essence of his comedy is in his view of
things. There is nothing inherently funny about a leaf blower, but Hodgson
uses one as wind source for bagpipes and sings "Amazing Grace." Or he uses it
to shoot drink-straw wrappers by the thousands at an audience. [And he took
the time to pull out all the straws to do that?! ldj]
So in his current endeavor, rather than just hosting a cheesy old sci-fi movie
from a crypt or whatever, Hodgson has done to the cheesy-old-movie genre what
he does with other surplus and scrap: He has turned it into something else.
He and the two local comics who operate the robots (Josh Weinstein as Gypsy
and Servo; Trace Beaulieu as Crow) seat themselves before the screen and make
their comments live-on-tape, with no preparation, not even previewing the
movie. [Whoa, baby! ldj] When a monster approaches a lighthouse, they may
wonder out loud whether it will treat the lighthouse the way a dog treats a
fire hydrant.
The effect is not like being forced to listen to some nitwit talking near you
in a movie theater. It's like watching a movie with several irrepressibly
funny guys who almost seem to be trying to keep their voices down. Hodgson
said he would never do it to a good movie, such as _When Worlds Collide_.
[Oh, come on, Joel! ldj] For the time being, the movies singled out for this
treatment come from an obscure 1960s Japanese series from a turtle-monster
called Gamera. As Weinstein remarked on the set, "One or two Gamera movies
are boring. Three validates the concept." Hodgson and Weinstein then churned
that around until they [made butter. Whoops! ldj] came up with a line for
Hodgson to use on camera to refute a caller's complaint about too many Gamera
movies: "More than three Gamera movies is a Gamera festival."
Jim Mallon, the show's producer and KTMA's production manager, arranged a 13-
week run for the show (which appears Sunday nights at 6, plus a special after-
midnight show on New Year's Eve).
Mallon, who has a hard time not laughing out loud during the taping of the
movie, also loves the host segments in between the movie reels. "Every shot
comes from the disciplined reality he has engineered. He has a strong sense
of what each robot's personality is; Gypsy's character is gentler and Joel is
more protective of her.... Crow is trying to be more human-like, and Joel's
stroking those needs, too."
Hodgson is the only young comic in the universe who would forget to tell a
reporter that he had just been invited to play a part in an NBC sitcom to air
next fall, starring former Twin Cities comic Louis Anderson.
Production is scheduled to begin in Los Angeles in April. Hodgson said he
will go back to L.A. if he need to. "But it could only be one show," he
pointed out. If so, he'll happily do another 13 weeks of cheesy old sci-fi
movies.
From: Rolling Stone
Date: January 24, 1991
Headline: Comic Enterprise
Photo(s): Joel Hodgson with robot friends [l-r Gypsy, Crow, Joel, Servo]
Author: [unknown]
Page(s): [unknown]
This is an unauthorized reprint.
When the comedy channels go up in smoke, there's one show among the embers
that's worth saving. Joel Hodgson's low-budget _Mystery Science Theater
3000_, which airs weekly on HBO's Comedy Channel, is *actually* funny. It's
based on the premise that Hodgson and two robot friends are forced to watch
cheesy movies as part of an experiment. Silhouetted in the lower right-hand
corner of the screen, this peanut gallery keeps up a stream of wry comments
throughout the mostly awful films. "Jackets from the Sonny Bono collection,"
utters Hodgson during a funeral sequence in the biker flick _The Hellcats_.
"We still haven't figured out why the show works," says Hodgson, who began his
career goofing on _The Love Boat_ for his fellow students. "But the nice
thing is, Hollywood makes bad movies every day, so we'll never run out of
material."
From: USA Today
Date: May 31, 1991
Headline: Wired for Weirdness on Cable
Subline: TV Preview
Author: Roush, Matt
Page(s): [unknown]
This is an unauthorized reprint.
[...]
First up is _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ (***), a wry snicker-doodle with a
cult following on Comedy Central. New episodes begin Saturday (noon and 7
p.m. EDT/PDT).
The concept is a goof: Joel Hodgson as a perpetually tousled, sleepy-eyed guy
sent into space by mad scientists who make him watch B-movie dregs with his
Tinkertoy pals. We watch Joel and gang watch the lousy flicks, catcalling,
mocking, adding silly dialogue and grunting sound effects.
Saturday's movie is the unwatchable _Cave Dwellers_, staring faux-
Schwarzenegger Miles O'Keeffe [sic]. This prehistoric snoozer inspires the
captive audience to launch into a _2001: A Space Odyssey_ whirl: "Hey,
there's a monolith outside! Yeah, everybody's evolving and stuff, it's really
neat."
At two hours, it's too much of a silly giggle, but remains the hippest way to
cook a turkey.
From: Satellite Orbit
Date: March 1992
Headline: Out of This World
Author: [unknown]
Page(s): 28
This is an unauthorized reprint.
The next stop in the search for off-beat movies is _Mystery Science Theater
3000_ (MST). And proving that it's good to be bad, Joel Robinson (a.k.a. Joel
Hodgson) is forced by mad scientists to watch bad movies on Comedy Central's
ACE Award winning MST, Fridays at 12:30 a.m. and Saturdays at 7 p.m. on G1, 1.
Originally a Minneapolis TV-23 program, MST now reaches a broader audience,
including 7,000 fan club members. The show, produced in Best Brains studio in
Eden Prairie, Minnesota, uses chromo key technology to silhouette Joel and
robot pals at the bottom corner of the screen for commentary analysis of each
movie.
"It's a great day when kids realize it's okay to talk back to the TV set,"
says Hodgson. "I resembled _Lost in Space_'s Will Robinson as a youth and
this resulted in my character's name."
According to Hodgson's partner, Trace Beaulieu (Crow/Dr. Forrester), criteria
for MST movie includes "has-been actors and goofy action" such as the late
Irwin Allen disaster films.
"We want everyone to watch MST, and our show credits encourage video tapers to
circulate tapes to those without Comedy Central," says Hodgson.
"We're very much into technology," adds Beaulieu. "And Joel recognizes the
satellite TV audience."
When asked if his show works best on satellite or cable, Hodgson laughed and
said, "It works best on television."
Now entering a fourth season, an MST movie might be in the works. That is, if
Hodgson can get over his fear of authority. A recent visit from HBO's CEO
made Hodgson nervous.
"I feared I would break his arm or accidently blind him, making him really
mad," laughed Hodgson. It sounds like the plot of a bad B-movie.
From: Satellite TV Week
Date: March 22-28, 1992
Headline: 'MST 3000's' Spacey ite TV Week#M#JDate: March 22-28, 1992#M#JHeadline: 'MST 3~#0's' Spacey MiSTie comments by typist! }B-)
This is an unauthorized reprint.
"People of Earth. My name is Joel and I'm marooned. I'm the subject of a
bizarre movie-watching experiment and now I guess you are too. An evil
scientist shot me into space for no good reason at all."
Welcome to _Mystery Science Theater 3000_, Comedy Central's Minnesota import
that grows on you like a Midwestern-accented fine whine. The whine in this
case belongs to deadpan comedian Joel Hodgson, the front man for an eclectic
group of TV-makers who produce their successful weekly show from the suburbs
of Minneapolis.
This eclectic, very funny, do-it-yourself TV show is on Comedy Central Fridays
at 10 a.m. and again at 12:30 a.m. Saturday and on Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 7
p.m. (E). In the nearly two years of its existence, this low-budget, off-beat
show has toted up some surprising critical acclaim. It's on many Top 10 lists
and has a fan club that's 11,000 strong. "Yeah. We're just really happy that
people like it," says Hodgson in his characteristic monotone.
The show's premise has Hodgson as a hapless technician of the Gizmonics
Institute dressed in the orange [?! ldj] coveralls of a neighborhood auto
mechanic. He's drifting through space with his robot friends and as an
experiment, an evil scientist is forcing him to watch really bad movies and in
monitoring the effect on the human species; namely, Joel (and us). Every
week, there's also an invention exchange between Joel and the evil ones:
goofball inventions that specialize in bizarre one-upmanships.
"As you can see, just trying to describe this show to somebody would make it
very hard to sell," Hodgson says. "This is one of those things where you
never know. You think you have a good idea but it might be a horrible idea
and you take a risk and bring it to life and then start to show it to other
people and they start to like it too. But you never know if people will hate
it or love it."
Kevin Murphy, the technical director, the voice of Crow, [oh?! ldj] one of the
robots, and one of the original gang of nine who brought _Mystery Science
Theater 3000_ to life, says, "I think everybody kind of clicked on this
because we all have had the experience of sitting in front of the TV at one
time or another and have had more fun by lampooning a movie than we could have
had otherwise. It makes what could have been a terrible viewing experience a
lot of fun."
_Mystery Science Theater 3000_'s targets have included _The Crawling Hand_,
_Santa Claus Conquers the Martians_, _Side Hackers_, _Slime People_ and, the
choice for all-time worst, _Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy_.
Hodgson explains, "That was a Mexican TV show re-edited in Coral Gables, Fla.,
into a kind of movie with a lot of voice-overs." Murphy adds, "Ooooh. You
could actually see the tape splices in the film."
Generally, each week's movie airs unedited. Joel and his robot buddies can be
seen watching in the right-hand corner, interjecting comments to crack them
(and us) up. As for how they came up with these cinematic wonders, Murphy
says, "We get a list of titles that might be available from the distributor
and then we pick the title that we'd like to preview. Then we just sit in a
prayer circle, get the lodge fire going and watch the movies. We pass on the
ones that really aren't suited for us (_Citizen Kane_?) [Aw, poor Marc
Weidenbaum of _Pulse!_ was waiting for that one! ldj] and see if we can make a
deal for the ones that are."
When _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ first began, Hodgson called it "Hippie TV,
where everybody participates." His Best Brains production company is now more
streamlined, more efficient, but producing it in Minnesota is a major part of
the show's success. "We can't really break up the band," he says. "We live
in an age where you can have Federal Express mail, use the fax machine and
we've got multimedia computers. [Yea! He remembered us! ldj] Why not stay
in Minneapolis?" Murphy concurs: "You can live where you want to and do what
you want to do." Hodgson says his philosophy is, "This is what people always
thought could happen and our company is an example that you can do it." [Ah,
the American dream; pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, starting at
the bottom and working yourself up--*choke!* ldj]
Originally, Hodgson did travel on the traditional comedy circuit. He says, "I
was 22, just out of college and within two months I had gotten on the
_Letterman Show_, then the HBO comedians special and then _Saturday Night
Live_. I wasn't ready for it emotionally. [I like a man who's in touch with
his feelings....*grin*! ldj] I did 12 network comedy shots in 18 months. I
found it hard to keep producing material. I only had been performing for two
years. I didn't have very much stamina. I really missed home." So Hodgson
returned to Minneapolis and took four years off before _Mystery Science
Theater 3000_ began. He used those four years to work on his passion:
inventions.
"I started to build robots," he says, and those robots became a kind of
evolutionary Cro-Magnon prototype for Tom Servo and Crow, the robot buddies on
the show. "How did I get so goofy? Well, in second grade I invented a thing
called Cracker/Cracker. Hi Karate cologne had a big impact on me for some
reason and I created a device called Cracker/Cracker that had a hand. You'd
lay the crackers on it and it would break the crackers. That's how I got into
this business." [Sounds like you were born goofy to me! ldj]
Hodgson got back into comedy by working on Jerry Seinfeld's HBO comedy special
and using Seinfeld as a role model. "He's a very healthy individual," [Yeah,
he breathes often and eats three times a day. ldj] Hodgson says of Seinfeld.
"He showed me that you can participate and still be okay and have a good time
all at the same time." [And, no, I'm not repeating myself all the time,
although I do it some of the time. ldj] The four-year hiatus also worked as a
good gestation [gas station? ldj] period for _Mystery Science Theater 3000_.
Hodgson says, "I remembered that I got my best ideas when I was really bored,
so I went to work in a T-shirt factory but the guy discovered that I was a
comic and put me in the front office to write T-shirts and that spoiled
everything. I had a braille T-shirt that said, 'If you can read this, you're
too close.'"
These days, the only contact _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ has with Hollywood
(apart from the celebrities who are fan members) is responses from the actors
in the films they dissect. Murphy says, "Miles O'Keefe called us up when we
did a movie he was in. He said he really enjoyed it and invited us to his
groovy pad in California if we ever got out there." But Hodgson says, "A lot
of people are dead now so we don't get a lot of calls."
_Mystery Science Theater 3000_, gets its own space in Minneapolis: no
interface and total control over the finished product. "One thing that's nice
about the show is that it's a bit of a closed universe," Hodgson says. "We're
going to keep making it as long as people like it and that's kind of where
we're at."
From: The Washington Post
Date: [unknown]
Headline: Tom Shales's Best Bets of '91
Author: Shales, Tom
Page(s): [unknown]
This is an unauthorized reprint.
The Ten Best TV Shows of 1991:
10. _Mystery Science Theater 3000_, the hippest and happiest and warmest and
toastiest satirical series in this here solar system, Comedy Central.
[...]
From: TV Guide
Date: [unknown]
Headline:
Subline: Cheers
Photo(s): [Hodgson "spinning" planet on finger.]
Author: [unknown]
Page(s): [unknown]
This is an unauthorized reprint.
To The Comedy Channel's hilarious _Mystery Science Theater 3000_. Each week,
during a *really bad* sci-fi or horror flick like "The Slime People" or "The
Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy," host Joel Hodgson (pictured) and his two robot
pals, Tom Servo and Crow, appear in silhouette at the bottom right of the
screen and deliver an uproarious running commentary filled with bad puns and
stupid jokes. "No dancing, not allowed!" yells the owner of a malt shop to a
bunch of fox-trotting teens in "The Crawling Hand." "No acting, not allowed,"
quips Hodgson. No kidding.
From: Los Angeles Daily News
Date: [unknown]
Headline: Comedy Series on Cable Gives Bad Movies a Good Talking To
Subline: Television
Photo(s): Joel Hodgson and his two robot pals on _Mystery Science Theater
3000_, who give a running commentary as they're forced to watch bad
movies. [l-r Gypsy, Crow, Joel, Servo]
Author: Moca, Diane Joy
Page(s): [unknown]
This is an unauthorized reprint.
LOS ANGELES--It has happened to almost everyone who regularly goes to the
movies: While you're trying to enjoy the film, the person behind you is
yakking non-stop.
For years moviegoers considered this habit nothing more than an annoying
frustration, but today Joel Hodgson is making a living at it.
In late 1988 Hodgson created an offbeat series, _Mystery Science Theater 3000_
(9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Saturdays, Comedy Central cable), in which he stars as a
lab technician marooned in outer space who is being used in an experiment to
study the effects of bad movies on the human species.
He and his two robot pals offer humorous remarks throughout these low-grade
films, such as "Pod People," the 1981 thriller about creatures from outer
space, and "Gamera vs. Barugon" (1966), one of many classic Japanese monster
films.
"The show is based on the idea that people talk during bad movies," Hodgson
explained. "I had to create a situation where he was forced to watch and
couldn't leave the theater."
From science fiction stinkers to horrendous biker flicks, home viewers watch
the films while the three guinea pigs sit in the front row of the theater
(where viewers can see their silhouettes), mercilessly offering their biting
commentary.
Although Hodgson said, "I never have and never would do it in a theater," he
admitted that he does make numerous comments "when I watch TV. I started
doing it in college.
"We had no idea if people would like it or would be really offended that we
were talking over the movies. People like the way we handle stuff. We handle
violence with boredom. We punch a hole in the reality that the films were
made in. People find that pretty liberating."
The series is littered with both common-place and obscure references to pop
culture, history, literature and current events. The comment range from a
comparison to Laura Palmer (of _Twin Peaks_'s fame) to a jab at the Los
Angeles Police Department about the Rodney King beating.
"One thing that makes it work is a certain amount of TV literacy," Hodgson
said. "If viewers aren't into TV, they are not going to understand how
disposable TV is, and that's definitely a tenet of the show. There's so much
TV that we can talk over TV. Our show wouldn't have worked 10 years ago
because there just wasn't so much TV."
Hodgson, who was a successful comedian by the time he was 21, started the
series on KTMA, an independent channel in Minneapolis. After the first 20
shows generated more than 1,000 pieces of mail, it was picked up by cable.
From: [unknown]
Date: [unknown]
Headline: [unknown]
Author: [unknown]
Page(s): [unknown]
[That was a lot of help, wasn't it? ldj]
This is an unauthorized reprint.
_Mystery Science Theater 3000_
(The Comedy Channel)
Just who is Joel Hodgson and why is his program the most juvenile, fresh and
funniest show on cable?
[Answer this, MiSTie style! ldj]
