Last three episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000! Talkback

[shoujoaifan]

Yes, it is has finally come down to the wire. The last three episodes of Mystery Science Theater,and then its cancelled...

Let us mourn the loss of this spectacular show, slap ourselves as we pull ourselves out of fanboy/girl/person depression , and move on while keeping a small place in our all-so corny hearts.

Unfortunately, the 1st of said 3 episodes have already aired I meant to do this yesterday but got caught up trying to get this pic I was going to use to work in the IS THIS THING ON? forum (which STILL doesn't work! Aug!).

The episodes are (at 9:00 A.M. Saturdays folks)

(Info taken from the Offical MST3K Fanclub which got it from SCI-FI)
1/17 - 9 a.m. - [819] INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN

1/24 - 9 a.m. - [1006] BOGGY CREEK II

1/31 - 9 a.m. - [912] THE SCREAMING SKULL (with short: ROBOT RUMPUS) *a GUMBY short!*

The 1st digit of the 3-digit numbers and the 1st two digits of the 4-digit numbers are the season numbers and the rest are the episode orders for those seasons.

So we have a sample of all the SCIFI seasons. We should have ended with the true finale, Danger Diabolik, but the contract ran out. The Screaming Skull is long, dragging, all atmosphere, barely a barebones plot, but the Gumby short makes up for it.


Here's my review/synopis/something of the Invasion of the Neptune Men which should be spoiler free of both the movie and the actual show that we really watch for:

Watch as Japan is invaded by aliens with torpedo-shaped heads, or whatever it is they hide under those wonky helmets, and the government turn to the only power that works in thses type of situations, the child sidekicks that we LOVE that do nothing besides run, run, and for a change of pace, scream, and then run.

But that's unfair, they also praise their true savior, the heroific hero SPACE CHIEF! Yes, Space Chief, aka THE PRINCE OF SPACE, from his own movie in an earlier episode, THE PRINCE OF SPACE, in disguise so he wouldn't get sued back in the day when it mattered. Or was it Starman who started it all since he seemed to do better than these guys. Eh, whatever.

Watch and be amazed and shocked beyond all comprehension as Space Chief's actor, who would be a successful martial arts actor later on, pretends to push Lost In Space Robot fans ( the evil movie ones, not the real life ones. Although sometimes...) who trip over themselves.

Watch as they have arieal fights with their slow-as-mollasses spaceship chugs and fires, and misses, Space Chief in his space car (which is truthfully corny but wouldn't we all want something like that, even if it doesn't fly?) and watch this go on and on and ON as it tries to outdue the kids' record.

AS for the captives of the Satellite Love, watch, pity, and laugh as the 'bots Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot get the microscopic robots known as Nanites to wage war on the dust mites in Mike Nelson's eyelashes, and later reach the brink of insanity as this stinkburger finally pushes them to their limits, but are given hope from an old friend from PRINCE OF SPACE.

And while this is going on, thier captors Pearl Forester and nearly omni-potent alien Brain Guy who have landed down on Earth in Ancient Roman times as the local Romans put it, and try to convince their friend Prof. Bobo that he indeed is not a Mad God but is really a monkey descendant of Mike's from the future.


P.S. For info on why its being cancelled and why its been in reruns for 2 extra years than previously planned (at least they got that going for them), again check out the official fansite for the MST3K fanclub which is still ongoing and free.

SCIFI'S site will be archived at the fan site after it is booted off www.scifi.com so if anyone wants to get their chance to post into it before it goes and be slightly immortalized, here's your chance.


And finally, for all those out there who want to make their own 'bots especially before the last ep, which were assembled out of toys, Tupperware, car seats, and fruit bowls back when it was REALLY low budget (but that's part of the appeal!), check out www.botcave.net to order replica parts of the now rare and even valuable pieces of plastic crap. Just DON'T order the real deal Hooper mask used for Crow's hair/net/thing, there's a site with a replica part out there I was at awhile ago, I just need to to find it

Watch, mourn, and most importantly enjoy.

[Rover_Wow]

...but did anyone notice that sometime last year, the MSTings collection known as Website Number 9 went under?
The reason I raise this up is so to ask whether anyone has a copy of 3 MSTings I know existed on WSN9 that I can have. "The Kiss That Never Happened", "Who Killed Lila / Brainy's Diary", and "The Love Docter". The reason I want these is because they are MSTings of Hey Arnold! fanfics, and I run a page on Nick-related MSTings.

[stwasm]

Yes, it's a VERY depressing times for us "MISTIES." Fortunately, I still have some of the episodes on tape, and a good friend of mine bought me a DVD compilation to go with my new DVD player for Christmas. Has there been any more to the rumor that Comedy Central could pick up the show again? We could only hope!

[The Dork Knight]

I doubt Comedy Central would want to pick up a show like MST3K. They'd rather air crap like MadTV.

- The Dork Knight

[Behonkiss]

Are there plans to release more of the series on DVD?

[shoujoaifan]

MOST definately Behonkiss. At Rhino there's already DOZENS on tape from both CC and SCIFI, a bunch on DVD ( some of which are DOUBLE-SIDED DVD's, with one side as the MST3K ep and the other the orinigal movie!), and at Best Brains themselves they have numerous tapes with behind the scenes of the last episode, tapes of formerly live skits performed at the cons, and they even released some ep's outside of Rhino, using ep's they still had thr rights too.



SPEAKING OF WHICH, out of their movies, there's ALOT public domain ones, including some from SCIFI. Needless to say that's more stuff they could put on tape+DVD.

BUT that also means if they could get a syndicator like that one year when they were leaving CC, they could syndicate these ep's with public domain movies and the few non-public domain ones they still have rights too. They could also show the Mystery Science Theater HOUR again and devide more ep's into two up if they have to.

I DON'T know if they plan on doing that though. They all have moved on and gone their seperate ways. BB Inc is now devoted to selling memorablia and is run only a few people, Jim Mallon, Tebben, and Tim Johnson.

Jim Mallon started a company, Go Pictures I believe, to rent out the editing equipment from the company to get their money's worth and now spends more time with his family and doing charity, CERTAINLY nothing to scoff at.

If they find time, and it shouldn't be that hard, they just got to find a syndicator interested, and old shows are syndicated all the time. We can only hope.



P.S. One last thing I forgot in my first post. For anyone interested in seeing other work of the genre of movie hosts, or as most of them in the community call themselves, "horror hosts", since most of them are horror-related and that's what started the genre, checkout www.geocities.com/horrorhostundergound.

Some of them are mildly succesful, others are just fans of the genre and air their own stuff on public acess, and few hardworking and probably lucky as well few even worked themselves out of public domain. Some are terrible, others are great, check them out!

[shoujoaifan]

BINGO!
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/3539/links.html

He has a link to Ed Miarecki's replica of the Hooper mask to make ol' Crow T. Robot net o' hair

Also check out the main page:

http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/3539/

And check out www.botcave.net again for intructions to make your own Cambot!

Well, one of him


EDIT: Oops, found Mr. Miarecki's own site, http://www.edmiarecki.com/ , you just got to e-mail him about MST3K parts since his sells replicas of other TV objects on the site.

[Roger Smith]

Roger Smith is very sad.. WHY GOD WHY MYSTERY SCIENSE THREATER!
WHY GOD

[shoujoaifan]

Tomorrow is the SECOND-TO-LAST EPISODE! It is:

The Infinitely Riff of BOGGY CREEK 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES!



Which is actually the THIRD film since the orinigal's director did this one and decided to forget the other one since he didn't do it.

He hired his son as the main male teen character who does diddily squat and put himself as the main character: a self-righteous college teacher who talks down to everyone around him and narrates and continues to lecture everyone THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE MOVIE!

Which of course makes an excellent episode

I'll do a more in-depth look later, but am going off to relatives for the weekend so it have to be Monday.

What's your opinion on this momentous occasion?

[Tobias]

T

Which is actually the THIRD film since the orinigal's director did this one and decided to forget the other one since he didn't do it.

He hired his son as the main male teen character who does diddily squat and put himself as the main character: a self-righteous college teacher who talks down to everyone around him and narrates and continues to lecture everyone THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE MOVIE!

Which of course makes an excellent episode

Don't forget said son is shirtless throughout the entire movie, which would be a treat for the ladies if he wasn't, as the MST3K website puts it, a series of pipe cleaners attached to a head.

[Alex Toon]

Looks like this Saturday at 10:00 CT, MST3K is heading for the big tv in the sky. I can't believe they won't make a comeback now! I meam, come on! From Justin to Kelly, Gigli, The Kid, and all those other sucky movies need to be MST3K'd!

[stwasm]

Well, I just salute every last person who had a hand in giving me the laughs they did through that show! I value those I have on tape and I plan on ordering some DVDs. Who knows? Maybe it will make a return.

[shoujoaifan]

Amen.

Seriously, this or the old MST Hour needs to be syndicated. A bunch of their movies are public domain, they still got time on some of the copyrighted ones, a bunch of SCIFI era eps have already gone to tape and DVD, and new MST Hours could be made.

I'll post my review for BOGGY CREEK 2: THE LENGEND CONTINUES later when I get time, but right now here's the site where you can get the gumball machine to make TOM SERVO'S HEAD! (for around $7 last time I checked)

www.sweetys.com

UNFORTUNATELY its down for construction right now But you can find it at Sweety Factory stores. And of course you can also get ones from some bot builders at a jacked up price

[shoujoaifan]

Sorry if that's long. I wanted to tell everyone who may have forgotten about it. The talkback for the last THREE was slow and I figured people might get confused and plan on catching the last one 3 weeks from now.

The last episode isn't the last one made, DANGER: DIABOLIK, kinda of like Lupin if you took away his humor and his two pals, and made him and Fujiko totally badass in a cheesy sort of way.

Instead we THE SCREAMING SKULL. Long and hard on atmosphere, soft on plot, you need alot of patience for this.




But before it there's a GUMBY short! Its about robots. Robots who kill. And the green blobs who kill them. Needless to say, the MST3K bots won't like that

Its on the SCIFI channel.

[The Dork Knight]

1/31/04 will be the remembered as the sadiest date in the history of the Sci-Fi channel.

- The Dork Knight

[Roger Smith]

yes... I must wake up early.. beacuse here its air at 4 am..

[Delthayre]

Damn, damn, damn.

Even though the selection available had dwindled impressively as rights expired, I'll miss it all the same. MST3k was one of the first shows I developed a real love for and it certainly played a part in shaping my sense of humor (that and Monty Python's Flying Circus, the televised parents of my youth)

The closing "Love Theme" of the series always sounded oddly sad to me, and I think this last time, it'll be just that.

And just for larks, my top five Sci-Fi channel episodes.

1. Prince of Space (We like it very much)
2. Space Mutiny (Big MacLargehuge!)
3. Invasion of the Neptue Men (Break dancing office chairs!)
4. The Final Sacrifice (Rowsdower!)
5. The Giant Spider Invasion (Packer won the Super Bowl!)


A good MST3k reference is Satellite News, which will soon be hosting the material from the Sci-Fi channels' MST3k site and has some thoughts on the depature from Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett.

Still, the spirit of the show can be carried on in the homes and minds of the fans. Go get a bad movie (I recommend low-budget Italian Sci-Fi films from the 70s), some strange people, and go forth and MST. I've done it many a time with my fellow Viking Hats, most of these being noted for posterity.

Sample:
Abraxis: Guardian of the Universe (1990)
Cheese level: Wisconsin.
Riffability: Thank thee lord for guiding us to the holy grail!
Skeeviest bit: Jesse Ventura shirtless in the bathroom. Ewwwwww!
Ripest corn: Constant explosions for no apparent reason.
Most regrettable directoral decision: Using smooth lounge jazz whever only two, usually male, characters were involved in a scene.
Notable holes: A small-town deputy sherrif having an Uzi.
Unresolved questions: Why exactly does Secundus impregnating a child-bearing member of the species cause the rapid birthing of the comater?
Kickline: On weekends Collectors like to go into suburban neighborhoods while firing their guns wildly and scare the hell out of the gentle local housewives.
Stinger: Oh yeah! Chew on this!

(special thanks to Mark "Zompist" Rosenfelder for originating this format and inspiring me to try MSTing on my own)

[The Landstander]

Forgive me for sounding stupid, but I thought the show ended awhile ago... =\

[Delthayre]

Forgive me for sounding stupid, but I thought the show ended awhile ago... =\

*ahem*

Cancelled != off the air.

The series ceased production in 1999, but since it still drew consistent ratings at 9:00am on Saturdays, it has been kept there and only now does the broadcast contract expire with no likelyhood of a renewal. Which I would have thought you could extrapolate. Tsk, tsk.

[The Landstander]

Oh, alright. My stupid. =(