1644 MST3K.

People who love MST3K also love to share MST3K with others. That’s part of how it survived so long. In the credits of the show they even encouraged people to keep circulating recordings of the shows. The first copy I ever received from someone else was my favorite episode The Final Sacrifice. Many years later, when they finally put the episode in a box set, I bought it, even though the copy I had was pretty high quality. I think MST3K The Movie is probably the best “episode” of them all in that it’s very easy to introduce someone to the series with. It’s also one of the best examples of the show, particularly Mike episodes, as far as how tight the comedy is. There are no slow parts. Manos, for example, has long stretches that are nearly unwatchable, in my opinion, because there’s nothing for the cast to work with. Part of the reason The Movie works so well is that the film they’re making fun of is actually considered a science fiction classic, rather than a flop. It’s actually a shame that they couldn’t use the material for Riftrax to make new episodes because much of the strength of that content comes from very similar things.
I’m a fan of the Mike years. I don’t hate Joel, but his comedy was kinder and more low key, which doesn’t resonate with me the way Mike’s does. Because of this I own very few Joel episodes. I can hardly name any of them in fact. Manos is the only one that springs to mind and I actually don’t like it. I do enjoy the shorts that Joel did and have a collection of them.
My favorite episodes, in no particular order, are: Final Sacrifice, The Movie, Space Mutiny, Hamlet, Overdrawn At The Memory Bank, Time Chasers, Final Justice, and Prince Of Space.
I’ve made a point of trying to buy as much official DVDs as I can, but they are just too expensive and hard to get in many cases, so I still watch some of the episodes on youtube. They are constantly being put up and taken down so it’s hard to know exactly what you can find at any given time, but there’s almost always an episode I’ve never seen on there still. I’ve never been able to see every episode, but maybe over time I will. XD
I know there must be people out there who’ve never seen the show. As a nerd it’s pretty hard not to have least heard of it in passing, but I know there are people who’ve never heard anything about it at all, and it’s great to be the person who shows them their first episode if they actually enjoy it. If they don’t… Not so much. I tried to show them to the Teen when she first came to live with us and she was not impressed. I think she might be more capable of enjoying the show now, but I would bet that she’d actually like the Riftrax of Twilight more than MST3K proper.

61 Comments

Oooh… So it’s not video games or fan-fic collaboration.

This is even better. I see snuggle times in the very near future.

Didn’t the crew used to terrify each other with the mere mention of “Attack of the Mole People” or “Santa vs the Martians” ??

*musical sting*
Normal view.
*music swells*
Normal View!
*music gets louder*
NORMAL VIEW!
*MUSIC HOLDS*
NOOOOOORMAAL VIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEW!!!!!!

*single highhandedly one of the best jokes in all of mst3k*

Raspberry World. For all your raspberry needs. Off the beltline.

That movie was so full of quotable lines my friends and I used to constantly quote them at each other for sheer entertainment value.

You listed all of my faves, save Pod People. (It helps that many of the lines from it have…new relevance these days.)

I feel like a lot of fandoms feel moral obligation to spread the fandom, sort of like a religious calling. Which can be good, but can also be bad.

There is no problem with not liking the Manos episode, because Manos. Not even MST3K teaming up with their modern Rifftrax versions could save that… thing.

Even a normal bad movie has some enthusiasm to make fun of or say “at least they tried” (Killer Shrews and its dogs in bad giant shrew costumes for example). Manos is just vacant. Completely drains the energy out of everything. I saw that episode for the first time only recently, and spent the whole time on Facebook begging for it to end.

“There is no problem with not liking the Manos episode, because Manos”

That’s the whole point though! Manos is supposed to be so bad, it’s BAD that it has earned its place in movie riffing history that even the riffers themselves are forced to admit defeat over its sheer blandness and cumbersome pace. If one has not seen it, they would never have believed it.

I didn’t have cable as a kid but my friends did. They recorded TV shows anyway, so every week there would be bikes going back and forth to share it. I think the “favorite” episodes really depend on who you watched it with and what caught on, we *loved* doing the Agent from HARM riffs (“He fixes appliances. *Bond sting*” “And then a rocket-powered skiier comes down and… no.”) but it’s not on many folks’ top lists.

By some strange coincidence, I was just reading about an MST3K film, BEFORE ever seeing this page.
I’m getting of the net, and going to bed, before other pop culture references startle me…any [more] tonight. Like the robot said: “Stop, Dave. I’m afraid…” ;)

I like MST3K (and am really looking forward to the revival), but I think I prefer Rifftrax. Mostly because there are no edits for time, obvious commercial break cuts, or host bits. Also, no “The Starfighters” to be seen anywhere.

shoutfactorytv.com has quite a lot of episodes to choose from, and it looks like there isn’t much overlap between them and the official Youtube channel.

I just discovered MST3K is a thing. When I read the title in the first panel I thought: “Jackie comes again with a generic title for some kind a space/fantasy/comedy serie”.
Then I read the blog and I saw “MST3K” and I asked myself “what’s that ?”. So I went to Wikipedia and I learned two things :
– first, MST3K is the acronym for Mystery Science Theater 3000
– second, this article is considered by Wikipedia’s staff to be too long, too detailed and slightly flawed due to recent events (that I have no idea about) XD

I’m sure most of you know, but Joel is bringing back MST3K with new episodes and a new cast. Check out the Kickstarter campaign page from last year for details, but it is supposed to air this year on Netflix.

If you have Netflix you can put it on your “To Watch” list so as soon as theyre added they can notify you!! Im soo excited!! Ive been a fan since the beginning!! Theres also a site called Club MST3K that has a whole community of fans world wide…yes its a global thing haha…but many of the episodes can be found there!!

The first few years I was with my then boyfriend (now husband) I couldn’t understand a good 3/4 of what he said, due the fact that most of his responses to life were MST quotes. Two of our favorite wedding presents were crocheted Servo and Crow figures made by a nerdy friend of his, and I’m finally starting to warm up to the series. And now I want hamdingers. Dang it.

YEAH, Final Sacrifice! One of my all time favorites, and the last one I caught before I didn’t really see reruns on TV anymore. (There might still be, for all I know, but I just don’t watch random TV like I did when I was a kid).

The first one I watched was Manos, which I’m sure is a standard. It was hilarious, but WOW is that movie hard to watch, no matter how you show it. I can’t imagine being subjected to it without the crew making jokes.

If you can find a tracker for it, and enough people are seeding it, the MST3K Digital Archive Project is complete. The file is 30 something gigs, but has every episode of the show, including almost all of the original series that was on Wisconsin public access.

My favorite MST3K episode is one my dad recorded for me. “Fugitive Alien 2”

My second favorite episode isn’t an episode. It is a send-up of Paramount’s press release for adding Jeri Ryan (7 of 9) to the Star Trek: Voyager cast using MST3K characters written spot-on.

I remember hearing about MST3K in my youth, however I never had access to a tv channel that carried it. If I remember correctly, some rinky dink tv station had the broadcast rights for Ontario, which prevented any national channels from showing it, which I found very annoying, as I lived in Alberta. I did live in a hotel for three weeks which had U.S. satellite channels, so I got to watch a few episodes, I can’t remember which ones, but I did enjoy them. I did finally get to see the movie, and have watched it several times, and used it to introduce MST3K to my kids and others.

Ah MST3k, Always delightful! Good chance for a watch and chill moment.

I have to say, having found this comic on Wednesday, and having read the whole thing as of yesterday, you have made one of the best webcomics I have ever read. And I may have read one or two…. thousand…

And with Nina as one of my fave characters, I hope this arc ends with her happy. She deserves the happy.

Growing up in MN I watched alot of MST on channel 23. It’s responsible for my love of Gamera movies. My parents never got cable, so once it moved off the local UHF channel I didn’t get to see it for years. I’ve always been more of a Joel fan, both because all my early experiences with the show were him, and because he did alot of stand up comedy locally.

In the not too distant future me t Sunday ad. There was a guy named Ed not to different from you or me. He wanted to hook up. With Nina grace, but he was in luck. She found a show that would make her day. So Ed told to put in the DVD and hit play.

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