You know, I bet each of us has seen a movie that just practically shouts out "AWFUL!" For me, that movie was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but that's a story for another day. The point I'm trying to make is that somewhere out there, there may be a guy who has to sit through all of history's greatest wastes of celluloid.
In Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K for short), that's just what happens: a human male (Joel Hodgson/Robinson in the earlier seasons, Mike Nelson in the later episodes) is subjected to horrible films. But one aspect that remains constant is that the human is accompanied by his robotic pals Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo (along with supporting droids Gypsy, Cambot and Magic Voice). Since Joel/Mike has no say in the weekly movie choices, he, Crow and Servo just heckle and mock the movies all the way through to keep themselves from going nuts. Depending on the season, our heroes are pursued by the insidious Dr. Forrester, his mother Pearl, TV's Frank and other crazy characters.
During the movie (and an occasional bonus educational short or something), Joel/Mike, Servo, and Crow are all represented by silhouettes at the bottom of the screen. This, in my opinion, is much more realistic than having voice-overs, although the snide remarks sometimes make it hard to follow the movie (if you actually care enough).
Nevertheless, these guys crack a great mixture of obvious and subtle jokes. They don't alienate either the casual viewer or the hardcore trivia wizards. And since many of their flicks hail from the USA in the 1950s/60s, there's time enough to beat up the squeaky-clean, woman-hating, perfect-hair conformity stereotypes present in cinema of that era. Moreover, the producers were careful to pick up only movies that were too horrible to become famous (although Manos: The Hands of Fate owes the majority of its fame to MST3K), yet there are a few episodes with movies featuring well-established sci-fi icons like Godzilla and Gamera.
MST3K has disappeared from television broadcast, but the show is being released on DVD by Rhino Entertainment in boxed sets of four episodes each. It will unfortunately take a very long while for every possible episode to show up, but until then, MST3K has found a loving home in the home video trading scene--possibly inspired by the "keep circulating the tapes" message in the credits of several episodes. (Don't tell the industry bigwigs, though.) Best of all, they're non-sequential, so pop a show in and enjoy one of the thoroughly funniest programs in the universe...
In Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K for short), that's just what happens: a human male (Joel Hodgson/Robinson in the earlier seasons, Mike Nelson in the later episodes) is subjected to horrible films. But one aspect that remains constant is that the human is accompanied by his robotic pals Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo (along with supporting droids Gypsy, Cambot and Magic Voice). Since Joel/Mike has no say in the weekly movie choices, he, Crow and Servo just heckle and mock the movies all the way through to keep themselves from going nuts. Depending on the season, our heroes are pursued by the insidious Dr. Forrester, his mother Pearl, TV's Frank and other crazy characters.
During the movie (and an occasional bonus educational short or something), Joel/Mike, Servo, and Crow are all represented by silhouettes at the bottom of the screen. This, in my opinion, is much more realistic than having voice-overs, although the snide remarks sometimes make it hard to follow the movie (if you actually care enough).
Nevertheless, these guys crack a great mixture of obvious and subtle jokes. They don't alienate either the casual viewer or the hardcore trivia wizards. And since many of their flicks hail from the USA in the 1950s/60s, there's time enough to beat up the squeaky-clean, woman-hating, perfect-hair conformity stereotypes present in cinema of that era. Moreover, the producers were careful to pick up only movies that were too horrible to become famous (although Manos: The Hands of Fate owes the majority of its fame to MST3K), yet there are a few episodes with movies featuring well-established sci-fi icons like Godzilla and Gamera.
MST3K has disappeared from television broadcast, but the show is being released on DVD by Rhino Entertainment in boxed sets of four episodes each. It will unfortunately take a very long while for every possible episode to show up, but until then, MST3K has found a loving home in the home video trading scene--possibly inspired by the "keep circulating the tapes" message in the credits of several episodes. (Don't tell the industry bigwigs, though.) Best of all, they're non-sequential, so pop a show in and enjoy one of the thoroughly funniest programs in the universe...