A series of mad scientists, beginning with Clayton Forester (Trace Beaulieu) hold hapless individuals prisoner on the orbiting satellite of love subjecting them to terrible movies. Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgeson) makes the best of his situation by creating snarky robot friends with whom he can crack jokes and make snarky comments to keep themselves sane during the viewing of these cinematic trainwrecks.
Beginning life as a no budget show on KTMA, MST3k managed to take on a life of its own thanks to fantastic fan feedback that allowed the show to extend its initial 13 episodes to 21. After KTMA's demise, the show was saved by HBO's venture the Comedy Channel and the show continued to thrive on for years to come surviving Comedy Channel merging with Ha!, the departure of it original host and creator, cancellation by Comedy Central to be rescued by Sci-Fi (now Syfy), cancellation by Sci-Fi and revival by Netflix years later, and has even survived its Netflix cancellation with a new fan sourced season successfully created by Kickstarter. With its humble beginnings, the show creating a novel approach to comedy with snarky commentary that felt like something one would do with friends in a movie theater for a terrible movie and its influence can definitely be felt in the online reviewing community who very much owe their existence to MST3K for pioneering the style.
The show's low budget look adds to its charm with the robots creatively designed from repurposed junk into some truly creative and visually interesting designs. Tom Servo and Crow look great for being cobbled together out of Goodwill scrimping, and their personalities given by their voice actors and puppeteers makes them an engaging presence. The hosts are also well energized with different takes on the material. Joel is more of an every man who has a very laidback delivery that I really liked during the initial years of the show which is why they're my favorite. Michael J. Nelson was the replacement host for Joel and while he does fine playing his own style of character, I never resonated with Mike's more animated and projected delivery as much as I did Joel's admittedly this comes down to personal tastes as I know people who are rather mixed on the early seasons and LOVE Mike as the host, but your mileage may vary. I also liked Jonah Ray as third host at the time of this writing, Jonah Heston, and for we would place him ahead of Mike but not as high as Joel. The writing in the show is razor shark with some great deliveries from a talented cast and the film's shown range from B-level sci-fi to schmaltzy "think of the children!" melodramas with messages that are fun to see the Host and Bots take the wind out of.
MST3K is a simple concept with limited resources, and it's out of that simplicity we've had 30 years of fandom and comic influence. In the face of multiple hurdles MST3K marches on always finding someway somehow to come back. Will it be here 30 years from now? It honestly wouldn't surprise me. As long as bad movies are made, there will be an endless supply for a host and two robot puppets to make sarcastic commentary on.
Beginning life as a no budget show on KTMA, MST3k managed to take on a life of its own thanks to fantastic fan feedback that allowed the show to extend its initial 13 episodes to 21. After KTMA's demise, the show was saved by HBO's venture the Comedy Channel and the show continued to thrive on for years to come surviving Comedy Channel merging with Ha!, the departure of it original host and creator, cancellation by Comedy Central to be rescued by Sci-Fi (now Syfy), cancellation by Sci-Fi and revival by Netflix years later, and has even survived its Netflix cancellation with a new fan sourced season successfully created by Kickstarter. With its humble beginnings, the show creating a novel approach to comedy with snarky commentary that felt like something one would do with friends in a movie theater for a terrible movie and its influence can definitely be felt in the online reviewing community who very much owe their existence to MST3K for pioneering the style.
The show's low budget look adds to its charm with the robots creatively designed from repurposed junk into some truly creative and visually interesting designs. Tom Servo and Crow look great for being cobbled together out of Goodwill scrimping, and their personalities given by their voice actors and puppeteers makes them an engaging presence. The hosts are also well energized with different takes on the material. Joel is more of an every man who has a very laidback delivery that I really liked during the initial years of the show which is why they're my favorite. Michael J. Nelson was the replacement host for Joel and while he does fine playing his own style of character, I never resonated with Mike's more animated and projected delivery as much as I did Joel's admittedly this comes down to personal tastes as I know people who are rather mixed on the early seasons and LOVE Mike as the host, but your mileage may vary. I also liked Jonah Ray as third host at the time of this writing, Jonah Heston, and for we would place him ahead of Mike but not as high as Joel. The writing in the show is razor shark with some great deliveries from a talented cast and the film's shown range from B-level sci-fi to schmaltzy "think of the children!" melodramas with messages that are fun to see the Host and Bots take the wind out of.
MST3K is a simple concept with limited resources, and it's out of that simplicity we've had 30 years of fandom and comic influence. In the face of multiple hurdles MST3K marches on always finding someway somehow to come back. Will it be here 30 years from now? It honestly wouldn't surprise me. As long as bad movies are made, there will be an endless supply for a host and two robot puppets to make sarcastic commentary on.