i think you have to "learn" how to watch MST3k. i remember when i first discovered it i couldn't watch more than 20 minutes or so because following the movie and trying to follow the riffing at the same time made me confused and angry. then the show rewired my brain -- no, that doesn't sound weird at all -- and now i'm used to it. but just because of that i think if i were ever to try and turn people on to mst3k i'd probably use a short.
Definitely had a similar experience. In my case, I had actually read about the show in EW and really wanted to watch it, but the cable provider in the podunk town I lived in at the time did not carry Comedy Central. They finally did get it (around the end of Season 2), and I was all excited about watching it! First ep. I saw was a rerun of "Robot Monster", and my reaction was...."meh". Sporadically funny, but not as much as I'd built it up for myself. Oh well.
After that, I would occasionally check in on it, or see clips on the old "Short Attention Span Theater" highlight show that CC used to do. Then finally I was exhausted after a long day at my first job ever (ticket seller at the local swap meet), and I flopped down in front of the TV and what should just be starting but MST3K doing "Catalina Caper". For some reason, that episode is where it clicked for me. I loved it, and from that point on was hooked and started watching/recording every episode. Strangely, "Caper" is a middling episode for me now, but I'll forever have a soft spot for it since it was my gateway episode.
But anyway, that's a long way of saying that I've rarely had success getting someone hooked on the show from one episode alone. I really think it's something people need to organically discover and embrace on their own.
Joined: Feb 2004 Gender: Female Posts: 3,901 Location: Brooklyn (not the hip part)
Re: I Tried To Introduce My Friend To MST3K « Reply #17 on Mar 19, 2012, 11:50pm »
I think I know where I went wrong. I thought that because MST3K was "love at first sight" for me, then it must be like that for everyone else. It never occurred to me that others' mileage may vary.
This doesn't let her off the hook for calling her mother in the middle of the ep. That is just plain rude.
Re: I Tried To Introduce My Friend To MST3K « Reply #18 on Mar 20, 2012, 12:46pm »
De-lurking to stand up for folks with short attention spans. I have one, and have been a fan since I was but a small person.
I think I like MST3K precisely because my attention span is lousy. It's excellent background noise for when I'm drawing or doing other work, and then I can jump in and laugh at riffs too. Not to say I won't ever sit and veg out for the whole hour and a half, but I rarely sit nicely for any TV show. I can't speak for your friend, but that might just be how she operates, too (although making a phone call in the same room while someone else is trying to watch a show with you is kinda crummy.)
Although seconded on the whole fact that some people don't like it. MST3K was one of those things my whole family likes - so it kinda surprised me when I figured out it's actually a show with a relatively small cult following.
De-lurking to stand up for folks with short attention spans. I have one, and have been a fan since I was but a small person.
I think I like MST3K precisely because my attention span is lousy. It's excellent background noise for when I'm drawing or doing other work, and then I can jump in and laugh at riffs too. Not to say I won't ever sit and veg out for the whole hour and a half, but I rarely sit nicely for any TV show. I can't speak for your friend, but that might just be how she operates, too (although making a phone call in the same room while someone else is trying to watch a show with you is kinda crummy.)
Although seconded on the whole fact that some people don't like it. MST3K was one of those things my whole family likes - so it kinda surprised me when I figured out it's actually a show with a relatively small cult following.
i find mst3k is good for that for me too. there's something about the two parallel tracks -- the movie itself and the commentary -- that makes mst3k great background for if you're cleaning house/doing laundry/whatever else where you want to just use the TV as a background event. i think it's equal doses that you don't get distracted by wanting to follow the movie, because let's face it, mostly mistied movies DO kinda suck, and the commentary is very moment to moment, so if you miss a riff cuz you're doing something else you won't necessarily die unfulfilled.
Joined: Feb 2004 Gender: Female Posts: 3,901 Location: Brooklyn (not the hip part)
Re: I Tried To Introduce My Friend To MST3K « Reply #20 on Mar 25, 2012, 12:19am »
I've never used MST3K as background for housework, but I have fallen asleep during episodes many times. Something about the show relaxes me that way. It also makes for some incredibly vivid dreams. I can still hear the dialogue and riffs, but my mind makes an entirely new movie around them. It's a very odd experience.
Joined: Feb 2004 Gender: Female Posts: 3,901 Location: Brooklyn (not the hip part)
Re: I Tried To Introduce My Friend To MST3K « Reply #23 on Apr 3, 2012, 3:53pm »
I think that's probably the safest bet. The longest of the shorts doesn't run more than, say, 30 minutes, so that should accommodate even her short attention span. I will, however, wait for her to bring it up.
Joined: Nov 2003 Gender: Male Posts: 9,811 Location: The Crater
Re: I Tried To Introduce My Friend To MST3K « Reply #24 on Apr 5, 2012, 4:52am »
I think one issue is that certain episodes are what some interview or FAQ about the show called "graduate level episodes." Sometimes movies like Hobgoblins or Manos or Skydivers are so tedious/awful/erinaceous/painful that people can be caught off guard by it, and they don't yet really get how to let the stream of riffing help the experience along.
I've always felt that MST3K: The Movie was a good first "episode" because it was a good movie and made to be accessible. While I'm not happy that the Brains felt micromanaged by the studio, I think the quality work in that one is evident.
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Re: I Tried To Introduce My Friend To MST3K « Reply #25 on Apr 5, 2012, 6:50am »
I took to the show like a duck to water. So did my family. My wife and I used to watch my brothers kids every Sunday night while they went and did their bowling league stuff. Mom and pops would get back about half way through and the kids always wanted to stay and finish watching the "Mystery show".
I remember a few years later, they wanted to watch an ep and told me to bring whatever I liked. I suggested Yucca Flats but thought it might be too tough a movie. But he said to bring it over, and they and the time of their lives. We all laughed like goons.
So there didn't seem to be a learning curve with my family (my sister told me about the show. Said it was my kind of weird humor and to watch it. "Don't think about it, just watch". So I did, and she was right)
Re: I Tried To Introduce My Friend To MST3K « Reply #26 on Apr 5, 2012, 11:04am »
Some years back, I introduced my dad, my sister, and her then-husband to MST3K.
It couldn't have been better, because it was Shorts Volume 2, whose first short is The Home Economics Story, which is set at Iowa State College (Iowa State University), which both my sister and her husband had attended. They would have had fun just looking at scenes of their campus from 1951, but the absurd short and top-notch riffing made it an absolute blast. And of course my dad was old enough to appreciate making fun of attitudes and things that he'd seen when they were fashionable. The rest of that Shorts volume is excellent, too, with well-known jewels like A Date With Your Family and Why Study Industrial Arts? I was actually downstairs watching something else, and I heard raucous laughter every few seconds. MST3K had made its mark!
So, I agree with others who have said that the shorts are a good introduction - I can't imagine that a full-length episode would have had nearly the same immediate impact, even a top-tier one like Space Mutiny. On the rare occasions when I visit, I bring along one or two volumes of MST3K; my dad enjoyed Zombie Nightmare the last time I was there, but my mom didn't care for it at all, labeling the entire concept as "stupid" and losing interest after a few minutes. Attention span is critical in her case, though. She's as mainstream a viewer as you can possibly get, and her shows are the blaring hyperkinetic monstrosities that seem to make up a lot of today's television, reality shows, endless competitions, or those cooking shows where food isn't so much cooked as it is launched at your face with no educational pretense. Am I ranting? I guess I am!
(Indeed, my parents' TV setup seems to have that kind of entertainment in mind: the screen is as large as a map of the world, bookended by gigantic speakers. It's a jarring contrast to MST3K, which is low-tech, low-key, and somehow honest, and totally out of place when delivered through an A/V system designed to stimulate you senseless. I can't imagine something like it even being conceived today, let alone brought to production.)
(Indeed, my parents' TV setup seems to have that kind of entertainment in mind: the screen is as large as a map of the world, bookended by gigantic speakers. It's a jarring contrast to MST3K, which is low-tech, low-key, and somehow honest, and totally out of place when delivered through an A/V system designed to stimulate you senseless. I can't imagine something like it even being conceived today, let alone brought to production.)
YouTube is chock full of shows and series made by enterprising bands of artists and comedians mocking/responding to pop culture. MST3K is exactly the kind of thing that I think would have started up as a web-based show were it made today. Stuff like this is conceived now, frequently.
Adult Swim also runs a lot of purposely low-fi shows or oddball animated series. They only appeal to some folks, yeah, but they're there and they're like nothing else on TV.
TV is only one piece of the media puzzle, these days. The internet gives independent folks a bigger voice than ever.
(Indeed, my parents' TV setup seems to have that kind of entertainment in mind: the screen is as large as a map of the world, bookended by gigantic speakers. It's a jarring contrast to MST3K, which is low-tech, low-key, and somehow honest, and totally out of place when delivered through an A/V system designed to stimulate you senseless. I can't imagine something like it even being conceived today, let alone brought to production.)
YouTube is chock full of shows and series made by enterprising bands of artists and comedians mocking/responding to pop culture. MST3K is exactly the kind of thing that I think would have started up as a web-based show were it made today. Stuff like this is conceived now, frequently.
Adult Swim also runs a lot of purposely low-fi shows or oddball animated series. They only appeal to some folks, yeah, but they're there and they're like nothing else on TV.
TV is only one piece of the media puzzle, these days. The internet gives independent folks a bigger voice than ever.
The length of an MST3K episode is relevant, I think. It's a movie-length time investment that hooks you through brilliant, purposely low-budget humor. YouTube, and the Internet in general, don't lend themselves to that kind of relaxed, sustained attention; there's a hundred cat videos for every TED talk. Adult Swim is a much appreciated haven for off-the-beaten-pathness - I consider Space Ghost: Coast to Coast as important as MST3K in comedy milestones - but ultimately, its shows require lower time and attention commitments.
So what I'm really talking about, I guess, is a combination of show length and audience. The living-room TV audience remains the largest, and it's where an MST3K-style concept would be stillborn today. I mean, even the freaking History Channel has been XTREME-ified to an extent. Shows that I thought would always be quiet (history, nature, cooking, etc.) have all found ways to be loud, fast, almost epileptic. MST3K ate up huge chunks of Comedy Central and Sci-Fi Channel time, and there's no way that either of them would allow that today. They've both changed, and I submit that they're indicative of how the rest of television has changed as well. There was a window in time where something in MST3K's rather exclusive league could be produced and delivered through the most mainstream entertainment device, but that window has long since closed.
Re: I Tried To Introduce My Friend To MST3K « Reply #29 on Apr 9, 2012, 9:23am »
Wait until your friend is bedridden with the flu, then wheel in the TV and a bunch of the discs, where they can do nothing but lay there and watch. That's how you get'em! (:-P)
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