Mylar: What's It To You?

[callipygias]

Was it finished?

If it was I'll assume no one has actually managed to find a copy of this short since I think the cd-rom thing it was to have been on (with Assignment Venezuela, back around the time of The Movie) was never released, but I wondered if maybe anyone had ever seen it played at a convention or anything.

I love most of their shorts from that time period (including Venezuela), and at 15 minutes long this could be another great one.

Here's a link to the actual short: www.archive.org/details/WhatsItt1955

[Mighty Jack]

I spoke with Barb Tebben about this years ago and she said that the short was lost. They can't locate it. I don't know the mechanics of the Best Brains operation, how they file and store product, but Venezuela was where it was suppose to be and Mylar wasn't.

Since it wasn't intended for TV and the CD Rom never was released, there's little chance a boot will ever surface.

[Bix Dugan]

I sell mylar almost every day!
We use it to make index tabs so they won't get dog-eared over time, and it comes in a variety of colors.
Everyone needs mylar every day!

[DON3k]

Mylar! Won't you?

[Captain Hygiene]

Oct 17, 2008 17:44:36 GMT -5 Bix Dugan said:

I sell mylar almost every day!
We use it to make index tabs so they won't get dog-eared over time, and it comes in a variety of colors.
Everyone needs mylar every day!

We should have Mike, Kevin, and Bill riff your daily activities.

[davidbeegah]

The Stadium in Buffalo New York is having extensive power problems due to Mylar balloons getting caught in the the transformer(s). So CBS is having to switch away from the San Diego at Buffalo game because of that pesky Mylar

[Bix Dugan]

@ Captain Chuck-

I think I riff on myself well enough. No need for professionals...

In California, the Legislature has actually considered banning their sale, because of this supposed danger. The Balloon-selling merchants rose up and defeated any ban, I think.

Does it really ever happen?|

[aerysoul]

Oct 17, 2008 17:44:36 GMT -5 Bix Dugan said:

I sell mylar almost every day!
We use it to make index tabs so they won't get dog-eared over time, and it comes in a variety of colors.
Everyone needs mylar every day!

Did you say your name was "Big Stupid"?  I love that one!!

[Triple_sSs]

Maybe the short itself is lost, but I wonder if they at least kept the riffing script. Probably a long shot but it would be better than nothing if that still exists somewhere.

[kidflash]

If the short script exists, then perhaps that could be a nice treat for the 30th anniversary.

Better yet, have Trace step in for Bill (concoct some silly excuse why he isn't there) and have the Rifftrax crew do it.

[Diet Kolos]

I always assumed the company making the CD-ROM, Voyager, probably had the tape in their possession and was/had already digitized it for the game before they went defunct and they never returned it.
If someone were really enterprising, they'd reach out to whoever ended up with Voyager's assets and inquire. You never know, that short, along with the half-finished game might be sitting on a hard drive somewhere.

[kidflash]

Wiki sez the company's CD-ROM rights are split between two entities. Plus you'd probably have to contact the Criterion Collection as well.

(Sorry, can't link to the Wiki from my tablet.)

[Triple_sSs]

Here's what Wikipedia says about The Voyager Company:

The Voyager Company was a pioneer in CD-ROM production in the 1980s and early 1990s. The company published The Criterion Collection, a pioneering home video collection of classic and important contemporary films on Laserdisc. It was founded in 1984 by four partners: Jon Turell, Bill Becker, Aleen Stein and Robert Stein in Santa Monica, California, and later moved to New York City. The firm took its name from the Voyager space craft.

In 1994, the partnership was diluted by selling 20% of it to the von Holzbrinck Publishing Group, a German holding company. In 1997, the Holzbrinck Group withdrew with its 20%, the name "Voyager," and half of the CD-ROM rights. Robert Stein took the other half of the CD-ROM rights and the Toolkit rights. This left the Criterion Collection in the possession of three of the original partners: Aleen Stein (1/3), the Becker family (1/3), and the Turell family (1/3).

There's also more information on the Criterion Collection page:

The Criterion Collection company was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein, and Joe Medjuck, who later were joined by Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker, and Jonathan B. Turell founded the Voyager Company,[3] to publish educational multimedia CD-ROMs (1989–2000),[3][4] during which time The Criterion Collection became a subordinate division of the Voyager Company. In March 1994, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH bought 20 percent of Voyager for US$ 6.7 million; the 4 founders each retained a 20 percent owner’s share.[3]

In 1997, the Voyager Company was dissolved (Aleen Stein founded the Organa LLC CD-ROM publishing company), and Holtzbrinck Publishers sold the “Voyager” brand name, 42 CD-ROM titles, the Voyager web site, and associated assets, to Learn Technologies Interactive, LLC (LTI).[5] Robert Stein sold 42 Voyager titles to LTI from his Voyager–Criterion company share. The remaining 3 partners, Aleen Stein, William Becker (President) and Jonathan Turell (CEO) owned The Criterion Collection company,[5] which has a business partnership with Janus Films, and had one with Home Vision Entertainment (HVE) until 2005, when Image Entertainment bought HVE.[6]

Maybe someone could try asking Robert Stein about it, he has a Vimeo account where he's uploaded video demos of a lot of the titles from Voyager, so perhaps he might know something.
I wish we could find not only the lost short but whatever other materials they had made for the game, since I'm rather nostalgic for those old CD-ROMs from the 90s and I'd love to see what an MST3K CD could've been like.

[Treadwell]

Given that the only copy of Venezuela they found wasn't even the edit master, but a timecode window dub, I'm not holding my breath. Would love to be surprised of course!

[Afgncaap5]

This is something I want even more than some of the earlier "lost" stuff. I doubt it'll ever show up, though.

Incidentally, when I first saw this thread title I thought it was going to include my favorite riff from Overdrawn At The Memory Bank.