MST3K @ 25

[christmas]

November 18, 2014 (by all available accounts) will mark the 25th anniversary of Mystery Science Theater 3000's inaugural show on the Comedy Channel, with episode 102: The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy. So... I thought what better way to celebrate than to watch the goddamn episode?

I will be watching each episode on the day of it's 25th anniversary... with a KTMA crash-course starting tomorrow (A KTMA a day starting with K04 will take me right up to 101 on the 18th, I believe). It's a nice little re-watch project that will take me to 2024, pending we're not all dead from space-Ebola.

I will also attempt to watch each movie unriffed before each episode premiere. Because lord knows I can never make stuff like this easy on myself.

Anyone else doing something similar? Anybody else feel like joining me? (By join me I mean watch the episode in your own home, without any kind of interaction with myself; what? did you really wanna get on skype and watch MST3K?)

[Afgncaap5]

It's a good idea, but I don't have enough episodes in my personal collection to be able to do something like that. (Seasons K, 1 and 2 are especially more bare than I'd like, sadly.)

[christmas]

Finally got around to watching Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy. The wife got sick the day-of and I couldn't (and wouldn't! AND SHOULDN'T!) demand the couch to myself. she's down to watch MST3K usually but I felt sheepish making any sized deal about watching a season one episode, distraction-free. I envisioned it as a "house-to-myself/sitting-on-the-couch/turning-off-the-lights" kind of thing. She mostly wanted to nap.

It's been forever since I've outright dedicated all my attention to an MST3K episode. Usually they wind up being on while I multitask or at least be on the computer. This rewatch is special because I'm going to ACTUALLY WATCH THESE EPISODES.

I'm usually down on season one (more so than KTMA, sometimes) but I laughed enough during this that I might need to re-evaluate my stance.

I watched the movie itself a few days ago. I forgot to watch the short. I am also curious if anybody has compiled a list of best-possible sources for each MST3K movie? I'd be interested to know which movies are available in HD and which ones languish on VHS or only exist from TV-recordings. This one I had to get using dubious methods. It didn't look much better than it did on the MST3K episode, which isn't so bad. Just not particularly good.

Noted elsewhere, the episode marks a couple of moments that broke the rules MST3K held dear for future episodes: tampering with the movie's actual soundtrack (Joel covering a woman's mouth while she sings and it muting it/the sound of men peeing because they have their backs to the camera) There's also a moment where

MORE ON HOW I'M WATCHING THESE: I'm also using the "publishing dates" as found in this thread:
forrestcrow.proboards.com/thread/21482/airdates-season-1-episodes-determined

I'm utilizing the theory that 104 actually aired a week after 113. Right or Wrong, I prefer these air-dates just because the Christmas hiatus will likely make this much more convenient.

[christmas]

Today we celebrate 101 - The Crawling Eye

This really did make more sense as the first episode. I already knew it did. It was fun to see the birth of Joel carrying Servo into the theater

Favorite riff:

Servo: "Hey dudes"

A somewhat dumb riff, but I think it's special because it's a fairly subtle jab at the character's slight behavior in that scene. The lack of writing is what makes it great. Usually they'll mock a character's behavior by connecting it with some other cultural reference or come up with an extra-outlandish scenario to explain it. But this is just so simple and quick and it caught me off guard in a way I couldn't believe how hard it made me laugh.

Boy, the mads weren't kidding, The soundtrack on this does stink. I have a nice copy of this movie on my computer and I almost think somebody (not me, certainly) should remix this episode using the superior audio source. But I guess you don't want to lose the integrity of Josh gloating that the movie they're sending Joel "has a bad soundtrack"

[christmas]

Today's episode was 103: Mad Monster

So far my favorite episode of Season 1. I'm expecting it to be unseated later on. The scene where the monster is about to kill the little girl is great. My favorite riff is in the very beginning of the movie, when they cut to a howling wolf: "Don't they have leesh laws?" (cut to: a wolf chained up, AND in a cage) "oh. They do. Kinda harsh." (something like that, anyway).

These shows look so much better on DVD than I was expecting them to. People complain about quality control issues with these discs, but season one looks pretty good so far. Has anybody else noticed that?

[leeharveyosmond]

It's kind of odd that Season 1 has held up better than some of the later ones. I don't think the quality problems start to show up until we get to Mike's earliest episodes. Lost Continent is the only Joel episode I can think of off the top of my head with any major damage on the picture.

[christmas]

A couple days ago, first thing in the morning, in fact, I watched "The Corpse Vanishes". I had to get in the car right after it and begin driving home for the holidays. I opted to lose sleep over this project at the expense of my cross-state drive. I could have been killed. I'm not sure if this is a new favorite season 1 episode, but it's my favorite movie so far. I was into the weird stand-alone host segments, though I do appreciate when they have more to do with the movie. Am I right thinking that the barbershop bit was fairly new, even though the premise was lifted from KTMA? I wonder if they thought they'd bring it back as a recurring sketch.

[Afgncaap5]

That's a good question, really. Early in the show's run they might've been thinking about what they could do as far as running gags went.

[christmas]

I did watch The Crawling Hand this past week, but my poor wife got food poisoning and needed me rescue her from work mere moments after I finished the episode so I forgot completely I neglected writing my thoughts.

This was my first season one show ever since it was the first to come out on home video. I never cared for it because I never got over the shock of it being slightly different from what the show eventually became. In context though, it's not a bad for season one at all. A bright spot is during the first scene in the drug store with the crotchety old man telling the teens to stop dancing, and a few scenes after that I remember honest-to-goodness chuckles. The movie is also WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more fun than I remember it being. Honestly, I didn't remember the movie at all. This time around I thought it looked gorgeous and was pleased that this is one of the few Rhino was able to release unMiSTed as the DVD b-side.

[christmas]

Today's episode was Robot Monster. This is an exceptional season one episode, the first one from the season that really felt close to being a more modern MST3K episode. I actually wrote that down then watched J. Elvis Weinstein say the exact same thing in the DVD extras. Being redundant is kinda my thing, so I'll stick with posting it here too. The host segments in particular resemble season 2 more than, say, KTMA. Also, the Commander Cody shorts are the among the best riffing they'd done so far. If you've never seen season one this would be a great episode to start with, especially if you've never seen Robot Monster before and seeing iconically bad movies is bucket-list important for you.

[christmas]

I was on track to watch The Slime People tomorrow morning, but something came up and I had nothing but time today so I did this one early.

Is it me or are Joel's eyebrows totally nuts?

I THINK this episode MIGHT be the first episode I ever watched on TV. I would estimate I first saw MST3K in 1991. I was young. The opening of the movie shows a guy impaled on a spear, and I remembered the riff being "cool, a girl on a stick!" when the guy is on screen, Tom says something like "Oh, look, they're serving hors d'oeuvres!" and Crow calls him a corpse-sicle. A few moments later, after the movie has progressed past that shot of the guy, Crow says "what about the guy-on-a-stick?" I think that phrase stuck in my head. Later there's a shot of a woman with a spear sticking out of her. I think I jumbled it all together and this was what I saw. I checked the broadcast schedule archive on mst3ktemple and saw this episode DID air as late as 1991. My memories are slightly different, so who knows? Maybe I'm wrong and I'll stumble across the actual riff/movie later.

[christmas]

I've been slacking! Scheduling woes have caused me to fall behind. I did watch these, but I failed to come over here to discuss my thoughts. Quickly:

Project Moonbase

I recall being kinda distracted during this. Either that or it just wasn't holding my attention like it should have. Maybe it was too early in the morning. Maybe the episode was lacking. Who knows?

Robot Holocaust

Really fun! I've caught this movie on MGMHD before. Real watchable episode.

Moon Zero Two

This is another really fun one.

I'm still one episode behind, but today isn't the day.

Anyway, I know this is basically a glorified "So I Just Finished Watching" thread at this point, so maybe I'll let this thread die after Season One and just use that thread for season two.