I miss shorts.

[vgaddict]

I like the new MST3K, but I really miss the shorts. They felt like the appetizers before the main course. I know Joel said that they're not doing them anymore because they were mostly used to fill up air time, but lots of people loved the shorts. A lot of times, they even overshadowed the movie, like Mr B. Natural and War of the Colossal Beast, or Robot Rumpus and The Screaming Skull.

[Afgncaap5]

I miss the shorts too. I *especially* miss the episodic ones like Commander Cody and the Radar Men From The Moon.

[Torgo]

I miss shorts too. These briefs are killing me.

[crowschmo]

They should do them at the live shows.


Edit: And they should RECORD the live shows. (At least one of them).

[kmorgan]

One reason I'd like to see them do an older B&W movie in season 13 would be that those movies sometimes only ran about 70 minutes, giving enough time for a short without necessitating heavy editing of the movie or exceeding the 90-minute time frame. For example, "The Devil Bat", a Bela Lugosi movie that's perfect for MSTing, only runs 68 minutes, leaving more than enough time for a short.  Plus, it's Public Domain, so no rights fees to worry about.

[BoB3K]

Apr 7, 2019 19:47:37 GMT -5 kmorgan said:

One reason I'd like to see them do an older B&W movie ... "The Devil Bat", a Bela Lugosi movie that's perfect for MSTing, only runs 68 minutes.

I think the average running time of a Roger Corman movie from the 50s/60s is ~70 minutes.

[Rhedosaurus]

The problem is that during the original run, much of the material appeared to be captured from video/VHS sources. Since the Netflix era uses HD prints, I'm guessing that finding those of such obscure shorts is more or less out the question.

[Afgncaap5]

Fair point. I've not gone through to see how Netflix handles the lower-quality episodes of MST3K's original series (do they air them? They have to air Manos, right? And that's terrible) but I could definitely see them requesting cleaner-copy movies. And sure you still get some well preserved or restored B&W movies, but it's not always going to be the norm.

[Rhedosaurus]

Apr 25, 2019 13:39:12 GMT -5 Afgncaap5 said:

Fair point. I've not gone through to see how Netflix handles the lower-quality episodes of MST3K's original series (do they air them? They have to air Manos, right? And that's terrible) but I could definitely see them requesting cleaner-copy movies. And sure you still get some well preserved or restored B&W movies, but it's not always going to be the norm.

The old episodes on Netflix are in 480p resolution, but the picture quality is fairly crisp compared to an average YouTube upload. The films themselves were clearly taken from a videotape source, however.

Concerning future seasons, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing B&W films make a return. One question for me however is how they'll handle pre-Cinemascope films (if they'll ever pick them that is), since the 4:3 image of said films would either have to be zoomed in or stretched out to accommodate the 16:9 format.

[BoB3K]

Apr 25, 2019 23:27:24 GMT -5 Rhedosaurus said:

One question for me however is how they'll handle pre-Cinemascope films (if they'll ever pick them that is), since the 4:3 image of said films would either have to be zoomed in or stretched out to accommodate the 16:9 format.

Eh, I don't think it would be too hard, just move the silhouettes over a little.  They could even make a joke out of it, where they come in and sit down like normal, and then notice that they're sitting off the edge of the movie, and then grumble and get up and move over a few chairs.  I'm sure that Joel's 90-person puppeteering and AV crew, should be able to handle it.

[47]

They could show them on the pretense that someone is hacking the Liquid Media™ system and contaminating it with the short. Could be used to explain the poor copy of the video.

Too bad they don't read this board. You think they would care if I mentioned this in person at a live show or convention? Don't answer that.

[crowreviews]

Yeah, the shorts where the best