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Post by vgaddict on Jan 10, 2019 16:48:19 GMT -5
Seriously, why haven't they invited Joel as a guest riffer? It just seems like a no-brainer, especially now that Cinematic Titanic ended. It's every MSTie's dream to have Joel AND Mike riffing on a movie together.
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Post by jadenh on Jan 10, 2019 17:05:15 GMT -5
Yeah, that's a good point actually. I don't think I've ever seen anything where both Joel and Mike riff something together.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Jan 10, 2019 20:21:09 GMT -5
I’d love to have Joel and Mike riff a movie together, but it’s been almost 10 years (Joel McHale on Red Dawn) since RiffTrax has a guest riffer outside of a live show.
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Post by Troy's Dad on Jan 11, 2019 11:54:57 GMT -5
Joel was technically a guest on the reunion special, and Joel and Mike (and Jonah) shared the stage with everybody else for the final short. So there's that.
But yeah, I always wanted to see just Mike and Joel either on MST3K in the theater or on Rifftrax. Interesting that Trace and Mike are the only two not to return for a cameo on MST3K after their time on the show.
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Post by monkeypretzel on Jan 12, 2019 20:18:49 GMT -5
Rumor has it that when RiffTrax first started, Joel was asked to take part, and declined. When Cinematic Titanic was coming together in Fall 2007, Joel did an interview with the Star Wars dot com Community where he said he, Trace, and Frank had been working on a movie-riffing project that fell through, and after that Cinematic Titanic was started: "Frank and Trace and I were working on another project which involved movie-riffing and we were having so much fun writing, and performing, and looking for movies to license, it was just like the old days. But that deal went cold, as they sometimes do. So once it fell apart we sort of looked at each other and said, "we should get everyone back together for a real project". So we called J. Elvis and Mary Jo and they said yes. I said, "maybe we could call it 'Cinematic Titanic'" and Trace laughed, so I knew it was a good idea. See, Trace is an excellent barometer on that sort of thing because he only laughs when it's funny -- never out of nervousness or politeness like the rest of us. That's the long and the short of it. It's all based on the sheer fun of movie-riffing, and then all these other things started to fall into place, such as this live show, finding some new amazingly horrible movies, and getting a distributor. It's a miracle when things you love in your life can come back to you." It's unclear whether RiffTrax was up and running before Joel, Trace, and Frank were developing their project, or if it was simultaneous. The interview is also interesting because it's where Joel explains his definition of "the original cast of MST3K" - himself, Trace, and Josh, plus Frank and Mary Jo "soon after". That goes a long way toward clearing up exactly who he was referring to when he said he had approached the "original cast" about returning for the revival during the Kickstarter. Kevin and Mike are not original cast by Joel's criteria expressed here. web.archive.org/web/20071231164919/http://www.starwars.com:80/community/news/rocks/f20071109/index.html
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Post by Udvarnoky on Jan 12, 2019 22:29:11 GMT -5
As people have been hinting: Do not assume it is Rifftrax that is impeding this rather than Joel himself. When Cinematic Titanic was coming together in Fall 2007, Joel did an interview with the Star Wars dot com Community where he said he, Trace, and Frank had been working on a movie-riffing project that fell through, and after that Cinematic Titanic was started I thought it was confirmed that what Joel was trying to get off the ground right before Cinematic Titanic was in fact an MST3K revival. He had initial discussions with Jim that ultimately broke down. After that Joel formed Cinematic Titanic and Jim pursued the truly misjudged MST3K.com*. Perhaps when Joel still thought the revival had a shot, he had already tapped Trace and Frank to assist with a pitch or preliminary design work. I do remember Joel and/or Jim saying that a big issue with the revival was figuring out how they would handle the cast. Didn't Joel even reveal more recently that he had a fairly complicated idea of how to involve everybody? Regardless, I suspect it was the prevailing sticking point of ownership that really killed that deal. It seems clear that MST3K was never going to reboot until after Mallon had sold off his control of the property. Given that timeline, I would think Rifftrax (2006) predated Joel's efforts. And remember that The Film Crew, purportedly also torpedoed by Jim, would have predated even Rifftrax, and there's also the early Legend Films commentary tracks. So Mike/Kevin/Bill had been trying to revive the riffing machine themselves for quite some time. *Well, with the exception of those KTMA uploads. Those were great.
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Post by Ford Prefect on Jan 18, 2019 14:05:23 GMT -5
Although I don't think any of the MST3K alumni are outright enemies, it's pretty clear that they have different social circles and hierarchies based on how much or how little they regularly interact with each other outside of their 90's era Eden Prarie work setting. I remember reading an interview where Kevin referred to his past co-workers as "distant relatives". When a radio interviewer asked Mike, Kevin, and Bill why they didn't bring back MST3K, they had to point out that they didn't control that brand and Kevin added, almost under his breath, "Mommy and Daddy are fighting." The three of them were never really close friends with Joel in the way that most of the Cinematic Titanic cast was. Rifftrax has always been Mike's project and I think Joel would rather focus on a project he can call his own and have final say on rather than work for Mike. I think that outlook from Joel is part of the reason why Mike hasn't taken time away from Rifftrax to appear on the new seasons of MST3K. I wouldn't mind seeing more cross pollination between the new Netflix episodes and the Rifftrax crew, but I think the MST3K Reunion was it for the forseeable future.
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Post by monkeypretzel on Jan 18, 2019 22:03:40 GMT -5
Although I don't think any of the MST3K alumni are outright enemies, it's pretty clear that they have different social circles and hierarchies based on how much or how little they regularly interact with each other outside of their 90's era Eden Prarie work setting. I remember reading an interview where Kevin referred to his past co-workers as "distant relatives". When a radio interviewer asked Mike, Kevin, and Bill why they didn't bring back MST3K, they had to point out that they didn't control that brand and Kevin added, almost under his breath, "Mommy and Daddy are fighting." The three of them were never really close friends with Joel in the way that most of the Cinematic Titanic cast was. Rifftrax has always been Mike's project and I think Joel would rather focus on a project he can call his own and have final say on rather than work for Mike. I think that outlook from Joel is part of the reason why Mike hasn't taken time away from Rifftrax to appear on the new seasons of MST3K. I wouldn't mind seeing more cross pollination between the new Netflix episodes and the Rifftrax crew, but I think the MST3K Reunion was it for the forseeable future. You might have hit it on the head about Joel wanting to work on his own project. Again, only a rumor, but I've been told that when Mike (yes, actually Mike) asked Joel about being on/contributing to RiffTrax in the early days, the answer was along the lines of "You used to work for me; why would I work for you?" What I do know is that Mike said on Twitter at the very start of the MST3K Kickstarter (11/12/15) that he was not asked to be part of the return as of that time, and that he told a fan at the 372 Pages Live show in Minneapolis last April that he was not asked to take part in Season 12 in any capacity. That makes sense if you consider that Joel doesn't think of Mike as original cast. It also makes sense if you put two decades of interviews together and gather a lot of circumstantial evidence from said interviews that Joel might have been, just a little, understandably a teeny bit jealous of Mike for being the face of MST3K when it was more popular and visible on TV and in media, after Joel left for what turned out to be over a decade under the radar in LA.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Jan 19, 2019 11:21:44 GMT -5
I do remember an interview where Joel said if he were to do a a RiffTrax, his choice would be the 2004 Van Helsing (obviously this answer was given back when RiffTrax was mostly doing blockbusters.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Jan 25, 2019 3:19:42 GMT -5
I'd love to see Joel on a Rifftrax episode. However, there's two issues to consider...
1) Joel is a professional comedian, writer, and entertainer who's busy with MST3K, and 2) Rifftrax is a business endeavor
Everything I'm about to say regarding these two facts is highly speculative and potentially not valid in any way...
Rifftrax produces a lot of content on the cheap, which is great for their overhead: we buy their tracks, their shorts, and the movies that they get the rights to, and they don't have to break the bank too much. Sure, they pay the writers, they pay Mike, Kevin, and Bill, but for the most part it's a low-cost production with a market that they know. Way back when they had guest stars more regularly, they were still building their audience. Weird Al? I love Al, sign me up! Chad Vader? Huh, I kinda liked that YouTube series, this is a tie in for me. But now that Rifftrax has established its audience, the need for special guests has diminished.
Joel, meanwhile, has things on his own plate, and while I don't doubt that he wouldn't mind appearing on Rifftrax, it's the sort of situation where the proper thing to do really would be to pay whatever would be appropriate for a performer of his caliber, even if he's a performer with a history of involvement with the other stars.
So either we need Rifftrax to say "Yes, paying for this guest star will bring in a substantial profit!" or we need Joel to volunteer to do it on the cheap. Neither option is really great? We want Joel to get paid (especially since it'd likely take time away from other projects he's working on which likely includes the future of MST3K so anything else he works on really should be worth it), and we also want Rifftrax to keep makin' profits so that they can keep doing their work. Remember, Rifftrax can't get a special guest with the goal of breaking even, they need to get special guests with a certain degree of profit in mind; I've got no idea what cost-to-payout they'd be looking for, but my guess is that they have a definite target value.
So, uh, yeah. I'm in total agreement that Joel being on Rifftrax would be *awesome*. But I also think there's a lot of practical business-side reasons, from both involved parties, that make it tricky. I won't say impossible, but definitely tricky. Case in point: if both Rifftrax has a special thing that they need to pull in new viewers for, and if Joel wants a special event to drop an announcement in, then they might be able to alter their usual figures for some cross promotion. Then the entertainers are all happy, the accountants who keep letting the entertainers entertain are happy, and we the viewers at home are happy. Such a cross-promotion event is the kind of thing that only happens once in a blue moon, though, and with how busy everyone involved is with their various projects it would have to be something special indeed.
...
Again, everything I said above there is highly speculative. I don't know how "The Biz" works, but my hunch is that they're professionals who like each other and the material well enough, but that Business gets in the way. Curse you, executive meddling!
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Post by brandonakaxerxes on Feb 1, 2019 20:17:32 GMT -5
I remember Joel also saying that one reason he'd be hesitant about a Joel/Mike cross-over thing is because it's something they'd have to live up to for fans' expectations, and what if it came out disappointing to them?
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Post by crowschmo on Oct 31, 2019 13:38:59 GMT -5
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Post by zombiewhacker on Nov 15, 2019 17:11:42 GMT -5
Back when Joel was a recurring performer on Saturday Night Live, he turned down a Hollywood offer to star in his own network TV sitcom. Instead he moved back home to Minnesota and elected to go the Eden Prairie route. You don't do something like that if your primary motivation is an ego-driven hunger for fame. Joel simply doesn't strike me as the type.
Also Joel remains best friends with Jerry Seinfeld, who he's known since back in the day. So I'm supposed to believe Joel is cool with Jerry but is jealous of Mike's fame and fortune? Please.
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