Wow. Somebody must’ve shown off one of their Rifftrax paychecks or something. The timing on this is really interesting…
My favorite episode (I got into it VERY late, like the season before the last, and cobbled together my viewing through VHS tapes and reruns on Sci-Fi) was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_%281996_film%29
I can’t really say who is better, I could count the amount of Joel episodes I saw on two hands. Love what I have seen to death, though.
Jfletch, it’s not necessarily a matter of better. I’ve always though Joel and Mike had their own particular charms. I think it’s more a matter of taste.
Actually, now there’s a movie where I wouldn’t mind a little meanness. :)
Seriously, though, can you think of any point where Joel and the earlier MST3k guys were mean-spirited? There are plenty of examples of mean-spirited humor once Mike and then Mary Jo took over – I think particularly of the wince-inducing lack of funny in those Profressor Bobo and Brain Guy skits – but I don’t remember any of that in the Joel era. He and Trace Beaulieu had such an innocent and affectionate sense of humor.
In fact, wasn’t the overarching joke that Dr. Forrester intended to inflict pain with the movies, but by goofing on them with the bots, Joel turned it around? And doesn’t Manos, Hand of Fate being so enjoyably bad mean it’s come full circle to the point that we think of it with something like fondness?
Speaking of meanness…Hey, look, it’s the jackass who called me a liar showing up to call me insane. Let’s hope you’ll slink out of this thread, too.
-Tom
I just watched Mitchell (Joel’s last ep) again the other day. Let’s just say that Joe Don Baker isn’t happy with Best Brains.
But no, for the most part Joel would actually actively steer the bots out of being “too dark” as part of the show. Here Comes the Circus is a great example of that. And maybe that loss of affection was why Joel felt he had to leave.
There are plenty of examples of mean-spirited humor once Mike and then Mary Jo took over – I think particularly of the wince-inducing lack of funny in those Profressor Bobo and Brain Guy skits – but I don’t remember any of that in the Joel era. He and Trace Beaulieu had such an innocent and affectionate sense of humor.
Not to deconstruct MST3K too much, but Joel was the bots creator, both literally and fictionally, and Mike was just a guy. Joel was a dad, and Mike was the older brother, and to me that’s a clear distinction in the tone of the show.
In fact, wasn’t the overarching joke that Dr. Forrester intended to inflict pain with the movies, but by goofing on them with the bots, Joel turned it around?
I think Joel was always thinking about the show in a larger context, so that was part of it.
But let’s not forget that in the context of the show Joel created his own hell to some degree:
Now keep in mind Joel can’t control
Where the movies begin or end (la-la-la)
Because he used those special parts
To make his robot friends.
And doesn’t Manos, Hand of Fate being so enjoyably bad mean it’s come full circle to the point that we think of it with something like fondness?
To some degree Joel is far more forgiving of human frailty. When they figure out that Manos is about girls fighting in diaphanous dresses it’s almost a moment of relief. We all are motivated by something after all.
Mike doesn’t forgive.
I admittedly have vast, woeful gaps in my viewing of MST3K. But Mike for me has provided a significantly higher quantity of laughter. Aside from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (and perhaps Manos, but I thought one of the two was Mike. Maybe not.), I really can’t think of a Joel episode that’s made me laugh even a little. And they’re bad movies, unquestionably, but…eh. That’s not to say all of the episodes with Mike I’ve seen made me laugh either, but a fair number did. And of course there’s This Island Earth. Never get tired of that one.
My favorite episodes are typically Joel fronted. Fugitive Alien 1 and 2, and Pod People, being some of the stand outs. I like Mike too, but definitely preferred Joel.
Wow, I just saw this last night before I even caught this thread. It’s on Google Video, btw, if anyone missed it… Posted by Best Brains Inc, aparently:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8590533394044637016
Great post, Andrew. You’ve given this as much thought as me. :) I really like the concept of Joel as Dad, more forgiving of human frailty, and Mike as the older brother, not quite that wise yet. Very well put.
By the way, the Joel as Dad concept fits great with that picture of him on the CinematicTitanic site, with his receding hairline and wrinkling brow. Now he looks even more like the kindly father!
Whatever it is he, Trace, and J. Elvis have up their sleeves, I can’t wait. Where do I throw my money? Because I know of no other way to express the effect of MST3k on me than to simply say it made me happy.
-Tom
If CinematicTitanic doesn’t work out, he can always just keep transmuting metals into gold and fucking with Dr. Suresh.
Someone on metafilter put up a post with links to nearly all the the mst3k shorts on google video and youtube: http://www.metafilter.com/65836/MST3K-The-Shorts
Also, to prove my mst3k cred, I’m compelled to mention that my band in college was called Torgo. I’m sure you heard us on the “This is Harrisburg, not Topeka” compilation back in 1996.
Let it go, Francis.
As someone in his mid-30s, I wasn’t even born yet when most of MST3K’s fodder was first released to theaters. So to me, they’ve just been flat-out bad movies that Mike/Joel and the 'Bots made watchable only via the gift of ridicule (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians notwithstanding).
MEGAWEAPON!!!
Probably one of the few movies that was slagged in MST3K that was usually considered to be good was Marooned, which was nominated for 3 Oscars and won one.
I equally like episodes from both “eras” of MST3K and watch many of them repeatedly over the course of a year or so (if for nothing else to have something running in the background). The shortened 7th season is probably the best overall run (6 episodes) of quality in the Mike years I think, but come on, there’s a crapload of good stuff from both sides.
As for shorts, they make for great watching when you don’t have a lot of time on Youtube… look up the “Are You Ready for Marriage?” ones, the infamous “Mr. B Natural”, “Last Clear Chance”, “Cheating”, “Hired!” and the un-aired “Assignment Venezuela” (which is frankly a classic).
Honestly I can’t wait for Cinematic Titanic myself, though the timing is of course really interesting, a mere day after the BBI return. The live show, especially the first one that’ll be done at Lucasfilm, should be great. From what I understand the MST3K live shows were awesome.
As for Rifftrax, the philosophy is more towards “every movie deserves a track”, no matter if it was really good or not. Of course I’d rather have them slag bad movies.
— Alan
I just watched the Assignment Venezuela short for the first time. Pure comedy :)
RiffTrax was pretty disappointing in my opinion. It’s not nearly as clever as MST3k was imo. Also they had SomethingAwful’s Lowtax as a guest in one episode. How badly do you have to be scrounging for humor before you stoop that low?
I have to choose “strongly disagree.” To me, the appeal of MST3K was always that it was brilliant referential humor, that just happened to use movies as a source for material. Whether the movie was actually good or not was irrelevant; if I just want to watch a comically bad movie, I don’t really need the guys to make jokes for me.
My favorite of the RiffTraxeses so far have been Fellowship of the Rings (which I liked as a movie), and The Phantom Menace (which I hated). I think that the “Lost” pilot is the best two hours of television ever made, and the RiffTrax of that is pretty funny, too.
There’ve been plenty more than that; they always made fun of the movies – I never got the sense of “heartwarming nostalgia” that others seem to have. Wanting Mr. B Natural to die, and trashing pretty much everybody involved in “The Home Economics Story.” And they were pretty brutal to Timothy Van Patten in the “Master Ninja” series.
I’m skeptical; there’s definitely a gradual change in tone over the course of the series, but I never got the sense that it was enough to cause a split over creative differences. To me it seemed more like Joel just had too short an attention span to keep doing the same thing for more than 5 or so years.
And that’s all from just watching the show and reading/watching the guys’ solo stuff afterwards, not from any insider information. My take has always been that it comes down to what they were most interested in:
Joel: into the props and high concept
Trace: props and vocal impressions
Mike: absurdist stand-up comedy gags
Kevin: movie commentary
Frank: more absurdist humor, into the sketches
Mary Jo: characterization
(You think you deconstruct MST3K too much? :)
Again, I don’t quite agree. I think it’s more that Joel is more of a character in the show, and Mike was just more concerned with making it funny. There’s more of an edge there, but I think it’s more callous than spiteful – if the joke’s funny enough, then it’s worth it.
After reading his solo writing, I think Kevin is the one who doesn’t forgive. When he hates a movie, he really hates it, and will call the cast, director, writer, everybody on it.
The only bad thing I can think of about this Cinematic Titanic announcement (other than that it means the guys won’t be doing something together), is that I thought people were finally done with the “Mike or Joel?” thing. Werewolf is from towards the end of the series, and it’s easily as brilliant as Mitchell and Godzilla vs Megalon.
Mary Jo Pehl got put into an unenviable situation, having to fill in for Trace Beaulieu. Some of the stuff she’s written post-MST3k is just hilarious; in fact, I’d say that of the entire cast, she and Bill Corbett have the best solo material.
Indeed. If you ever get a chance to go to a live show, do it without hesitation. I went to see “Zombie Nightmare” when they did the MST3K tour of college campuses (I got to hold a Crow!) and even though it was just showing a regular episode in a theater, it was absolutely hilarious.
I’ve been to the two RiffTrax live shows in San Francisco, and they were also pants-wettingly funny. Material that seems adequately funny when you’re watching it alone becomes 1000 times funnier when you’re with a crowd of people with a similar sense of humor.
I am not ashamed to say I pirated about 6 seasons of this show. I’ve purchased the videos they released, but far more of them aren’t available because of draconian licensing bullshit.
It doesn’t get any better than “Giant Spider Invasion” and whichever Gamera it is involve Jet Jaguar.
MST3K is the one thing that I have absolutely no qualms about pirating and encouraging other people to pirate. (“Keep Circulating the Tapes” after all).
I’m lucky I pre-ordered the Rhino Collection with Godzilla vs Megalon on it (the Jet Jaguar one), because they had to cancel it because of those stupid, stupid licensing issues. But it still means no Time of the Apes or Fugitive Alien on DVD. Sandy Frank can kiss my hairy white ass.
I haven’t seen Fellowship, since I don’t own the theatrical version. But maybe I’ll make an effort to get it.
I’m skeptical; there’s definitely a gradual change in tone over the course of the series, but I never got the sense that it was enough to cause a split over creative differences. To me it seemed more like Joel just had too short an attention span to keep doing the same thing for more than 5 or so years.
I definitely wasn’t saying there was a creative split. Clearly Joel felt it was time to move on, and that he’d expressed as much as he could through that version of the show. If you’ve seen The TV Wheel then you know he was bursting with ideas.
Joel: into the props and high concept
Trace: props and vocal impressions
Mike: absurdist stand-up comedy gags
Kevin: movie commentary
Frank: more absurdist humor, into the sketches
Mary Jo: characterization
(You think you deconstruct MST3K too much? :)
Wow. That’s awesome.
I don’t think Hollywood was kind to these talented kids from Minneapolis.
I’ve said this on my blog, but I’ll say it here as well: These guys were way ahead of their time.
MST3k was the true pre-cursor to youtube.
Again, I don’t quite agree. I think it’s more that Joel is more of a character in the show, and Mike was just more concerned with making it funny. There’s more of an edge there, but I think it’s more callous than spiteful – if the joke’s funny enough, then it’s worth it.
And I’ll agree. Because I think the Mike episodes were, on the whole, funnier.
Joel could never get into a groove the way Mike could.
The only bad thing I can think of about this Cinematic Titanic announcement (other than that it means the guys won’t be doing something together), is that I thought people were finally done with the “Mike or Joel?” thing. Werewolf is from towards the end of the series, and it’s easily as brilliant as Mitchell and Godzilla vs Megalon.
Girl’s Town and Outlaw were the high points for me. I can’t think of two episodes I’ve watched more.
To be honest I think Mike has the better business sense. Rifftrax is just part of what he’s got going on now.
I’ve been to the two RiffTrax live shows in San Francisco, and they were also pants-wettingly funny. Material that seems adequately funny when you’re watching it alone becomes 1000 times funnier when you’re with a crowd of people with a similar sense of humor.
I’m not sure how I’ve managed to miss all of the live things that have gone through SF over the years. Never again!
While my favorite episode of all time is Pod People, I generally prefer the Mike era. I do agree with Tom that the Mike era skits are unbelievably unfunny, but I never thought the Joel skits were funny very often, either. The difference for me is that Joel-era skits elicit no real reaction, while the Mike-era stuff (especially Sci-Fi Channel shows) are hide-under-the-blanket uncomfortable to watch.
I’m very interested in what Galactic Titanic is going to do. I have a feeling I’ll still prefer Rifftrax, because my take on MST3K is the opposite of Tom’s: the only thing that makes 90% of the MST movies watchable is the commentary. A good (or at least good production value) movie with funny commentary is the best of both worlds, and I much prefer it.
Besides, you can’t say that Rifftrax only targets good stuff. The SW Prequels, the Star Treks, Battlefield Earth, Point Break, Firewall, Aeon Flux…they stay pretty balanced with the drek and the stuff that they clearly “always wanted to do.”
Yeah, I had to rent it from Netflix. I’d guess about 25% of my Netflix queue is just movies for RiffTrax. As if I’d be watching Glitter otherwise.
Your mileage may vary with the LOTR movies, of course – it depends on whether you liked the jokes that were purely referential humor, or if making fun of bad material was the most appeal. I just liked having an excuse to see the movie again.
I hope they’re planning another live show for the next SF Sketchfest. The first one (Daredevil) I actually saw two nights back-to-back, at the Rafael theater in Marin and Cobb’s Comedy Club in SF. The theater was the much better venue.
And it impressed me that they really treated it like a live show – they changed things up based on the reaction of the audience (took a joke further when it was getting a laugh), and cut stuff that hadn’t worked the night before.
“Everybody knows smoking kills, but it’s cool! What are you gonna do? Everybody loves tar, sure, who doesn’t? But doctors have known for well over a year that it’s bad for you. So when you go into a restaurant and they ask you smoking or non-smoking, DO WHAT I DO…”
It’s been a long time since I was obsessed with MST3k, but I seem to recall Joel saying some really snarky things about working with Josh, and since Joel was almost never snarky in public, I always thought that was meaningful. But it has been a loooong time since season one, so maybe it’s water under the bridge…
Is anyone else a little sad to see the old cast being split in three different directions, all of whom seem to be trying to claim the title of the “true” successor? I’m kind of bummed out by it, but that could just be because no team corresponds to my personal MST3k “Dream Team.” I’m also sad that the MST3k name and IP is in the hands of the team led by Mallon and Chaplin. They’re basically the MST3k “B Squad.”