Pick Your Fave MST3K Episode!

I have a real soft spot for Time Chasers, both because it’s awesome and because I watched (and mocked) the normal version of it at least three or four times before I saw the MST3k version. Shorts-wise, I’m pretty partial to What to do on a Date, which ran before the so-awful-even-MST-couldn’t-make-it-watchable Swamp Women.

“I like pie.”

What and no one mentions The Beginning of the End?

“whats that noise”? “it’s coming from behind that giant grasshopper!”

“He’s signing ‘aaaaaaaaaagh’!”

Plus, you know, Peter Graves

My favorite will always be The Day The Earth Froze.

“Bring me… a SAMPO.”

Pod People by a country mile, which as everyone knows is much longer than an urban mile.

Manos: Hands of Fate is the most overrated episode in the series.

Here comes the CIRCUS!

I’m a fan of most of the Mike Episodes, as I could never quite get into Joel’s delivery. One of the more recent episodes I’ve watch was Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, and it has some funny riffing.

Unfortunately I did most of my MST3k viewing five years ago in California when it was being broadcast on Saturday mornings, so I can’t remember the names of some of my favorites, but Space Mutiny and Diabolik have classic moments in them.

I really enjoy The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman. The whole episode is just a setup for Tom’s line at the end, and I bust a gut every time.

Is it the hootinany line? I’d agree with that!

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet(there’s a lot I haven’t seen), but it’s when Tom starts yelling at the screen.

Was it Fugitive Alien 1 or 2 (or possibly both) that had all the Rocky the Flying Squirrel jokes?

Mitchell and Space Mutiny are probably the best MST3K episodes. They are the two I reach for when introducing someone to MST3k the first time.

They aren’t my favorite, no that is reserved for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. When I spend most of the mid 70s living at John Hopkins hosptial, it was one of the movies they showed to us as a “treat” around Christmas time. I was 6 at the time and it confused me to no end. When I saw it 20 years later, the MST3k riffing purged the demon from my soul that was Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

The worst MST3 episode is easily The Starfighters. Using mostly stock footage of fighter planes refueling with some limited ultra low budget single camera scenes to provide plot, it is one of the most mind numbing movies ever created and even MST3K can’t help. No matter how many times the phrase “poopie suit” is said.

There were so many good ones, but I think Pod People and The Brute Man rank up pretty high for me. And I agree with MattKeil, Manos is way overrated and seems to almost be the default “best” when you ask people.

Best short has to be Hired! Part 2 (Electric Boogaloo).

I’m gonna have to go with “Manos” The Hands of Fate. Yes, the quotes are right there in the title card. To this day, I can’t get Torgo’s theme music out of my head, and it will occasionally rise to the surface, unbidden, and stay there for minutes at a time. It’s horrible.

Also, I recall The Wild World of Batwoman was quite delightful, if a bit overrun by random, nonsensical go-go dancing interludes.

Realizing that Manos is kind of a popular choice amongst MST3K fans everywhere, over the years I’ve still always come back to that one as one of the quintessential episodes (that is, assuming such a thing can actually be said to exist). So I guess if I had to pick just one, that would be it. I think I’m going to need to do a mini marathon some time this year. It’s been a while.

I’ll say Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, with the movie running a close second, but it must be kept in mind that there’s a lot of classic MST3K that I simply haven’t seen, to my eternal shame. “Manos” is a classic, but it’s a dreadful, dreadful movie and they can’t quite rescue it.

I hated Manos, one of the worst episodes to me, the movie is so bad they don’t have much to work with. Zombie Nightmare I watched recently and it’s instantly become one of my faves, just wish it wasn’t censored so much. Still have a lot to watch though, don’t believe I’ve seen Pod People yet!

I would have to cast my vote for “Santa Claus”, the 1959 version where Santa lives on the moon with Merlin and comes down to earth once a year to hand out toys and fight Satan. But first, a musical number featuring kidnapped multi-cultural children.

Oh cool - the musical number’s and the devil’s dance scene are on Youtube. I’m not allowed to post a link to it because of mylow post count. So I broke it up thusly:

Get down with your bad Santa self!

Also - this host segment, “A Joke by Ingmar Bergman” never fails to crack me up.

Oh, yeah. That was painful. Only redeeming aspect was the choir of Tom Servos which was a beautiful nonsequitor.

Riding with Death.

Absolutely my favorite.

One very cool point for Pod People is that the first time I saw it was while watching MST3k with a bunch of friends, one of whose last name was McCloud.