Gotta say, I really appreciate the candor and humor in Joel’s Kickstarter posts.
Calling Joel an actor is a stretch. In fact wasn’t the thing of the original show that it was so low budget the writers and production crew were the on camera people because they had no money to hire separate actors.
Well, sure, he’s not doing Shakespeare. But I tend to think of people who do sketch comedy as actors. What word would you use to describe him? Host? Comedian? Commentator? Those work for me, too.
But my point is that I disagree with Jon Rowe implying Mike was the real reason for Joel’s appeal. Joel Hodgson – whether you call him an actor, host, or space janitor – has an enormous appeal that goes beyond whatever material he’s co-writing with Mike Nelson et al. There’s no reason for Team Mike to feel threatened by the fact that some people prefer Joel Hodgson at the helm of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
But, really, I think we can all come together and agree that Mary Jo Pehl was atrocious.
-Tom
Hear, hear
Joel was awesome, and I always thought his delivery fit the show better than Mike. But whatever.
It looks like Joel is NOT actually going to be the host of the new show? Cause at some point they mention Joel AND the host. So that’s weird?
Regardless, MST3k was awesome. I loved the Turkey Day marathons on Comedy Central.
Gamera is really neat.
He is filled with turtle meat.
Finding this thread made automatically made joining this forum worth it.
I like some of Mary Jo Pehl, but she played one of those characters that was supposed to be grating, but it all was too well done. It is tough to play an unlikable character that people like.
I think, whether we are in the church of Mike or the church of Joel, we can all agree that MST3K was an awesome show ahead of its time.
Personally, I am a little stumped by this Kickstarter though. This project feels MST3K in name only right now. It is just Joel at this point.
This show really needs to be low budget for it to be good. Part of the charm of MST3K was the cardboard sets and non-“actor” comedian types that were on the show. This was a show made for writers by writers starring writers.
You should read the latest update if you haven’t.
Hadn’t seen that one.
Well, that is pretty much one of the most comprehensive and compelling updates I have seen yet. Glad that he has people lined up for the new cast, etc. It really sounds like they are on track and know what they are doing. I always hate the “kickstart to see how much interest there is” projects, as sometimes they seem half-formed. Joel sounds like he has everything planned out.
Well, I guess I will be in for 35 bucks or so.
I didn’t realize that a lot (all?) of the old episodes are up on YouTube.
The incomparable “Manos: The Hands of Fate” episode.
I know this is sacrilege, but…
You know, Manos isn’t really that great. It has some of the highest highs in terms of movie moments, but good god is that movie boring when Torgo isn’t onscreen. I also really appreciated Mike Nelson’s spot on Torgo impersonation in the interstitials.
But yes, a lot of the old episodes are up, and the ones that aren’t available to buy are available on archive.org. I hope they do a Turkey Day marathon again this year. Last year, on youtube, they did a live Turkey Day marathon, and I hope they do it again this year. (it would line up with the end of the campaign, and maybe a big push).
Rifftrax mostly isn’t that anymore. They almost never do riffs where you sync the riff to a movie manually. They buy the rights to terrible B-movies, then sell them with the riff layered on top for $10. It has been that way for a while now. They riff some real stinkers.
I can’t figure out how I feel about a completely new cast. Would it have been too expensive to get the old actors? Were they not interested? I don’t think actors are so easily replaceable. Yes, the format itself is great, but you can’t just plug in anybody and have it work. It all depends on how well the new cast/writers/crew work together. From the sample video, it sounds like Joel tried to get actors who sound like the original ones, and I think I might have preferred it if they just sounded different.
Also, Mary Jo Pehl is hilarious. I met her after a Cinematic Titanic Live show (in which she was fantastic, getting some of the biggest laughs), and she was incredible nice and cool. The Public Pearl TV sketch is one of my favorite ones from the entire MST3K series.
As an example, their riff of one of the finest awful movies of all time, McBain, is truly wonderful.
Mary Jo P is obviously super talented, and I personally liked her characters. She was in the writing room coming up with riffs too, don’t forget. But she had big shoes to fill when Dr. Forrester (Trace B.) left. One of the things I loved about Dr. Forrester, as a character, was that even though he was super mean and evil, and terrible to both Joel/Mike and TV’s Frank, deep down you could feel the affection he had for the two. His life would have been nothing without Frank/Joel/Mike to antagonize. While he was a brute, you really could tell how much he depended on his minions to get by day to day.
Pearl Forrester was super evil, even more so than her (brother? uncle?). And that felt a lot less warm, and a lot more cliche’d and antagonistic than Trace B’s character. One thing I did like from that late MST3K era was Dr. Bobo and Brain Guy. Those characters were really fun, clearly oppressed underlings that were equal parts incompetent and endearing.
This is the Sci-Fi stuff that I think I miss with Rifftrax, I was never one of the people who was like “Just get to the movie!”. I loved the Satellite of Love stuff, as I felt it gave the show an excellent sense of place. It also would lead to some really funny sight gags, like in the Jack Frost episode where Crow is turned into a bear (much like the onscreen protagonist), and he remains bear-ified into the movie theatre.
For someone who didn’t “get” Rifftrax, I would highly recommend watching them Riff some of the truly awful movies that have come out in the last few years, and I would also recommend you watch some of their Riffing on B-movies they had the rights to. Actually, a lot of their B-Movie stuff is up on Hulu. Which is pretty rad.
My sincere hope is that they get Mike/Mary/Trace/Kevin/Bill/Frank/etc… to do writing for some of the show, and mix in a fresh set of faces, kind of handing things off to a new generation.
Whoever the new test subject is though… god have mercy on their soul. I mean, people hated Mike for some reason, how much will they hate a completely new guy?
The Rifftrax live events are fantastic fun. I highly recommend them for any fan of mst3k. Being in a theater full of folks who remember and love the show is a great time.
They really are fun. If you go, be sure to get to the theater early because the pre-movie screens are some of the funniest parts of the whole experience.
Meet your [probable, almost certainly guaranteed] new host of MST3K: Jonah Ray. My bet is that the bulk of you would know him (if at all) as one of the co-hosts of the Nerdist podcast, which I’ve liked the couple of times I tuned in, but don’t know much about.
I know that the kickstarter referred to riffing being the norm now, but so help me god if this show has face-cam, I am out.
That being said, Jonah Ray is a pretty funny guy. Could do worse. But… this is all being done in Hollywood isn’t it. :(
Yeah, the last update said as much; there’s just not enough of a production machine active in the Twin Cities area to sustain a modern envisioning of the show. The talent–both on-camera and off—is mostly out West (or, I guess, in NYC, to a lesser extent).
I think a smaller production could probably swing it just about anywhere via teleconferencing and the like (or just recruiting purely local talent from a reasonably sized city), but if they’re gonna go all-in with sets, costumes, and puppets and seek out a real TV deal, I can understand the desire to go where all that’s gonna be easiest to pull off.