Even if you're not spending the next day watching your MST3K tapes and DVDs, you'll be pleased to note that it's a good time to be a MSTie—maybe the first good time since the show actually was cancelled by the Sci Fi Channel. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett are currently releasing a "Film Crew" DVD about once a month, Nelson and various friends continue to offer their downloadable MP3 "Rifftrax" to sync alongside recent popular movies, giving them the MST-style treatment, and Jim Mallon and Paul Chapin, also of the original show, are producing new online Flash cartoons starring Tom Servo and Crow at the Official MST3K Website. Your mileage may vary with any or all of these, as the kids on the internet say, but it's always nice to see new stuff from some of my favorite creators come out, and if you're gonna complain it's not exactly the same as the old stuff, well, you're entitled, but then, what is? Now shut up and watch your "Manos."
Bully-fans with good memories, or those who haven't emptied their browser caches in a while, may remember my post on "Caption This": a Sci Fi Channel era online game that allowed you to post funny comments to accompany as-the-happen screencaps from the Sci Fi Channel's fine schedule of programming. This was the very definition of ephemeral entertainment: since the Caption This screen would only display the most recent dozen or so picture/riff posts, your fast-witting humor would cycle off the site quickly and be lost forever.
This is, if it were not for the aid of "Caption This" fans who saved and preserved many of the CT riffs to their own websites for posterity. (Search around the web and you'll find a nice variety of these sites; here's a representative page which has saved many of the Battlestar Galactica caps. I'd saved a handle of my own caps (I posted under the username "MST4000") as screenshots and showed 'em off to you in my previous post. What I didn't expect from that post was a lovely email from a fellow capper who discovered a handful of MST4000 posts in her Knight Rider collection and thoughtfully passed them back onto me. So here you go—how I used to spend my afternoons: typing furiously to add so-called funny captions to screenshots of Michael Knight and his pals:
Watching the Rifftraxed BATTLEFIELD EARTH was almost like watching an episode of the series. The old magic was definitely there.
ReplyDeleteKicked the holiday off this evening with TIME CHASERS m'self. "Hey, look, a lesbian- OF THE FUTURE!"
Bully, this sounds like a FINE tradition. I too shout at the television. It REALLY annoys my kids when I'm able to come up with the inane dialogue a second or two before the characters say the same line. I also yell out the answers on "Jeapardy" but the fools never listen.
ReplyDeleteGosh, I miss Mystery Science Theatre!
Enjoy your pie.
You forgot to mention (you have heard, haven't you?) that Joel, Trace, Frank and a few others are also getting back into the game as well with their new project Cinematic Titanic.
ReplyDeleteI had similar plans for the holiday, but completely flaked (as I kind of expected I would).
ReplyDeleteIt warms my heart to see that others carried the Turkey Day torch.
My family and I put on Hercules Against The Moon Men and the rifftrax for SpiderMan. SpiderMan even had a Thanksgiving dinner scene.
ReplyDelete"DEEEEEEP HURTING" could be heard around the apartment all weekend.
It is a tradition we hope to continue until humanly possibly.
I miss Turkey Day. Even if I had the ability to recreate it at home, I have a wife who only likes the show alright and a toddler who would just complain until I put on Sesame Street, Blues Clues, a Charlie Brown special, or music videos, so I wouldn't get very far.
ReplyDeleteKeep livin' the dream for the rest of us, Bully!
You began with "Side Hackers?"
ReplyDeleteYou know what that movie needed? More side-hacking.
The RiffTrax Experience is mighty. To hear Mike Nelson finally get to mock "Road House" is a glorious thing. "Point Break" and "The Phantom Menace" were also well worth the listen.