Let it be known that I am a Joel guy, through and through. It’s not that I have anything against Mike, and I do understand that he was writing a lot (all?) of the jokes for Joel anyway, but STILL. Joel is so much funnier, with his whole sleepy thing… I can’t describe it.
For the consideration of the jury, I submit Pod People.
Does anyone find the sketches around the movies to be funny?
I sure as hell don’t. They’re so bad as to be embarassing… how could the same crew that made such awesome and witty cuts and obscure, brilliant references during the movies have come up with such stupid, stupid sketches? The invention exchanges are, of course, included. A few exceptions here and there, but for the most part, awful.
Uh… Mike, I’m sorry to say. It’s not that I don’t like Joel, but the show wasn’t at its most polished until after he left - though Mitchell is still one of my favorite episodes.
Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes not. They got funnier as the show got older, though perhaps weaker towards the end.
Mike. A little edgier in delivery than Joel. Joel certainly has his positives. He was one of the very few prop comics who didn’t suck coughCarrot TopcoughGallagher**cough. Mike also pulls of the whole “big dumb white guy” schtick.
The skits are very SNL-like as far as quality is concerned - when they’re good, they’re great, when they’re bad, they really suck.
Joel. Definitely Joel. It’s probably because he was there first and will always be the original guy in the jumpsuit and the fact that the Joel episodes looked so unpolished. The episodes seemed more ad libbed than the later ones do, in fact, it was several months before I realized the jokes were scripted before hand.
I’ve never seen a skit that I liked half as much as the movie scenes.
Remember the episode when he left? He’s broadcasting from the escape pod and as he re-enters the atmosphere, his signal is breaking up. They achieved this effect by throwing handfuls of confetti in front of him every few seconds to simulate snow in the signal. Hilarious!
I hit submit before I got everything that I wanted in there… awww.
I just wanted to add that I think the sweet spot for MST3K was the time after Tom Servo’s voice changed, but before Joel had left. Not the initial, ULTRA low production values show, but it got TOO polished later. The movie made me want to scream… waaaay too glossy and shiny and such.
Joel all the way. But they’re two entirely different schools of comedy. Joel’s kind of a soft, sarcastic razz, where Mike is a big dumb white guy. I love em both. And the DVD box sets they’ve been releasing are fabulous, especially the collection of shorts.
I like the sketches, though they are a bit random sometime. The best are with Joel and Dr. F and TV’s Frank.
Mike, because I only started watching it when it was on Sci-Fi. But I love Joel too.
The way I look at it, was that Joel was like the regular teacher for the Bots, and they WOULD listen to him in the end. But Mike is more like the substitute teacher. They’ll ALWAYS work around him.
I agree with SanibelMan–it’s not that Mike is a better actor than Joel; but the writing got sharper in the later seasons. Though they lost a lot when they moved stations and had to concentrate on sci-fi and lost the shorts.
The sketches are, ummm, agreeable. I fast-forward through them on tape, though.
Another question: What is your most and least favorite episode? I can watch The Brain That Would Not Die endlessly, but I don’t know what they were thinking with Hamlet. Unwatchable.
Did you see that!? DID YOU SEE THAT!? Eve spoke my name! faint
And now I have to go and disagree with her, and endure her wrath…
The Brain (or Head) That Would Not Die is… okay. I’ve seen Hamlet, too, and though it’s been a while, I don’t remember it being bad.
I’m noticing the difference now that I’m watching Catalina Caper - Joel seems extra sleepy and teacher-esque, and the Bots are like his little kids (he even leads them in bedtime prayers in the opening skit). I don’t find that as funny as when Mike’s around, and they’re more all on an equal footing, though when they gang up on Mike it annoys me. I think the recordings got technically better as time went on, too - the audio on Catalina Caper is really bad, and you can barely hear the dialogue without having Joel and the Bots screaming, which kind of ruins the jokes.
My favorites are the Shorts compilations, but as episodes go, my favorite is Mitchell. It’s a Joel episode, yes, but the jokes are very funny, and the fact that it’s almost a good movie adds to it. My least favorite is The Crawling Hand, from season one. I got about 10 minutes into it, but couldn’t finish it - it’s so low-budget, such poor quality, after watching the newer stuff it just doesn’t compare. I just wish I’d started watching at the beginning so I could appreciate it, though I would have been 5 at that time, so I probably wouldn’t have gotten it.
Hell, let’s just keep adding questions to the poll! It’s my thread, I can do as I please! HAHAHAHA!!!
So, the new questions are:
Eve’s question regarding favorite and least favorite episodes.
My favorite has to be Pod People, and I think my least favorite that I’ve seen has to be the early episode The Crawling Hand.
Does anyone have an MST3K episode where they actually kinda liked the movie?
I have to say, I genuinely enjoyed Hellcats, but in kind of a campy appreciation way, so having Joel and the bots mocking the movie saves me the trouble.
Is anyone else like me in that they chime in with their own jokes all through the movie? This is like a parlor game for my friends and me. At times it almost seems that the guys stayed quiet during some obvious joke scenes just to accomodate us. Of course I can’t think of any specific examples, but trust me it’s fun.
The best episode ever, hands down, was Final Sacrifice. Two words: Zap Rowsdower. Second place is a close tie between Space Mutiny and Jack Frost.
Worst episode? I don’t know if I could pick one. If you’ve seen any of the KTMA episodes, before they got picked up by Comedy Central, those are all horrid. I don’t know how they managed to fulfill their potential after that start. I hated the original Tom Servo.
And Kitten With A Whip, though it had a stupid name, was actually a half-decent old movie.
See, I thought Final Sacrifice was way too creepy and dark to really be made fun of. When the kid’s being chased, and there’s no one around… I dunno. Space Mutiny is hilarious, though.
FaerieBeth