I love this thread; it’s been too long since I’ve seen an episode. (I’ve never had the Sci-Fi channel, and I don’t have a VCR anymore so I can’t watch my taps, and I never figured out how to use the Digital Archive Project and it’s all hot and it hurts and stuff.)
The Movie: I liked it well enough, but wasn’t crazy about it. The only gag that really benefited from a movie budget was the 2001 parody at the beginning. The only other big benefit they could’ve gotten from a movie was huge, wide exposure for the series, but it didn’t really do that, either. So it just ended up being “the lost episode.”
Favorite Stinger: Probably the woman saying “Vhat yoo are saying is absolootly incradabul” with the completely blank, bored expression, from Werewolf. “It Stinks!” from Pod People is another favorite, as is “Dong! Fish is ready!” from Cave Dwellers.
There’s another one, I forget the experiment, that shows a guy running out to a suitcase and then humping it. That’s good stuff.
Favorite Song: Master Ninja THEME Song! Fusion jazz is for all cultures.
Actually, there are other ones I like better but I don’t think they count because they’re not “original”: When they sing over the closing credits to Werewolf – “Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry, when I take you out in my surrey with the fringe… on top! TUSK!” And my absolute favorite, the Jet Jaguar Fight Song.
How about another question to add to the poll (to replace the Mary Jo Pehl “debate,” which was really just an excuse for me to link to those essays on Ironminds): What’s the most obscure reference that you “got”?
Mine was either in the aforementioned “Lever That Controls Everything” sketch from Fire Maidens From Outer Space, where Joel says “It can turn you into a nine-year old hindu boy!”, which is a reference to the song “Step Right Up” by Tom Waits.
Or it was in The Skydivers when the lead is hanging up parachute fabric in a room and someone walks in asking what she’s doing. She replies (via Tom Servo) “Workin’ for Cristo.”
The Digital Archive Project, if you can figure out how the whole thing works (I sure as hell can’t). It’s been mentioned that it’s “gray-market,” which I don’t get at all because a) they immediately remove eps that are available commercially, and 2) the show’s creators themselves encourage trading of eps.
The best page full o’links I’ve found is MST3k.booyaka.com, which has all kinds of links to info about episode trading.
I vote Joel, but Mike’s great. My favorite human, though is TV’s Frank.
The skits were funnier, IMHO, in Joel’s time, especially the inventions. I’m especially fond of the Tough Love Seat and Johnny Long Torso (all parts sold separately).
I’m a huge fan of Mitchell. My two favorite MST lines come from the same scene in that movie: Joe Don and Linda Evans getting it on to the really lame Mitchell theme song:
Crow: My, my, my, my god!
Servo: Joel, why would anyone want to do that with Mitchell?
And I agree with Mullinator that the end skit at the end of Attack of The The Eye Creatures (they just didn’t care) was classic.
My favorite songs are Creepy Girl, the Jet Jaguar Fight Song and Patrick Swayze Christmas.
For shorts, there’s Hired!, the one about grooming, the one about the family (“only ethnic people have emotions”) and Mr. B Natural.
I have no favorite bot–just when I think Servo’s the best, Crow does something spectacular. Gypsy is beyond compare.
www.mst3kinfo.com has a Trading Post, where you can locate lots of folks who will trade or sell non-Rhino episodes. So if you can’t find what you want from Rhino, check out these people.
And while I’m here:
Joel: Sounds like your monster reads Frost.
Crow: Yeah, and he sprays it like icy death from his bloody stumps!
Fave short -
“Once Upon a Honeymoon,” from Night of the Bloodbeast (#701, I think). Weird, weird short. To quote a bewildered Tom Servo: “What the hell was that about, anyway?”
per SolGrundy, most obscure reference I “got” -
I didn’t get it on my own, so it probably doesn’t count, but the Most Obscure Reference Ever (according to Mike Nelson) is “Stop her! She’s got my keyboard!”, from Gamera vs… um… Guiron, I think. Servo shouts it as a little girl on-screen runs away, eliciting confusion from Joel and Crow. It’s a reference to an ex-girlfriend of Mike’s who stole his keyboard, lo these many years ago. I happened to have read an interview in which Mike mentioned it, before I saw the episode. So I got it.
But as I said, that doesn’t count, and I can’t at the moment think of an obscure one that I haven’t needed help with.
In keeping with my Renaissance geekery, I’m partial to the Delta Knights madrigal (as performed by the Sir Thomas Neville Servo Consort of the Middle Ages Just After the Plague Singers). I know I won’t soon forget the cheese.
Other stuff:
The Movie: Entertaining, though not as much as the regular episodes.
Stingers: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (“Mom, my nuts!” Sure, he was really saying “…am I nuts?” but that’s not what it sounded like!), The Final Sacrifice (“Rowsdower!”), and, of course Diabolik, already mentioned by Eve.
Anti-Mary Jo Pehl? Nah, she’s funny. I rather enjoyed Pearl’s stint in the theater in Quest of the Delta Knights.
Shorts: I already mentioned it, but “A Case of Spring Fever” is utter surreal, terrifying brilliance.
“From then on, Coily visited him nightly, till he was driven mad…”
it took me a little while to figure a few things out (maybe 30 mins) but after i got it all set up it was good as gold. The problem with their server is it roams IP addresses or ports or something so you have to reconnect to the messegeboard to find out where it went every few weeks.
I’m a fan of both Joel and Mike, so I really can’t choose. I miss seeing the Joel episodes. I can’t remember the title, but the one with the giant lizard was great. “One Adam 12, One Adam 12, what’re you doing in Wisconsin?” And the skit about the directing where everybody had to put one foot up on something and lean on the knee.
That and the one with the alien invaders whose ray guns reduced everybody to skeletons.
Aaargh! I suck at titles. I do remember Sidehackers fondly though.