What is the Holo-Clown bit from? I’ve never seen it before that I recall.
As for liking the host segments, well, they ARE hokey and cheesy. I think you have to watch a couple episodes to get into the characters and start enjoying them. Pod People is a great place to start as far as riffs AND host segments. “IT STINKS!”
This far in and no mention of the heavyweight champion of shorts: Mr B Natural!
“The faces of those he’s wronged float up at him. . .”
“Mr B, you’re HOT!”
Oh, man. How could I have forgotten “Werrwilf”?
I’d agree that Manos isn’t one of the best episodes to start will. It’s legendary among fans because the movie itself is one of the worst – possibly THE worst – ever featured on the show, but you probably need a fair number of episodes under your belt to really appreciate that.
I’d personally recommend Time Chasers and Future War ahead of *Manos *for a beginner, but the OP may want to choose episodes based on whether the featured movie sounds like it will be entertaining for him. Not that any of these movies were good, but depending on one’s personal tastes making fun of a bad monster movie might be more entertaining than making fun of a bad haunted house movie.
I’ve said before that the best episodes of MST3K generally require a decent movie to riff on. They don’t have to be, but there are some that are just so bad or so boring that it’s hard to make a funny episode. The last two I listed earlier are still watchable without the MST3K treatment (if not great cinema) and that helps a lot.
I probably haven’t seen this one in 15 years but I can still sing their fake version of the theme music.
“Annnnd lots of actors there’s no time to name…”
The Santa Claus movie with the international kids performances is hilarious.
Final Sacrifice
Mitchell
Pretty much the same things everyone else has said.
“You know, if seasonal holiday depression has a soundtrack this is it.”
Seconded. Eminently mockable, enjoyably cheesy movies.
o/~ Gamera is really neat! He is full of turtle meat! We believe in Gameraaaaa! o/~
Yeah, that’s what I liked about Cave Dwellers. It’s a crappy Conan rip-off, but it’s a watchable Conan rip-off as long as you’re OK with such things–and it has enough WTF moments for Joel and the Bots to riff off of.
Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell is a personal favorite of mine, perhaps if only because I enjoy goofy sword & sorcery flicks. And potatoes.
The Gamera movies, too. Good if you like the late Showa-era Godzilla films, but wish they weren’t so [del]sober[/del] somber and intellectual.
Time of The Apes is interesting in that, despite being a cut-rate dub and re-editing of a Japanese Planet of the Apes ripoff TV series into a two-hour movie, is actually somewhat closer to the industrial level of the Ape society shown in the original novel, La Planète des singes.
Meaning, of course…apes with jeeps and machine guns. And snappy uniforms.
I see most of the recommendations I would have made. Some of my personal favorites, just to be redundant :
Operation Double 007 (AKA Operation Kid Brother on home video)
Danger! Death Ray
Diabolik
Fugitive Alien 1 and 2
Mitchell
The Brain that Wouldn’t Die
The Thing that Couldn’t Die
The Undead
Deathstalker and the Warriors From Hell
The Magic Voyages of Sinbad
The Day the Earth Froze
Jack Frost
The Sword and the Dragon
Final Sacrifice
Space Mutiny
Pumaman
… and I could go on for a while.
I also loved Time of the Apes, not sure why it is relatively low in the lists.
Well damn, it looks like Netflix only has 20 titles, most of which have not been suggested here.
Pretty much every MST3K ever has been uploaded to youtube.
Almost all the episodes are on YouTube unless there has been a crack down.
Gotta love that YouTube. Thanks.
Yeah, the guys have pretty much allowed Youtube to have them at this point, just like they didn’t mind the tapes being passed around when it was on the air.
Yeah, check the link I posted before where you can sort by seasons and viewer ratings. It has links to all the episodes on Youtube.
I really love the short subjects, in particular: “Hired, Pts 1 & 2,” “What to do on a Date,” “Junior Rodeo,” and “Here Comes The Circus.” Crow–“Here Comes The Devil,”
Servo–“The horror that is the circus,” “I’m a bad clown, a very bad clown.” (Emmet Kelly does nothing but eat)