Just saw “The Skydivers” for the first time.
Wow, that was a horrible movie and the guys made it so much funnier. One of the most solid episodes I’ve seen.
How did MST3K get permission to show so many movies on TV while making fun of them? Did they have to pay to show all these movies? I mean, the shorts are clearly public domain, but not all the movies seem to be. How did they do this?
“The Puma Man” with runner up “Time of the Apes”.
Honorable mentions go to “Mitchell”, “Space Mutiny” and “Fugitive Alien 1 and 2”.
Same way any basic cable network gets rights to movies. They paid for them. It’s not like folks were lining up around the block to pay for the rights to air The Skydivers. I’m pretty sure they got it on the ultra cheap, and with very few strings attached.
It’s not always been that easy. I understand Sandy Frank has refused to relicense his films out of pique over the way the show made fun of him, which is why you can’t buy any of the Gamera MST episodes - although it looks like there’s a Gamera MST box set coming out this year, so maybe he finally got over himself. Or died.
There’s also at least one case (I want to say it was Time Chasers…) where the film’s makers directly solicited an MST version of their movie. And then got upset at being made fun of when they screened it…
But how did they find these movies? I mean, this show was mainly pre-worldwideweb, so how did they ever find movies like Manos The Hands of Fate?
Is there some kind of library of bad movies they used?
Remember they were working at an independent TV station - KTLA - which had to find lots of non-network sources of programming to fill time. those kinds of stations would have lists of distributors willing to license old unpopular movies on the cheap. A lot of such stations even had weekly programs focusing on old horror or sci-fi movies – “Shock Theater” with Dr. Creep in my town.
Wonderfully parodied on SCTV as “Count Floyd” and “Monster Chiller Horror Theater”
It’s a shame that infomercials have taken up all the time that used to be filled with these b-film theaters. One thing I liked about the early MST3K seasons was how much the show was like one of those old UHF station broadcasts.
Clearly, I’m not alone in my love for “Space Mutiny” and “Werewolf”. I also really liked “Giant Spider Invasion” and “Leech Woman”.
I moved into a new apartment in July and it came with free cable internet and I decided I was just gonna get a digital antenna and be fine with over the air broadcasting. That’s how I found out about this…I mean This. This is a channel (45.2 locally in the Twin Cities, but other markets have ThisTV too) that shows lots and lots and lots of awesomely bad movies. I watched “Convoy” followed by “Gator”.
Was that the one with the CEO whose office was a stairway landing inside a shopping mall?
In the book, they say that they had a really hard time getting rights for one movie - I think it was “Radar Secret Service”, because the owners wanted way too much money to air it. And Joe Don Baker threatened to beat up the crew after “Mitchell”.
Eh. Toss a stick of butter behind you and he’ll be too distracted to bother chasing you. Even without the butter, being chased by Joe Don Baker involves a leisurely stroll, especially if there are stairs on the route…
ETA: DAMMIT! Earworm…o/ A-ma-ma-ma-ma-mitchell! o/
I used to work for a small public broadcasting television station back in the day and our Saturday night movies were pure crap. Old black & white films that weren’t in any way “classics” but rather all the junk they showed in between the movies we actually remember today. Unfortunately, most were dramas rather than schlock horror so they were even more boring. We only played them because they were extremely cheap and no one was watching us on Saturday night anyway.
I do remember playing one or two movies that got MST’d though.
Yes, IIRC Mike sounded far more amused than frightened.
Butter. Now you’ve made me think of “Daddy-O” and all the butter jokes. “Hike, hike, hike up your pants now!”
Does anyone else remember the Summer Movie Special they did in 1998?
That was the only thing that made Armageddon bearable for me.
I watched them in college with Joel and they were good. None stand out. However, years later, my wife and I saw Final Sacrifice and we still quote it to this day! It hit everything!
“Seven years after the credits?”
“Dear Counselor Troi, why didn’t you meet me . . .”
“Will you put out my head?”
I still chuckle at that one!
When I opened the thread I wanted to mention this one and it was in the OP.
“He just hasn’t been the same since he got home from the Spanish-American War…”
And, of course, “ROWSDOWER!!!”
Heheh, yeah. That was the first episode I ever saw.
I like that there was a sign in the middle of nowhere that just said, “Star Wars” on it, so they could blast it.
“Hey, I was *still *reading that!”