That’s sort of true. I find the movie entertaining enough on its own not to mind, though. And when the riffs do show up, they’re beautiful.
Santa: “We’re going out this year like we always do.”
Joel: “Guns a-blazin’!”
Another vote for Laserblast. It was the last Comedy Central ep, and I think they didn’t know if this was the end or not, so they pulled out all the stops and came up with one of their best shows ever.
“Boy, if those pants give way, it’ll be like a piano exploding!”
“Hey, I really like the way you painted those flames on…ohhhhhhh!”
“Ah, those lovable Southern California crackers!”
Also try:
The Magic Sword
War of the Colossal Beast: “Glen passed a truck on the highway! No, I mean Glen passed a truck on the highway!”
The Deadly Bees: “Kathy Lee Gifford arrives to see the dog’s meat!”
The Beast of Yucca Flats: “An airplane…maybe a helicopter…I don’t know…have I said ‘flag on the moon’ yet?”
Out of curosity I rented the original and yeah, it’s a bit goofy as you might expect but it’s not el-cheapo awful-acting bad like a lot of MST3K picks. The MST3K of it is hilarious, pretty much my favorite.
This is my favorite also. The Sampo. The “he’s a loser, la la la” dance. “They’re roasting Bullwinkle!” This episode had me on the floor hardly able to breathe on numerous occasions.
A lot of great ones already mentioned, so I’ll just vote for these four favorites: Side Hackers (“Only love…pads this fim…”), Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Jack Frost, and Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders (“Remember kids, believe in magic or I’ll kill you!”).
Oh, god, yes! You get to watch a young Raul Julia tear up the scenery in what looks like a high-school-AV-club-produced PBS teleplay.
My all time favorite is “The Wild Wild World of Batwoman”
Bob Johnson!
Flint Ironstag! Blast Hardcheese! Thick McRunfast!
Every time I get a PPT bug about Normal View, I sing it to myself. “Norrrrmal VIEWWWWWW!!! NORRRRRMAAALLLLL VIIIEWWWWWWWWWW!!”
Here’s the five episodes I think every MST3K fan needs to watch:
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Manos - Yeah it’s a bad movie. A very bad movie. It can hold it’s own in a fight for the worst movie ever made. You’ll see these comments and scoff but those of us who have watched Manos and lived never lose the haunted look in our eyes. It’s infamous and for that reason alone it must be seen.
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Mitchell - The last Joel episode makes it one not to miss; they chose something special for handing over the reins and now I’ll never be able to take Joe Don Baker seriously again. Not that I could in the first place but you get the idea.
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Red Zone Cuba - This stands in as my favorite of the “Coleman Francis trilogy”; the other two episodes are Skydivers and The Beast of Yucca Flats. Francis is an exceptionally terrible director and I think he was worse when he thought he was making arty films (this one and Skydivers) rather than a monster pic where he lost the soundtrack (even if it “stars” everyone’s favorite Swede Tor Johnson).
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Gamera - You’ve got to have one badly dubbed Japanese monster flick! One of the few things I dislike about the show is they did just about all of the old Gamera movies except my personal favorite Gamera Versus Monster X. Still I think the Gamera episodes are better than the Godzilla episodes. Also, I have been informed that Gamera is really neat and made of turtle meat.
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Space Mutany - Picking out one SciFi Channel era episode for this and I think Space Mutany is the “best” one. Not that MST3k got worse in that period; Hobgoblins, Soultaker, Werewolf, Pumaman, Squirm… well you get the idea. It’s just that Space Mutany is such a beautifully, aggressively bad movie that it cannot be missed.
And don’t overlook the MST3k spin-off projects. There’s The Film Crew which are direct to DVD riffs of old movies, Rifftrax which are downloadable commentaries for popular stuff, and Cinematic Titanic which is the closest in format to the original.
I started watching the Space Mutiny episode… and shortly thereafter my brother turned on the TV. When he’s done (and if my other brother doesn’t watch some show, and if they both don’t play their video games), I’ll get back to the MSTing.
All of those Russo-Finnish movies are hilarious. The Day The Earth Froze, The Sword and the Dragon, Jack Frost, The Magic Voyage of Sinbad…all pure gold!
The Last of the Wild Horses, an average, mundane Spaghetti Western, nothing special, however, the host segments elevate it to great, Best Brains play around with the “Mirror Universe” gag, and we end up with such memorable sequences as Evil Mike, Evil Crow, Evil Tom, Gypsy the Captain’s Woman, and most sublime of all, the Mads in the theater, riffing on the film
Dr. F. and TV’s Frank sit on the opposite side of the theater seats and do their best to riff on the movie, while Evil Mike and Evil Crow are down in Deep 13 watching the experiment
<after the doorway sequence ends and the screen appears, Dr. F and TV’s Frank walk into the left-hand seats>
[Frank] Aren’t you going to carry me into the theater?
[Dr. F] Frank, you’re getting a little big for that…
[Frank] <dejectedly> awww, but it’s my favorite part!
Is it just me, or does the guy who plays Kalgan bear a striking resemblance to Peter Jackson’s Elrond?
Next episode on my list- either Hobgoblins or Plan 9.
Jack Frost was the first one I ever saw. Comedy GOLD. “It’s her bucket of Rogaine!” “It’s like having Andrea Dworkin make you over!”
Apparently, Joe Don Baker hates them with a passion for Mitchell. So, later on in the last series, they did another one of his films: Final Justice. Holy SHIT, the riffs were NASTY.
(Oh, and I named one of my cats after Gypsy)
They have the same high forehead. Kalgon makes a reappearance as the title character in the last ever episode, Diabolik. Go with Hobgoblins for the next one.
[[URL=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHlJ2voJHY”]The many names of David Ryder](The many names of David Ryder)
For me, it’s a tie between Manos and This Island Earth.
“It’s the haunting Torgo theme.”
“Torgo, you’re the laziest man on Mars!”
“If you’d like to contact Harold P. Warren, look in the Yellow Pages for the Fertilizer Corporation of Texas.” (Well, except for the fact that he was dead already)
“See big men sticking screw drivers into things - turning them - AND ADJUSTING THEM!”
“Now place your hands above the rail. They’re magnetized.” “And if your hands were metal, that would mean something.”
“Eastman… he came from the east to do battle with the amazing RANDOOOOOOO!”
I’ve heard Invasion of the Neptune Men is a good one, at least lines from it are parroted a lot, like:
Uhh, guys? Someone asked above for a link to all of this MST3K goodness. I don’t think directions to a short on youtube was quite what he had in mind.
Unless that’s how everybody watched MST3K on the internet. Is it? 'Cos I’m not certain that I’m up to doing the shows in twelve-minute segments.
Is it on Hulu? Is there a site dedicated to online viewings of MST3K?
Google is your friend.
I present to you, in its entirety : Mitchell!