Those are my favorites, too. I’d also add Time Chasers and Clonus: The Parts Horror as good intro-level episodes. I’ve watched all of these a few times each, but haven’t gotten around to watching my* Manos *DVD more than once. I guess I like episodes where the movie has a few redeeming qualities. That’s why I’ll probably never watch the Rifftrax version of Nick Cage’s The Wicker Man.
“Mitchell. Even his name says ‘is that a beer?’”
Space Mutiny! Of course – I was drawing a total blank on the name. How could I forget Captain Santa and Grandma daughter? ‘Mrs Claus and I have an understanding…’
We haven’t watched too many with Joel partly because of our own time constraints, but eventually I need to show him really old Teenagers from Outer Space (else the high council will sentence me to…TORCHA), Time of the Apes, and Pod People, huzzah.
Some really are difficult for newbies; he went to watch a few on his own after I’d gone back to the States after the first batch, and followed up the ‘newbie friendly’ ones I’d picked out with Starfighters. Yikes! (He got back on track with Squirm.)
It’s been fantastic having someone to introduce the show to. I tracked down a copy of the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide for him – holy smokes can that run you some pennies these days. I bought mine new off the shelf for about $10, but that’s not what I paid for his copy (which I leave as an exercise to the reader because my partner’s been lurking in this thread.)
I adore Mitchell (the movie, not the man!) So many good moments and lines; we’ve done that one! Time Chasers is one on the list – Bob Evil and his office that’s completely not at the local mall, and his minions who brought their own suits to the shoot.
Not all of the riffs translate across the ocean as well, so I have had to explain why I’m laughing (and he doesn’t find the British ones anywhere near as funny as I do – we’ve tried the Killer Bees and The Projected Man, but comments like, ‘Actual British sex!’ and ‘let’s take the lorry to the lift to the loo!’ are met with an arched eyebrow.)
Nevertheless, Devil Doll is on the list.
Looks like a lot of episodes are still up on youtube, folks. It includes ones that do not stream on Netflix.
Just sayin’.
Becaause you spend too much time with Goons? 
SASSY!
PS- ‘I even have an adjustable SARONG!’ There was one man I could share that with, and we’re married. To other people. We’ll always have the sarong, I suppose.
Busted (this is where I say, ‘What? Who is this?!’ I guess 
). I’ve got to go off and make a list of the contents of my wallet now.*
*Yes, God help me, I got caught up in a Mary Worth storyline. To explain: there’s a long-running series of threads on Something Awful that have been covering comic strips for a few years now – between that and the Comic Curmudgeon, I can no longer read the funnies without assistance, and know intimately the plots of Judge Parker, Mary Worth, and all those other dull adults-standing-around-talking strips I used to skip as a kid.
Aw, you had to pick the only one I’ve already seen.
Here, here’s one of my all time favorites, Why Study Industrial Arts. (“Because you’re bad at math?”)
Also a goodie, Johnny at the Fair.
Well then, just be that way:
Yeah, Manos is a tough one even MSTed. My personal favorite for an intro (not least because it’s one of the few I have on DVD) is Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. The movie itself actually isn’t that terrible, and offers plenty of jokes while still being watchable.
Liquid Sky is just crying out for the MST3K treatment. Dear Sweet Zombie Jesus, that film was awful. It must be against several international treaties - it’s like some kind of weaponized celluloid.
A couple of interesting articles about the making of Manos: The Hand That Time Forgot and Growing Up Manos.
I think **Rocket Ship XM **is a great intro to MST 3K. Really camp, really bad, but watchable, and has great lines.
Where do you want to be in five years?
I can support this: it was the first MST episode I ever saw.
“At this point, the rocket ship becomes engorged with spacemen!”
I live in El Paso, TX, where this historic movie was shot on location in. It’s a source of both pride and malice in the city. The film is shown once a year in summer as part of a larger film festival that takes place at the Plaza theater. It also frequently shows at our college campuses and is screened privately everywhere around Halloween. The downside is that the original locations the film was shot in have been vandalized, and are off-limits to the public, them being a part of an individual’s private farm land.
I lived in El Paso for 20 years and discovered by accident that a good friend of mine was on the set of *Manos *when it was filmed. The property in question belonged to his grandfather. The funniest part about it was that he was completely unaware of the film’s history and/or notoriety.
“Earl” (for obvious reasons a certain amount of anonymity should be preserved) and I were at a new years party, and for some reason the subject of Manos came up. I’d suffered through it once (thankfully the MST3K version) and described the plot. Not a fan of egregious cinema in general, Earl followed my synopsis, but again evinced no recognition of the film or of its reputation. When I reached the part about the knock-down-drag-out-bitchslapping-underwear brawl, however, Earl developed a sudden faraway, dear-in-the-lights kind of look. Dragging long-archived and seldom accessed data from the deepest recesses of his memory, he told me that he suddenly recalled being about five or six years old, on a visit to his grandfather’s ranch house, where there was some kind of big to-do going on. Thinking back on it, he said, it was probably some kind of movie shoot, but my description of the Master’s wives wrestling around in their lingerie sounded very familiar.
While Earl has an occasionally subversive sense of humor, he’s not particularly known for telling tall tales, yet I took his story with just a grain of salt. A few months later, however, I came across an article about the filming of Manos, and it confirmed the details of Earl’s account.
Whilst perusing this thread’s links I was amazed to find this:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CinematicTitanic
I’ve know about RiffTrax for years (though, shame, have yet to get around to buying one) but I had no idea that Joel was doing his own thing too! And it was great to see that Josh Weinstein apparently doesn’t hate the other guys after all!
This is actually the first movie I saw them do that I liked. Before that I’d been looking up the really bad movies assuming they’d be the funniest. I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who thinks watching the better movies works out better.
Oh, and thanks guys for the other shorts to watch. I find that the shorts are punchier and more to my current tastes. The movies just feel so long–much longer than their actual run time would indicate.
Manos for many years was the worst-rated film on the IMDB Bottom 100; it’s still ranked #3.
I always loved their trivia bit that explains why the scenes are so short and the voices so terrible: