I’ve only heard about the show, it’s apparently about these guys who review bad movies.
Do they talk over the movie? Do they wait for a scene to end then dissect it?
And what’s it like…
Oh my god! That show is so fucking funny. Yeah, they talk right over it. It may still be on SciFi on Saturday mornings at nine or something like that. You might also be able to rent them–if so get “The Pod People” one. “Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Edmond Hillary as The Elephant Man.” Another favorite of mine is “The Cave Dwellers”.
The premise is that Joel (first, then later Mike when Joel left the show) is trapped on a satelite by a mad scientist who works for a cable company. The scientist is researching what happens to people when exposed to really bad movies. Joel survives by making a couple of robot buddies, Tom Servo & Crow T. Robot, who are both incredibly jaded and naive at the same time–in a way that only a robot puppet can be. In the beginning of the show, they have to go to a on-satelite movie theatre where they are forced to watch the movie of the day. They sit there and make funny remarks. At each half hour, they exit the theatre and do some little skit, often based on the movie. Obviously, some episodes are better than others. Some times the jokes are like Far Side comics, where the humor builds cumulatively. Other times they come out with lines that make you spit OJ out your nose and suck it into your lungs, forcing you to try to stand on your head to evacuate them. Specifically, the line “solipism is its own reward”.
Sad to say, the new episodes aren’t as good, but people say that about everything. Check it out, but whatever you do, don’t do anything illegal involving contraband herbs before watching.
Thanks J_africanus!!
http://www.mst3kinfo.com--for all your MST needs. Should give you a good background on the show, tells you where you can see it, and has links to purchase the tapes/DVDS.
Hmmm…thought I posted a reply to this thread…::Vanyel looks around suspiciously:: Well, anyways, guess I’ll try this again:
If you’ve never seen MST3K, then you need to visit the Digital Archive Project at once. Download some MST3K, and start laughin’!
“Mitchell” and “Hercules” are hilarious, too.
“The broom people! Bristling with anger!”
or
“Trojans? What are they doing in Attica?”
“A nickle.”
I started a thread recently of people’s favorite quote from MST3K. Many of them are funny on their own, although some, you have to have seen the episode to get it.
This show was truly genius! Try to get the first few seasons because Joel fucking makes the show. Mike took a few seasons to really get into it (which is kinda bad because he’d been with the show doing bit parts since the beginning), and just when he really started getting good, they changed the set up of the show and all the “out of movie” sequences were absolute shit. Whoever came up with the idea of Forester’s mom and her crew needs to be whacked in the nuts.
“Manos: the Hands of Fate” is a great one, but be warned: It is labeled as the WORST MOVIE EVER REVIEWED!!! Even with the comical remarks, it’s a tough movie to sit through. Personally, I find “Skydivers” to be ten times harder to watch. Get “Manos,” but avoid “Skydivers.”
There’s also a bunch of videos of just short movies. Those are great! And also a tape of outtakes called “Poopy.”
Huh. Banned, eh? What a shame.
You might want to steer clear of Blood Waters of Dr. Z - the only MST3K I’ve seen that I just don’t find funny.
The name of the movie is the most entertaining thing about the episode.
But he’s creating a rice of pipple!
I’ve never been able to get the DAP to work. 
Spent a few days attempting to download an episode and then just crapped out. Probably the same reason that no filesharing progs have worked for me since Napster (not that I’ve, um, tried any or anything…(
Well, I was going to talk about how great MST3K was, but since the OP is no longer with us, I just wanted to highlight one littel thing from js_africanus, who wrote, “Some times the jokes are like Far Side comics, where the humor builds cumulatively.”
Not to bust your balls or anything, but this is bugging me. The Far Side was a one-panel comic. How can humor “build” in a one-panel comic?
Oh, and the worst movie ever on MST3K (never saw the Sci-Fi episodes, so not counting those): Red Zone Cuba. By comparison, Manos is like Francois Truffaut.
If you’re using eDonkey, that could be the problem. I always use ftp or fserves, since the eDonkey server apparantly hates me.
Cows 
Actually, I received a Gary Larson book from my stepmother this past Christmas, and although I had already enjoyed the Far Side comics when they ran, I appreciated them even more with Larson’s description of how he developed his comics.
While many people anthropomorphized animals many times before Larson, he had a way of making animals almost too human. In fact, in his book The PreHistory of the Far Side he comments in detail about how often he received hatemail due to comics that people felt were depicting cruelty to animals (as well as babies ;)).
Although his comics were one panel per day, their humor can be appreciated much more when read together (hence the cow reference, as Larson often used cows in his comics). I get the impression that those who sent hate mail weren’t regular readers of Larson’s comics, as they would have better understood his humor and realized he didn’t have any malicious intent. For the very same reason, these “objectionable” comics are among Larson’s funniest stuff, as regular readers weren’t worried about dogs playing “tethercat” as they knew that next week the cats would be getting one over on the dogs. Perhaps one of Larson’s problems was that he was too successful at anthropomorphization: many people saw his interspecies violence (widely accepted among Warner Brothers and Tom & Jerry fans) as the human author’s enjoyment of the fictional inflicting of pain in animals. As such, Larson received hatemail, but at the same time, built upon a theme that was appreciated by his fans.
Any idea what happened to the OP?
Glad to see someone recognizes the rule I commented upon in this thread 
Good eye, I wasn’t very clear about that. Sorry. In the introduction to one of Larson’s books, the introducer (?) remarked how when reading one of Larson’s books a single comic isn’t necessarily that funny, but as you go on reading the humor builds until you end up really laughing out loud. I was thinking of that, where on MST3K sometimes jokes individually aren’t that funny, but they just keep coming and get funnier as the humor piles up on itself, so to speak.
Thanks for pointing that out. I can see how it must have looked pretty stupid of me.
MST3K is one of the (often times) greatest shows that ever existed! I love that freakin show! Sometimes it’s a real groaner, but man is it funny the rest of the time. I have been doing what they do for years, watching gawdawful trash b-movies and cracking jokes on them with friends. It is my favorite pasttime. What I miss out on though, is the absolutely priceless diatribes aired from the Satellite of Love… like I remember one where Dr. Forrester (the original) and Joel (I think) were doing an invention exchange around xmas. Forrester invented the “Wish Squisher” which took great toys and presents and turned them into things like stationary and socks. Absolutely brilliant. I don’t remember what Joel and the robots invented…
Also, I really love the episodes where they view short educational/informational films before a movie like “meet coily the spring” or something to that effect, which detailed all the uses of springs in a black and white 50’s film with a lame little animated spring. A plethora of material for them to crack on in 15 minute chunks.
Question: Sci Fi network only airs episodes with Mike. Is this because of some dispute between show execs and Joel Hodgson (the creator… I miss him so)? Can you find episodes with Joel anywhere? that guy was so freakin funny! His stand up used to be good too!
All I can add is be prepared for DEEEEEEEEP HUUUURRRRTING.
“One Adam Twelve, One Adam Twelve, what’re you doing in Wisconsin?”
I’ve seen them posted regularly on Usenet, actually. They’re pretty popular on some newsgroups. As far as I know you can’t buy them–you basically have to know someone (who knows someone…ad infinitum).