This is my first thread here, so I thought I would make it about my favorite TV show of all time. Any other fans out there?
I’ll go ahead and start the Joel v. Mike feud now and say that when Joel left the show it died for me.
Welcome to the board. You posted a bit late in the day, just wait til tomorrow, they will be coming out of the woodwork !
While I, too, am a Joel fan, it does not in the least make me unhappy that I am about to meet Mike Nelson and Kevin (Tom Servo) Murphy here in Las Vegas on the 24th. If anyone else around here wants to go see them, the info is at www.mst3kinfo.com
Kevin is pretty cool man…I’m so jealous.
Rowsdower?
Welcome Adamcomic.
MST3K is a great show. I’ve been buying up the Rhino DVD releases while they’re still out there.
If we’re going to start the whole “the show died when so-and-so left”, then I’ll pipe in with Trace Beaulieu (AKA: Dr. Forrester, Crow). Mike and Joel were both great hosts. I like them both in their own way, but it just wasn’t the same after Trace left the show.
I would have to agree. Hearing a different voice coming out of Crow was just wrong.
I guess I kind of lucked out during that time. I had moved right around when Trace left and I didn’t have cable and/or never saw much TV around that time. So I was lucky to miss the show whither away.
I caught only the show in it’s prime. 
“Industry, science, and technology! Big men putting screwdrivers into things, turning them, and adjusting them!”
I once heard Mike Nelson say he was convinced his life would end with a gun shoved in his face and hearing the words, “I miss Joel!”
It’s one of my favorites as well. I don’t play the whole “The show died when ________ left the show”, although I was never a big Mary Jo Pehl fan. I thought Bill Corbett did a respectable job as Crow.
Joel & Mike had their own style, but I prefer Mike if I had to choose.
While I prefer Joel, I think Mike was also great. Mostly, I’m glad that Mike Nelson tried to be his own character (and succeeded), rather than imitating Joel.
I never saw any of the post-Trace episodes, but I hear it got pretty weird.
My favorite are the Comedy Central years. I have almost all of them on tape or DVD. In fact this weekend I just had a Gamera fest and it was great. Hadn’t watched them for a while. While the Sci-Fi episodes are enjoyable, and they did some great movies, the show just seemed to be missing something.
While I do prefer Joel, I think some of the best episodes are Mike helmed ones.
Do the wounded turkery!
Rock climbing, Joel.
Deep Hurting!!!
[Crow]I’ve been recording my life in pastelles.[/Crow]
Mike
Nothing will ever top the MSTing of “Attack of the the [sic] Eye Creatures.”
Barry
I liked the show all the way through (I think I picked it up in the third season or so), but thought it lost a lot when it moved to the SciFi Channel and had to limit the kind of films it parodied and lost the wonderful shorts.
But I recently ordered some of the older episodes on tape (Gamera, Attack of the the Eye Creatures), and I note that the quality of the writing really picked up in later years: the early years, much of the humor was junior high gross-out stuff or really obvious jokes. The esoteric wittiness seemed to pick up speed as the years went on.
I liked Mike better.
<ducks>
My favorite episode was Pumaman.
When my wife was giving birth the nurse urged her to push harder by telling her to think she was a superhero. I told her to pretend she was Pumaman. Wife wife cracked up. The nurse thought I was being serious and she chimed in with agreement. My wife started yelling at me. It was nice to get a moment of levity into the ordeal. We still laugh about it.