"He takes a roast and wraps it in bacon…
And there’s potatoes on the siiiide!
Pass the gravy now!
Meatballs fried in laaaaard!!"
My favorite bits were curiously the invention “exchanges” with the space and earth crews.
In one occasion, the exchange was actually an escape attempt:
The bots and Mike are ready to escape with a rocket-propelled contraption when the whole thing fizzled, then they tried to pathetically hide their embarrassment.
The reason for the failure: the LOX tanks:
Paraphrasing:
Mike opens one of the tanks:
Crow - That is why it did not work! That was not LOX: Liquid Oxigen, but LOX: the fish food!
Mike and Tom Servo: - Euuuuwwwww!!!
Everybody: - AHHH, Movie sign!!
That was “Hired”. One of the best, no doubt.
Tom: “I suck at my job”
Bots: “No, you don’t”
Tom: “Yes, I do. My salesmen are slobs…”
Bots: “No, they aren’t”
Tom: “Yes, they do!”
Bots: “Huh?”
“…it’s the bat from Fern Gully!”
Big Mike-era fan here, primary reason being that it sounds like they’re all having a really good time with the movies. You hear all the guys laughing more, which makes me wonder if the guys had individual scripts in which they saw only THEIR lines and time code. I wonder because Mike and Tom (especially) sound authentically, REALLY amused, quite often. When Corbett came in, it sounded even more loose, which I consider a plus…they don’t sound as…rehearsed, you know?
My current faves are pretty much all in Season 8, especially Riding With Death and Horror Of Party Beach. I think my favorite host segment is from Season 7’s Deathstalker And The Warriors From Hell, when Crow’s reading the romance novel to Pearl while she’s deliriously battling some intestinal parasite or some such. He mumbles through a lot of it like he’s skimming the text, so you’ll hear “hmmmmm…skin BURSTIN’ with pleasure nnnn…”
God, I miss those guys.
P.S. - nefertari, is that from Eegah!, used to describe Arch Hall, Jr.?
I liked the invention exchanges too. They were a very Joelian feature–his stand-up routine relied/relies on a lot of prop comedy. Not long after Joel left the show, they ceased doing them.
One of my favorite inventions was the “Tragic Moments” figurines, a very dark parody of “Precious Moments” figurines.
Tragic Moments figurines was won of the funniest things I have ever seen.
“Yes, grandmaw will still cry,but for very different reasons.”
I also liked the action figure with all items sold separately.
“Johnny Longtorso, Johnny Longtorso, the man who comes in pieces.”
Did you happen to get the KTMA episodes on tape? I just remember seeing a little shot or two of them from the little “History of” special they ran on Comedy Central a long time ago and thought they’d be great to watch. That really patched together public access look seemed really fun.
Anyway, I’m also a big fan of Joel, but have to admit, I eventually warmed up to Mike. The initial openning was the better of the two. And I agree that the show really took a downward turn when Dr. Forester left. I didn’t mind the change in Crow’s voice (Tom had multiple voices as well, it happens…just call it an upgrade), but his mother and the other two were just completely unwatchable in my opinion.
I do have to admit, though, the final episode was great…especially the last shot. My question, though…I thought the Earth got blowed up real good when the Sci-Fi run started…how’d they get it back?
Same here. It helped with my personal transition that Mike’s first movie was Revenge of the Creature, which I always kinda liked even when not MSTified.
“Hey, lady! Your dog tasted terrible!”
“I’m an icky elf!”
Um, I was serious about the sexual favors for tapes thing…or at least tape cost reimbursement…
[hijack]
So, out of curiosity, since there are so many MST3K fans here today, how many folks have seen the many fan-made MST3K productions out there?
[/hijack]
–Patch
“Rocks, rocks, rocks,
Our love affair with rocks.
Society won’t understand
And here come Mr. Spock.”
–Fan MSTie of Star Trek V
My absolute fave (but I can’t find the exact ep)
A jet fighter pilot is looking all over the sky while Tom Servo is going, “Huh? What? Where? I don’t see anything!” Suddenly, the pilot flips up the dark visor on his helmut and Servo says, “Ah! NOW I can see!”
Same ep, the jet drops an A-bomb on the giant Japanese monster (Gamera?) and they switch to grainy stock footage of a mushroom cloud, probably from the Bikini tests. The silence is broken by Crow T Robot gleefully saying, “Pretty!”
I caught the show on it’s first ComCen season and tapd the early shows they showed of it’s precomcen incarnation. I CAN’T FIND THEM NOW! damn.
I liked the Joel era that had TV’s Frank the best. Mike as head writer, Servo’s amazing singing, Joel’s “Huh?!”, Frank being teased by Doc, Crow as a perfect nincompoop all those shorts, the bots dressed up like farm animals. I weep for it’s passing…
“Gamera is really neat!
He is filled with turtle meat!
We are eating GA-ME-RA!”
MST3K has produced more moments of apopleptic laughter (for me, at least) than all other forms of entertainment combined. The latest: the short (dang, can’t remember the name) produced by General Motors, with the woman dancing through the auto show. Then she gets into a prototype Car of Tomorrow, and zooms down the Highway of Tomorrow, past the City of Tomorrow. Her driver points at something outside the car, and Mike solemenly intones: “Look…Dead Raccoon of Tomorrow.” I thought I was going to have a stroke.
My favorite is Jack Frost. I laughed so hard, I hurt myself. More than once.
Let’s see if I can clear this up.
At the beginning of the Sci-Fi Channel era, much time has passed. A lot of time. In fact the Earth is now inhabited by a bunch of Damn Dirty Apes. Pearl, as the Lawgiver, was in suspended animation. Anyway, it’s this future Earth that gets blowed up real good.
The sends the Satalite of Love off spinning through the galaxy, with Pearl in pursuit in her customized VW van. Mike wound up blowing up a number of planets. Eventually the SOL goes through a big swirly thing, sending it back in time, first to ancient Rome and finally back to present day Earth.
Personally, I liked the running story line of this season. It was fun to find out what would happen next.
Now, if anyone wants to send some tapes my way…
That’s one of my favorites, too: “Clown suit by Bargain Clown of Hollywood!” “Pregnant woman and schnauzer optional.”
But for sheer bizarreness, nothing beats Mr. B Natural. “Where did you come from?” “Bellevue!”
Tom: “Future not available in South America.”
–Cliffy
To elaborate on what Trion said:
At the beginning of the 8th season, Mike, Tom, and Gypsy got tired of “being one with the universe” and decided to come back to the SOL. The year is 2525 (was man alive? DID woman survive?). Crow had apparently gotten tired of being pure energy early on and had been living alone on the ship for about 500 years. In the meantime, his voice changed.
Meanwhile, the earth had beentaken over by intelligent, but damned dirty, apes. Turns out that Mike was to blame. His ancestors had a thing for primates.
The apes’ neighbors worshiped a nuclear bomb and Mike, big dope that he is, helped them in getting it to work. They destroyed the earth. Way to go Mike.
Pearl survived. As did Professor Bobo (Kevin Murphy).
Later in the season, a weird time warp sends the cast to the planet of Observers. Pearl is trapped in a force field and stupidly asks Mike for help. He destroys the Observers’ planet, too.
Later, while on an alien planet, Pearl, Bobo, Observer come under attack. Pearl stupidly asks Mike for help. He builds the mother of all baking soda bombs and, once more, destroys a planet.
A trip through a wormhole sends the SOL to Roman times (I hated this part of the story arc). Mike manages to rescue everyone from imprisonment without blowing up the earth.
At the beginning of the 9th season, the whole gang ends up back in orbit around earth just moments after they’d left at the end of season seven.
Pearl discovers the Forrester family castle and takes up resident as local mad scientist.
The final episode revolves around Pearl getting a cheap Radio Shack joystick to control the SOL, but something goes horribly awry and the ship is sent into a death spiral towards.
Mike, Crow, and Tom get an apartment. Gypsy becomes the CEO of her own company.
Joel made a visit in ep #1001 to repair the ship, but refuses to help Mike get back home.
TV’s Frank comes back in the form of a Soultaker (just like Joe Estevez in the experiment).