I was reading this and this. Both refer to MST3King.
Now I know what Mystery Science Theater is, although I have never seen it, but what is “Mystery Science Theater behavior”?
(I posted this in the Cafe as it refers to a TV show. If it is in the wrong place, just hit me.)
It’s basically making funny, sarcastic, snide, and/or ironic/obvious observations about the movie aloud. I do this a lot with movies I have seen half a billion times, or with horrible movies like MST3K did, but I never do it in a theater where it can annoy other people. I HATE it when people goof around in the theater. After I sepnd $8 on a ticket, I want to be able to enjoy the movie on my own level.
It’s also referred to as “MiSTing”.
Two things:
Please, please don’t blindly link to a thread chock full o’ spoilers about a movie that’s just hit the theaters. Granted, the post you linked to wasn’t giving any secrets away, but…
If you know what the show is, this shouldn’t be much of a leap. (In all fairness, if you’ve never seen the show, you might not appreciate the details of how this works.) They make fun of the movie, the actors, the characters and the plot, out loud, down in the front row of the theater, making no effort to be quiet.
Think “loudmouthed jerk”; you’d like to drop a popcorn bucket over his head, in the theater. Same same here.
[sub]Also known as riffing, nitpicking, having a loud and boistrous time, etc. etc.[/sub]
Erk! :smack:
Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.
I know what the show is in the sense that I know it’s a TV show and it is SciFi. I don’t have any idea of what the premis of the show is. (We don’t get it up here, I don’t think.)
Got it. Thanks. 
(I was starting to gather that this is what it ment, but when it was attributed to an actual show, I thought it might be something a little different as I have no idea what that show was about.)
I’m sure if you’ve ever mentioned anywhere else on the boards that you’ve never seen the show, you’ve heard all this before, but if you haven’t…
Try and track down some of the few videotapes/DVDs (Rhino is releasing the episodes that are openly available on disk, aren’t they?) or find someone with episodes taped from the televised run of the show.
There’s a reason they only used horrible movies on the show to begin with. In particular, the Gamera/Godzilla movies are a riot. The ‘commenters’ (Joel/Mike and the bots) are absolutely brutal. Unfortunately, the Gamera flicks are not available commercially, so you’ll have to borrow these to experience them.
[sub]But really, any episode is pretty damn funny.[/sub]
FTR, since one of my posts is highlighted above, I want to emphasize that we did not disturb any other moviegoers. We both had the day off and managed to catch the first showing of the day. The theater was less than a third full, and we were at the very top row. If anyone heard us whispering into each others ears over the roar of crumbling starships, then they have damn good hearing.
I hate talkative theater patrons as much as the next guy - that’s why we went to an early show, ironically.
The premise of Mystery Science Theater 3000, if you can call it a “premise”, is:
Evil scientist(s) send a human being (Joel or Mike) into space, in order to perform cruel experiments on him. The experiments consist of forcing him to watch really really bad movies, the kinds of movies that are so bad they snuff out your very soul and make you weep over how humanity has fallen.
Fortunately, Joel and/or Mike have come up with a way to endure the toxic wasteland that is their weekly experiment. They have two robotic companions, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot (played by little plastic puppets), who watch the movies with him. You can see their silhouettes against the bottom of the movie screen as the movie is being shown. Whenever an opportunity avails itself during the movie, Joel/Mike, Tom, and/or Crow will make a wisecrack. There can be over 700 such wisecracks during a single movie. Most of these wisecracks are obscure enough that only a few people watching the show will get any given joke, but those few viewers who do get one of these obscure jokes will usually double over with uncontrollable laughter because they’re really good jokes.
Three times during the movie, Joel/Mike and the 'bots are allowed a few-minute break outside the movie theater. They fill this time with little comedy sketches known as “host segments,” some of which make fun of various aspects of the movie they’re watching and some of which deal with unrelated topics. For example, Crow T. Robot might sing a song about how he’s enraptured by Estelle Winwood (with poignant counterpoint by Joel and Tom about how Estelle is way too old for Crow). Some of the songs they’ve come up with over the years, such as “Let’s Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas” and “Hired! The Musical”, have even been compiled onto MST3K music CDs for the fans.
They’re gradually rereleasing all the episodes that have been released on VHS on DVD.
I stil chuckle at my single favourite MST3K joke, which objectively is not really all that clever. During The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, a woman is shown holding a small bird in her hand. One of the robots (I don’t know which) says:
“Hello, breakfatht!”
…and I was laughing for a good five minutes.
Smeghead: Yeah, that’s what I meant to say. See what dropping two little letters (rereleasing) does to ya?
:smack:
My question was actually, “is it Rhino that’s doing this, or some other distributor?”
My favorite line was from their torching of Space Mutiny, a 1980s South African sci-fi flick where much of the action took place in a giant warehouse/power plant which was supposed to be a space ship.
The comment was: “Oh! Good! Back the rusting septic system of this futuristic space ship!”
An old circus documentary-
-clowns chasing & beating each other with brooms- “This is the town’s Passion Play!”
-two clowns kinda embracing & swinging back & forth on a high-wire teeter-totter- “Oh no! Clown sex!!!”
VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS- little Ronnie Howard- a boy scientist called “Genius” concocts a pinkish slug in a test tube-
-“Cthulhu!”
A documentary promoting joining a school band, hosted by a woman dressed & prancing like Peter Pan but calling herself Mr B Flat-
“Oscar Wilde only wanted to be this gay!”
A movie where some character is invoking a demon-
“(Demon’s name) loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”
SANTA CLAUS (Mexican film where SC battles a devil who tempts little kids)- An Eye on a stalk is among Santa’s surveillance equipment-
“It’s Sandy Duncan!”
An old circus documentary-
-clowns chasing & beating each other with brooms- “This is the town’s Passion Play!”
-two clowns kinda embracing & swinging back & forth on a high-wire teeter-totter- “Oh no! Clown sex!!!”
VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS- little Ronnie Howard- a boy scientist called “Genius” concocts a pinkish slug in a test tube-
-“Cthulhu!”
A documentary promoting joining a school band, hosted by a woman dressed & prancing like Peter Pan but calling herself Mr B Flat-
“Oscar Wilde only wanted to be this gay!”
A movie where some character is invoking a demon-
“(Demon’s name) loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”
SANTA CLAUS (Mexican film where SC battles a devil who tempts little kids)- An Eye on a stalk is among Santa’s surveillance equipment-
“It’s Sandy Duncan!”
FINAL SACRIFICE: “Do you know how fast you were going, Rowsdower?”
SPACE MUTINY: “Big McLarhuge.”
Yes, I’m a nerd, geek, whathaveyou…Sad thing is, I could have gone on for pages quoting this show.
Two Bots!? <sputtering> Tom Servo, Crow, Gypsy and who could forget Cambot our trusty camera-bot?
Four bots, people, FOUR.
I rather enjoy the Blade Runner jokes that I’ve had to explain to my roommate. There’s one Gamera movie, in full color, where some other monster is battling this thing (who will be Gamera’s foe, of course) that has a head like a butcher knife and these shinjukus coming off the sides, and the comment, when the other monster is cut with the head, is: “He say you blade runner.” Cracked me up, and then I had to explain it.
nitpick- “oh no! they’re doing it clown-style!”
Love that show!
Brian
The worst is sitting in a room with someone who doesn’t ‘get it’.
Sorry for the extra post: Anyone know the Gamara theme…the unofficial MST3K Gamara theme?