Mystery Science Theater 3000: C/D, S/D.

Interesting bit here in a review of Sally Kellerman's autobio from a couple of years back:

https://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/tag/tom-pittman/

Television actors Robert Sampson and Luana Anders are major characters in the early chapters, as is Tom Pittman, a promising leading man who did a ton of TV guest shots in the year or two before his body was found at the bottom of a Hollywood canyon in 1958. Kellerman’s account of Pittman’s death, and of her role and that of small-part actor Robert Bice (who played square-jawed cops in tons of TV episodes prior to his own early demise) in its aftermath, are so startling that I’m surprised a major publication hasn’t taken up the subject for further investigation.

http://www.tompittmanduo.com/bio.htm

Long may his identical twin thrive.

Anyway, new interview with Joel and Jonah:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-st-mystery-science-theatre-3000-returns-20161123-story.html

Interesting bit:

Hodgson: The thing that it really reminded me of, and I hadn't thought about this in so long, is how much work it is to be the host on “MST3K.” You're working with two inanimate objects, two robots. You have to do a lot of acting and emoting, not just for you, but for them too. It's a really big job when you think about all the props, and all the stuff that has to happen and Jonah did a really good job just getting in there. There's a lot of physicality to it.

Ray: Our schedule was so tight that we just sprinted into doing the shoots. The show is so relaxed, but the actual process of doing it— my legs were getting sore from how many times I had to freak out because of the movie sign. One thing that was so great was when Joel would come on in between the movie segments. I remember he said, ”When you come onto screen, just blast onto the screen. Burst on like you're in a rock and roll performance." I was also learning how to work props, how to do sleight-of-hand magic on the spot.

Hodgson: If you look at “MST3K,” especially on the “Satellite of Love” set, it's one shot, and we don't cut away. It's really like a live show... There's all these things that people don't know about when you have that gig. It's not easy. I guess I never really thought about it until I had to look at what Jonah had to do, and go through that with him again. I realized how many feelings I had about it that were kind of unresolved. Nobody knows how hard this is except for this guy and Mike.

I was actually just thinking about that yesterday when I was watching Cave Dwellers and Joel was doing that foley bit. He messes up some lines and they just keep going cause it's got so many props and is relatively long.

Yeah, in general the high number of fuckups contributes a lot to the show's charm, and the fact that they obviously didn't want to constantly reshoot 15-minute chunks of the movie meant that there's a great loose roughness to the riffing itself. Never feels painfully over-rehearsed.

joel fucking up his lines was like 50% of his appeal

for sure!

Okay the marathon is live:

https://youtu.be/JphKSOuaov0

First one: Pumaman!

Meantime the opening bit with Joel and Jonah was...hokey. Which I shouldn't be surprised by, but.

Kneel!

I told you my name is TONY

Everything about this film is such a botch, it's amazing. And the lead guy, dear god. It almost is funnier/worse now after almost two decades of modern superhero movies.

Ah, Pod People. I will never tire of you.

Aw mannnnn sorry to be missing this, esp. Pod People, which at one point I thought I'd burned out on but has now aged perfectly into an old, familiar friend. Even the really minor riffs are gems: ''Ahhh, gimme that, I'll show you how to use a prop phone!'' ''What Trumpy's done is good!'' ''Meanwhile, in YET ANOTHER movie...'' etc.

So many lines still make me laugh. It's easily one of the best from the more languorously paced years.

If you're not in the right mood, its slowness can totally defeat you... though things like the ''McCloud!'' gag start to really build around the dull emptiness of the film itself and become deeply deeply hilarious.

''... and after that, we'll be hearing from Bay Area artist Belmondo...''

"and I will be the one to hold Larry Csonka down, kiss him so soft . . ."

i never get tired of the larry csonka jokes in final sacrifice

i love how the henchmen all have slightly different black tank tops

and the hermit who sounds like Doctor Teeth

My my my my Mitchell.

Okay so Manos has to be number one, any guesses on number two? I'm kinda stumped.

Gamera?

f.s.v.o. Gamera

Good guess!

Anyway, Mitchell.

"Cross to fireplace."

"I usually take mine with a Ding Dong in it but ok"

(We've been having dinner and soon dessert here since around noonish so I'm only catching this as catch can but I do appreciate episodes where I can drop in any time and it's hilarious.)

Mitchell!

Ha, Space Mutiny makes so much sense at number two. Framing stuff is totally convoluted as a standalone but the movie itself and the number they do on it is top notch.

SANTA

And of course Manos. I've got 'Debbie''s book on order and I can't wait to read it.

Trace's Crow works a lot bluer, I am v fond of him

I think it was this thread that got me to REALLY love ''Big buttery moon up there... sidewalk kinda looks like ice cream if you squint at it.'' But it was my brother who got me to appreciate all the chase scene riffs (''Mitchell II: The Cloverleaf'') and, re: ''this is a police inevstigation!'': ''Oh, really? I thought it was just some slob wandering around my *house.*''

Underrated: the shitty marine conclusion to the film, especially ''Let's rip off the last scene from Key Largo, Mitchell!''

i love that whole section

ohhhhh they're chasing the BOAT

Trace's Crow works a lot bluer, I am v fond of him

Counterpoint:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5ZCZOW8eT0

3M!

What's great is that they also made a 3M joke in Pod People when it came to the "It stinks!" song.

Well, by gum, the bonus things for today Joel announced ARE indeed all that:

On Monday, I also promised that – since we didn't have any new episodes ready to show you on Turkey Day – I'd send a special treat on Friday to make it up to you.

And you know, I know it's a treat some of you have been wanting for a long time – maybe even since we first ran this advertisement in The St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch on Turkey Day of 1988, when our very first episode, Invaders From the Deep, premiered on KTMA.

So yeah, some of you already guessed it, but let's make it official:

I'm happy to tell you that we finally found master tapes for two of the three "lost KTMA episodes" of MST3K: Invaders from the Deep, and Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars.

I actually thought we had discovered copies of these episodes at one point during the Kickstarter last year, and I was really excited that I'd be able to finally share them with you… and then it turned out that we hadn't found them, and it was a real bummer. But then, earlier this year, a few final boxes turned up. And there they were: the very first episodes of MST3K ever made.

So yeah: If your Kickstarter rewards include any of the "Classic MST3K Bonus Episodes", the two "lost episodes" are now waiting for you – a special "Happy Turkey Day" present from all of us at MST3K.

I didn't go this route, but presumably these things are going to circulate from here realllll quickly.

FWIW, this means that the final episode that has never circulated at all is the original riff on Star Force: Fugitive Alien II, which was the third KTMA episode overall. But presumably it's out there...

Meantime, word from MST3Kinfo that Tony Zarindast -- the man who gave us <I>Werewolf</I> -- has passed:

http://www.mst3kinfo.com/?p=23507

His IMDB page is worth boggling at thanks to the English language titles alone. A one-man mini-Cannon:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0953494/

Whoa, they're showing a Season 1 ep on "CometTV", a standard-def broadcast channel. I've never actually seen one of these.

And can see why, this shit is pretty ropey, even for these guys.

Yeah, I've tried, and the best I can really say is that it's a BIT tighter than KTMA MST. What's remarkable is how quickly it gels in Season 2 - still some tough eps in there, and a little bit samey between the three grim, ugly CCI "rebel" pictures and the four flat sci-fi snoozers from Lippert... but Catalina Caper is one of the first classic eps, and Kevin and Frank don't need any warming up at all. Ring of Terror and Godzilla vs. Megalon, too...

Season 1 is choppy but sometimes the 'what the' nature of the films then carry it all.

Will be seeing Trace and Frank again at SF Sketchfest in a couple of weeks.

my recollection, which i can't really verify, is that mike nelson came on board between seasons 1 and 2. i think people really underrate his influence as a writer on the show; there's this tendency to conflate mike nelson the person with mike nelson the character and treat him as someone who magically appeared on the show in the middle of season 5.

My sister gave my son a set of MST3K dvds for xmas. He'd never seen them before. I haven't watched it in 20 years. There was definitely uneven quality, but we had a great time watching them together.

Anyway, this project is a few months along, but I'm just seeing it for the first time today:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/142390

It must happen

how old is he? cuz damn, by now there are a bunch of refs on every show that a 30yo wouldn't get. (I understand they're still entertaining outside of that.)

He's 12. And yeah, there were refs in there that I don't even get, but still enough laughs to make it worth watching for him I guess.

Shout Factory does the exhaustive job of explaining every single reference in the annotations of the full episodes they've put up on youtube. Probably meant to be viewed in the spirit of a commentary track.