TV on Tape: Mystery Science Theater 3000 Movie Review
Mystery Science Theater 3000 may well be the funniest sci-fi show on cable television. Weathering some major cast and crew changes, it maintained its originality for several years and moved from the small screen to home video to motion picture theatres.
“MST3K,’’ as it's abbreviated by fans, was created in 1988 at a small UHF station in Minneapolis, MN, by comedian Joel Hodgson and producer-writer-director Jim Mallon. Their idea was to poke fun at bad B-movies, and to use those films as a springboard for more wide-ranging humor. Here's the premise:
A worker (first played by Hodgson and then by Michael Nelson when Hodgson left the show) at the Gizmonic Institute angered his bosses, the proverbial mad scientists (played variously by Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, and Frank Conniff), who shot him into space and marooned him on the Satellite of Love. To ease his loneliness, Joel created robot companions, the puppets Crow, Gypsy, and Tom Servo (the voices of Beaulieu, Mallon, and co-writer Kevin Murphy). At the beginning of each show, Joel and the ‘bots exchange goofy inventions with the scientists. After that, the scientists send them a “cheesy movie, the worst ever made,” as the theme song puts it.
Then Joel or Mike, the ‘bots, and the TV audience settle down to watch. You can see their silhouettes in the lower right-hand corner of your screen, as if you were in a theatre and they were three cut-ups in the first row. Their comments on the movies – plus some terrific skits and songs – are the real point.
Those wisecracks cover the full spectrum of popular and serious culture. Movies like Robot Monster and It Conquered the World provoke rapidfire references to everything from C.S. Lewis to Vidal Sassoon, free will, God, artist Mark Rothko, Bill Keene's “Family Circus” comic strip, playwright Tom Stoppard, Robert Ludlum novels, dumb fish puns, The Wizard of Oz, and The Dirty Dozen. When Joel remarks that a character on screen looks like a cross between Jerry Mathers and James Dean, one of the ‘bots cracks, “Beaver Without a Cause.”
In terms of the sets and props, they take a defiantly low-tech approach. Tom Servo was obviously a gumball machine in a previous life, and Crow's beak is made from a bowling pin. According to Mallon, that part of the show deliberately recalls the kids’ shows on local stations during the early years of television. Hodgson has cited Jay Ward's work with “Rocky and Bullwinkle” as another source of inspiration.
Recently, the series has moved from the Comedy Central cable channel, which has devoted entire Thanksgivings to “Turkey Day” MST3K marathons, to the Sci-Fi Channel. The series’ best efforts are showing up on tape from Rhino Home Video, and in 1996, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie played in theatres.
1988-95/C Selected cast: Joel Hodgson, Michael Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, Frank Conniff. VHS RHI