Well, well, well. Look at what we have here.
Another Friday afternoon. How nice.
Instead of haranguing you about some album you absolutely must listen to or complaining about Minnesota's Worst Spring, I thought I'd give a bit of advice in case your Friday night isn't as kind, weather wise, as mine is. If you're stuck inside or unable to go out and cause a ruckus why not unwind with one of the funniest shows to come from my home state? You see, kids, I was raised in the pre-millennial era, a heady time of unchecked cultural development that some are quick to dismiss as a painful, awkward time in the life of modern thinking. Many cringe when they think back to things that were popular at the time - Blossom, Milli Vanilli, Family Matters. It's okay, you don't have to feel bad, I was there too. I watched Captain Planet and American Gladiators. But while there were the shows about which we all have a wince and a laugh, there was one show I laughed at then and still do today.
Cable was a vast, untamed landscape that exposed my pre-adolescent mind to all sorts of things, from the dreary (or so I thought) PBS to the debauched (so I thought) MTV. A little fledgling network, though, laid the groundwork for the development of my sense of humor almost as much as The Simpsons did. Comedy Central was, at the time, just a random, insignificant channel on the spectrum. Instead of the force of nature it is today, back then it was a lot of British imports like Absolutely Fabulous and Whose Line Is It Anyway interspersed with stand-up specials and reruns of Dr. Katz. What stood out, though, what really hooked me, was a strange show that seemed to show a lot of bad science fiction. Like, the worst they could find. And they just bagged on it.
It was sublime.
It was Mystery Science Theater 3000, hailing from my home state of Minnesota's cable access channel.
Joel, a sleepy maintenance man for Gizmonic Institute, had been kidnapped by his evil bosses Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank and shot into space to be a prisoner aboard the Satellite of Love. The extent of the experiments being performed on Joel amounted to being shown cheesy sci-fi movie as the terrible twosome monitored his mind. Joel, wanting some company if he had to endure such terrible films, ended up using the parts that control when the movies start and stop to construct some robot friends. Gypsy, Tom Servo and Crow all coexisted with Joel, providing his only emotional support as they sat through film after film of absolute schlock. That sound too absurd? Here, maybe it's more palatable as a theme song.
Having no access to the burgeoning internet, I basically stumbled onto the show and was initially puzzled. What was this? Why the silhouettes on the bottom of the screen? Soon, though, I was in love. This show was genius! As the trio riffed on the movies and just made jokes over bad films, my sense of humor (and snark) came to form. Pithy, witty banter, all at the sake of someone's hard (but poorly executed) work. Awful science fiction movies from the 50s through the modern era, just piled up and mocked, along with the occasional short to pad out an hour. This is the show that made Manos, The Hands of Fate famous! While the movies were train-wreck affairs, the kind of stuff you just couldn't look away from, the shorts were my favorite - often they were the hopelessly dated and out of touch educational films from the 50s and 60s, the kind of stuff with a family of characters all referred to as "Mother", "Father", "Sister" and "Brother". I may not have gotten all the jokes, not even being in my teens at the time, but I was constantly in stitches, absorbing every wise-crack and non-sequiter.
What makes these fond recollections even better for me is that they still hold up as hysterical. I had *ahem*...downloaded...a few in college and my friends and I watched them obsessively. Having found them on Netflix is even better, knowing there's no danger of viruses or bad files. There's an insane amount of content available and this way you don't have to shell out quite as much as if you bought the whole DVD collection. Even though the show ended years ago, two different factions of cast and crew have been continuing in the riffing tradition, skewering modern and classic selections. Check out the sites for Cinematic Titantic and Rifftrax to see what is available - you just download the track, sync it up with your TV and voila! New material! As I said, if you're trapped inside tonight check out the joys of skewering bad content. Hopefully you're as amused as I continue to be!
Another Friday afternoon. How nice.
Instead of haranguing you about some album you absolutely must listen to or complaining about Minnesota's Worst Spring, I thought I'd give a bit of advice in case your Friday night isn't as kind, weather wise, as mine is. If you're stuck inside or unable to go out and cause a ruckus why not unwind with one of the funniest shows to come from my home state? You see, kids, I was raised in the pre-millennial era, a heady time of unchecked cultural development that some are quick to dismiss as a painful, awkward time in the life of modern thinking. Many cringe when they think back to things that were popular at the time - Blossom, Milli Vanilli, Family Matters. It's okay, you don't have to feel bad, I was there too. I watched Captain Planet and American Gladiators. But while there were the shows about which we all have a wince and a laugh, there was one show I laughed at then and still do today.
Cable was a vast, untamed landscape that exposed my pre-adolescent mind to all sorts of things, from the dreary (or so I thought) PBS to the debauched (so I thought) MTV. A little fledgling network, though, laid the groundwork for the development of my sense of humor almost as much as The Simpsons did. Comedy Central was, at the time, just a random, insignificant channel on the spectrum. Instead of the force of nature it is today, back then it was a lot of British imports like Absolutely Fabulous and Whose Line Is It Anyway interspersed with stand-up specials and reruns of Dr. Katz. What stood out, though, what really hooked me, was a strange show that seemed to show a lot of bad science fiction. Like, the worst they could find. And they just bagged on it.
It was sublime.
Joel, a sleepy maintenance man for Gizmonic Institute, had been kidnapped by his evil bosses Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank and shot into space to be a prisoner aboard the Satellite of Love. The extent of the experiments being performed on Joel amounted to being shown cheesy sci-fi movie as the terrible twosome monitored his mind. Joel, wanting some company if he had to endure such terrible films, ended up using the parts that control when the movies start and stop to construct some robot friends. Gypsy, Tom Servo and Crow all coexisted with Joel, providing his only emotional support as they sat through film after film of absolute schlock. That sound too absurd? Here, maybe it's more palatable as a theme song.
