They’re back ...
The “Mystery Science Theater 3000” team is going live on the big screen.
“Mystery Science Theater 3000” may be set in the “not-too-distant future,” according to its catchy theme song, but at least one cast member believes the origins of the cult-classic television series date back to the late 1500s.
“I think the first time I saw this happen was in the play ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ when they’re doing (the play-withinthe-play) ‘Pyramus and Thisby,’ and the king’s court are all just mocking it, and they’re making comments right back to the stage,” Kevin Murphy said in a recent conference call. “So, what we do is certainly not anything new. But I think we’re some of the few people that actually make a living off it, and that’s kind of nice.”
“I would just say Kevin’s right: Shakespeare started it, but we’re better than Shakespeare,” added Bill Corbett, one of his co-stars.
“Yeah, Shakespeare’s dead. And we’re all still alive,” Murphy responded.
Not only are the principal cast members of the enduringly popular movie-riffing series “Mystery Science Theater 3000” — or “MST3K,” as it is affectionately known — still alive, but they’re also reuniting for a live performance Tuesday night that will be beamed into hundreds of movie theaters throughout the country, including the Oklahoma City area.
The Satellite of Lovefest “RiffTrax Live: MST3K Reunion Show” will bring together the RiffTrax trio of Murphy, Corbett and Michael J. Nelson — who have continued the TV show’s tradition of heckling films in an online-based audio format — with their former “MST3K” co-stars Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl and Bridget Nelson. The show’s creator and original host, Joel Hodgson, will join in the riffing fun, accompanied by Jonah Ray, the host for the upcoming “MST3K” reboot Hodgson recently set a Kickstarter record crowdfunding.
“You guys might have not been the first according to you … but seeing the show, coming across the show was the first time I knew that other people outside of my three friends did anything like that. And it was kind of like an explosion in my mind,” Ray said.
Mocking movies
The “MST3K Reunion Show” will bring the cast members together at the State Theater in their hometown of Minneapolis, where the show debuted on a UHF channel on Thanksgiving 1988. A year later, the series made its national premiere on the Comedy Channel, which eventually became Comedy Central. After it was canceled in 1997, a fan-driven campaign prompted the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) to pick up the Peabody Award-winning program for another three years. After its second cancellation in 1999, many of the cast members continued their movie-mocking ways through projects like RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic.
“Mystery Science Theater” centered on a mild-mannered janitor (first Hodgson, later Nelson), who was launched onto a space station called the Satellite of Love by a mad scientist, Dr. Clayton Forrester (Beaulieu), and his henchman, TV’s Frank (Conniff). “The mads” experimented on their prisoner by forcing him to watch putrid B-movies and educational short films. To keep his sanity against the bad-movie barrage, Joel built a pair of wisecracking robots, Crow (initially voiced by Beaulieu, later by Corbett) and Tom Servo (Murphy) to watch with him. The former robot puppeteers will put aside their mechanical alter egos for the live reunion show.
“I think there’s been some natural, just slight shift in this now that we’re in the characters of ourselves, the middle-aged dudes, as opposed to Crow and Servo,” Beaulieu said. “With Servo and Crow, you could kind of pretend that they just fell out of the turnip truck or the robot factory … and they can be a little more extreme and violent in their reactions. So, I think it’s just become a little more in our own voice. Although we do play psychopaths pretty convincingly, (it’s) not quite at puppet level.”
Taking the jokes live
The reunion show will feature different iterations of the cast poking fun at the ridiculous education shorts often featured on “MST3K” and RiffTrax, and then all coming together for a grand finale “SUPER RIFF-APALOOZA!”
“For someone who has a limited attention span, that is kind of a perfect unit for my wandering mind,” Corbett said of the shorts that will be targeted Tuesday. “They’re like little archaeological digs to mid-20th-century America. … I think they are really micromanaged aspects of life. As well-intentioned as they were, they really dig in and they’re fun because exactly that: They’re good fodder because they take themselves seriously.”
Although episodes of “MST3K” and RiffTrax are recorded in a studio, Murphy said he has embraced the frightening fun of riffing live.
“The studio versions that we do are not nearly as terrifying as doing it on stage. And doing the live event like we do, it is live and it’s going out to 600 or 700 theaters in the (United) States alone and 100 or more theaters in Canada. And anything could go wrong and it could go off the rails. And once the film starts, there’s no stopping the train. It’s really a crazy thing,” Murphy said. “That’s rather terrifying, but at the same time, it’s incredibly energizing and it’s really fun to do what we do on stage. The interaction with the audience makes it more like a drug than doing it in the studio.
“Doing it in the studio is like a nice cup of herbal tea; whereas, doing it on stage is like pure black heroin. It’s that much fun.”
Reviving the riffing
Even 17 years after “Mystery Science Theater” was canceled for the second time, the show has maintained a fervent fan base through syndication and DVD box set releases. More than 11,686 backers pledged nearly $621,000 on Kickstarter to fund the “RiffTrax Live: MST3K Reunion Show” and another RiffTrax live broadcast.
In addition, more than 48,000 backers contributed last year to Hodgson’s campaign to bring back “MST3K,” raising $5,764,229 on Kickstarter and surpassing the record set by the “Veronica Mars” movie, which raised $5,702,153. Counting another $600,000 from online merchandise sales, the crowdfunding efforts raked in more than $6.3 million, enough to fund 14 new episodes.
Although the network or streaming service that will carry the revived show has not been revealed, Hodgson announced last month that former “Daily Show” scribe Elliott Kalan will be the reboot’s head writer. Along with Ray, Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt have been cast for the new “MST3K,” and Jerry Seinfeld, Joel McHale and Mark Hamill have agreed to do cameos.
Despite the show’s lasting influence, Beaulieu was cautious about overstating the series’ legacy.
“Boy, people talk about legacy and that we’re responsible for a lot of stuff, and I think people have been doing this for a long time. We might have put a spotlight on it … but I feel like we’re being credited with the way people watch movies,” he said. “We’re still watching them with our eyes and we’re still angry at them — especially the movies that we watch.”