MST3K.com has updated, adding four new legacy series clips.

They’ve also announced that, starting tomorrow, the beginning of MST3K’s 20th anniversary year, they are dropping all Rhino single DVDs to $10.

So don’t forget our annual “shorts” calendar! Your wall will be bare without it!

So I’m digging through my old files today and I found this. I’d completely forgotten about it. I posted this on ratmm back in ‘95, as it became clear Comedy Central was giving the show the old heave-ho. For those who weren’t on the net then, here it is. For those who were, here’s a memory:

The Grinches Who Stole MST

All the MSTies liked MST3K a lot,
but the folks who ran Comedy Central did NOT.
They all hated the show and the whole MSTie throng.
And they hated the robots! And they hated the song!
But the thing that the channel guys most strongly hated
was they had no control over how Best Brains made it.
They liked to think THEY knew what comedy was!
They longed to create the next comedy buzz!
They loved it when people said they were the hippest
Out there on the “cutting edge,” being the flippest.
Then the ratings came out and the news did apall:
All those viewers weren’t watching “The Kids In the Hall.”
“After all of our work to find cutting edge shows,
All our viewers are watching Tom Servo and Crow’s!”
They asked, in a meeting that went past 11,
“How come people don’t love Exit 57??
Why don’t they get off on the great Benny Hill?
Don’t they know we know better and that we always will?
We’ll TELL them what’s funny, be they brown, black or honky.
We’ll MAKE them love genius like “Drop the Dead Donkey!”
And since our shows CAN’T be upstaged by a puppet,
when their contract comes due, we’re not going to re-up it!
No way are some midwestern puppet riff-raff
gonna prove they know more about making folks laugh!
So when the time came to discuss season eight,
the nice folks at Best Brains were just shown to the gate.
But then word started spreading, by fax and on-line
That the future of MST3K is not fine.
So the MSTies stood up and they yelled, loud and clear,
And they said, “Oh, fer cryin’ out loud in the beer!
This show is a hit! Like that park that’s Jurassic!
Come on, you blind fools, it’s a comedy classic!!
There’s a movie a-comin’ and a CD-ROM too
And a book that will bring even more fans to you.
So don’t be so proud, don’t be so high and mighty
So it’s NOT “cutting edge!” Must you be so up-tighty?
If you should reconsider, and stop being such rats,
who knows, we might even watch ol’ Dr. Katz!
So we’re begging, in poses so meek and supine,
Please give to us all Season Eight–oh, and Nine!
And TEN, while you’re at it! Let’s lock the deal up!
You’d be quite embarrassed if some upstart pup
of a network, somebody like Sci-fi or E!,
was still making a mint in the next century
from the show you passed over as not “cutting edge.”
It would be a disaster! You might go for the ledge!
So PLEASE, we all ask, in a chorus most rousin:
PLEASE SAVE MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000!!!!!

I remember somebody at BBI saying the phrase “midwestern puppet riff-raff” became a catch-phrase in the studio for a few days…

We are a couple of weeks behind on this (Yo, Chris and James, you might have told us!), but there is still time to submit riffs for the movie “Batman & Robin” to a site called RiffRaff Theater. Eventually the group will pull all the riffs together into a finished script, which they will present to Rifftrax, and which Mike, Kevin and Bill will perform. If your material is used you will receive a copy of the RiffTrax Batman & Robin poster.

Be sure to check the Terms & Conditions you will have to agree to if you submit riffs. January 6th is your last day to turn in riffs.

Get more info here.

If there is one section of this site that is incomplete in a major way, it’s our episode guide. The basic info is there, but we have only found the time to add comments (which people seem to like) on the first three seasons.

Beginning next week, that is going to change. We’ll be setting up a seprate blog page and I will begin doing commentary, one episode a week, begining with episode 401.

And here’s where you come in: We will turn on comments for that page and you will be invited to add your thoughts. The best ones (decided by ME! ) will be included in the revised episode guide page. So be funny, be thoughtful, bring something to the table.

It seems to us that if this site should be doing anything, it should be finding a way to talk about, you know, the show.

So, you have a week to dig out your copy of episode 401- SPACE TRAVELERS and run through it (please don’t post based on a vague memory of it; get a fresh impression). We’ll begin discussing it after the New Year (probably Thursday). If you don’t have a copy, well, there are a lot of Rhino episodes in season four so you’ll be able to chime in then.

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — Jeanne Carmen, the “little country girl” who became a 1950s pinup and actress and hobnobbed with Frank Sinatra and other stars, died of lymphoma at her Orange County home on Thursday, Dec. 20. She was 77. MSTies will remember her as Lillibet in episode 112- UNTAMED YOUTH.

Read her obituary here.

Oh it’s on.

Entertainment Weekly’s Web site mentions Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax, and then asks its readers to suggest movies that need “the treatment.” Amusingly, several suggest movies that have already been done by Rifftrax.

If you haven’t visited Mary Jo Pehl’s blog lately, you may not know that she’s been on a streak lately, posting a flurry of messages and trying to answer reader questions on Fridays. Plus, she’s also posted her first podcast! Listen to it here.

Get the news here.

See the trailer here.