It’s a simple one: Which MST3K films do you own in non-riffed (i.e., original) form? And what made you acquire them?

Thanks to John Seavey for suggesting this thread topic. If you think you have a good topic, email me.

RiffTrax.com is back online.

New to the site are:
• the “three riffers” version of “Little Shop of Horrors” (you can download the MP3 version and watch with your Legend Films DVD or a video on demand version with the movie and riffing together) [free sample here], and
• the short that created all the ruckus, “Overcoming Fear.”

Angela Frissore gets inside the head of TV’s Frank.

So I was on Twitter last night (Did I mention I’m now on Twitter? I’m now on Twitter. I won’t be posting a lot, since if I have something worth saying I generally just post here. But I thought: may as well. Anyway.) and I’m searching for “MST3K” and a bunch of people are saying “I’m watching MST3K!” and I’m going “huh?” And finally one person mentions it’s MST3K: The Movie and it’s on HBO. And dang if it wasn’t, and dang if it isn’t going to be on a couple of more times on Saturday and then switch over to the Cinemax channels for a couple of months (mostly in the wee hours, but whatever). Here’s the sked (all times are Eastern Standard Time on the “East” channels and Pacific Standard Time on the “West” channels; you folks in the middle, do the math):
It will be on HBO COMEDY tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 4:55 a.m. and on HBO2 at 6 a.m.

@MAX
Sat 2/7 8:15 a.m.
Thu 2/12 4:30 p.m.
Mon 2/16 3:45 a.m.
Thu 2/19 7:50 a.m.
Thu 2/26 5:10 a.m.

CINEMAX
Mon 2/16 6 a.m.
Sun 2/22 5 a.m.

THRILLER MAX
Tue 3/3 5:45 a.m.
Thu 3/5 12:45 p.m.
Wed 3/11 7:15 a.m.
Fri 3/20 9:45 a.m.
Fri 3/27 midnight
Tue 3/31 5 p.m.

OUTERMAX
Tue 3/3 3:15 p.m.
Mon 3/9 8:30 a.m.
Fri 3/13 midnight
Sun 3/15 7:40 a.m.
Wed 3/18 12:30 p.m.
Sat 3/21 5:15 p.m.
Fri 3/27 1:50 p.m.

We were going to wait until they were back up to post about this, but as the outage enters day two we’re going to go ahead and say something: The crush of people trying to see the RiffTrax Live show on Wednesday night crashed the RiffTrax.com servers, and crashed them good. The tech team, which has been posting updates on Twitter, says all of your data is safe, orders and everything are accounted for. They’ve been working all night to restore everything and they expect the site will back today.

We’re sorry we broke you, RiffTrax…

First shown: 8/20/94
Opening: Tom does Crow’s taxes
Intro: Dr. F. invents Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter, the world’s most adorable pet, and sends it to M&TB, much to Frank’s dismay
Host segment 1: Song: “Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter”
Host segment 2: Nummy’s fur is everywhere
Host segment 3: Nummy is sick, Frank is sick, so Mike sends Nummy back to Deep 13
End: “What does it feel like to get you head chopped off?”, letters, the Mads have been caught by their own creation
Stinger: Guy gets shot by arrow
(69 votes, average: 3.78 out of 5)
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• This is an odd duck of an episode for me. The movie has a sort of “been there-done that” feel for me. With the exception of a hero named “My cheesesteak” there isn’t a lot of interest. The riffing is pretty good but not spectacular. Of course the headline of the episode is Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter. The segments caused an immediate sensation among fans; I remember some people didn’t quite get the ending.
• Having heard of the fans’ growing irritation with CC spokesguy Penn Gillette, they use him in a gag. Folks loved that.
• Daddy-O says: MACISTE was the strongman character originating in the 1914 Italian movie “Cabiria.” The character was resurrected when the sword-and-sandal epic Italian movies suddenly became very popular in the late 1950s. Because American audiences were unfamiliar with Maciste, the title character’s name was usually changed to Atlas, Colossus, Goliath, Hercules or Samson (for example, the character Hercules in the movie in episode 410- HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN was actually Maciste). What’s odd in COLOSSUS AND THE HEADHUNTERS is that the dubbed English dialogue still calls the hero Maciste even though the title says otherwise; nobody calls him Colossus.
• Non-Spagetti-ball bumpers: film canister, bulletin board, beaker, book.
• Callbacks: “Watch out for snakes!” (Eegah!)
• Annoying commercial: Commercial for the now-largely forgotten “Moxy Pirate Show.”
• Interesting commercial: The first “Go to where the cheese is made” contest commercial as the first convention approached.
• Obscure riff: “o/` Ontari-ari-ari-ohh… o/` from an old tourism commercial.
• Local reference: Rush’s Bridal Shop.
• I think that’s Kevin as the voice of NMCB in segment 3
• Mildly dirty riff: “Meanwhile, Sonny’s upstairs with the maid of honor…”
• Fave riff: This is history’s first really awkward moment. Honorable mention: “Uh, what’s following them?”

The next RiffTrax Live online riff will be tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern/6 p.m. Pacific. It will be a live riff of the short “Overcoming Fear.” More details here.

Jawbone Radio has posted a great audio interview with Kevin Murphy.

Jawbone still has previous interviews with Mike and Bill available online.

Trace, Frank and Mary Jo will be appearing at this year’s CONvergence science fiction convention July 2-5 in Minneapolis. The convention will take place at the Sheraton Bloomington, which some MSTies may remember as the Radisson South, the site of the first ConventioCon in 1994. CONvergence organizers tell us that the hotel is currently 70% booked, so if you’d like to attend you should get your registrations and hotel forms submitted now.

A nice long appreciation of the show and the upcoming release from Shout! Factory at DVDTalk.com.