UPDATE: Amy A. Winnemore of the Delaware County News Network also has a short interview.
Sidenote about the conversation that sprang up in this comments on this post: It is the policy of this site that people are entitled to their opinions and preferences, and as long as they express them in a respectful manner — respectful to fellow posters here and also to the performers they are discussing — this site has no problem with a civil debate. With a couple of notorious exceptions, you folks have done that admirably and we salute you. There are still a few people who are stuck in the winter of 1993. Our experience tells us that the best way to respond is to not respond. But if you must respond, keep in mind that it is not your preference or opinion, but the way you express it, that will determine whether or not your comment is deleted.
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Nice interview. So SHOUT! has had it’s best year in sales of MST3K DVDs. I have always been curious about production numbers. I always wonder how many units of the last set I bought were made. 5,000? Just curious. It would be nice to know.
Hey Joel, it’s nice to read you humble you feel. That makes me respect you as a person which goes beyond how much I respect you as a performer. I can’t give you an award or a statue to show grateful and appreciative I am. All I can do is keep buying your product, keep trying to catch a show and someday shake your hand, look you in the eye and say thank you for making my life better.
I’ll be at the Keswick. Anyone else…Won’t You?
That part about not being cynical, respect the movie, and having good clean fun and rainbows coming from the mouths of puppies dressed as bunnies, it’s an obvious jab at Rifftrax. I always have the impression that Joel felt superior to Mike and co.
@Neptune Man
I’ve gotten the feeling Joel was not enamored with the somewhat negative tone of both the Sci fi era (seems like the atmosphere was still more light and playful even into the last of the Comedy Central days) and rifftrax from other interviews as well, but this one even moreso. I think both approaches have their bullet points though depending on the movie so to each their own. But it’s kind of hard to expect someone to have the type of pseudo-affection Joel is talking about for big budget modern crap like Transformers and Twilight. I also take slight issue with Joel’s dismissal of RT in one interview from a few years ago that in his opinion it doesn’t measure up as a product “because it’s just audio.” But how else would they do it for movies they can’t get the rights too? Sure, they’re just MP3 files but RT is a brilliant concept when you think about it and they do live shows when they can. Anyways, hopefully Joel at least was willing to download the RT for Roadhouse. :p
To not “too” obviously. :p
I remember a quote a few years back from Joel about Rifftrax where he was pretty negative, not so much about Mike, Bill and Kevin, but I guess aimed at IRiffers where he said (loosely quoted)” The thing about Rifftrax is, it allows anybody to think that they can riff movies”
Maybe I’m being totally unfair with Joel Hodgson, but I have always had that impression, he seems so distant, dwelling in the ethereal plane of Mount Parnasus, where the Muses live, coming down once in a while to do Castle of Freaks or the Oozing Skull. I’m not talking about signing autographs, just the way he behaves when he is not in the spotlight. Another thing that makes me cringe is that he doesn’t seem to acknowledge the existence not only of Mike, Kevin (Kevin had been with him since season 2!) or Bill, also other people who want to do his own riffing. I hope he doesn’t consider himself the inventor of riffing movies. And when I read his version of the story about why he left Mst3k, I find strange that he had waited so much time to say, “I sacrificed myself for the show”, he didn’t say exactly that, but I got that feeling, reading between lines, “Mst3k was saved thanks to me”. Forgive me, I’m just rambling, but I have been keeping these thoughts inside of my ehad for so long, that I want to express once and for all. Maybe you can correct me if I being jerk to Joel, I’m not denying his merits, afterall, thanks to him we are here, but his personality is a mystery for me, a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Sorry for all the Engrish.
“I’ve gotten the feeling Joel was not enamored with the somewhat negative tone of both the Sci fi era”
===================================================
I bet Joel hasn’t seen any full episodes since he left the show/Best Brains. Of course I wouldn’t bet my home on it, maybe just one small coffee drink of your choice at your local coffee-terium.
Ladies And Gentlemen! TONIGHT AT THE SUPERDOME, we’ve got EricJ on the Joel side and Neptune Man on the Mike side fighting in a cage match to the death!
But seriously, can’t you guys just accept the show for what it is? So, you may like Joel better than Mike or Mike better than Joel. Personally, I enjoy Joel’s episodes a little bit better, but does that mean I think Mike Nelson is Satan incarnate?
NO!
I love both of them and can switch from watching an episode from season 1 to an episode in season 10 in a heartbeat (except for the KTMA’s. I find them boring with the exception of The Legend Of The Dinosaurs, SST: Death Flight and Hangar 18, all of which I wish they redid sometime.) I watch both Rifftrax and CT and find myself laughing just as hard at both of them. I can watch “The Oozing Skull” one night and “Birdemic: Shock And Terror” the other.
My point is best summed up as a wise old Observer once said:
“CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?”
Thank you. Won’t you?
What do you think, sirs?
Joel does come across as pretty chilly when the subject of RT has come up in interviews, and I notice that he seems to find new ways to diss their format every so often. I remember an interview from a few years back in which he criticized RT for lacking a backstory to explain the riffing, which somehow made RT “conceptually incomplete.” But since CT have themselves abandoned the clunky backstory they were trying to build up in favor of live shows, he’s been admitting in interviews that you don’t need a fiction to explain the riffing, so now the problem with RT is that you can’t see the performers (which seems like a weak criticism to me; the CT guys aren’t exactly lighting up the stage as they read their riffs off their music stands).
On the other hand, I also recall Joel calling the RT guys “super funny” in another interview, and mentioning that he’d watched a Sci-Fi era episode of MST on during a flight and chuckling quietly to himself. So who knows.
One correction to the above. Someone mentioned that Kevin had been with Joel since season 2. Actually Kevin had been there since the KTMA beginning. He just didn’t get his Tom Servo role until season 2.
Am I saying Joel sucks? No, I recognized him, I respect him, but there are some attitudes of him that I don’t understand, which contradicts that image I had of Joel Robinson.
I’ve never gotten the impression that Joel had anything against the later era of the MST3K, but I definitely share the perception that hasn’t watched much of it. The only thing I recall about his opinion of the Sci-Fi era was an interview that was run back when Rhino’s first DVD volume came out. Here’s the relevant bit:
On the subject of Rifftrax being “conceptually incomplete” – I’ve never really understood that criticsm, and as Brian points out it didn’t take long for Cinematic Titanic to shed their backstory element or the silhouettes, so how much more than “just audio” is CT really in comparison? There’s a palpable comradie between Mike, Kevin and Bill that really makes you feel like you’re amongst buddies rather than performers that for me at least successfully achieves that riffer-to-audience relationship that I’ve read a few claim they’re only getting from CT. Throw in the fact that Rifftrax tends to have the audio equivalent of a skit before the movie, the occasional video tomfoolery that they’ll put up on Youtube and of course their live shows, and I’m really not feeling that either riffing enterprise is, in terms of format and presentation, really superior to the other when you compare them to MST3K.
For my part, I’ve loved everything I’ve consumed of both Rifftrax and CT, but I’ve experienced way more of Rifftrax since their content is less exclusionary. As Joel often points out, CT is all about the live performance, but because it’s a road show it doesn’t (or hasn’t yet) come to a state, let alone a city, that’s anywhere near me, so I end up left out until a recording of one their performances comes along (and I’m happy that live shows are what they are exclusively putting out on disc now). And while I can laugh with the audience on the DVD, I find it more enjoyable to laugh with a live audience whom I’m actually present with when Rifftrax beams their occasional live show nationally. Whether it’s a pre-recorded MP3 or a live broadcast, Rifftrax’s output is readily available and I have the knowledge that I’m not missing out on some of the fun. With CT I’m deprived of part of the experience, as the best I can do is watch the equivalent of a taped concert.
So all Joel says is they try not to be too cynical and everyone equates that to him blasting Rifftrax? Pretty much proves people think Rifftrax is cynical, because he never said anything near that.
and how can you criticize a guy who creates a show, then gets essentially squeezed out of it, but has the grace to not say anything for 10 years about what really happened, and acted like it was his decision to leave? Jeez. All I know is I would have been irate (and probably would have stopped watching the show) if I had known at the time why he was leaving.
CT and Rifftrax are both good, but I will say that I think Rifftrax sometimes forgets the funny, and just berates things for the heck of it. There’s a difference between ripping something, and ripping something in a funny way. I don’t care if it’s sarcastic, heck Crow was sarcastic as heck, but I’ve seen plenty of Rifftrax where I was like ‘yeah, but when does it get, you know, funny?’
^^ nobody’s criticizing Joel. Jeez lighten up
Try reading the comments before you post next time.
Also, that’s fantastic news about the MST3K DVD sets selling well.
“and how can you criticize a guy who creates a show, then gets essentially squeezed out of it, but has the grace to not say anything for 10 years about what really happened, and acted like it was his decision to leave? Jeez.” – @14, Mitchell “Rowsdower” Beardsley
That sure is a rough thing to go through, but that doesn’t make him above criticism. Joel is a genius, but he still puts on his jumpsuit one leg at a time like the rest of us proles.
All this glorified Joel/Mike 2011 Flame War nonsense is obscuring who the real villain is here, Jim Mallon. Oh, and DAVID SUSSMAN.
Can you imagine the hate on here if Jim Mallon had been the money man behind Rifftrax? Shudder…
JCC,
I don’t think anyone is above criticism. I just thought it was a bit much that Joel said he doesn’t think you should be too sarcastic all the time and people immediately made it into some snide comment about Rifftrax, that’s all.
Who’s David Sussman?
@19: Neptune Man is the only “people” who “made it into some snide comment about Rifftrax.” The rest of the discussion has been aimed at actual comments Joel’s made about RT in other interviews (which have been pretty catty, you have to admit). Seems like fair game to me. Not that it matters much what one group thinks about the other, really, but I suppose obsessive topics like this are what the internet was invented for.
Okay, here let me try to end the debate then:
MST3K is way better than both CT and Rifftrax.
Who IS David Sussman?
“Who IS David Sussman?”
At some point he was a writer on the show according to google. So what ARE you getting at JCC, hmmmm?
Alright, I’ll bite:
MST3K – In general, I prefer Joel’s stint as host over Mike’s, but, I loved Mike’s performance too. Joel gets the nod because his delivery was so unique, I loved the fatherly dynamic with the bots and Seasons 2-5 are so good. No Pearl. No big cast changes. You got the A+ dynamic of Frank and Dr. F….and the amazing comic chemistry between Joel, Kevin and Trace. Very, very tough to beat despite Mike and Bill’s terrific work.
CT vs. RT – I am firmly in the Rifftrax camp. The quantity of their work towers over CT’s. I am a MST fanatic and I still haven’t watched at least 1/3 of RT’s material. That’s so exciting as a fan. There’s so much to explore. And, I find the quality to be outstanding….on par, at the very least, with the hit/miss ratio of the Sci Fi era of MST. I put Birdemic, The Room, the Twilight movies, several of the Star Wars riffs, The Happening, Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Laser Mission, Galaxy Invader and Plan 9 all right up there. And there are many, many other riffs that I love….those just come to mind as the best of the best. CT has had one home run for me: Alien Factor. The others have been in the OK to very good range. Don’t get me wrong: I’m delighted that Joel (one of my favorite artists ever) is back. Same for Trace and Frank, who I thoroughly enjoy in CT. But, I just can’t see how the limited number of releases that CT has put out comes close to RT. Every episode would have to be an all-time classic. And, again, while I enjoy them….I can’t say that any ep other than Alien Factor would be on par with the RT riffs I mentioned above.
The whole debate is kind of funny….I adore MST3K, I’m huge fans of both Joel and Mike, and I’m thrilled they’re both producing enjoyable content.
But, it does irk me when I see CT > RT comments….not b/c I don’t feel everyone’s entitled to their opinion….I just feel that RT has put out so much content (and so much of it has been strong) that it seems a bit unfair. Kind of like when after MST had just wrapped Season 5 and some fans were fervently saying Mike was better than Joel even though he had only hosted only 12 episodes to that point. I loved Mike out of the gate….but, again, to say Mike was the better host at that point would be saying those 12 episodes were definitively better than Joel’s collective performance for 4 and a half seasons. It feels like the same logic when I hear CT is superior.
All that said….here’s the super fan, nerd-alert, dream scenario for Droppo:
Joel, Mike, Trace, Kevin, Frank and Bill do a riff together. It would be like finding out the Beatles secretly recorded an album after Abbey Road. That’s the level of excitement we’re talking about.
What we were talking about again?
Wow, some wounds don’t heal, they just scab over a little bit.
Is this a taste of what the whole Joel/Mike thing was like back in the 90s? And is it really the principals involved or just the fans reading a lot into what may or may not be nastygrams from Joel. I also recall Joel in interviews stressing that RT does its thing, and that’s great, but CT is doing something different. Maybe he’s worried that MSTies will expect him to make a guest appearance on RT, or that Mike, Kevin or Bill will show up on RT, or that there will be a glorious NST reunion, the way everyone up until December 8, 1980 kept hoping and praying for a Beatles reunion–and they all said, “It ain’t gonna happen,” sometimes gently, sometimes with a palpable sense of annoyance. I don’t know if that’s the same deal here, but I always get the sense that, much as Joel likes to talk about the MST days, he definitely wants us to know that CT is what he’s doing now, and that his is the “real” successor to MST. Maybe that’s fair game–MST was his show to begin with, after all.
Nobody answered my earlier question about why Colleen (Henjum) Williams aroused such hate, so I’ll try with David Sussman–what up. JCC? Why the flaming darts directed at him?
Colleen Henjum now too? The temp writers all of a sudden are apparently super villian conspirators with Mallon or something? lol What is going on?! JCC, youse got some ‘splaining to do!
I was just joking around in my posts, guys. EricJ has such a hate hard-on for Michael J. Nelson I thought it would be funny to deflect all that was (perceived to be)wrong with the show on completely innocent/innocuous people, hence, David Sussman and Colleen Henjum-Williams references out of thin air. A jokey smear campaign if you will. I’ll stop now.
Word on the grapevine though is that none other than The Amazing Rando is responsible for The Invasion of the Neptune Men anti-Japan riffs AND forgetting to write in Battlestar Galactica jokes in Space Mutiny. The true villain of our story.
“And is it really the principals involved or just the fans reading a lot into what may or may not be nastygrams from Joel.”
I’m going with this theory.
JCC–
Well, I, for one, will sleep better tonight. Jokes in a web site dedicated to a comedy show? Who knew?
To quote a riff on the exasperated father from A Date With Your Family:
“Very well. It’s spankings all around, then.”
My feelings on Joel/Mike have always been “Why choose 1 when you can have both?” There are plenty of Joel episodes to enjoy, and plenty of Mike episodes to enjoy. Too bad I can’t say the same about CT/RT. I tend to lean more towards RT due to quality/quantity, but I would leap faster at the chance to see CT live over RT live.
I deeply respect and appreciate Joel, but I tend to choose Mike over him due to humor style (also, I first starting watching MST3K during its SciFi run so there’s a soft spot for me in that). If I ever met Mike, I would tell him that he makes me laugh and thank him for Rifftrax. If I ever met Joel, I would thank him for MST3K because it’s always made me smile and continue on in rough times. So for me, Joel/Mike are very much equal but for different reasons.
Also, I would tell Joel to make more DVD releases! :P But it’s understandable (and sad) that CT doesn’t have a big backing like Legend Films to make that happen.
CT and RT make fun of bad movies, but their styles are vastly different, just like Mike and Joel are. That’s where the divide comes from. I can understand why Joel might feel cheated by someone who has made more “sucess” out of his creation, someone who has gone a more different path than his own. However, it would be a huge dissapointment to me if I learned that Joel somehow feels like he owns riffing or that he can be the only one who can make a profit out of it. Or that he is the only one who has the “right” way of doing it. MST3K was a collaborative effort after all – Mike, Bill, and Kevin have the right to do Rifftrax as much as Joel and Co. do with Cinematic Titanic. It’s unfortunate that there’s so much tension lying underneath both products…whether it is just the fan rivarly or if there is something more between some of the Brains.
Oh dear…my post was supposed to end 3 paragraphs ago. Oh well…group hug everyone? ;)
@ Droppo – Totally agree with your post 100%. Excellent points.
JCC – The Right People got your joke.
I, for one, laughed really hard at the first one.
I wasn’t online for the Great War, but I was around for subsequent blood feuds (The Legion of Gloom vs. The MXRL-mad, to name one), and I’m now old enough to just be wearied by people who insist on re-fighting 1993. It is the same of all-too-many, if not all, fandoms where fans start to blur the line between their opinions and facts, particularly when it comes to personal interaction with Comedy. I know, I’ve been there, too, and I’ve learned that way lies madness.
Your mileage may vary, of course. And probably does.
You refuse to even LEARN about WINK MARTINDALE!!!
You crazy people are fun… so keep it up!! (And you know who you crazy people are…)
[sigh] Joel era, Mike era, RT and CT. Something for everybody. There is no right or wrong choice.
Joel and Mike on MST3K are great in their own ways. There is, however, a difference between Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax. A big difference. For example, I was turned off of Galaxy Invader because of Kevin and/or Bill’s screaming or other loud noises at certain points of the movie. That seems to happen far too often with Rifftrax. I think also tend to have a verbal version of the “visual gag that goes on for too long” that was often used on Family Guy.
I’ve only seen one CT DVD and quite a few of movies Riff Traxed. They seem the same performance wise. Cinematic Titanic does have a lighter whimsical feel and has breaks in the film for sketches. Riff Trax works with a prerecorded DVD and the guys do loose their patience with newer movies but it still feels the same. Just watch RT: MISSILE TO THE MOON and then CT: WASP WOMAN.
Right there is a perfect double feature and as close to a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 reunion you may ever get.
During the height of the Jazz age, Big Bands would square off performing the same song seeing who could out-swing the other. Does anyone want to see Cinematic Titanic and Riff Trax do their thing on the same movie in one sitting?
What movie would you want to see?
Thank you, Dr. Lombardi!
@30 JC, a lot of good points as well.
No doubt, the headline for me is: I’m thrilled both are still in the riffing game. Usually, when a show ends, that’s it….no new material. We’re in a second Golden Age of MST3K-fandom. Shout Factory is the PERFECT distributor for MST DVD’s, and Joel, Mike and Co. are still releasing quality product.
I just wish folks would give Mike, Kevin and Bill more credit sometimes for how many releases they’ve given their fans. As I said earlier, I really do feel their hit/miss ratio is very close to MST particularly in the Sci Fi years. And the misses aren’t failures….it’s all relative. There’s something to enjoy in every RT release…same as CT or MST for that matter.
“During the height of the Jazz age, Big Bands would square off performing the same song seeing who could out-swing the other. Does anyone want to see Cinematic Titanic and Riff Trax do their thing on the same movie in one sitting?”
That’d be awesome!
@ 38
I’d like to see both of them take a swing at Al Adamson’s Dracula Vs Frankenstein. It’s got Lon Chaney Jr in his final film role as a gravedigger/main henchman of the EVIL WHEELCHAIR DOCTOR. Poor Lon looks ten times worse then he did in Indestructible Man.
I think the main idea that some people can’t understand is that the love of any of these shows is based on personal preference. I prefer Rifftrax over CT by a long shot. But… that’s my personal choice and I’m not going to denigrate anyone who prefers CT. Two final things…
1) Passionately arguing Mike versus Joel is no different than debating which Darrin was better on Bewitched.
2) No matter what show we prefer we can all collectively agree that The Spin Doctors were the worst band ever.
In the late ’60s-early ’70s, the Byrds & the Flying Burrito Brothers, who were comprised of former Byrds members, were sometimes on the same bill (the Burritos opening)& near the end of the concert both bands would get together and jam. I wish that could happen w/CT & RT. I’m of the opinion that it’s only a show kids, so just relax.
Kudos, Dr. Lombardi. Agree on all points.
(Dick York was obviously superior, btw)
“2) No matter what show we prefer we can all collectively agree that The Spin Doctors were the worst band ever.”
Nickelback!
The Colleen Henjum thing was satire. I thought everyone got that.
I will admit I was Derek J with the Henjum hate. Thought the name would give it away.
I wasn’t around during all the Joel vs. Mike debate way back when. I have a soft spot for Joel era episodes just because that’s what I grew up with and I kind of drifted from MSTiedom during the Mike era. It wasn’t because Mike sucked or whatever, just that I got into other things as I got older (though I still watched the show). I think a lot of the hatred is just people who grew up with Joel like I did and wouldn’t like Mike no matter who he was. Sure, the tone of the show shifted a little in the later years but I think nostalgia may be behind some of the vitriol aimed at Mike.
Here’s a question: did anyone out there start watching the show during the Mike era and then later watched the Joel episodes and prefer Joel and hate Mike? Or are the only people in the Joel camp folks who started with the Joel era?
I dunno why i’m bothering….but ok, the thing here is, no matter which lead performer you prefer, or which current platform you prefer, the bottom line is, as Maximus put it, is “Are you not entertained”?. Just enjoy the humor, and let go of the petty bs. The idea here is to laugh people, not bicker over preferences. Leave that nonsense to Van Halen fans.
Btw, the Spin Doctors are no worse than say….Maroon 5. :-P
I FEEL LIKE CHICKEN TONIGHT… HOW DO YOU THINK JOEL OR MIKE FEELS TONIGHT? ?:-)
I THINK THIS WHOLE RT/CT CRISIS IS A GOVERNMENT CONSPIRICY TO DEFLECT ATTENTION FROM THE ECONOMY , AFGHANISTAN,OIL PRICES, UNEMPLOYMENT, ETC… AND ITS WORKING ( MAYBE?) ” WATCH OUT FOR SNAKES” ! HAPPY M.S.T. NEW YEAR TO ALL !