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Weekend Discussion Thread: MST3K Viewing HabitsAlert reader Dan writes:
So what are your MST3K viewing habits? (And I’m always interested in discussion thread ideas, btw!) 179 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: MST3K Viewing Habits”Commenting at Satellite News
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I lived alone in a secluded run down farm house and always had MST VHS tapes rolling to keep me company. Pod People was the main one I used as I would fall asleep.
Once I got married I found that it was hard for me to sleep without the MST. So I devised some special headphones for my pillow and made digital play lists on the computer.
Now I can listen and not bother my wife.
It’s nice when the baby wakes us up at night. I can get in a few riffs before drifting back off to sleep.
I will watch an MST3K episode pretty much anytime of day, to help me relax and decompress. But really I enjoy listening/watching the show while I’m working in a common workspace on campus. I tend to work alone so my imaginary tv friends, the SOL crew, keep me company. I get some pretty funny looks when I not alone and I start snort laughing at a quip.
May I suggest, what we have we learned from bad movies or what is an early warning sign of a bad movie as a discussion thread . For example, if NASA is searching for a missing astronaut with a Geiger counter, this might be a bad movie.
Great thread topic–It’s so nice to be reminded that I’m not alone in my MST obsession all these years later!
No TV in my bedroom, so I’ve never tried falling asleep to MST. I usually watch 2 episodes a week. When Satellite News started up the weekly episode guide entries, I started watching that week’s episode the weekend after so I could appreciate it more. Also, I realized when I converted my tape collection to DVD two summers ago that there were lots of episodes I didn’t remember well. So now I’m going through chronologically from the beginning (starting with season 1, since I don’t have KTMA’s.) Usually I watch them on the weekends–nothing like it on a Saturday late morning/early afternoon!
I also pop in an episode to drift of to almost every night! I thought I was the only one that did this! Wow…. It takes me all week to get thru one episode…..
But I usually watch the DVDs, one a day , just after I get them and occasionally feel the need to view some of my favorite older ones on bad/rainy days.
No tv allowed in my room, so MST3K is a strictly conscious experience. My partner works nights & weekends, so I will often use J/M&tB as company. If I’m feeling particularly lonely, I settle in on the couch; if I just want to add life to the evening, it’ll be on in the background while I do chores or blog or whatever.
As for movie selection, I try to rotate through them in order of which episode I remember least. However, my partner recently re-arranged our entertainment center and messed up my order. It was surprisingly traumatic.
(I suppose there’s already been a “what was your first exposure to MST3K” thread?)
If I’m working on a drawing piece on the ‘puter, I’ll usually put on an episode I’ve seen a million times so I only have to listen and not watch. Also, I did almost an entire cross-stitch to Parts, Beginning of the End, The Beatniks, and The Skydivers. Good times, all.
ooo i forgot being sick.Thats the best time ever!
and as for new thread ideas,
Im all for Best snacks to watch mst3k with :grin:
OR prehaps….best ending credits*Final justice anyone
Compared to everyone else, I’m fairly organized in my viewing.
Just after it was off the air, I went into “The Great Drought” mode. I listed all of my MST and MST-related items on slips, put them all in a popcorn tin, and would make a random selection for the week, posting it on the “Even Deeper Blurting” board. Then, on Sunday night, I’d put it on just before bedtime.
I was a bit flexible at times. For example, I’d alternate between “Santa Claus” and “…Conquers the Martians” just before Christmas. And if I picked a selection that lasted 30 min. or less (like, say, one of the “Making of…” specials), I’d leave myself the option of picking a supporting feature. And, of course, three selections on Thanksgiving Day, along with a year’s Turkey Day segments, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and “Turkeys Away!”
In the past year, though, I’ve altered things a bit. I now divide it up between “The Outside Stuff” (like RT and CT) on Saturday nights, and “The Original Stuff” (the show itself) on Sundays.
Would that I could be so orderly with my finances…
Oh, and how about these for discussion threads?
-Riffs that just went to far
-Movies that could be re-riffed (a la “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”)
-Trivial items you barely noticed in an episode
-Most annoying commercials viewed during “MST3K”
-Did you get a prop during the auction and, if so, which one?
-ConventioCon memories
I don’t recall that any of these were done.
I like to watch while I do crafts. Made several nifty crochet crafts this winter with MST playing in the background!
Definitely when I’m sick, and also Saturday or Sunday afternoons–though I usually start drifting off to sleep during those times. I think it’s because so many of the movies are the kind of cheesy flicks that used to play on local channels on weekend afternoons…
My wife and I thought it was just us that had this problem- falling asleep during an MST episode! We first came across MST3K during it’s first season on the Sci-Fi channel. It came on so late on a Saturday night, and we were usually exhausted by the time it came on, that we’d set the VCR to tape it at the same time so that we could watch what we’d miss the next morning. These days, our 5 kids are all into it as well, but my wife STILL gets sleepy whenever there’s an episode playing. I’ve trained myself to stay awake now, though- I don’t like turning the TV off in the middle of an episode!
wow, I thought I was a freek, the only person to do this. me and my girlfriend were talking about this sort of thing a while back. I watch it every night, I used to do it alone but now my girlfriend dose too, shes been watching it for 8 months or so, but ive been watching it every night sense 98 or so.
by that time I had enough epps to make it not repetitive.
some time I end up watching 2 episodes a night, unless it’s one of the really slow long paused ones (cave dwellers).
so theres 2 more people to add to the list.
“thong,.. the fish is ready”
If I’ve finished all of my homework by around 10pm, I’ll watch an episode on my laptop in my bed. Occasionally I’ll be so exhausted that I’ll turn it off so I don’t fall asleep and leave the laptop on the bed, possibly start a conflagration of epic proportions…
In the morning I play a Youtube playlist that has all of the songs ever preformed by M/J&TB. “Toobular Boobular” and “Hired: The Musical” always put me in a good mood. :]
Have we done a “Movies you wish had been MSTed” thread yet? As a fan of bad movies, with or without riffs, I can think of some real doozies…
I have been falling asleep to mst for years. I however will watch an episode just whenever so I don’t really have any sort of pattern to when and what will provoke a watching.
I’ve always found MST3K to be the perfect thing to watch at 2 o’clock in the morning when I can’t sleep. Its like calling up an old friend and talking about old times.
God, I could have sworn I was the only one who watched MST3K while going to sleep. My wife and daughter are usually asleep long before I am and I swear that I’m going to finally watch those Kieslowski or Tarkovsky discs I checked out of the library weeks ago, but I usually end up sticking in an episode. I particularly enjoy nodding off to the shorts, and The Touch Of Satan is also quite soothing (No, I don’t know why, either. The pauses?) If I had a dollar for every time I’ve awakened to the main menu of an MST disc and had to stumble into bed, I could probably just pay the Brains to perform in my living room.
I put about 40 episodes on my IPod, just the audio. Then while I am working I can pull up an episode to listen to as I go. Just last week I listened to Cave Dwellers. Other favorites are Skydivers, Pod People, Red Zone Cuba, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Daddy – O. I also put the CT version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians to compare it to the MST3K version, they are both so fun! If something on the news reminds me of an episdoe I’ll dial it up and enjoy.
MST is the best, and healthiest comfort food one can ingest. Whenever I’m feeling down, stressed, sick, or generally unhappy, only two things can pick me up:
1) A bowl of menudo (sue me, I’m mexican)
2) MST3k
Being that unless I make my own (not a very good cook), the menudo is only available on saturdays or in a can, I usually pick the MST. That’ll usually start me on a kick, and I’ll get to watching more frequently. I know it’s time to put the discs away for a while when I start putting them on just to fall asleep, or just for background noise though. That’s like not paying attention during sex. It’s just not worth it.
You listen to it on your Ipod?…
Wow, I don’t feel like such a dweeb anymore.
I can’t think of better way to go to sleep. I just didn’t realize I had so much company with my viewing habits. I watch a DVD and drift off to sleep instead of laying there and worrying my self into insomnia. Now if they would just issue Horre of Party Beach” on DVD!! hint hint
I of course love watching it with family and friends (guffawed satisfyingly to Giant Spider Invasion for the umpteenth time last month with my parents). If I’m by myself, I usually watch it late at night before bed with a snack, preferrably pizza and a soda or a brewski. :) As others have said, it’s very therapeutic to watch at the end of the day.
Oh also, one ritual I really miss from the Sci Fi era (didn’t have cable during the CC days) was having at least three opportunities to watch/rewatch/finish an episode during the weekend. Man was I spoiled back then.
i put them on my ipod nano and watch portions before drifting off.
the dead talk back… i have fallen asleep during the solo before.
when that skit comes on… i just think: Go on without me guys… i’m not gonna make it.
pretty much watch it when the mood hits me. i was lucky enough to buy burned dvds on ebay before they shut it down, so i got about 170 some episodes to choose from.
My wife and I usually watch an episode nearly every night before we go to bed. Usually, we don’t watch one while we go to sleep during weekdays, but we always do on weekends. We both love Hercules, and that’s usually the ep we watch as we go to sleep.
For years now, I’ve played my complete collection of MST3K episodes almost around the clock, especially when I sleep, when I’m doing various chores, and any time I need an additional distraction. I hardly even watch them anymore — just listen — because I’ve watched nearly all of them so many times I can see the video in my head! It also makes for some weird dreams on occasion.
I don’t watch KTMA shows too often (except “Humanoid Woman” — I like the film itself — and “SST: Death Flight”), but I often run through Seasons 1-10 in order. Other times I just play whatever I’m in the mood for. I’ve actually worn out 5 DVD players in the past 6 years.
Now I’ve added Film Crew and Cinematic Titanic to the playlist. (I don’t expect to add RiffTrax until I can readily create my own pre-sync’d DVDs.)
My obsession has actually proved useful; I’ve written quite a bit of material about MST3K for Wikipedia and Wikiquote. (That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.)
Man, imagine is a non-MSTie stumbled onto this discussion. Do you think we’d come across as a bit, oh, I don’t know…weird? :razz:
You guys kick ass. Keep up the obsession.
BTW, when I said “round the clock”, I meant it. My #1 requirement for new DVD players is that they can play my MST3K videotape-burned-to-DVD episodes, repeating either a single episode or all episodes on a disc in order. That way, I go to sleep listening to MST3K, and wake up to it as well.
For anyone else who wants to have this ability, I recommend the very inexpensive Sony DVP-NS57P (or similar models like NS55P or NS575P). It has “title” and “disc” repeat, and it plays just about any burned-DVD format. I usually get mine from Best Buy for $60-$70 plus a multiyear service contract that gets me free or cheap replacements when I wear it out. I’m sure many other inexpensive modern DVD players can do this, too.
I am liable to watch almost any episode at any time if I’m at home. However, I do find myself usually putting one on when I go to sleep or re-starting one when I wake up or before I go to work. Some episodes or even seasons (Seasons 2, 3, 8 particularly) are almost comfort food and really relax me.
One problem – I generally much prefer bootleg discs for this purpose over the Rhino/Shout Factory official versions. When it ends the bootleg simply sits in standby mode until someone does something, while the official version often plays a repetitive and sometimes rather annoying sound. Since I like to turn up the volume to get all the riffs, this can lead to some serious sleep disruption at an obscene AM hour. I am a super heavy sleeper so it may not wake me, but my wife . . . it isn’t fun to be smacked in your sleep! :shock:
I’m afraid i too have had the listen to an episode while going to sleep habit for a few years now. I have been weaning myself off with Rifftrax on an iPod/speaker (no movie playing), but at least it shuts itself off after i fall asleep.
#69–any advice on burning the audio from the DVDs to iPod?
Thank you #42; I told my husband about your 400 disk player full of MST and his first words were, “I want that!” :roll:
Once again, my way of life is substantiated by the internet!!
We are also MST dozers. We only use VHS versions for this as our TV has a sleep function on it to prevent a TV nightlight. On more than one occasion I have literally giggled myself to sleep. When my husband was my boyfriend, his room had a small TVVCR combo. We would lay down and watch MST cuddled up together. Cozy, until we guffawed.
We met because of MST, it was always there somewhere, and now it’s always on sometime in the background. Sometimes I wonder why we buy other DVDs. :roll:
RANDOM RIFF SHOUT OUT!
“It was a rainy day…”
…and he shot her.
When i first started watching the show, 98 or 99, i would usually end up up cooking up Totino’s pizza rolls and eat a plate of them when i watch.
Nowadays i try to watch some like every day but its usually every other. I rarely have the 90 minute block to watch one in its entirety. So i usually chip away at an episode over the course of a day or three if it wasn’t for the host segments i wouldn’t know where i left off;)
But if its an episode i have not yet seen, i like to be rather uninterrupted, if its an episode i have seen i may watch when doing something else. But i find that even if i try to do something else- i usually get distracted by the mst3k. Oh and its great served with any meal or with an ice cream sundae :)
I used to watch a chunk of an episode every day at the very least.
My viewing habits have tapered off a bit, but I still watch it often.
More often than not, I watch it:
-before I go to sleep
-for background noise while using the computer
-when I’m sick, stressed, or in a bad mood
-to get my Saturday mornings off to a good start
More often than not, I’ll watch them while having snacks and tea.
I never like to watch the episodes in sequential order, either. Sometimes, I’ll watch episodes at random. Maybe I go with one that I’m either in the mood for or haven’t seen in a while.
#83
Sony DVP-CX995V
I got it probably ten years ago so I don’t know about the availability. That’s why I don’t leave it running when I’m sleeping-I don’t want to wear it out. I only have 100 of my MST3K/CT/FC discs loaded, the rest are movies and other tv shows. You can even plug a keyboard into it to enter all your DVDs into an on-screen menu for easy perusal but I find that to be a hassle and it doesn’t effect the shuffle mode.
#83
“Sony DVP-CX995V”
I got it probably ten years ago so I don’t know about the availability. That’s why I don’t leave it running when I’m sleeping-I don’t want to wear it out. I only have 100 of my MST3K/CT/FC discs loaded, the rest are movies and other tv shows. You can even plug a keyboard into it to enter all your DVDs into an on-screen menu for easy perusal but I find that to be a hassle and it doesn’t effect the shuffle mode.
Maybe the next weekend discussion thread should be “Viewing habits other than falling asleep to the show”. I’m not complaining; it is quite fascinating to me how common this is considering I just plain can’t fall asleep while watching something since I’ll keep straining to stay awake. I’m just saying that more subtle habits concerning specific episodes and occasions got largely squeezed out.
My routine lately has been watching the SciFi era start to finish with a friend I visit once a week. Whenever a new box set comes out, we watch the CC eps instead, then resume.
One strange thing: Pod People was the first ep that really touched a chord with me, because it was pure ’80 Italian exploitation, incomprehensible, and I first saw it in ’95 right after adopting a kitten just like Tommy’s, but with amber eyes. (I saw Mortal Kombat that summer, so she ended up being named Kitana) Over the last decade, Trumpy somehow became associated with my pets being sick or dying. I happened to finally buy Rhino’s VHS in the summer of ’99, and stayed up to watch it with my golden retriever the night after an operation to remove some tumors. She died the following spring. Then said black-and-white cat had to be put to sleep last December, and I stayed up to watch it with her the night before. It made it feel like I brought her home just yesterday, which made me even sadder, even though I know she lived the fullest life possible considering she had misdirected play aggression. That meant she’d just dig all 4 sets of claws into your arm and seriously try to rip out big chunks of flesh with her teeth, without being provoked or giving the slightest warning. If anyone else had adopted her, I’m convinced there’s a 50/50 chance they would have just snapped her neck and let the landfill deal with her before she turned 2. But she was my baby, and I quickly learned exactly how hard I could punch her in the face to dislodge her without hurting her, and then redirect her attention to some toy.
I’m certainly not condoning any sort of animal abuse, just saying that love takes many forms, several of them back-handed. That’s something all MSTies can agree on, right?
Now whenever I watch Pod People, with it’s wonderful sense of infinity, I’ll look out at the stars over the gravel pit behind my house and wonder just how much of Hell Kitana has conquered by now. You see, I’m convinced she was some sort of demon-hybrid, probably part of a secret Humane Society experiment started to counter Project Devil Dog in the ’70s…
Maybe that’d be a good thread idea: Tell a story of how an episode holds some personal meaning to you alone.
And has there been a weekend discussion about the Mystery Science Theater Hour host segments?
Oops! I guess I got that 400-disc player four years ago. Weird, because it seems like much longer. I guess I was thinking of my 5-disc player.
I first got into watching MST3K late at night, after getting home from the bar. I rarely made it all the way through, but I began to love the show. Even though I watch them during the day as well, and don’t drink anymore, I still love to pop them in at bedtime and set the sleep timers on my TV and DVD player.
I will usualy pop a dvd in around the time I go to my room (1:00 – 2:00 am) and will usually be able to last through one episode and if I do I will put in more until I start to get drowsey.
I go with the Holiday thread. Gorgo seems Irish enough for March 17!
I can’t really sleep with anything on, except a box-fan to make white noise. But, several years back, when I was just in a new apartment and had to wait about 5 days for the cable installer, MST3k was playing from VHS non-stop. It was the only real thing I ever recorded and kept, so it was great to have. Put it on and watch thru an EP recording of 6 hrs of MST3k at a pop. It really was great. It was probably the first time I did a marathon, besides maybe one or two viewings of each episode previously, and had really not seen some of them in a long while. The year I moved in, and this did, was 1996, I believe.
Talking about someone listening to an episode on an ipod, reminds me of the first time I ever saw someone do something similar. I was at a Lasertag / arcade, and there was a friend-of-a-friend with headphones on, so I asked what he was listening to, figuring it was music, obviously. No, he says, it’s Aliens. Yes, the movie. Of course, he was listening to a Walkman, and had recorded the movie’s sounds while at the theater. This was 1986.
love watching mst3k as I lay down to sleep, drifting off but still chuckling :lol:
I usually watch em with my family, after dinner. My mom thinks they’re pretty dull but she watches them sometimes.
I could never fall asleep watching one! I wouldn’t want to miss anything.
We also play episodes real loud when we’re not home. Why? This is to make it sound like there are 3 guys sitting around watching a movie. It’s the perfect home security system. The burglars pass on by thinking people are home.
Forget ADT.. it’s MST!!!
After I started collecting episodes, my family insisted that I bring 2-5 MST3K’s home when I visit for Christmas and other holidays. This past year we watched the MST3K movie and “I Accuse My Parents.”
I’m the biggest fan in the family, but the episodes make quite an impression on the others. This week I got a text message from my younger brother in the Army Reserves. He said, “If I was bleeding on the sands of Iwo Jima, I would feel so cheated that the last movie I ever saw was ‘I Accuse My Parents.'” :lol:
My dad’s boss’s son is waiting for a heart and a lung transplant, and he just recently discovered MST3K (he is 18.) He loves it. May his health issues be solved soon and bless the mighty MST3K community, of which he is now a valued member. Myself, I watch them usually late at night before I go to bed, and i try to pick up where I leave off since I sleep in a different room than where I watch them, but a while back, in 2000, I would watch them and drift off to sleep, and I have fond memories of this, so if I could, I still would. Huzzah to your Facebook group, I say! I’ve attempted at times to go sequentially, but sometimes got sidetracked by favorites.
Tonight, it was Puma Man!