For example, in many posts over the last year, I have seen a number of people note that, in season 11, it was sometimes difficult to differentiate between Tom Servo’s voice and Crow’s. I’m going to put this more on Baron than Hampton. I think he needs to deepen his Servo voice a bit. (Tim Ryder, who did the voice of Tom in the live shows last summer, did a great job of making Tom’s voice distinctive.)
So, what movie would you like to see them do? And what tweak would you suggest for the new season?
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THE SWARM (1978) – Irwin Allen has killer bees invading Texas in a film that, no doubt, still has Michael Caine denying his participation. It’s BAD, bad, Leroy Brown bad.
Both of the Lou Ferrigno Hercules movies. I’m not usually a fan of Sword & Sandal movies, but these are just so delightfully goofy, I just can’t look away.
Hmmm…
I’m hoping the episodes will be maybe ten or so minutes longer, so they wouldn’t have to cut the movies as much for time.
As for guest stars, it’d be nice if Mark Hamill could return. And it’d be great if the rest of the MST alumni would appear.
As for movies, “The People that Time Forgot” would be a good choice. I’d like to see them feature “The Fantastic Argoman” from the live tour. And maybe feature the movies that CT did but didn’t videotape (“Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World”, “The Astral Factor” and “The Doll Squad”). And it’s a longshot, but do you think they could get the rights to “The Green Slime”? Kinga could say she found a dusty old video of the movie Clay used for his initial tests, and she wants to see how it holds up against the latest crew.
Beyond that, just keep up the good work.
Even just *one* black-and-white movie. Come on!
First, I will say that for all the flaws of The Swarm, it has a great score by Jerry Goldsmith. As for my choices – two come to mind: Crack in the World, a cult-classic disaster film from the 1960s. Pretty good effects, and it is in color and widescreen. Sadly, it is owned by Paramount, so it would be a longshot to get the rights. Next would be The Boy and the Pirates – a Bert I. Gordon film from 1960 with a great Albert Glasser score – also in color and widescreen. Owned by United Artists/MGM, it may be available.
On a personal note – I hope that Joel will show the films in their entirety. Many of the Season 11 films had scenes and/or credits cut. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I have no problem sitting through an entire film. Heck, I wouldn’t mind if a short was added, too. My attention span does not drop off after 90 minutes. And I am also quite fine with older/black and white/non-widescreen films. It is, after all, all about the riffing…right?
I couldn’t agree more. I love old b&w movies.
The Wasp Woman. I know The Film Crew already did it. But it’s Corman.
THE GIANT CLAW!
a whole episode of just shorts.
I’ll give this a third. I really felt this was huge omission of Season 11. The black and white monsters or teen rebellion movies are heavily represented in my all time favorite episode list.
Three words:
MASTER. NINJA. 3.
Of course, they’d have to open that episode with a disclaimer saying that this was changed from Corman’s earlier vision and was not authorized by him. Then again, I wouldn’t mind seeing how Kinga and Max would handle that.
Looking at Season 11, a fair amount of the movies used (exactly half, unless I missed one) either already had their rights at Shout! Factory (Reptilicus, The Time Travelers, The Beast of Hollow Mountain, Starcrash), or were licensed from Kino Lorber’s extensive library of cult films (The Land that Time Forgot, Yongary, At the Earth’s Core). Excluding the possibility of licensing films from other sources and focusing on the libraries of just these two companies alone, the material suitable for riffing could EASILY fuel many future seasons!
As pointed out before, The People that Time Forgot is a likely episode. More McClure, more dinosaurs, and it’s at Kino. You know what else it at Kino? A*P*E, a South Korean monster movie that makes Yongary look like Kurosawa. It’s got bland American players who refuse to act, dead sharks, your standard issue screaming blond, and a guy in a gorilla suit that turns and flips off the camera at one point. They can’t NOT do this film.
Kino also has a ton of other films that might be suitable for riffing (seriously, look up their catalogie. It’s staggering.). However, one particularly interesting recent announcement confirmed that Kino has plans to release the complete series of The Master, AKA the source of our favorite two films about a certain “master ninja” and his mush mouthed assistant, to Blu-Ray and DVD next year!!!! That means HD masters exist, which means that, if they really wanted to, Joel and co. could edit episodes 5 and 6 together and essentially recreate Master Ninja 3! THIS WOULD BE A DREAM COME TRUE!!!!
And Shout! Factory’s list of cult films needs no introduction here! They’ve got riffing fodder out the wazoo! Bert I. Gordon films like Tentacles, Food of the Gods, and Empire of the Ants. Cult favorites like Cult of the Cobra, Sssssssss, The Neanderthal Man, Frogs, The Car, Cyborg (with Jean-Claude Van Damme), Alienator, the Exterminator movies, all four Deathstalker movies, and a movie I’m SURE will be in the next season, Angry Red Planet! (It’ll be an Ib Melchior Trillogy of Terror!!!!) Plus, they’ve got a catalogue of Roger Corman produced exploitation films big enough to make your knees week at the possibilities. Galaxy of Terror, Battle Beyond the Stars, Lady Frankenstein, The Barbarion Queen… the list just goes on and on.
Of these, on my personal wishlist for Season 12 are Angry Red Planet, anybof the Bert I. Gordon films, and the Japanese film Message from Space. I love that movie, but it’d be perfect for our experiments.
I also second the return of black and white films. If only the new crew weren’t so set on color and widescreen exclusivity, we could get a TON of lousy movies! There’s a third Rocky Jones/Winky movie out there just ACHING to be riffed! Maybe if they stretched and colorized it… :/
Either of the made for TV movies with Reb “Big McLargehuge” Brown as Captain America.
The Dr Strange TV Movie
Wonder Woman, with Cathy Lee Crosby and Ricardo Montalban
Speed Zone, the forgettable third installment of the Cannonball Run series.
Considering that Shout has the rights to all of the Gamera films, I’m honestly surprised we didn’t get Gamera vs. Viras or Gamera vs. Jiger last season. Let’s complete the set!
I also want them to riff at least one kid’s movie. B-movies aimed at children are always delightfully baffling. Maybe one of the lesser-known K. Gordon Murray movies, like Little Red Riding Hood Meets the Monsters?
Tweaks: Agree that Crow’s and Tom’s voices need to be more differentiated. The pace of the jokes could be slowed down just a tad, and for gosh sake, DON’T riff something in the movie before it happens by a second or two; that’s maddening. Kinga needs to be more evil and less cutesy-perky. More of Synthia and Ardy.
Movies: Some great suggestions already!
— I’d agree with “The Swarm,” as that would cover both the disaster genre and the “evil bug” genre.
— Yes, please, one b&w film, preferably a ’50s or ’60s juvenile delinquent one. I suggest “Look In Any Window.” Ya got yer Paul Anka as a Peeping Tom, yer dysfunctional parents, yer oversexed neighbors. http://bit.ly/2AdsfDj
— A good old-fashioned monster movie, “The Plague of the Zombies.” I mean, come ON, it’s classic Hammer Studios! All the same cheap, ugly sets they used in their other hundred or so movies! https://youtu.be/oynquOmh3SM
— Maybe it’s politically incorrect, but I’d kill for a blaxploitation movie along the lines of “The Guy from Harlem” that Rifftrax did. Preferably one from among some well-knowns, “Cleopatra Jones,” “Blacula,” or “Shaft.”
— A lost-island-populated-by-giant-monsters outing, “Mysterious Island” — https://youtu.be/zZXIZKqm1pE “With Super-Dynamation!”
I’ve got more in mind but right now I need coffee.
I believe that was Cinematic Titanic, not The Film Crew.
There’s lots of things I’d like to see. First off, they have got to cut back on the riffing speed and density. They spat them out so fast in 11 that it felt like a contest, and kept them from standing out. Getting rid of the “no riffing while the movie is talking” rule would help there.
Getting rid of the concept of needing to butcher the movies because people can’t handle comedies longer than an hour and a half needs to happen to. It’s such a ridiculous, Old Hollywood idea. I don’t mind the occasional nudity trim (though I prefer comedic censorship with silly props) but that needs to be about it.
I’m definitely with the people who want BW films back, and I want shorts back too. The shorts usually represented opportunities for tightly focused, highly focused riffing, and they need to return.
Lastly, it’s really important to me that there isn’t another Wizards of the Lost Kingdom situation. I’ve learned by now that no one else seems to care, but Rifftrax covered WotLK in 2016, but there version, that they put their time and money into making, got mysteriously yanked down, while MST3K was allowed to put out their own version, with many similar riffs, nine months later. I get that most 11 fans just don’t care that there’s a possibility of something really untoward having happened here, but the thought that MST3K might have actively worked against Rifftrax, and offered only patronizing returns to monkey suits and face paint in return, has made it pretty hard to me to accept 11 at all. Rifftrax has put out more riffs than MST3K ever did, and did great work helping riffing thrive while MST3K was on the shelf; they should be treated better.
An addendum to my previous comment: I know that all of the season 1-11 episodes were scripted, but what I really enjoyed about classic MST was the sense that it WASN’T scripted. You really believed the gang was watching the film for the first time. That was one of the problems I had with season 11 – it was way too obvious that they were just reading lines. I hope for season 12 they relax a little and regain the flow and emotive delivery that at least gives the illusion of spontaneity.
100% down with this. With the big success of Season 11, it’s time to flex our muscles and expand our horizons–not be limited by aspect ratios or color. GO FOR IT!!!
It’s still my dream to see a riff of ‘KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park’. But I feel Gene Simmons will ask for too much money or, more likely, just flatly say no.
Let me see…THE GIANT CLAW has to be one of the movies they riff..
FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER
OCTAMAN
INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS
QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE with Zsa Zsa Gabor..
THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON
THE ASTOUNDING SHE MONSTER
NIGHT OF THE GHOULS(They have to do an Ed Wood movie)
As far as guest stars,I’d like to see Miles O’Keeffe as a bounty hunter..Bill Mumy and Arch Hall,Jr. as Space Bandits
Jackey Neyman Jones(who played Debbie in Manos)and her Torgo crew….
Throw in some educational shorts and there you go…
Having seen S11 episodes a number of times, I find it incredible that there are complaints about differentiating the voices. Hampton sounds extremely different from the other two, and once I had gone through the entire season, it was easy to tell between Jonah and Baron. Maybe it’s just me who is fine with their voices as is, but that’s my two cents. I don’t want a “forced” voice lowering like what Kevin was doing at the start of Season 2 for crying out loud.
I’m going to second the motion to do Master Ninja III. I don’t know a lot of other bad films but I love the Master Ninja episodes from S3 so I’d love MN3 assuredly.
I’m just so glad they are coming back for S12!!!
YES to Jackey!!! She’s really nice and I bet she’d do it. Alas, her Dad, The Master, passed away just over a year ago.
As for bad movies, I’d absolutely LOVE for them to do YOR: THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE (it stars Reb “BigMcLargeHuge” Brown, it’s a winner!) but am in absolute agreement that they need to do a couple black and white movies, like the already mentioned THE GIANT CLAW or maybe MAN FROM PLANET X. Also, they should totally do THE GREEN SLIME! Also, also, they should do some shorts!!
I certainly did have trouble differentiating the bots AT FIRST —after a while they became more distinct Crow’s trademark nasally oriented voice is easier to hear after awhile—and Servo’s sorta “puker raconteur” voice comes out too after you start identifying Crow…that is of course IMHO
and of course Jonah’s “nose-full-of-boogers” sound is easy to spot after a few episodes… (not that I dislike any of them at all)
I stand to be corrected, but I don’t think the Film Crew riffed it…was it another project like CT?
For some real pain how about Omega Doom? It’s a loose, very loose, adaptation of I Am Legend starring Rutger Hauer and some really bad special effects.
Forget Super-Dynamation… how about Beth Rogan! ;)
and as for suggestions…how has “Empire of the Ants” evaded capture all these years? it a great bad movie I remember seeing on Saturday Morning on broadcast tv in the early 80’s late 70’s –
On the subject of black and white films, I’d also love to see them do Devil Girl from Mars. Patricia Laffan as the “Devil Girl” is superb in this – her expressions just kill me. Plus its got a walking-refrigerator-like robot menace. So much bad goodness… or is it good badness?
1) Tighten up the songs a bit. Even the good ones dragged on far longer than they needed to.
2) Lose the celebrity cameos. They grind things to a halt.
3) The ’70s Food of the Gods. Bert I. Gordon, Marjoe Gortner: it’s not rocket science, guys…
Well, I’m a straight female, so Michael Craig looked rather handsome! :)
Here’s my top 5:
#1 — Golden Needles (1974) Trailer: https://youtu.be/AFQn9TyerPQ
Jonah did a fine job during season 11, but you haven’t been truly blooded as the host of MST3K until you’ve done a Joe Don Baker movie, and what a Joe Don Baker movie this is! It’s a mashup of Hong Kong chopsocky with a touch of fantasy and The Maltese Falcon as several rival factions attempt to track down a golden statue and set of magical acupuncture needles purported to grant the user everlasting youth and vitality. If you ever longed to see Joe Don Baker lazily “fight” martial artists with all the grace and coordination of a monkey flinging poo, then your wish has been granted.
#2 — Dimension 5 (1966) Trailer: https://youtu.be/_ZkkaQeIWAI
We all love it when MST3K does a spy movie, and the new series needs a suave secret agent to rival the likes of Bart Fargo, Rex Dart (eskimo spy) and Sean Connery’s brother. Well, my friends, and it’s high time the internet learned that the only thing better than a goofy 60’s spy flick, is a goofy 60’s spy flick that’s also a time travel espionage thriller starring a ton of guest actors from Star Trek and Odd Job… sorry… the “hat killer” from Goldfinger. This movie has just the right amount of cheese, as it tries desperately to pass itself off as a sci-fi James Bond on the same budget as an episode of Time Tunnel.
Comparatively, it’s not even that terrible a movie. It actually reminds me a bit of the Gary Seven episode of Star Trek, and is definitely a cut above The Human Duplicators and Women of the Prehistoric Planet, which were also written by the same guy. I’d say it falls nicely into that category of films that would be just barely watchable on their own, but infinitely better when enjoyed in the company of some really funny friends. You can watch the entire thing on youtube here if you’re curious.
#3 — Phantom From Space (1953) Trailer: https://youtu.be/Fngo-VccDZo
Reason: W. Lee Wilder was the far less talented brother of famous director Billy Wilder, and it’s amazing none of his movies ever made it onto MST3K. The only reason I’m not including the Peter Graves classic Killers From Space on this list is because it was already riffed by Mike, Kevin and Bill as The Film Crew, but what Phantom From Space lacks in incompetence, it makes up for in tedium and lots of scenes of wormy looking scientists standing around the Griffith observatory talking at each other while a (mostly) invisible alien floats objects around on strings. Also, said alien looks suspiciously like the Robot Monster who accidentally put his helmet on backwards and left his monkey suit at the cleaners, but in a genius cinematic twist, this alien’s sinister power is that he can turn invisible… when he takes off his clothing! Yes, in the clip above, the alien is effectively naked except for a hat.
There’s actually a rather good restored colorized print available from Legend Films, and the movie’s in the public domain, which makes it perfect riffing material. Alternatively, I’d also be willing to accept any of W. Lee Wilder’s other sci-fi horror films, including The Man Without a Body, which I haven’t seen yet, but features a mad scientist who specializes in transplanting monkey heads via poorly done matte effects, who schemes to replace a dying businessman’s brain with that of the rotting cranium of Nostradamus, as one is wont to do in these situations.
#4 — Captain Sinbad (1963) Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLZQqY1aFRk
Who doesn’t love it when MST3K does an epic sword and sorcery flick, and this one’s right up there with The Magic Sword in terms of sheer goofiness. Starring Guy Williams of Zorro fame, this one’s almost too good for MST3K, but again, the weirdness caries it through. Watch the trailer above, there’s no way to describe all the prime riffing fodder otherwise. I don’t know it this one is public domain or if WB still owns the rights, but if they can get it, they should.
#5 — Battle of the Worlds (1961) Trailer: https://youtu.be/mQXrTt7mJ-I
Another one that I’m amazed the original cast didn’t get around to riffing because it’s a perfect storm of overacted non-action, cookie cutter characters, made cheaply in Italy production values, and a pre-Star Trek era vision of mankind’s exciting future where everything is rocket-powered and usually preceded with the word “Space.” Oh, and it’s also in the public domain, so it has that going for it as well.
Plot-wise, it’s actually a bit similar to Crash of the Moons, in that a “rogue planet” enters the solar system, and appears to be on a collision course with Earth, and only a curmudgeony Claude Rains (who looks like he would be right at home swatting at imaginary elves with Grandpa on the front porch) is smart enough to realize the planet is under alien control, and the only way they can stop it is by leading an expedition to the mysterious planet and shutting down it’s computer-controlled flying saucer defense fleet, so they can “safely” nuke it from orbit.
Oh, it also contains the greatest epitaph in cinema history as Rains’ character refuses to leave the about-to-be-nuked planet because of SCIENCE!, and as survivors watch an old man explode from the safety of their rocket ship, the Commander woodenly delivers the immortal line “Poor Benson—if they’d opened up his chest, they would only find a formula where his heart should have been.” Cut to a shot of Benson’s little dog waiting patiently by the window for him to return home. Fade to black. And now you have that depressing Futurama episode stuck in your head for the rest of the afternoon. You’re welcome.
And here’s my top 5 suggestions for the cast and crew:
#1 – Slow down, and adopt a more conversational tone in the theater. It’s not a race to see who can hit their timecode the fastest. The riffs in classic MST3K always felt natural, laid back, and conversational. Like having a trio of funny friends just chilling on the couch watching a bad movie with you and adlibbing as they go. With Jonah and the bots, the riffs come out way too fast and unnatural, like (shocker) they’re all a bunch of actors reading scripted lines off a teleprompter.
#2 – Cherry pick your jokes. If you can’t say something funny, don’t say anything at all. Overall, where season 11 fell down the most was in the quality control of the riffing. There’s no point firing off rapid fire jokes if half of them fall flat and suck the air out of the theater detracting from the good jokes that follow. I’d rather have bigger gaps between jokes if it meant the ones they used were funny rather than the guys shouting random sound effects and callbacks at the screen in an attempt to fill time. (I’m looking at you, all the shouts of “Bang” in Cry Wilderness)
#3 – For the love of Torgo, Avoid “State Park” jokes!!! The in-house term for calling something exactly what it is (ex: “this looks like a State Park” when the scene is, in fact, filmed in a state park, or “that guy looks like Henry Kissinger”, when yep, the guy does indeed look like Kissinger). This turns what should be a joke into an observation… which isn’t funny. Basically, if your joke does or could contain the words “it looks like” take a step back and add another layer to it. “This looks like a State Park” = Not Funny. “Keep an eye out for the ranger’s station” or “can we speed this up, there’s a tour group coming through” = Funny.
#4 – Up the obscure reference factor by about 400%. I’m praying some of that big Netflix money can be used to kidnap Kevin Murphy or Trace Beaulieu and force them back into the writer’s room since those guys (especially Kevin) were great at inserting obscure collegic references, which is where the 11th season REALLY fell flat to me. I’ve been rewatching classic MST3K for almost 30 years, and there are still some references I don’t get, but that wasn’t the case with the new crew. If you think a potential joke will go over the majority of the audience’s head, that’s the one you should leave in. A lot of people won’t get it, but the ones that do, will love you forever for it. This also ties back into the “no State Park jokes” rule above, when it comes to layering your humor. It’s easy to point out that someone looks like Henry Kissinger, but if you instead put on a weird germanic/southern lisp and say “Powah iz zeh uwltimate aphwodesiac” then you’re still making a Kissinger joke, but one that takes a second to think about, and the history/politics buffs will love.
#5 – Knock off the celebrity cameos, unless they’re playing characters from the film. MST3K has never been about star power, and the random hex field visits this season were mostly just distracting… except when they actually had some connection to the movie. Joel McHale as Doug McClure what brilliant, and felt like a proper old-school MST3K host segment. Joel and Elliott Kalan as Santa and Sam was likewise pretty funny.
Oh, and I have to agree with the people saying that Tim Ryder, who replaced Baron Vaughn for the live tour, made a better Tom Servo.
While I don’t want to be the white guy suggesting the removal of the only black guy on MST3K, if he could deepen his voice some, it would be a big help, because it’s rather unfortunate that all three guys in the theater sound more or less the same while riffing.
Devil Girl From Mars proves the British can make movies like Roger Corman/Ed Wood/Coleman Francis, take your pick.
Another vote here for Battle Beyond the Stars as the mandatory Corman film.
One I’d like to see is the 1991 live action adaptation of The Guyver, which has Mark Hamill and Jimmie Walker in supporting roles. It could also be paired with the Netflix Original Death Note movie, what with both being manga/anime properties with the setting transplanted from Japan to the States.
Another 1991 film they could use is Arena, which is sort of Bloodsport in Space. Also has Claudia Christian (Ivanova on Babylon 5).
If a blaxploitation movie is used, I recommend the childhood memory destroying Willie Dynamite. That has Roscoe Orman as the titular pimp, which was made shortly before he got his gig as Gordon on Sesame Street. Think maybe he left that off his resume when he was cast?
He is not dead the way you know it. He is with us always.
Suggestions That Would Help Season 12 –
I would suggest that Joel and the New Crew already have their own ideas on improving the next season. Remember what the early episodes in Season One were like compared to later ones? Would it help to emphasize the things we really liked so those things stick around, along with the things we point out for improvement?
The addition of at least 5 or 6 shorts for season 12 would do wonders. The episodes with the shorts were always my favorite.
“The Sea Serpent” (1985) with Ray Milland (in his last role) and Timothy Bottoms badly playing a Spaniard. Oh, and Someone’s Left Sock as the title character. There is so much to riff on with this movie, including a weird organized crime subplot that comes out of nowhere and makes no sense.
My thought on shorts is Shout should get the cast together and record a few to tide people over during the wait for the next season. Release them on YouTube once a month to get some social media attention building up to the season 12 premiere.
As bonus, they’ll have ready made special features for when the season hits DVD.
Agreed. And Shout just released amazing versions of them so they should be able to swing that easily. I just hope they don’t use them back to back like the did with Wizards.
Like most of us, I thought they WERE doing Ferrigno’s Hercules when it was rumor-announced, which made Jayne’s so-not-Hercules husband that much more anticlimactic.
At this point, back-from-retirement Joel has a little more of an eye toward “franchising” running-jokes (even trying to “push” Doug McClure as Joe Don Baker Jr.)–That includes ushering in new fan-favorite S11 movies and riffs, and it’s pretty clear that Starcrash emerged as one of the goofier fan-favorites. That fast-tracks the other great bit of Luigi Cozzi goofiness, as well as the season’s recommended yearly dosage of sword-and-sandal Herc. And yes, it’s goofy enough, in so many unique ways from Starcrash. (Starcrash wanted to be Star Wars, this wants to be the 80’s Clash of the Titans.)
(Kino’s also released it in its original form on Blu3D now, for those with the right screens and/or headsets: http://www.store-3d-blurayrental.com/product-p/ape3dth01-17.htm )
Don’t think it’s for what Shout has released on disk, it comes down to what titles both Shout and the Brains could license in bulk. Both got a big package of Roger Corman-New World, and got Starcrash and Wizards 1&2 from pretty much the same place you could get Battle Beyond the Stars.
But like the old series and (ahem) Rifftrax, it still comes down to what movies they CAN license, which means mostly public domain, easily-acquired, or from one or two big dumpsters of distribution. Joel said they’d be spending money on a few, but that was more likely for the fact that they “had” to do Christmas/Wasn’t, which had been bought up by another company at the time.
There may be some B/W floating around, but S11 dug most of its movies out of either recent cheesy-video (Cry Wilderness) or the big Corman-New World bin (Avalanche)–There’s more good New World out there, but think they took what they can work with and now have to move on.
Just on a tangent: Anyone who’s been….TRYING to find real movies to stream on Amazon Prime, Hulu, PlutoTV and Vudu Free Movies On Us in the past few months–they’re not on Netflix anymore, of course–has started to notice something odd: They’re all showing nothing but the exact same cheesy MGM/UA/Orion movies, usually at the exact same time: How many different channels can you watch “All Dogs Go To Heaven 2?” Is “Fiddler on the Roof” really that much of a classic? Was “Curse of the Pink Panther” ever shown this much in theaters? Anybody watch PlutoTV’s “24-hr. Thanksgiving Robocop marathon”?
The reason for this may be that MGM’s 60’s-80’s indie United Artists (which explains why all the 007’s keep showing up on streaming every other month) and Orion catalogs may have been playing hot-potato with owners in the past few years since its 00’s bankruptcy, and somebody may have finally dropped it. Most of the Cheap Streaming seems to be airing the B-movies from 60’s-70’s American International and Avco and the 80’s Cannon Pictures that Orion rescued under MGM/UA’s label, and now somebody needs to rescue them from orphanage.
I suspect that will probably make People/Forgot and the Lou Ferrigno “Hercules” that much easier to acquire next season, and throw a few more studios into the mix. Yes, we may see at least one Golan/Globus next season, just for the electric-boogalooness of it all.
It’s not up to Shout whether we’d see Cyborg or Lifeforce, or even 70’s Amer. Int’l like Frogs or Sssssss. The problem right now is finding some place that ISN’T showing them.
Another Arch Hall Jr film! ‘Wild Guitar’ has Arch and his Dad, plus is directed by Ray Dennis Steckler from ‘The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies’! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056693/
That or another film from the director of ‘Girls Town’, like ‘The Beat Generation’, with Mamie Van Doren and much the same cast as Girls Town, and Dick Contino as ‘Singing Beatnik’. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052610/
And I would love to see Frank, Trace and Mike stop by.
Come to think of it, why has Thunderbirds Are Go never been done??? It was made for this sort of treatment.
Definitely deepen Servo’s voice. Also, pace the riffs out so that they aren’t so fast. This seemed to correct itself as season 11 went on, but the beginning episodes were crazy fast.
We need room to breathe and laugh!
Movie suggestions (all Shout titles): I Bury the Living, Attack of the Puppet People, Die, Monster, Die!, Empire of the Ants, Frogs, Anything from the Paul Naschy Collection.
You are correct kind sir!
(Okay, why does even the friendliest multi-quote post with a link automatically get “Marked for Moderation” for six to twelve hours if you even try to edit typos? Why?…Why?? Dear gods, WHY?????)
That seemed mostly like first-time desperation: (ahem) THANKS to to new Netflix-era “binge culture”, the entire season had to be ground out literally before the new guys and the old Brains knew what they were doing. Joel wanted to make the riffing “easier” than the Titanic shows by keeping them separate, so there seemed to be more of a publish-or-perish mentality for “Getting the riffs out” than growing up with the old Minnesota-local-station days of trying to sit through a film the station didn’t really want to air.
Similarly, the idea of joking that an old B/W Corman movie was “probably filmed in Bronson Canyon”, when it was. Yes, B-movies are made cheaply, but unless it’s hideously, unexplainably cheaply, like the Monster a Go-Go or Wizards 1, it’s not in and of itself funny.
Again, it dates back to what the new writers KNOW: We’ve got a generation that’s never seen a rerun, a local station movie, a Saturday morning cartoon, or, very likely, a commercial…What DO they joke about?
Most of the 70’s to now even 90’s references are treated as “lore” from their parents’ days, like the 70’s references during Avalanche’s skating scenes, or associating any cowtown-puppetry or 70’s TV with Kermit the Frog. And, of course, who even remembers Andrew Dice Clay, except that his career didn’t survive the Big 90’s? (Hickory dickory dock, owww!…Half the “Hip comics hate bad comics” writers probably don’t even remember any of his jokes at all except from that preachy Night Court episode.)
To know great ref-fodder, you have to have lived it–which most of the new kids haven’t–or you have to be curious enough to look it up on your own crazy time. Which, as the recent “Why have most Millennials never seen old movies?” articles (answer: Because they think old movies are, quote, “broken”) demonstrate, usually aren’t. If just invoking an old Huey Lewis song “sounds 80’s” and mentioning Henry Kissinger “sounds 70’s”, it’s close enough for government riffing.
Think the “Me, me!” S11 guest stars were more in love with the announcement that the series was coming back at ALL, and thought they were Getting the Band Back Together and participating in some sacred one-time-only twenty-years-later Woodstock-like fan reunion dream jam-session, rather than becoming a running element of the show. And, of course, Joel didn’t mind dropping Jerry Seinfeld and Mark Hamill’s name to get a few non-fans curious enough to contribute the Kickstarter before the deadline.
Now it’s the second “reunion”, and….ehhh. Nobody returned the calls.
A few additions:
#6 – Just because it’s on Netflix, (ahem), JOEL, doesn’t mean we “Binge” everything – Think producer Joel was a little too awed by “the new Netflix streaming era”, and tried too hard to make the show one “Binge-worthy” linked element. For Stranger Things, maybe, but for MST3K, we still watch one movie at a time, we don’t need “plots” and “cliffhangers”, and we don’t need serialized references to unite the entire season into one Season-Long Serial Arc. And if he’s doing it because he is a Binge Fan, good lord, the national problem’s bigger than we thought.
#7 – Mads, learn to be Bad – With only nasty-girl cynical commercialism at stake, and not (giddy-chuckle!) World Domination, there’s none of the joy that the CC-series Dr. F and TV’s Frank Sr. had–Also a problem with Pearl Forrester, who didn’t seem to be actively doing anything Evil. Where’s the spanking themselves in delight at being naughty-naughty, or the “THANK you!” at being called totally sick and twisted?
Adding up #’s 6&7, we get:
#8 – Buy a Bad Movie Thesaurus, and come up with new ways of describing them. – This will help concentrate on the fact that the movies ARE bad, and you’re not just throwing them at us as This Week’s Episode/Binge-Season Chapter. If every movie is a “Nightmare Fueled World”, it’s not only a painfully hip/self-aware pop-joke that falls flat after the first three times, it’s also so Millennially “ironic” that it suggests none of the new staff really cares what they’re riffing about, so long as they can sound like their favorite SciFi and Rifftrax episodes.
That’s the same as the “Pop-culture reference” problem, that none of the new-generation writers have really had much life experience sitting in a theater with a rowdy crowd, only an annoying cineplex with cellphones and cliche’d trailers, and they’d rather watch their movies at home and be resentful/dismissively clever about them.