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SPECIAL FEATURE
24 MORE QUESTIONS ONLY
JOEL HODGSON CAN ANSWER
So, we asked you to give us suggestions for another 20
questions with Joel. You responded with a lot of great questions. We took
them, chopped and channeled them and sent Joel a well-written, thoughtful
list of 20 questions (plus some extras) that we thought brilliantly
distilled all the stuff you wrote.
And then Joel just selected 20 questions (plus 4) that HE wanted to answer
from the comments on our site. At least he remembered that he owed us 4!
Enjoy!
Question 1
John H. says:
January 4th, 2009 at 4:31 am
Here’s a question I’ve not seen asked anywhere. In
the old days of MST3K, in the opening segments and bumpers, there are
models of Gizmonic Institute that the camera pans around. I always loved
those. Is there any story about their creation you could relate?
I love
that model too, and it mostly came from the genius that is Trace Beaulieu.
Also, dig the church that turns into a radar dish: another Trace concept.
Trace is a great person to collaborate with, as he takes things and
continually makes them better. I do feel like the design of MST3K often
gets overlooked, but in reality, it is actually the delivery system that
made the movie riffing possible. It was Trace’s concept to take the
Gizmonic Institute and make it into the Gizmonic “G”. He explained it to
me as sort of like the Pentagon. Obviously, it’s brilliant and funny. He
took my simple little gear logo and turned it into a much bigger idea.
Trace and I also collaborated on the set. We were both really interested
in Buckminster Fuller, and still are. The geodesic dome concept lent
itself to the SOL, which again was Trace’s suggestion to make it bone
shaped: a sly reference to “2001”. We were at MIT this weekend and
happened to spend a fair amount of time talking about the design of the
show, and Trace reminded me that in the pilot, we had these demon dogs
that were chasing us through space, and the bone was included as
motivation as to why those dogs would be chasing us. Also, I liked the
dome concept because it looked like the Cinerama Dome, which was built in
the 60’s and is still standing in Hollywood.
Question 2
scarecrow says:
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
When you decided to
leave the show, why was it necessary to relinquish your creative rights to
the characters, etc. to Jim Mallon?
Well, yes, that was the deal we
made. I got a license fee and still do for my work. Relinquishing
creative control was the thing to do since I was leaving.
Question 3 I’ve read you approached Jim Mallon about putting together
another MST project before you decided to go ahead with CT. What sort of
project were you envisioning at the time?
Actually, Jim approached me.
He wanted me to help write the shows and voice the character Joel Robinson
for his Flash Animation series last year. I counter-proposed that we do a
few new episodes of MST.
Question 4
BETH says:
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
As the Godfather of Riffing, what’s your take on the
newbies popping up all over the place? Rifftrax notwithstanding.
Movie
riffing is too important to be left to the professionals.
Question 5
M “Buzz?Next Time Don’t Make So Much Noise When You Read” Sipher says:
January 4th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
During your tenure it seemed like MST3k shied away from overtly “adult”
humor; there was an occasional wink-and-a-nod, but it never went any
further. Every time I see something along these lines… I have to stop and
wonder. Did I IMAGINE all the sexual jokes from the Joel era? I mean,
there’s plenty. And many out of Joel’s mouth.
“That’s what you get for being a sideshow passaround.”
I’ve seen
this come up in reference to Cinematic Titanic and I feel the same way. I
don’t quite get the difference people see between now and then. I think
we may have said “douchebag” on Cinematic Titanic, which I realize is sort
of an ugly word, but we thought it was funny, but I don’t quite see the
big difference yet. As you know, it’s pretty hard to evaluate your own
work. It’s possible we were a bit more careful back in the day because we
used puppets and we knew that kids were watching, but I remember one
Gamera movie where we where leering at a sexy leg, until the camera pulled
up and we realized it was Timmy.
Question 6
Luke M says:
January 4th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
One of the strongest visual elements of MST3K was the
production design. I’d love to see an “Art of MST3K” book with
behind-the-scenes photos, set blueprints, bot schematics, Jef Maynard’s
workshop, Beez’s costumes, details on the SOL interiors and exteriors,
comparison of the original bots vs. your and Trace’s redesigns for Comedy
Channel … basically everything you’d see in one of those “Art of” books
they do for movies, Lucasfilm, SFX studios etc. The look and aesthetic of
MST3K is now part of TV sci-fi history and should be documented and
preserved. Any chance of that, even as an e-book or PDF? (I know the big
prop auction could be a problem, but I bet the owners of that stuff would
be delighted to cooperate.)
Luke M, I
like the way you think. I think that Shout Factory would be very
interested in something like that. Or it could be some sort of
supplemental material on a DVD. I still have my sketchbooks, which are
packed with stuff and Trace has quite a nice collection of images of us
constructing elements for the show.
Question
7
Manny Sanguillen says:
January 4th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Who is your favorite cartoon chicken?
(Mine is Foghorn Leghorn).
Mine is Super Chicken: Babaaawk!
Question 8 Bitemykrankorsays:
January 4th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
From the IMDB’s entry on Frank Zappa:
Had planned to work on a movie with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew
before his death.
Any truth to this?
I was
privileged to talk to Frank Zappa before he passed, and got to visit with
him for a nice long while and no, he never mentioned it. By the way I
consider him to be a true creative hero and patriot and it was so
rewarding that he liked what we did. Also, I’d like to share something he
said to me when we said goodbye, and that is this: “Call me if you get
bored.” How cool is that?
Question
9
zabadu says:
January 4th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
What was it like working with Edie Adams and going
through Ernie Kovacs musical library?
I was
fortunate enough to work with Edie and her son Josh cataloging the Kovacs’
video archive, not his music archive. Edie may have had the singular
greatest album name ever conceived, which was “Music to Listen to Records
By”. Hanging out with Edie was one of my favorite Hollywood experiences,
and learning Ernie’s story from her as well as getting a guided tour
through his work is one of my favorite memories in Hollywood. My wife and
I had lots of steak and martini dinners with Edie and Josh in LA and in
Vegas and she was just the best.
Question 10 In the years you were on the show, what were the differences in
the experience for you between the various seasons with the cast changes,
writer additions, set tweaks, and the general evolution of the concept?
It was all about momentum, it
just kept building and building, and the show kept getting better and
better (and better).
Question 11 If you had to do it over again, would you have stayed with the
show and tried to find a way to overcome the artistic disagreements, or
was leaving always inevitable?
Yes, hindsight is 20/20. We
knew it was important and we worked really hard to figure it out. It just
wasn’t meant to be.
Question 12 I’m still thinking that asking Joel what he thinks about Mike’s
contributions to the show Joel was hosting is a terrific question (maybe
the wording is off, but somehow it would be very telling to know what Joel
himself thinks Mike brought to the table and what he misses about him).
Mike always did an excellent
job when he was working at Best Brains. It’s hard to explain specifically
what I liked about him, but I guess he had a sort of sarcastic yet fun
energy to him.
Question 13 Perhaps you could ask Joel what he thinks is missing in Cinema
Titanic — when he looks at the work does he feel there are areas they can
improve or is he happy with it in the same manner he was happy with his
work on MST3K? Artists are always more fond of talking about what they are
currently doing than the past.
We’re
moving nice and slow, just like we did at KTMA. I happen to believe all
shows should develop this way. I think the biggest thing from the past
year is that most of the major reviews we got mentioned that the movie
riffing was approaching the quality of MST3K, which we all believed was
“job one” to get established. I know people miss the host segments, and
we’re starting to expand the world of CT as we speak. The other big thing
for me was to add a new silhouette array to the lexicon and having that be
accepted by the fans, which I think has happened. The other is the
integration of Mary Jo and Frank as movie riffers and introducing
something fresh and new and making it work, as opposed to the
“three-man-riff-team” from MST. Also, I feel we’ve reintroduced J. Elvis
and allowed him to demonstrate how brilliantly funny he is. I think
before we started he was getting a bad rap because he was involved before
all our pistons were firing production-wise. I think it’s clear to
everyone now that the man is simply a comedy dynamo, and I’m so glad you
can all see that. As far as things I’d like to improve, we definitely
need to roll out the story of the show so an uninitiated, non-MST loving,
viewer can get into our work without any past knowledge. So, yeah, CT is
still under construction and we’re happy with that, thanks for your
support.
Question 14
Katana says:
January 5th, 2009 at 3:51 am
I’ve always had a question that’s been on my brain, especially after
seeing CT in Chicago and talking to people in-line. I mean, I know I’m a
young fan (let’s put it this way, I was born a day before The Amazing
Colossal Man aired), and young kids seemed to be an important part of the
fan base, what with all the letter readings and such.
The show’s off the air now, but people are still
getting into it (such as me as a teenager, where I actually am consciously
aware of things rather than a toddler going ‘the robots are creepy but the
shadows say funny things!’ when the family sat down to watch it). Are you
surprised to see younger people in the fan base, even after all these
years? Or is it more like ‘hey, that’s cool, the legacy lives on!’
It is
strange and wonderful. I am very grateful when the kids dig it.
Question 15
Kouban says:
January 5th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Oh, on the subject of props and art books: You
mentioned in the History of MST3K that you made and sold a large number of
prop robots to make the money to get MST3K started. Did you ever take
photographs of any of them, and if so would you share them with us?
I’ll try
to track that down. However, I didn’t use the money from the robots to
finance MST3K. I wasn’t an especially good businessman back then. I just
used the money from the robots to make more robots.
Question 16
Puma says:
January 5th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I guess I still don’t quite get the rift that
developed between Joel and Jim, so I would ask: Given that Jim had
directed the majority of the episodes through season four, and had the
experience of directing a real movie, why were you so opposed to him
directing the MST movie?
Really
good question. Yeah, I understand, Jim did technically have the chops to
direct and produce the movie, and that’s not what I was taking issue
with. I’ll try to put this in a historical context in relation to the
show, and hopefully that will make things clearer. In 1992-93, MST was
still in a big upward trajectory with no end in sight. Things were
getting better and better for us. We were a critical and commercial
success, and to sweeten the deal, we were not getting notes from the
network, so we were doing what we thought was funny AND it was working.
To me it was sort of creative bliss. One day, Jim suggested we should
make a feature film, and we all thought the idea was really tantalizing.
We sort of cited other TV shows that we liked that had successfully
transitioned from TV to film, like “Star Trek” and “The Muppet Show” and
decided to make them our model. We felt we could easily make a movie work
as we were already making 22 feature length shows a year and people were
loving them. So the upside was, we could make only one show a year and
put all our time into making that great. A feature would mean we would
have a bigger budget to expand the world of MST, and we would likely make
a bunch more money, as well as the total sweetness of making a feature
film. This was the nineties, when features were the absolute top rung of
entertainment, and basic cable was sort of like eating at the kids’ table
at Thanksgiving. The only downside was, we felt if we made a movie, and
it was successful, we wouldn’t be continuing the cable series. So
essentially, the MST feature film would be the new embodiment of the
franchise, and we were all good with that. Trace and Kevin and Jim and I
routinely started having planning and brainstorming meetings as to how
we’d realize this new venture, and on paper, it looked like we couldn’t
really lose. When Jim presented that he felt he should be the Producer
and Director of the feature, I noticed he wasn’t offering me anything that
seemed to translate from my roles in the TV series, namely being the
creator and executive producer of the series. Most people assume that the
director or the producer to be the author of a film property. Jim did
offer to sort of lump me together with Kevin and Trace in a sort of
“associate producer” title but it just didn’t feel accurate. So more than
anything, I was discouraged that Jim didn’t keep our roles equal as I feel
they had been in our very successful partnership with the cable series.
Also, Trace and Kevin seemed to be going along with what Jim was
suggesting, so I felt that I was losing my position in the franchise in
this new embodiment of the show, which seemed destined to happen.
Question 17
pearliemae says:
January 5th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
This is not my field of expertise, I’m a nurse, not a
lawyer (but if you ever need any nursing advice, let me know). But do you
ever feel like suing the ever-lovin- beejeezus out of someone who markets
one of your gizomonic inventions? I’m thinking specifically of the
“treadmobile” that was announced recently - the same thing that Frank
demonstrated a long time ago- a treadmill to use to walk outside. I’m sure
there are other examples as well. Or are you just a live and let live
kinda guy? For that matter, are there any of your other “kooky”
inventions, that to you are starting to look more and more reasonable, and
may be worth a trip to the patent office? Thank you so much for 20 years
of laughter, and helping to keep me relatively sane - no small feat.
Interesting. It’s hard to say. I’ve been in several situations where it
was clear someone took an idea from me, and they would be making enough
money from my idea where they could and should pay me for it. I’m trying
to imagine just how many treadmobiles they will actually sell. I think
it’s possible they’re just trying to be funny as I was. When the
treadmobile movie comes out, that’s when I’ll call them.
Question 18
hammrocks says:
January 6th, 2009 at 10:59 am
My questions for Joel:
Does Frank’s hair smell like professional hair care styling products?
Fruity with a mix of a floral motif. But, a manly floral…
Frank’s hair is a top priority
for us at Cinematic Titanic, since we perform in silhouette. Basically,
we’re only recognized on stage, in hotels, and in international airports
because of Frank’s beautiful silver mane.
To answer
your question, I’ve only smelled Frank’s hair on a few separate occasions
over the years. In all seriousness, Frank takes good care of his hair,
and it smells good. Real good. Man good.
Question 19
Satan’s Jockstrap says:
January 7th, 2009 at 2:19 am
If you had remained with MST3K through the Sci Fi
years and Trace still quit at the end of season seven, would you have
approved of Bill Corbett playing the role of Crow? Or would you have
invented a new robot character? What’s your opinion of Bill’s performance
as Crow?
I think I
would have stayed with Crow. Obviously, I was okay having Kevin replace
Josh, so yeah, if I felt it was time to push Trace out of Best Brains for
whatever reason (just kidding) I would have been good with Bill. I got to
know Bill a bit when we were down in San Diego for Comicon this summer and
he’s a really nice guy. I thought Bill did a really smart thing by
stating that when he started doing Crow, Crow seemed as if he’d had a
stroke. That won me over right away, besides being really funny, I think
it bought him some time to ease into the character. I say good job!
Question 20
HeatUpTheDeathRay says:
January 7th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I have a question that I hope Joel can answer, and
that I haven’t seen satisfactorily addressed in any interview up until
now. The Sandy Frank “Gamera” dubs: what is the definitive story on that,
re why we haven’t seen them released yet and why the rights seem to be
such a bugaboo? Is Sandy Frank really still that PO’ed? Does Sandy Frank
himself still own the rights to those dubs? The films themselves, in
different (I believe AIP… don’t quote me) dubs, show up in cheap-o DVD
releases all the time, so I imagine that the rights to the films
themselves aren’t so hard to get. So, perhaps Joel can give us a
close-to-definitive answer on the status of the “Holy Grail” of MST3K DVD
releases, and whether we are ever likely to see them released.
I never
heard about Sandy Frank being angry. Actually, I find it unlikely that he
would be offended by what we did with such a ridiculous film series. I do
suspect Sandy Frank was really just a distributor that licensed Gamera
from a Japanese studio and then probably paid to have a new English
soundtrack produced to sell to English speaking markets, you know? He’s
not exactly the producer or director of the original work. If the films
are unavailable, it’s likely the original Japanese authors have bigger
plans for their property, and they may feel it’s not worth releasing those
older versions of Gamera here in the states. But I’m just speculating,
and my opinion shouldn’t be considered a definitive answer on the Sandy
Frank issue. It may be a question for the ages. As crazy as it sounds
HeatuptheDeathray, I do love talking about this kind of stuff, seriously,
I love my job.
Question
21
Sensoria says:
January 7th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Hey, Joel.
This isn’t a question (so it will probably be promptly thrown out), but I
just wanted to say that your work in MST3K and Cinematic Titanic inspire
me to be creative, even if I’m not the best artist in the world.
Being
creative even though you’re not the best artist is my story in a
nutshell. Have you ever seen the MST3K pilot at TV 23? When I was
working on MST3K I was always wondering where the creative fans were, and
where were all the people we were hoping to inspire? It’s nice to see
that emerging now. Creative people know this and I’m sure you’ll agree,
there is so much pleasure in making things. It’s sort of its own reward.
Question 22
BlastfromthePast says:
January 7th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Do you like Jeff Dunham and Peanut?
Yes,
actually I do. Jeff as a ventriloquist, is an incredible illusionist,
technically superb. He makes you forget that it’s actually one person up
there. I also find him funny, and I know that’s not cool, but that’s
tough. Obviously, ventriloquism has a major influence on MST3K. The
construction of the robots is based on the head stick mechanism I learned
from building ventriloquist dummies, and my manner with the bots is based
on the typical relationship, or role a ventriloquist takes with his
puppets.
Question 23
AstroZombie says:
January 7th, 2009 at 1:40 am
Do you ever agonize
over the exact phrasing of a riff and continue to tweak the cadence until
you reach something you feel is near perfection?
No. It’s
really two different acts, writing the joke and then performing.
Personally, I do so many riffs in a show-- I probably hang around a
hundred and a hundred and thirty riffs-- and we are always moving lines
around. So to put too much time into the thing wouldn’t be prudent. It
might get cut. I just want to make sure I’m at about 60 to 70 percent
satisfied with the meaning of the joke, and ask myself if I feel I have a
“handle” on a good way of saying it. I then try to do the rest with the
performance. If I fretted and fussed over these lines, I’m afraid for me,
it would have the opposite effect and I would botch more lines than I do.
But that’s just me. I think if you talked to each of the members of CT
you would get a completely different story.
Question 24
t. “I’M HUGE!” moore says:
January 9th, 2009 at 2:54 am
this would be my question…
in interviews you often seem uncomfortable. did you not anticipate having
so many strangers, for lack of better words, care about your life so much?
i’d also like to know about crazy fan encounters. has
it ever gotten out of hand?
Oh by the
way “I’m Huge!” You might be interested to know the origins of that
phrase, “I’m Huge!” is a quote from the cartoon “Jimbo” by Gary Panter,
just thought you’d like to know if you didn’t already. Anyway, that
discomfort you’re noticing may not have anything to do with the MST/CT
fans as just me not always knowing what to say. I have been nervous about
being recognized since I was getting famous as a stand-up. After doing a
bunch of Lettermans and SNLs I started to get recognized by strangers much
more regularly than I do now. They usually zeroed in on my voice. I would
consider that a much broader fame that what I might have now, and I didn’t
like it. They seem a little more desperate, and the weirder ones behave
like you will bring them good fortune or some such rot.
When I
meet MST/CT fans they seem to know my story a bit better and are usually
very nice. It’s great, and seriously, how can you not love meeting people
who like your work? Mostly the people are great, but the hardest kind of
fan to meet is when they are not satisfied meeting you or just visiting
with you, but are intent on making you remember them-- someone who wishes
to imprint themselves on you somehow. That gets to be a little more
work. I try to be gracious in that situation, because I’m guilty of the
same actions when I’ve met people I’ve completely admired. Here’s how it
goes for me: You feel obligated as a thinking/feeling fan to mention how
much you like their work, yet you want to somehow do something that’s
going to make this experience different for the person you admire. You
want to entertain them, like they’ve entertained you, and you’ve only got
a moment to do it. I’ve never actually gotten it to work when I’m meeting
some one I admire, I’m afraid. Actually, most of the people that come by
after the shows to see me are much more graceful than I would be, and
that’s the truth.
Question
7
Question
9
Question 22
