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The forecast called for rain, but it never materialized, and January 11th turned out to be warm and sunny. Even the weather seemed to be welcoming Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett to San Francisco for the "Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Symposium" at SF SketchFest 2004. "We've told them a hundred times: put 'Puppet Show' first and 'Kevin Pollak' last." The "Symposium" took place at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco's North Beach area. Hosted by the Sklar brothers, twin comedians Randy and Jason, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative event. The Sklars introduced themselves and performed a short comedy routine, but they knew who the audience had paid to see and quickly brought Mike, Kevin and Bill to the stage. It was time to hear about "The State of Bad Movies Today." Due to restrictions on flash photography, some of these photos are a bit murky. The Sklar brothers aren't actually this blurry. Mike kicked off the Symposium (Mike: "What is a 'symposium,' anyway?") with an essay about the true cause of bad movies. Let's just say our simian friends wouldn't want to hear it. When it comes to bad movies, Mike doesn't monkey around. Bill offered a slightly different theory about the cause of bad movies. He concentrated on one movie in particular to make his case, The Fifth Element, starring the highly acclaimed Sir Ian Holm and the not-so-acclaimed Gary Oldman. Bill points out a flaw in the periodic table. The retelling of the movie's convoluted and extremely silly plot took a heavy emotional toll on playwright Bill, and by the end of his essay he literally collapsed into his chair with exhaustion. Kevin comforts Bill in his moment of crisis. In contrast to Mike and Bill, Kevin skipped trying to explain the cause of bad movies and instead read a letter he had written to one of the prime stars of the genre today, Ben Affleck. Rather than try to describe what was contained in the letter, we'll let you hear it for yourself. Kevin recently read the letter on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, and you can listen to it in RealAudio format by clicking HERE. Man of letters Kevin corresponds with J. Lo's better half. The Sklar brothers claimed to be huge MST3K fans, and during the question and answer period, it showed. Rather than waste time explaining the concept of the show and asking the most basic questions, they instead focused on the nuts and bolts of producing the series and exploring some of the rumors that have been floating among fans for years. Is it true that each writer had a "specialty" area, one for pop culture, one for sports, etc.? "Not really," said Bill, "although if we needed to know something about sports, we would go to Paul Schersten." Added Mike, "And if we needed to know something about obscure vaudevillian actors, we'd ask Frank. He was our 'go to guy' for vaudeville." When asked if they had indeed heard from any angry actors or filmmakers, the inevitable shouting of "Joe Don Baker!" was heard from the audience. "We're not worried about Joe Don," replied Bill, "we can easily outrun him. Or should that be out-fast walk him?" "I've got one thing to say to Joe Don," added Kevin, "Go ahead on." Kevin also mentioned that they had received an extremely angry letter from Gremlins director Joe Dante after they gave the MST treatment to Marooned, aka SPACE TRAVELLERS. "It's supposed to be some kind of monumentally epic tribute to Sixties space travel," said Mike. "Let me tell you something. It's not." The Sklar brothers chat with Kevin and Bill before the show. While avoiding the most frequently asked questions, the Sklars did ask the one question that each member of the cast has been asked ad nauseum for years: "What is your favorite episode?" For the record, the answers are as follows: Mike: GIRL IN THE GOLD BOOTS Kevin: SPACE MUTINY Bill: JACK FROST The formal Q&A period ended and the "home game" portion of the show began. To illustrate how easy it is for people in Hollywood to come up with bad movie ideas, six audience members were called onstage and given a stack of index cards. The idea was simple. At a cue from Mike, each person would randomly pick a card from his or her stack and all the cards would be strung together to form a movie pitch. Each pitch created was absolutely hilarious and could actually stand a chance to be produced. Mike generates bad movie pitch lines. Hollywood producers in the audience take notes. Questions were then taken from the audience. While nothing new was asked, there was one surreal moment when a woman angrily demanded to know why THE FINAL SACRIFICE was MSTed. It turned out she was Canadian, and actually liked the film. "Why?" asked Mike. "Because of its accurate portrayal of life in Canada?" After the audience Q&A, the Sklar brothers wrapped things up by asking if there were any upcoming projects in the works. It turns out there are several. After the April 20th DVD release of Reefer Madness, Mike will be contributing audio commentary to the DVD of Carnival of Souls. Also, all three are in discussions to provide commentary for upcoming Three Stooges DVDs, and they're also all working together on a book about, naturally enough, the state of bad movies today. As always, we'll provide more information about these projects as they progress. Bill, Mike and Kevin take questions. Sometimes they even answer them. Finally, the Sklar brothers asked Mike, Kevin and Bill if there was a chance that MST3K would ever return. "I'm sure it will," said Kevin. "Look at Star Trek. I think after it's gone for a few years, people will want it to come back. But I don't know in what form it will be." Added Bill, "In a way, it's a good thing the show's ending its run on Sci-Fi. After watching the same episodes being repeated for the eighteenth time, it's worn out its welcome. Give the show a little rest, and eventually people will want to see it return." Randy and Jason Sklar (or is it Jason and Randy?) pose backstage with Kevin, Mike and Bill. After the show, Kevin signs the obligatory Servo head. Meanwhile, Mike signs a copy of Death Rat. Satellite News would like to thank Jason and Randy Sklar, SF SketchFest, Cobb's Comedy Club, and, of course, Mike, Kevin and Bill for their assistance and patience during our coverage of this event. | VISIT PREVIOUS FEATURED ARTICLES |