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Weekend Discussion Thread: The MST3K Time (and Space) MachineOkay, to begin with I want to apologize to whoever sent me the time machine suggestion. They way you described it, it was completely off topic, and I think I deleted it, BUT a way to make it work hit me today.
Okay you have a time (and space) machine, but, no, you can’t go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby. The machine ONLY takes you to MST3K-related places and events. When/where would you go? Me. I’d like to sitting in the next table at the restaurant where Joel pitched Jim the idea for the show. What would you pick? 73 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: The MST3K Time (and Space) Machine”Commenting at Satellite News
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I’m sure somebody already suggested this, but I would go back to where Joel and Josh wrote the theme song lyrics just to confirm which restaurant it was.
I’d go back and convince the Brains to keep Eddie Nelson as a recurring character for rest of the series. He could show up whenever the spare Crow did something wrong in 1985. I found Eddie hilarious for some reason, probably because he reminds me of relatives.
@18: Nice! I hope you work that out someday.
Thanks for all the likes everyone!
@18 You read my mind. Well said! I feel a strange connection to Mr. Reynolds, even though I know very little about him. He died the day I was born. And yes, that does freak me out a little…
Attending the world premiere of Manos with a hidden recording device to preserve the audience reactions would be second on my list.
Like some of the rest of you have said: The Movie. I’d try and get them to not do the movie.
A few years ago I was digging through the old Usenet groups and found some interesting stuff about the movie. Basically, the movie destroyed the show’s stability with CC and would eventually force Joel out.
Please note: this post in not meant to besmirch any of the Brains. I’m only reporting what I’ve found an can figure out.
First off, read this: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.mst3k/browse_thread/thread/697f074fc47415d9?pli=1
In summary, its an article re-printed from the Green Bay Post-Gazette, October 31, 1992. An interview with Joel.
Also read this: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.mst3k/browse_thread/thread/2f6c25b1fd2fe9dc#
In summary, a recount of a phone conversation a fan had on the phone with Sarah Wisner and Jim Mallon about the previously linked Green Bay article.
Some interesting quotes from the Green Bay article:
–“Mystery Science Theater 3000 is in its fourth season. It has just been renewed for three more seasons…”
–“We’ve done 75 shows…”
–“Best Brains will make another 72 shows under the new contract.”
By the end of the 4th season, the show had been renewed for 3, 24 episode seasons.
This means that Season 7’s contract was cut WAAAYYY back. Severely so. I always assumed it was supposed to be 13 episodes, but this is quite shocking.
Another interesting quote:
–“I just feel like there comes a time when I have to just stop,” he says.
“By this time next year, I’ll be done with the show. It will live on. I’ll still be an executive producer and participate with it from a writing standpoint, but I won’t be on camera.”
Joel, at least at this point, was still going to continue on with the show. Like was reported at the time, behind the scenes.
More interesting quotes:
–“We’re working on doing Mystery Science Theater as a feature film…”
–“Here’s a switch: Hodgson and his partners TURNED DOWN an offer from Paramount Studios for the movie.”
–“We realized we couldn’t really do what we needed to do,” he says. “We’ve done 75 shows by ourselves without anyone being involved, and it’s been pretty successful.”
–“It was really hard to go into the studios and all of a sudden they have all the control. We felt like we just couldn’t do our best job if had to kind of run everything by these other guys who had a different agenda than we did.”
–“Best Brains is more interested in releasing the movie independently.”
–“That way if we fail, we’ll still kind of be heroes,” Hodgson says. “If we do a big feature film and it fails, then it’s real ugly. We feel we’d rather try to do it ourselves and kind of come out of nowhere than have them spend $20 million or whatever promoting it.”
Best Brains had plans for a movie since at least early 1992. Late Season 3/early Season 4. Joel was probably originally supposed to be in the movie, but as has often been said, he was never completely comfortable in front of the camera. And even if he wasn’t the host, it looks as though Joel was going to be heavily involved in the making of “The Movie”.
According to Joel in this article, they wanted to do the movie independently. Which, of course, they obviously didn’t.
What’s odd is that Joel describes the pitfalls of dealing with a movie company: lack of control, etc. The same pitfalls BBI ran into when they signed with Universal (which, through further digging, they started negotiations with them in early 1994).
Conclusions:
1. I posit that Joel’s real reason for leaving the show was his dispute with Jim Mallon over how to make and distribute the movie. NOTE: Since I first put all this together, that’s been confirmed. Joel’s idea was to go indy. And it seems evident that Mallon wanted to go the movie studio route. We all know who won that argument and how it turned out.
2. Now, the long-lasting fallout of turning down Paramount to sign with Universal is not as obvious as the Jim-Joel spat, but just as simple to deduce.
In 1993, Viacom (parent company of Comedy Central) bought Paramount. Less than a year later, BBI openly courts rival company Universal at the Convention and they sign a contract with them. The contract 24 episode Season 7 was cut back to 6 episodes and the show was cancelled. The show was then picked up by the Universal-owned Sci-Fi Network.
In short. I’d go back and BEG and PLEAD with them to either scrap the movie altogether, or to at least scale back their plans and go Indy with it.
I know some of these have been mentioned — you read my minds, gang — but, still, I’d like to elaborate on some of them:
1. Go back to late ’80s Minneapolis with a DVD recorder, get an apartment downtown with really good UHF reception, record the entire KTMA season, then come back to the present, rip all the DVDs, edit out the commercials, export them to MPEG4, upload them to YouTube, and post the links to Club MST3K.
2. Somehow finagle myself a writer’s gig sometime during Season 2, and somehow talk the Brains into doing Plan 9 From Outer Space, Mesa Of Lost Women, Cat Women Of The Moon, and Astro Zombies. Then, somehow manage to convince them to do the full-length version of The Phantom Creeps as a single episode… and then, talk them into re-riffing SST Death Flight.
3. I understand that Joel and Mallon went to “business therapy” together to try and iron out their rocky professional relationship, but still, I’d leverage my influence as one of the writers (see no.2) and invite them out and treat them to several pitchers of Sam Adams and some nice hot sloppy pizza in order to convince Mallon not to be such a control freak and to talk Joel out of leaving. I know I’d have mixed feelings about this as Nelson really did do an awesome job as host, but, c’mon, Joel was The Creator, man.
4. Go to whatever honchos’ meeting they had at Comedy Central where they were deciding whether or not to cancel MST3K and somehow whip them into line. Ideally, it’d be nice to get them to renew MST3K at least into the early ’00s.
5. Obviously, talk Frank and Beaulieu out of leaving. This goes without saying.
would go back and buy the rights of all the movies they did and would let them come out on dvd (and would record all the ktma episodes). would also pay for them to do the movie (so they can do and say what they want). heck i would start my own network (like HBO) and let me be on there (would let me do any movie i can get my hands on and let them swear too).
Maybe I’d also go back and figure out a way to talk Susan Hart into allowing all of her movies to be released on DVD. I’d also convince Roger Corman that having his movies MSTed was a prestigious thing and he’d get a bunch of money if he’d sell the rights to Shout! Factory. And maybe even find an iron-clad way to get the Godzilla rights by sweet-talking the Japanese PTB into believing that being MSted was a compliment of the highest order. Hey, if you’re going to fantasize you might as well fantasize big.
If it’s just MST3K show related, definitely try to talk Trace out of leaving the show. I’ve never liked Bill. He just gets on my nerves, like a male version of Mary Jo.
I never understand why people leave hit (or at least reasonably popular so they get renewed) shows. Do they honestly believe they are going to get a better gig? So often they come back picking up scraps of the career they turned down. Like that blonde lady from Star Trek The Next Geneeration. She had her character killed off so she could leave the show, but then later when her career didn’t go anywhere, she comes back doing bit parts in a convoluted manner, playing her Romulan descendant, even in video games.
Josh you could understand, he was a kid.
If it’s extended to movies shown on MST3K, I’d try to go back and try to prevent Allison Hayes’s somewhat early death
I’d go back in time and use my knowledge of sporting outcomes to make a fortune gambling. I’d then use that fortune to grease the right network palms to keep MST3K running. When that movie comes along, a “Producer” or “Executive Producer” title sounds nice… Gives a lot less clout to empty-headed studio execs.
^^ awww, I love Bill and Mary Jo
I’d go back to the day Jim made up his mind to do the movie and hit him with a shovel, so Joel wouldn’t leave the show.
Knowing my luck with time travel I’d probably screw it all up and somehow prevent the show from ever being created and none of you would ever know exactly how much you should be despising me right now. Look, I said I’m sorry!
#62
Ditto about Bill and Mary Jo. And I thought her evil character was more fun
then her son with the girly middle name. Pearl also had a considerate side, remember
how she sent steaks as part of her apology for cutting off (electricity?) to various
cities of the world.
Please Mr. Time Machine, take me to Spider Island.
I love the way the show progresses and grows over the years. I love the movie too! I also love Tom Servo’s new and old voices. For that matter, I love Joel’s new voice, Crow’s new voice and Dr. F’s new voice! To me, MST just got better and better and better. I’d go back to the mid-season nine days and try to convince the suits that if all they were going to do was produce **** like Sharkodile or Manpossum, then they should keep MST3K too because it was cheaper to produce. Hey, you could always feed one of your own to the show and save even MORE money! I think that actually was the case with SoulTaker.
I would like to have seen an MST season of Joel behind the scenes with Mike hosting.
John Hanna’s idea for saving John Reynolds is touching, so I’d want to pick up the slack help Hamlet’s Ophelia, the director of Robot Monster and Bela too.
“Now, Ophelia, Hamlet may have been a jerk, but he’s just having a nervous breakdown because his father died recently and his mother married his father’s brother after a couple weeks, that’s no reason to kill yourself. I’m sure everything will work itself out… on second thought, maybe you should take a vacation away from here, get a change of scenery.”
@67 Well, there’s that too, but I was referring to the actress playing her, who I believe committed suicide shortly after Hamlet wrapped.
I know, I was having fun with the fact that Ophelia commits suicide, also. Your idea of having MST3K riff on the SciFi channel movies is a good one, BTW. Everyone knows the movies are terrible and only watchable for the gallons of cheese each one contains.
i’d go to malta. stop in at that bar where the lovelies are dancing with power tools strapped to their waists.
#70 Yipe Striper: You better RRUUUUUN! You better HIIIIIDEEE!
Me? I would travel back to 1987. Even though only 14, somehow I would convince the honchos of my little local UHF station (channel 25, before it turned into a FOX affiliate) to fund a little “talk-over” puppet show featuring a boy shot deep under the earth, controlled by evil scientists orbiting in a satellite. Hey, we could use all those old Godzilla and Kung Fu movies that they’d fill the late slot with! I would build three animal companions, Hog Huevo, Row T. Cowbot and of the course, the lovable Sissy. The show would would be signed to cable, and I would RULE THE WORLD!!!
huhhhahhhaaaa ha! ha! HHHHHHHAAAAAHHAHHHAHHAHWWHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHH! (cough cough)
but yet .
mainly finally . and because .
I would probably go back to when Joel, Josh and Trace built Crow, Servo, Gypsy and the SOL