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Jim Mallon SpeaksHe’s arguably had more to do with shaping MST3K over its history than anybody, but is perhaps the least-known member of Best Brains. Satellite News is pleased to present our no-topic-off-limits interview with Jim Mallon.
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All content posted on Satellite News is copyright © 2024 by Chris Cornell and Brian Henry, except where otherwise noted. This Date in MSTory is written and compiled by Steve Finley, Chris Cornell and Brian Henry. Copyright © 2024 All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce This Date in MSTory items in any form without express written permission from the authors. Items of MST3K news may be duplicated or reposted, as long as Satellite News is cited as the source. The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of Satellite of Love, LLC. No warranty is expressed or implied that the information given herein is completely accurate, and in fact this information can and will change at any time. So there. Mystery Science Theater 3000, its characters and situations are copyrights and trademarks of Satellite of Love, LLC. Banner image created by Larry Lee Moniz. Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
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Yes, it is ARGUEABLE that he had more to do with shaping MST3K over its ‘history’ than anybody..
Cute putting in ‘history’..
Thanks for the great interview. It’s nice to finally hear from Jim in his own words. I must say, due to the rumor mill and his general hermitude, I’d gotten what now seems like an unfair and untrue mental image of him painted in my mind.
His story about the potential reunion series sounds more plausible than Joel’s, I’m afriad. Considering the near complete turnover in cast over 10 years, the questions about who would play each part were valid. Reading between the lines, one could speculate that Joel wanted a new series with the original Season 1 cast, and was looking to cut the later people out, or reduce their prominance. The fact that he formed CT with only the old people (save for MJP) makes me think that might be the case.
Great interview, guys. And kudos to Jim Mallon for being a great interview subject.
It seems, though, that some of the creative decisions preventing the MST reunion project could have been decided amicably (as far as who plays the bots, host, etc). I can see the rights issues being a problem, but that’s what lawyers are for.
Too bad, I say.
Q: Here’s a question every MSTie has wanted to ask you for 15 years or more: Do you, in fact, own copies of the first three KTMA episodes?
A: In fact, I do! I just saw the 3/4” cassettes last week.
Q: Is it possible, then, that the host segments (since the movie segments would have rights issues) from those episodes could someday be released? MSTie completionists out there are dying to know.
A: Yes. We’d like to put some of them up on mst3k.com. Because of the age of the tapes and the format, though, we need to find a facility to help us make the Quicktime files. 3/4” machines regularly ate the tapes when the format was new. I would hate to have that happen now.
I…can’t…wait…
Personally, I would have gotten everybody to participate in a MST reunion movie. In fact, why couldn’t they have two of each robot so that Kevin and Josh each voice a Tom, Trace and Bill each voice one Crow, etc.? However I have to agree that getting everyone together would have been a logistical nightmare especially with the cast split between California and Minnesota.
A rift in time…..two casts meet….
“Mallon…arguably had more to do with shaping MST3K over its history than anybody”
True, arguably over its entire history, especially after he ran Joel Hodgson off the show. Let’s not forget, however, that Joel Hodgson created the concept, built the robots and many other props and gadgets essential to the show, wrote many of the jokes, and suffused the entire show with his brand of humor from its inception.
I just read the new interview with Jim Mallon. Very interesting if not always that enlightening.
Regarding the last question, last year there was an interview with Jim Mallon online somewhere, I don’t remember where, but at the time he said his favorite episode of the show was (he couldn’t remember the name), “the first show of season two”, which of course is Rocketship X-M. Since Rocketship X-M has always been my favorite episode, I couldn’t help but notice the change in his answer on that question even if it’s of little consequence regarding issues of more importance like the show’s history, reunions, etc.
Thanks to Erhardt and Satellite News and Jim Mallon for the new interview.
Or they could do a series of episodes, one with Joel, Josh & Trace, then one with Joel, Kevin & Trace, then Mike, Kevin & Trace, then Mike, Kevin & Bill. Or a mix and match. I think we could handle it.
Wow. Nice interview. I’m glad that i’ll FINALLY be able to see at least the host segments from the lost KTMA episodes. Though i did like his comment about mst3k.com’s goal is to “provide a web presence for the series very much in tune with the spirit of the show.” Um, you mean like this website, Jim?
A rift in time…..two casts meet….
Or is that riff? :grin:
Okay, make that riff.
Wow, could he be a little more vague about why Joel left the show…. Reread his answer and look at his choice of words. He said nothing.
Maybe he should be a politician. Latin American dictator or McCain or Obama. Whoever.
He said nothing.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I agree with Jim Mallon. The potential pitfalls of a 20th anniversary reunion episode or series of episodes would be too numerous to overcome.
The show had a self-contained, beginning-to-end fiction, beginning with Joel and the Mads, Erhardt leaves, Frank shows up, then Joel leaves, Mike shows up, Frank leaves, Dr. F becomes a space baby, Pearl picks up Bobo and Brain Guy, and then the whole thing ends with the SOL crashing back to earth and MATB get their garden level apartment (with Pearl in Qatar).
That is a very strange, but ultimately quite complete, story arc. There is a beginning, a middle and an end.
Any 20th anniversary episode would have to either try and fit somewhere in that timeline, or it would have to be completely standalone, separate from the entire series, thus pretty much ignoring the already slim fictional integrity the series had (to paraphrase the Episode Guide).
Or is it just a show, and should I really just relax?
The show is what it is, and bears multiple viewings (as we all well know); so we don’t really need any new episodes. Now, if someone did a whole new series with a whole new premise, I’d be very happy about that. But a standalone ‘reunion’ episode with Frank and Dr. F somehow still around, and Joel back, and different Servos and Crows, and the SOL still in space? That just wouldn’t make any sense, and I fear it would come across as nothing more than a lame attempt to get the band back together for one last paycheck.
I’d be perfectly happy with a 20th anniversary panel featuring all the cast members from all the ‘eras’ just talking about their experience. How about filming the one that’s happening at Comic Con? Put that out on DVD or make it part of the Shout Factory set; I’d gladly buy it.
I’m sure this will generate some disagreement, so don’t get me wrong: I’d love to see some new incarnation of MST3K. But, if someone slapped together a cheesy reunion show without any nod to the fiction of the series, one that was just about getting the former cast together just for the sake of being together, most of you would be here complaining about it afterwards.
And hey, if Mallon does put the first KTMA host segments online, then we will have something new to enjoy.
So where in the MST3K time-line does the segment they did for Volume 10.2 fit in?
Yeah! And what about Scarecrow’s brain!
Yeah!
…first three…KTMA episodes…could…surface…
…my lungs…aching for…air…
—
mC
Wow, Jim Mallon actually sounds like a pretty cool guy…I always wondered about the man behind the show…well I guess not really behind, kinda underneath the…oh never mind
Weather Servo Nine,
In post #15, you say you would rather have the reunion panel at Comic Con filmed and put on the first Shout! DVD set instead of a true reunion show. Where have you been? TVshowsondvd.com is reporting that WILL be among the special features along with trailers for the riffed films on the set and a featurette on the history of the show:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Mystery-Science-Theater-3000-Anniversar-Bonus-Material/10090
Here’s what I would do.
Have team 1 (Joel, Josh, Trace) riff a movie.
Have team 2 (Mike, Bill, Kevin) riff the same movie.
Keep each team’s writing and production isolated from the other.
It would be fascinating to see how the riffed movies are similar and different from each other. Its not an effort reproduce the past shows, but to see what each of the comedy teams comes up with considering their maturation and experience garnered over the past 20 years. Plus it would have echoes of the past show.
If you need a premise to preserve the “fiction” then its something like this.
Dr. F resurfaces mad as hell, Pearl finds out her son is loose and shows up too, then we get Bobo, Frank, and Brain Guy into the storyline.
They systematically round up their former lab rats (Joel is a simple guy working in a radio shack? Back at the space office? Mike back at the Cheese factory, and so forth).
They are abducted mafia style and taken to an isolated place (under the stage during Emmy awards where they can interact with lost ~hello Cleveland!!! ~, self important celebrities e.g. Torgo getting an emmy that MST3K never got, or Jack Perkins, or they are held in an abandoned movie studio/location/set). There they are given massive doses of a really bad movie (in separate rooms, in the aforementioned teams).
The fiction is that Dr. F & Pearl are not happy with their 20 years of experiment failure, they are going to resume the experiments to attempt success. This give the fiction a chance to resume once a year or so, and the characters can weave in an out of the narrative (based on actor’s availability).
The flexibility means that they can be filmed in different locations (the Mike team films in San Diego, the Joel team films where-ever they film Cin Titanic.)
The host segements can be split up depending upon who is in the shot, a couple of the actors may have to travel to the other location to complete the filming.
In this fiction, they don’t wear spacesuits cuz they’re not in space anymore (new costumes), and the sets can be different, but interesting, creative, and economical.
Maybe their torture/experiment chamber is at the back lot of a movie studio on the abandoned set of Space Mutiny or Human Duplicators or one of the Ed Wood experiments. Being on a set of a previous experiments lets them have callbacks to that experiment (where applicable).
I don’t know how to explain two Servos and two Crows, except that there have been duplicate bots in earlier experiments, so it can be done (heck look at the crazy fiction twists that Star Trek has worked to get certain characters in the story! this effort would be half the work).
What do you think Sirs?
He ‘just saw the 3/4” cassettes (of the first three KTMA eps) last week’ because he was preparing them for Shout to provide as complete episodes on a bonus disc for the 20th anniversary set.
:wink:
Or maybe the 3/4″ cassettes just randomly disappear and reappear…due to a space/time singularity that allows all characters from all seasons of the show to converge at the Omega Point for one final, epic riffing that will preserve the universe’s continuity by accessing Ma-Ji-Den-Time…
Sorry, I’m so immersed in conflicting Transformers continuities that I genuinely believe any instance of time-travel to be the cosmic cop-out for any off-the-wall thing to happen. Having the Bill Corbett Crow be the one left behind in Time Chasers seeking out J,M,&TB to deliver a dire warning about the return of the Mads sounds like a decent opening for that hypothetical reunion show, though.
Or—— The whole of the Sci Fi years was all a BAD DREAM!!!
Yeah- Time travel is a cop out, ignore that portion of my post.
But I do think the multiple crows & servos could be imaginatively presented.
A maybe, maybe they could get Joe Don Baker to do a cameo (he, or a silouette look alike, bums rushes the experiment theater and chases Mike & bots around shouting “I’ll murdalize you!!!!” Joe Don is finally subdued by baiting him out of the theatre with a double cheese steak hoagie on a rope.)
“..example, who would play Tom Servo? Kevin? Josh? What about Crow–Trace or Bill? Or even Gypsy, for that matter. Where would we make this? LA? Minneapolis? Who would be in charge of the experiment? Would it be Dr. Forrester or Pearl? Who would write the episodes? Who would own the copyright?”
Hmm. All those questions seem really easy except for the last one. Something tells me that’s the one that was the deal breaker. :roll:
Then again, maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth about Jim.
Nice to have him speak
I think of it as a Restaurant (Jim) owner-Head Chef (Joel) relationship. Joel created the concept but Jim had to promote it and sell it to make sure everyone got paid by giving Joel (and the staff) the tools needed to continue to improve and branch out new ideas. Eventually, the creativity got in the way of business (and the networks) and that’s where the line was drawn (which Jim seems to elude to).
As for something for a 20th special, another typical show would have felt rushed. They could do a sort of reunion show where cast members and interviewed and parts of the history is shown (ala SCTV dvd’s). Maybe they’ll get their act together by the 25th.
Good interview, and he does come off a lot better than I expected.
The question I was waiting for, but didn’t hear though – was about if it’s true that only Jim gets royalties from all the DVD sales – and if so, why he would feel that was fair.
I’m not accusing. I’ve read the rumor but don’t know if it is true.
Jim, Joel, Trace and Kevin get royalties from the DVD’s
Forkliftkiller –
I think you’re absolutely right. Copyright MUST have been the deal breaker here. Cinematic Titanic is owned by all the artists, correct? Maybe that’s what Joel wanted for the reunion show and Jim didn’t want to slice the pie into that many pieces.
I was hoping Jim would reveal that all the KTMA episodes (including The Green Slime) have already been successfully transfered to a digital medium for preservation sake.
While a red flag is constantly thrown up at the possibility of releasing KTMA eps due to rights issues, I believe that if there’s money to be made then something can be worked out. However, if there will never be the remotest chance of that season ever seeing the light of day in its entirety and they’ll never be able to capitalize financially on that particular product, then why not leak copies (dvd quality mpeg 2 files) to the hard core fan base? That would be much more preferable to just being archived in a vault doomed to rot.
Kudos on the tough interview guys — really well-phrased questions, since it’d be easy to just say “why you gotta be such a dickweed?”
I agree the “who would play whom” thing is a total cop-out, considering the iterations he’s been responsible for without really any visible hand-wringing (cartoon with no original cast, DVD segment with Frank as Tom.)
I think Shout! is taking time to figure out how to best package the show’s history, and MST3K.com is just kinda filler. Yeah, it’s nice to see the host segments, but they’re just random at the moment.
Here’s hoping for full KTMA host segments in best quality in the future — and heck, why not full episodes!
Regarding the missing KTMAs and acquiring rights – yes, the more money that is to be made, the more the rights become affordable. However, assuming for a moment that the rights could never in any way ever be possibly available, why not do a RiffTrax-type release?
Publish the full host segments and credits/opening, from beginning to end as a video DVD, and then audio-only of the riffs for the movie theater portions, in real-time as an audio CD. I’m sure the original voices were laid-down as separate tracks on the tapes and could be easily extracted from the original recordings. Nobody would EVER be so short-sighted as to merge the riffs with the movie audio on the same section of tape… :roll:
It would then be up to the viewer to locate a copy of the original movie to sync-up to the audio. At least then we would get everything that was on the original, even if it would take some effort on the viewer’s part to put it together. I have no doubt that a cameo from Disembaudio would actually be enjoyed in this context.
Whaddya think, sirs?
So why can’t negotiations be made to release INVADERS FROM THE DEEP, REVENGE OF THE MYSTERONS FROM MARS & STAR FORCE? they were a public access cable channel. I’m sure that something could be worked out to get them released. As far as a reunion show goes, why not do one with Joel, Trace and J. Elvis and a second with Mike, Kevin and Bill ( With Joel doing a never-before-done cameo apperance)
Two casts on a collision course to wackiness!
It’s nice to hear from Jim. He was starting to look like the Evil Villain in the MST3K story, but everything he says sounds reasonable and plausible.
And it’s unfortunate, but probably true, about the reunion possibility. Kevin Murphy is pretty much the Tom Servo everyone remembers, and is probably a better Servo than Josh. Both Trace and Bill had great Crows. Plus… while I do believe there’s no antipathy between the two camps, it’s obvious that they prefer to work this way. It’s probably the way they best do the jokes. I’m saddened they’ve grown apart creatively, but eh, it happens.
I think Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic are both good successors to the original show, and produced in a format that puts more of the revenue in the pockets of the creators instead of a network somewhere. These are probably the best people working in entertainment today.
Ouch this is alot to process, still it’s good to hear from him about such things. I would like to see them tapes but at least if we get the segments from them that may be enough for me (for now). As for how to do this reunion thing going it may just take a space time continium thing to get this all going. However now thinking on those lines perhaps the loner crow or the crow that got wrecked on the highway (in season 9 i think) are built from the design of the crow at the cheese factory. And with the whole bowling pin thing may help as to how you could get both crows in the same body so to speak. I think as far as writing the whole team needs to suck up the oddness due to the “whatever” and all do some writing on something of this magnitude. Most of them are still at the top of their game and get them all in the same room would result in a lot of us laughing are asses off. Soooooo what I am asking of the whole “gang” is to maybe get to it by 25th. PLEASE
Norgavue — When you get near a sentence, let us know.
(kidding)
I dunno about a reunion, I like Rifftrax’s pace and format too much to see the fellows taking time away to make more mst3k.
I think the CT cast would be fine for a reunion, though. They take just about the same time to produce their shows, and it wouldn’t really be too dramatically different from what they’re already up to.
I always thought Jim & Joel’s relationship, while at times volatile, also helped make the show what it was back in its heyday of the early ’90’s. It’s a shame, I get the sense that they never fully reconciled after Joel’s departure.
At this point, having all the key people involved with MST3K in the same room is a remarkable accomplishment. My guess is that many of them are happy where they are now, and any such reunion project would pale in comparison of past show achievements. Personally, I’m fine with that. The show is a permanent part of the past, best to keep it there.
Maybe getting the whole group together at the Comic-Con panel will help future reunion possibilities. Maybe they will do some cameos over the next year or two: Kevin Murphy on CT, Trace or Frank on Rifftrax. Maybe they can get something together for the 25th anniversary.
I like the idea of two crews riffing on the same movie separately, and then coming together for the last movie segment.
Time travel is a cop-out, and so is worm hole or parallel universe stuff, but so what? You have to relax and remember it’s just a show. Enjoy. I, for one, would love a parallel universe story where Dr. F and Frank send the original cast (Joel, Trace, and Josh) a movie and they start riffing on it. (Suggestion: 70’s schlock “Star Wars” rip-off “Starcrash” with David Hasselhoff and Cristopher Plummer).
During one of the host segments, the SOL appears on the Hexfield Viewscreen and there is Mike, Servo (Kevin), and Crow (Bill). They just came through a worm hole followed by Pearl, Bobo, and Brain Guy. The next movie segments follow the sci-fi era crew into the theater as they riff on the movie.
Later, the sci-fi era SOL is in trouble. It’s heading back into the worm hole, or is going to crash into Earth. Pearl orders Brain Guy to “pop” the sci-fi era crew into the original SOL to save them because she doesn’t want her part of the experiment to end.
For the last movie segment, you have six riffers (too many?). Joel, Mike, 2 crows, and 2 Servos filling six seats in the theater.
Now in the same dimension, Dr. F and Pearl are reunited, along with Brain Guy, Bobo, and Frank. (Frank and Bobo become best friends, of course). The mads plan to continue the experiment with all six subjects. The movie ends with the mads giving the six helpless SOL crew members a second movie as a sort of “torture” double feature.
Cue “movie sign” and door sequence, with the round portal opening onto the end credits.
What do you think, Sirs?
Of course, you have two Gypsies and two Cambots, as well. Can’t forget about them.
The first scene where both crews are together on the SOL is split screen because each Cambot is filming separately.
Oh, did I mention that Dr. Erhardt has a cameo at the beginning where he is accepting a Nobel Prize in the field of Cinematic Torture, as Frank views his acceptance speech on T.V. :lol:
God, I’m a hopeless MSTie. I’ve spent most of the morning writing my own screenplay for the reunion show.
About the missing KTMA episodes: I would love host segments, but would prefer “leaked” bootleg editions.
and in the end Joel wakes up, turns on the light, rolls over, and it’s EMILY!
I thought it was a nice interview; I think perhaps Jim was trying to put himself in a good light, but I’m sure that’s happened a bit with everyone involved…in anything, ever. :)
Nice enough interview I guess.
Vaguelly unsatisfying, but he is talking about some baddish sorts of scenes, with the leaving of Josh, Joel, MST after-life etc.. Am psyched about the KTMA treasure trove, however.
( And I really don’t think I like his comment about FLW’s early work )
To I’m not a medium:
Yeah, huge slam on Wright out of nowhere.
What gives, Jim?
…for my money, that Ben Murphy guy knows what he’s talking about!