Once again this year I was fortunate enough to attend the sound check for the live show. When I arrived, the CT crew had already done a readthrough of the script back in the green room and were now taking a break. All except for Josh and Dave (Gruber) Allen, that is, who were overseeing the equipment setup on the stage. At around 5:00 p.m. the rest of the group arrived and the check began.

As you’re probably aware, the movie that was to be riffed this evening was WAR OF THE INSECTS. This was actually an alternate title and the film still retained its original title card of GENOCIDE. Both titles make sense (sort of) after you watch the picture.

Rather than write a lengthy report, I’ll just let the captions for the following pictures tell the night’s story. But there was one bit of good news worth noting: even with this down economy, the attendance for this year’s show beat last year’s…by one ticket. Good job, CT and Family Arena!

As always, if you attended the show please feel free to share your thoughts about it in the comments section.

Click for the pics!

The Cinematic Titanic Panel was held at the Tivoli Theatre on Friday as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival, and first the news: The next Cinematic Titanic DVD release will be EAST MEETS WATTS, recorded during of one of their live performances. The idea is to give people a taste of what it’s like to be at one of their shows. The exact release date for the DVD hasn’t been finalized, but it will probably be sometime within the next month or so. Check back with Satellite News or the CT web site in the coming weeks for more information.

Other than that, there really was little new ground covered during the panel. Dave (Gruber) Allen warmed up the crowd with a brief comical retelling of the history of the Tivoli Theatre, which is a grand old theater that was built back in 1924, and then quickly introduced the CT gang. Joel started to tell the history of MST3K, but he got as far as the anecdote about seeing the “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” album cover as a teenager before deciding that the audience had probably heard it all before, and opened the floor to questions instead. The questions were mainly of the standard “what’s your favorite/least favorite episode?” variety, but there were two that stood out. The first was about the differences between how they used to write for MST3K and how they write for CT now. “We live in four different states now,” said Josh, “and now we each write our own pass of the movie, then put them all together and decide which riffs work best.”

The second standout was the usual “do you ever get recognized? question, but this was the first time I’d ever heard Josh answer it. “When I moved out to L.A.,” he said, “the first person I met was Paul Feig, who was a huge MSTie, and he recognized me right away. I’ve never been recognized since.” Paul, of course, went on to create “Freaks and Geeks.”

After the panel, the CT crew did their normal meet and greet, graciously signing autographs and posing for pictures. Grube also worked the crowd and signed a few autographs himself.

Here are a few pictures I took during the panel. Tomorrow, I’ll post a lengthier report from the live show at the Family Arena. And if you were at the panel, please give us your thoughts in the comments section.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about those “favorite/least favorite” answers:

Favorite
Joel – I Accuse My Parents
Josh – Untamed Youth
Frank – Cave Dwellers (but it changes daily)
Trace – Laserblast (it was his last episode and his father was in it)
Mary Jo – Space Mutiny

Least favorite
Joel – Manos, The Hands of Fate
Josh – Robot Monster (he felt that it was famously bad and didn’t need to be riffed)
Frank – The Castle of Fu Manchu
Trace – The Incredible Melting Man
Mary Jo – Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

If anybody goes to this, please report back…

The night before their show at the Family Arena in St, Louis next weekend, the entire Cinematic Titanic team will be part of panel discussion as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival. Says their Web site:

Joel Hodgson, creator and host of “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” and the original cast of the cult-classic TV show – Trace Beaulieu (“Crow”), J. Elvis Weinstein (“Tom Servo”), Mary Jo Pehl (“Pearl Forrester”) and Frank Conniff (“TV’s Frank”) – discuss the development of “MST3K,” the art of “movie riffing” and their new movie-riffing project, “Cinematic Titanic Live”. Moderated by Dave (“Gruber”) Allen, the program will include video clips, an audience Q&A and a signing by the cast immediately following.

It’s at 9:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20, at the Tivoli Theatre, 6350 Delmar Blvd. Admission is $10.