Our pal Sarah writes:

I’d be curious to see what *good* things in cinema MST3K has led people to. For me, it was Akira Kurosawa.

When I was younger, I was vaguely aware of the existence of Kurosawa and his films. I’m quite sure I remember watching Siskel and Ebert review ‘Ran’ on their show, and hearing how much they loved it. But hey–I was about 14 at the time, what did I know about foreign films? And there, it might have ended.

Fast-forward quite a few years, to MST3K and episode 301, ‘Cave Dwellers.’ When the heroes run up against three oriental warriors, Tom says, “Oh, no, they’ve jumped right into the middle of a Kurosawa film.” Joel asks, “So it’ll start making sense?” and Tom replies, “Yep.” Then, a few seconds later, as the camera focuses in on one of the oriental warriors, Tom says, “Yep, Toshiro Mifune, right there.”

‘Cave Dwellers’ is a favorite episode of mine, and every time I watched it on my VCR, I was reminded that hey, Kurosawa films exist, and they’re supposed to be really good. Until finally, a few years later, ‘Ran’ was briefly re-released for a run on big screens. I went to see it, and was blown away. I now own that, and several other Kurosawa films, on DVD, and have many more lined up in my Netflix queue. And I might never have started watching them if it wasn’t for MST3K.

For me, I’d have to say it was the discovery of Hammer Studios movies, which I began to learn about because my riffing group was riffing them when they ran in Turner Classic Movies. They’re not all “good” I suppose, but they’re worth seeing.

What about you?

The alert regular who goes by “Smoothie of Great Power” suggests:

I’ve seen every episode from Season 1-10 at least once and there are many that I re-watch on a regular basis, so of course I hear the same riffs many times. Sometimes, there are just certain ones that I remember hearing that I suddenly begin laughing at much harder than I ever had before, even if it isn’t an obscure reference that I realized.

My example comes from The Starfighters during the first refueling scene where Servo quips, “I’m going over to this plane, they got chocolate gas! Um-num-num-num!”

That one never stuck out much until a recent viewing and it ended up getting my biggest laugh of the night.

Have at it!