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Weekend Discussion: Whither Thursdays?

Alert reader Dan writes:

With only two episodes to go in season three have you ever announced what is next. Since this trek began with season four several years back we will now have completed a complete circuit having a full weekly discussion of the full run of the show. I’m assuming you will not repeat the loop. I don’t know what else there will be to say after this run.
Would this be replaced by discussing Cinematic Titanic DVD’s? That could easily be done in a couple months. Perhaps tackle RiffTrax? That would be harder given the large volume of those out there. Perhaps there could be voting on which ones to tackle? Or do you have another plan in mind? I’d miss this weekly ritual if it goes away.

You’re reading my mind, Dan. This has been on mind quite a bit lately. As the saying goes: this is not a democracy, and I do have a tentative short-term plan, but I am interested in getting feedback from our readers/commenters on all of this.

After we finish season 3 in two weeks, I will have done every episode in the expanded format. That said, I’m not really happy with the episode guide entries starting in season 4 and continuing for several seasons after that. The format of the episode guide entries evolved over time, and I now need to go back through them and make them consistent (and, frankly, to clean them up a bit).

But doing what we have been doing up till now — one episode a week — will take 2 1/2 years. I don’t want to do that.

So, my plan for the cleanup of these entries is to do two a week, and to move them to the weekends (one on Saturday and one on Sunday). (By the way, I still plan to do a weekend discussion thread.) For each one, I’ll re-open comments for seven days allowing latecomers to weigh in and long-time commenters to revise and extend their earlier remarks. It should take about a year, maybe a bit more, to get through these and get the episode guide where I want it to be. I can live with that time frame.

And so, as the title of this thread suggests, the remaining question is: whither Thursdays? I too have grown fond of the ritual. I only have definite plan for the next few months. First, we will do the Best Brains video releases: “MST Poopie,” “MST Poopie II” (should we do both Poopies together?), “The MST Scrapbook” the “Play MiSTie for Me” DVD and “The Last Dance – Raw”?

(Should we also do all five volumes of “Tom Servo’s All Time Favorite Host Segments,” and if we do, should we do them as one entry or five? If we do them, it may require me to plug my VCR back in!)

Whatever we decide, from there I will first do the four “Film Crew” episodes.

After that I will do the Legend Films solo riffs that Mike did in 2004-2006. (Note: even though the Film Crew DVDs came out AFTER most of the Legend disks, they were made before, so I think that’s the order we should follow). That will take us well into 2012.

From there, I think it’s obvious: RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic. The question becomes: how do we space them out, considering that RiffTrax put out 50 episodes (not even counting shorts) before the first Cinematic Titanic DVD came along, and there are currently a total of nine ten episodes of Cinematic Titanic available, while there have been 120 RiffTrax episodes (again, not counting more than 150 shorts). I don’t want to give Cinematic Titanic short shrift by any means, but the numbers are what they are.

I would really like to get your thoughts on the best and fairest way to approach this and on everything I’ve talked about here.

Some thoughts I’ve had: Maybe we should just separate the two streams completely and do Cinematic Titanic on, say, Tuesdays, and RiffTrax on Thursdays. Cinematic Titanic will end in a couple of months (until the next disk comes out), but at least they’ll get an uncluttered hearing. Or maybe we should just start with Cinematic Titanic on Thursdays and then move to on to RiffTrax.

One final crazy idea: Maybe we shouldn’t do the RiffTrax in chronological order but instead do them in groups, like do all the franchise movies together, i.e. all the Star Wars movies in a row, all the Harry Potter movies in a row, like that.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Plans for RiffTrax Streaming Shows Change

RiffTrax has provided more information about their upcoming netcasts, and they’ve changed their plans a bit. They will again be using the UStream system.

On Friday, Oct. 21, at 6 p.m. Eastern/3 p.m. Pacific, instead of the previously announced “Vodka tasting,” they’ll be free showing the first 10 minutes of their next VOD title, “Sons of Hercules: Land of Darkness.”

Meanwhile, the “Halloween Double-feature” has moved to Thursday, Oct. 27 (time TBA): They’ll be showing a mix of previously released shorts and features: “Magical Disappearing Money,” “Maniac,” “The Creeps Machine” and “Night of the Living Dead.” It will cost $2 to view.

More info when we get it.

Mary Jo Back at Master Pancake

Mary Jo will be riffing “Halloween” at Master Pancake Theater in Austin, Tex., this weekend. More info here.

Releases from Shout! and RiffTrax

Shout! Factory has re-released episodes 908- The Touch Of Satan and 518- The Atomic Brain.

In addition, RiffTrax comes a track for…

Get it here.

Cinematic Titanic Schedule

Here’s a rundown of the Cinematic Titanic tour schedule as it stands now. The only change that I see is that the Durham show is now an “audience choice,” meaning what movie they do will be voted on on Facebook.

• 10/27: Washington, DC–Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University. 8 p.m. “Rattlers.” $25-$35. ON SALE
• 11/3: Reno, NV–Nightingale Concert Hall at the University of Nevada-Reno. 7:30 p.m. “Rattlers.” $30 (discounts for kids and seniors) ONSALE
• 11/4: Davis, CA–Mondavi Arts Center at the University of California-Davis. 8 p.m. “Doomsday Machine.” $45-$25. ON SALE
• 11/5: Santa Rosa, CA–Wells Fargo Center for the Arts. “Rattlers.” 8 p.m. $35. ON SALE
• 11/6: Santa Barbara, CA–Campbell Hall at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “Doomsday Machine.” 8 p.m. $21; $10 for students. ON SALE
• 11/12: Green Bay, WI–Meyer Theatre. Two shows: “Danger on Tiki Island: (6 p.m.) “Rattlers” (9 p.m.) $28; $45 for both shows. ONSALE
• 12/30: Philadelphia area.–Keswick Theater. Two shows. “Astral Factor” (premiere) and “Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks. 8 p.m. “$39.50-$58.50. ON SALE
2012
• 1/20: York, PA–Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center. “Rattlers.” 7:30 p.m. $30-$40. ON SALE
• 1/21: Wilmington, DE–Grand Opera House. “Doomsday Machine.” 8 p.m. $32-$41. ON SALE
• 2/3: Hartford, CT–Belding Theater at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. Two shows: “War Of The Insects” (7 p.m.) and “Doomsday Machine” (9:30 p.m.) $35. ON SALE
• 2/4: Schenectady, NY–Proctor’s Theatre. “Astral Factor.” 8 p.m. $32.75. ON SALE
• 2/25: Royal Oaks/Detroit, MI–Royal Oaks Music Theater. Two shows: “Astral Factor” and “Doomsday Machine.” Tickets on sale soon.
• 3/16: Durham, NC–Carolina Theatre of Durham. “Audience choice.” 8 p.m. $35. ON SALE
• 3/17: Greenville, SC–Peace Center for the Performing Arts. “Astral Factor.” 8 p.m. $30-$40. ON SALE
• 3/30: Newark, NJ–Victoria Theatre. “Blood Of The Vampires.” 8 p.m. ON SALE
• 3/31: Newark, NJ–Victoria Theatre. Two shows: “Doomsday Machine” (3 p.m.) and “Astral Factor” (8 p.m.). $39.50. ON SALE
• 4/27: Milwaukee, WI–Pabst Theater. “Doomsday Machine.” Tickets on sale soon.
• 4/28: Milwaukee, WI–Pabst Theater. “Astral Factor.” Tickets on sale soon.