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Sci-Fi Archives
Visit our archives of the MST3K pages previously hosted by the Sci-Fi Channel's SCIFI.COM.
Rhino tells us the single-disk version of episode 402- THE GIANT GILA MONSTER will be available only at rhino.com for a price of–get this: $7.98 (cheap!). Our source also tells us it will only be available for a limited time (essentially until the limited pressing runs out–although we were also told that if sales are really strong initially, they may do a second pressing).
UPDATE 1: We can now confirm this report, which says that Dr. Forrester (Trace Beaulieu) and TV’s Frank (Frank Conniff) are also in the “Message from Joel” and that Tom Servo and Crow also have speaking roles.
And for those who did want a true replacement for the previous disk, we’re told the “Photo Gallery” (featuring a collection of historic Best Brains still photos)–which was included on the old Godzilla vs. Megalon disk, is also included on this one.
UPDATE 2: Ahead of schedule, the disk is now available for preorder! Thanks to alert reader Mike M. for the tip!
UPDATE 3: We’re now being told that the disks will not actually ship until Feb. 11. “Since this is a limited edition special run we need extra time to get the product ready,” our source said.
UPDATE 4: As several of our readers have discovered, the release of the disk has been delayed for at least 2-4 weeks. As soon as we can get some kind of definite date we’ll post it here.
UPDATE 5: Our source at Rhino now foresees a ship date of Feb. 25. Stay tuned…
UPDATE 6: Many, many readers have written in and posted on the Comments section here that they’ve finally received shipment confirmations from Rhino. Hurray! If you haven’t received yours yet, keep an eye on your inbox!
It’s only tangentially MST-related, but several people have written to inform us that Jeff Healey, the blind blues-rock singer/guitar player who had a prominent role in “Road House” as a blind blues-rock singer/guitar player, passed away last Sunday. He was 41.
Our condolences go out to his family, friends and fans. Our condolences also go out to anyone who has ever seen “Road House.”
Today we begin a new feature: the weekend discussion thread.
The first topic of discussion: How did you discover/find out about MST3K?
My story can only be told after telling you another story, which is this:
Back in the early ’80s I was just-out-college guy sharing an apartment in Philadelphia with several people, including the woman I would marry a few years later.
One evening four of us, two couples, were hanging out, drinking cheap wine and perhaps enjoying other festive substances (I do not recall for certain, your honor), and somehow or other the little black-and-white portable TV we rarely watched got turned on. Clicking around the channels, what should we encounter but a weird and hilarious movie called “Women of the Prehistoric Planet.” We started watching, and as we sat together on the couch, everybody started throwing out funny comments. It was clearly a you-had-to-be-there situation. We were all –ahem– relaxed and we were all good friends, very familiar with each other’s sense of humor, and we were all just exactly in the mood to be doing this. The result, at least in my memory, was an evening of genuine hilarity, a really golden evening with good friends.
I guess the reason the evening was such fun for me is that I love collaborative comedy. A great standup is fun, but the only thing I enjoy more than watching a group of funny people being funny together is being PART of that group.
Anyway, after that evening, that movie became my “white whale.” I wanted to see it again, to kind of re-live that wonderful evening. I scoured the TV Guide for another airing, to no avail. (This was back in the days before VCRs, when movies were, as James Lileks has observed, like comets with unknown trajectories. They would appear without warning, then go away for a while, then come back…)
Now, flash-forward to December of ’89. I’m living in a different apartment, in a different Philadelphia neighborhood. I had married that lady a few years ago and there was an 18-month-old baby napping in the back room (that baby is now a sophomore in college, who still likes the occasional nap). With the great new job I’d gotten I could afford cable TV (newly available in my neighborhood), and being a comedy buff, one of my favorite channels was “The Comedy Channel.”
One Saturday morning I turned on the TV and what should appear but “Women of the Prehistoric Planet!” I was beside myself. I called my wife in from the other room to show her my find. I reminded her of the golden evening. She sort of remembered, a little. Then she went back to what she was doing.
I settled in to watch and it was pretty much at that point that I began to notice something strange going on at the bottom of the screen. I watched on in gob-smacked amazement. These people were doing the SAME thing WE did with this movie! They were making fun of it! And they were making fun of it really, really well! I was hooked.
The latest RiffTrax release from Mike, Kevin and Bill is another short, this time 1951’s “The Terrible Truth.” Just 99 cents and hey, it’s DRM-free! So please download responsibly.
Speaking of downloading, you can download the original short or watch it as streaming video over at archive.org.
Satellite News is a fan site for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 television and Netflix series. It is an independent publication written and compiled by Chris Cornell (msampo@aol.com) and Brian Henry (erhardt4@aol.com). Satellite of Love, LLC does not maintain this web site, nor is it responsible for this site's content.
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.
Rhino tells us the single-disk version of episode 402- THE GIANT GILA MONSTER will be available only at rhino.com for a price of–get this: $7.98 (cheap!). Our source also tells us it will only be available for a limited time (essentially until the limited pressing runs out–although we were also told that if sales are really strong initially, they may do a second pressing).
