This half-hour “proof of concept” video, a very rough pilot created by Joel, Trace and Josh, with Jim (and presumably Kevin) behind the camera. The video shown below is most likely an edited version which focuses on the host segments and removes most of the theater sequences.
Segment 1: Joel tries to make contact with anyone, then introduces the movie.
Segment 2: Joel is joined by Crow and Beeper; he demonstrates the Chiro-Gyro.
Segment 3: Joel introduces Gypsy and reveals that he has taught the bots to laugh at his jokes.
Segment 4: Joel discovers that his vacu-flowers are sick, and the illness spreads to Gypsy.
Segment 5: As Joel works on Gypsy, he discovers that the illness has spread to Beeper and…himself!
Segment 6: Everybody has recovered from the foam sickness, but Crow has a parting shot.
Some observations:
• The purpose of this video was to convince KTMA’s station manager, a guy named Don O’Connor, that this idea of Joel’s was going to work. I gotta say, as interesting as this is to look at more than a quarter of a century later, I am AMAZED that it accomplished that purpose. Maybe ol’ Don had an eye for talent (though from the stories I’ve heard, that doesn’t sound likely) or maybe Jim just talked him into it.
• You can definitely see Joel’s “Silent Running meets Omega Man” concept at work, but as he says, it’s a little dour.
• The primitive door sequence always gets a laugh from fans the first time they see it.
• It’s interesting that the pilot doesn’t really show Joel riffing. That doesn’t really seem to have been a big part of the concept at this point. It seems like Joel is just sort of watching along with us. It’s much more like a standard “Svengoolie” style movie show in that sense.
• Note somebody fumbling around behind the theater seats as Joel leaves the first time. Not sure what’s going on there. (Some commenters say that’s audience members at the screening.
• The second segment is one you’ve seen if you’ve seen “The MST3K Scrapbook” video tape.
• The “chiropractic helmet,” later known as the “Chiro-Gyro,” would make a return appearance in episode 105- THE CORPSE VANISHES.
• Gypsy is male in this.
• Joel also says there are “25 other robots doing various complicated operations around the ship.” That’s very “Silent Running.”
• I notice that the ubiquitous background nooise — that non-stop engine hum and occasional “plink!” is present even in this. Where did they get it from?
• For the record, Joel comes into the theater by himself the first time, Crow joins him the second time, the third time it’s Joel, Crow and Beeper (who seems to be sitting on Joel’s lap), then Joel, Crow and Gypsy the next time and finally Joel by himself again.
• Joel mentions the “spiral-on-down” which he would mention once or twice more in the regular series.
• Fave riff: “…Speaking of the number 2 position…” At the screening, Joel declares it “The Birth of Movie Riffing!”
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That Joel was able to present this leaves me with the comforting impression that Mallon did go ahead and digitally archive those frail 3/4″ KTMA tapes regardless of whether or not something could ever be done with the content commercially. In fact, considering the fragile media that MST3K was filmed on for all 10/11 of its seasons, it would have been smart for the digital transfer of every episode to have been completed a long time ago, as I suspect may well be the case.
I’m quite surprised Shout! hasn’t yet worked with Mallon to put out a KTMA host segment collection as an extra yet. I do see that happening one day. My preference given the probably unresolvable legal situation with the KTMA episodes as well as my assumption that pristine digital files exist is that they get anonymously “leaked” to Youtube at some point, and the fans ultimately have what they want.
I don’t know what bad mood I was in or something, but I have removed a rather snippy reply I made to a commenter named “PondosCP.” I apologize to him/her for it, and I additionally apologize that it took me four years to do it.
PondosCP asked if I was going to post any comments about the KTMA clips posted at MST3K.com if they were from the missing K01, K02 and K03 episodes. The practical answer, currently, is that there is only one clip on the site right now and even that one won’t play for me. My snippiness may have been a result of my frustration with the state of that site and its glacial updates, I don’t know. Whatever, the simple answer is that there simply is nothing there to look at or talk about.
However, if what’s left of BBI ever actually does post clips from the missing episodes, sure, I probably will post something about it.
On the subject of BBI, I’m incredibly disappointed that Mallon didn’t live up to his promise to continue posting ancient KTMA (non-MST3K stuff included) content on the website as part of his incredibly promising “Memoirs” section. All he had posted was an amazing Kevin Murphy hosted segment called “The Wall” that plays like a proto Daily Show field correspondent sketch. It was a gem and I’m eager to see some of the other material that was generated when Mallon and Murphy were abusing their creative control of a bottom dollar TV studio in the 80s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lujglyYVGZY
I actually liked Beeper. Yes, they made the right choice to replace him, since he couldn’t join the riffing, but I still liked him. Kinda sad they never brought him back for anything. Maybe if the show does get re-started they can bring him back!
Speaking of the show getting re-started, maybe they could kick it off with new versions of all the KTMA movies (except the ones MST3K did later)! How great would that be to have The Green Slime be the first one they do?
Looking back, yes, it is amazing the show got started at all. However, just like Comedy Channel wanting MST3K because it was 2 hours of programming, maybe KTMA saw it in a similar way. It does, after all, stretch the length of some of those movies. Also, it’s hard to judge exactly how someone back then would have seen it. We’ve all seen what the show came to be, and a number of today’s TV writers have admitted to being inspired by MST3K. There really wasn’t anything like it on TV at the time, so maybe KTMA just wanted something new & different.
Most of us have read or heard how Joel developed his “laid back” persona for the series. Supposedly, he was “dead on his feet” the day of filming after he stayed up most of the previous night assembling the first ‘Bots. I wonder, if he been fortunate enough to obtain adequate sleep that particular night, would his performance that fateful day been a bit more lively and would that have altered how he developed his on camera persona?
In other words, would we have gotten a “mellow” Joel regardless of circumstances?
Sincerely,
Bill
Dan in WI @ #98 says: “I find the discussion of what did Dan O’Conner see in the pilot that made him pick up the show fascinating. Here’s my guess. He saw they would be able to deliver a way to fill two hours.”
–
–Seems likely. If I’m not mistaken, that was also a big selling point when MST3k was picked up by The Comedy Channel (later to become Comedy Central). Filling up a 2-hour slot in your schedule must of seemed like a godsend to that just-blooming-cable-television-network.
That thing growing on Joel’s head would have made a good sci-fi movie. “The Thing That Ate Minneapolis”.
Thank God the sign didn’t read “I HATE BEEPER’S NEW VOICE.”
Consider for a moment, what the Proof Of Concept for The Green Slime itself might have looked like when it was being pitched as a motion picture.
Btw, didn’t Harlan Ellison sue MGM because the plot of The Green Slime resembled a ten page note Harlan wrote to a local tropical fish pet shop owner in 1965?
Interesting to see but I agree with Sampo and others that it is amazing the show was given the green light to proceed. Sadly a lot of comedies never get the chance they need these days to succeed. MST took a couple of years to hit its stride and even classic comedies like Seinfeld and Mash didn’t start out well. Networks are far too impatient now.
While no fan copies of the first three KTMA shows are available, I’m glad that the master tapes still exist. I’d hate to think that MSTies would have to be like Whovians and search the world for viable copies of zapped episodes.
in addition to the legal issues related to any possible release of the KTMA episodes, there is another problem. In the ACEG, it is explained that they don’t want to release them, because they are not very good. For this reason, I don.t think the missing episodes will ever see the light of day. I hope I am wrong.
Chad Vader #112> Unless we sent Diabolik into Jim Mallon’s home to find them…
Every attic and basement in Minnesota must be searched! There has to be an old Beta or VHS of the first three KTMA’s somewhere. ;)
@112 The ACEG came out a long time ago. They’ve changed their stance on the first season Comedy Channel shows since then. When Shout releases all the Comedy Central and Sci Fi that they can, what’s left?
Joel could do new intros for the KTMA’s, explaining how they’re a little rough around the edges, and that he’s not responsible for any unusual side effects from watching them. :)
I’m surprised so many people are surprised that O’Connor put MST3K on the air.
This was 1988. The big three networks still ruled the airwaves. Cable was around, but hardly as ubiquitous as it is now. Fox was new and the thought of a 4th network seemed a crazy idea. And in this environment, local unaffiliated channels still were going strong, operating on shoe-string budgets, and desperately trying to find cheap (preferably local) programming.
So here comes Joel, a local comedian who has made something of a national name for himself, with an intriguing concept on an old-standard (The Monster Matinee). He and his colleagues have also done some unique, innovative production/design for the show too. Oh, and the topper, the station already owns the movies (or maybe they didn’t, but they seemed to think that they did) and Joel, Trace, and Josh will do it all for $150 a week (that’s three-hundred 2014 dollars after correcting for inflation). Who says no to that? Especially when you have air time to fill.
That’s an amazing thing about MST3K – it has survived through some ridiculous changes in entertainment and media. Local affiliate, to cable, to DVD-by-mail, to downloadable, to streaming….
Don’t forget tape trading! :)
One of the great paradoxes of modern TV is that despite having more and more channels on TV, there seems to be less content. All you see is the same shows, the same movies, and lots & lots of infomercials.
Back in the 70s (through early 90s) you had a lot more space on TV to fill, and there would be a lot of weird stuff made to fill it. One of my favorite shows was Night Flight. It was aired late at night and it was just basically 4 hours of random stuff – music, shorts, jokes.
@JeremyR (#118)
You remember “Night Flight”? Holy cow, that was a while back.
I agree with your assessment. It does seem like things are lots more of the same things. And I also miss the old days when local TV & radio were truly local.
@112
The whole issue of BBI and the cast being embarrassed by the KTMA episodes is kind of moot considering that 17 out of 21 of them are streaming online and pretty much already consumed by the die-hard audience that’s interested in them academically. I’d have to conclude that it’s purely legalities that keep us from getting high quality versions of those 17 episodes (and any version of the first three).
Pretty cool to see these early videos.
@JeremyR (#118) @ Kenneth Morgan (119)
I totally miss the old UHF and early cable days of Night Flight and local shows. I am noticing some of it make a small comeback on digital sub channels – even a few MST knock offs. I would have also loved to see BBI put out more shows, even if it wasn’t MST related – just to see what else they could have done.
Jason #120> I have to disagree. Legality can’t be the reason these these are or aren’t officially released. See Sampo’s post #57. Whatever the past illegalities of these episodes may or may not be, his argument that the statute of limitations must be up by now makes a lot of sense to me. If Shout! Factory backed up the money truck to purchase the rights of those movies today you have to figure most of the rights holders would take the right offer. Heck I’m no lawyer and am just thinking out loud here, but take a look at movies like the Gameras that were done both at KTMA and in season three. You would think because Shout! already licensed those films it would be perfectly within their rights to issue both versions at this point.
That leaves Jim Mallon as the sole roadblock. Are they out there unofficially? Of course. But for whatever reason he still doesn’t want to release them officially. (I don’t think Joel does either but apparently Jim has the final say at this point on the Best Brains side.)
The only other possibility is that KTMA’s successor might really own some rights to those yet. See post #32. I’m not going to take this Tom’s word as gospel on that. I’m just going to allow it might be true. Someone much smarter than any of us would have to explain the legalities of that claim. If they do still own some rights then obviously Shout! would have to pay off the movie’s rights holder and KTMA’s sucessor making the financials of releasing these much more difficult.
As for the possibilites of ever seeing high quality versions of these… That all depends on how smart Jim Mallon was in his storage methods. All I see here is speculation about how he stored them.
As has been recounted in various interviews over the years, Joel Hodgeson liked constructing “robot” sculptures out of knick-knacks and discarded items. He’s also stated that the Douglas Trumbal film “Silent Running” provided considerable inspiration as he developed the MST3K format. So it seems as though he was “destined” to develop robotic sidekicks.
Still, I occasionally wonder what other choices he (or another person in similar circumstances) might have made.
Somehow, I keep picturing “biological aliens”, Muppet-like hand puppets constructed from soft materials. Their explanation? Rather than Joel, the character, building them to alleviate his loneliness, benevolent creatures visit the station to “learn of the human condition” and stay when they learn of Joel’s plight. Or, maybe like E.T., they’re left behind (accidentally on purpose) by their comrades. Though part of a spacefaring species, they’re not bright enough to engineer a means of escape. (Hey, how many of us could construct a boat to escape an island if we were shipwrecked?)
Obviously, the gags that depend upon Crow and Servo’s mechanized nature would not be applicable, but routines concerning alien biology could replace them. I can imagine Trace and Kevin performing them as they did the ‘Bots, but they could have employed features not readily available for mechanical men. One or both could have been handled like Rowlf or Dr. Honeydew, at least one opertaional hand. If you limit it to one “functional” hand, only a single puppeteer would be needed. one hand to operate the mouth and the other fitted within the “glove”. Or go the “useless” limb route giving them floppy tentacles that can’t handle Earth gravity.
Even the personality dynamics could develop similarly. One sharper witted and ascerbic, the other a bit more “innocent” but both deferential to Joel due to their lack of experience but becoming a tad more caustic by the time Mike arrives.
No, I’m not saying I would have preferred that, just speculating what might have been with someone with a slightly different creative angle.
Sincerely,
Bill
Sorry to spam the boards, Sampo, but since you’ve announced that you won’t be expanding to cover their recent work, i’ll try hosting a blog this summer to discuss some Film Crew/Rifftrax/Cinematic Titanic shows, in an Episode guide-like format.
Anyone interested please stop by!
Enjoy these clips from K01, K02 and K03:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Npx1H61An0&feature=youtu.be
Oh goody, the KTMA era! I’ve been waiting for these episodes to come back around, because there is so much to talk about. (My comments here will be about “season zero” in general, not just K00.)
The KTMA shows are fascinating to look at, because as others have said, you can really see the creative process at work. But even in the unaired pilot, all the main elements are there: the principal characters, the host segments, the movie segments, the inventions, and even a preliminary doorway sequence. True, they all needed further development, and the show also needed the addition of good antagonists (the Mads), but all that this “proof of concept” really had to do was to get those ideas on the screen for the first time and to convince KTMA that it would work as a show. I may be in a minority, but I’m not surprised that it succeeded: there was a lot that Joel got right, and right at the beginning, which really speaks to the value of his original concept for the show.
Thanks to the 25th anniversary last year, the KTMA shows have been getting more attention. I was especially pleased to see the number of KTMA clips that were used in Shout Factory’s “Return to Eden Prairie” documentary. I could identify at least six different episodes that those clips were taken from, and what was interesting is that they all looked substantially better than the widely circulated fan copies. This makes me believe that those shows have already been digitally transferred from the original tapes, and I’m still hopeful that we may even see some of them officially released in some form, perhaps when the obtainable licenses for the remaining cable shows begins to run low. As others have said, the biggest remaining obstacle seems to be the reluctance of Best Brains to re-release their earlier work, but I think that attitude is beginning to change with the passage of time: who would have thought that the previously downplayed Season One would be the first to get a complete release on DVD?
In anticipation of reviewing the KTMA shows again, I recently re-read the very interesting “Remembrances of the KTMA Days” interview that Sampo conducted with Joel, Josh, and Trace. Here is a weekend discussion thread about it, which includes a link back to the original interview:
https://www.mst3kinfo.com/?p=7457
On the one hand, I can totally understand and respect Joel’s present view of the KTMA shows. If you’ve worked hard to develop and refine a creative product, you don’t necessarily want your audience looking back at your earlier attempts and evaluating them by the higher standards that you established later. But on the other hand (and with all due respect and affection for everyone involved), I don’t think they’re giving themselves enough credit for what they accomplished at KTMA. Working with the extremely limited resources they had, they were able to create a show that quickly attracted a VERY enthusiastic fan base, that built a fan club of 1000+ members, and that gave them the experience and the raw material they needed to sell the show to a national cable network. Quite a few of those shows are also just plain fun to watch! It’s true that the older shows have to be appreciated from a different context than the later shows, but they all have their own special moments of brilliance, and to paraphrase Dennis Hopper, sometimes moments are enough.
I think a lot of MSTies dislike the KTMA shows because they try to evaluate them in the same way they do the later shows: how many riffs are there, and how funny are they? Trying to quantify the humor of the KTMA shows in that way is a bit like trying to quantify the humor in “Caddyshack” by reading a transcript of the jokes and analyzing the plot: if you look at it in such a rigidly mechanistic way, it doesn’t hold up especially well. To the extent that “Caddyshack” works as a comedy, it works because it features fantastically funny people who were having fun while they were making it. Because a lot of what went into it was improvised or put together at the last minute, there’s also a quality of spontaneity that adds to the enjoyment. I think the KTMA shows have the same kind of appeal. Granted, nobody thinks that “Caddyshack” is great cinema, and I would agree that the overall quality of MST3K undeniably got better when they started scripting the theater segments. But at the same time, I think a certain kind of intimacy and creative “juice” was squeezed out of the show when every single joke was honed and tightened and delivered with split-second timing. The difference is especially apparent by the time you get to the later Sci-Fi shows: they may be technically superior in every measurable way, but they’re also “colder” in ways that are harder to describe.
What I think I like the most about the KTMA shows, oddly enough, is their inspirational quality. Joel has said in other contexts that one of his hopes was that his creative work would encourage others to be creative in their own way. Looking back at the old KTMA shows and at MST3K’s humble beginnings, knowing in advance what the show later grew into, is creatively inspiring to me: it somehow makes me think that my own (very different) creative work also has a chance to become a catalyst for something bigger. Perhaps that’s one reason I’ve gotten into the habit of playing the KTMA shows in the background as I work. I don’t know if that’s enough of a reason to make Joel and Co. feel any better about the fact that these old shows are still in circulation, but that’s how I see them, and why I’m eager to see them all again.
@102 think nothing of it, Sampo. We’ve all had our bad days, and I’ve certainly posted my share of irritated rants over the years. I love this site, and frequent it every week. What I really like is the openness here, everyone treats each other well.. You don’t get a lot of that online… Anyway, thank you Sampo, for keeping this site up and going, and I look forward to going over the episode guide again over the next few years. And I usually use your links when I pre-order the new box sets, it’s not much, but I do what I can to help.
@126 thank you for digging these up! getting to see about 9 minutes of clips from the missing K01-K03 episodes is perfect after watching the pilot. You get the feeling that K01-K03 were full length episodes done in the vein of the “Silent Running” concept. No wonder they retired these episodes quickly and only replayed K04 and up on KTMA; they have a sightly different take to them. The missing Joel with hair shows! lol And the Chiro-Gyro makes another appearance! My favorite line “I beat you this time!”
Everyone should check out the clips @126, they’re essential! Great timing, ilovemst3kpromos!
another thing I enjoyed, Joel attempting to recreate the spontaneous smacking of Gypsy and it doesn’t quite work!
@127: jaybird3rd, I really appreciate your perspective on the KTMA episodes and am going to watch them this time through with that “inspirational quality” as context. I got a set a little while ago from Cheepnis and started to go through them in order but the Gameras were a lot to slog through alone. I love this show–all of the seasons, especially season 1–but at that time I decided to stop and wait for this episode guide to start over again. Something about the collective endeavor makes the slog more tolerable, and I enjoy reading the little things everyone notices and appreciates. So, thank you for your ideas; I will be keeping them in mind as I give this season another try :-)
@Sampo and pondoscp: What a classy example of good manners and kind attitudes–Pondoscp is right; I appreciate this site for it’s updates and deposit of resources, but it’s the continued practice of goodwill everyone shows each other that makes it really special.
@AFFA 130 ~ “@Sampo and pondoscp: What a classy example of good manners and kind attitudes–Pondoscp is right; I appreciate this site for it’s updates and deposit of resources, but it’s the continued practice of goodwill everyone shows each other that makes it really special.”
Absolutely! I recently left another MST3k group because it degraded to some nasty personal attacks between a handful that flooded the boards for the rest of us. I’ve been reading Satellite News for years but haven’t been active in discussions. Hope to change that. Thank you Sampo & Erhardt for the great community!
such humble beginnings.
I also appreciate the respectful tone of this site. It’s a real oasis of dignity in an internet full of “I hope you get raped by a pack of rabid manatees.” type statements.
I’d never seen any of the Green Slime demo. Interesting to see it’s crude genesis. I like the long hair and the Silent Running (a favorite film of mine) vibe.
Funny thing regarding when I was rereading the old posts. Apparently my brain forgot that the posts I was reading were from about four years back. Because when I got to post #30 and the remark about Gamera being off-limits, I did a double take. Now that Shout is releasing episodes with movies from the major studios, those old comments about off-limit episodes seem increasingly odd.
@ilovemst3kpromos: Thanks very much for posting those K01-K03 clips! I finally had the chance to look at them today. Some I’ve seen before, but others were new to me. I assume these originally came from the “MST3K Scrapbook” tape and/or the “Genesis” clips from the MST3K site. I’m glad to have seen them, but they really left me wishing yet again that we could see these “lost” episodes in their entirety. I’m still hoping that, someday, somebody will find a way to make it happen.
I don’t remember where, but one of the commenters somewhere said that the only reason anyone wants to see these episodes is because they’re presently “off limits”, but for me that’s not the case. The two Supermarionation compilation films, “Invaders from the Deep” and “Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars”, are so different from the usual MST3K fare that they’d be very interesting to see just for that reason. With the exception of these two films and the Gumby short in #912, I can’t think of any other movies or shorts ever featured on MST3K that were not live action, unless you include the brief animated credit sequences in some of the later films.
A few random observations about the first three episodes, based on what we have available in these clips:
K01 seems to have re-used the cute little “vacuum flowers storyline” from the unaired pilot, which makes sense, but I kind of like the original version better. In K01 it seems to have been more rushed, and as pondoscp says, certain spontaneous moments from K00 (like Joel accidentally giving Gypsy a punch in the jaw) didn’t work quite as well when they tried to repeat them deliberately. Now that I’m used to hearing the low-pitched grunts Josh did in K00, Gypsy’s high-pitched shrieking sounds a little strange, and is Josh also performing Crow’s voice in the “Well-Lit Crater” theater clip? If so, I wonder why. I also noticed that Beeper was mentioned by name in K01, so does this mean that the change from Beeper to Servo didn’t happen until K02? It must have been a pretty quick change, since these episodes were originally aired on the same day and were presumably filmed back-to-back. Josh’s voice for Servo in K02 sounds much different from the “Marvin the Martian” voice that he evidently started using in K03, so the creation of Servo’s “persona” apparently involved even more experimentation than I thought.
As for K03, I’m just curious to know what they made of the second half of the “Fugitive Alien” saga without having seen the first half, and whether they were even aware when they picked it that there was a first half. Both “Fugitive Alien” movies are pretty choppy and incoherent even if you watch them in order, but viewed in isolation, “Star Force: Fugitive Alien II” must have been completely incomprehensible. Then again, maybe that was appropriate for K03, since hallucinogenic drugs seems to have been a subject of the host segments!
I really liked the “Nun-Clucks” clip, which seems to have been the opening segment for K03. The “Chiro-Helmet” invention shown here was obviously reused from K00, but I’ll bet that the gun with the “pointing silencer” is the missing half of the Mads’ “stocking mask of the future” invention from #110 (“Robot Holocaust”). In his introduction to that episode for the Shout Factory DVD, Joel mentioned that the pointing gun and the mask with the radio-controlled eyebrows came directly from his stage act, and that he used them together in a “bank robber” sketch. Presumably, either Best Brains or the Comedy Channel didn’t want to show the gun, so Josh just did a “finger gun” when he demonstrated the mask in #110.
Quasimoto @ 122says:
@JeremyR (#118) @ Kenneth Morgan (119)
Not only “Night Flight” but TNT use to show “Weird Theater” late Friday and Saturday nights.
I also miss the “live” programming a lot of the start-up networks did in the 1990s. FX use to have loft programs both live and as introductions to the 20th Century Fox library. Now it is all cookie cutter packages.
In the early 1980s local stations bought movies like the old theaters did in the 50s and 60s. Independent production companies would sell their stuff almost door to door. The stations would attract viewers by limiting commercial breaks to the half hours.
Joel and his idea was on the final slide of independent TV and on the rising cusp of the cable explosion. Timing was perfect.
I am so grateful that these clips of the missing episodes have been shown. Like every other mstie it’s nice to have a little more to “fill in the gaps” for the last remaining episodes. The door sequence is just absolutely awesome to see. It’s surprising that they got such an “elaborate” door sequence for the rest of the KTMA run. Hopefully one day we will see the missing episodes in full.