Significant others. Don’t we love them? And, do they love our obsession with MST3K? My girlfriend of seven years was a MSTie Turkey Day fan in college, but beyond that had been away from the show until we met. She now is the proud owner of her own top 10 episode list (and beyond) and embraces my passion. Her number 1 episode: Angels Revenge.
So, what experiments does your significant other like? Or, are they more obsessed than you, or, not interested?
My wife is hearing impaired, and it’s hard to read a puppet’s lips or read the lips of a guy who has his back to you. So she’s not a crazed fan, but she likes the host segments (especially the Deep 13 segments) and definitely enjoys the ones that are being closed captioned by Shout. She particularly likes The Movie.
What’s your special person think?
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My wife has a difficult time with MST3K, because she tries to follow the “plots” of the movies being shown and attempts to make sense out of things. I explained to her that trying to do so would drive her slowly insane; trying to rationalize Manos, Werewolf, Space Mutiny, Mitchell, and The Final Sacrifice would never work.
She’s gotten better about it.
But her favorite experiment is still Werewolf.
My husband isn’t as obsessed as I am, but he does like Future War, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, and Cave Dwellers. However, he’s willing to sit down and read or play solitaire while I’m watching other eps, and he’ll end up laughing at some of the riffs or watching certain scenes, so it’s a decent compromise. And sometimes he’ll surprise me by unexpectedly saying something like, “Dish of ice cream? Don’t tempt me!” or “Corn, onions….*sigh*…green chilies….”
Aside from adopting “Time for go to bed” as a catch phrase, my wife really doesn’t care much for the show. She doesn’t hate it – just not the way she chooses to spend her time. But since it’s about the only thing I watch (along with football and Mythbusters), we long ago sprang for a two-TV house.
Mine just doesn’t at all like movies older than 1975 or so, meaning she isn’t much for MST3K’s early seasons. But once it gets into the direct to VHS flicks, like the Joe Estevez movies, she is okay with them. Still, she clearly prefers the more recent films that Rifftrax does.
MST3k was one of the things which brought me and my wife together, so a list of all the episodes she enjoys would be relatively comprehensive.
So, some which she likes a little better than I do would be LaserBlast, Devil Fish, and Tormented, while she can’t even stand to watch the Gamera episodes (loves Time of the Apes, though…)
My wife doesn’t dislike MST3K, but it doesn’t hold her attention for very long. Even if she finds the jokes funny, I think the movies turn her off and she’ll find something else to do.The RiffTrax Live events (in the theater, where you are forced to pay attention) are the only times she has really raved about how great the show can be.
Rick points out one reason mst3000 should have subtitles. Another
is to see what’s said when the movie is being talked over by Mike
and the bots. The Movie seemed to work well with both the movie actors
and the guys both with subtitles.
I am a big fan of Mary Jo Pehl’s work (Hi, Mary Jo from Your Fan In Central Texas) but my beloved wife feels that Pearl was “just a little too mean and stuff”. Coincidentally, Jan In the Pan is her occasional nickname around the house since her name is Janet.
Favorite Episode – Jack Frost. Everybody likes Jack Frost.
Least Favorite – Secret Agent Super Dragon.
The insidious ear worm of a theme song got stuck in our collective heads the first time we saw it and it drove her to distraction. Someone would start up with “Doo da doodoo da Doo” and from the other side of the house we’d hear “STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!!!”.
Sigh…. Mr. MSTie is not a fan. The episodes almost never strike him as funny, although we enjoy many, many other movies together and he has a good sense of humor. It’s such a downer to even attempt to watch any MST3K with him that I prefer to watch them alone, now that our kids (who were/are huge fans) have flown the nest.
One time I thought, “Aha! He likes Westerns! Therefore, he will like a MST’ed Western!” Wrong. He sat through “The Last of the Wild Horses” with nary a laugh. He probably thought Mike and the ‘bots ruined a perfectly good Western.
Oddly, he seems to like Rifftrax much better, so maybe it’s the whole Satellite of Love, the robots, the Mads, etc. that bug him. He’s laughed at Sharknado, Sharknado 2, and especially The Guy from Harlem.
My wife also is not a fan per se, but rather seems bemused by it and will shake her head at the screen if I am watching one of the eps.
She has, however, quoted freely from Space Mutiny, particularly from our hero. She often shepards the dogs out of the room (or outside) with “move, move, movemovemove.” She will sometimes call be by M&tB’s aliases for our hero when doing something manly around the house/yard. She also has giggled at “Werewolf” and “Horror of Spider Island.”
Jay #8: Favorite Episode – Jack Frost. Everybody likes Jack Frost.
While it does possess a fairly high approval rating (and it’s one of my favorites as well), Sampo’s Theorem still applies. I Accuse My Parents is probably the only episode that comes close to being universally beloved.
eh, dear husband has chuckled a few times over the years if he happened to be in the room when I was watching, (he still laughs at “Brooks and Dunn finally have it out”, from Werewolf). I kind of insisted that he sit down and watch Space Mutiny with me one night, he watched and said very politely,”well I see why you find this funny”, then he never watched another minute of any episode.
I certainly don’t mind if he doesn’t find it funny, but I can’t help feeling regret over the loss of good times we could have had if he did.
My boyfriend (who is the only person I’ve ever met that I don’t have to explain MST3K to) enjoys “Pod People” (I still don’t know why) and “Werewolf”. It’s easily his favorite episode.
My wife has watched many and enjoyed them, though she doesn’t obsessively re-watch them like yours truly. She gladly participates in the occasional MST night with the whole family, and generally gets all my MST-based wisecracks (‘Watch out for snakes,’ ‘It’ll be dark soon,’ etc.) We’ve both always been big puppetry fans (is that odd?) so she loves a lot of the host segment stuff, and for several years was borderline obsessed with Nummy Muffin Coocol Butter. Okay, fine: WE were borderline obsessed!
My husband likes the show well enough but isn’t fanatical about it; I’m pretty much the one who initiates any and all viewings, for instance. Not sure what his favorite episodes would be, but he tends to favor the shorts and has even joked (?) about finding me a Mr. B Natural outfit.
I ain’t wearin’ it, though. :-P
My guy tends to favor the Mike episodes over the Joel ones. Any episode from either era is fine with me.
I don’t think it because it is Mike rather than Joel, I think it’s because by about season 5 or 6 the truly hit their stride, and really knew their comedy and fans base.
We both adore Lazerblast, The Final Sacrifice, Final Justice, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Space Mutiny, and Jack Frost, just name a few, and quote these ones CONSTANTLY to each other.
I’m a loner with 3 children (4-legged). They all watch a little TV, but my dog Scooter can often watch at length. She likes Trumpy, Lassie, the monkeys at the start of Time of the Apes, anything with small children or wild life in it (Catching Trouble!)
My wife loves, loves, LOVES the big bug/large critter episodes in particular — EARTH VERSUS THE SPIDER, GIANT GILA MONSTER, BEGINNING OF THE END, and DEADLY MANTIS. She also loves THE MOVIE and REVENGE OF THE CREATURE (because the Gill Man was her favourite monster when she was four :))).
Mrs Wolf learned English as a second language, so count me in with the others suggesting some subtitles would help. i think that would be a better way to try to watch episodes together.
She’s never really sat through an episode but i did take her to the Rifftrax Live for The Room, which she did enjoy, strangely enough. She’d seen enough of The Room before to find it amusiing on its own though.
Just married my partner of 14 years – and we danced at the ceremony to “When Loving Lovers Love” – I introduced him to the show not long after we met, and now he’s as much of an enthusiastic MSTie as I am (he’s a huge fan of Gypsy) – there’s still a number of episodes he hasn’t seen yet and I love showing them to him as they get released on DVD.
My girl has been a MSTie longer than I have, but I don’t think she’s seen as many episodes. We really enjoy watching the show together and try to put in time to do that quite often. She really likes Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, but if this were the Newlywed Game or something I’d say her favorite episode is Pod People. She’s more of a Joel fan than a Mike fan, but that isn’t to say she doesn’t like Mike or appreciate the differences in their approach.
My wife enjoys Manos, Bride of the Monster, and Space Mutiny. But Mitchell is her absolute favorite. She will sometimes give me a wry look and say “Word on the street is you’re a jerk.”
I would like to add to my previous post by pointing out that while my wife has her favourite genre(s) of MST3K episodes, she also has incredibly eclectic tastes; off the top of my head I can think of LOST CONTINENT, GODZILLA VERSUS THE SEA MONSTER, MIGHTY JACK, and RADAR SECRET SERVICE as particular favourites of hers.
Additionally, I would like to say that she is particularly adept at choosing alternate stingers. For example, we watched RSS last night, and she has forever thought that “when you’re through with a boyfriend, you’re really through” should be the stinger. I so agree!
This is a great WDT, by the way!
My wife is not a huge fan, although I can usually get her to watch a Mike era show every now and again. Her favorite, far and away, is Boggy Creek II. He also has a thing for The Horrors of Spider Island (which is weird because she’s spider phobic) and Manos (which is weird because she’s not a fan of Joel).
She’s a bigger fan of Rifftrax, and we watch House on Haunted Hill and Night of the Living Dead every October.
My wife loves Mitchel, she simply cannot get enough Joe Don baker jokes…
My bride and I fortunately both love the show, Film Crew, Mike’s solo commentaries, Cinematic Titanic, and Rifftrax! I like to think my huge array of MST episodes is what sealed the deal in getting her to marry me. Well, a fella can dream can’t he?
She enjoys many episodes, but above all the others her absolute favoritest episode is Deathstalker and the Warriors From Hell.
My woman thinks I’m somewhat of an idiot. Of course, she isn’t alone. :P
My hubby had seen some episodes before we met by way of another MSTie – Mitchell, Brain That Couldn’t Die, Red Zone Cuba, and a few others. Since meeting me, though, and my extensive collection, his repetoire has expanded and for the most part loves every episode. Has a special place in his heart for Final Sacrifice. And he loves quoting episodes to make me laugh or he will make me watch an episode when I’m feeling depressed. My favorite is his mimicking Tor Johnson from Beast of Yucca Flats. We have been doing a straight through marathon and he found season 3 hard. But we’re almost to season 5 and he loves it more and more. He is also very much a fan of Forrester and Frank.
Tragic irony that this topic comes up the day after a mood swing brings on a sever bought of loneliness depression. But no matter, my best friends favorite episode is Squirm, but just for the short. She loves Coily.
My wife isn’t a fan of the show, but the first episode my daughter ever saw was Giant Spider Invasion. One of her favorite episodes to this day.
I don’t know if I could love anyone who didn’t love MST3K, but luckily that’s not the case. While she not be *quite* as obsessed as I am over them, my DW “gets” all the jokes and laughs along with me.
We became fans together, but without a doubt the episode that was the tipping point for her (and thus her favorite) was “Fugitive Alien”. When we watched it late one night she couldn’t stop laughing, could barely breathe, and the “Forklift” song became her mantra.
By extension, a lot of her favorites are thus the badly dubbed, foreign films so in addition to the Japanese ones there is also “Danger! Death Ray” (and she hums that song as well — hmmm, perhaps it’s the music :>) and Diabolik. Like me, however, she’s not particularly discriminating though, just loving and enjoying almost every episode throughout the run.
For a while she was also a fan of Rifftrax, but she got disillusioned far quicker than I did — I stuck with them even up until the very latest, “Julie and Jack” (or whatever the heck it was). That was my last RT ever, but long before that she had stopped laughing and was just, well, *indulging* me (although we had fun with the first few RT live shows, we haven’t gone in many years).
Watching and enjoying MST3K with her is a true, genuine pleasure, and we’ve been through the entire seasons twice now and are in our third go-around. I can’t tell you how much it means to have your significant other share that kind of love, and I would hope that those of you who don’t have it currently get it someday.
My wife seems to be LESS of a fan lately, and I’m not sure why. Still, she does have her favorites:
– The Castle of Fu Manchu
– Secret Agent, Super Dragon
– The Gamera movies
– The Screaming Skull
– The Final Sacrifice
I got lucky to find someone who enjoys cheesy movies as much as I do, so when it comes to MST3K we’re in lockstep….except for Time Chasers. It’s his favorite episode, and for me…ughhhhhhhh…altho I do laugh every time at “So ISO9000 certification is a license to kill?”
My wife is one who doesn’t “get it”, unfortunately. Though, like me, Crow (or as she calls him, the gold robot) is her favorite.
But, both my sisters love the show as I do and a good friend watches them with me occasionally. A few years ago, he and I got to meet The Gang at a live Cinematic Titanic. That was awesome!
I’m going to die alone and afraid secure in the knowledge that nobody ever loved me!
you should pet a puppy this instant!
It would appear that most significant others prefer the Sci-Fi era….
Anyone know what is going on at Best Brains Inc? They are having a fire sale. Some Shout sets are as little as 11.25
My wife while not a huge fan of MST3K she will sit in the room with me and watch them with me. Most of the time she is amused by them but every now and then she’ll really like an episode. Mostly the more goofy movies that are silly she tends to enjoy that. We just recently watched Daddy-O and she really enjoyed that. I’d say she probably likes Joel era a bit more because of the father like overtones during that era but she enjoys Mike era and we have been to almost every Rifftrax live. I feel fortunate though because I dated several women that just didn’t get it and were either put off or annoyed by it.
Bob (#20), congratulations! I’ve slowly introduced my partner to Mystery Science Theater, typically through the shorts. While he laughs and seems to take it with good humor, I don’t think he’s really all that into it. Which is okay – I still watch it on my own.
The movies don’t hold my wife’s interest but she does get entertained by the shorts. A Date With Your Family had her laughing out loud. She even wrote about it on Facebook.
I don’t know if my BF has a favorite movie. He liked “Wild World of Batwoman” because the women were barely dressed. We always go to Rifftrax together; I buy the tickets, he buys the refreshments. He’s not as *into* it as I am. But that’s okay.
So few replies on this topic…
do the MSTies not form that many relationships? I’m reminded of TV’s Frank during the U-View invention exchange missing out on a touch football game with Holly Hunter, Debra Winger, and Michelle Pfeiffer because he’s stuck inside watching TV. And of course there’s this exchange from ep. 617:
Bridget: Hi! I’m Bridget and this is my friend Mary Jo. We just moved in upstairs to Deep 12. We’re neighbors!
TV’s Frank: Ahhh! Clay, there are girls here! Actual girls!
Dr. Forrester: [looking through comics panicking] Uh, ah, uh, don’t panic! Um, there must be some instructions on what to do. Somewhere…
Bridget: Well, we’ve introduced ourselves, who are you?
TV’s Frank: I have lots of comic books. I keep them in plastic bags.
Bridget: Oh, yeah, I, heh, heh…
Mary Jo: We haven’t seen the laundry room. Do you know where it is?
Dr. Forrester: [trying, and failing, to remain calm] Are we on a date? ‘Cause it’s okay if we’re on a date. Uh, Frank and I have been on, uh, with Frank, yeah, uh…
TV’s Frank: Babylon 5 was on last night.
Bridget: Um, yeah. I’m sure…
Perhaps a better topic would be how has MST3K interfered with (or prevented) your personal relationships?
My wife has never watched an episode with me. Which is why I have a “man cave” in the basement. She does, however, want to see “Manos”. I think she’s kind of like a deer drawn to the headlines that way.
Thanks for the heads up! I filled in my Shout! collection (Vols. 14 and 15) and threw in a shirt for under $40! I was tempted to pick up The Atomic Brain single, since it has the stinger, and it was REALLY cheap, but I’m holding out for potential Shout! box set re-issues.
also, the Riff of the Day at mst3k.com was Being From Another Planet! Hmm……
My life collaborator, Flatus Fargo, mildly enjoyed watching MST3K. If I was watching, half the time she would join me and snicker a way. Her favorite episode by far is Escape 2000. The “Gino Vanelli” lead, Trash and Toblerone as seventies sex pots captured her attention, especially after Mike riffs “Working on the Sex farm…” when a close up of Trash and his long greasy locks are highlighted. She got a big kick out of that riff.
3 episodes belong on my wife’s all time favorites list:
1) “Manos: The Hands of Fate” – Whenever I stumble downstairs, half asleep from just waking up (she always gets up earlier than me), she mumbles
out the infamous Torgo theme.
2) “Prince of Space” – Our 7 year old son will often go off on a tangent, to which my wife and I will immediately follow up with “Look at the sky,
I like pancakes, ride a bike.”
3) “The Girl in Gold Boots” – I’m an Icky Elf!” – ‘Nuff said.
@38 — Thanks for the heads-up about the sale. Got some goodies for myself and some things to put away as stocking stuffers for the offspring.
@43 — Interesting idea, that perhaps MSTies aren’t the most outgoing when it comes to relationships. I’d venture to say that might be true for a rabid fan group of any cult TV show, though. I’ve never had a ton of friends, but have been married for over 30 years, so I like to think that we go for quality, not quantity. :-D
Every time I watch MST3K, my wife will stop and watch for a few moments and laugh out loud at most of the riffs. She thinks J&tB and M&tB are very funny. Unfortunately she doesn’t “get” the host segments and doesn’t understand why the whole show can’t just be all riffing. However she did say just this morning she’d like to watch an entire episode with me. Since then I’ve been trying to think which episode has some of the best riffing AND host segments that really play up the show’s premise. I’m thinking something from the Mads era – Pearl/Bobo/Observer might be too bizarre for a first viewing. Any ideas?