What about a discussion of everyone’s experiences trying to introduce younger people to MST3K. I had a mortifying experience along those lines recently, and it made me realize just how hard it is for the average millennial to relate to a show like MST3K. Most of these people have grown up being able to pick and choose exactly what they want to watch, and the methods of delivery they usually use (Netflix and other online streaming, Red Box rentals, etc) all heavily favor more recent shows and movies. With a few notable exceptions, most of these people have never seen a complete movie that is more than about ten years old, so the experience of sitting down in front of a creature feature show and watching a bad old movie with your wisecracking friends (which is what MST3K is meant to remind you of) is about as foreign to them as putting a quarter in a Kinetoscope machine. As a result, the genius of MST3K’s humor is almost completely lost on them, not to mention the now-dated references, and the whole experience leaves them completely cold. I’m just curious to know if anyone else has similar stories to share.
I would add what Kevin Murphy has noted a few times: that it seems as if when millennials are presented with a black and white movie, it’s like they’re simply unable to see anything on the screen at all.
Of course there are exceptions, and I would assume that any millennial who visits this site is a good example of one. But have you noticed this kind of attitude in your cohorts?
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I remember a while back while MST3K was on Sci-Fi, that I said in a chat group that I thought of MST3K as a “kids” show (meaning college kids) but I noticed a lot of the humor was from my generation (I’m now 53). Well, this got a backlash of anger from the 20 somethings and I clarified to say I meant “college kids.” They further disagreed and then I put some riffs to them like “by this time, my lungs were aching for air” or “I think it was a bad idea for the army to recruit Keith Moon.” They finally had to concede they had no idea what those riffs meant and I had to explain them.
Not exactly millenials, these “kids” would all now be in their 30s/40s. However, it illustrates the generational gap of making the younger set understand MST3K.
A piece of advice. If you want to introduce MST3K to younger people, I think your best bet is to choose a SciFi Channel episode, for two reasons.
1. There were less obscure references during that period.
2. Way more low-brow jokes, which younger people seem to like.
Coming from someone born in 1980 and not really getting into the show until the Sci-Fi era, I find the dated references to be one of the biggest challenges. Often I’ll only get a joke YEARS later, when watching an influential film or reading about a particular TV program – most of the television shows referenced are not yet on DVD. As an avowed fan, this only makes me appreciate the show even more, since I tend to get something new when re-watching episodes.
I’ve only made two major attempts to win over folks who have never heard of the show, and both fizzled. Age, background, education, etc.; I think Joel was correct when he said, “The right people will get it.” The best advice has already been said: Start with a short, and keep it colorful when moving on to a full length film. “Beast of Yucca Flats” is my pick for a great starter ep, with two shorts and an insane Coleman Francis flick, each segment just long enough to capture short attention spans.
I have three sons, 24, 23 and 16 and only my oldest would I call a true fan, but he is a big fan of 60’s and 70’s rock so any music reference he will get and he is also a big trivia nut so I think that helps too. The youngest is a big Star Wars fan and he has watched a little Rifftrax of them, but I do agree all prefer color over black and white.
As a retired teacher I can say that it usually boils down to this:
ATTENTION SPAN, ATTENTION SPAN, ATTENTION SPAN!!!
A two hour show (with commercials) with Millenials is like asking them to read War and Peace.
Deep, Heartfelt Sigh.
I’ve had a difficult time introducing MST3K to MOST of my friends and relatives. The older ones, while aware of many of the references, simply think the concept is silly. The younger ones, mentioned above, simply don’t have the patience to deal with the show.
I am EXTREMELY happy about the exceptions, and it almost makes up for the blank stares I usually get when I show an episode.
What a good discussion. I feel very fortunate in that, while I’m an old fart myself, I raised my kids to appreciate unusual humor, satire, parody, and especially MST3K. I’ve posted here on Satellite News before that one of my nicest memories (how nerdy am I ?!?) of my kids’ childhood is lazy Saturday mornings watching MST3K with them on TV while their Dad was in the kitchen making his specialty pancakes. Good times.
My boys are now in their early 30s and still love MST, Rifftrax, etc. They like old movies & music, and trivia in general. They both have significant others who also love all those things.
It’s not just my kids. At my volunteer job I’ve befriended some guys about my sons’ age and they GET IT. To the point that as we’re walking back and forth, we shout out random riffs to each other, then laugh uproariously. I sometimes to go to Rifftrax showings with one of them, since my husband’s not big on those.
So despair not, fellow Baby Boomers. Millennials are not hopeless. It just takes a special sense of humor.
My kids just turned 17 and 19 and they’ve pretty much grown up with MST, so maybe that’s different from a situation where you’re “introducing” it to someone their age. That said, they still laugh hard when I introduce them to new episodes because ultimately I think it’s a minority of the riffs in most shows that are dated, and things like Natalie’s accent in ‘Werewolf’ and Kalgon’s laugh in ‘Space Mutiny’ are funny with or without riffs. More importantly, I think my kids enjoy and appreciate the concept of MST because they recognize it as the originator of a lot of other things they watch and enjoy today: wise-ass narration and snarky commentary is fairly commonplace in a lot of Millennial-aimed entertainment, and I think a fair number of them (like my kids) probably realize they have MST to thank for that.
my message: Look kid, this was the best, THE BEST, show on TV EVER. but, as it is close to two hours long, requires intelligence and a wicked sense of humor to grasp, does not include gratuitous sex, random, over the top violence and monosyllabic lines espoused to very poor quality rap music** you won’t understand it. so sit down junyah!
**yes the use of quality and rap music in the same context is the greatest of oxymoron.
Let me add another possible factor: whether or not the millenial in question is a “lifelong learner.” Those are folks who are interested in a wide field of topics and pursue that knowledge outside the classroom. They go get it on their own. I get (most of) the midcentury references because it’s a period of personal interest for me. And there are still references I don’t get, mainly to old ad campaigns. That’s where the Annotated MST really helps.
So if the hypothetical millenial that we’re trying to bring into MSTiedom doesn’t have an interest beyond anything that happened in his or her lifetime, the show would seem quite foreign and its humor might be indecipherable. I think the “ideal” viewer, to the extent that one might exist, either lived through the midcentury era or has a natural curiosity about it. Same goes for literature, music, art or history. The knowledge base helps, because without it the riffs may seem like endless non-sequiturs.
First of all, let’s remember this show wasn’t exactly mainstream even back in the 90’s. I’ve always had trouble getting people of ANY age interested in MST3K. It’s not just a problem with millenials. As far as certain young people not wanting to watch old stuff, that’s partially due to an unfortunate side effect of living in a consumer based society. In order to make sure people continue to buy things, the culture has largely convinced people that new ALWAYS equals good. Of course the flip side of that is old equals bad, so that means there’s little regard for history unless there’s some way to sell it to you, like through nostalgia. Another thing to consider is that people of any age have to be exposed to something in order to like it in the first place. Millenials and future generations won’t have the opportunity to be exposed to it the same way you were. Classic TV and movies can get lost among the considerably wide variety of choices at their fingertips. If we want MST3K and other “old stuff” to live on through others so they get references, we have to keep making sure all that stuff is preserved and can still circulate to them somehow. Otherwise it’s all just pictures in our head. The good news is that even though this stuff won’t be considered mainstream, there are a few young historians (and MSTies) being born all the time so it’s unlikely that it’ll ever go away completely.
This is a great point! My kids fall into this category and “get” a lot of supposedly dated jokes, but so do most of their friends. Many of them have a far broader frame of reference than you might think. Another example: my daughter is a singer and whenever I go to an open-mike event with her, for as many kids her age (17) who get up on stage and cover Taylor Swift or Sia, there are just as many covering Dylan, Patsy Cline, even Sinatra. And the fact is, they’re learning about these guys through the internet – just like I, as a kid, became a fan of Cagney, Jackie Gleason, Buddy Holly and a lot of other people who pre-dated me by spending too much time in front of “that damn TV!”
These threads are usually so much fun, but I find this one very depressing. I don’t have much contact with millenials, but if they don’t have the attention span or horizon to watch older movies and references then I say “screw ’em!”. Go text your electronic “friends” or watch the latest superhero McMovie, and get offa my lawn.
Another side journey to this thread would be — did we baby boomer MST3K fans like esoteric old stuff when we were younger, things that other kids our age didn’t get and found boring? I did. The Marx Brothers, Bogart, Buster Keaton, music from the ’30s and ’40s, etc. I think that kind of mindset lends one to enjoy MST.
And let’s not forget the Millennials that swarm conventions like ComiCon, PAX, and so on, and like Rifftrax-type things. Really, it’s not hopeless!
I was born in 1980 too and I watched the full Sci-fi era of the show. Our cable company added Comedy Central a bit too late and I only saw the remnants of MST3K on that channel. I think not getting every reference the first time around makes the show rewatchable to me. I was already something of a sci-fi nerd, so I was naturally drawn to MST3k. It’s possible that younger people of a similar thinking might get into MST3K. I would pick any episodes that have movies in color just to be safe. I wouldn’t role out them just being interested in seeing something different either.
Before I make my own comments, I’d like someone to clarify what exactly constitutes a millennial, as I’ve always been a bit vague regarding these generational labels.
I am a millennial, and MST3K is my absolute favorite show. I will say that my friends have taken more to Rifftrax than to MST3K, mostly do to the previously mentioned dated references. They liked the episodes with more timeless jokes, but some people (not just millennials) don’t like a comedy show if they don’t get/laugh at every single joke. Not to mention, the feature length. However, they loved the Rifftrax movies and live shows, and we’ve already made plans to go see Miami Connection.
I was born in 1987 and I grew up with the show. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t part of my life. I also grew up with the old Godzilla movies, Looney Tunes, Universal monster movies from the 30s and 40s, the William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy Star Trek and science fiction movies like Forbidden Planet and the Kevin McCarthy Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I like plenty of contemporary pop culture too, but I guess what I’m saying is that I was never not exposed to older material, so to me it’s rather alien to think of it as lesser or not as interesting as work made during my lifetime. For what it’s worth, when I went to college (a decade ago to the month, believe it or not) I took a number of MST3K DVDs with me and watched more than a few of them with my roommates and friends during my freshman year. I vividly remember “Werewolf” being a hit, which may not be surprising considering it was a more recent movie and episodes, but I also had a good time with friends watching everything from “Manos the Hands of Fate” to “The Creeping Terror”, though it was during that last one that one person in the room, a guy who lived in our dorm who I didn’t know well, got up and left while muttering something about this being too weird for him. He did seem to be the exception though. The shorts discs were particularly helpful because the hardest part at times was getting people to commit to a full 90 minutes of anything.
In my junior year I turned my roommate onto the show and ended up watching an episode or two a week for the whole year, he really got into the show. Though he was younger than me, he was really into 80s music, so he got a *lot* of the references to bands I simply had never heard of before. Believe it or not I had no idea who Rick Astley was before he laughed at a joke in The Brute Man and explained it to me.
So I’ve never had any trouble getting people my age into the show, at least.
This message comes from the azure spokes radiating from the floating magnetic eye within the Bermuda Triangle…
…pink sand clinging to my seven thousand-year-old ankles…
(seriously)
I don’t proselytize. It rarely works and is a waste of valuable time. Generally speaking, if they want it, they will come get it. Both young and old.
And if they do not, their loss. Those are all going to hell. So to speak.
Sorry. A bit Calvinistic, I know. But a price will, ultimately, be paid, and they deserve what they get as well as “what they don’t get.”
~However~, “were” I to attempt such conversion maneuvers, it would be GUERRE À
OUTRANCE, beginning with fastening them to a suspended immersion recliner typically reserved for isolation states, then administering a drop of LSD before exposing them to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Because, to convert the resistant, one must establish a firm base soil for what is to be planted and to release the flesh-encapsulated egos from the current matrix while providing a framework from which one can organically spread… amoeba-like… unto the Upanishads, Seahunt, and beyond.
(I hear the murmurings of my peers even now… “Beyond even Seahunt!? What’s this strange blasphemy? Shades of Aleister Crappie…”)
I’m afraid most “young” individuals are not open-minded enough to ride MST3K … which is ironic, as calcification is usually associated with the old and the diseased… Perhaps the first generation to “act like old grumps.”
In any event, “they” are too busy – texting , snap chatting, spotifying, vine-posting, selfie flagellating, youtubing, all while pursuing a vacuous existence on asocial media – for me to lure any of them into my orbit in the first place, were I to attempt.
Were I to even minutely desire my orbit infused with such hipster space junk.
It’s not a generation gap. It’s an intelligence chasm – the horrific byproduct of over consumption and lazy “apps for everything” thinking.
There is no ~rebel spark~!
“Thinking HURTS” seems to be their credo, with the informative subscript “don’t have the time.” Citizen Kane is but Citizen Pain in their dim, cataract ridden eyes.
As I said.
~Their~ LOSS. You cannot save the world.
Now. Whose up for a sweaty game of digital Stratego and some kit-bashing puppet building while discussing electron tunneling based Random Event Generators? Raise your hand/caliper claw!
(If, even after reading the above, one (c)remains hellbent on bringing in new blood… no matter their age, I suggest starting with Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.
It seems to hurt their heads less and provides the requisite “color” to those who need it.
But I believe it is beyond pointless…)
…. Okee Dokee Loki. It’s back to the liquid triangle for me. I will live seven thousand more years and dance forever in the Acropolis as a young god wearing a rubber bat mask… see you there. But you have to want it.
What is a millennial (millenial?). For me it is anyone who came of age in the Age of the Internet. Like Joel, electronic entertainment in my childhood was three channels of television that was made up mostly of reruns, cheesy old movies, and commercials for cigarettes, booze, and household cleaning products. When Joel created Mystery Science Theater 3000 he channeled my childhood! Naturally, I get the show. For younger people watching MST3K must be a bit like watching Shakespeare. One can appreciate the plot and the emotion, but the subtleties require translation from a past time. “‘Tis pity ’tis true…”.
Born in 85. My first MST3K experience came in 93 with The Magical Voyage of Sinbad. Almost all the riff flew over my head but, I thought the show was still interesting. Fast forward a year later and my cable provider dropped Comedy Central and my family never got Sci-Fi Channel. So in 2000 when I was fourteen I got a paper rout and with some extra Christmas cash I picked up “Cave Dwellers” on VHS at a Sam Goody and I watched the hell out of it, busting my gut with laughter.
Specifically, millennials are anybody born between 1982 and 2004, or at least that’s what the internet tells me.
I was born in 1980, so I guess that makes me a late Generation X person, which is fine I guess, as I definitely do not belong in the millennial club, even if I never identified with the Gen X crowd (labels are dumb, but whatever). I got into MST during the show’s 6th season and was instantly hooked. As a kid, I was into old TV show reruns and old black and white science fiction films were becoming a favorite of mine, so discovering MST was a revelation and hit me in just the right spot.
As far as introducing current young people to MST3k, I have not personally tried, not really. In general I find introducing the show to ANYONE to be a bit of a challenge.
MST3k fans need to like and understand references to:
old B movies
old A movies
old TV shows
old music
old commercials
creature feature hosts
politics
literature
cultural events
history
geography
puns
and not to mention, they need an attention span to watch a 90+ min episode of a television show.
So, MST fans are a special breed, making a new fan is somewhat of a challenge, not impossible, but it does take a certain type to get into it. I would guess with modern audiences, Rifftrax would be a good entry point, watch them make fun of a modern movie, and if that is approved of, and IF the individual is open to older, weirder, more obscure movies, then maybe you could move on to Sci-Fi era MST3k, which seems more palatable to the majority of newbies.
A question I’ve been wondering: as time marches on, and the references on MST get more and more dated, will the show be able to find new audiences and make new fans? Time will tell….
if it didn’t happen on facebook, twitter, or youtube (will also include myspace) the kids today wont get it.
Piggy-backing on posts above (hey Batheaded God, didn’t I see you at the club featured in the “The Rebel Set? Like, wow man…anyway…
1. I have noted that many people born in the period (roughly) 1990 to the present) do not like/want to view black and white movies or television shows, no matter the quality. Another stumbling block is the relative primitivism of special effects and makeup of movies and TV pre-1980, whether in color or not.
2. No matter the generational cohort individuals are members of, I agree with the poster who mentioned Joel’s axiom “the right people will get it”. I have tried watching MST3K, for about the past 20 years, with persons older than I, and younger than I. The vast majority tune out the show, leave the room to do something else, and/or ask me if I am watching one of my weird shows again.
3. In comparative terms, throughout my life I have noted a gender difference regarding The Three Stooges”: Most boys and men like it, while most girls and women do not like it.
These are a few observations based on my experiences. When all is said and done, none of it matters. I love Led Zeppelin, I love MST3k, and I really don’t care if others do not.
1980 Club, baby! *High Five*
Thanks, Sampo! I’m honored to join the ranks of your “alert readers!” :-))
Let me share a few more details of this event, to put it in context. It happened in late July during an informal gathering of family and friends. There were about a half-dozen kids around, ranging in age from about ten to fourteen, most of them toward the older end of that spectrum. Their normal viewing habits consist almost exclusively of relatively recent fare: police procedural comedy-dramas or medical procedural comedy-dramas (shows like “House,” “Bones,” and probably other similar shows with one-word titles), and movies like the critically acclaimed “Grown Ups 2” during family nights.
Anyway, on this particular evening, there was a lull in the entertainment–whatever they were watching had ended, and nobody was about to start anything else–so I decided to conduct an experiment. I agree that proselytizing usually doesn’t work, so I thought I’d take the opposite approach and just play an episode of MST3K, without any introduction or comment from me, to see what would happen. I tried to pick an episode that (1) is a widely-enjoyed classic, not one of the more “difficult” MST3K films, and that (2) would be accessible to children, which meant no black-and-white movies or dubbed foreign movies. Some of the kids had recently had some sort of “Christmas in July” party, so I picked “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”
Some of the adults had seen MST3K before because they had watched it with me, but most of the kids had never seen it. If they had a question for me, I’d answer it, but I didn’t volunteer any other information. One of the younger kids felt sorry for Joel because he was trapped in space, and I had to explain that Joel really doesn’t mind because the robots are his friends. The older kids watched for a while, began to peter out after the first thirty minutes, and pretty much lost interest within the first hour. Their comments ranged from “So what’s the point of this show again?” to “Why is this movie so weird?” to “It looks so bad, I can’t even see it!” (I was playing the DVD from Rhino’s “MST3K Essentials” collection, not a fuzzy fan copy, and there wasn’t anything wrong with the TV). The only titters of laughter I can remember came from Crow’s “I had Jell-O today!” riff.
So, yeah, pretty humbling event, and I think it would have been about the same no matter what episode I picked.
Remember when the Warner guys took over Rhino, and boxsets 4 & 5 were all Sci-Fi episodes? We asked where the CC episodes were, and their response was essentially “…There was another series??”
That’s the first obstacle. SciFi/M&tB fans aren’t exactly subtle about historical revisionism, and any in-fighting among the Brains at the time didn’t help matters much.
The other obstacle is getting them to watch any other episodes after that–The CC series first caught on because it was the smart-person’s comedy show, coming in at 1989 right after the silly intellectual humor of Garry Shandling’s sitcom, 80’s David Letterman, and Dennis Miller on SNL.
Like you say, the SciFi/M&tB/RT jokes tend to be….easier, more lowbrow, and more channeling the adolescent urge to “beat up” on its targets personally rather than trade witty remarks about something strange. Which is why it tends to create such rockstar loyalty, and parroting of “loyal member” catchphrases and running jokes–Like t-shirt metalheads in your old high school class, the fans would rather belong to the fandom, than appreciate why they became fans of the show in the first place.
For all of M&tB’s jokes about Adam Sandler being a blight on Western civilzation, the humor has started to wander into Happy Madison territory itself, corny 80’s-ref jokes included, and attracts the same kind of cult fans who want to “live” the comics’ angry bully-manchild persona rather than laugh at their material. If that’s what you want…
If you’re worried that nobody will get Time-Life or Sally Struthers jokes, try picking a movie that’s just neutrally strange enough to begin with, to keep the idea of the movie’s strangeness being the star of the show: It’s hard NOT to laugh, or at least stare jawdropped, at something as neutral as the Sinbad/Froze fairytale movies, or Ator, or Batwoman. (Or the the Eye Creatures, if you want to sell the “Cheesy drive-in monsters” vibe.)
Even the Movie had to introduce itself to an audience that had probably never seen the show at all, had to pick something out of Universal’s vault, and needed something with “50’s flying saucers” in it to sell the concept, and This Island Earth was made to order.
(Me, I had to introduce the next generation cold, and while they didn’t get all the 90’s refs out of Sinbad, Robot Monster and Santa/Martians, they at least got the concept.)
My nine-year old son and twin six-year old daughters have seen several episodes due to their father’s tyrannical control over the living room television. Every once in a while, they stick with it, but usually they tune it out and seek out their own programming on tablets.
They also watch a sometimes funny cartoon called Teen Titans Go!, among others. Once, this show had an episode where the characters went crazy over waffles. I was so excited to show them where that running gag originally came from that I found the host segments on YouTube and showed them. They were more puzzled than amused. Since then, I’ve steered them to watch Steven Universe, since Joel is a part of it.
My son has really enjoyed going to Rifftrax Live!, on the two occasions that I’ve deemed him to be mature enough for the film being shown. (Santa Claus & Goshzilla) His best friend loved Goshzilla too.
Lots of old pop culture on YouTube. I even discovered (really looked for) the original British version of All in the Family on there, “Till Death Us Do Part”.
I was born at the end of 1961, and I was a big fan of Laurel & Hardy and the Three Stooges even though those are from the 1920s-40s. I even loved the 1930s-ness of them (or the Hollywood equivalent). Plus reruns of old TV. For me, old was fine. Still a different time, though.
A very few years ago I was at my sister’s, and was pleasantly surprised that she put on an episode of MST3K on their X-Box Netflix (Zombie Nightmare) for me to watch. I already knew my closer relatives roughly my age and older thought of MST3K as “stupid”, which is why I was surprised. Early on, my brother-in-law and older nephews watched it with me. Although they didn’t stay through the whole thing, they laughed rather heartily at a lot of the riffing and comedy. My nephews are all Millenials by the definition above, 1982-2004 (1994, ’95, 2000, and 2001). I’m not sure if they’ve watched it since, though. But it can be enjoyed.
Admittedly, the length of the show/movies could be a stretch for me, too, even as an instant MSTie in 1991. Hell, it always seems like forever since the storyline including Dr. F and TV’s Frank started by its reprise at the end of an episode – but not in a bad way. The effect is somewhat epic, really.
When the United States entered WWII many of the Great War veterans, along with a number of older people in general, felt that the young generation of the day would’nt have the toughness, the heart, or the fortitude to defeat Hitler’s Germany. They were pampered and had many new fangled gadgets and advantages that the previous generation did’t have.
We know that the youngsters had the heart and soul to do what needed to be done. They just needed the circumstances to give them the opportunity.
MST, like bloody warfare, is in the Millennials.
We just need the right circumstances.
Think about it, won’t you?
I have to agree with most of the comments here – It seems to be less an age issue as an appreciation of bad movies with commentary that has references you may or may not fully understand.
Most of my friends who are my age(40-55) are not fans of MST3K or Rifftrax. A quote from one of my friends, “I can’t hear what they’re (the actors in the movie) saying with them talking over them.” :struggle:
But I introduced it to my nephews and nieces (all millennials) when they were young and at least 2 of the 5 of them appreciate both MST3K and Rifftrax. Of course, the 2 who do appreciate it have a father who I also got to appreciate them, so on snowy days they would sit down and watch several in a row.
So I say, introduce it to anyone you think might appreciate it – and some who may not – and let them decide for themselves. :)
The Jam Handy and Castle shorts just write themselves–You may never have lived though bad drive-in movies, but EVERYONE has suffered through bad educational films, and the narration plays itself so straight, that’s half the joke setup right there. (With or without the Millenials’ idea of “Oh yeah, they all had to watch Duck & Cover films in class back then..”)
I don’t think anyone will have trouble finding the humor of “Alphabet Antics” or “Speech: Using your Voice”, regardless of age.
would add this (words from Mr Natural)
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/442478732109247647/
I was born in 1987, and I grew up with MST3K. It’s not something my parents were crazy about; they were and are still fans, and crack up on most viewings (though with my father, especially, he finds many of the movies so boring he can’t sit through them even with riffing and often falls asleep) but it was mostly of my own volition that I got into the show. My parents were fond of Comedy Central and it is likely through them I happened to first see it, but my passion for it was something my parents don’t share to quite the same extent. I found the puppets really appealing as a kid, and I found their commenting on movies hilarious, even though I didn’t actually understand almost any of the jokes. I have a distinct memory of watching it during that era and seeing an episode that featured a shot of lane lines on a highway and one of the bots, Crow I believe, saying “Don’t stare at the lines, honey, you’ll get sick!” Jokes like that, at least, were hilarious even to a 5 year old.
I remember asking my parents why the guy watched the movies and, looking back, I see how little they actually paid attention to the premise, even the theme song, as they told me that he was an astronaut working for the scientists and they sent him movies to keep him entertained while he worked in space.
We lost Comedy Central in the mid-90’s and MST3K became a fond childhood memory for many years. I rediscovered it in high school in the mid-2000s, about ten years later, when I found VHS copies of Manos and Pod People for rent at a local video store. It was the first time I learned that the show had gone on without Joel as host, and that it had switched networks.
But I’m rambling. The reason I mention all of this is to back up what others have pointed out: it’s not just millennials who might have a hard time appreciating MST3K. My parents were born in the ’50s and ’60s, they get way more of the jokes than I do, and they lived through the era of local horror show hosts presenting creature features. The closest I got to that kind of local TV influence and aesthetic was a guy named Mr. Cartoon who showed old Looney Toons and played games in front of a live studio audience of kids.
And yet of the three of us, I’m way more passionate about the show. My parents, especially my father, are more likely than me to find an old movie boring and lose interest, even with riffing.
The one difference I can attest to, in my case at least, is movie era preference. My parents strongly prefer ’50s era black and white movies, while I tend to like the ’80s and ’90s stuff. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the episodes featuring older movies, but they’re not often my first choice. But I’m perfectly capable of enjoying a black and white movie if it’s well made. It’s just that a lot of the older MST3K movies are very obviously churned-out studio system products, often so similar that I can’t remember which was which. There are exceptions, Coleman Francis for instance. The ’80s and ’90s ones, while also products of their era, are a bit less cookie-cutter, though no less inept.
For me, ultimately, the enjoyment of a MST3K movie experience is a combination of the riffs and the uniqueness of the movie itself, whatever the era.
Then again, I don’t know how great a representative I am of the millennial generation. I don’t have many younger friends, and even in my school days I remember a lot of kids claiming they couldn’t watch black and white movies because they’re inherently boring somehow. Que sera, sera, I guess.
I honestly don’t recall that. When Volumes 4 & 5 came out, i actually remember someone from Rhino (Jordan Fields?) actively letting fans know that they still intended on releasing Comedy Central episodes, it’s just they wanted to focus on Sci Fi Channel-era episodes for a bit.
If someone asked that question about “another series”, I’d wager that was from a Rhino employee that wasn’t too familiar with the source material.
So many interesting responses to a fascinating WDT, although I’m definitely with #31 (let them decide for themselves).
For whatever it’s worth, I am a fifty-one year old English professor, and I spend most of my time teaching canonical English literature to individuals between the ages of 18-25 (with a welcome and interesting mix of non-traditional students thrown in the mix), and while I always feel like it’s an uphill battle (literally with every passing day, because I am feeling my age), I am more often than not delighted with my students’ desire to open their minds (and hearts) to stuff they normally wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot barge-pole. Of course, some are bored, but the vast majority come to see that John Keats really WAS cool (and that he was a hell of a poet, too:))).
Also for whatever it’s worth, I quoted a favourite riff in class only yesterday (prefacing it by saying that MST3K is my favourite show), and SEVERAL of my (fresh-out-of-high-school) students blurted out, “its my favourite show, too!” It was a lovely moment.
sadly enough, you’d probably have a better shot introducing them with a Sci-Fi era (something I would never do), but….
thankfully everyone’s different, even millennials! I work with basically the 20 year younger version of myself, and he’s all about the Joel era. He’s in his early 20’s, and he loves Cabinet of Dr. Caligari! There is hope….
I also had success with a millennial I dated a few years ago, and Pod People and Cave Dwellers went down easy! Hey, Bronies love horses and that was enough hook her in Cave Dwellers! Twilight Rifftrax went down perfect!
So, it can be done. Millennials will respond to the program, no different than any one else. You just got to find the right episode, also like any one else.
y’know, i’m kind of running an “experiment” along these lines this weekend/next week… youngling padawan at work who is a sharp/bright lad, who claims to not watch anything made before 2k, and yet there’s a number of movies/tv shows/music i’ve found he’s tuned into that break that rule. he’s “aware;” he just doesn’t seem to know it yet… so with the recent “mr. b natural” vibe going on frontpage, that seemed a natural introduction – i wrote down “319-mr. b” on a scrap of paper, and we’ll see if it takes.
That’s not Mr. Natural! Where’s his note-spangled suit and perky Peter Pan cap? :)
I guess I am a Millennial, although I hate that term because of its connotations. I only started watching MST3K about 8 years ago, but I was well aware of the concept of adding new dialogue to old footage through stuff like MXC and the “film dub” game on Whose Line Is It Anyway. So MST3K’s concept wasn’t a stretch for me at all. More than that though, ever since I knew that some of these old B-movies were out there I wanted to see some of them just to amuse myself with its campiness. MST3K was a way for me to do that in a way that was actually a lot of fun. (Plus I think it helps you into thinking more like a critic. More important than teaching you the difference between a good movie and a bad movie, it teaches you the difference between a good one and a great one.)
My sister and nephew watched some with me before. I can’t remember which episodes, but she did laugh and joined me for a few more. She loses interest in things quickly though.
A few years later my niece, she was about 13. We watched Alien from LA and she loved it. I made her a copy of a tape. I’d thought of getting her a DVD but I think she’s moved on. Had 2 kids, and on her second hubby. Time marches… But I’ll be she still remembers the line “she pooted!” because we laughed at that, and quoted that for years. I think of her every time I watch the episodes.
Now I had nothing to do with it, but I found that my mother had been watching sometimes. I think she was catching the hour versions off and on. We never watched any together.
I haven’t tried to introduce MST to those much younger than me, but I’m with fatbarkeep. Riffing movies is in the next generations. They might not do the MST “sit through (almost) the whole movie” way, but riffing is there.
There’s a couple popular YouTube series, Honest Trailers and Cinema Sins. Both use a single disembodied narrator snarking on clips from recent movies. Of the two, Honest Trailers is more apt to use outside pop culture references, if relatively recent ones. Mostly referencing an actor’s other roles in the “Starring . . .” portion of their mock supersized trailer. Cinema Sins concentrates on plot holes and overused tropes.
If your millennial friends are into either or both of these series, that could be your way in.
I agree that part of the problem is the increasingly dated references. I was born in the mid 70’s, too young to get a lot of the refs, but fan enough of bad movies to find it enjoyable.
I realized I like Robot Chicken because Seth Green and his friends are about my age, and they have a wealth of 80’s refs to play around with, most of which I recognize. Joel and company were similarly operating out of their cohorts’ mindset with many references from and for their age group.
Joel and company looovvveee Firesign Theater and drop refs often, but I have zero experience with it. On the other hand, there are properties currently being worked on that fit the “obscure work with small but rabid and loyal fans” niche that MST has and will form the basis of future riffers’ own obscure references.
(I am sooo waiting to catch a Welcome to Night Vale ref sometime!)
At the other end of the spectrum, the most obscure riff that I got is probably the one about poor Livingston Taylor single handedly killing the folk revival.
I think the best hook to introduce MST to the younger set is about the movie, genre or quality or maybe an actor in it. Or you go figure out what their version of riffing is and then you can go show them how MST, Cinematic Titanic, and RiffTrax all helped codify much of that style.
As others have quoted Joel saying, “the right people will get it”, and that’s true regardless of age.
Weird & bad old movies can be found on on YouTube and Netflix, to name just two, so it’s not like people who only get their video entertainment online can’t find these things. And there are a number of spiritual successors to MST3K thriving online, such as Retsupurae, which does MST3K-style commentary over mostly video game footage (and sometimes bad Kickstarter video pitches). So, the idea of adding jokey commentary to something else isn’t a foreign concept for online audiences – some of whom might be interested to learn more about the original TV show which popularized the concept.
For me, even when I didn’t get the older references in MST3K episodes, there was still enough going on to keep me entertained. One example would be the “Chief?” “McCloud!” gag they ran into the ground during Pod People – I had no memory of seeing the show they were referencing, but it didn’t matter because they made it funny on its own. (And, as Pemmican noted in post #3, it’s been rewarding to stumble across the source of some of those references years later, enhancing my enjoyment of those episodes over time.)
And while there are still apparently some bitter MSTies pointlessly keeping the old factionalism alive (I’m looking at you, EricJ, post #27 – repeat to yourself, “it’s just a show…”), the differing styles of humor from the different eras *do* provide opportunities to appeal to people with different sensibilities. Myself, I started out preferring the Mike & Sci-Fi era stuff, but over time I’ve also grown to greatly enjoy the Joel & Comedy Central stuff. So, introducing someone to episodes from one era doesn’t preclude them from one day growing to enjoy the others as well.
As others have recommended, start small when introducing the show to anyone. Myself, I wouldn’t even start with a whole short – there are plenty of small snippets and excerpts uploaded to YouTube, so I’d say start by sharing one or two really good ones. Give them a taste of the show, and let them become curious to see more on their own. The right people will get it.
My kid is 5 so his generation doesn’t even have a name yet. I’m guessing it will Flappers 2. But the premise that the method kids watch media nowadays favors recent releases is wrong. I think that was far more true in the past. So much is readily available now. An example: When my kid took an interest in Spider-Man I researched the kerbillion TV versions available and, thankfully, he only took a shine to the 60s version. In my day, if I liked something I had to hope Nord TV and Video Outlet stocked it.
This is a great topic.
I absolutely agree with the oft-quoted wise philosopher Joel Hodgson… but “getting it” to me does not mean getting specific references. I think part the genius of the MST is the capturing of a shared experience. Together Joel/Mike and the bots take a bad movie and make it fun together. Its not a solo experience, it is interactive.
My 4 guys (born ’97-’05) have watched MST300 with me for years. Now one of our favorite weekend activities is sitting on the couch watching an episode together. Sure they don’t get all the jokes… heck, I don’t either… but we share it together, and just the fun of poking fun at a cheesy movie is worth it. We join in with our own riffs, of course. Oh, and when they DO got one of the more obscure jokes, they know the “got it”… and to see them light up is a joy.
Like father, like son. Think about it, won’t you? Thank you.
I’m only here because when I googled “MST3K” this was on the front page of results and got my attention. Figured I’d stop and give a brief opinion as I seem to fit in the “millennial” group (or something). I was born in 1997, and have been watching episodes for like a year: mostly (completely) from youtube. Shout! Factory has a bunch of MST3K videos up, and they all (last I checked) have annotations in the video that explain all the references and such that’s being said. It’s a mixture of explaining the jokes and a bunch of trivia to me, so I like it. Whether things are black and white or have HD has never mattered to me, but then again I don’t even have a smart phone. The only problem I’ve had when introducing it to others is that they tend to laugh so hard I can’t hear anything the bots are saying and have to turn up the volume.
I certainly wouldn’t worry about this dying out- if My Little Pony can gain adult viewers there’s no reason to assume that MST3K won’t be able to garner younger viewers.
… Gonna go see if anyone’s posted “The Beast of Yucca Flats” anywhere on youtube now, bye.
I was born in 83, and watched my first episode in 99 when my local library finally stocked their then all-VHS video collection with the Rhino episodes. I saw the title “Red Zone Cuba” and pulled it off the shelf for a closer look. The rest is history; I was hooked and soon checked out all the other episodes as they became available.
I was into old movies and old TV shows before that, so I did get a lot of those particular pop culture references, and any MAD magazine references (Don Martin, Dave Berg, Spy Vs Spy).
I don’t think anyone has brought up this particular thought yet…
Another big problem with introducing this show to younger people is that its very premise is born out of a TV landscape that essentially ended sometime around the same time that MST3K was on the air.
Up until somewhere near the end of the 20th century, local UHF stations and obscure cable channels filled an awful lot of their off-prime time (late nights, early mornings) with old, bad movies. Obviously, the show itself started this way at KTMA, taking the movies from the vault and using them for the premise that eventually became the show we all know and love. But lots and lots of stations had their own vaults of bad movies, and lots of them had creature feature hosts or some kind of host or show premise around the movies. There were famous national hosts like Elvira and a lot of regional ones like Ghoulardi.
In essence, if we were up at that time, or there was nothing else on, we had to watch these movies. Okay, I know we didn’t *have* to, but if we were going to watch TV anyway, a lot of the time, these movies were the only things on and there were no other choices.
So the beauty and genius of the premise of MST3K was that it was an extension of what many of us were doing already, sitting around late at night or early in the morning and making fun of what was on the TV. It’s impolite to talk back to a movie in the theater, but it was an integral part of the viewing experience of watching a bad movie or old show on TV to talk back to it and make fun of it. MST3K took this and made watching other people do what we were already doing (but in a much better way) worth watching itself, which is why to this day I have such respect for the creative genius of the premise of the show, let alone its incredibly creative execution.
No one growing up today has had the same experience. Today, local TV channels just show infomercials all night, which doesn’t matter because millennials don’t even watch broadcast TV. They, and all of us, have Netflix and YouTube on our cell phones. None of us, young or old, have to watch something we think is stupid or dumb or old (unless we’re stuck in front of an airport TV). It’s a great era. We’re all immensely spoiled!
Which is kind of strange.
I guess you can look at it as a character-building experience, or a world-broadening experience, even, that we were forced, for decades, to watch something that we really didn’t think was very good just because it’s essentially the only choice we had. On the one hand, because of MST3K, I’m kind of glad I got to know about people like Coleman Francis, because it’s an interesting part of film history. But on the other hand, Red Zone Cuba is two hours I could have spent watching something that was actually good.
To enjoy MST3K, you have to be able to find enjoyment in otherwise awful experiences. Watching a bad movie and making it worth watching is an effort the viewer has to make. And I guess someone who didn’t grow up being forced to do this would ask the very logical question, “Why don’t you just watch stuff that’s good instead? Why waste your time?”
MST3K made the effort for us, the effort to make these movies enjoyable. I know a younger person today could intellectually understand that, but they’d have no real, first-hand, day-to-day experience with it the way those of us over 40 had when we were younger. Yes, I like MST3K because it makes me laugh, but I also like it because it allowed me to keep doing something that I was already doing anyway, just in a much more enjoyable fashion.
To someone who has never had to make the decision to sit down and watch something they really had no interest in in the first place, watching MST3K would be much more of an intellectual exercise. There are some other things that many of you have already talked about, dated references and black-and-white films and so forth, and those are also hurdles to overcome, sure. But to me, it seems like the premise of the show itself, and its being a manifestation of the way people actually lived and behaved before the 21st century, would probably be the hardest sell to a younger person.
All of that said, we all liked ‘old’ things when we were young, so I have no doubt that there will always be some young people somewhere who are interested in MST3K.
Well, speaking as a millenial, I guess (born in ’97), age very much makes no difference. I grew up and went to school around kids (and most adults) that had no idea what I was talking about. (A recurring theme, considering nobody else in the TK High Class of 2015 had ever heard of Devo or the Marx brothers, either.) Sophomore year, I gave a book report on the ACEG (bizarrely, there was a copy in the school library), and ran a YouTube clip from Incredible Melting Man, and the only riff to get a laugh was “Tinker-Bell, come down out of that tree.” I feel fortunate that I was born just long ago enough that I could catch the Saturday morning Sci-Fi reruns, and when an obscure/dated reference comes up, it’s not like a brick wall that prevents my enjoyment of the rest of the episode. Often, it creates little nuggets of joy in my life when a reference suddenly becomes clear (as when I recently connected the dots of “is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?” from Home Ec. Story to Cosmik Debris). So we must conclude, then, that while the show is made for a specific group of people, I don’t think age enters into the equation. At most recent family gatherings, where ages range from roughly 15-to-60-ish, I’ve tried to run episodes, and the only one anybody sat down to watch was Werewolf, and that was only because my cousin vaguely remembered seeing it when he was in 8th grade. I can’t tell you how annoyed it makes me when people make generalizations based solely on age. The generation gap is certainly there, but youth doesn’t automatically equal a short attention span, or intolerance toward black and white.
Performing in comedy clubs here in NYC I meet a lot of millennials and they love MST3K. As some folks on this thread pointed out, a lot of the jokes were already dated when we did the show in the 90s. A lot of the people back then didn’t get the show either. It’s not for everyone but the fans and those of us who made the show were always at peace with that. Overall, in my experience, I find that in general the crazy kids today with their hula hoops and fax machines are smart and cool and they “get it.” Don’t forget, this is the generation that’s embraced marriage equality and rejected the Confederate Flag. Millennials are a-okay with me.