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Weekend Discussion Thread: Favorite Decade for MSTed MoviesAlert reader “TheGodRowsdower” suggested:
Sorry, I gotta go with the ’50s. Rocketship X-M, Lost Continent, Robot Monster, This Island Earth … It was the golden age of bad movies. What’s your pick? (If you’re not sure which movie was in which decade, Daddy-O has provided a handy chronological list.) 89 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Favorite Decade for MSTed Movies”Commenting at Satellite News
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This an easy one: the 1960’s. There’s something about cheesy low-budget movies that captures the spirit of a time the way nothing else can. And since I was born in the 1960’s, I have a particular fascination with that decade.
This is a tough call I would either say the 1950’s due to there antiquated view of the future and the 1980’s for the horrible soundtracks that made my ears bleed with joy…
I have to go with the 80’s because by then, there should be no excuse for making a bad movie, I thought! The sophisticated era of big hair, padded shoulders, “snorting cocaine and voting for Ronald Reagan” brought us Deathstalker, Hobgoblins, Cave Dwellers, Pod People and the list goes on. Clearly most are well riffed and enjoyed by most fans as smirk fodder for MST3K purposes.
I was a kid back in the superfunkadelic 70s so I remember it but am not personally attached to it. I can get almost all of the 70s riffs in Touch of Satan, Pumaman and of course Riding with Death but not feel defensive about it.
In honor of today being Rapture Day I just want to say “Ben Murphy is Assumed into Heaven”.
I’ll take the 50’s as well. Cheesy monsters (Creeping Terror), horrible special effects (Teenagers from Outer Space), laughable scripts (Robot Monster), and clueless directors (Ed Wood).
I’m voting for the 80’s. Mostly because of what the bots told MIke during the credits of Space Mutiny….
Hmmm, that’s a tough one for me between the 50’s and 60’s, but in the end I think it was the 50’s. Just the Season 2 Lippert movies like Rocketship X-M and King Dinosaur make that the winner. Even many of the most fun movies used on the show that were made outside the 1950’s were made either just before (Jungle Goddess, 1948) or just after (Rocket Attack USA, 1961). Of course, Rocky Jones was also 1950’s. So were Project Moonbase and Magic Voyage of Sinbad. Yeah, I’ll go with the 50’s.
I think I’m gonna have to go 70s on this one. While the movies like Angel’s Revenge are painfully funny, the music works.
It is a toss up between the 80’s and 50’s. I love 50’s sci fi! But I grew up in the 80’s and some of my favourite episodes are from the 80’s, Soultaker, Zombie Nightmare, Space Mutiny, Hobgoblins… Just reminds me of the straight to video garbage we watched in droves as kids.
The 1950’s for cheesy and plentiful sci-fi. No contest.
The 70’s for me too. First of all, they’re in COLOR. Second, no other decade had goofier hair and clothing styles than the 70’s. Even without the jokes, a lot of those movies would be entertaining just because there actually WERE people who would walk out of the house in a gold-lame track suit.
The 70’s. The earlier movies were cheesy, but still fun to watch. The 70s seemed to be a time where it seemed like they made movies specifically for a guy and two robots to crack jokes at.
The 50s and 60s for their skewed science and awful special effects.
The 70s and 80s for their terrible fashions and music.
I’m a 70s buff anyway, but the MSTied movies from then seem to catch the mix of cheesiness and goofy innocence just right. As for the 80s, I’ll quote a particular robot: Is it possible to catch a venereal disease from a movie?
For me, it’s the 50’s, because somehow I think that decade taps into the ultimate spirit of the show. Of course, this also probably relates to the fact that I grew up watching very cheesy 50’s movies. (I still laugh to think that Terror from the Year 5000 actually scared me out when I was a little kid. I mean, it scares me NOW, but for completely different reasons.)
In fact, though, I enjoy movies on the show from ANY decade, although obviously some more than others. I also like the 70’s movies, for example (all that mellowness). I will confess, however, that the movies from the early-to-mid 80’s tend to get on my nerves, because they all look and act the same (the 80’s dealt with post-apocalyptic scenarios in outrageously unimaginative ways), but of course the late 80’s brought us Cave Dwellers, a GLORIOUSLY cheesy movie tailor-made for the show.
I apologize for babbling, but I really like this thread! :-))
This is a surprisingly hard choice to make!
But I think I’ll choose the 60s. There’s the music, the shift in attitudes from the early part of the decade to the later years, the goofy plots, costumes, characters. And any decade that produces The Skydivers, Village of the Giants, Manos, Hellcats, Catalina Caper, Gamera vs Guiron, AND Agent for H.A.R.M. is clearly superior.
I’ll always have a soft spot for 80s movies since it was the era in which I grew up. There also were some greats from it like the Master Ninjas, Warrior of the Lost World, Space Mutiny, and Hobgoblins. I also enjoy Being From Another Planet and City Limits even if most don’t.
The 50’s did had some pretty cheesey, low-budget movies. I must agree
Cheese in 50’s movies looks like a stylized art form compared to 80’s cheese. Cheddar vs. Velveeta.
I wouldn’t say they’re my favorites but I really like seeing the ones from the 30’s and 40’s for the simple fact that you can see an idea of what life and people were like back then. I accuse my parents is a good example be cause it focuses on lifestyles and interpersonal relationships. My favorite decade would be 83 to 93
The trouble with the ’50s was that for every entertaining bit of cheese that was released you also got those movies where the monster reveal was delayed until the very last, so the whole movie is just talking and padding and duller than ditchwater. See The She Creature, The Screaming Skull, &c. From the ’70s onward, action was more likely.
The ’70s also gave us one fruitful source for MST3K treatment, the made for TV movie.
Good question! I started off liking the stuff from the 50s and early 60s since, for the most, that’s what I went for in b-movies, as well. But for MST3K riffing, I love the stuff from the 70s and 80s. Laserblast, Mitchell, Space Mutiny, that sort of thing. It’s funny to watch what people in the 50s thought the future would be like; it’s much more funny when you watch what grown-ups from your childhood thought the future would be like. Purple lame workout clothes as everyday wear on your multi-generational, interstellar voyage? Sure! Looks great!
While I agree that the 50’s were the golden age of cheese, and love the serials that were made even before that like Commander Cody and The Phantom Creeps, I must second what’s already been said and say the 80’s, for, being born in the early 70’s, it’s the era of film I remember the best. Soul Takers was, as Jack Perkins would put it, such a delight, as was Cave Dwellers, City Limits, Final Justice, and Final Sacrifice. But then you get a movie that’s so painfully 70’s like Parts: The Clonus Horror and I’m suddenly torn. It’s all hot and it hurts and stuff….
Hard choice. I love them all. Partial to the 50s and 60s. BUT…my fav episodes are in the 80s, Time of the Apes and Alien from LA.
1980s!!
Perhaps the 50s. Not only some classic mysty movies but so many
“good” and/or classic scifi movies, like the original The Thing
with James Arness (who attended Benoit College NOT the University
of Minnesota, as his allegedly far more talented brother did).
Then again, some 70s flics were classic and made for mst3000,
can you say “This is where the fish live.”? Oh look, there’s Clu Gulager!
This is an amazingly tough choice. Although I’m a child of the ’70s (born in the ’50s but suffered through… I mean enjoyed… high school and college in the ’70s, so that’s where a lot of my favorite TV and movie moments were) I’ll have to say the 1950s, because of all the scifi B-movie choices for riffing. Classics like “Bride of the Monster” and other Ed Wood goodies, “Teenagers from Outer Space” which was cheesy in an innocent way, and so on. In second place I’d say the ’70s stuff like “Riding with Death” because the clothes and slang are just so awful. I remember when we all dressed like that, or at least tried to.
The 80’s and what little there is of the 90’s because they are closest culturally to when the show was being made. There seems to be a better connection between the writing and the screen when they are connected in time. Plus, they’re all colors and talkies with bad pop music backing intensely bad acting (LEAVE THE BRONX!).
How about 1955-1965? That’s a decade!
I am a child of the 1970’s, so I’ll go with films from that decade…like THE TOUCH OF SATAN..(This is where the fish lives).
There were so many movies in the 1950’s you had a full menu from which to choose. It’s alsmost too easy to choose that decade.
The 1960’s had some leftover had some “social messages” from the 1950’s and an attempt at upgrading effects (it also gave the MST3K gang a chance to branch into other movie genres.) it also reflected the “end of the innocence” feel to society (especially in the some of the late 1960’s movies.)
The 1970’s had the nostalgia for me (as a kid of the 1970’s,) the same type of “messages” but with an emphasis on television shows (and made for TV movies.)
The 1980’s went heavy into fantasy/post-apacolypse movies (with the dated nostalgia as a kid/teenager/early 20’s man.)
This is tough. You know, I’m going to take the 1960’s.
I learned something today. I though I would go for the 50s, 60s, or 70s off the top of my head. But I rated the movies/serials/etc based on Daddy-O’s list and did the math. Based on that, if I were to choose based on total enjoyment, the 50s would win followed closely by the 60s, primarily because they riffed so many movies from those decades (71 and 62 respectively — all of the other decades combined account for only 64 movies). But based on enjoyment per movie, the winner is the 90s, followed by the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s. In other words, the newer movies are individually more fun for me, but there’s so much fodder from the 50s/60s, they’ve provided the highest total quantity of laughs.
So I’m going to have to say my favorite decade of MST3k movies is the 90s, because The Final Sacrifice, Soultaker, Quest of the Delta Knights, Future War, Werewolf, and Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders were out-of the park home runs, Time Chasers was excellent, and Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie came out. (Oh, and, of course, that’s the decade I discovered and spent a significant percentage of my waking hours watching the show… ;) )
Oh, man, this is a toughie. I love the lame movies from the sixties (Human Duplicators is a great example), but I am partial the the AIP movies from the fifties. I was just watching Amazing Colossal Man last night, and it’s just a wonderful era, filled with bad special effects, lame scripts, and tons of riffing material.
My favorite is the 50s with the 60s in second. I actually have more fun watching the black and white movie episodes both because I grew up watching those kind of movies and also because cheesy sci-fi is even better, in my view, when it’s in b&w. Most of my favorite episodes are from the 50s, too: Crash of Moons, Manhunt in Space, Bride of the Monster, The Rebel Set, Revenge of the Creature, The Deadly Mantis, Prince of Space, Terror from the Year 5000, Night of the Blood Beast, and so on.
70s, with the 80s a close second. The Disco Era was just more in-your-face, while the 80s were a little more refined (relatively speaking) and slightly more high-tech.
In terms of wardrobe, 70s wins hands-down. Look at Ben Murphy!
“Emporer Titus came to power, and he finished up the Colloseum,” was the first thing to fly through my head when I read this topic. Thanks, Tom/Kevin!
Being a mid-60’s (age-wise) baby-boomer I have a special affection for 50’s sci-fi (for reasons mentioned in earlier posts).
However… every decade has had its laughable and weird sci-fi. Would love to have “The Core” riffed on sometime; the concept and
plot are as laughable as 40’s and 50’s sci-fi movies.
This is a tough one for me too, because as some other posters have noted (Dark Grandma of Death, for one), within any particular decade there are often vast differences between shorter segments of the decade (particularly the 1960s- the social,fashion and musical differences between the first three years of that decade and the last three years are immense- it was NOT 10 years of hippies, the vietnam war and everybody using dope and experimenting sexually). So the feeling or “vibe” of movies from the early 70s and late 70s is also different, and so I have varied reactions to movies from different parts of those decades and others.
Having said that, the movies they did from the 1950s seem to display a consistency of crappiness in all phases of production that doesn’t change much whatever part of that decade the movie came from, even while there were a lot of changes happening in many other facets of life. There is also the emotional connection I have from watching many of those movies when I was a kid on Saturdays, which was typically the only day of the week when you could see science fiction and horror movies in the late 60s and early 70s.
So I will shut up now and say: the 1950s!
60’s with the 50’s a close second. Worst by far the 80’s, horrible clothes, hair and music. Just watched Master Ninja and wished the 80’s never happened.
the 1950s easily but I have to admit some of those 1960-1970 ones are classic in their own way…kind of like 1950s films except in color
Joels Hair
Joels Knees
1960s and 1970s films are like 1950s films but in color…
I really need therapy !!! :)
Good lord Ive been living in Deep 13 too long :party:
Count me in for another 50’s/70’s fan, particularly the B/Z grade Sci Fi Drive In Monster/Space Exploration/Horror movies.
I REALLY wish the Brains could have done more Drive In Quickies like: Bride Of The Gorilla, Attack Of The Crab Monsters, Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster, Cat Women On The Moon, Queen From Outer Space, Attack Of The Mushroom People, Lady Frankenstein (Yeah, I know those Incomprehensable Cinematic Warriors X-TREME guys did it, but I felt it was VERY lacking…), Dawn Of The Mummy, The Hideous Sun Demon, etc..
They all are such fine riffing material, it’s a shame they never got to do any of these when the show was still on…
D’OH! Ignore the winking smiley face.
Its the 60’s – all the bad genres, its like a smorgasbord of awfulness. There’s Cheesy teen romps – like Catalin Capper, really bad biker movies with Ross Hagen, Bad spy movies and of course the Go – Go Dancers, like Girl in Gold Boots.
The 60’s (and I’ll do a CastleMonster and say really the ten year period 63-73). I’m obsessed with this decade and love the films. They didn’t do enough films from the late 60’s in my opinion though CT has picked up some of the slack (if slowly, slowly).
1950s+early to mid 60s=tons of public domain titles=most prolific decade(s) for MST3K fodder. If the brains had been free to select movies from any decade without sweating rights issues think of all the movies from 65 on we might be talking about.
The 70’s were pretty sweet too. The terrible detective films like Mitchell, the horrible monster movies – the Incredible Melting Man, the bad sci fi – Laser Blaster, Riding with Death and Clonus. The terribly dated slang and the vehicles so oversized that they rock back and forth when they slam on the brakes.
I gotta go with the ’50s, the era of the Red Scare served up so many bad movies that became classic MST3K episodes. Radar Secret Service. Rocketship XM, Racket Girls, Invasion USA, Manhunt in Space, Robot Monster, The Crawling Eye, Bride of the Monster, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Gunslinger, Indestructible Man, This Island Earth, Amazing Colossal Man, Beginning of the End, The Dead Talk Back, The Deadly Mantis, the Hercules films, The Deadly Mantis, Teenagers from Outer Space, The Beatniks, Earth vs the Spider, Night of the Blood Beast, War of the Colossal Beast, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Daddy-O, The Day The Earth Froze, The Giant Gila Monster, The Killer Shrews, Leech Woman, Prince of Space, Rocket Attack USA, Santa Claus and Horrors of Spider Island all came from this era, and all were amongst my favorite episodes. There’s just something about those cheesy films which make them so rich for riffing, perhaps it’s their earnestness, but they’re just wonderful for riffing material and brought out the best in the Brains.
I would go with the 60s as a close second, with the Sinister Urge, Tormented, The Beast of Yucca Flats, Eegah, Ring of Terror, The Creeping Terror, The Incredibly Strange Creatures…, The Skydivers, Horror of Party Beach, The Starfighters, Teenage Strangler, Agent for H.A.R.M, Attack of the Eye Creatures, Monster a Go Go, Secret Agent Super Dragon, Danger! Death Ray! Wild Rebels, Girl in Gold Boots, and of course, Manos: The Hands of Fate. Still, IMO there were better episodes involving the 50s flicks than those from the 60s.
The 70s offered up some good ones too (Godzilla vs Megalon, Blood Waters of Dr Z, The Giant Spider Invasion, Mitchell, Code Name: Diamond Head, Laserblast, Angels Revenge and The Puma Man) but many of them also had a creepy vibe that just wasn’t as enjoyable as those of the 50s and 60s. They didn’t do nearly as many from the 40s, 80s and 90s to fairly rate them.
I’m watching Dracula vs Frankenstein right now. That would have been a perfect 70s title. Silly Dracula, silly Frankenstein, silly “heroes”, directed by Al Adamson, “starring” Lon Chaney, Russ Tamblyn and that one midget from Freaks–the riffs write themselves. The heroine is Al Adamson’s girlfriend and the hero is some turtleneck-wearing lug who gets charbroiled by Dracula’s ring in the hilarious finale. Cameo by Forry Ackerman!
I’m most partial to entertainment from the 60’s for some reason. The strange collison of psychedelia and corn just creates an aurora borealis of wonkiness that’s incredibly endearing. By the 70’s it’d started to go stale but in the 60’s taking drugs and dressing like an idiot was still fresh and fun and daring.
Well I’m splitting the difference between the 50s and 70s and going with the 60s. I think they give you the best of both worlds with the transition from the cheesy sci-fi flicks of the 50s to the cheesy exploitation movies of the 70s. And I also agree with Castle Monster that more 50s movies were in the public domain so they’re easier for Best Brains to use.
sure the 50s had a good deal of bad flix but come on, late 60s early 70s.thats a golden age of crap.Hellcats,Blood Waters of Dr Z,Mitchel,Incredible Melting Man,and just about any giant monster movie out of Japan.
but every decade has its share of turkeys. :-D
My favorite decade would have to be the 60’s. It seems like the paranoia of the 50’s is giving way to a sense of rebellion in the 60’s movies. And for me the best part of those movies has to be the cars. I love cars. There’s the Amphicar from Agent from HARM, the E-type Jaguars in Diabolik, the various Austin Healys and old hot rods, and best of all the Sunbeam from the Projected Man – a model of car my mom used to drive. I couldn’t name the main characters from most of the MST movies, but I would be able to tell you what cars were involved. For me, it just makes the movies that much better.