Having just done “Monster A-Go Go” in this week’s episode guide and “Manos” only a few weeks away (both would have to be included in this list), it definitely seems like a timely topic. I once made the mistake of showing “Manos” to my sister as her very first episode. I guess I thought she could handle it. She couldn’t. Oh well. Lesson learned.
One I would pick is on the most recent set: “Last of the Wild Horses,” featuring a difficult black-and-white movie and host segments you would only really appreciate if you knew the show and the characters very well. But I just love it.
What’s your pick?
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Any episode containing episode-long in-jokes that only make sense if you know (and love) Mike or Joel’s particular brand of humor: Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent, Time Chasers, etc.
Diabolik is a tough watch for a newbie. It was the 5th episode I watched, the first I had to turn off before it was over, and to this day I still have problems making it through to the end. I wasn’t sad about Mike’s departure or the official ending to the show–the riffing wasn’t all that great and the movie was pretty dull. (I went from Space Mutiny, Final Sacrifice, Werewolf, and Puma Man to Diabolik. Diabolik had a lot to live up to. XD)
The Coleman Francis oeuvre qualifies for advanced MST studies only. Castle of Fu Manchu is in a class by itself. I never thought there was a film that could outdo Coleman for drab confusion, but they did it, and in color no less. That might be the worse film they ever did, even worse than Manos, which you can follow at least in spirit.
As one of the cast mourned, Castle has no emotional center. It so unmoored from any clear objective, the mind reels in confusion and starts to question the meaning of everything. Why does that hot woman dress like a chauffeur? Why does Chris Lee appear only slightly more Chinese than Stan Lee, while the daughter looks as if she were kidnapped from a rice paddy? And the switch on the wall…why the two tiers? Why did it get stuck? What was the plan? Was there a plan? I can’t even remember what Fu Manchu was doing besides sitting on a throne and looking vaguely menacing.
Randy
The Skydivers, Red Zone Cuba and Beast of Yucca Flats, all best viewed in order and all three.
I agree that any season one episode is for already-established fans curious about the infancy of the series (or nostalgic fans who saw it the first time). Heck, I’m a huge fan but I’ve never had any desire to see the KTMA episodes.
Invasion of the Neptune Men is the correct answer. I absolutely adore the episode, but I can’t count the number of people I’ve shown it to who simply can’t make it through – I mean, Mike and the ‘bots barely do, even with help from Krankor. Add to that the less-than-stellar Mad Goth sketches, and its a toughy. Still, I sit and wait for my favorite moment:
“Da da, da duh-duh-dum EAT IT MOVIE!”
I’m going to have to say that if you’re going to get someone to try a MST3K crowd, especially if they are of the younger set, I’d plunk them down in front of one of the later season episodes on the Sci-Fi Network. Especially if they don’t get too many pop-culture references.
Things on the outs for anyone but the most seasoned MST3K watchers:
– Any Season 1 Episode. I appreciate it as a start of something great, but most of the riffing is so horribly dry, I feel like I’ve been eating saltines for two hours straight.
– Any Godzilla or Gamera episode. I just never liked them. It’s bad enough coming up with riffs for a giant monster movie, it’s worse when they’re chocked full of dated pop-culture references and inane nattering from Joel and the Bots. I feel that during these episodes they didn’t really have a lot to say so they just tried to fill in the gaps of silence with lame chatter. Godzilla VS Megalon and the later Gamera movies area good example of this. I also feel that with any of the Japanese movies they riff (Be they done by Joel or Mike) kind of lose the impact of the riffing due to the cultural differences between American and Japanese movies. If you know enough about Japanese pop-culture, it’s kind of hard to find their jokes funny when a character does something that seems strange to the uninformed viewer.
– Most of the Roger Corman movies. Gunslinger, Swamp Diamonds, that sort of thing. Just some really dry episodes.
*My* recommendations would be:
Joel Era – Hellcats, Manos, I Accuse My Parents, Rebel Set, Girl in Lovers Lane, Beatnicks, Manos, Monster A-Go-Go… A lot of the later season stuff, season 4, season 5 when the writers really hit their stride.
Mike Era – Wild World of Batwoman, Red Zone Cuba (The only really funny Coleman Francis movie), Hobgoblins, Time Chasers, Girl in Gold Boots, Laserblast, Jack Frost… I can go on for hours really. A lot of the Sci-Fi era episodes were more hits than misses.
I tend to lean more toward Mike episodes. I like Joel episodes and all, but there’s a different creature all together. I find that with the second half of the series, the writers really got their stride, but also at the same time after four or so seasons the writing kind of got stale (I was getting sick of hearing “HIKEBA!” and the endless Gilligan’s Island references) When they changed things up by getting Mary Jo and later Bill Corbet, it freshened up the writing a bit. I also find that the show kind of grew up a bit. I get Joel was aiming for a more family friendly and “gentle” riffing of movies, but some of the movies they watched did not deserve that kind of respect at all :P I’m glad that with Cinematic Titanic, Joel and the others have punched it up a bit and are a little more adult in their riffing.
Sorry got off on a rant there.
And, yes, I showed Pod People to the uninitiated thinking it was a sure thing and it fell flat. Surprisingly, their favorite ended up being It Lives By Night, a movie I feel isn’t mentioned much one way or the other by fans.
Has Radar Secret Service been mentioned yet? The movie is incredibly dull but the riffing is subtle and very funny. Even this one snuck up me after several viewings and is now a fav.
Dead Talk Back too.
Maybe Starfighters because of all that hot jet action…so distracting?
Laura picked two episodes I’ve started people on to criticize. Pod People is one of MY first episodes (I started shortly after Rhino began distributing episodes on VHS).
Running my MST meetup group a couple of clunkers I’ve run into:
Wild World of Batwoman – I personally love the episode but when we ran it my group started considering leaving and going down to the jug band competition that was happening two floors down (true story).
Fugitive Alien – This one surprised me, and to be fair, it didn’t start until shortly before halfway through the movie. Ken’s origin story is lots of fun but his first mission with the crew apparently just doesn’t make for the most compelling MSTing. Of course, Joel and the Bots kept trying to jam “He tried to kill me with a forklift” into the episode well past its expiration date, so the riffing just wasn’t helpful on that one.
Killer Shrews – Another surprise for me; I love the episode, but it’s slow-moving enough that a crowd of casual fans just didn’t enjoy it.
Manos was the first thing I thought of. It took me three viewings to watch the whole thing and three more to actually enjoy it.
The Coleman Francis movies are confusing and dull. Definitely not the first thing to show new people. Hamlet, Devil Doll, Pod People, and the Fugitive Alien movies also fall into the same category for me.
I agree with Nick-O that the Sci-Fi eps are easier to appreciate.
Ah yes, the trilogy of “Rock Climbing,” “Deep Hurting,” and “Hypno-Helio-Static-Stasis.” Rough, mind-numbing, yet they do really show what this program was all about, the Mads trying to find the worst movie ever so they can take over the world.
As far as newbies go, one can never really tell what they’re going to attach themselves too. It’s a major case of your milage may vary.
Personally, I’d gladly start a newbie with Pod People or Sidehackers. I love those episodes! Pod People is dreary, but hilarious. Sidehackers is mean, but we know who the bad guys are. It’s not like anyone is actually rooting for JC (are they??!! Let’s hope not). I also love me some Time Chasers, it’s fun and self-contained as an episode. And I’ve had success starting people out with another favorite of mine, Racket Girls.
But I’d never start a newbie with Space Mutiny, San Francisco International or Hobgoblins. But that’s because I find Space Mutiny and Hobgoblins rather dull. But there we go again, your milage may vary. And vary it does; I’m still baffled by the amount of Space Mutiny fanatics out there. I’m more of a Stranded In Space guy myself, when wanting that Cameron Mitchell fix. (On a side note, I think Stranded In Space would work well as an intro episode just because of the wonderful recap Joel does in the first host segment: The Mads made the intro, and they tape the experiments and sell the results to cable tv.) As far as San Francisco goes, the movie is hilarious, one of my favorites, but the host segs involving various characters from many past episodes, I’ve found my newbie friends baffled by them.
Have you ever put on an episode for a newbie, and had them all but ignore the host segments? My friends tend to treat the host segs as a time to talk for a few minutes, then they pay attention once the movie starts up again. I’ve always found this strange, since it was the host segs that got my attention to become a fan in the first place.
I’ll wrap things up by saying, isn’t it weird how we collectively agree KTMA and season 1 episodes are graduate level, yet they were the first episodes ever seen by anyone? The very foundation for the show we love? I do agree, one should work their way up to them. Crazy, the first episodes which kept the show around are virtually impenetrable, yet later episodes where the writing is stronger can be confusing because of the in references. No wonder we’re a small, tight knit group of fans!
It’s truly a shame MST3K is not on tv anymore, because back then it allowed people to discover it by running across it on the tube. And one day, the right thing from the show grabbed them at the right time. As the creator said, “The right people will get it.”
(Deep down, I feel that an MST is an MST is an MST, that all episodes essentially are equally awesome, that once that movie starts and the riffing begins, it’s all gold.)
And yes, Batwoman is hard to get anyone to sit through! Grad school, all the way! :)
Thanks for a good discussion everyone!
The vast differences in answers here are really interesting. There have been episodes named here that I think would be totally newb friendly (Time Chasers, Merlins Shop of Mystical Wonders, and I really think Manos is a good introduction personally). I also find The Skydivers to be an excellent episode in spite of the dreary as all hell movie, so it’s hard for me to put that in the graduate level category.
Many good graduate level entries here that I would agree with, one I would like to add is The She Creature as this is the only episode I have ever fallen asleep during and I have been watching this show on and off for 20 years. If a die hard can find this boring, I can’t even imagine what a casual or never watcher would think.
Too hard to guess, since my taste in movies is odd to begin with. Pod People wasn’t my first ep, but made me a MSTie; besides the ’80s striking a chord with my childhood, a movie that draws you in but makes no sense never gets old. I also have the problem of identifying with Dr. F. to the extent that I try to get people to watch movies for the purposes of psychologically torturing them, which works against itself.
So I’ll just go from experience instead of guessing:
I almost said Hobgoblins since I’ve seen it scar so many, but the only noob I showed it to, despite suffering mind-warping, became a fan of the show, so I guess it worked as a first ep.
I can see where Manos might be too much for someone unfamiliar with the premise, but the fact that it’s likely the most infamous episode gives it name recognition that I’ve seen make people want to see it out of curiosity even if they don’t know what MST3K is, so it can serve as a good intro.
Batwoman comes down to gender: Every woman I’ve watched it with falls asleep, but guys stay awake and bemused. That one falls into at least senior year.
I agree that Season 1 eps are ironically best watched once one is already a fan, and Season 8 eps suffer from the ‘continuity=alienation’ factor at least until Prince of Space.
I think #15 nailed it. Mad Monster, without a doubt. It’s an APPALLING waste of, if not talent, at least experience: you want to blow a couple hours? Work through the credits of everybody connected with this waste of space, starting with Sam Newfield. Quite literally a couple of THOUSAND movies’ worth of experience on that screen, and the result was a complete woof.
Why graduate level? Because for the Ward E types among us, that makes it worth watching in and of itself–that, and the amazing scene where George Zucco confronts his detractors as phantasms. Makes me really glad I stopped doing drugs back in the early seventies. But I can’t imagine trying to get a newbie excited about MST by sitting them down with Mad Monster–my MOM would have clubbed me to the ground with her Schmeisser to get away from Mad Monster.
The mad monster definitely requires some extra effort. Slow, dull and black and white. My personal albatross is the slime people….
The book end seasons, 1 and 10, are to me the ones that are Graduate level difficult. “Slime People” of year one I’ve only seen once. “Squirm” is difficult to exhausting.
The only season 1 ep that is intro-level is maybe Prehistoric Women; the rest are grad-level in the sense that you do have to see a dozen of these before you ‘get’ what they are doing and adjust to the pace and depth. I’m thinking of the host segments, which are a few duds and some gems; Joel never saw the need to explain what they were doing with things like the Asimov Doomsday Device; yet for a grad-level watcher it makes perfect sense.
The Russo-Finnish films are better after the 4th viewing, as are the other foreign offerings like First Spaceship on Venus; and movies like Ring of Terror or Dead Talk Back, where nothing happens, it takes a certain amount of patience to glean the nuggets of gold from the 73rd minute.
Mighty Jack, man. Mighty Jack SO HARD! “Say, just who was Mighty Jack, anyway?”
Time of the Apes is no walk in the park, either.
Someone mentioned Radar Secret Service and it’s true that hypno helio status stasis is punishing for a newcomer but Last Clear Chance is a classic that my father used to introduce many folks to the show. “Why don’t they look?”.
Speaking to why I think the movie (This Island Earth) might actually be the best introduction to the show for a newbie, I think what you would not want to use to introduce someone to the greatest show of all time would be one of the more slow-moving episodes (the movie of course is the shortest and fastest-paced MST3K). So a slow-moving movie like Castle of Fu Manchu or one of the the Cormans would to my mind be a bad way to introduce someone to the show…
I feel graduated after watching: Monster a Go-Go, Castle of Fu-Manchu (not even the riffing is funny), The Million Eyes of Sumaru. The Hamlet episode was a blast for me. Am I the only one who never made through the first half of Alien from L.A.? That’s the only movie that has defeated me repeatedly.
One thing that struck me while reading this thread was the revelation that a lot of you (a LOT of you, including apparently Sampo) seem to judge a MST3K episode on how watchable the movie is, completely apart from the MST3K experience. Really? That to me could be the subject of a whole different weekend topic.
To me the better the movie is the less I enjoy MST3K (which is why I hate an awful lot of the Rifftrax “experiments”, at least in terms of taking on recent films). Indeed, I think the whole point of riffing on a movie is to expose how incredibly bad it is, and I truly can’t think of a movie so bad that it would be unwatchable… as long as Mike and/or Joel and company were helping us through.
The more confusing, boring, or awful the film the easier it becomes to riff, of course, and as long as the riffing is top-notch (which it is, for the most part) then I am in heaven. This is especially true of films I would *never* watch on my own (which, truth be told, is around 80% of these films).
That last point in particular seems to set me (and others like me) apart from many of you. I note again and again how many of you mention you have either seen (or actually own!) some of these unriffed films and I am just bewildered. I wouldn’t last five minutes through most of them (although I do have to say my tolerance for bad films has increased in the last 10 or fifteen years directly due to MST3K — now I can sit through films like “2012” by doing the riffs myself, albeit silently if I’m in the company of strangers, and loudly in the case of friends and family).
For the purposes of this thread I am baffled — I can’t think of a single experiment that is “difficult” in terms of the movie itself. Now, in terms of the riffing being bad I’d have to say the entire season one qualifies as a tough go and only for very experienced folks. Let’s face it, given the education we’ve all had from these experts over the years, there are few of us who could do any worse (and probably a lot better) than they did during that season. For that reason, and that reason alone, I’d say those episodes are the only ones that really fit this category. I’d have to say you really have to be a dedicated fan to *want* to watch those episodes.
But all others? Bring ’em on!
#65
Slime People is much like Mad Monster for me, in that the movie is nowhere near as interesting as the imdb entry. I’ll take that as a major Graduate Level marker in general.
#35, I agree with you that “Last of the Wild Horses” is sophomoric, not graduate. I would have to give that same judgment to “Mitchell,” because it’s actually quite fun to watch. It was one of the first episodes I showed my best friend/brother Mike, and we still sometimes go “Turn it! Turn it! Turn it!” when things get to serious.
However I would say don’t show Manos until your newbie has seen about a half-dozen other episodes, and you’d need to wait a little longer before popping in “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.”
72#: Then, how do you explain Castle of Fu Manchu? Space Mutiny was a better movie (in comparison)and the episode is a million times better than Fu Manchu. I would say, the cheesier, the better. Also, I guess the Brains’ preferences in movies also play a significant part. Mike Nelson prefered the 80’s movies (his obsession with Roadhouse gave us A Patrick Swayze Christmas), Connif the Mexican cheesefests, etc.
Attack of the Eye (Eye) Creatures. Any movie where you have a typo in the title is akin to phD. work.
The toughtest episodes to get through that are sure to drive newbies away from MST3K.
1. Hamlet- Possibly weakest show of the entire series; slowest most blah movie for sure.
2. Gunslinger- Slow, drab and boring movie with lots of dialog and on my copy at least I could barely make out what anyone was saying. Riffing was only OK. Odd because I really liked Swamp Diamonds another Corman film with Beverly Garland made around same time as Gunslinger.
3. Last of the Wild Horses- I can barely sit through this one for same reasons as Gunslinger but movie is even harder to watch. Westerns just didn’t work for MST3K. I highly recommend checking out Buffalo Rider from Rifftrax however.
4. Human Duplicators- You reviewed this one recently Sampo and I have to agree with you it’s a tough one to watch. I have no idea why so many people defend this one.
5. Castle of Fu Manchu- Movie is almost impossible to follow and riffing is barely average.
6. Radar Secret Service- Another humdrum dull slow movie. This one is also hard to follow the plot.
7. Wild, Wild World of Batwoman- See above. At least this one had the cheating short and some funny host segments.
Wild World of Batwoman is the Hobgoblins of the 60’s.
@ Jeff, it’s “the the” but yeah a typo all the same.
I love Hamlet, no matter how bad I’m suffering from insomnia I can put it in and be out in less than 15 minutes every time!
The Painted Hills is graduate level to me. Despite Lassie, the movie is slow and boring. There is not a hint of SciFi/horror except the script maybe. Also everyone on the show seemed to be in mourning anticipating Joel’s departure. Viewing this is like taking a handful of Ambien.
#75 — In the first place you are sure to get an argument (or two, or three, or a hundred :>) from a lot of folks any time you start saying “but xxxx is a much better episode than yyyy”. As I like to say, there’s no accounting for taste although you can demand an audit.
You say the cheesier the better but that’s my entire point and so I guess the real question is how you define “cheese”. To me a movie becomes moldy and rancid by virtue of its incompetence. You talk about “Fu Manchu” as if it’s somehow less “cheesy” than others and I would argue that nothing is further from the truth.
There’s no question the riffing is better on some shows than others, but one of the things no one seems to point out is the quality of humor and entertainment of MST3K is so amazingly consistent across ten years worth of episodes (more than any other comedy show I can think of) and yet was composed of movies that ran the gamut from almost every kind of genre, generation, type and level of skill of the filmmakers and I think the only thing that can explain it is that the writers were very talented folks whose output determines whether a show is worth watching or not. If an episode doesn’t tickle your fancy I suspect it has very little to do with the movie itself — it’s probably just a rare example of where their humor didn’t connect with you.
Anyway, that’s MY theory, and I’m sticking to it .
Personally, one thing I’ve noticed is that the guys seemed to struggle more in movies where nothing much kept happening for minutes on end.
When this happened they tended to turn to repeating jokes ad nauseum… and usually to my annoyance.
Here’s another one that I just recalled…
“King Dinosaur”
It’s not just the “Joey the Lemur” skit it’s the fact that Joel runs that ‘Joey’ voice into the bloody GROUND and by the end, even though I LIKE Joel usually, I’d probably smack him if he were within reach when I watch that one.
It’s okay for a little while but it just goes on, and on and ON! Heck, even CROW makes a comment to Joel about him beating that joke into the ground.
“Castle of Fu Manchu”? On that one the thing they beat into the ground is their crying. It’s kind of funny, yes, but when you REALLY watch it you see just how often they go to that particular well.
To me it’s a sign of the movie is failing to give them enough to work with and so the result is them flailing about trying to grab hold of something.
Just recently we had “The Beatniks” and you’ll note Sampo noted and praised them on not going to the “Get Smart” well very often for jokes. I’m convinced the reason why is because the movie gave them lots of other material to work with.
So, yeah, to me, I’ve never yet encountered a “bad” episode of the series… (and no, I’m not going to count the KTMA stuff as “bad” because that’s like saying a five year old on a bike that just got it’s training wheels off is a “bad” rider. He’s not, he’s just still learning) only “meh” episodes and “good” episodes.
The “meh” episodes can get a little dull but there’s almost always at least ONE good riff in there that causes a chuckle or a guffaw (c’mon, NONE of you laughed at Servo’s little song to the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme in “Mad Monster”? I still love Servo’s “Six year-olds and nuclear weapons, a combination that can’t be beat!” from KTMA’s “Gamera vs. Guiron”).
So, to make a long post short (too late), to me the harder movies to get through are the ones where the guys tend to lack material to create a wide ranging array of riffs on. When you see them beating jokes into the ground for me that’s usually going to me a “meh” episode and it’s a sign that they just weren’t really being inspired then.
Very interesting point about the Brains struggling with movies that just didn’t give them much to work with, Stressfactor. That could explain some of what you call the “meh” episodes, those that have lots of State park jokes or just repeat variations on a theme. Personally, I’ve never been bothered by them beating jokes into the ground, never gotten impatient with it; like you, I can always find something to love in an episode, a host segment or a particular riff.
Stressfactor #83, actually that was “The Rebel Set” that Ed Platt was in, not “The Beatniks.”
However, “The Beatniks” was about rebels, and “The Rebel Set” was about beatniks, so I understand your confusing the two.
@ bobhoncho…..
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson….
D’oh!
Well, when I first saw MST3K, I’d already long developed a taste for really bad movies, so stuff like Manos or the Coleman Francis Trilogy didn’t really faze me at all.
If there’s one episode that might send newbies screaming, though, I’d have to say it’s No. 206, Ring Of Terror. By way of explanation, my “media” drive is pretty big, holding upwards of 130gb of my music and movie collection. My MST3K folder has about 70 episodes and shorts in it which I consider good enough to keep in regular rotation and are the “core” of my collection; the rest I have backed up to DVD ROMs which I occasionally pull episodes off of just to keep the rotation fresh. So, anyway… Ring Of Terror was so awful that I not only didn’t leave it in with my regular rotation, I didn’t even bother to back it up. It wasn’t awful so much due to the SOL crew’s performance as it was because the movie itself was just so goddamn’ dull that even Joel & The Bots couldn’t squeeze enough laffs out of it. But, then, that’s just a really dull episode that doesn’t properly showcase the SOL Crew.
As far as “Graduate Level” MST3K episodes, well… just to show you how weird I am: if encountering someone who hasn’t seen MST3K before and who asked for recommendations for definitive episodes, I’d go out of my way to recommend episodes featuring movies so goddamn’ piss-awful that they were the cinematic equivalent of bloody car crashes that you can’t help slowing down to look at: King Dinosaur (210), Monster A-Go-Go (421), Manos, The Hands Of Fate (424), The Wild Wild World Of Batwoman (515), The Creeping Terror (606), and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies (812). I’m assuming, of course, that this theoretical MST3K “virgin” is someone like me, who’s already cut their teeth on the likes of Roger Corman and Ed Wood while watching Saturday late-night “Chiller Theatre”-type shows on their local UHF stations, and who’s really got what it takes to dive into a really bad movie. (Oh, sure; anybody can like good movies, but it takes real cajones to dig bad movies!)
When I attempted to convert a friend, I started with “Eegah!” This worked brilliantly, so I moved a level up to one of my personal favorites: “Lost Continent.” This… didn’t work quite so brilliantly. My poor unprepared friend writhed in agony even before the infamous “rock climbing” began. Note to self: put friend through more intensive movie-training before unleashing “rock climbing”…….
@losingmydignity – Have to agree with your inclusion of Starfighters. Endless scenes of jets doing nothing and a horribly weak plot. For a newb there at least has to be a plot for them to see and Manos, Timechasers, and so many others (sort of) have one. But to this day I still can’t remember what Bob Dornan’s film was even about.
I’m going to agree with 18. Season 1 has to be a graduate level for the hardcore fans. I just don’t see a casual fan sitting through that season… at all.
Other than that, Gorgo from S.9, Rocket Attack USA and Lost Continent from S.2, and any of the Russo-Finnish troika (as Kevin calls it) they are near impossible to get through for me.
I really am stunned that I seem to be the only person who doesn’t think season one is that bad.
I mean the first few… yeah….
But by “Robot Holocaust”, “Black Scorpion”, and “Women of the Prehistoric Planet” I’m having a good time.
In fact, if I need some cheering up I’m far more likely to put in “Black Scorpion” than I am “Puma Man” or “Cave Dwellers”.
Huh.
Call me weird I guess.
Someone’s always got to be the outlier.
@ Stressfactor: Not to get too esoteric, but the discussion is not bad/good episodes, or even good newbie eps, but ‘grad-level’, eps that only the devoted MSties love.
Season one is great, even Robot Vs Aztec, but its for the hardcore MSTie. It’s kind of like the Bible (not a perfect analogy I confess), After multiple readings, i get much more from ‘hard’ books like Hebrews or Ecclesiastes, while the seeker would read John or Mark.
Weird…that’s the word for it…weird.
I’m just not sure about season 1 being ‘graduate level’. My first MST experiences came during season 1 and I was hooked right away.
@ServoTron,
Exactly!
I tried jumping on in the later episodes and didn’t get it. I found that going back to the roots was better for me.
For me, season one is like taking History 101. You usually want to do that before trying a History 423.
It’s kind of backwards.
I guess to clarify, to me a “graduate level” episode is one in which the riffing just isn’t enough to save a movie.
Even in the early Season One stuff just because the riffing is more sparse it doesn’t bother me because most of the movies have an inherent humor factor and I either do a kind of ‘riff along’ where I think of my own, or I just sit back and laugh at or analyize the movie.
Whereas to take a film that is just hideous and to have riffing that isn’t sparse but just, to me, isn’t that GOOD is what makes a “graduate level.”
So, in short, I don’t care about riff rate, I care about hitting the bullseye on my funnybone. And ones where they tend to ride jokes into the ground don’t do that because to me the joke gets old and when it gets old it stops being funny.
I think it really depends on your expectations. If you want so-bad-they’re-funny movies, then “Manos” and the like will satisfy. If you want to get into the show itself, then some episodes are going to be more accessible than others. If you’re expecting classic episodes every week, then you’re going to be disappointed, because they just didn’t reach those heights all the time. If you’re comfortable with adjusting to the unique rhythm and pace of the show, or if you can be entertained when not every riff is comedy gold, then you’ve reached grad school. Maybe the question is not what particular episodes are “graduate level”–there seems to be no consensus here from what I assume are mostly “graduates” or even “post-docs” in this group–but how do you know you’ve earned at least your MA from MSTU? What attitudes and levels of enjoyment can you experience from any episode that you could only get from some of the “easier” eps? For example, if you have a definite opinion about which version of “Night of the Blood Beast” (Turkey Day vs Regular) you prefer, and would be willing to start a bar fight over it, then I’d say you’re well on in grad school. And maybe in need of serious help.
Think some of the episodes mentioned before (Manos, Radar Secret Service, even Monster A-Go-Go) are saved from putting people completely off by virtue of the top notch shorts within that episode.
My choices would be Girl in Lover’s Lane – because it’s SO depressing.
And The Painted Hills because it’s depressing and it’s hard to explain to a Newbie why people are making fun of a Lassie film. Especially a Lassie film where she almost dies several times. I even have a hard time watching it because of that.
Blast Hardcheese #96, I guess you can call me Bobhoncho MA, then.
Bobhoncho, MA:
Has a nice ring to it, don’t it? And no thesis to write!
“Alien from LA”. God that voice! :pain: Even Andrea Dworkin would tell Kathy Ireland to just shut up and take off her clothes.