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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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Since I grew up in the 50’s that decade holds a particular significance for me. And many of the movies MST3K riffed I had watched in the theater (and even been scared by) so there is a nostalgia factor that probably most here don’t have.
It’s probably true that when you were in elementary school is where the memories are most vivid, followed closely by your teen years. So, 50’s and then 60’s and because I once saw those movies as serious seeing them made fun of now is very delightful. And, let’s face it, there is no decade where we were so naive about space (and radioactive monsters) as the 50’s. It would be very difficult for any movie made after the moon landing to be *quite* as innocent about those things (and thus any one which comes close tends to do so purposefully and not nearly as fun to be made fun of).
Japan seems to be a country about a decade behind us in terms of sophistication, so movies in the 60’s there tend to display that same innocence. Besides, there is a special feeling for men in rubber suits there. So while my favorite films done by MST3K are those in the 60’s, they are all made in Japan.
I’ve said many times before (but will say again) but no current film has any cheese factor — it’s axiomatic but cheese don’t taste good unless it’s aged. So films any later than the 80’s tend to be very difficult for me to watch riffed (although I will say that the only way I could get through any of the Twilight films was to watch Mike and company make fun of them).
I was born in Jan. of 1980, and my answer for favorite decade of MSTed movies is. . . . .the 1970’s.
Sure I love the 80’s movies; when I first saw BEING FROM ANOTHER PLANET, I was thrilled because it was a “recent” movie (in relation to the time, back in 95) and it remains one of my favorites. The 80’s will always give me a certain amount of nostalgia, and the 90’s more so, but their cheesiness and spandexed bravado, no matter how fun, doesn’t really compare to the awesome 70’s.
What I love about the 70’s films is their creepy aesthetic and their unwavering commitment to a certain level of sleaziness (Touch of Satan, Girl in Gold Boots, Incredible Melting Man, The Incredibly Strange Creatures…) and if they aren’t creepy or sleazy they are just full of big hair, big music, and weird clothes and weirder people (Mitchell, Angel’s Revenge, Laserblast).
In general, I love 70’s films; specifically film made from, oh, 1967-1982. I consider that to be a Golden Era of filmmaking, both in America and abroad.
But you know, I can’t dismiss the 50’s and the 60’s (MSTed movies or otherwise) as there are some great films from those years.
This is a hard and unfair question for a cinephile. Still though, gotta go with THE SEVENTIES.
This was a lot harder than I thought! But after much back and forth i’ll go 70’s. Only because they get extra points for BELL BOTTOMS!!! Now if we get to add in the shorts,the 50’s rule! I think thats where all those hygene and posture shorts come from.
This question is troubling us all. I wish it never happened.
The 80’s for giving us Space Mutiny and Zombie Nightmare among others, followed closely by the 70’s for crap like The Touch of Satan and Riding with Death.
And as Hobgoblins perfectly states:
“It’s the 80’s, do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!”
I follow the siren song that is the 60’s. Aside from a bunch of bad beach movies and bad James Bond-wannabe’s, it just seems natural.
Plus, I’m of the persuasion that the people who wrote those teen movie scripts just threw in a bunch of lingo that noone uses except for a handful of people. Terms like ‘book,’ ‘nitty-gritty,’ ‘bread,’ ‘fade-out.’ I remember reading an interview that Gail Gerber couldn’t believe she said the line ‘dig that nitty-gritty.’ And given her memoirs, she wasn’t the kind of beach girl that she normally portrayed in several films. I’m sure it was the same with Tommy Kirk when in Catalina Caper, he asks the Creepy Girl, ‘do you dig this cat, Angelo?’
As well, there are plenty of others like Kitten with a Whip, and those films that try to be gritty life-changing dramas that show the darkside like ‘Sidehackers’ and ‘Girl with the Gold Boots.’
The 50’s for me. I dig the Dames. Salome Jens in the nurses outfit.., uh nevermind.
The 60’s and 70’s were just to greasy.
Wow! My first post is #58. The same year that Terror from the year 5000 was made, which is what I referenced.
Off to buy a Lotto ticket.
The 50’s for me, simply because SCIENCE! could both cause and solve any problems imaginable. Nuclear powered coffee pot? Not a problem. Crickets the size of a car threatening New Jersey? Check! Traveling to Jupiter or beyond in a few hours in the far-flung future of 1970? Check! There was a naivety with the burgeoning world of technology that was the cinematic equivalent of giving a 5 year old a flamethrower. Such fun….
The 1970’s movies bring back the creature double feature fun that we watched as kids.
Right on, HauntedHill, you said it better than I did. To paraphrase Thomas Dolby, many of those 50s films were blinded with SCIENCE!
Just taking a quick perusal of that handy Daddy-o link…it’s no doubt that the 60’s films are my favorite. For starters you have all 3 coleman francis films…the batch of ed wood involved flicks…the campyness of eegah, creeping terrors…manos…horror of party beach, the the eye creatures…monsters a go gos…batwomen, capers…gold boots…hackers…hellcats…and that may not even be half!
It’s really a toss up for me between the 70’s and the 80’s, but I think the 70’s narrowly take the lead because of their overall Ben Murphy-ness.
There was something special about that decade that really lends itself to creating perfect MST3K fodder:
Most obviously, you’ve got the same funky fashion mistakes and easy pop culture references that make 80’s movies such a hilarious target for riffing, combined with the tail end of the 60’s willful scientific ignorance and obsession with the mysterious properties of atomic energy.
From a more technical point of view though, by the early 70’s cinematic technology had advanced to the point where even the worst directors could afford to shoot on color film, using more than one camera, and with decent lighting, audio, and editing capabilities (meaning that their films were free to fail on the basis on bad acting/plot alone, rather than because the audience couldn’t see/hear what was going on)
At the same time, even good visual effects still tended to be pretty cheesy, and most movies weren’t scored to the same extent as modern films, making them easier to riff over (at least from a logistical standpoint.)
“OK, Mike. I’m just gonna give in, and look at the breasts!”
How can you not love a decade that gives you a line like that?
#51-“Japan seems to be a country about a decade behind us in terms of sophistication” If true there are exceptions, Queen the rock band caught on there before they really achieved popularity in the UK or US. But that’s a tangent, on the main topic it’s very hard to pick just one decade as a favorite. Probably the 80s, that’s when I was growing up (born in 1978) and I sometimes fall prey to nostalgia for that decade (nostalgia is a mixed bag feeling wise). Maybe it’s because so much of my life after the 80s was pointless and disappointing. I have a soft spot for some of the 50s, especially movies like Phantom Planet and Deadly Mantis. But the overall look and vibe of 80s movies (Hobgoblins, Space Mutiny, Warrior of the Lost World, even Master Ninja*) feels very familiar to me. I have to give credit to other decades, I really like the 90s episode/movies, even though I look back on the decade itself with scorn.
*MASTER NINJA WAS NOT A GENUINE FEATURE FILM
I’m an 80s kid, so the movies from that time (and the few past) seem more “real” to me for lack of a better word. Movies from the 50s make good episodes, too, but don’t give me the “Oh my… I probably walked past 10 films like this in the rental store as a kid” feeling.
The awful scifi effects of the 50’s and the 80’s make a good cheese soup, mmmmm.
The 80s and the 90s. The 80s will be my favorite decade ever no matter what all the haters say. It gave us Nintendo, Final Fight, Mega Man, Castlevania, Knight Rider, A-Team, a million awesome cartoons and my first taste of anime, Batman Firestorm X-Men Superman Avengers comics that I love. Plus, on the MST side of things: Time Chasers, Final Sacrifice, Merlin, Escape 2000, Cave Dwellers, Space Mutiny, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Pumaman, Deathstalker, and several other piles of entertaining crap.
My gut says 60s, but lemme check DDID.
60s, 50s as a close second.
I’m in for the 60s. The 30s and 40s were too low-budget. The 50s tended to be preachy and bland. The 70s were butt ugly, tacky, and too ‘funky’ by half. The 80s… that’s tempting. The sword & sorcery boomlet, giving us Ator, Cabot, and to a much lesser degree, Deathstalker. (And talk about the name not matching the character– it’s like the high school’s 90-pound weakling suddenly demanding to be called Killer Cobra.) Then there was the goofy TV of the era, giving us the straight-faced yet totally ridiculous Master Ninja. Home-video cheapies flooding the market. I don’t know, though. Something about it gives me pause. Maybe it’s the unwelcome resurgence of the decade’s brutal avarice…
On the other hand, the 60s. When everyone mistakenly seemed to think they were cool. But teen rebellion had made great strides since the 50s, the music was a better by a quantum leap, and we got bikers, surfers, (sillier) beatniks, more revealing swimsuits, impossibly cool secret agents, sword and sandal movies, and, uh… lots of giant monster heel-face turns, I guess. Plus, it was well before my time, so I can romanticize it pretty easily (see comments on the 80s above). That helps.
@ 71 – OTOH, the “Village of the Giants” quote sums it up:
“Y’know, as much as Bert I. Gordon was the 50’s, he just wasn’t the 60’s…”
I’ve discovered the same was true of Roger Corman, and HIS attempts to keep up with the Turbulent Generation Gap (eg. “Wild in the Streets”)–
The 50’s a generation for low-budget films to be made for, since you had Sputnik, UFO fever arising out of Red scares, and postwar teens with their own money/cars who wanted something showing at the drive-in.
The B-movie took a sleazy nosedive (qv. the Crown “Hellcats”/”Sidehacker” biker epics) when teens turned Angry and Rebellious in the 60’s, and you can’t make a good goofy B-epic on anger.
I once asked a question pretty much like this one on a different MST3K-focused discussion board, but perhaps couldn’t quite answer it myself. I do like the dated earnestness of the 1950s movies in the MST3K canon and the blatant ripoffs among the 1980s (and 1990s) movies, but in some ways I also enjoy the bleak everybody-dies conclusions of a certain number of 1970s movies (“The Incredible Melting Man,” “Laserblast,” and “parts: the clonus horror” are examples I can think of), if in part because they can seem just as unsatisfying to me as contrived happy endings. Still, in some ways my feelings lean towards the 1960s for having movies sort of like the ones we think of as “1950s movies,” but made with that much less care and skill (“The Beast of Yucca Flats,” “The Wild Wild World of Batwoman,” and “The Creeping Terror” come to mind… )
Right off the bat I was going to say the 50s, but upon further reflection I am going with the 60s. Any decade that brought you the cheesy Italian spy epics can’t be all bad.
I’m going to go with the 80s for nostalgia’s sake. I spent half that decade parked in front of cable TV watching Cinemax and USA network. We assumed it was quality entertainment made by top professionals. Boy were we wrong. What a load of recycled filler with laughable and gratuitous titillation and improvised FX. Well all those new channels had to be filled up with something, like the Crap-fests that are Cave Dwellers, Warrior of the Lost World, Zombie Nightmare, and(shudder)Hobgoblins.
The 50s movies are more wholesome and enjoyable for the most part, but the 80s movies are loathsome and deserve all the cruelty. They knew we weren’t a captive audience like the 50s kids; we were apathetic and they boldly challenged us to turn off the hours and hours of sub-grade filler.
BTW I plan to make a sub-library of the best 50s-60s MST so my new son can watch them with me and enjoy a helping of the old pop-and-folk sensibilities.
’60s. The Gamera movies, Eegah, Agent from Harm. All great.
I’m going with the decade ’56 to ’66, my early childhood and early teen years. Clearly a strong impression was made–to judge by my MST3K video collection.
@4 – In honor of today being Rapture Day I just want to say
I, meanwhile, have celebrated Apocalypse Day by posting one of my favorite Benny Hill lines:
“In 1870, a noted scientist publicly predicted the world would end in seven years…And for him, in 1877, it DID.” :)
I have favorites from pretty much every decade, but if I had to choose just one era it would probably be the 80s.
I have favorites from pretty much every decade, but if I had to choose just one era it would probably be the 80s.
being a man that loves self-depricating humor, and being a teenager in the 70s, that has to be my personal favorite. The “cheese”–acting styles, clothes, slang etc–are so personal to me, I cringe when Ben Murphy goes for the “cool” handshake–
The 50’s. I love the enthusiastic sincerity of the 50’s Sci-Fi movies.
The Crawling Eye 1958, Radar Men from the Moon 1952, Robot Monster 1953, Project Moonbase 1953, Untamed Youth 1957, The Black Scorpion 1957, Rocketship X-M 1950, Lost Continent 1951, Daddy-O 1959, The Amazing Colossal Man 1957….
Yep, it’s gotta be the 50’s.
Looking at the year sort, I was surprised at how many movies I thought were 60’s were 50’s and vice versa. Going by the list, the 60’s win on quantity of good shows, but I was impressed by the consistent quality of the 80’s episodes, almost every one of them was a winner. I was also interested to see that had not done nearly as many 1970’s flicks as I assumed.
1960’s by a nose over the 1980’s. But every decase was productive, except maybe the 1940’s.
1920’s
Fifties movies had a way of being major studio projects (the studios, not the projects) and moved along, albeit clunkily and stupidly. The sixties were probably the worst, with fledgling directors and independent films that were painfully slow, due to not being concocted by a major studio. And the Seventies was an independent’s attempt at bringing the two together in a sort of “progression,” which of course, only got the wrong stuff right. Hard to pick a whole decade, but I think I have to go with the eighties. Between Zombie Nightmare, Soultaker and the even more recent Quest of the Delta knights, the ’80’s were rich with bad special effects and puppets being rubbed on would-be victims (Hobgoblins).
“It’s the Eighties, do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!”
I agree with Mr. Kraskor, the 80’s ruled it hardcore, and thus I go with that decade. And yes, it helps that I grew up in the 80s (born in mid 70s).
I like the B&W movies the best. So the 50s & some of the 60s.
I’m going with the 50’s and 60’s as well, because the movies are laughable on their own. You don’t even need Joel/Mike and the robots to make, say, “Village of the Giants,” or “Bride of the Monster” funny.
The sixties. There was such a cultural shift over those ten years that the difference between the films made at the start of the decade and those made at the end of the decade is remarkable. You still have your great 50ish type movies made during the earlier part of the decade, like Skydivers, Ring of Terror, The Crawling Hand, The Creeping Terror, Devil Doll, etc. And then you have the 70ish movies, which had a completely different sensibility, at the end of the decade, like Sidehackers, Moon Zero Two, Hellcats, Girl in Gold Boots. And then you had the movies that truly belonged to the 60s, like Village of the Giants, Catalina Caper, Agent From H.A.R.M., Kitten With a Whip, Teenage Strangler, etc.
It has it all. The 50s and the 70s are a little too monolithic for me. The sixties had real variety.