Alert regular Rick is curious about yours:
I have been watching MST for 13 years since cancellation. How I pick episodes to view, and when to watch them, have varied over the years.
When my kids were young, we’d take 197 pieces of paper, number them with each episode and place them in a hat for a drawing. While often we didn’t agree, whatever number that was picked was that night’s episode.
Later, I watched the show in numerical order- from 2002- early 2008 going through the series nearly four times.
Two episodes weekly were viewed, commencing at 11 p.m. in the basement on Friday and Saturday nights.
For the next couple of years, episodes were picked at random, or, situations. (One time my GF was making stew, I knew I had to watch “Track of the Moon Beast.”)
Times viewed were on a supply and demand basis. If my lovely GF wanted to watch episodes, I’d dig deep and surprise her with “EEGAH” or “A Touch of Satan”
We had our own Turkey Day Marathon, as well as other weekend marathons on a whim. Does anyone out there plan on their own personal Turkey Day Marathon this year? If so, what episodes are you watching?
Lately there are two things going on- I have been watching every Sunday from 6-8 PM (the original slot for the KTMA gang) – it’s real comfort food and a nice way to wind down from the weekend and get ready to watch Dexter.
I’ve also resurrected the Friday and Saturday 11 p.m. slot — something tells me that’s when the show is best viewed.
Presently, I’m moving season to season- one night select one from season nine and move to season four the following.
What are some of the patterns do the members of this board developed over the years?
Well, I used to watch an episode a week with my elderly mother (back when we she lived with me). She loved it. We watched it in episode number order. The notes I took during those viewings were the core of what is now the episode guide. And as you know, I continue to watch an episode a week in episode number order. I don’t foresee stopping that.
What’s your viewing pattern? And while we’re at it, are there any particular routines — like foods/beverages you like to consume, traditions you have, whatever?
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
2 shows a day at night-???? 2 shows usually at night. Every Saturday like today it’s 2 shows at afternoon nap time and maybe 2 later when my wife goes to sleep and I crash on the couch.
Summer episodes: “Wild Rebels”, “Giant Spider Invasion”, “Horror of Party Beach”
Winter eps: “Jack Frost”, “Final Sacrifice”, “Pod People”.
I also like to watch them in “collections”. For example: All the Coleman Francis movies or say all the “Gamera” movies. Or sometimes I’m just in cheesy old monster movie mode. Really any of them are good at any time.
#40 COOL STUFF, GREAT IDEA.
I probably have the most pathetic viewing pattern. I only own the commercial releases on DVD…and I tend to put them on before bed…and my TV doesn’t have a SLEEP function…yeah, you can see where this is going.
Since Volume XXII it’s been much easier, since the menus stop instead of repeating all night long. But still, I often have to pick one with a quite menu that won’t wake me or my girlfriend. Even worse, I haven’t watched Manos in years, after several nights of hearing the themesong repeated over and over in my dreams.
I usually end up watching an episode late at night on Saturday, around midnight or so, once the wife and kids are long in the bed and sleeping. I plug in my headphones and pick out an episode from one of the dvd sets I haven’t watched yet or just pick out a favorite. It’s a great way to unwind.
If the episode in the upcoming weekly synopsis is one that I don’t remember well I may watch that one just so I feel like I know what I’m talking about in my comments-or I may know it well and just watch it anyway. Sometimes I’ll just be in the mood for a certain one. I don’t watch the same one too many times in a short space of time so there’s no burn-out. Once I have a new DVD set I’ll watch each one a few times, primarily for the obvious reason of liking the show, secondarily to see if there’s any technical problem with a disc and also watch the extras. Most episode watching is on weekends when I have the convenient free time to watch a 90+ minute show. I don’t know if that’s a real pattern, but that’s it.
I watch at least 1 episode a night every day just before bed. random episodes unless I’m feeling seasonal, for example its December now so episodes that feature snow or Christmas referenced in any way are at the top of the list. The only other thing that is a big factor is the box sets, If a box set has been released I usually watch each episode a few times the first couple weeks to enjoy the newness of it all.
if I’m sick I watch Gamera episodes, Fugitive Alien 1 & 2 or Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. I think the hallucinatory quality’s and just plain weirdness of these episodes help me feel better some how.
Ive been watching 1 episode a night like this almost as long as Ive been watching the show, It always feels wrong when I accidentally skip a night (a rare occurrence).
some times I’ll be at work and a line from an episode gets in my head and I chose an episode based on that sometimes.
Christmas marathon list includes:
Rifftrax: Santa Claus Punch and Judy
MST3K: jack frost
Rifftrax: Rudolf the red nose reindeer
Cinematic Titanic: Santa Claus conquers the martians
Rifftrax: Christmas Dream
MST3K:the day the earth froze
Rifftrax: Christmas toy shop
MST3K: Santa Claus
Rifftrax: magic Christmas tree
MST3K: Final Sacrifice
Rifftrax: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny
MST3K: deadly mantis
Rifftrax: Christmas rhapsody
MST3K: girl in gold boots
Rifftrax: a visit to Santa
Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Santa Claus conquers the martians
Rifftrax: the night before Christmas
MST3K: Mole People
Rifftrax: Christmas Shorts-stravaganza!
MST3K: Santa Claus conquers the martians
Yeah I know I’m crazy Santa Claus conquers the martians 3 times in 24 hours.
“merry Christmas boys and girls!” “smoking is good for you”
@#54: That sounds unpleasant.
For sometime, my first (and only) episode was a heavily edited version of Robot Holocaust. The commercials were cut out, along with all the host segments, the short and a section of the movie. It wasnt until Lifetime aired Cave Dwellers during a Cable ACE Awards weekend that I knew there were Mads, Gypsy, Cambot, or any backstory. And even longer to learn there was a short and more to the movie, when I finally found a torremt of the whole series.
Here’s something I do with the DVD sets to plan out the movies I want to watch. We have a shelf with all our movies, well 2 shelves, but on the top shelf is all my MST/ CT/ FILM CREW stuff. I have all the sets except Vol.5 ( but I have 3 single DVDS from that set ) anyway with the RHINO sets I pull out the set that has a movie/movies I plan to watch soon and with single DVDS or the sets from SHOUT I pull the DVDS from the set out so I have a bunch I plan to watch ready to grab. That’s why I like the SHOUT sets so much, I just have the sets facing with all the movies for me to choose from. When I first started doing this my wife said “why are some of the movies sticking out like that?” When I told her not to touch them or I’d break her fingers things got a little out of hand. After a night and jail and help from our marriage counselor we worked things out. She doesn’t touch my movies and I don’t try on her clothes when she’s out of the house. Now all is well in the Hagen household.
Set 25 came yesterday, and, we continued a tradition here- GF baked sourdough bread early, we started on the first of the four discs around 4:30. During the next six hours, four discs, we enjoyed homemade bread, and later,panini with tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese. Later, tasty lagers were opened. And what a wonderful set 25 is- in many ways, the most diverse yet.
i srsly watch all the time. i have it on a lot while at my computer working. barely watch the movie for the most part but the jokes and comments keep me tied to something besides working. no rhyme or reason to selections, just pick one i haven’t watched recently. i would say i average 2-3 eps a day give or take.
and it never gets old! so glad they’ve branched off into a 2 headed monster and keep it coming!
The big tradition for me when I get a new boxed set is to fire up the Jiffy Pop before watching an episode. For other instances I may watch an episode based on the weather. If it’s cold outside I will probably watch “Jack Frost” or “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”. Of course when the PACKERS!!!!!! won the Superbowl a few years ago I watched “The Giant Spider invasion”. There are other times where I’ll watch an episode simply because I haven’t seen it in a while.
# If you ask me at your house Set 25 sounds DELICIOUS.
I plan to have a few IPA’S when my set comes.
#61 ooops.
I usually watch one or at least half an episode a day or keep it on as background as I run in the streets doing things.
get up early on Saturday morning and view an episode with my husband (like when we were kids, Saturday morning cartoons). remember when MST3K used to come on Saturdays at 07:00? kept that tradition going after they went off the air by watching an ep on Saturday a.m. Did NOT, however, get up at 07:00.
I, too, am an early Saturday morning viewer. I make an early trip to the grocery store to get weekly grocery needs, then settle in with an episode. My episode rotation is, I fear, a tad pedestrian: I watch the boxed set episodes in numerical order (some Rhino and some Shout), one each week, then the three individual epsiodes I happen to have (“Manos,” “I Accuse My Parents” and “The Brain/Head That Wouldn’t Die”). Great way to start a weekend.
Currently watching in order. Cruising through the land of Season 8 goodness.
Holiday episodes at X-mas used to be the thing when I had a few on tape and a few on DVD. I miss that. But I have them all (and upgrading when they come out) so any old MST3k at Christmas will be frippin great!
My husband and I used to watch 20-30 minutes of an episode every night before going to bed, but we had a baby this year, so our viewing habits got a little thrown out of whack. (Darn inconsiderate baby!) Now we watch one whenever we can. If it’s been a while, we’ll go with a tried-and-true favorite, like Time Chasers, Manos or Pumaman. Since we haven’t seen every episode, I’ll also try to throw in a new one from one of the recent Shout! collections every now and then.
To get into the holiday spirit, we just watched Santa Claus and will be watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians tonight. Per our tradition, they’re the first holiday movies we watch every year!
We sometimes watch movies based on a particular actor–if watch something else with say, John Agar, then we’ll watch a MST3K episode (with Mr. Agar telling us all what we don’t need to know about something).
Sometimes we do birthday salutes with actors–living or dead.
And when a MST3K actor goes to that big sofa in the sky, we will watch an episodes with that person.
Holiday tributes work for us, too.
I watched MST3K during its original run on a fairly regular basis but, sad to say, didn’t always tape it. When they were cancelled for good in ’99, I watched the reruns on SciFi Channel until those, too, went off the air. This was before YouTube really caught on, so it was mostly cute cats, cute kids, and plane crash porn.
I went seven years before reacquainting myself with MST3K pretty much by accident a little over a year ago. I was on one of my regular foraging expeditions at archive.org, in search of copies of old stinkburgers I used to watch on the old Count Gore DeVol show, and found a copy of The Creeping Terror, which I hadn’t seen in thirty-odd years. While downloading it, I read the comment thread on that page and found somebody commenting that if you really wanted to appreciate how unintentionally funny The Creeping Terror was, you had to see the MST3K version — and I was like “whoa, jeez, I haven’t seen MST3K in years!”. So, after confirming that The Creeping Terror was just as bad/good as I remembered it, I found a download link to the MST3K version at a fan blog, and I was off to the races. Today, out of thirty DVD ROMs containing backups of my movie collection, at least half of them contain nothing but MST3K episodes.
The FireWire drive containing my music and movies also serves as the scratch drive for my FinalCutPro editing, so I need to keep about 35gb or so free, which means I limit the music and movies to things I listen to and watch regularly. So, out of my entire collection of MST3K, I usually keep only 80 or so episodes “in rotation”, along with a small batch of favorite shorts.
As I hadn’t seen any MST3K in a dog’s age until last year, I didn’t remember much, so was basically seeing many of these episodes for the first time. Usually, what I’ll do is consult the Episode Guides and check out the “laugh ratings” and watch the streams at Club MST3K to decide which episodes to download. Then, I’ll watch it two or three times to see if it really sets my ass on fire and is worth keeping in rotation; otherwise, I throw it onto the backup pile.
This isn’t generally hard and fast, though; sometimes, I’ll watch an episode for the first couple of times and not dig it right away and throw it onto the backup pile, then, for some reason, I’ll pull it out and watch it again and see something in it I hadn’t seen before, and decide it’s really pretty good and keep it in rotation. This happened with Tormented, Prince Of Space and Night Of The Blood Beast, among others.
Usually, I’ll watch one or two episodes an evening, picking them according to my mood, or whether or not I may have watched them too much lately, kind of the same way I pick out which Dead shows I listen to. If I watch more than one, I try to pick one Joel episode and one Nelson episode.
For instance, last night it rained most of the night here in DC, and it stayed kind of cold, damp and gloomy today, so late this morning I watched Tormented, because somehow it just seemed the right episode to go with a cup of coffee and a hot bowl of oatmeal on a cold, damp, gloomy Sunday morning.
I also use VLC Media Player to create episode playlists based on themes, actors or directors — mutants, mad scientists, aliens, space travel, airplanes, 1970s TV movies, juvenile delinquents, secret agents, Japanese flicks, biker flicks, Coleman Francis, Bert I. Gordon, Ed Wood, Robert Lippert, Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, etc. etc. The night that Neil Armstrong died, I honored my boyhood hero with a playlist of episodes with space movies: Project Moonbase, 12 To The Moon, First Spaceship On Venus, and Rocketship X-M, along with Cat Women Of The Moon, a sublimely bad movie which somehow escaped the MST3K Treatment.
While I enjoy the hell out of MST3K with nothing but a cup of coffee or a cold beer, I’ll readily admit here that when I can cadge a bit of weed, it really really goes great with some MST3K. I was high the last time I watched Monster A-Go-Go, and I was laughing until I hurt.
@72–Thanks for that long story about how you’ve never paid one red cent for MST3K.
#73 – Beat me to it. Who brags about going to such incredible lengths to avoid paying for episodes of a show you supposedly appreciate? Well, besides Mike Fudgeknocker.
I have developed a rather unconventional pattern to watching things MST3K and related. What often happens is I’ll hear a phrase, or see something on television or at work that jolts my subconscience. That certain something will stay with me, prompting me to seek out an MST3K episode “at random”. Then, as I watch it, that phrase will show up and make me realize why I sought out that particular episode in the first place.
I know all of this sounds bizarre, but I can’t count how many times this has happened to me with eps that I have not seen for some time. It happens mostly with the MST movies, but every so often it occurs with RTs and CTs as well. It’s then when I start “binging” on riffing, taking in a massive amount until I shift my attention to other things.
#72 You gotta figure he wouldn’t have a lot of money to spend on MST3K with the “HIGH” cost of WEED.Unless he’s talking about “DICKWEED” which is not a swear word. I wonder if he’s planning to move soon. As they say the Grass is Greener—-BLAH,BLAH,BLAH, I really miss Twinkies.
#73 & 74 He’s on a first name thing with Joel, but only knows Mike by his last name. Maybe he forgot his, PUFF, PUFF, PUFF. what or who are we talking about?
Oh yeah Twinkie the Kid, boy do I miss him.
I have a portable dvd player on my side table in the bedroom, so I usually put an episode in to fall asleep to. I put it on repeat and watch it all night, waking up now and then and chuckling.
Also, I work from home, so I will often do marathons – watching a whole boxed set throughout the day.
At this point, I pick episodes by the mood I’m in (and haven’t shown my wife yet), or if a joke/host segment sketch comes to mind or in a conversation and I’m suddenly inspired to watch that particular episode. But yeah, it’s more or less random now.
I made a combined database of the entire broadcast schedule archive, so I watch whatever was shown on that day. So right about now, I’d be watching Teenage Crimewave and later on it’ll be High School Bigshot.
A comment that occurs to me after reading about five or six of the most complicated selection systems I’ve ever heard about:
“I need to simplify my masturbation ritual.”
Heh heh. Dr. Z quote meant entirely in jest, those of you with complicated MST masturbation rituals! Whatever you do in the privacy of your own home is cool with me!
Just don’t, you know, go all David Carradine on us. For your own good.
Too soon?
Up until earlier this year, my lady-pal & I would just go for whatever episode we felt like, along with the random CT or RT. We didn’t really have a viewing pattern – it’d pretty much just be one of us saying “Hey, how about we toss on an MST3K?”. Around May we realized that we had only viewed about half of MST3K’s run (despite having both been fans since we were teens), so we decided to go through it in order. We’re currently in the middle of season 4 & it’s been an interesting experience. We’ve enjoyed watching the show evolve over the first 60 or so episodes & have at least a dozen new favorites we had never seen before. We don’t have any nights set for viewing; it’s pretty much whenever we’re in the mood for it.
Snacks / beverages? Nether of us really snack while watching TV or movies, but if it’s a weekend night, a few tasty microbrews & some weed (if we’ve got it) usually go with our viewing. If I pick up a DVD set, I’ll watch the special features but save the episodes themselves for when they’ll pop up in the run (We’re trying our hardest to avoid cheating & haven’t even viewed “Santa Claus” this holiday season because we’re saving it for viewing in proper order).
I have several MST3K viewing habits.
I generally will watch the upcoming episode guide entry on Wednesday nights, or on Thursday nights as I read through the comments.
On Friday nights and/or Saturday afternoon/nights, I will watch the two episodes featured on Comedy Central from twenty years ago that weekend. This week’s selections are: Pod People and Manhunt In Space.
I reserve Santa Claus and Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (MST and CT versions) strictly to Christmas viewings. This year, I did the 1992 Turkey Day marathon, so I had to put SCCTM on a little early.
Otherwise, my rotation is Season 1-6. Even though most of my favorite episodes are from Season 3, Season 2 is my overall favorite season. Such a comfortable relaxed vibe. And I’ll admit, that vibe is laced with nostalgia.
And, I watch the CT and RT as they come out. Currently, I’m about 15 movies behind on RT.
And I absorb each Shout! set as they arrive….
Virtually every Saturday morning, our two bassett hounds and I take over the sofa for our weekly MST3K ep viewing. I partake of an espresso or just regular coffee and a doughnut or something. The hounds, well, they sleep a lot.
A few years back, I just watched them sequentially, and that only took three or four years. Now, as befits anyone with a screen name like mine, I’ve an AppleScript on my Mac that, at the click of a button, will randomly select our episode from my library. I’ve found that there are a lot of episodes that, if I haven’t watched them in a couple of years, it’s like watching them for the first time.
Finally, I totally agree with pondoscp. Around this time of year, the AppleScript gets overridden and the pups and I feast on Santa Claus and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (even at that age, it was so obvious why Pia Zadora became an icon for John Waters!)
There you have it. Let a thousand schools of thought contend! KidOCD
My viewing habits are usually totally random. Whatever episode I feel like, or sometimes one I just haven’t seen in a while and don’t remember as well as others. I also mix Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic in randomly whenever I feel like watching some riffing. Sometimes I do themed nights or weeks where I watch all Japanese movie episodes, all biker movie episodes, all monster movie episodes, etc. This time of year I always do a Christmas theme run of MST3K, Cinematic Titanic, and Rifftrax, which I will probably start the week before Christmas. Last year I went through the entire series from KTMA on up over the course of a couple of months. I would try to watch at least one a day, but sometimes I’d go through two or three, and on several occasions even four in one day (it’s easy for me because I’m a freelance artist/designer so I can just let them play while I’m working). It was awesome seeing the entire evolution of the show in such a short span of time. I have been getting the urge to do that again soon, but this time I would definitely spread it out over a longer period of time, maybe a once a week viewing of the series in order with the odd random episodes thrown in at other times when I just felt like watching one. I think MST3K is probably one of the few TV series out there that still has fans who have literally never stopped watching it regularly even more than a decade after it was cancelled and/or off the air entirely. I’m sure plenty of people still watch stuff like Star Trek frequently, I know I do, but how many people have habits where they are going to just keep watching the entire series over and over one episode at a time forever? Of all the other TV shows I love and still watch regularly on DVD MST3K is the only one that doesn’t just go in spurts. If I want to watch old episodes of say the Simpsons I’ll pull out my DVD sets and watch a couple here and there, or maybe even gradually make my way through an entire season or two, but then they always get put away again, maybe even for a few years. But my MST3K DVDs get such heavy use that I have a special shelf just for them so I can keep them all on hand and ready to go on a whim.
Since I am an extremely light sleeper, I’m totally jealous of those of you who can fall asleep while an episode is playing! I never knew so many people could do that.
(Just to clarify) I see that ability as a great thing and would love to be able fall asleep with an MST3K episode for a lullaby.
#86/87 Turn the LIGHTS DOWN and TURN THE VOLUME DOWN LOW and let JOEL/MIKE and the rest take you to RIFF DREAMLAND.
yeah sometimes the show is like a nyquil IV so soothing and happy!
Space Mutiny, Time Chasers, and Overdrawn at the Memory Bank are the three most personal episodes to me and I usually watch them back to back to back on Fridays just to start the weekend right.
However, I have a plan coming up in 2016: in 2016, the days and dates line up just as they did in 1988, the year that MST3K first aired on KTMA, and will stay lined up with the run of the show to 1999. I plan on “reliving” the show by rewatching every available episode in order as close to the time of airing as possible on the day it aired 26 years prior (should for whatever reason I miss a day, I’ll “record” the episode to watch later), and not watching any episode until it “airs,” all the way until the release of Merlin’s House of Mystical Wonders, the final premiered episode, which will be September 19, 2027. I may try to recreate the Turkey Day marathon orders as well. I won’t hold myself to “reruns”, but after an episode “airs” I can watch it anytime on my “tapes.”
Good luck on that.
My friends and I started doing our own Turkey Day marathons about 10 years ago and we’re still at it. This years final film was the Rifftrax of the Star Wars Holiday Special and great was the deep hurting. But that wasn’t enough so for over two years now I have a dinner party at my apartment on Friday nights and we watch two episodes back to back with Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax thrown in as well. We started just doing random episodes but then decided to go from the beginning of both Joel and Mike, so we started again with The Crawling Eye and The Brain That Would Not Die. next week is 305 Stranded in Space and 619 Red Zone Cuba. :-)
Watch about 20 minutes or so of an episode before I go to bed, so I generally get through an episode in about four days or so. I discovered the show late at night in college back in the very early 90s, and I love watching it late because it harkens back to my boyhood when I’d watch creature features late at night. I generally don’t have a system for what I’m going to watch — I just pick out what suits my fancy, although I always watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Santa Claus before Christmas as I did this week. Also watch Night of the Blood Beast on Thanksgiving with the Turkey Day segments.
I remember telling Joel after a CT show that I always watched MST3K right before I went to bed, and that no matter how crappy my day might have been, I always go to sleep with a smile on my face. He seemed genuinely touched, but gave a great reply: “I see you’re married — I’d hope there’d be other things you do right before you go to sleep that put a smile on your face.” Awesome.