Bridget seems to be resigned to the whole thing, and at least one Web site thinks the idea is awesome.
As we reach the middle of the month, you also may have noticed that, until this point, we have said nothing about it. One reason is that until and unless Mike checks into the hospital with malnutrition, his diet does not seem to be directly affecting his work, and we here at Satellite News are all about the work.
Another reason is that Mike has eschewed any sort of monitors or “Super Size Me”-style video diary, which, frankly, means that we have nothing but his word that he is actually doing this. (Ahem, not that we don’t believe Mike or anything.)
Still another reason is that I figured that when I DID post something about this, I knew the thread was going to be a long one that was going to take over the comments for a day or so, and I didn’t want to do it in the middle of the week.
So, have at it: Mike, bacon, nutrition, stupidity, publicity, deliciousness, crispiness and the whole darn thing. Discuss.
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Gee, it seems Crow was right in Werewolf. “You will develop an intense love for bacon” (this line might be off though).
Bacon has always been a comic theme for Mike and the ‘bots, from Canadian bacon as the cause of “Hockey Hair” to the astronaut who smelled like “Vitalis and bacon” and many more I can’t immediately recall.
Perhaps his point would be that Americans have always brought home ridiculously more bacon than necessary and that these modern times seem to bear that out…I guess.
Why? mikes gone crazy, hes finnally lost it, hes seen too many bad movies. I blame canada! yes canada, it had to be a bad canadian movie that did this, bacon. oh wait then it would be canadian bacon. ummm what?
mike, bill, and keven should just go to C.T. its where they belong. this smells of a desperate publicity stunt. is rifftraxs on its way out?
I miss mst3k.
Wow people have lots of opinions about this silly little stunt! I’m pretty sure Mike will survive if he really is eating only bacon for a month. All meat diets are apparently fine as long as the meat has enough fat. It appears to be some sort of bet with the folks around the Rifftrax office. It also appears to be drumming up great publicity for the site! It’s an insane but I’m betting ultimately harmless stunt.
I like Mike – he’s one of my favorite people – and I hope he’s going to be all right during and after this.
But, has anyone called dibs on Bridget yet?
DIBS!
Last year during one of his appearances on Conan, Jim Gaffigan did an entire routine totally centered on how much he loves bacon. That was funny. This? Not so much.
And Raptatorial Talon, I really hope your theory of “Mike making a folksy-yet-serious statement regarding non midwesterners being way too uptight about the joy of greasy food” is not for real. And I’m from North Dakota. My favorite breakfast used to be when my grandpa would serve bacon with american potatos fried in BACON LARD. So I feel more than qualified to say that this is a silly (and as mentioned before, uninspired) stunt and that a sane human being shouldn’t injest a month’s worth of the fat content found in the food decried by Mike and the ‘bots that was shown in the Gleason fair scene in Giant Spider Invasion.
But hey, if he loves bacon, more power too him. What red blooded male doesn’t. Hopefully it’ll just be like he was on a temp Atkins regimen.
More power TO him. Darn typos.
Man, I could go for one of my mom’s BLTs right now….
Still, it’s a good indicator of what people want…and what it will take to get a MSTie to drag their lazy ass up to a computer and respond to a thread, basing the responses from a “riffing bad movies” thread (last week) versus a “Mike eating bacon” thread (this week).
246 comments last week to 57 this week at latest count.
Take it as a free marketing research study, We Want Mike to riff bad movies! I can hear Night of the Lepus calling right now… It’s saying “Rifftrax, o Rifftrax, I dare you….”
In response to #44
No way, this Kevin Murphy wouldn’t happen to be the same Kevin Murphy who used to work with Mike.
BTW Sarcasm is kind of hard to get across on the Internet.
“And Raptatorial Talon, I really hope your theory of “Mike making a folksy-yet-serious statement regarding non midwesterners being way too uptight about the joy of greasy food” is not for real.”
I wasn’t being overly serious, but I think it might be a sort of underlying theme. A subconscious one, even. And hell, not just for the Midwest. Humans in general and Americans in particular revel in indulgence, so being told that something you like is bad kind of forces you to repress your desire for whatever it might be. This sort of thing is like venting that frustration, I would say.
Of course, it’s still mainly useful as a publicity stunt.
Incidentally, there are or have been some groups of people on Earth who would eat little other than fatty meat their entire lives, and it never killed them over the course of a month. The key determinant in their lifestyles is of course excercise, but I doubt a month of bacon will produce any serious lasting effects unless Mike already suffers from health problems that this would exacerbate.
R.I.P. Mike Nelson
He LOVED to eat BACON,
This much is TRUE,
And since RIFFTRAX sucked balls,
We sure won’t miss YOU!
DUMBASS PUBLICITY STUNT WHORE!
THANK GOD YOU ARE DEAD!
To the astute and witty poster of No. 61:
WTF is wrong with you?
Either you’ve overestimated your comedic ability or you’ve overestimated your sanity. Either way, I have to question why you would post something like that on a fan site.
Especially a site extolling a show where Mr. Nelson was the head writer for most of its run.
Jackass.
I had a lot of respect for Mike…but I also just lost a lot of it after reading this “Stunt” of his…
WHY would anyone do this? Besides trying to kill themselves in a very wimpy way. If I was Bridget I’d be worried about her Husband. NO sane person would do this kind of garbage, besides those losers on “Jackass”. Is this what has become of Michael J. Nelson?!
Besides…he messed up the whole “Stunt” by doing it in February. If he did this in March, he could have had a fake obituary on April 1st. How many would fall for it is another story.
Pointless idea and dull discussion topic. #61 is just a troll trying to make people angry and stir things up for its’ own sake. Ignore him.
shhhh,be very quiet, but Mike Nelson is starting to see Torgos. Can this be a side effect of his eating only bacon adventure? :???:
#59: Omega
What are you going on about? I’m just relating what Mike’s going to do with what Kevin Murphy did that turned out to be a pretty awful experience.
“#61 is just a troll trying to make people angry and stir things up for its’ own sake. Ignore him.”
Eh. In my experience, trolling only works if it starts an argument between two existing sides. Whereas a flurry of “trolls go home” responses usually lets them know their “input” is not going to affect the rest of the thread.
I’ll try to spice it up in a civil fashion by generating a more back-and-forth sort of discussion. Here goes:
I’m really quite surprised that everyone is reacting with a sort of hostile apathy to this. When I first heard about it, my reaction was “Huh, that’s a cool little side project.” No need to conflate it with the main thrust of the man’s career. And the commentary on society was obvious; the idea that bacon is horrible and will kill you in any more than occasional quantities was, in Mike’s colloquial opinion, “stupid,” so he decided to prove that it’s not as viciously unhealthy as we have perhaps been led to believe. Given what is, IIRC, Mike’s centrist-conservative, no-nonsense, and ideally level-headed sort of politico-cultural background, this all makes good sense in context, as well.
Now obviously any public activity a person in Mike’s position performs can be interpreted as a “publicity stunt,” and that is indeed probably a major if not primary reason for going through with it. But I think it has merit for what it is: a small side project, a personal experiment which can be related to his audience for their amusement, possibly their education, and overall for their gratification. The man is an entertainer by profession, and if he is in fact attempting to turn what is ultimately a personal experience into something that can entertain and engage his audience, then more power to him. Whether he’s successful in the end is another question, of course, but hey, that’s entertainment in general for you.
Here are some questions. How would people react if this were Joel doing it? How would they react if it had been Joel or Mike *during* the run of MST3k? I think we’d be seeing some very different responses. The main factor here seems to be, to me anyway, not who is doing it or why, but simply the fact that a goodly number of MSTies are disappointed with Rifftrax in some respect or other and are interpreting this stunt as further “proof” of a decline in that franchise’s value, or even more fundamentally, in the talent and/or judgement of the key person responsible for it. But I don’t think this bacon thing, in itself, offers any such proof; even if Rifftrax were beloved by all, Mike could still have done this – what with him being Mike – and then, it seems to me, the context for reactions would be very different. I think quite a few people are conflating what might otherwise be two separate sets of opinions.
And let’s note that, as marketing goes, this whole thing has probably been a net positive for Rifftrax. As such, his judgement is probably not too far gone.
So there’s a big chunk of opinion for people to digest. No trolling necessary to stimulate a frank and enlightening discussion.
Meatless (soy) bacon is not so bad…I tried some recently.
Raptorial, thank you for saying what I would have, only with less obscenities and declarations of maternal prostitution.
Though I will quibble with the choice of “goodly number” when it comes to the “disappointed with Rifftrax” camp. In my experience though many different fandoms, the volume and viciousness of the posts tends to be inversely proportional to the size of the group. And just as here, the urge to take something simple and silly and blow it up into MAJOR DRAMAS in some weird urge to reinforce one’s “case” rears its ugly head. Usually the next step is claiming the support of the silent, invisible majority that just happens to agree with them.
Also… Steve K, thank you too for your comments up in #38. Again, no matter which fandom I find myself even tangentially a part of, there is always that camp that wants “creators to turn off their creative instincts and just keep parroting the bits you like.” It’s disheartening, really. Frankly, I’m a little sad that the whole MST crew seems to have gravitated back to the riff well… I love ’em all, every last damn one of them is a great talent, and the product on both sides has been entertaining… but I really would like to see them do more and more non-riff-focused work. I know in my heart they’re capable of more than that one thing they did a decade or two ago.
#67
I’ll answer the question “what if jole were doing it” I think it’s kinda lame, mike or jole it dosnt matter. I’ll tell you why it’s lame, it’s lame because in comparrison to all the things mike has done with mst3k and rifftraxs as head writter. This stunt is just not up to the standards that have been set by his track record.
Mike is just funnyer than all this, it seems more like an idea for a lame youtube skit that any teen or culturely stunted adult could come up with.
dont get me wrong, I like rifftraxs, I think Mike is verry talented. It is this reason that everyone is so dissapointed.
However there is a small chance that it’s not a stunt, Mikes just trying to prove something or win a bet. in either case Im not going to throw him under the bus, I’ll just wait until I forget about this lameness. Im sure everyone else will forget too, cause lets face it, it’s kinda dumb and there are verry bad, horrible movies out there to be riffed and Mike, Bill, and Kevin will be there to mmake them watchable.
What I want to see is those 3 scrap rifftraxs and head over to the C.T. camp. (we all know that when the whole gang is together they are all at their best!)
no amount of lame bacon banter or ghetto internet downloaded riffing can hold a candle to the best brains.
oh and #61
Mike dosnt suck and rifftraxs dosnt suck either,
you think you can do better? get up there and try riffing a movie yourself!
“can we talk about mittchel?”
This thread is really bringing out the ugly in some people. I do agree that I think #61 is a total douche, but the comeback “you think you can do better?” (#70) is just about as weak. I think I do an okay job at riffing on movies and tv in an amateur capacity, but that’s not my profession. That’s what Mr. Nelson does. He should be good at it. If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t be wasting time on it. So it’s pretty pathetic of you to insist that someone “do better” because he’s got a complaint or a differing opinion, even if I don’t agree with it. If a doctor does a crappy job, you sue him. The judge doesn’t tell you to “do better”.
I’m slightly underwhelmed by it. At the onset I thought this might be funny or interesting. Mike’s a smart guy and I thought it would be interesting to see if he would post amusing, but insightful articles about the different kinds of bacons he was eating. Or, he might write a series of funny articles about bacon eating.
So far, neither of those seems to be the case. It just sort of seems like him repeating the basic premise at length. However, we still have time to go, so perhaps something interesting/funny will come of it.
I tend to agree with both #67 and #69. I do also think that it’s just a guy doing something goofy to entertain himself and his friends. The only difference in this case is that Mike is somewhat of popular guy who has some media exposure. Which means he is more open to critisism and interpretation on a larger scale. Again, it’s a guy being goofy to entertain himself and his friends. People who are generally considered funny, can usually laugh at themselves and their “stupidity” first. IMHO
I’d like to correct my own post.
It was the “digital switching station” that Mike tried to patch with bacon. The fuel filter was a separate problem.
A fallacy about bacon is that it’s high-fat. That’s true, only until it’s cooked. Once cooked, a piece of bacon only has about 2 grams of fat. Of course, you’d have to eat a LOT of bacon to feel satisfied so those 2 grams per piece will add up fast. Unless he’s eating it raw, there’s probably not too much to worry about. I do think it’s a dumb thing to do though unless there’s some kind of punchline to it.
If he was a real man, he would have chosen peanut butter for his less than notable stunt…out of 28 different jars. Now THAT would really be taking your life in your hands.
Salmonella roulette !
LOL at #76! Now that would make news all over the world. :lol:
#77 baha thats genius
We could get secret spy music to play.
Geez,I agree this thread is starting to get eveel. Its just a stunt guys. If he begins to hallucinate from ze bacon endeavor,I firmly believe He,or Bridget will pull the plug
and Ice berg lettuce has one flavor-water
“and Ice berg lettuce has one flavor-water”
Yes . . . lettuce-flavored water.
You know, I’ve been thinking about whether this is “just a stunt.” That implies it’s being done purely for the sake of gaining attention. But if that’s the sole goal, aren’t there more controversial and/or ridiculous things that one could do? Wouldn’t something more bold and ostentatious be more effective at drawing glances from the general public?
It seems to me that this may have started simply as a bet, or a funny concept, or some other more personal thing, and then *evolved* into a publicity stunt. It was co-opted for that purpose, despite having not originated that way. Or so I suspect. Because frankly, if pure attention is what was needed, there are much less mundane possibilities he could have run with.
“Potatoes are what we eat!”
Faux bacon, turkey bacon, back bacon, canadian bacon, and on and on. Hell, his diet is more varied than mine: chicken ramen, plain potato chips. This drinking “whatever” thing includes Ensure and all that, right? Not just spirits?
Dude, this whole thing strikes me as a workplace bet that happened to take place in public. It amazes me that anyone would get worked up about it. This just seems like another example of people clinging to any excuse to criticize someone that they don’t like. What is it Joel said about what he liked about Mike as a standup? “He was up there on stage just amusing himself” was the gist of it.
That being said, I’m envious. I’d like to eat bacon every day for a month. It’s nature’s perfect food.
#80. Ignore that. I was wrong. No fakon. No “healthy” drinks. Just booze and bacon.
And he was already my hero…
Lame.
yes it’s very weak to tell someone to do better, but thats not what I said, I said “you think you can do better?” meaning who do you think you are some expert on movie riffing, if you think he sucks so bad ide like to see you get up there and riff a movie and make a living out of it.
just pointing out that #67 really has nothing to support his opinion, or neglected to share his facts with the class.
but yeah go ahead and trash me along with him, it’s cool.
“I just wanna know what love is”
oh yeah that was directed at #71.
Oh great wise one im just a worm, you know all.
(yeah whatever)
“cant decide between short sleves and long? split the difference.”
“yes it’s very weak to tell someone to do better, but thats not what I said, I said “you think you can do better?” meaning who do you think you are some expert on movie riffing, if you think he sucks so bad ide like to see you get up there and riff a movie and make a living out of it.
just pointing out that #67 really has nothing to support his opinion, or neglected to share his facts with the class.”
Your lead-up paragraph here implies that you’re referring to the troll in #61, not my post in #67.
I’ll certainly grant that the troll has invested far too much of their emotional health into this, regardless of whether questioning their capacity to make a career out of riffing is a reasonable line of argument.
Hey, thirt3333n, thanks for the clarification on your comment. Now lighten up, Francis.
“stupid quote that doesn’t relate”