Mystery Science Theater 3000: Vol. XXXIX
Four DVD Box Set Features Previously Unreleased Episodes: Girls Town,The Amazing Transparent Man, and Diabolik, and a disc of unreleased host segments, Satellite Dishes.
Available November 21st, 2017 from Shout! Factory
And in the end, the laughs you take are equal to the jokes they make. On November 21st, 2017, Shout! Factory will release the almost certainly, probably definitely, maybe unquestionably final collection of never-before-released classic episodes of our favorite cowtown puppet show, Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The slings and arrows of outrageous licenses have resulted in only three episodes, so Vol. XXXIX also includes Satellite Dishes, a disc featuring the host segments of all the remaining unreleased episodes. The collection also includes a bevy of bonus features, including Chuck Love and the Anatomy of a Theme, Beyond Transparency, a new featurette about The Amazing Transparent Man, Showdown In Eden Prairie: Their Final Experiment, The Last Dance, a documentary special that chronicles the final days shooting the last episode of the original run of MST3K, Diabolik, Behind the Scream: Daniel Griffith on Ballyhoo, mini posters from artist Steve Vance, and theatrical trailers. But final has a way of not being final, and one need only turn to Netflix to appreciate that. So take one plausibly last ride of the classic series with our heroes on the Satellite of Love, and keep circulating the tapes!
Fans can pre-order their copies now by visiting ShoutFactory.com. The first 1,500 fans who order directly from Shout! Factory will also receive the exclusive bonus disc The Complete Poopie, a collection of MST3K bloopers and outtakes.
MGM’s 1959 film Girls Town is not a feminist follow up to MGM’s 1938 Boys Town, though to be fair, both are set in towns. B-movie siren Mamie Van Doren stars as a juvenile delinquent trying to survive in the eponymous nun-run reform school after she is wrongly accused of murder. It’s a feast of drag races, catfights, sexy dresses and Mel Tormé, who turns in a Blue Velvet Fog performance as the blackmailing troublemaker. The oddly child-of-star studded cast includes the offspring of Charlie Chaplin, Robert Mitchum and Harold Lloyd. Paul Anka makes his feature debut, and this may be one of his regrets that does bear mentioning. Fortunately for us, those very juvenile delinquents aboard the SoL upgrade a B movie into A+ television and reform us all.
In The Amazing Transparent Man, an ex-military sociopath plans to raise an army of invisible soldiers, but first he needs to perfect his captive scientist’s invisibilizing device by stealing necessary nuclear materials from a government vault. He engineers the prison break of a notorious thief, leveraging his wanted status to force him to do the heist. This amazing transparent tax shelter provides no dearth of fodder for Mike, Tom and Crow, who see right through the film to the riffs that ultimately make it a joy to behold.
The celebrated Italian filmmaker Mario Bava must have needed his bathroom redone. In the 1968 spy spoof Diabolik, he takes John Philip Law into his own hands and delivers an exploitation schlock-fest replete with super-criminals, underground lairs, and gadgets that would have Q scratching his head. It’s supposed to be a comedy, but it only turns into one after Mike and the bots riff it good. This film was, of course, the last one Mike and the bots were forced to endure. We thank them for their service!
Satellite Dishes
The best laid plans of mice and licensees often go astray. Despite best efforts to include the remaining unreleased episodes, the hard truth is that they may never see the legitimate light of day. So here is the next best thing: all their host segments. What these delectable dishes from the Satellite of Love lack in riffs, they make up for in irreverent, silly and delightfully nerdy sketch comedy. It’s the best we can do, so we are doing it!
Includes:
Ep #201 Rocketship X-M
Ep #213 Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster
Ep #309 The Amazing Colossal Man
Ep #311 It Conquered the World
Ep #416 Fire Maidens from Outer Space
Ep #418 The Eye Creatures
Ep #807 Terror from the Year 5000
Ep #809 I Was A Teenage Werewolf
Ep #905 The Deadly Bees
Ep #906 The Space Children
Ep #913 Quest of the Delta Knights
MST3K: Volume XXXIX Bonus Features
· Chuck Love and the Anatomy of a Theme
· Beyond Transparency–new featurette about The Amazing Transparent Man
· Showdown In Eden Prairie: Their Final Experiment
· The Last Dance– a documentary special that chronicles the final days shooting the last episode of the original run of MST3K, Diabolik.
· Behind the Scream: Daniel Griffith on Ballyhoo
· Theatrical Trailers
· Four Exclusive Mini-Posters by artist Steve Vance
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“The “Complete” Poopie?” Is this the same blooper reel we all bought for $25.00 back in the Nineties (now on You Tube)? Other than the raw goofs of “Last Dance” (also on You Tube), I haven’t seen any post-TV’s Frank-era bloopers. Did they save any from the SCIFI days?
Shout Factory says it’s the old Poopie! and Poopie II! VHS content plus the Poopie infomercial parody.
It is at least nice to have the first and last episodes of the original series on official DVDs. We also have the first and last Mike episodes, twice, both CC and Sci-Fi. Just think of how far those two channels have fallen since they aired MST3K. With any luck we might have a whole new set this time next year.
Last set? It’s all over?
In the immortal words of John Rambo: “Over!!? Nothing is over!!”
I believe that every episode will eventually be released. I’m optimistic.
Either way, Thank you Shout! Great job!!!!!
Back when we had a Weekend Discussion about our favorite Ballyhoo features, Daniel Griffith joined in and remarked that a feature about Ballyhoo would be kind of boring. Guess he decided to give it a shot anyway.
BTW since it’s Thursday, why hasn’t the discussion for The Phantom Planet been reopened? Has it been decided that there will no longer be any episode discussions and I somehow missed the announcement?
I am one of the lucky ones. Going all the way back to 2001 (bought the first single sets- EEGAH!, etc) through the Rhino sets (including Volume 10 with episode 212)- through job loss, divorce, hard times- I have managed to buy them all- and, with a well timed Birthday, Volume 39 will arrive soon. Now I need to save my pennies to buy Season 11.
“– through job loss, divorce, hard times- I have managed to buy them all-”
YIKES!!! A page right out of MY playbook….
Hmmmm……makes me wonder if maybe the world might be ready for a Mystery Science ‘themed’ dating app (“MSTie Mingle”, anyone??)?
Anybody know what Jim Mallon and/or Joel are charging these days to ‘license’ the Mystery Science Theater 3000 name ?? ;-)
May I ask, why didn’t you back the Kickstarter at a high enough level to get the dvds?
Ordered it last week. Can’t believe this is the last one.
I’m with fatbarkeep. It may take time, but I’m choosing to remain optimistic as well. Toho and Wade Williams might hold out the longest, but I trust Shout will continue to work behind the scenes on this and, some wonderful day in the future, will get every episode out. At least we know the Paramount-controlled episodes are not strangers to DVD. We just need to wait out their current licensing arrangement.
In the meantime, I’m guessing we have more new-and-improved reissues to look forward to, to say nothing of Season 11.
I have been pondering “Satellite Dishes” a bit. Some of the host segments did use stills or footage from the movies (“The Reporters of Rocketship X-M,” “Rex Dart, Eskimo Spy,” “The Jet Jaguar Theme Song,” and “They Just Didn’t Care”), and the best I can hope for is that “fair usage” can be invoked to include them. After thinking of that, though, I did get to wondering if “Snow Thrills” and “Century 21 Calling” could be included among the segments. Still, it’s not “make or break” for me.
yes i think that the footage would be covered under Fair Use. Dont forget the Godzilla footage in the theme song in the Joel era. give Toho half a chance, they wouldn’t let them use it in the theme song.
Shout Factory had mentioned in their listing back when I ordered it that Vol XXXIX would be sent out “three weeks early” for pre-orders. That would make it roughly 11 days from now!
So, a featurette about the guy that makes the featurettes. I’m glad. I’m a huge fan of Daniel’s work. I hope he’ll be doing some work on the new series when it comes out on disk.
You may ask…
ARRRGGH!!! {runs around posting…} There! Nobody noticed…right? Sorry folks I have HAD. A. WEEK. I’ve got a relative in the hospital, work is piled a mile high…ugh. It’s up, and I’m sorry.
Sampo, sorry to hear of your tribulations, especially the relative in the hospital. I hope it all works out.
Thanks, Ray. It’s been one of those “this then this then this, and you’re already late with that” weeks. That I would forget a Thursday — and I COMPLETELY SPACED until about 8 p.m. — I know it’s been a rough one.
Dear Shout Factory, I love all that you have done for my favorite cowtown puppet show!
However, while I can sort of let it go that Paul Anka is not being interviewed for Girls Town, I would certainly would have loved to see Mamie Van Doren chat about this flick! What about Elinor Donahue too? After all, Dick Contino and Mel Torme have passed on, so this would be neat to see these guys interviewed.
Also, interviewing Ennio Morricone for Diabolik would be quite the coup as well. At this point I’m sure the Maestro would be overjoyed to not have to talk about Leone movies and talk about this instead.
Apologies if this has been suggested, but I wonder if Shout/MST3K would consider putting out host-segment only discs from each season for 2018 release. I would buy those – and makes it easier than trying to piece together our own if one wants to go through the progress of the series through the sketches.
Sampo,
Family and work first. I think we can all understand (and wait) for it to be posted.
Don’t know about others, but for me, I WANTED to fly out and meet the cast and get a producer credit and a giant coffee table book and have Joel be my valet for the day. At the time, though, I could only afford the T-shirt level (which I’m wearing today, coincidentally). I then later upgraded to get the DVDs. I kinda regret not getting my name in the credits somewhere, but t-shirt and DVDs are better anyway. Depending on where I am in my life, sometimes $100 is a minor quibble, and sometimes it might as well be $100,000.
I wonder if anyone has considered a Kickstarter to fund Steve Vance posters for the episodes he didn’t get to do.
My set just arrived from Shout Factory, a half-week earlier than I had expected! Be watching your mailboxes this weekend!
Got my copy today with the bonus Poopie DVD. It’s bittersweet knowing this will probably be the last 4-disc (classic) MST3K set ever. I hope Shout doesn’t give up on trying to secure rights for the remaining episodes, though. I would even accept single disc releases if they couldn’t get four at a time.
It is indeed bittersweet. I hope we get one more set, in part because I liked the idea of the last set being titled “Vol. XL” (aka “Extra Large”), but mostly because that Vol. XXXVIII cancelled bonus disk “The Definitive KTMA Segment Collection” really really needs to happen.
Is it too late to recommend Shout works on gathering the promos that were uniquely created for CC and Sci-Fi? I wouldn’t mind if they simply ripped them off the fan sets if it meant having the numerous version collected.
There are, I believe, 8 Rhino single disk releases that have never been part of any box set. 3 of those movies have rights acquired by Shout and are available for purchase on their website (as single disk releases). They could release one more box set with these titles and not have to worry about rights:
515 – Wild Wild World of Batwoman
517 – The Beginning of the End
619 – Red Zone Cuba
Bonus – The (Nearly) Definitive KTMA Segment Collection