Give me a fond or strange or in some way memorable memory about watching an MST3K episode.
I’ll give you mine, for “Manos: The Hands of Fate.” I immediately think of the MSTieween gathering, footage of which was later shown on Turkey Day 1993. We were all sitting around in Debbie Tobin’s basement waiting for the shooting to start. Somebody put that episode in, and as we started watching “Hired, Pt.2,” people handed out paper napkins. For a moment I didn’t understand why, but then the crazy old grandpa put the handkerchief on his head, and everybody put them on.
There I was, in a basement with about 35 adults, all sitting on the floor with napkins on their heads. MSTies are weird.
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there are bountiful memories associated with mst3k since we can all agree that it is the greatest tv show ever, but i have to say that for whatever reason the episode where they destroy “giant spider invasion” is by far the most memorable episode. every time i watch it i think of the fourth of july (im not sure if it was a rerun or if it first appeared during that time) but i remember telling my aunt about this particular episode because the movie is so ludicrous and the riffing is so phenomenal. whenever the scene at the fair or whatever the heck the cheeseheads are doing always harkens back memories of fireworks and hot dogs and whenever “doughy guy” rolls over barbara hale and servo says “well there goes the last shred of dignity” i can always remember talking to my aunt about the movie and her telling me she saw it in theaters. the only thing she could remember was the obnoxious noise the only giant spider made (sort of a whistle but not quite). anyway, this is by far the best subject thread because this shown really mattered and does to this day. i heard a rumor that mike nelson’s cast (including kevin murphy and bill corbett, my absolute favorites!) signed on to do more episodes. i only hope this is true!
The first time I saw Red Zone Cuba (late 2001) I had what was probably acid reflux, or something related, so that made an already tough to watch movie even worse. The ‘knee test’ from the short sure got a laugh out of my friend, and even in my bad state I appreciated how stupid it was. A few years before that I showed him a tape of Merlin’s Shop and the repetition of “You’re welcome” led to both of us laughing uncontrollably and rewinding it to watch that section again several times. The first time I saw Pod People (and therefore Trumpy’s magic use of the Simon Says) I had one of the biggest WTF moments of my life up to that point.
Fond Memory #1: Back in the dark ages of 1992 some friends and I had gathered at the home of one of our group to celebrate his birthday. After sitting around and gabbing for a while, and stuffing cake in our faces, the birthday boy turned on the television, flipped channels for a bit, and then stopped on Comedy Central. And there was “that shadow thing” that I had seen while flipping channels myself, but had never stopped to watch. The movie was Hercules and the Captive Women, and within minutes I was laughing my hinder off. I didn’t know it then, but I had just set out on the road of addiction. 17 years and one planet logo tattoo later, I still have not sought help.
Fond Memory #2: Sitting with a friend watching The Girl in Lovers Lane. I was sitting in one of those folding metal chairs. The episode gets to the bit where Big Stupid says to Carrie, “I’ll wait on him…see if he’d like to TOUCH me”. He walks off camera and Mr. Servo says, “So, you wanna…wha’hey! don’t touch me”! I proceed to throw my head back and howl with laughter. The chair tips back and suddenly I’m on the floor. Of course, that got us laughing even more and we were pretty much in hysterics the rest of the night.
To this day Lovers Lane is one of my favorite episodes. I’m very much looking forward to the Shout! Factory release.
MST3K was the first thing I laughed at after 9-11. It took several days before I felt ready to get back to a normal life, mostly because I was a journalist on-site in Shanksville for two weeks, but it was comforting to know that the gang was there to help me through.
The time well after CC had taken away the midnight showings on weekdays, i came home with my friend late at night while tripping acid. And we were both like “Man it sucks that MST isnt on anymore”. I turned on the tv and it instantly turned to a little tiny dot, kinda like the ending of mst when they push the button. We both looked at each other like what the hell? Thought it was the acid but we both witnessed it. Then slowly it started growing to a normal picture and MST was on again. Needless to say we freaked out for a while as if we psychically made MST appear. I dont really remember what episode it was but just that it was Joel and we were so happy.
I remember coming back to my parents’ house after burying my mother after her sudden death at age 62. I sat in my old room, completely numb and without any emotion. I saw an old VHS copy of ‘Catalina Caper’ and put in in the VCR, almost without thinking. I felt a little better just hearing the theme song, and better again as the show played on. I actually laughed at jokes I had heard many times, but it was the humor that reinforced the fact that life must go on. I wrote the cast a letter and someone there wrote me back to let me know that everyone had read it. Still my favorite show ever on television. Hi-keeba!
Two memories come to mind.
Back when MST3K the Movie came out, I was working at a video store. It was great to throw on our one VHS copy in the shop as it was fairly harmless but nice to listen to in the background while working. Over the course of several months, more and more of the local teens who had nothing better to do would come to the video store and have me put the copy of the movie on to watch. They got so they could quote it and would chuckle as they anticipated the next riff. Sadly, sometimes someone would see the movie, notice us all laughing, and rent it before we could finish it.
The second memory just happened this weekend, when my soon to be 8-year-old son, who couldn’t sleep, came out to the living room where I was sitting in the dark having just put on Attack of the Giant Leeches. During the Undersea Kingdom short, my son could not stop chuckling, and when Crow stated “Ken blew up sir” during one of the fight scenes, he actually laughed out loud and told his mother about the scene when she came to get him and put him back to bed.
Long time viewer of the site, first time poster!
I saw this thread and immediately remembered my favorite moment, and thought I’d share it with you guys/gals.
I’ve been a MSTie since I was 9 years old, which would’ve been around 1995, when I first learned of the show. Back then, I used to spend a lot of weekends at my grandmother’s house and I’d always watch the show (which my grandmother thought was silly, go figure). And one day “Santa Claus” happened to be on while she was reading at the kitchen table and while Santa is rockin’ out Crow says “Get down with your bad Santa self!” and for the first (and only) time, my grandmother laughed about the show, in fact, we both cracked up for a solid 5 minutes! We joked about it for years afterwards.
My grandmother and I were very very close; she just passed away last September and it really left me heart-broken. While rewatching “Santa Claus” just a few weeks ago, that line really brought a big smile to my face, remembering all the fun we had joking about it.
Okay, just got back into town on Monday after camping in upper Wisconsin and while driving thru I repeatedly remembered a line from Giant Spider Invasion; “Whooo!! Go Packers!!”, everytime a mob would appear in the movie. Good stuff!
For some reason, most of my episode memories start with the flicking of a lighter and then a sharp inhale. Weird . . .
Movies like Skydivers and Red Zone Cuba are among my personal favorite episodes since they were among the very few that I got to watch with all of my friends from high school and we never laughed so hard in our lives, once again proving that the more people to watch, the better.
Also for most of the time I was in college I was living in the dorms and on Wednesday evenings I would host a weekly episode in my room. It was fairly popular the first two years, didn’t happen much the 3rd, but in the final semester I was in the dorms it really caught fire. I ended up showing every episode in my collection that term and we ended with a showing of Rifftrax’s Fellowship of the Ring because I’d run out of MST3K episodes to air. The tradition continued under a friend after I left and I later found out that one of the regular couples who attended eventually got married.
I think I know a certain young poster who’s hopped-up on goofballs….
Here’s one that you can file under “strange and memorable”. It involves me converting my brother into a MSTie the day our father died.
My dad was diagnosed with cancer. By the time we knew he had cancer, it was already everywhere. I’ll spare everyone the unpleasant details. One afternoon in July 1994, two months after he was diagnosed, he collapsed at home, was rushed to the hospital, and a few hours after that, he was on life support. The whole family kept a vigil in the hospital, and of course we were holding on to any and all hope. My mother sent me and my older brother home about midnight. I was 20 and my brother was 27. The two older siblings stayed with my mom a couple of hours longer.
Anyway, we came home, sullen and depressed. All light seemed to have gone from the universe. My brother turned on the tv, and a MST rerun was on. “Sidehackers”. “What the hell is this?” he asked. “You never saw this?” I replied. “Leave it on for a few minutes.”
Then, beyond all reason, we started to chuckle. A half hour in, we were laughing our asses off. It felt weird to sit and laugh together under those circumstances. But we laughed and laughed and laughed. After the episode, we went to bed feeling a little bit lighter.
The next morning, our dad died. The worst thing that could ever happen to a 20 year old young man.
After the funeral a few days later, I collapsed on the couch, suit half undone, feeling completely defeated and beaten-up by life. My brother came in and collapsed next to me, looking very much the same as I did.
“Yo. You have any tapes of that show we watched the other night?” Of course, I had started taping MST, 3-per SLP tape for a few months prior.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Go get ’em.”
“Dude, we just came from our Dad’s funeral.”
“Yeah, but Dad would have loved this show. What’s it called again?”
We are both hard core MSTies to this day.
Mighty Drew, those are some powerful memories. My memorable MST3k experiences come nowhere close, and I guess it’s more a nice collection of memories, or rather remembering the ritual of falling to sleep to MST3k when I used to have cable in my bedroom as a teenager. I’d fall asleep to MST each night on CC and wake up to turn the set off a couple hours into the infomercials that followed. As creepy as that might sound, there was something warm and fuzzy about being deep into a crappy movie and having someone “watching” it for you as you drifted off.
My interesting viewing story comes from the first week that I actually got to watch the show. My local cable system didn’t carry Comedy Central so I hadn’t seen any episodes though my sister (who lived in a different cable coverage area and had the channel) and many friends knew that it was a show that I would seriously be into.
I moved onto campus at San Francisco State University in the fall of 1992 and was so happy to have CC on the provided cable system. I had missed the show the first couple of days that I lived there but I finally caught my first complete episode on a Wednesday night. The movie being riffed was LOST CONTINENT and there was a moment that has always been stuck in my brain. Earlier in the morning was my first Film Theory class and my brain nearly lost it during the mountain climbing part when Crow said, “Didn’t anyone teach this director in film school about compressing time through editing?!”
I’ve got three memories to share…
First off was back in ’93. My girlfriend (who is now my wife) told me about this show where a guy and two puppets make fun of movies. Sounded really dumb to me, so I just nodded and said that it sounded cool – cause you don’t tell your girlfriend that something she thinks is funny sounds dumb. A few days later I’m hanging out at her house. I get up to get a soda and when I come back, she’s got that dumb show on. “Oh man, do we have to watch this?” I asked. “Yes, you’ll like it!” “Sure I will… what the… nice puppets.” “Wait till they get to the movie.” “What are they watching.” “Some Hercules movie.”
Now, she said a magic word and didn’t realize it. You see I’m a big sucker for mythology movies, especially bad ones. So I plunked down and watched “Hercules Against the Moonmen.” I started chuckling right away, and then one of the bots said in a shocked voice, “This man has no nipples!” And low and behold, because of framing, he didn’t! I fell off of her bed laughing so damn hard, and I nearly spilled my soda to boot. It took me a while to get back into a seated position, but I think that’s the first time a television show made me laugh so hard that I fell off my seat.
Flash forward a few years and my co-worker tells me that they are showing MST3K: The Movie about an hour away from our work. Me and my girlfriend head out there the next day. The theater wasn’t close to being full and a glance around showed that median age was closer to my parents age. I wondered if these people came to see “This Island Earth” not knowing what they were in for. So the movie starts and we are the only ones chuckling during the host segment (I was getting a kick out of all the 2001 references). Then the movie credits started to roll and the riffs start coming. We are laughing hard. I think “Shatner, Shatner, Shatner, he’s not in this one. We’re safe.” made me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe. But still we are the only one’s laughing! Then sometime around the jet turning green and him feeling refreshingly minty, I heard another chuckle, then another, then another. Almost as if they realized that it was OK to laugh, it was supposed to be funny. By the time we meet Ruth the whole audience (all 20 of us) were into it. I don’t think I’ve seen a theatrical comedy that worked with the whole audience before (even if it did take a while).
Last one. So at my current job (very corporate and cubicle-y) my team decided to view a movie once a month as a group for lunch. We’d revolve and everyone would get to pick a movie to bring in. When I rolled around to me, I said I’d bring in “I Accuse My Parents”, because most of my co-workers are parents and they would appreciate it. I mentioned that it was MST3K and few people recognized the description, but I could sense the doubts. We viewed it over two days but by the end of the first day “I won the essay contest” and “It’s my birthday mister” became catch phrases. The next month rolled around an the group wanted more MST3K, and so our monthly movie became the monthly MST3K viewing. I’ve had nearly everyone in the group tell me that they look forward to coming in on movie day, because it gives them some laughs at work, something that’s all too rare lately. This week it’s “Hercules Against the Moonmen”, I’ll try to stay in my chair this time.
I remember watching “Fugitive Alien 2” all by myself, and a bunch of jokes in row really connected with me, (culminating with Trace disgustedly screaming “What the heck is giong on????? at the movie”) I was literally laughing so hard I couldn’t that I couldn’t inhale and very nearly passed out. I remember thinking, “This show is going to kill me. Not too bad a way to go, I suppose.”
I have watched MST for maybe 15 years, and I love it. I am more into it now than I was at the time I discovered it. I was in college, and a friend taped it. I would watch it on weekends also. When I returned home to my spouse, I watched it with him.
However, I have a weird memory. I swore when I returned home to my spouse in 1999 that there were three hosts–joel, Mike, and another guy who lloked like Mancow. I even swore he had a name on the show. To this day, I don’t know where this weird memory came from, but I swear there are hidden episodes with a third host.
My most beloved memory is my now husband and I kissed for the first time while watching Rocket Attack USA. :smile: Still together almost 15 years later…
This is an easy one! My greatest memory is when I first discovered the show. A bunch of friends and myself rented a cabin in the mountains one year. One night, a bunch of us cracked open a few beers while we flipped around from channel to channel. Then we found a show that looked like a man and two robots sitting in a theater making remarks about the movie they were watching. It was Pod People! The beers kept adding up and I remember us laughing our a$$es off during the recording scene. Then they retreat back into the SOL and Joel and the bots are reenacting the scene. TV’s Frank is wearing the same “I’m a virgin” T-shirt! “It stinks!” We never laughed so hard before and I started taping every episode starting the following weekend. Great stuff!
#69 – Nothing like a secret agent making out with a fat Russian pig while another agent hides in a closet and watches to get the fires goin’, huh?
I suppose it beats making out while watching Michell…
When I first stared College I was assembling my first professional drafting table on a Saturday night. I turned on the TV for back ground noise & RocketShip X-M was on and I was hooked! Shortly thereafter I started my career as a comic book artist and I remember watching the midnight showings religiously, every week night as I strived to meet deadlines and even sneaking in cameo appearances of Crow and Tom Servo into the backgrounds of such comics as TRANSFORMERS, SONIC the HEDGEHOG (Crow and Tom try to kill Sonic!!! lol)and KNUCKLES the ECHIDNA (where I snuck in the interior of the Satellite of love AND a TOM SERVO and no one caught it!)
I’ve retired from the comic book industry mostly but a few years ago I did the cover of an independent comic called COMBINATION PLATTER and paid homage yet again to MST3K by making it a movie theater and what looks like ‘TOM SERVO’ sitting in the front row.
Ooooh, interesting fact that I don’t think many people are aware of, but there was an official MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER comic book planned around 1997. I drew the wrap around sequences with Mike and the Bots and the MADS. There was a small test run made that was BRILLIANT! Alas, I think the comic company went belly up or some other legal issue came up. But there were a few copies printed of the only issue made and it was HYSTERICAL.
@73: Woah, you’re Manny GALAN? And you associate MST3K with the beginning of the road to your art career? Well, circle of life man, because the dead ‘bots in TFG2#9 indirectly steered me toward becoming a MSTie, since that was only the second time I’d so much as seen a reference to the show, years before I had cable. I know there’s a few other Transfans on this board, so I might not be alone either.
And for the record, I’ve never dissed your work, since no matter what anyone else says, Dwayne Turner, who never seemed to care what or who he was drawing, is the worst TF artist of all time. You on the other hand, clearly enjoyed getting to throw characters from ’84 to ’94 into the same panel, and that imbued your work with an energy that carried the story. And unlike Derek Yaniger, you met your deadlines. Your work was distinct, yet open to interpretation, which is seriously important to pleasing Transfandom as no one agrees on anything. Therein lies the good, and the beautiful.
And by mentioning it here, you’ve probably made the few copies of that MST3Comic skyrocket in price. I know I’ll be first in line if it’s ever reprinted! So were they actually making fun of some pre-existing comic?
Keep circulating the subliminal references!
@74: I didn’t realize anyone here would know who I was, much less acknowledge one of the refernces I put in the background. I’m so glad to hear that I inspired you to become a Mistie. I can’t tell you how nice it is to know that.
As for my Transformers work, lol! I’m still kicking myself in the ass for not doing that book in my own style. God I suffered so much in trying to match Derek’s style (which was awesome!) but I just couldn’t be him…so the work really suffered. The irony is, I love to draw metallic surfaces but my style was too dramatically different from Derek’s house style.
As for the MST3K comic, it was never released, but there are a few copies out there somewhere, probably with the original editor and possibly Jim Mallon I’d guess. It was ACCLAIM COMICS who optioned the rights to do the book. They also had a huge library of GOLD KEY COMICS, so the first issue featured MIKE and the BOTS being forced to “view” MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER and make funny comments.
The closing sequence I drew had Mike dressed as MAGNUS as TOM and CROW tried to “fight” him to no avail. I was a die hard fan of the show as was the Editor who was a friend of mine and he gave me the job.
Thanks so much for the kind words. If you followed any of my work through the years you will undoubtedly find more references to MST3K, as well as Star Wars, Morrissey and Hanna-Barbera. I like to put a lot of easter eggs in my work.
I have never really connected with anyone in my family. Even immediate family. I love my parents, and they love me, but our interests beyond being related have never really coincided.
But Mom would watch episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 with me, watching them in the mornings on Comedy Central. I don’t think she really got many of the jokes, but she liked Crow. When he said “kitty!” when a lion came on-screen, she liked that.
It’s just about the only time I can remember in which we both liked something. Dad, for the record, hates MST3K.
(Mom has been gone for ten years this month, by the way.)
Many memories involving MST3K include spending time with my family or friends watching on Saturday mornings and evenings, but then there was one “lost weekend”, during the autumn of ’95, where two of my closest friends and I binged on MST3K. Starting on a Friday night at about 8pm, it lasted roughly 50 hours and covered between 26 to 30 episodes. We watched one episode after another, taking brief breaks here and there to use the bathroom, get something to eat or drink, or get a quick breath of fresh air outdoors to help clear our heads while laugh at favorite jokes between us. After that unforgettable weekend, we took about a month off from watching any MST3K…we didn’t want to become sick of it, and so after so much exposure to it, we felt it best to give it a break. As it turned out, ironically, those two days became almost a swan song of sorts for our time watching the show as a threesome; they started watching Season 7 with me, but did not take to TV Frank’s departure and Dr. F’s mom as a replacement, and became disenchanted with the show as a whole soon thereafter. Figuring that the show would end after “Laserblast”, they wanted no part of the Sci-Fi era episodes of MST when I told them about the show’s continuation.
Their loss, I say. But that weekend in ’95 will always stand out in my mind as Life at its best.
When I was in the Navy, I spent the night at a friends house. He woke me up at an ungodly hour on Saturday morning and insisted that I watch some TV show that he liked. I was in no mood since I had um, a headache, yes that’s it a headache. He insisted anyway and 15 minutes later I refused an offer of going out to breakfast until this show was over. I was hooked for life. From then on whenever I was on shore, I would beg, blackmail and bribe to watch MST on the common TV in the barracks. One Turkey Day I simply could not and bribed one of my friends to let me watch in his room. It was hot and the door was open. I noticed the first person wander in to see what I was laughing over but by the time I finally looked to see what all the noise was about there were 20 sailors packed into the room. From then on I didn’t have to fight to get to watch MST3K
I think my best MST3K memory came before I got into it.My peepaw,whose since passed away,was talking to me,and he said”Have you ever heard of a show called MST3K.no,I said,I was young..He proceeded to explain the premise,and since my birthday was coming up and it sounded cool,I asked for an season.
I got volume seven for my birthday.I remember watching it,falling instantly in love,and becoming a geek right there.I do remember being confused when I watched Prince of Space,because all the rest of the episodes were Joel..this was before Mystie status came on.,
I think its memorable,because i always ALWAYs associate MST3K with three people,in this order,Peepaw,My aunt,and My oldest cousin.
another memory I have is a joint,because I thik these happened like weeks apart.
The first was my first viewing of Pod People.It was on realplayer on my computer,and I was at my grandmas house,on the couch,with headphones,because everyone else was watching the news.I remember laughing so hard—but noone knew why because of the headphones..My youngest cousin got was telling me not to laugh..I dont think he was serious,he was grinning.
and a bit after that,I watched Manos..I was,again on the couch,basically alone,one was on errands,the other playing video games..and i just remember being paralyzed with exhasution after watching it…it was horrible.
and the last memory i have is this
My aunt is a Mystie..They watched it when it was on TV.So we were at Breakfast with Meemaw and her sister.and i lean over and say’you kids today with your fax machines,and your box socials”(thats our inside joke)..and it just went on from there..laughing,referencing MITCHELL!!! ing..and meemaw had no idea what we were talking about,she was just staring.
WAIt this is the last sentimental memory.
Basically Me,the die hard mystie,mom,and meemaw,both just watchers of the show..they get sucked into the movie,sitting there,watching Godzilla vs.Megalon,laughing,and spending time together.