Other than that, there really was little new ground covered during the panel. Dave (Gruber) Allen warmed up the crowd with a brief comical retelling of the history of the Tivoli Theatre, which is a grand old theater that was built back in 1924, and then quickly introduced the CT gang. Joel started to tell the history of MST3K, but he got as far as the anecdote about seeing the “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” album cover as a teenager before deciding that the audience had probably heard it all before, and opened the floor to questions instead. The questions were mainly of the standard “what’s your favorite/least favorite episode?” variety, but there were two that stood out. The first was about the differences between how they used to write for MST3K and how they write for CT now. “We live in four different states now,” said Josh, “and now we each write our own pass of the movie, then put them all together and decide which riffs work best.”
The second standout was the usual “do you ever get recognized? question, but this was the first time I’d ever heard Josh answer it. “When I moved out to L.A.,” he said, “the first person I met was Paul Feig, who was a huge MSTie, and he recognized me right away. I’ve never been recognized since.” Paul, of course, went on to create “Freaks and Geeks.”
After the panel, the CT crew did their normal meet and greet, graciously signing autographs and posing for pictures. Grube also worked the crowd and signed a few autographs himself.
Here are a few pictures I took during the panel. Tomorrow, I’ll post a lengthier report from the live show at the Family Arena. And if you were at the panel, please give us your thoughts in the comments section.
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- Gruber at the Tivoli
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- Hi Trace!
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- Joel talks about “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” (sorry about the flash, Joel!)
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- Frank answers a question
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- Joel asks Josh to talk about “Tom” Servo
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- The line to meet the Titans
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- Satellite News continues its tradition of posting one photo focusing on Mary Jo at the autograph table
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- Trace and Frank
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- Mary Jo, Josh and Joel
Oh, and in case you were wondering about those “favorite/least favorite” answers:
Favorite
Joel – I Accuse My Parents
Josh – Untamed Youth
Frank – Cave Dwellers (but it changes daily)
Trace – Laserblast (it was his last episode and his father was in it)
Mary Jo – Space Mutiny
Least favorite
Joel – Manos, The Hands of Fate
Josh – Robot Monster (he felt that it was famously bad and didn’t need to be riffed)
Frank – The Castle of Fu Manchu
Trace – The Incredible Melting Man
Mary Jo – Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
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I guess I’m surprised by the negativity of some of the reactions here. Maybe I’m biased by already having seen them live and having an INCREDIBLY fun time at the show, but I’m as excited as ever about this release.
Just my two cents, but if you hate the idea of a live CT DVD, then don’t buy it. But I don’t understand the need to attribute your disappointment to some perceived condescension towards the fans on CT’s part. I mean, look at it from their perspective. They do live shows, fans laugh raucously throughout, then afterward they are showered with compliments about how fantastic and wonderful the experience was in every way. Can you blame them for trying to translate that into something that everyone could experience – even those who can’t make it to a live show in person?
I’d be fine with it if they released some live footage of East Meets Watts as a dvd extra to the main studio version. But I’m just as disappointed as I’d have been if MST had stopped recording episodes in their studio and recorded them live for broadcast instead.
51
Dirk Squarejaw says:
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Speaking for myself, I’m just concerned about the movie. Like I said before, I don’t want this to look some high quality bootleg movie that was videotaped in the theater.
If it were the live show soundtrack and a normal DVD video, then that’s okay with me.
I got to ask a question about how the invention exchange got started and Joel graciously answered it. Now my life is validated! :mrgreen:
Thank You, Rex Dart. I don’t know how this piece of trivia slipped by me all of these years.
52 Satan’s Jockstrap says:
“I’m just as disappointed as I’d have been if MST had stopped recording episodes in their studio and recorded them live for broadcast instead.”
Did they say they were switching all their releases to live, or just this one? I only understood it to be one release, but correct me if I’m wrong.
53 mikek says:
“I don’t want this to look some high quality bootleg movie that was videotaped in the theater.”
I’m guessing they’ve looked at different ways for capturing the video, and will go with the best method they’ve got. One thing Joel and Trace in particular are not short on is visual imagination.
52 Satan’s Jockstrap says:
“I’m just as disappointed as I’d have been if MST had stopped recording episodes in their studio and recorded them live for broadcast instead.”
56 Dirk Squarejaw says:
Did they say they were switching all their releases to live, or just this one? I only understood it to be one release, but correct me if I’m wrong.
It’s only East Meets Watts that’s been announced to be live. So I’m getting ahead of myself, but only because they’ve made an aggressive shift to the live medium while expressing a notable lack of enthusiasm for the studio. If this live dvd is successful commercially then I’m predicting that they abandon studio productions altogether.
But even if I adjust my previous statement for one dvd, my disappointment still persists. I’d be just as disappointed as I’d have been if they had decided to broadcast a live riffing of Manos (or any other single episode for that matter) instead of cranking out the beloved studio version.
“I’d be just as disappointed as I’d have been if they had decided to broadcast a live riffing of Manos (or any other single episode for that matter) instead of cranking out the beloved studio version.”
I’d think of it this way: since they never recorded a “studio” version of ‘World Without End’, I’d love to see a “live” DVD of it.
I don’t miss things that don’t exist, so if they never record a “studio” ‘East Meets Watts’, what’s that to me?
I’ve seen a lot of their live shows, including East Meets Watts. I’ll reserve my judgment about watching a show “live” at home until it comes out. The audience was killing themselves laughing when I saw it in Boston, so we’ll see.
And I would be happy to have a copy of rifftrax’s “live” show of Plan 9 (esp since the sound sucked so bad at the theartre I was at) so…
Why doesn’t Joel like Manos? Did he say?
Not true Josh!! I saw Josh smoking a cigarette outside the Hotel Max in Seattle last March. I recognized him right off (and was amazed and pleased) and I told him so later at the meet and greet.
I’ll take a live DVD, but I hope it is live audio and normal video. I don’t really like the thought of watching it if the whole thing is videotaped off of the theater screen. But I’m sure I’d still buy it just to finally get an idea of what a live show is like.
Also by normal video I mean regular old video, not “normal” by CT standards with them on the screen. I know there will likely be no shadow-rama, and I’m fine with that. I could see them doing something akin to what they did with the Rifftrax live satellite feed show, where they occasionally showed the guys performing live on the screen off to the side of the movie. For this CT release they could make the DVD 16:9 widescreen, push the 4:3 movie video (I’m assuming whatever video transfer they could get for the film would get would probably be 4:3) to one side, and have video of the crew in the remaining space.
WoW…A bunch of Jobbers think the live DVD audio would sound exactly the same as if they were watching it live…
These people have never seen a concert film, or a live comedy show put on DVD, obviously…
These griefers seem to think that they will
be watching a cam vid of a theater release or something..They should (and maybe DO) know better…
First of all, all the cast members are mic’d.. guaranteed..and the film will be soundchecked to match that..The only time laughter from an audience could overcome that is if the sound editors/directors/producers WANTED it to…In other words you’ll hear the movie and every riff ABOVE the easily sounded-down audience, unless the audience becomes an enjoyable part of the show AT CERTAIN POINTS…
I don’t think peoples overreactions (and that is all that they are) will influence any decision these guys make unless you actually buy the thing, and give them real feedback…
Hell, just waiting until it’s for sale and saying THEN that you won’t buy it for a valid reason would make a difference..
Only trolls, griefers, and flamers try to disparage something before they see it…and only to get attention or make someone else feel bad/mad…
63
Ed Herlihy says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Once again, speaking for myself and now a few others, I’m only concerned about the movie itself; the quality of the video.
Ed Herlihy @63:
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I just stopped by to check out Brian Henry’s cool pix from our weekend in St. Louis and couldn’t resist reading through these comments. While I won’t try to address everyone’s concerns here, I would like to address one important issue: our motivation for experimenting with live DVDs.
It’s pretty simple really – performing live brings out the best in us. Stand-up comedy is what brought us together to do MST in the first place. That is where all of us first discovered and explored what would be our comedy sensibilities. The presence of a live audience (especially audiences as smart and cool as we’ve had for our CT shows this year) energizes our performance and heightens the joy of the whole experience for all of us. We felt that we wanted to share what we feel is CT at the current top of our game with those who haven’t been able to attend our live shows so far. I was among the more skeptical of live DVDs in our group at first. I didn’t want something that felt like “watching an audience watch a show”. I’m pleased to say I don’t think that will be the experience. I think the viewer will feel very much part of the audience rather than being distracted by it and I’m quite pleased with the end result. I hope you will be too.
By no means am I trying to quell debate on the topic, the proof will ultimately be in the video pudding. I’m always pleased to see that people are passionate in their feelings about this stuff regardless of their position. Those of you who ascribe cynical or sinister motives to our decisions are probably giving us too much credit. We are five hermits in four states trying to run a self-financed production, retail, and touring company without any employees or even an office. Obviously, there are many areas where we could raise our game, but we’re still alive after 2 years and will keep trying to get better at what we do, on and off stage, for as long as we’re kicking.
We’ll announce a release date (pre-Xmas) for “East Meets Watts” very soon, once we have a firm date from our manufacturer. I hope you’ll enjoy it (the DVD, not the release date announcement).
It’s always been my policy to review things after I’ve seen them, but I can see how that might be considered old-fashioned in the hi-tech digital age — who has time to wait for first-hand knowledge anymore?
Thank you J. Elvis Weinstein for your post. It was very nice to hear from one of the “Five hermits” about the live DVD. I will wait for the video pudding magic to show me the way.
Keep up the great work :)
To any CT out there: Any chance the live DVD’s will include “extras” from the live shows? We really loved the comedy bits everyone did, (specifically Josh and Frank) and they were a great bonus. I would think they would be a great bonus and added selling point to the live DVD’s as well. I am amazed so many posters are rejecting just the premise of a live show DVD out of hand without even seeing how it is handled. You might just want to brace yourselves and enjoy the ride, as I believe Joel mentioned the night before at the Tivoli that the next 3 releases are going to be live.
No, NO, NO! If I wanted to see them live, i would SEE THEM LIVE (which I did). I want a normal DVD. This isn’t Phish. Who cares if you “got the live bootleg from the Atlanta show, man”. I want a real dvd of a real episode. If you want to do “live” shows, why don’t you release them along with the studio ones? Let us choose between a live show and a real one or we can choose both. That way earns you more money!
I have bought every CT dvd before this, but will not buy this new live dvd. If i wanted to see it live, i would’ve drove down to LA to see them. I dont want a laugh track on it. It would lose it’s appeal to me. Could you imagine some band just releasing live dvd’s and no new albums lol. It makes no sense lol
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