Update: And our pal Bruce Westbrook has some thoughts….
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Beginning Of The End
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up ZombiesTHE NEWEST MST3K DVDS AVAILABLE FEBRUARY 15
FROM SHOUT! FACTORYFrom 1988 to 1999, the hilarious and widely beloved space travelers on The Satellite of Love from Mystery Science Theater 3000 skewered B-movies and in the process made them masterworks of comedy. Hot on the heels of the recent Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XIX limited-edition 4-DVD box set, Shout! Factory, in association with Best Brains, Inc. proudly presents Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies, and Mystery Science Theater 3000: Beginning Of The End, available on February 15, 2011 from ShoutFactoryStore.com.
In Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies, a playful trip to a carnival turns sinister when a trio becomes the target of a mysterious zombie plot hatched by the enchanting stripper Carmelita and her fortune-telling sister Estrella. Zombies! Fortune-tellers! Acid-wielding henchmen! Showstoppers! That’s right! It’s the world’s first monster musical!! The bizarre plot, song and dance numbers and relentless riffs have made The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Zombies a favorite amongst MSTies. Now you can see why for yourself!
Mystery Science Theater 3000: Beginning Of The End’s Dr. Ed Wainwright (Mission Impossible’s Peter Graves), reporter Audrey Aimes and a deaf-mute gardener fight together to eradicate swarms of gigantic, radioactive locusts that are demolishing entire towns and cities in Illinois! Mike and the ’bots use this hilarious classic from the fifth season’s Turkey Day to help illustrate the point that anyone can write a repetitive screenplay revolving around Peter Graves—including the SoL’s own Crow!
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Fantastic! I lost my Beginning Of The End DVD in a move several years ago. I don’t suppose they’ll have the theatrical version on the disc too, but that’s ok.
Still sucks they’re gonna be bare bones, but meh, can’t always get what you want. :/
I’ve heard that if you try some time, you just might find that you get what you need.
If these truly are bare bones, then I guess I respect that. It would be too easy to throw on an extra or two to “force” collectors who already have Rhino copies to re-buy these episodes. So if bare bones this is going to cost Shout Factory lost sales but I admire moral high ground this approach shows.
I was just thinking about this set of releases this morning, wondering when the official release date would be announced…
So it’s true… you get what you need.
So when can we preorder?
If both of these have lots of extras,then I’ll buy them.If not,I don’t see the point of buying something I already have..On a totally different note,the store Hasting’s down here(Fort Smith,Ar)has TCWSLABMUZ for rent,but it’s in Foreign Film section..WTF?? When I see it,I put it in the Horror section where it belongs.
^in similar style, the employee’s at my local rental shop keep placing returning single MST disc’s into the comedy section under the letter M rather than the actual MST section that they have seperately
Crazy that you can only get these online only, not in stores. Too bad.
You can’t complain when Shout! gives anyone a opportunity to add two more titles to their collection. Remember that many fans have all episodes but a lot do not. Some may have never even seen these two, hard to imagine but certainly possible. At long as Shout! wants to re-release any episode they have my 100% backing! Will I buy these re-releases – hell yeah. My copy of THE BEGINING OF THE END is a used dvd and next time I get to play this it’s going to be a pristine first time played dvd! HELL YEAH!
We finally have the release date for the singles they announced
on Thanksgiving.
Despite the lack of extras, I’m going to get The Incredibly Strange Creatures. I don’t have Volume 9 so this will save me a ton of money. I already have the OOP Rhino release of Beginning of the End so I’m probably going to skip that one.
I wish they’d release them to at least Best Buy or something. I don’t feel like ordering online…but oh well, guess I’ll have to.
So, are these going to be exclusive to shoutfactorystore.com? As in, unavailable through other outlets (such as mst3k.com)? If so, that’s a bit of a bummer, since Shout doesn’t ship internationally from their store and I live in the Netherlands (and I don’t feel like shelling out over 100 euros for Volume 9 on eBay… sheesh!).
RE: Best Buy…..probably has too do with ordering a set number for all the stores and how well it will sell…Corparate business just doesn’t get the show. Even the two networks that broadcasted the show were still dumb enough to cancel it. Even Rhino which made money on the catalog of show dropped the ball with sloppy quality control. So far Shout! is doing a way better job of showcasing the actual product.
awesome! this should bring the price down on those used dvds of B of E on ebay! now if they would just re-release volume 9……..
Wasn’t there supposed to be some bonus with this set?
Hey, my birthday is February 15th!
I know what I’m gonna give myself!
(in case that sounded creepy… I meant
I am gonna give myself the DVDs!)
I’ll get them and if they re-release The Dead Talk Back I’ll definitely take that one, too.
I’ll preface this post by saying: I’m an idiot. A couple months ago I saw a bunch of MST3K DVDs on the New Arrivals cart at Half Price Books for $7. I snagged Hellcats (with the uncut movie on the flip–damn, I wish they still did that) but they also had Mitchell, Manos, and Beginning of the End which is the only one of those I didn’t already have. Why did I put that back?! Curse you Robert Denby!
“Even Rhino which made money on the catalog of show dropped the ball with sloppy quality control…….”
So, did Rhino give-up, lose, or otherwise have the MST “rights” taken from them………..anybody know (I can’t seem to recall exactly how SHOUT!) ended up with them) ??? :-?
@ #20,
I believe they finally just gave up. They had episodes pulled from the very begins on VHS (THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN). Then the fiasco that was volumns 9 and 10 just made them think it was not worth it anymore.
I believe we are lucky one’s thanks to Shout! Factory. Under this new management things have only got better.
I will probably buy The Beginning Of The End because I never upgraded from the Rhino VHS. I like that Shout! Factory is doing these single releases for fans who may have missed out before.
However, if Shout! Factory starts adding these episodes to future boxed sets, I will be very angry. There is a big difference between releasing titles that are no longer available versus “double dipping” to get more money out of the fans.
@#22 I can see in the future that some titles might be reissued on different sets…like with the vol 21 dvds of the gamera series set….there may be more groupings like that…for example the finnish/russo episodes, teenage crime dramas, space monsters, mad scientist etc etc some of these grouping may have titles on already issued dvd sets….I brought up this possibilty a long time ago.
I already have these so I won’t be picking up the reissues, but it’s great to see some of the old out-of-print episodes being made available again. I hope this is successful so they keep it up!
Assuming these are bare bones, I’ll just be getting “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies” as I already have “Beginning of the End”, picked that baby up used at GameStop for $8.99 a few years back.
I’m still thinking…. if Steve can’t do any mini posters for these DVDs, why not just make ’em later and throw em in as an extra for a future boxset?
@SAVE FERRIS #20 I’m pretty sure that the switch from Rhino to Shout was mostly a business decision. I believe that the person at Rhino who originally championed their deal to distribute MST videos and worked closely with Best Brains eventually left Rhino and when to Shout, so when the contract with Rhino was going to expire Shout Factory courted Best Brains to get them to switch over to them. I don’t think it was that BB was overly dissatisfied with their treatment by Rhino, just that they got a better deal from Shout, and were once again going to be working with the same person who had made their original deal with Rhino so successful. Rhino made MST videos for almost 12 years (from the original VHS’s in 1996 to the final 10.2 box set in 2008) and it was very good run for both them and us the fans with only one or two cockups along the way (the Volume 10 Godzilla thing being the only major one). I agree that Shout Factory’s releases have been excellent, and nicer than Rhino’s (but only in superficial ways like extras and the bonus statues, etc., it’s really the episodes that count, and Rhino did an equally great job in that area), but I don’t think it’s fair for revisionist minded people to now look back and act as if it was anything but awesome for Rhino to release so much great stuff, and do such a good job of it for so damn long.
@BIG61AL #23 What Shout Factory has actually done so far only points to the OPPOSITE of what you say. There is no reason to believe that they will be doing any “themed” sets beyond the Gamera one (which is one that actually makes total sense for them to do), and also no reason to think that they will ever repackage either of these episodes, or any of the others that Rhino released, in future box sets alongside unreleased episodes. To the contrary, the only two re-releases of Rhino episodes that they’ve chosen to do so far are being released as frills free single discs that are obviously aimed only at fans who don’t already have the old releases, and designed to NOT make people that already have the episodes feel like they have to buy them again if they don’t want to. If they intended on doing the kind of thing you suggest then they probably would have just put these episodes into upcoming sets without releasing these single discs at all. Personally I think that they will probably continue releasing box sets of unreleased episodes for a while, and reserve the re-releases for single discs like these. There are still over 100 episodes that haven’t been put out on DVD yet, so they still have a lot to work with.
Could Shout Factory be using these two single discs as a gauge to see if reissues would be the way to go in the future? Down the road they could add extras to the reissues based on what the fans want. When you look at the sets now, the fact that each DVD is in it’s own case makes me think that they may offer all the disc’s as singles. Why not? People are always asking for more Joel/Mike episodes in the sets. Let people mix and match up the movies the way they want. Custom boxes could be made up with say pictures of Joel era or Mike era on them or by season,or as my favorite episodes. The possibilities are endless. Every time a set comes out people say they cost too much or they don’t like all the movies in the set. I know most of us get whatever sets come out, but by mix and match/reissues it opens up more possibilities for those who don’t want or can’t afford box sets. Picture a box say of Pearls V.W.bus or The Satellite of Love big enough to hold box sets or single discs to display on a shelf. I want to make a Umbilicus Tube to snake along the wall to hold all my DVD’S. I know my wife would love that in our tiny little 4 room apartment. I’m not going to tell her about it,I want it to be a surprise.
#28 Unlikely. You have to remember that clearing the films isn’t cheap. They really have to pinch there pennies in order to buy the rights. If this fails they probably won’t pursue any further.
#28 I doubt it. I think the four episode sets are working out just fine for them as far as the “new” (i.e. not previously released) episodes go. The obvious reasoning behind these two single disc releases is to make these episodes available to people who missed them the first time around without forcing anyone to buy duplicate episodes just to get episodes they don’t have yet. It’s the best possible way for Shout to do this. If they had put one or both in an upcoming set alongside “new” episodes all the people who already have the Rhino versions of the episodes (such as myself, since I have everything Rhino put out except the original Vol. 10) would feel like they were being ripped off by being forced to buy a duplicate episode just to get a couple “new” ones. But lets say they mixed together a four episode set of all repeated Rhino episodes. Someone might not have Volume 9 and want to get “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies”, but if they already have Volume 2 and Shout also includes something like “Pod People”, then they would have to buy a duplicate of that to get the episode they wanted, etc. So unless Shout just rereleased the exact same four episode sets that Rhino did they would still run the risk of people being forced to buy episodes they already have in order to get one or two that they don’t. The only solution that makes it so that no one out there is forced to buy episodes they already own in order to get ones they don’t is to release the “Rhino” rereleases as single discs. But I seriously doubt that it’s a test of some sort, or that they have any plans to start releasing the “new” the episodes individually. Rhino dumped the single disc model for the sets a long time ago, and I’m sure it was for very good reasons. They then stuck with it for twelve sets, and Shout adopted it right off the bat for their releases as well, so it must be working pretty well for them.
Considering what happened with the infamous 10-10.2 fiasco, does anyone else here think it’ll be a looooooooooong time before the Godzilla episodes get released? Or, even possibly, never?
Think about it, we thought we’d never see Gamera on disc. Things seem to have opened up,maybe we’ll see a Godzilla set down the road. Back when I use to tape the shows and lend them out to people I use to get BASF tapes in three packs that had a blue box that held the tapes. I would always lend 3 of the Godzilla or Gamera movies and people would love them.So many people grew up seeing these on Saturdays on WSBK/CH.38 OR WLVI/CH.56 in Boston it was a cool step back in time. I worked for a place called PicturTel and one day this young guy told me he rented a house with 3 or four other guys and they’d stay up watching old sci-fi movies like Godzilla and he asked me if I ever saw “Night of the Lepus?” (hope I spelled that right.) He said it was beer and pizza and laughing their asses off at this stupid movie about giant rabbits. I said do you guys ever watch MST3K? He said no what’s that? He said they didn’t get Comedy channel on their cable package. And well as they say “The rest shee’eees- eeestorie you know.” They were hooked,I was giving bags of tapes and all they watched was Hockey, Football, Baseball,( Kickboxing from the Philippines )and MST3K. It’s great when you turn someone on to something and it’s like you came up with it.If it was music or a movie or in this case the best show ever on T.V. They introduce you to people as “This is the guy that gets those tapes of that cool show.” Followed by “We gotta have you over some night to watch them with us.” Never did go over,my wife feared I would come home reeking of beer in a dress with a lamp shade on my head. A common thing that use to happen back then whenever I go out with the guys. Thankfully I’m not like that anymore, with gravity and old age and the fact that if I have more than three beers I fall into a deep sleep. Well I gotta go get out of this dress and have a few more cold ones and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…
On the rights clearance issue-I’m stoked as hell about the Gamera set, of course, but more excited that maybe, just maybe, the other Sandy Frank titles have been cleared for release as well, like Time Of The Apes, Fugitive Alien 1&2, and Mighty Jack. God, that was a funny season. Time Of The Apes and Fugitive Alien 1 were, to me, the funniest things I had ever seen up to that point.
HEY #33
If this works out with the other Sandy Frank titles we could have what I’d lie to call……
A FUGITIVE ALIEN-MIGHTY JACK-TIME OF THE APES-GAMERA-GODZILLA-SANDY-FREAKIN’-FRANK-FEST. With a Gammera song sing along. I’d wear really upsetting shorts with a little cap. And set up the old H.O.Track, build houses and cities with high tension wires, so that going to the bathroom or getting a snack/beverage would be like destroying Japan. Oh I’ve been waiting for this baby, big time!
Both are up for sale @ Shout Factory, but at $19.99 each (+s/h), they are a bit too expensive.
Sorry, I meant the single releases (“Beginning” and “Zombies”.)
$20 each? OMGWTFBBQ!?!?!!!!!11!!1!!!! And not even an Amazon option? It’s gonna take more than a $5 coupon for me to order bare-bones versions of eps I already have for THAT price – and believe me, I’m somebody who buys every single little thing MST-related, no matter what.
I guess they don’t expect a high volume of sales since they’re re-releases and this is how they’re going to cover their initial cost. I can understand that, but……. yow!