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How Was the Show? (Updated with Reviews)UPDATE: Reviews of this weekend’s shows are here, here and here.
An open thread for reports from this weekend’s Cinematic Titanic shows in Milwaukee. If you took photos, feel free to upload them to your favorite photo sharing site and include a link. Your post may take a while to appear, however. Please be patient. 27 Replies to “How Was the Show? (Updated with Reviews)”Commenting at Satellite News
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The show was awesome. It was my first time seeing CT and I will definitely go back again. East Meets Watts was prime for some great riffing and the crew definitely delivered. An extra bonus was when Joel and J. Elvis performed the MST3K theme song. Joel also performed a nifty magic trick and TV’s Frank did some great stand-up bits. The only hard part was listening to all the “Packers winning the Super Bowl” comments as my wife and I came from Chicago (Bears!) I guess I’ll give Joel a break since he is from Green Bay! Every MST3K fan should see CT live!
Night one was a truly great time. I’m having a crappy week and this laugh release is something I’ve needed and they delivered.
First of all the warm-up material is completely different from last year and that is good. I like to see that stuff mixed up. My favorite was Frank standing up there saying something to the effect of: I usually like to open up with a local political joke, but there just doesn’t seem to be anything at all happening in Wisconsin right now. With Frank’s bemused/deadpan delivery that one just hit. And of course the mock pandering to Packers fans in a callback to the Giant Spider Invasion (even though Mary Jo was the only one who was actually there for the episode and it wasn’t her doing the joke) was great.
As for the film it was I’m sure many of you saw it before as it is on DVD. Rest assured they are still updating the riffing and it was a fresh experience anyway. Lots of newly current topical stuff (and more current event Wisconsin riffs) were thrown in. It contains the famous Cinematic Titanic spit take. There there was a callback sequence where they toss a hero into a cave and toss a rattler in to kill him that produced my favorite exchange:
Trace: “Hey Joel, Look: Rock climbing”
Joel: “Well watch out for snakes”
Frank: (who was playing the role of being desperate for attention and wanting the crow response those two just got) “um… um… Manos?
The crowd roared at all three.
This was my first live show, and it was damn good. Hearing a theater full of people chant the “la la la’s” to the theme song was great, even if both the audience and Joel were a bit choppy about it.
I love the fact that Joel’s first line for the evening was “Packers won the Super Bowl.” The other topical Wisconsin references were a nice touch, too, from Frank’s Scott Walker reference to Trace’s “So that’s Brett Favre’s junk.”
I’d seen their EMW treatment on DVD, but the material was identifiably better-polished and I felt like the riffers themselves had more energy this time around. I haven’t yet seen Rattlers in any medium, but I have high hopes.
Excellent show. It was my second one, but I’m still amazed by how absolutely cool they are about meeting the fans. I don’t know where they pull the energy from; I’m just glad they do. My SO and I were going to bring white belts to get signed (heh, get it? cuz it was a kung fu movie…? Heeheee?), but we forgot them. On the upshot, we’re going to tonight’s show as well <3
I'll be back to upload photos of both nights…..
What a great, fun, enjoyable, comfortable show. It is like getting together with old friends. Even having seen East Meets Watts on DVD a few times didn’t diminish the live experience. Nothing beats the benefits of a large crowd — the laughter is infectious. And being able to watch Mary Jo crack up and giggle is worth the price of a ticket. J. Elvis does a killer Elvis Costello, and the rest of the crowd-warm-up acts are great. This was my first live experience — God willing it won’t be my last!
I really wish more people would post about the shows.
Well, since we’re asking for testimonials, I’ll throw my 2 cents in.
I haven’t seen a CT show since they were last in Chicago in the fall of 2009. The shuttering of the Lake Shore Theater in early 2010 really slammed on the brakes for CT, as they haven’t come back or found another Chi-town venue.
Seeing as Feb is my Birthday month, I thought I’d take Amtrak up to Milwaukee. I will admit that downtown Milwaukee seemed very much like downtown Des Moines, IA (somewhere I’m more familiar with). If you keep walking long enough, you’ll get where you need to go. It only took me 6-8 blocks to walk from my hotel to the Pabst theater.
It was almost like a mini-mst3k-con in there. A guy and his kids were wearing MST3K-inspired shirts. I talked with one guy and his wife non-stop regarding episodes, and some guy even brought his own home-made Tom Servo (accurate by the looks of it, except for no spring-y arms). Quite alot going on for a Saturday night. I almost considered doing an East/Watts screening the night before, but given the Rattlers was brand-new, I was tempted.
I was rather pleased to see that Frank didn’t go into another ‘Convoluted Man’ rendition (it was ok, but after experiencing it twice, I was glad for a welcome respite). Gruber showed up and did some haiku’s along with J Elvis, and Trace read from his latest book release. Joel also came out and did a magic trick, much to his worrisome expressions that the female assistant he chose seemed to be hyperventilating from being chosen. The pre-show then wrapped with Joel singing the MST3K theme song with J Elvis on bass, and providing the back-up ‘oo-oo-ooo’s’ and ‘la-la-la’s.’ Naturally, almost all of us joined in.
And then after a brief intermission (which allowed me to get another Pabst…btw, Milwaukee is the first town I’ve seen where Schlitz is actually considered an actual ‘beer,’ in that it’s stocked in there with Budweiser and Miller Lite on the supermarket shelves)…it was time for Rattlers. The film reminded me of so many films MST3K did before, in that it felt like something some amateur filmmaker in a small-town felt would make a great story.
We have a rather pompous professor of snake research (he always acts so calm and suave…God, I hate him!!), who is called to a desert community when some guy and then two boys end up killed by snakes. Soon after, snake-terror strikes again, and the town’s lawman wants the professor brought on to find out more research. And what is a research team in a rabid animal film without a sidekick? In this case, it’s a woman, who was hired on mainly out of the Sheriff trying to quell people saying that there isn’t enough being done to integrate women into the workplace. Yes, the filmmakers tried to get all ‘we’re wrapping a message in this film’ with this. Of course, our ‘hero’ naturally doesn’t think this woman should be on his team, and she plays typical snappy and opinionated, resulting in a 3rd rate Tracey/Hepburn type bantering that just devolves soon after.
The film also reminded me a bit of ‘Monster-a-go-go,’ in that when we are meant to be seeing large amounts of snakes, most of the time it’s stock footage close-up shots of just one. There’s also a rather contrived death that reminds me a bit of some from ‘Blood Waters of Dr Z’ and ‘War-wilf.’
The riffing definitely was good, and felt a notch up from the prvious one I saw back in 2009 for The Alien Factor (a good, but not great effort as my all-time favorite CT: Blood of the Vampires). Naturally, they worked in ‘watch out for snakes,’ and at one point, one of the biggest laughs was when Mary Jo flubbed a line, and Trace added a little coda on it. Joel had one misfire that I caught a few seconds afterwards, but seemed to go right over the audiences head, when a Jeep goes by and he says, ‘Tow Mater joined the Army!’ There were also some audience-applauding jokes about the current Wisconsin capital crisis.
I didn’t stay afterwards given how late it was (at Lake Shore Theater, I had the crew sign some of my things), but I did pick up Danger of Tiki Island. I was hoping the DVD’s would have been $15 like on the CT cite, but since they were asking $20 apiece, I just got Tiki, and held off on Alien Factor. Tiki Island so far is definitely by that same company that did Blood of the Vampires- heck, they use the same villa in BotV as a mansion in Tiki Island!!
“…btw, Milwaukee is the first town I’ve seen where Schlitz is actually considered an actual ‘beer,’ in that it’s stocked in there with Budweiser and Miller Lite on the supermarket shelves….”
“Michael”, that’s only because it’s ‘the beer that (supposedly) made Milwaukee famous’, and we’ve all been brainwashed here (against our wills) to believe that ‘when you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of beer’ …… :beer:
Went to the Rattlers show with some friends, and it was our first CT experience. We all had a blast. The only bad part was going through the line for autographs. I really hadn’t planned out well what I wanted signed by who, and I managed to make myself feel like an idiot in 5 completely different ways for each CT star. I mean, I know they are used to people being awkward and I know I’m not gonna say anything that’s going to stand out to them, but I still felt like a dope in front of my heroes. I had Trace sign Laserblast for me, as he pulled it out of my pile of eps and mentioned that his dad was in it. I was like “Oh yeah, you should definitely sign that one”, only remember as we were leaving the parking garage that his dad had recently passed away. :(
Michael Howe, great review. Well done sir.
A good show, although not quite as funny IMO as EMW the night before. I did get much, much closer seats the second time, so that was nice. Rowdier crowd for Rattlers, though – it was hard to hear sometimes, even within ~40 feet of the stage.
Everyone except Mary Jo did at least a little something different for their warm-up routine, although Frank was the only one to go all-out and do almost entirely different material (I only noticed a single setup getting re-used on his part, but with a different punchline).
I was close to the end of the line for autographs. Gruber and Mary Jo’s husband came through and were chatting up fans for maybe ten minutes as we got close-ish to the autograph table, and both of them were very friendly, interested, and
natural with everyone they talked to. Great guys, both of them. Mr. Pehl even asked about how my group got interested in CT, since we’re youngin’s compared to the majority of people there.
Those two were actually more fun and less awkward to interact with than the riffers, who seemed to be running out of steam after having had probably 150+ people pass through before my group got there. I didn’t get any autographs for myself – just some for a friend who missed the autograph session at a prior CT show – but I did want to get a handshake from everybody. All of them seemed to be zoning out a bit, except for Trace, who was the only one who had been paying attention and was ready for a handshake and for a smooth, alert delivery on the nice-to-meet-you/thanks-for-coming response.
To be fair, Frank was pretty quick on the draw, and J. Elvis definitely seemed like he was keeping up the genuine enthusiasm, but everyone except Trace seemed kinda worn out – as one might expect after two days of shows and hundreds of fans. Overall, a positive experience.
klisch- it seems to be some form of internal counter-measure, when people say, ‘isn’t there anyone who will come forward?’ I usually do.
SAVE FERRIS- one thing I was disappointed in was that I had heard that Blatz beer was back on the market there, but I didn’t see it at any of the stores. I’ve wanted to try it since it was mentioned in ‘Village of the Giants’ by Tom Servo: “Hey look, Blatz! I love Blatz!’
‘Rattlers’ also had some great WTF moments as well, including a crazed cut that looks like they excised about 15-20 minutes of plot that would have made the cut more palatable.
@Raptorial Talon – I definitely noticed the zoning too. I went from being Coherent McConfidence to Babbly McFanNerd when I got to Joel, and the awkwardness created by their obvious tiredness didn’t help, but I can’t blame them at all. I did think that J. Elvis seemed the most genuinely interested, as I prattled on with some short, pointless story about how I’ve held a guitar he used to own. It would have been better if I had
finishing the thought: if I had been able to find simple words using my brain and form actual sentences, but oh well.
It sounds like a lot of fun….wish I could go….sigh.
Let me start by apologizing for parts of my review before I even say them. Next, let it be known that I am a HUGE fan of all things MST, I’ve been to every live event in Chicago/Milwaukee that has happened so far, I won all the dvds, etc. Let’s start with friday, east meets watts. I must say I was a bit disappointed when I heard this was the movie being shown. I bought the two day tickets for which sent my total over 100 bucks (don’t get me wrong, I’d give them my money either way) but they did east meets watts in chicago for the three day event. I know this sounds selfish in regards to those who’ve yet to see them and for those areas the Titans have yet to travel, but had I known what movie was playing when the tickets were first available, I would have skipped it.
Having watched the dvd SO MANY TIMES, I knew every joke that was coming. Granted they tossed in a few new ones, but overall I feel the night had little energy and the reactions were good not great. I think oozing skull or doomsday machine would have gone over much better, as those movies haven’t been riffed live in our area yet….just my humble opinion.
That being said…..Rattlers was AMAZING. Best live show yet. If you have a chance to see, do yourself a favor. Run don’t walk. This will go down as classic CT. I loved every minute. The crew was clicking, the (sold out)audience was out of control, laughing over half of the riffs….it truly was the best yet. There was an energy to that show that just wasn’t there the night before. If the Titans are reading this: Please come back soon! :) and bring new movies with you. And maybe a new live dvd, so I can give you more of my money! Thanks for a great weekend TITANS! You truly are the best!!!!
@trenner:
Yeah. I was coming from a different angle – I do a lot of public speaking, so I’m confident in front of people, but I also know that 1) I’m not special, 2) whether they remember me or not really doesn’t matter for either me or them in the long run, and 3) better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.
So I knew I wasn’t going to devolve into an incoherent fanboy, but it’s because I knew I was going to take a minimalistic approach. And while I suppose it could have been better, at least it wasn’t embarrassing in any way that anybody will remember a day from now, much less a week or a month or whatever.
But I will say I didn’t ask for the more elaborate request I was contemplating. That would not have been worth it in their tired state.
Oops. I OWN the dvds, I have not WON them. Also, one final note…I’d like to add the Pabst was a great place to see the Titans. Much better then the last time they came around. I was way up in the nosebleeds for Rattlers and I heard the film and the jokes quite well…except for the moments we were all laughing!!!!
@Raptorial – Yeah regardless of what little babble I did get out, I sensed right away that this was not the time to try and make small talk, and I moved through the line pretty quickly for the Titans’ sake and for those behind me. It was fairly impressive that I was able to be awkward and lame for each one of them in such a small amount of time.
Next time I’m just going to buy a poster and have them all sign it, thank them all for coming and compliment the show, and that’s it. I guess I was just hoping for the same level of energy and ease that was present when I met Mike and Kevin at the Orpheum in Madison in 2005, but that was a much different atmosphere.
More thoughts here http://www.trevorawright.com
“one thing I was disappointed in was that I had heard that Blatz beer was back on the market there, but I didn’t see it at any of the stores.”
Hmmmm……..hadn’t heard that one, “Michael”, but not being a beer drinker, I suppose I wouldn’t necessarily be the one who would know.
However, now that you’ve mentioned it, I’ll keep an eye out for it, and give you a ‘head’s up’ if I ever do come across it…… :-)
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who’s done something awkward upon meeting the Titans. (Usually I do okay, but the last time I think I actually frightened MJP for a second or two. Talk about feeling like a dope!)
They’re coming to my hometown in April. If I go it’ll be the fourth time I’ve seen them. Always great.
Okay, Michael Howe, I did some checking and was able to confirm that you are correct about Blatz beer having been re-introduced.
I found it was carried at Milwaukee area Pick ‘n Save grocery stores, however, the store I was in only had it available in cans.
I then found it at Woodman’s Grocery stores, which had it in both cans and bottles. If you’re unfamiliar with it, Woodman’s is an “employee-owned” grocery chain, with 13 locations mostly in Wisconsin (so numbers wise they are somewhat ‘small’, but the stores themselves are HUGE).
However, they also have 3 stores in northern Illinois (Rockford, Carpentersville, and North Aurora). So if you happen to live near any of those locations, my guess is you should be able to find it there……….if you haven’t already………..or even care anymore! :-D
Save Ferris-
Thanks for the info. Though since I’m without a car, I might need to consider that if I take a trip to Aurora. I’ve been wondering just how that stuff tastes, as part of my research for my Village of the Giants webpage.
Actually, I did visit a Pick n Save a few hours before I went to CT. IT was on East Lyon St, but when I looked in the case in their liquor section, I didn’t see any Blatz cans.
No problem. All I can tell you is this………….if the current version is anything like the ‘original’ version from back in the day (i.e. back when I actually drank beer), it ain’t no great shakes.
Though, not having tried it in (roughly) 30 years, I can’t really say…….. :idk:
P.S.
Visited your website……….VERY cool!!! :yes:
P.P.S.
If you should ever happen to have any contact with Tisha Sterling, PLEASE, have her give me a call !!! :blush: