ftp.ee.pdx.edu/2014.02.ftp.ee.pdx.edu.tar/ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/mst3k/sol/sol.28

Internet Message Format | 1994-02-02 | 44KB

From rsk  Wed Oct 14 09:27:08 1992
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 09:27:08 EDT
From: rsk (Richard Kulawiec)
Posted-Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 09:27:08 EDT
Received-Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 09:27:08 EDT
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Satellite of Love News #28
Status: OR

[ This issue is a bit longer than the last, but I didn't want to
break up the long article at the end about Joel's stand-up career. ---Rsk ]

----------

From: Mark Holtz <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 16:11:43 PDT
Subject: October Move Sign

                                OH NO! We've got
                         ALL RERUN OCTOBER MOVIE SIGN!

 Fridays (act. Saturdays) @ 12:30 AM    Saturdays @ 10 AM & 7 PM
 -----------------------------------    ------------------------
  2 - Ring Of Terror                     3 - Being From Another Planet
  9 - Wild Rebels                       10 - Attack of the Giant Leeches
 16 - The List Continent                17 - The Killer Shrews (not screws)
      (Did we mention Rock Clinbing?)
 23 - Hell Cats                         24 - Hercules Unchained
 30 - King Dinosaur                     31 - The Unearthly

 NOT MST3K, BUT WHO CARES: "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" (1980) will
 air at 9 PM on October 31st.

 Saturday Night Live Appearances:
 Teri Garr/ - NONE NOTED
 Flip Wilson/Stevie Nicks - NONE NOTED
 Jamie Lee Curtis/James Brown - NONE NOTED
 Ed Koch/K. Rowland & The Midnight Runners - NONE NOTED

 REMEMBER: All times listed are for Eastern and Pacific Times.
--
Mark Arthur Holtz           <:> UUCP: PacBell.COM! -> mholtz!sactoh0

---------

From: [e-mail] (David Hume)
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 92 18:19:02 PDT
Subject: A lurker from Canada writes

Hello Everybody!

Having "lurked" on the digest list for awhile, thought I'd contribute.
For one thing, I'm curious; are there any other Canadians on this list
besides myself?

I'm fairly sure Canada doesn't get the Comedy Channel anywhere. I heard
about MST on Usenet, learned more through Rich, Tim and Lynn-Anne, and
the latter has been so kind as to make me tapes on occasion! So I (and
those friends of mine lucky enough to become ensnared) have seen a few.

I enjoy it very much, tho I have decided my personal tastes run toward
the SF/monster variety, I didn't seem to get the same enjoyment out of
"Daddy-O" or "Jungle Goddess" for example.

Also, has anyone considered doing a survey of favourites, then tabulating
them? Or perhaps everyone's "top three"? Not being able to tape off of
TV and then decide, I've been selecting completely based on word of mouth
here, be it description or most quoted episodes.  ;-)  I'd be interested
in any "must-haves" I might not have considered yet...

(Well, bye for now, I seem to have "Go-home!" sign...)

David E. Hume
[e-mail]
Softwords
Victoria, BC, Canada

---------

From: Mark Holtz <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 15:59:03 PDT
Subject: No more 1st season & Notes

NEWS FLASH: We won't get to see the first season episode again. I talked with
the folks at Comedy Central in New York at 11:50a PDT on Thursday, August
27th, enquiring after seeing the post by Debbie Brown that showed that the
Friday (actually Saturday) at 12:30a showing will begin with "Rocketship X-M"
(first episode of 2nd CC season) instead of "The Crawling Eye" (first episode
of 1st CC season). The guy on the phone told be that those episodes will
"never, ever be shown on Comedy Central again." It has something to do with
the contract with Best Brains, Inc., and was due in part to BB's feeling that
those were not quality episodes, and that they had less jokes than the second
season on.

If you want to write and complain about this.....

MST3K                   Comedy Central
PO Box 5324             1775 Broadway
Hopkins, MN 55343       New York, NY 10019

A pointer: BE POLITE! Write nice letters saying that you enjoy MST3K, and that
you want to see the first season episodes. No curses from Jungle Goddess, or
threats to shoot the executives to space. If you call up Comedy Central,
(number available upon request), be extremely NICE, and thank them for their
time.

Thanks to a emergency hard drive format, I lost the ones for "Teenager from
Outer Space" and "Indestructable Man"......

Show 410
Hercules against the Moon Men
6/18/92

Also, I went through the title sequence, and, with some headphones turned up
full blast, Robot Roll Call "Let's go!"

Also, if you look closely at door number one, you'll see the knob on the door
spinning before the door opens.
--
Mark Arthur Holtz           <:> UUCP: PacBell.COM! -> mholtz!sactoh0

---------

From: Prashant Sridharan <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 92 18:56:16 -0400
Subject: MST3K Tapes wanted
Status: OR

[...]

My question is how do I get a hold of the old episodes?  If you know of
anyone in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington DC, that would be most
helpful.  However, anyone will do right now.  My goal is to get the
entire series on tape before this time next year.  Thanks for your time...

Prashant "Coach" Sridharan

[ Anybody down near the Capital City want to help out with some copies? ---Rsk ]


---------

From: [e-mail] (Lisa D. Jenkins)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 17:02:26 CDT
Subject: Articles on Joel Robinson's work as a stand-up comic

If you're like me--and I know I am, you might enjoy some more articles on
Hodgson's work as a stand-up comic.

From: St. Paul Dispatch*
Date: September 9, 1982
Headline: Funnymen Fight to Knock Out Competition with Punchlines
Subline: Comedians: Thrive on competition
Photo(s): Oops!  Back to the drawing board for this card trick being attempted
          by comedian Joel Hodgson, who specializes in white dinner jackets
          and a stupid look.  Hodgson will join other comedians in the first-
          ever Twin Cities Comedy Invitational competition beginning next
          Thursday.  [Hodgson with cards flying in mid-air.]
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): B1, B10

This is an unauthorized reprint.

In this corner, wearing a white dinner jacket and a blank look is Joel
Hodgson, comic/magician, winner of the 1981 Campus Comedy Contest.  His
opponent, wearing a tweed sport-coat and a smirk, is Jeff Gerbino, former Twin
Citian who is knocking 'em dead in Los Angeles, where he was a semi-finalist
in the Laff Off competition.

And ready, willing and able to join these two in the comic slugfest are four
other funnymen in the Class AA division and 12 laughmakers in Class A of the
first annual Twin Cities Comedy Invitational.

The contest, sponsored by the Comedy Gallery, the Twin Cities Reader and
Republic Airlines, will be held in St. Paul and Minneapolis next Wednesday
through Sept. 26.

[...]

There will be two judges here for each show, five for the finals.  The judges,
to be selected from among the media, talent agencies, people in other areas of
show business, and comedy "patrons," will grade competitors on a scale of 1 to
10 in three categories: originality and quality of material, stage presence
and presentation or delivery, and audience response.

Each comedian or act will perform six times for the judges, 15 minutes each
time.  Preliminary rounds will be held Wednesday through Sept. 18 and Sept.
22-25 in the Comedy Gallery, upstairs from JR's at 11th and LaSalle,
Minneapolis, and the Crocus Cabana, downstairs at McCafferty's, 788 Grand Ave.

The six finalists will perform at 8 p.m. Sept. 26 in the Riverview Supper
Club, 2319 W. River Road N., Minneapolis.

The Class AA competitors, besides Hodgson and Gerbino, are Ed Fiala of
Chicago, the only comedian in the competition who has appeared on Johnny
Carson's "Tonight" show; Frank Hooper, also a Chicagoan and a comic
impressionist who worked with nationally known Martin Mull on a cable TV
special, and Jeff Wayne, a veteran of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Laff
Off and a guest on TV's "Nashville Palace."

Comedians were put in Class AA if they had won, or been a finalist in, a
previous competition.

[...]

From: St. Paul Dispatch* [reprinted in part in St. Paul Pioneer Press*, page
      C5, same date]
Date: September 30, 1982
Headline: Backstage: Tricky Comic Wins Local Contest
Photo(s): Joel Hodgson is a "bad" magician but a good comic, good enough to
          win first place and $500 in the finals of the First Annual Twin
          Cities Comedy Invitational last Sunday night.  [Hodgson holds up a
          Mystery Date game board.]  [Photo not included in reprint.]
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): B2

This is an unauthorized reprint.

The Twin Cities comedy scene got a big boost and deadpan magician/comic Joel
Hodgson got first place and $500 in the finals of the First Annual Twin Cities
Comedy Invitational Sunday night in the Riverview Supper Club, Minneapolis.

The youthful Hodgson's transparent "magic" tricks, monotone delivery, and
"Agent J" running gag impressed the five judges enough to earn him the victory
over five other comedians or comedy groups.

The finals of the competition, which began with 20 comedians or acts,
attracted a good-sized crowd of some 375 people to the 500-seat Riverview.
The finish was extremely close, with Hodgson barely edging second-place
finisher Jeff Cesario, whose 20 minutes included some perceptive and very
funny stuff on sports and drugs and rock 'n' roll concerts.

Third place went to the only out-of-towner to reach the final six, Chicagoan
Ed Fiala, a marvelous sound-effects impressionist and whimsical funnyman, who
beat out Alex Cole in a photo finish.  Cole's act was highlighted by wry and
insightful observations about his first child and an on-the-mark impersonation
of Hibbing's Bobby Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan) singing Christmas music.

Hodgson, Cesario and Fiala were awarded trophies.

[...]

From: St. Paul Dispatch*
Date: February 17, 1983
Headline: Backstage: Finn's Dropping Gags, but New Club May Open
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): B2
Note: Hodgson on Letterman show.  This is from a column.

WARNING!  One deserving MiSTy comment by typist.  }B-)

This is an unauthorized reprint.

[...]

Speaking of comedy in the Twin Cities, Joel Hodgson, a "graduate" of the clubs
here and an emigrant to Los Angeles last November, was a big hit Tuesday
night/Wednesday morning on David Letterman show "Late Night" on WTCN-TV,
Channel 11.

Letterman gave the deadpan comic/"magician" nearly 15 minutes air time, and
Hodgson had the New York studio audience laughing hard and often.

The only problem was Letterman had trouble pronouncing Hodgson's name, a
difficulty some of us share.  Maybe the young comic, with all that potential,
ought to change it or shorten it to Hodges.  [Kill him. ldj]

From: St. Paul Dispatch*
Date: August 4, 1983
Headline: TC Comedians Find LA Success
Photo(s): Joel Hodgson: He passed 'acid test'  [Hodgson in "high school"-like
          photo.]
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): B1, B7

This is an unauthorized reprint.

Comedians Louie Anderson and Joel Hodgson, Twin Cities emigrants to Los
Angeles, are coming home to perform in the Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis the
next three weekends.  Both of them are coming off the kinds of performances
that are needed to keep up their resolve to have major comedy careers.

[...]

Hodgson, who performed in First Avenue in Minneapolis Monday night, talked
about how pleased he was with passing a sort of acid test a couple weeks ago
in a club in San Jose, Calif., where he'd never performed before.

"They asked me to headline at the last minute and I was sandwiched between
some really good acts," Hodgson said.  "The middle act, who was seven years
older than me, was usually a headliner, so he was very, very good.  I was
eight years younger than the opening act.  Here I was, the kid from Los
Angeles, who was very different from anyone they'd ever seen, and no one knew
me, except that some of them might have heard I was on the David Letterman
show or maybe saw me.

"Anyway, there was a lot of pressure on me and I had to work very hard every
day at rehearsals and during the show.  I feel I did OK, because the audience
for the last show wanted me to do an encore, and the club owners told me
that's rare.

"It was a very exciting, personal victory for me to go to a place without a
lot of press or local help and do real well."

"I don't approach comedy the way a lot of other comics do," said Hodgson, who
dresses in formal wear with sneakers, uses "magic," a huge assortment of
strange-looking props, and claims to be a spy.

[...]

Hodgson, 23, and Anderson, 28, see quite a bit of each other when working the
Comedy Store in Los Angeles, which comics call the mecca of comedy.

Hodgson said the club manager began putting them back-to-back because both are
from Minnesota and so different, physically and otherwise.

"They'd have this big fat guy get up and then this weird guy," Hodgson said.
"I guess together we had kind of an impact, especially since no one gives
Minneapolis or St. Paul any credit out there.  They think the cities are
somewhere near Ohio."

[...]

Hodgson said even the biggies from New York appear in the Comedy Store.

[...]

Hodgson got to California a couple of months after Anderson, and unlike
Anderson, hasn't yet hired an agent or manager, so his career is not quite as
active as Anderson's.

"There's a lot of dishonesty out there," he said.  "So I'm trying to find one
who's honest and one who understands what I do."

Hodgson has had the one show, though, that all striving comedians covet--a
national television appearance.  He was on David Letterman's late-night show
on NBC in February, just four months after arriving in Los Angeles.  (Anderson
has auditioned for the "Tonight" show, and expects to do so again, but hasn't
yet been hired.)

Hodgson's done a show for cable television called "Magic, Magic," which was
made for international distribution, but apparently hasn't yet been sold.

He's read for a couple of TV sitcoms, but hasn't been hired.  But then the
shows haven't made it on network schedules either.

"And I'm starting to travel outside of Los Angeles to work clubs in places
like San Jose and San Francisco and Detroit and Kansas City," he said.

Do Hodgson and Anderson live the lives of struggling artists in some three-
flights-up efficiency apartment with bare walls, doing their laundry daily in
the kitchen sink like John Travolta in "Staying Alive"?

"I have an apartment that I really like and probably could stay at for the
time I want to be out here," said Hodgson.  "I'm just making ends meet, but
it's getting better all the time.  I'm starting to make enough money in city
gigs so I don't have to travel so much to get work."

[...]

More important, both men say they are learning and their acts are improving.

"I'm learning how to be proficient," said Hodgson.  "I'm learning how to--if I
have to--just be *funny*."

[...]

Both Anderson and Hodgson are glad they began their careers in the Twin Cities
and are looking forward to returning.

[...]

"I love it," said Hodgson about the Twin Cities.  "But you can't get
established here.  I'd like to come back here after three years out there.  I
like the creative community here, and comedy here is a little closer to the
arts than in LA, where it's more commercial."

What about the future for them?

"I feel like in a year I can be at the level I want to reach as a comic
force," said Hodgson.  "I'm happy with myself creatively now, but there's a
difference between being creative and being funny."

[...]

From: St. Paul Dispatch*
Date: October 18, 1984
Headline: Joel Hodgson Coming Home to Say Farewell to Comedy
Subline: [On page B13 only.] Hodgson: Comedian will try writing, teaching
Photo(s): Twin Cities comic Joel Hodgson will be doing what he bills as a
          farewell show, titled, "Hello, I Must Be Going," at the Comedy
          Gallery Wednesday through Oct. 27 and again Oct. 31-Nov. 4.
          [Hodgson perfecting that shy look.]
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): B1, B10 *and* B13

This is an unauthorized reprint.

Even before a neophyte comedian takes the stage that first terrified time to
see if he can make people laugh, it's likely he or she already has fantasized
about that first television appearance.

Doing three minutes or so on Johnny Carson's "Tonight" show or "Late Night
With David Letterman" or "Saturday Night Live" is a goal for every aspiring
comedian.  It's the only way to move quickly from being a local comic to a
nationally known one.

Joel Hodgson, Twin Cities deadpan comic, fumbling magician and self-declared
spy, has, after just a couple of years working local clubs, reached that goal.

He's done five Letterman shows, four SNLs and specials on cable TV (HBO and
Showtime).  He's the envy of his comedy colleagues and apparently on his way
to fame and big money.

But wait a minute.  What's this?  Hodgson says he doesn't want to be a
comedian any longer.  He says he's quitting.

"I don't enjoy performing that much anymore," he said.  "I like coming up with
ideas, and I'll always do that, but I don't want to be a performer any
longer."

And he puts much of the blame for his feelings on TV.

"It's hard to know who's watching you and how they're reacting when you're
working on television," Hodgson complained.

"I think if I'd kept working at the club level, things would have been very
different," he said.  "Naturally, I was driven to do TV, but now that so many
people recognize me from TV it's changed the nature of my act."

Hodgson said the spontaneity is gone.  "There's not that element of surprise
anymore.  I was this guy who crept out from nowhere and surprised everybody.
Now I'm a known entity.  A lot of what made my act exciting at first was that
people didn't know what was going on.  Now they do."

Hodgson said he sometimes feels like a recording star who has to do his hits
at every performance.  "Only I'm doing Joel's Top 10 jokes," he said.

Friends and comedy colleagues are telling Hodgson they think he's afraid of
success.  He doesn't agree.  But as he talked more about his surprising
decision, he described some things about success that he dislikes.

"It's hard to grow up onstage," he said.  "I'm taking my best ideas, things
that are very personal, and showing them to millions of people I'll never see.
We're taught that recognition for your ideas is the best thing in the world,
but I don't feel I want to share myself with that many people right now."

He also said he feels "ungenuine," and as if "I'm becoming a show biz person."

What now for Hodgson?  "I don't know for sure, but I am kind of working on a
book for magicians, teaching them how to be creative," he said.  "You know I
was a kind of magician who got involved in comedy."

For his goodbye to comedy, Hodgson is returning to where he started--the
Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis.

In what is being billed as his farewell performances, Hodgson will be doing a
show titled "Hello, I Must Be Going" at the Gallery Wednesday through Oct. 27
and again Oct. 31-Nov. 4.

In the shows, Hodgson will unveil some things he didn't show the TV boys.  "A
lot of ideas I've been writing the past two years or so that have been pushed
back because I didn't have time to get to them," he said.

[The following paragraph is on B13 only.]

One of them will be his new band called The New Joels.  Another will be a
slide show.

And Hodgson promises he will auction his stage props and clothes at his final
show at 8 p.m. Nov. 4.

Twin Cities comedian and entrepreneur Scott Hansen called Hodgson "a very
fresh and powerful spark" in the Twin Cities comedy community" [sic on "] and
said Hodgson would be missed locally and nationally.

"Joel Hodgson is one of those rare people who believes that his self and the
people he values are much more important than fame and riches," said Hansen.
"I am certain we will all be hearing from him, but right now it is very
important that Joel hears from himself."

[The following paragraph is on B13 only.]

In a "farewell press release" mailed to the media, Hodgson quoted the rock
group the Grateful Dead as saying, "What a long, strange trip it's been," and
asked, "Wasn't it Neil Young who said 'Better to burn out than to rust'?"

From: St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch*
Date: June 8, 1987
Headline: Wacky Hodgson Returns to Stage
Subline: Review
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): C8
Note: Hodgson's return to stand-up comedy.

This is an unauthorized reprint.

Comedian-magician Joel Hodgson, who walked away from performing in late 1984
after a succession of national TV appearances, is back onstage and delighting
capacity audiences in the Ha Ha Club in Minneapolis.

Hodgson, who became known in the Twin Cities and then nationally as a fumbling
magician-trickster-prankster with a wild imagination, quit just when he seemed
destined for stardom.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1983, Hodgson quickly became a hit, and
eventually made about five appearances on "Late Night With David Letterman"
and four appearances on "Saturday Night Live."  He also did HBO and Showtime
cable TV specials.

Then he chucked it all, saying he didn't enjoy performing anymore, that the
spontaneity had gone out of his shows after so many TV appearances.

Well, he's back--with all his talent and spontaneity intact, and with plenty
of surprises.  In fact, he has a big box full of surprises--numerous gadgets,
gimmicks and gizmos that only he could (or would want to!) create.

Hodgson, as before, is still looking and acting like a kid--a kid who, unlike
the rest of us, refused to give up his toys.

On Saturday night, Hodgson's oddball paraphernalia reminded me of a kid's
catalog that contained all sorts of strange-looking, probably useless, but
absolutely fascinating *whoosits*.

Here are some of the specialties in Hodgson's catalog.

A "personalized smoke detector" worn on one's belt and with earphones so when
the alarm sounds, no one else is disturbed; and an "unwelcome mat," a regular
floor mat with a dandelion on it, from which water is squirted at the visitor.

Then there is his taco, which when bitten sprays its sauce on someone other
than the person eating it.

Hodgson demonstrated some practical inventions, too, such as the one with
which he closed the show--and air bag for motorcyclists.  That's right, a
trash bag that a cyclist wears on his helmet and that inflates upon impact.

Ever the "magician," Hodgson also pulled off some trickery with help from
audience volunteers.

The funniest bit of the night involved two men whom Hodgson gave football-like
helmets to wear.  He promised that they'd do everything he did, and though he
didn't say a word to them, they followed his every move.  Finally, they handed
him their wallets.  It was amazing, folks, truly amazing.

From: St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch*
Date: April 21, 1988
Headline: Comedy: Toying With Laughs Again
Photo(s): DEADPAN-HANDLING: Comedian Joel Hodgson says his Comedy Gallery
          appearances will be "an official comeback."  [Joel side-ways glances
          in tux.]
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): D4

This is an unauthorized reprint.

"It's my coming-out party," says Twin Cities comedian Joel Hodgson of his
performances this weekend and next at the Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis.

"This is more like an official comeback," adds Hodgson, who walked away from
comedy in 1984, just when it seemed he was headed for stardom after multiple
appearances on "Late Night With David Letterman" and "Saturday Night Live."

When he quit, Hodgson said he no longer enjoyed performing and complained that
the spontaneity had gone out of his shows after so many TV appearances.  He
hinted, too, that he wasn't interested in or prepared to handle all the public
attention he was receiving.

"I'm still kind of gun-shy," he admits, "but I've kind of accepted what I am
and who I am.  I can't stop coming up with ideas and sharing them.  But I'm
taking a different route this time by getting involved in different projects."

Hodgson, 28, didn't return to performing until last June at the Ha Ha Club in
Minneapolis; then he did a Halloween show called "Spookfest '87" last November
at the same club.

"But those were experimental," he says.  "I was roughing out a lot of stuff."

In preparation for his shows at the Comedy Gallery, Hodgson recently spent
four weeks on the road polishing his act.  He performed in St. Louis,
Columbus, Cincinnati and elsewhere, and got good responses, he says,
everywhere but in Texas.  "They didn't really get me," he explains in his
typical deadpan delivery.

And a couple of weeks ago, Hodgson--comic, fumbling magician, self-declared
spy ("Agent J," he calls himself) and toy inventor--had a capacity audience in
stitches at the Guthrie Theater when he opened for comedian (and friend) Jerry
Seinfeld.

Working with Seinfeld, with whom he co-wrote an HBO cable television special
earlier this year, has helped renew Hodgson's interest in comedy and
performing.  Recently, in fact, Hodgson has been flying to Los Angeles to work
with Seinfeld on a second HBO special.

It's kind of collaboration, says Hodgson--along with his toy inventions--that
keeps him interested in the entertainment world.

His toys, which he creates in a workshop on Robert Street in St. Paul, may, in
the long run, be more lucrative than performing or writing.

He and a partner, Tim Nyberg, have formed a creative company called General
Eclectic, and they've licensed and copyrighted a toy scheduled to debut this
Halloween.  It's called a Gab Bag--a trick-or-treat bag that talks--and is
being manufactured and marketed by Dakin, the San Francisco-based company that
handles the Garfield the Cat merchandise.

"We're working on lots of other toys--and games, too," says Hodgson, who is
well-known for the gadgets he uses in his act.

[Endnote:]  Joel Hodgson, with Chris Raine and Scott Hansen--8:30 p.m. today,
8:30 and 10:30 p.m.  Friday and Saturday, 8:30 p.m.  Sunday and 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday; continuing through May 1.  Comedy Gallery, Riverplace, 65 Main St.
S.E., Minneapolis.  Tickets: $10, call 331-5653.

From: St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch*
Date: April 22, 1988
Headline: When Joel Comes Out to Play, Everyone Has Fun
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): B7
Note: Review of Hodgson's new stand-up act.

WARNING! One deserving MiSTy comment made by typist.  }B-)

This is an unauthorized reprint.

It's said there's a little boy in every man, but comedian Joel Hodgson
sometimes seems to be all boy.

Making a full-fledged comeback as a performer this weekend and next at the
Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis, Hodgson used his clever imagination, his boyish
fascination with toys and miscellaneous gadgets and gizmos and his child-like
prankishness to delight his audience at his Wednesday night opening.

Hodgson, who sometimes refers to himself as a "gizmocrat," appeared onstage
with several plastic laundry baskets full of his inventions and clever tricks.
The sillier the trick or invention, the more it seemed to appeal to Hodgson--
and in turn, the funnier it was for us.

He began his show with as stupid a trick as you could imagine.  In the "attack
of the cling peaches," several peachlike fuzzy balls attached to rubber bands
sprang out of a can and landed on Hodgson's rather ragamuffin tuxedo.  And
being cling peaches, of course, they *clung* and had to be peeled off.

A series of other quick sight gags followed.  Hodgson opened a woman's beat-up
purse and flames shot forth ("Hell in a handbag," he said in his usual
monotone style); he held up an everyday green welcome mat, except that water
squirted from this one ("an unwelcome mat," he deadpanned); he put a tiny toy
windup woodpecker in the middle of his forehead and, as it pecked furiously at
his skin, he said, "I'm a tree."

Then there was his impersonation of "an invisible man at home," in which he
lay on the stage floor, imitated a telephone ringing, then held up a yellow
phone receiver attached to a metal rod.

The audience winced as one when Hodgson stapled a note to his forehead, then
laughed with relief when he revealed it was all a gag, that he had used self-
sticking paper.  Hodgson had his audience gasping another time with a clever
visual illusion that I won't reveal here.  [Kill him. ldj]

As for inventions, some of the more ridiculous or outrageous ones displayed by
Hodgson Wednesday included his device for integrating electronics and
clothing, a bubble-making machine attached to a belt circling his waist,
dubbed by its creator "a cummerbubblebund"; a gray rubber handgun "for nervous
bank robbers" with a nose than can be pointed in different directions without
moving the gun itself; a plastic baseball helmet with a net attached to its
brim ("so that no matter where you sit, you'll feel like you're behind home
plate"); and, finally, one of my favorites--a huge puff of cotton candy that,
when bitten into, opens its heretofore hidden mouth and screams.

Oh, and you'll love Hodgson's safety device for motorcyclists.

A funny running gag in Hodgson's act was his "when I was a boy" and "now I'm a
man" routine in which he demonstrated something he did as a kid, then followed
it with an updated "adult" version of the same thing.  The adult example
always was bigger or louder--for instance, blowing the paper off a straw,
followed by shooting a huge, oblong balloon off a motorized garden blower, or
playing a kazoo, then attaching a bagpipe to the blower.

Not everything worked equally well, and there was at least one mechanical
failure and perhaps less than perfect execution of several tricks.  But
overall, Hodgson's show was wonderfully amusing.  It's good to have him back.

From: St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch*
Date: June 24, 1988
Headline: Showtime to Tape Area Comics
Author: Protzman, Bob
Page(s): B8
Note: Hodgson and others to be taped for Showtime's Comedy Club Network show.

This is an unauthorized reprint.

Showtime cable TV crews will be at the Comedy Gallery in Minneapolis on July
11 to video tape some of Minnesota's top stand-up comedians in action.

Scott Hansen, owner-operator of the Comedy Gallery and other Twin Cities
comedy clubs, confirmed that a Showtime crew will videotape eight or nine
local comedians.

Hansen selected the comedians: Jeff Cesario, Joel Hodgson, Alex Cole, Wild
Bill Bauer, Jeff Gerbino, Lizz Winstead, Tom Arnold and Joel Madison.  "If the
network decides to video nine, than I'll go on," said Hansen.  "I'll benefit
from the promotion that the club will get, so I'd rather give other comics the
chance to be seen.  I just want the show here to be the best they've
(Showtime) ever seen."

A Showtime representative said it will be determined later when the local
comedians will be seen on the network's regular Friday night program, Showtime
Comedy Club Network, which is carried in St. Paul on Continental Cablevision
at 8:45 p.m. Fridays.  The local comedians will not appear on the same show,
since each 15-minute program features three comedians from three different
cities, a Showtime spokesman explained.

Showtime's video crew will videotape at Comedy Gallery's new location.  The
club will move Thursday from Riverplace to the adjacent Brown Ryan Livery.

From: Minneapolis Star and Tribune#
Date: [unknown]
Headline: Best Bet: Laugh With a Prop Comic
Photo(s): [Hodgson with his squirt flamethrower boutonniere.]
Author: Covert, Colin
Page(s): [unknown]
Note: small review of Hodgson's stand-up performance

This is an unauthorized reprint.

If the term "prop comic" brings to mind rubber chickens, Groucho noses and
abused watermelons, get to know Joel Hodgson.  What sets him above the rest is
a rampaging imagination.  He's a deliriously demented tinkerer who creates
devices that are like something from a K-Tel nightmare.  Who else would think
to redesign a squirt boutonniere as a flamethrower?  Or decide that a lawn
leaf blower really should be used to shoot giant straw wrappers into the
audience?  Hodgson's visual jokes bounce off walls that most of us didn't even
realize were there--he's the sort who looks at the Metrodome and sees the
potential for a terrific Whoopee Cushion.  He makes a rare stage appearance
tonight to benefit the Street Kids Program of Minneapolis.  Also performing
are comics Bridget Jones and Mike Nelson.  Tickets are $10.  Showtime is 8
p.m. at the Comedy Gallery Riverplace, 25 SE. Main St., Minneapolis.  Call
331-JOKE.

From: Star Tribune*
Date: August 6, 1989
Headline: [unknown]
Photo(s): [Joel plays guitar while original Crow peers on.]
Author: Kaplan, Steven
Page(s): Sunday Magazine 4-6

This is an unauthorized reprint.

Many people have found that success and wealth do not always mean happiness.
But not all are willing to give it all up for less lucrative work.  Here are
three people who did.

Today's bookstores groan under the weight of books that advise us how to be
rich and successful.  Where, though, are the books that tell us what to do if
getting rich and successful fails to make us happy?  More and more people are
discovering that it takes a lot more than money and success to find happiness.
Few successful people, though, ever suspect that their very success may be the
cause of their unhappiness.

[...]

Below we examine the lives of three very accomplished people who dared to
question their own success.  Their investigations led to the ironic discovery
that quitting their successful endeavors would ultimately become their most
daring success.

Joel Hodgson

Most show-business people would jump at the opportunity to have their own
nationally televised situation comedy.  Joel Hodgson, though, not only turned
down such an offer, but quit show business because of it.

In 1983, at age 24, Hodgson had moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis in
search of furthering his career as a stand-up comic.  He was immediately and
spectacularly successful.  Within two months of arriving in California he had
appeared on the "Late Night With David Letterman" show, was a featured
comedian on the "HBO Young Comedians Special" and appeared on "Saturday Night
Live" two weeks in a row.

Hodgson was obviously a hot property, and the network honchos took proper
notice.  No less a personage than NBC president Brandon Tartikoff chose
Hodgson to star in a sitcom that he was personally backing.  That meant the
show would have a guaranteed run, and, of course, it meant an offer of big
bucks to Hodgson: $10,000 a show to start.  Hodgson turned the offer down.

"All I knew is that I didn't want to do that show," Hodgson says.  "It was
called 'High School U.S.A.' and was a really dumb 'Animal House' type of show
where the ragtag group of losers band together and beat the big fraternity
guys.  When I turned them down I thought that would end it, but all they did
was double the amount of money they offered me.  They were already going to
pay me a stupidly large amount of money, and they doubled it because I was
this dumb kid comedian telling them their show wasn't funny.

"Hollywood needs a lot of confidence going into these projects because so much
money is involved, so they were basically trying to buy me because I didn't
agree with what they were doing.  But to me it just seemed, 'Why try to make
high school kids think that's what high school is, in the name of being
funny?'  I felt a lot of responsibility and didn't want to sell away all those
kids' perceptions."

Hodgson was plagued by responsibility, a rarely seen commodity in the
television industry.  He had made a meteoric rise in his profession, leaping
in three years from the stages of mother-daughter church banquets in his
native Green Bay, Wis., through the Twin Cities comedy-club scene and onto the
national television scene.  He had barely arrived in Los Angeles before he
found himself a star, and, unlike most performers, he didn't like it.  He
suspected the sincerity of the people around him, refused to participate in
unwholesome ventures and found fame an onerous obligation.

"When I left for L.A.," he says, "all I really wanted was to be on the
Letterman show.  That was really my only goal.  I didn't want to be a nutty
neighbor on a sitcom, I didn't want to be in a movie.  But then came the
'Saturday Night Live' bit, and that was seen by 20 million people.  It was a
big responsibility to have so many people watching you, and I felt responsible
to those people.  I had to be funny, but I wanted to do something that was
nutritious and enriching.  I didn't want to give them junk, but to give them
good solid jokes and solid ideas.

"The most frustrating thing about show business is the myths it creates about
people.  People seem to need heroes, and they like to imagine that, say,
Robert Goulet has a cool life.  And I think that's kind of an unhealthy thing.
Robert Goulet just happens to like to sing, and he'd rather sing to make a
living than do something he's not good at.

"As I began to get famous, the same need-for-heroes thing happened to me, and
I was really too young to handle it.  It wasn't making me happy to be known.
It was upsetting me because people didn't seem to understand that I still had
to get up in the morning and look in the mirror, and I could still be unhappy.
But when you're making it people assume that you're always happy.  They write
you off as a whole human being and assume they can't talk to you as they would
to other people.  It's like the story of King Midas, where you're so
successful you're alienated from everything around you.  You have to have a
certain type of mental toughness to say to yourself, 'This is just what I do,
and people are responsible for how they interpret what I do.'

"The show-business community began watching me and wondering what I was going
to do.  I was actually growing up in public, and I really hated that.  When
you're just a normal person and make mistakes, the people around you know it,
and you acknowledge it and everything is OK.  But the press and the media are
one-dimensional things and can't handle the real complexities of people.  So
as far as I was concerned, I had to get away from being known and having so
many people interested in what I was doing.  It made me very self-conscious."

The unrealistic society that surrounds show-business people was less than
healthy for him as well.  He hated the sycophants and hangers-on who
inevitably accompany celebrity.

"In Hollywood people cluster about you and tell you that you're a genius after
every show, whether the show was good or bad.  There's always this group of
people around you patting you on the back.  It works on your ego.  They make
you think you're bigger, better, stronger and happier than the average person.
They wanted to make my accomplishments seem huge and everyone's seem small.
But I knew that wasn't true."

In the end it was the offer of the sitcom that convinced Hodgson he had to
leave show business.  He was depressed by the shallowness around him, and he
had no friends his age who could understand what he was feeling.  Most
importantly, his responsibility to his managers left him feeling undependable
and guilty.

"You don't make money from doing TV shows," he says.  "You get $300 for doing
Letterman and $700 for 'Saturday Night Live.'  The only way to make money in
this business is to go do the clubs after people have seen you on those shows.
But I hated traveling; I just like doing the TV shows, so that year I only
made about $12,000.  When I turned down the sitcom, and all the money they
were offering, I started to feel bad about my management and my agency,
because they couldn't make money if I wasn't making any.  I felt like I was
jerking them around and wasting their time.  The usual program is you do
anything that's going to move you ahead, and I just couldn't do that."

Hodgson decided he had to quit show business.  He is a prop comedian, and in a
final show he sold all his props and retired to his small Minneapolis
apartment.  "I can't wait to be normal," he told the local press.  "I hope I'm
forgotten real quickly.  I want to be 'Joel Who?' real quick."

Back in the Twin Cities, Hodgson tried to make a living in a variety of ways.
He built and sold sculptures, he tried working at a T-shirt factory, he
designed toys and, eventually, he began designing and building props for other
comedians.  For four years he never set foot on a stage.  Last year, though,
he began performing again, only this time under hs own conditions.  He still
doesn't travel to clubs, and he has no plans to be a nutty neighbor in a
sitcom.

"After I quit, it took me several years until I finally realized that not
doing comedy for me was like living my life with my arm and my leg tied behind
my back," Hodgson says.  "Quitting was not a waste of time; I definitely
needed to do that, but now I think I can go back to comedy and do it on my own
terms.  Not being on the road means I have to do things like local shows,
corporate shows and writing for other people, if it's a fun project.  But I
like what I'm doing, and I really enjoy meeting other comedians and having
them like what I do.  I'm older and more relaxed about everything.

"And comedy itself had kind of grown up.  The whole scene is more mature.
There are guys doing it who want to be lifers--they don't want to burn out or
die young in a car crash."

[...]

From: St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch*
Date: December 6, 1989
Headline: Comics are Funny, but Tamer, in 'Loons 3'
Author: Lambert, Brian
Page(s): B10
Note: Review of Land O'Loons III

This is an unauthorized reprint.

"Land O' Loons 3," (9 tonight, Channel 2) KTCA-TV's more or less annual
showcase of local comic talent, moves from the cozier environs of years past
to the station's snazzy new TeleCenter studios in downtown St. Paul.
Exchanged for audiences of well-primed club hoppers and hipsters is a rather
more sedate crowd of public-TV members and well-upholstered corporate
benefactors.  The effect is obvious.

The move isn't necessarily permanent, and it had more to do with KTCA's desire
to stage a benefit and show off its new facility than anything else.  But the
humor of host Jeff Cesario and comics Lizz Winstead, Joe Keys, Susan Norfleet
and Joel Hodgson must have played to looser collections of people.

Unlike last year, when KTCA dropped in music by the vocal group Moore by Four,
this year's show is stand-up from beginning to end, with time out only for
some backstage video of the cast getting made up and talking about their
peculiar lives and--of course--a plea for donations for public television by
Cesario.

[...]

Of the five [comics], Norfleet clicks best.  Opening as a country-Western
character threatening to sing a song she wrote about her husband dying at a
Christian amusement park, she was the most involved with her material.  (In
Hodgson's case, of course, his dazed uninvolvement is part of the joke.)

[...]  And Hodgson closes the hour with his prop bag cluttered with generic
Rubik's cubes, tin foil face masks, a piece of medieval torture he calls a
"Chiro Gyro" (which he wears over his head) and a bit that requires an
audience member to squirt him with a turkey baster while he tries to juggle
water.

[...]

If you are interested in photocopies of these articles or the list of articles
I have available, or if you have articles which I might not have, please E-
mail me at the following address.  Please put "MST3K articles list" in the
subject line.

Lisa                         [e-mail]
1603 Thirteenth Street South
Moorhead, Minnesota 56560-3734