ftp.ee.pdx.edu/2014.02.ftp.ee.pdx.edu.tar/ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/mst3k/sol/sol.31

Internet Message Format | 1994-02-02 | 39KB

From rsk  Thu Nov 12 23:11:37 1992
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 23:11:37 EST
From: rsk (Rich Kulawiec)
Posted-Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 23:11:37 EST
Received-Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 23:11:37 EST
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Satellite of Love News #31
Status: OR

This issue, and the previous one, consist entirely of reprints of
various articles dealing with MST3K.  A big thanks to Lisa Jenkins!

---Rsk

----------

From: [e-mail] (Lisa D. Jenkins)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 17:03:38 CDT
Subject: MST3K articles

From MST3K's humble beginnings to its present, here are more articles!

From: Twin Cities Reader#
Date: July 8, 1992
Headline: Comedy
Subline: _Mystery Science Theater 3000_: Goofs in the Machine
Cover: TV FOR THE CULTURAL ELITE: _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ Comes of Age
Photo(s): Joel Hodgson and friends [Crow, right; Servo, left with their RAM
          chips] aboard the newly debugged "Satellite of Love."
Author: Miller, Mark
Page(s): 24-25
Note: IT'S ALIVE! preview

This is an unauthorized reprint.

"WE DIDN'T KNOW IF PEOPLE WOULD LIKE IT," says Joel Hodgson, creator of cable
TV's _Mystery Science Theater 3000_.  "We thought people would be upset that
we'd talk over their movies."

Hodgson, it's now clear, was horribly wrong.  MST 3000, which debuted in a
bizarre time slot on Thanksgiving evening in 1988 on tiny local TV23, has
since gone on to bona fide success on the national Comedy Channel (now Comedy
Central), which reaches 23 million households.  The show runs twice on
Saturdays, with old episodes rerun on Friday nights (though Hodgson still
can't get the channel in St. Paul).

The show returns to its humble beginnings this weekend, when the folks of MST
3000 perform _MST Alive_, two special live shows at the Uptown Theater.

The premise of MST 3000 is simple.  To paraphrase the opening song, Joel is a
janitor at Gizmonics Institute, sometime in the not-too-distant future.  His
bosses don't like him, so they shoot him into space, where they show him bad
movies and monitor his reactions.  For companionship, Joel creates robots out
of lacrosse masks, baby seats, and gumball machines, endows them with
personalities, and wacky hijinks ensue.  Forced to watch cheesy movies, the
occupants of the "Satellite of Love" hurl wisecracks at the viewing screen in
response to bad acting or a covoluted plot, both of which occur continually.
The results of these "experiments," as they're called, are sold to television.
This is where the story meets reality: The home viewer then watches Joel and
the 'bots watching the movie--their sihouettes apear with empty movie seats at
the bottom of the screen.

In its current form, MST 3000 can best be described as carfully planned
spontaneity, created by extremely literate people with diverse backgrounds;
they are the "cultrual elite" Dan Quayle has been warning us about.  The humor
can be sophisticated or downright dopey.  Nearly every action or quip is a
reference to another medium--film, literature, music, television--and all
sorts of names are dropped, from John Coltrane to Morrissey, Ingmar Bergman to
Jerry Lewis.  Repeated viewing always reveals previously missed jokes.  It's
entertainment that appeals to the highest common denominator, though it's
equally funny to children.

Although MST 3000's premise is unchanged, many aspects of the show's
preparation are more sophisticated than in the early days.  Then, nearly all
the dialogue, including the host segment in which characters interact and talk
about films outside the theater, was improvised.  Passing notes from the
control room and using headsets were early--and unsuccessful--attempts at
primitive scripting.

Trace Beaulieu, who is the voice behind the robot crew [sic] and also plays
mad scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester, says of the early shows, "It's hard to go
back and look at those."

Hodgson agrees: "It's astounding to me that people liked it back then,
compared to the skill level we have now."

Due to time and financial constraints, each episode was originally taped in
one day.

"We had to get out before the wrestling show came in," says Beaulieu.

Now, each show is shot over the course of eight days.  The script is created
through repeated viewings by the actors and writers, allowing them to pay more
attention to the subtler--relatively speaking--aspects of the films.  The
large pool of material from these sessions is edited to produce the final
script.  More time than before is devoted to the host segments, arguably the
funniest part of the show.  Despite the more elaborate process, the new format
still has a spontaneous feel to it.

Now in its fourth season on cable TV, MST 3000 has gone through other changes.
At the outset of its second cable season, it endured a six-month period
without a contract, despite being the channel's most popular show.  Hodgson's
comic partner, Josh Weinstein, who was the voice of Tom Servo the robot, left
during this time and was replaced by former camera and technical person Kevin
Murphy; stand-up comic Frank Conniff came on as a new mad scientist, Frank.

By the third season on Comedy Central--last year--says Murphy, "Things were
comfortable.  We had developed a good cadence--we were definitely getting
better at it."  Season four, currently in its second month, is going very
smoothly.

The movies used in MST 3000's "experiments" span a wide range of mediocrity
and outright awfulness: '50s B-movies such as _Untamed Youth_ (about a prison
farm) and _Ring of Terror_ (about a medical school fraternity's initiation
gone awray, featuring the world's oldest college students); '60s exploitation
gems such as _Catalina Caper_ (an incredibly white beach mystery) and
_Sidehackers_ (about a failed sport involving motorcycles with sidecars); and
even repackaged old TV shows such as _Master Ninja_ (featuring a ninja, a Van
Patten, and a gerbil roaming the country in a van).  But the real backbone of
the show's repertoire is the monster/science fiction genre, particularly the
series about a Godzilla-like turtle named Gamera.

"Those films really solidified something early with the viewers--they really
fit what we thought of as _Mystery Science Theater 3000_," says Hodgson.
"We've even tried to get a lot of those movies again."  Some of them have been
skewered on both the old TV23 episodes and on Comedy Central, since, says
Hodgson, "We really don't look at those [TV23] episodes as part of our
catalog.  [They're] kind of the garage band days."

Selecting the movies used in the show is an experiment in itself, since the
MST 3000 folks are limited to the movies they can obtain legal license to use.
HBO, the channel's part owner, provides them with a list of available titles
from which to choose.  "People think you can go to the video store and get a
movie and use it," says Hodgson.  "They forget that's what the F.B.I. warning
is.  It's for people like us.

With a fan club of more than 14,000 members, rave reviews in _The New York
Times_ and _Washington Post_, features on _Entertainment Tonight_ and
Minnesota Public Radio, and a movie deal in the works, the future couldn't be
brighter for MST 3000.  Season four, already off to a very funny start, will
include more Roger Corman movies and a first crack at Steve Reeves _Hercules_
movie dubbed from Italian.

Conniff deadpans that after enjoying the cult-like success of MST 3000, he'll
have "a pathetic career like those guys from _Star Trek_--full of pity, maybe
some _Match Game_ appearances," and jokes that the show is "a stepping stone
to sci-fi conventions."

This weekend's live performances should provide the best of both the old and
the new _Mystery Science Theater 3000_, with lots of local jokes, good-natured
ribbing, and the new twist of an audience of thousands.

Remembering the early impromptu shows, Hodgson says, "It was hard--Trace was
the only one who had improv experience.  That's totally what it was--improv
for thousands of people--and I was really freaked out.  That was really an
education for me.  Just because I could never do *anything* spontaneous."

Editor's note:  _Mystery Science Theater Alive_ is performed twice this
weekend at the Uptown Theater: a late show on Friday at midnight and a family
matinee on Saturday at 11:30 a.m.  Tickets $15, $5 for children at Saturday's
matinee; call 989-5151  (Ticketmaster).

From: Star Tribune#
Date: July 10, 1992
Headline: The Mystery Science show touching down at the Uptown
Cover: VARIETY: Stage shtick: Cable TV's 'Mystery Science Theater' offers
       Uptown show
Photo(s): Staff Photo/Rick Sennott  Joel Hodgson and his robot sidekicks on
          the set of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," which is touching down at
          the Uptown Theatre tonight. [From 1-r, Gypsy, Crow, Joel and Servo.]
Author: Holston, Noel
Page(s): A1, E1, E4
Note: IT'S ALIVE! preview; interview with *characters*

This is an unauthorized reprint.

When last we encountered the culturally omnivorous heroes of "Mystery Science
Theater 3000," they were wisecracking their way through a fetid chunk of
cinematic Camembert called "Teenage Caveman" while orbiting in a satellite
high above the Earth.

As you know, Joel Robinson, a precocious young human who works for the
Gizmonic Institute, was blasted into space against his will by his evil and
jealous boss, Dr. Clayton Forester [sic].  Forester saw to it that Joel's only
entertainment would be cheap, brain-dead old movies such as "Godzilla vs. the
Sea Monster" and "Robot Monster."

Ever the inventive one, Joel countered by fashioning spare parts and junk into
robot sidekicks he named Tom Servo and Crow.  By competing among themselves to
make the funniest and fastest quips about the movies' stupidity, they were
able not merely to survive but to survive with something approaching dignity.

The diabolical Forester wasn't through, however.  He secretly videotaped Joel
and the robots' movie massacres, beamed the signal back to Earth and sold it--
first to a small independent TV station in Minneapolis, then to the cable
channel Comedy Central (where it airs locally at 11:30 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m.
and 6 p.m. Saturday).

And he's still not through.  Only too aware of what a gold mine Joel and
company have become, he is bringing them down to Minneapolis to perform their
"Mystery Science" schtick [sic] live at the Uptown Theatre today at midnight
and Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

In a long-distance conference call to the satellite last week, Joel told Star
Tribune TV columnist Noel Holston that if the performances at Uptown are
successful, Forester might send him and the robots on a tour of cities where
"MST3K" is especially popular.

What follows is excerpted from the interview with Joel, Tom Servo, Crow and a
third robot, Gypsy:

Star Tribune: Living together in such close quarters, is there much friction?

Joel: WD40 solves all problems.

Star Tribune: Who are your heroes?

Joel: I always liked Shari Lewis.

Tom: And the Playboys.

Joel: No, that's not it.  It's *Gary* Lewis and the Playboys.

Tom: Dohhhhh!  I'm sorry.

Gypsy: I'd have to say Richard Basehart.

Joel: One night I had her plugged in and she was, like, downloading data and
she got the entire "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" library.

Star Tribune: What are your favorite films or TV series?

Joel: "Holmes & Yo-Yo."

Tom: "Tequila & Bonetti."

Crow: "Occasional Wife."

Gypsy: "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea."

Crow: "The Fishfinder Show."

Tom: Have you seen it?  It's on about twice a month.  These guys test the
latest fishfinder products.

Star Tribune: What are your ambitions beyond "Mystery Science Theater"?

Tom: I would like to make enough money to buy Hef's mansion in Chicago, fill
it up with beautiful babes, restore it to its former splendor.  It's been
taken over by the University of Chicago or something.  It's sad.

Crow: I'd like to go into regional theater, starring in "The Ed Wynn Story," a
one-man show.

Gypsy: I want to do "The Gypsy Specials," competing against Pat Miles.  I'll
interview local celebrities and travel around the country finding out facts
about them.

Star Tribune: Who's high on your list of prospective interview subjects?

Gypsy: I'd probably start with Pat Miles.  You know she has TV-test-colored
blue eyes.  Engineers can adjust them.

Star Tribune: There are people in our society who are very prejudiced against
robots.  Have any of you ever been victims of robot-bashing?

Crow: *We're* into robot-bashing.

Tom: Of each other.

Joel: Sometimes I hook them up and play "Rock "Em, Sock 'Em Robots."

Tom: I think that Joel sometimes forgets that robots have feelings, too.

Crow: We like to think the Industrial Revolution is over, and we won.

Star Tribnue: Are you AC or DC?

Tom: Let's just say that robots don't have to limit themselves by labels or
roles.

Gypsy: Tom is trying to dodge the question.  Tom is Mac-based, Crow's MS DOS,
and I'm OS 2.  Just switched over.  It's the wave of the future.

Tom: And the sad thing is, Joel still have this hankering for his old Amiga.

Star Tribune: A captive audience is nothing new, but you're a captive cast.
What's to stop you all from running away once you're finally back on Earth?

Joel: Dr. Forester is making us wear stun collars.  *Eeeeyowww!*

With that sudden, sharp burst of sound--which could have been a telephone
glitch or a yelp of pain--the phone went dead.  Subsequent calls to the
satellite were referred to the Gizmonic Institute, whose spokesman declined
comment.

From: OMNI#
Date: August 1992
Headline: Behind the Screen at Mystery Science Theatre [sic] 3000
Cover: Laughing at the Future With Mystery Science 3000 [sic]
Contents: Comedy Central's hottest show stars robots and terrible movies.
Photo(s): [Dr. F and Frank stand back-to-back; in contents section.]
Photo(s): Sweetly plaintive space exile and MST creator Joel "Robinson"
          Hodgson (far left).  [Joel with tilted head.]
Photo(s): Editors: Robot stars and their "mortal souls" (center, left to
          right): Gypsy/Jim Mallon, Crow/Trace Beaulieu, and Tom Servo/Kevin
          Murphy.  [In the workshop with white lab coats and 'bots.]
Photo(s): Evil scientists: "TV's Frank" Conniff (opposite page, right) [Frank
          makes face] and Beaulieu as Dr. Clayton Forrester (center)
          [Forrester makes face], together in _The Amazing Colossal Man_ [you
          wish!] (above).  [Forrester pulls out the big needle.]
Photo(s): Toolmaster Jef Maynard and some techno-wizardly "home cooking"
          (above).  [Maynard makes skull space craft.]
Photo(s): Look out below, it's Godzilla!  He's making things hot for his sci-
          fi foes, but he's the one "getting roasted" by captive film critics
          (left to right): Tom Servo, Joel, and that metalloid Marx Brother,
          Crow.  [Gamera blowing steam as the threesome watch from the
          theater.]
Author: Long, Marion
Page(s): Cover, 4, 34-36, 40, 70

This is an unauthorized reprint.

Mama mia!  It's a scene of cinematic grandeur, compliments of Joseph E.
Levine.

Queen Omphala, your Italian facsimile of an ancient Hellenic dish, has just
removed herself from the well-muscled arms of an ardent Hercules.  Evil but
dutiful ruler that she is, she must greet some unexpected guests in her realm.

Cut to the grandiose throne room of Omphala.  The sojourners' white-bearded
leader is begging Omphala's pardon for their intrusion and for the humble
garments they offer as gifts.  As he mentions the latter, our hot-blooded
Queen--as though wishfully mistaking his meaning--hungrily eyeballs his
retinue of heroically torsoed, seafaring studs.

Just then, as if to put words in her mouth, some offscreen heckler mockingly
purrs, "These are gifts?  Don't bother wrapping!"

Who said that?  Some rude dude in a Brooklyn balcony?  Some low-rent Gene
Siskel in a State Street cinema?  No-o-o-o-o.  In fact, the voice was not even
*human*--and it did not come from planet Earth!  In truth, my friend, that
voice belongs to that witty and talented robot, Tom Servo, from the wondrous
TV world of: _Mystery Science Theatre [sic] 3000_.

The remarkable Mr. Servo, as it just so strangely happens, has a bubble-gum
machine for a head, a plastic root-beer barrel for a body, and all the
pretensions to genius of Wynton Marsalis.  And why not?  Back on earth, Tom's
show is a television phenomenon.

Ah, but what exactly is Mystery Science Theatre 3000, you may ask,
Grasshopper?  MST3K, as it's affectionately called by initiates, is one of
cable TV's most popular programs, seen weekly on the Comedy Central channel.
The show is also a critic's darling, widely praised as one of the funniest and
most inventive on the air.  Each week on MST3K, Mr. Servo and two orbiting
compadres soup up such filmic buckets-of-bolts as _Hercules Unchained_ with
their own quirky brand of comic hyperdrive.  Their inspired efforts have
brought them the fan devotion, growing attention, and other trappings of what
media-nabobs often call "A smash cult hit."

But, as we shall see, MST3K is also something else, something intangibly more.
It might be compared to a little spaceborne vehicle that began traveling with
a momentum that was beyond expectation.  Its mission?  To forge unseen links
among the sanely maladjusted throughout the TV galaxy.

MST3K offers a perfect premise for futuristic rebels without a cause.  Our
shy, earnest hero, one Joel Robinson, simply hoped to be an honorable working
stiff.  But his evil-scientist employers at Gizmonics Institute conceived an
arbitrary dislike for him--and shot him alone into space!

There, he's the subject of their cruel experiment: How will a kind, relatively
normal Joe(l) react to forced screenings of our planet's worst films--such as
"garbage-in/garbage out" epics as _The Giant Gila Monster_, _Daddy-O_, _Time
of the Apes_, _Slime People_, _Jungle Goddess_, and _Gamera vs. Barugo_?
These films are what you might call "underground" classics--that's underground
as in corpse, as in tuber....

The hapless Joel is played by gifted comedian and loony inventor Joel Hodgson,
who is MST3K's creator and co-executive producer.  Hodgson wins us over
immediately with his youthful face and sweetly dopey expression--he looks like
a kid who's O.D.'d on bedtime stories.

What's more, he proves to be surprisingly resilient, maintaining his peculiar
sanity in two ways.  First, he builds three robot pals (the "bots") to share
his exile in the outer reaches.  There is Crow, a robot bird whose temperament
is mirrored by his brassy color and his pair-of-cymbals-like torso.  There is
the aforementioned Tom Servo, who fancies himself a multitalented "bot-about-
town," a real Renaissance robot.  And there is Gypsy, the maternal, "evolved"
vacuum cleaner who pilots the ship--the wayward vessel which Joel has
wishfully dubbed "the Satellite of Love."

Trapped in space, with Gypsy keeping them safely afloat, our three
intergalactic gay caballeros suffer the cinematic torments imposed on them by
the mad scientists, the evil Dr. Clayton Forrester and his New-Wave Igor,
Frank.  As they drift through the starry remnants of the Big Bang, our buddies
ponder a seemingly infinity spent watching movieland flotsam and jetsam--week
after week, more actors drawn from the living dead, more sets that couldn't
even fool a Cracker Jack prize-in-every-box inspector.

So what do our heroes do?  Why, they do just what you or I might do.  They
seize the couch potato's last nonculinary prerogative--and only form of
REVENGE!  They start sassing back at the screen.

In its first season, Mystery Science stuck with completely ludicrous, lowest-
of-the-low-budget science-fiction films (including many starring the Japanese
monster Gamera, of whom it was said, "He took all the pictures Godzilla turned
down").  Their absurd high drama gave Joel the bots plenty of opportunity for
ground-level humor, as in this exchange:

SCI-FI ACTOR: The planet is surrounded by cosmic gas!  CROW: Must be from the
cosmic chili.

Later on, the films got "better."  Sort of.  At least they provided more
varied and complex challenges for our in-flight critics.  The MST3K episode
featuring _The Amazing Colossal Man_, from the show's third season, offers the
essence of the knowing, irreverent, free-form MST3K style.  (_The Amazing
Colossal Man_ tells the tragic story of a soldier who mutates into a giant
after being caught in a nuclear blast.)

The films' titles mount up in dramatic inverse-pyramid style:  THE AMAZING
COLOSSAL MAN.  Crow pauses a beat, then cracks, "Oh yeah, you wish."

The ACM, as he grows in size and alienation, commits increasingly anti-social
acts.  In one ludicrous scene, two men try to subdue the run-amok giant with
an injection from a ten-foot-long hypodermic needle.  As the camera focuses on
the men and the giant "fix," Joel remarks, "Oh, looks like they're visiting
Keith Richards."

When you first watch MST3K, your attention tends to be absorbed by the rushing
stream of jokes and the many pop/cultural quips.  As time goes on, though, you
begin to know the characters and appreciate their distinctive styles.  Joel's
repartee, for instance, has a pointedness that belies his drowsy appearance.
Crow's cracks are about what one would expect if a crow could appraise our
idiocy and put his thought into English.  They irrepressible bot-bird is, in
truth, brought to life by Trace Beaulieu, an MST3K writer and set designer.
Of Tom Servo--with his touchiness, his proudly cutting cultural jibes, and his
stirring ventures into self-penned song--his puppeteer, Kevin Murphy, also a
writer and the show's associate producer, says, "He's proof positive that a
little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

There are many reasons why Mystery Science Theatre 3000 has become a "smash
cult hit."  First, the show is very funny.  Second, MST3K is not only very
funny, but its special quality has something to do with candor and truth.  You
might call it a kind of--video verite.  These comments from Mystery Science
principals reveal something of the spirit behind this phenomenon:

Jim Mallon, producer: "A lot of people have commented that the show mirrors
the human condition--that, as Joel and the bots are forced to watch these
terrible movies, we're all sort of forced to take life as it is on this
planet; we have to watch terrible 'productions' that we can't control.  And
the way we survive is through our freedom to comment on what's happening
around us and our ability to find some humor in it."

Jef Maynard, toolmaster: "TV is not listening to you.  People are trying to
retain themselves despite the constant bombardment.  MST is for the audience
that doesn't want to be drowned by the manipulation art of TV and other media.
Kind of like the 'art' that flooded the tunnels in Chicago a little while
back--you know, that artsy kind of feeling people got from that?  That's what
TV does to people, I think.  It erodes their foundations."

Trace Beaulieu: "The movies that work best for our show are ones that
straightforwardly proclaim, 'This is the best movie you're very going to see'
--though they are clearly not.  It's like Mystery Science is Groucho Marx to
the movie's Margaret Dumont, and the movie just doesn't get it."

Kevin Murphy: "Part of our intention is to expose pretension for what it is,
to tilt a lance at self-seriousness.  I think one of the most unhealthy trends
of our culture is that we take ourselves far too seriously, and we do it for
all the wrong reasons.  We can take a lesson from damn near any other culture
and find out that, when it comes down to it, laughing is just as important as
crying or breathing."

As you can see, in its own unassuming way, MST is doing its part to fulfill
the mandate of English poet and critic Matthew Arnold, who felt that art
should be a "criticism of life."  Of course, Mystery Science Theatre may not
be exactly the kind of criticism he had in mind.

To truly comprehend why MST3K is so successful, however, one must journey to
exotic Eden Prairie, Minnesota, where the offices of Best Brains, Inc., are
home to Joel, the bots, and the rest of the MST3K crew.

It is there, far from the mills of Manhattan and Hollywood, past the foyer
with its stuffed iguana a severed noose trailing from its neck) that the MST
staff does its work in self-contained, creative, gracious, and collaborative
style.

And it is there that you discover the most crucial Mystery Science secret of
success: Inside a nondescript, low, brick building, the real Satellite of Love
has been carefully constructed, deliberately sheltered.

Yes, who would believe it--a hit show that has hidden from the bright lights,
the big city?  When Mystery Science was originally sold to the Comedy Channel,
its creators insisted that the show remain in Minnesota.

"Here, we're not distracted; we're able to focus on what we think is funny,"
Mallon says.  "It's not like it is out in Los Angeles where it's, 'Well, so-
and-so is real funny; he's real hot--let's do something like that.'  We also
have this very efficient workspace--no unnecessary meetings, parties, phone
calls, sales people coming by to show their clients who you are.  It's a real
factory here.  We can do it all by ourselves.  We can work out our own vision
and not have to spend a lot of time and energy fulfilling other people's
agendas just to get to that starting point."

Efficient workspace?  A real factory?  Well, yes, but that doesn't begin to
convey the craziness, silliness, and fun that fly around you like wayward
comets when you're in that space.  As you watch the host segments being filmed
for the show with _Hercules Unchained_, you can hear stage directions you
would hear nowhere else: "Crow, would you please turn your beak perpendicular
to the lens?" and "Can we get a spitting mechanism for Tom so he can do a spit
take?"  You can watch the bots, crowned with laurel wreaths for the Olympian
occasion, as they savor the grapes peeled for them by their human creator.
And you can see Michael Nelson, the show's head writer and sometime
Shakespearean actor, transformed via the magic of fiberglass cotton into an
aging-but-still-improbably-bulging Steve Reeves, now appearing with the Mad
Scientists, recalling his glory days in the Greek-god business.

You also discover that such fun and games are hardly just fun and games.  In
fact, it is amazing to see just how much labor it takes to be very good at
making fun of a very bad movie.  There are props that need to be made for the
skits between movie segments, props that need to be made on a tight budget and
an even tighter deadline.  Says toolmaster Maynard, "I work as hard as I can
to make sure these guys get just what they're looking for.  I know they have a
kind of paternal pride in their sketches."  He recalls the day they came to
him and said, "If we do a piece on Michael Feinstein, can you build a grand
piano?"

Then there are the challenges for bot-puppeteers Beaulieu and Murphy, who must
sit in front of the screen, splitting their taxed attention among the
perfectly awful movie of the week, a fast-moving time-code chronometer, and
their scripts, all the while manipulating an unwieldly puppet--in character.

And there is the work of writing the show.  It takes the writing group a good
part of five days to produce the necessary 800 or so inspired one- and two-
liners, material that's constantly reworked until the last possible moment.

First and last but not least, there is the matter of screening, selecting, and
working with the perfectly awful films themselves.  "These are very bad
movies," Mallon says, "and we're forced to watch them again and again and
again.  We're talking about atrocious performances, terrible camera technique,
poor lighting, awful audio tracks.  And to sit for hours and hours and go
through these things very slowly--to spend, not an hour and a half with these
things, but to spend entire days, multiple days!"

Pain sometimes dims perception on those days.  "When we're ready to start
working with a movie," Mallon says, "I almost always turn to Mike [Michael
Nelson] and say, 'How's this movie?' and he says--and I'm telling you the
truth when I tell you he says this 90 percent of the time--he says, 'I know I
said that the last movie we did was the worst movie we ever did, but this one
is clearly the worst.'"

President of Best Brains and the producer of MST3K, Mallon, 36, is the man who
keeps all the Mystery Science machinery moving.  In some ways, it seems as
though Mallon has been doing something like Mystery Science Theatre for most
of his life.  In addition to his business and organizational talents, he
possesses creativity, intuition, and a large measure of that humorous but
pointed subversiveness that marks the MST style.  He produced a TV parody of
_Wild Kingdom_ while still in high school and later did parodies of news shows
(titled "15 Minutes" and "Team 23") at Channel 23, the Minneapolis UHF station
that aired the first Mystery Science Theatre shows.  A book to be published
later this year about the greatest college pranks devotes 16 pages to Mallon's
"work" at the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin.  "When I sense
that someone's too full of himself, it gets me going--I think that's where
most of my comedy comes from," he says.

While at Channel 23, Mallon wanted to tap Minnesota's local comedy talent as a
source for original programming.  A few years prior to that, Joel Hodgson was
the anti-hero in what certainly qualifies as an Amazing Story in this celeb-
crazed time: Hodgson voluntarily returned to Minnesota in 1984 after having
tremendous success as a stand-up comedian for two years in Los Angeles.  He
and his "gizmonic" gadgetry appeared several times on _Late Night with David
Letterman_, _Saturday Night Live_, and other top shows.  There he was, living
out every Midwestern stand-up comic's dream--and yet, "It made me really
uncomfortable," he says.  "I missed Minneapolis.  I didn't have this stamina
to cope.  Most of the people who were doing comedy well had been in it for
maybe eight or ten years.  I was 22.  I just didn't understand how to be with
people, where to find friends.  I was really lonesome."

Hodgson, 32, combines the disarming abstractedness of "Joel Robinson" with a
surprising directness.  He has been performing since his days as a kid
magician in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Hodgson suffers from few illusions about
the value of fame: "Like that's going to compensate for something I don't
have?  Being recognized in a hardware store, that's going to help me?"  He
went back to Minnesota.  "I was sick of comedy.  I didn't think I'd ever do it
again.  So I started doing other things--making these robots out of junk and
selling them--that's kind of where they bots came from--and I worked in a T-
shirt factory."  Hodgson had just begun writing material again for other
comedians, including Jerry Seinfeld, when Mallon approached him about
appearing on Channel 23.  A week later he came back to Mallon with the
prototype of Mystery Science Theatre.

The program, which first appeared in 1988, was an immediate success, inspiring
more than a thousand letters from fans (known as Misties), who seemed to feel
a special psychic link with the show.  Twenty episodes of MST3K had been
completed when it was sold to HBO's Comedy Channel.

Before the show could really take off, however, it was necessary for Hodgson
and Mallon to enlist a few highly skilled and trusty crew mates.  The Best
Brains Creative Team, it must be said, provides a very nice change from your
usual TV spuds and duds.  The guys act like a bunch of humble Clark Kents,
though each possesses powers far beyond those of most mortal TV performers.

Associate producer and writer Kevin Murphy is the voice of the worldly and
erudite Tom Servo.  Murphy worked with Mallon at Channel 23, where he appeared
as investigative reporter Bob Bagadonuts on the "Team 23" news parodies.  He
has been involved in virtually very aspect of Mystery Science Theatre
production.  Until fairly recently, when the Best Brains budget allowed for
hiring more staff, Murphy was the show's cameraman, did the show's lighting
and sound, and acted as its post-production supervisor.  One of his main
contributions to the group, he says, is that he serves as "a repository of
arcane information."  (Says Hodgson, "Kevin has the mind of a boy who stays up
late and reads _The World Book Encyclopedia_ and remembers everything.")
Indeed, at Murphy's desk, he has _The Oxford Companion to the Mind_, _The
Quintessential Dictionary_, and both volumes of the _Great Books of the
Western World Complete Works of Shakespeare_ to keep him company.  But Murphy
is hardly a reclusive bookworm.  He is spirited and vigorous and has the voice
of a great radio personality.  Murphy writes short stories, loves philosophy,
poetry, and "the Graham-Greene-type writers, who, whether or not they can
figure out if there's a God in heaven, always leave room for the possibility
of grace in life."  He is also a devoted fan of the _Three Stooges_.

Writer and set designer Trace Beaulieu is an actor, engineer, and artist who
plays the parts of Crow and Dr. Clayton Forrester on MST3K.  Beaulieu has a
strong curiosity about the inner processes, inner workings of everything from
snorkeling to the Hollywood "system."  No doubt this intellectual bent helps
him portray that bent intellectual, the mad and perversely visionary Dr.
Clayton Forrester.

Beaulieu is multitalented ("the Renaissance man of comedy," says Nelson) and
remarkably modest--even by Best Brains' rather stringent standards.  Like
Crow, whose antenna-like "ears" give him an appearance of being literally
tuned in, Beaulieu has a quick, responsive, playful mind that ricochets at
great speed from one association to another.  It's easy to see how Crow comes
by both his endearing qualities (Beaulieu says part of the characterization
stems from his early experience as a youngest child, competing for family
attention) and the more mischievous qualities one sees in the bot-bird's
restless and deeply recessed ping pong-ball eyes.

Michael J. Nelson, the show's head writer, also composes music for the show
and has appeared on MST3K in a wide variety of special "guest appearances"--as
Michael Feinstein, and the Amazing Colossal Man, among others.  Nelson is a
talented actor a gifted musician.  "I was pretty painfully shy when I was a
kid, and music was the first thing I was able to perform without being too
afraid of it," he says.  And he's a very funny writer, with a penchant for
dark surprises.  "He will write these wonderful little things for the
childlike play that the robots do, and then suddenly he'll bring out something
deathly and dark from these guys, almost always at a very strange time,"
Murphy says.  "For instance, Joel asks the robots what they want for
Christmas, and Mike has Crow say, 'I want to decide who lives and who dies.'"

Frank Conniff is a writer and talented stand-up comedian who, in his portrayal
of "TV's Frank," somehow manages to look like a combination of a sneering
Billy Idol and an eager member of the latter-day _Little Rascals_.  Born and
raised in New York City, he is the only non-Midwesterner at Best Brains.

Since Conniff is a man of few but always-well-chosen words, we'll give him the
last word on MST spirit.  He says, "The saying that maybe sums up the attitude
of the show best for me is the one the bots use frequently: 'Bite me, bite
me; it's fun.'  You know, the bots don't feel it anyway.  To me, that implies,
'Hey, if you're getting too uptight or too self-conscious or too serious about
it all, just cut loose a little--bite me; it's fun.'"

Since its beginnings, MST has proven to be "The Little Spaceship That Could."
Now, Joel, the Bots, the Mad Scientists, and the Crew seem poised to make the
quantum leap to media light speed.

This past January, MST3K principals met with Brandon Tarikoff of Paramount
Pictures about a possible film version of Mystery Science Theatre.  Since
then, the group has been struggling with the gravitational pull of some 200
pages of proposed contract language.  "We're getting closer, but we're not
sure we can get what we need to preserve the spirit of the show," Mallon says.
"Naturally, they need certain things to protect their investment.  But the
question remains: Can we figure out a way that we both can get what we need
out of this?  We're protecting something we hold very dear.  If we can work it
out with Paramount, great; otherwise, we may do the film ourselves or find
some other way."

On the wall behind Mallon are blueprints for yet another major project--the
planned construction of a more cosmic production pad for the Best Brains
astronauts.  "The reason for building a new space is that we could then do two
shows instead of just one."  Beaulieu, Hodgson and Murphy have other
television projects in the planning stages, and Mystery Science Theatre has
potential development deals with HBO and Universal Television.

"It used to be that our problems were figuring out what the show would be
about, what the set should look like, how to pay the bills," Mallon says.
"Now, the toughest stuff is about our future.  Our fans are writing in, 'Are
you going to sell out?'"

Well, now, this should provide still more suspense and mystery for Mystery
Science fans everywhere.  Loyal Misties will have to watch the TV skies for
the answers to these burning questions: Can our heroes resist the mind control
of the bi-coastal cyborgs?  Can the Satellite evade the star destroyers of the
Evil Empire?  Can Best Brains continue to go where no comedians have gone
before?

They have certainly shown their mettle thus far: They've not only endured, but
chosen to endure, the cold and comparative isolation of Hoth-Minnesota, a
veritable media ice planet.  They've dared to launch jokes into viewer-space
which may exceed the comprehension of your average Venusian slug.  And they've
commandeered praise and production vessels while repulsing flatterers and
proton power-launchers.

There is surely good reason for hope.  But all we can say is, "Stay tuned,
Misties."  And may the Force be with them.


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

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