Boba Fett-mas

Hi, I'm about to blow your mind. When was Boba Fett's first-ever "Star Wars" appearance? IN THE HORRIFIC HOLIDAY SPECIAL. Happy Life Day, everybody!

Oh, hi, Mark

Possibly the most deserving Kickstarter ever. Rifftrax (Mike, Kevin and Bill from "Mystery Science Theater") have announced the four movies they want to riff live (transmitted same-night to theaters across the nation, and repeated the next week) for 2015, and they include the awesomely awful "The Room."

In addition to Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece, they hope to mock "Sharknado 2," an '80s treasure called "Miami Connection," and "Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny" (a bizarre warm-weather Christmas nightmare) in a four-film year they're dubbing "The Crappening." They've got some fun rewards packages (including a somewhat scary one where you write them a joke, which seems like it could end poorly if Tommy Wiseau buys in) and it's all for a great cause--more laughter in the world.

Torgo's baaaack!

Rifftrax, one of two awesome Mystery Science Theater 3000 off-shoot groups (this one consisting of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett), will be revisiting perhaps the worst movie ever, "Manos: The Hands of Fate."

MST3K's version is infamous, but looks like the Riffers will be giving it a whole new go! Seems like a tough job as any MSTie worth his or her "Rowsdower!" bumper sticker will know if they repeat any jokes. Will be a fun one to watch for sure.

What is nothing?

"What is Nothing?" Not really a question I asked as a kid, but for one blonde. bowl-haircutted 1970s boy, apparently it CONSUMES him.

Hilarious looking Rifftrax short!

Take me to your galaxy

Rifftrax has some great shorts and some fun commentaries for big-budget movies, but they're adding more and more commentaries for full-length small-budget movies, the kind of flick they used to mock on MST3K. Love those! "The Galaxy Invader" is coming and it looks hilarious.

Say Mike, Bill and Kevin: "Our team of experts have yet to determine whether or not the actor portraying Joe even knew he was in a movie."

Jack the Giant Killer

Hoping to go to this: The Rifftrax crew, three of my favorite alums from "Mystery Science Theater," are riffing a movie called "Jack the Giant Killer," and instead of selling it online as they usually do, you can buy tickets to see it in theaters around the nation.

I've seen them live performing, but this is a lot less expensive and sounds pretty darn fun.

In the not-too-distant future

The release of a new "Mystery Science Theater 3000" box set always makes me happy.

The latest one, set #19, has four flicks and a little figurine of Gypsy to go with the earlier releases of Tom Servo and Crow. (Will Bobo and The Observer be next? Naw, I'd guess they're done with the figurines now.)

The movies are "Devil Doll" ("HUGO LIKES HAM!"), "Devil Fish," "Bride of the Monster" and "Robot Monster."

"Devil Doll" is awesome and I'm delighted I can now throw away my crappy VHS tapes. "Devil Fish" is that French-Italian movie with the really bad accents. "Bride of the Monster" I don't remember, but it has the first half of the hilarious Chevrolet sales short "Hired!" and I somehow only remember the second half, which precedes the classic MST3K offering "Manos!" And "Robot Monster" has the infamous gorilla suit guy wearing a space helmet monster. Awesome awfulness! You know, if not for rock and roll, ventriloquy would have been HUGE.

"Which one of you is Joel?"

Heh, Chad Vader tries to help out Mike and Kevin at Rifftrax. It goes about as well as you would have expected, but it's cool to see what I think is the real Rifftrax/Legend Films offices in sunny San Diego.

Really, really bad Christmas movies

My pal Chris Bahn got the writing assignment of the year: He got to interview the Rifftrax crew (formerly of MST3K) about bad Christmas movies. Just reading through the interview is delightful.

Excerpt:
MN: I’d like to up the ante with my favorite, which we just screened here. Guys, I can’t remember if I screened it with you, so forgive me, but: Santa Claus And The Ice Cream Bunny?

BC: [Laughs.] Oh yes, we were there.

MN: This is a true nightmare.

BC: It is unbelievable.

MN: It was made by a now-defunct theme park in Florida called Pirate's World. It was sort of sad. It got closed immediately when Disney World opened, but it was sort of a throwback to old theme parks. It looked really unsafe.

BC: [Laughs.] Run by actual pirates, I think.

MN: But they made a movie. They just sort of filmed a display they had of Thumbelina, and they bookended it with this story of Santa Claus getting stranded on the beach, and he has to be rescued. So at the end, in a really, really bizarre scene, a guy in a horrible mascot bunny suit shows up on a fire truck filled with kids and everyone just sort of cheers, and that’s the end. He’s apparently the Ice Cream Bunny, although you kind of have to take it on faith.

A good link for a bad week

Kelly's been sick and therefore this week has sucked, but this made me smile: Some full "Mystery Science Theater" episodes are now on Hulu.

Don't miss "The Starfighters." There's a helluva lot of thrilling jet refueling action.

(Thanks to Jeff for the link!)

But what about TV's Frank?

Here's how dumb I am: I had no idea that MST3K borrowed the character name of Dr. Clayton Forrester from "War of the Worlds."

Did you?

More MST on the way

Hooray! I'm always happy when I see a new four-pack of Mystery Science Theater 3000 movies coming down the pike.

On Dec. 1, they'll release a new set including "The Corpse Vanishes," "Warrior of the Lost World," "Santa Claus" and "Night of the Blood Beast."

I don't remember any of them well, although I didn't really like "Santa Claus." (I didn't like their Pia Zadora's "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" either, but it's not MST's fault, it's just that I don't like Christmas movies, even with riffing.)

Go nuts

Kevin Murphy, one of my favorite MST3Kers who's now producing the wonderful Rifftrax, has a blog entry in which he muses on what Midwestern folks call crullers (long, bar-like donuts) and Eastern folks call crullers (rounded, curvy things we call French donuts.

The French donut both looks and sounds better.

In the not-too-distance future

This guy reviewed all the MST3K episodes and blogged about his reactions. His entries aren't that long, however. Here's my favorite MST3K movie ever: "The Incredible Melting Man."

A new MST3K short...kind of

I gave Cinematic Titanic some love last week, when they came to Seattle and Rob and I actually got our first non-family babysitter, the awesome Lisa, and went to the live show.

Now it's only fair I give some love to the other MST3K alumni group, RiffTrak. (Cinematic Titanic has Joel, Mary Jo, Trace, Frank and J. Elvis; Rifftrak has Mike, Kevin and Bill.)

The reason I haven't really gotten into RiffTrak is not that the commentary isn't hilarious, but that it's harder for me to watch more current, high-budget movies being riffed on. I don't know, maybe it's that I am already familiar with the movie, but for me, the riffing works best on little-known B-movies.

That's why I love that RiffTrak is now occasionally riffing on those wonderful short films that made up such a beloved part of MST3K. for 99 cents, you can buy their take on "Your Chance to Live: Technological Failures." Just watch the sample, it's like discovering a Lost MST3K short. Definitely worth the nine dimes and nine pennies. And if you love it, there have plenty of other shorts for sale.

In the not-too-distant future

If you're an MST3K fan, or if one is on your Christmas list, in the not-too-distant future, you NEED to buy this 20th anniversary four-pack of "Mystery Science" DVDs.

First off, the four flicks are ones I've never seen before -- "First Spaceship on Venus," "Laserblast," "Werewolf" and "Future War." There's also a perfect little mini figurine of Crow.

But best of all, the first three discs include LONG interviews with the cast discussing how the show came together. Complete manna for MST3K junkies...almost as good as the movies themselves. (Minnesotans: Joel notes that the theme song was conceived either at the Lake Street Denny's or the Fresh Squeeze juice bar on Hennepin. Man, I am blanking on that juice bar...why do I not remember that place at all?)

There used to be a Microsoft employee in the building I work in who had his entire office door plastered with MST3K bumper stickers. The "ROWSDOWER!" one always made me smile, even on a bad day.

In the not-too-distant future

I didn't know there was a MST3K wiki. What an awesome resource. Rowsdower!

In the not-too-distant future

In the not-too-distant future, they'll be announcing a MST3K 20th anniversary DVD set, with all-new content (which I assume means movies that have never been released on official DVDs before).

Can't wait to hear which ones they are!

In the not-too-distant future

Some of the wonderful Mystery Science Theater alums, including Mary Jo Pehl and Joel Hodgson, have joined forces to rip apart some more terrible movies.

I've just ordered their first Cinematic Titanic DVD: "The Oozing Skull." And if that isn't a name for a MST3K film, I don't know what is.

I only wish it were possible to caption MST films. It would be weird, though -- you'd almost need to caption the film in one color and the riffs in another. Which wouldn't leave a lot of screen space to actually watch. But it sure would make things easy to follow.

They just followed the actors home

Here's Rob's and my absolute favorite Mystery Science episode ever: "The Incredible Melting Man."

Really not so incredible, though plenty o' melting is involved.