Mystery Science Theater 3000: My Love Affair

A little while back on Mabuse, I posted on ‘cult curiosities’ as part of the Bond Blogathon. In retrospect, the post was primarily an excuse to embed a video of Operation Double 007, a god awful James Bond rip-off featured on a great episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K). The not-so-hidden purpose behind the post was to expose one of my cult obsessions (MST3K) in a venue tied to a not-so-cult obsession (Bond). Was this a selfish act? Sure. But welcome to the world of fan obsession. For all the talk of ‘community’ in the scholarship on fandom, a fan still loves partaking in games of mental masturbation – solo pleasure.

All this got me thinking about my long relationship with the cult show. If you don’t remember, the bizarre, yet hilarious, program was about a human stranded in space with wisecracking robot sidekicks (the ‘bots Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot) and forced by a mad scientist to watch horrible movies. The show started with creator Joel Hodgson as the ‘human,’ but eventually featured Mike Nelson in the lead role. The sci-fi premise was a means to get into the theater, where we witnessed running, wisecracking commentaries through some truly awful films – from Mitchell to Manos: The Hands of Fate to High School Big Shot to Angles’ Revenge.

Marking the show’s 20th anniversary this year, I thought I would play a little brainstorming game to contemplate the question: Why does MST3K still mean something to me? I am hoping my answers will run the spectrum from intellectual to personal to inexplicable:

1. Personal Investment (Part 1: Ownership) – Unlike other shows, I discovered MST3K. It was not sold to me. Flipping through the channels as a teenager ultimately defined my discovery. As such, I feel like I have some ownership in the show.

2. Personal Investment (Part 2: Family Ties) – While I was sometimes a removed teenager, MST3K was something I could always share with my mother. To this day, we still watch horrible movies and mock them when I visit.

3. Viewing the Viewers – the most distinctive visual created by MST3K is the silhouettes positioned on the bottom of the screen during the movie, consisting of a row of movie seats with the heads of Joel/Mike and the two ‘bots in the corner. Creator Hodgson reportedly got the idea for the visual upon seeing the album cover for Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which features this reproduced image on the back. Christian Metz writes in The Imaginary Signifier, “The film knows that it is being watched, and yet it does not know. [. . .] The one who knows is the cinema, the institution (and its presence in every film, in the shape of the discourse which is behind the fiction); the one who doesn’t want to know is the film, the text (in its final version): the story.” MST3K understood that the most effective way to re-contextualize film as a comedy exercise is to distance the television viewer away from cinema as a text – a story for us to emerge ours within. Instead, by allowing us to view the viewers in the forms of silhouettes, the experience constantly exposed cinema as an institution – a pop culture product no longer existing within a supposed vacuum. By watching the watchers, we partake in the criticizing of cinema as an institution and, as such, feel empowered as viewers.

4. My Cat – My cat’s name is Torgo – named after the weird goatman ‘house-sitter’ for the dark lord in Manos: The Hands of Fate - possibly the most notorious film ever played on MST3K. My cat is cool.

5. The Fictional Premise of MST3K is Blissfully Geeky – Instead of simply mocking movies, Joel Hodgson created a strange sci-fi premise to frame the films. Fittingly, the entire premise is based in numerous geeky pop references. The scenario of a man stranded in space with robot companions is a direct reference to Silent Running. The employment of puppet costars was influenced by numerous children’s shows. Hodgson’s character name of ‘Joel Robinson’ is a reference to the castaway family ‘The Robinsons’ on Lost in Space. The space ship is known as The Satellite of Love (a reference to the Lou Reed song) and any outside shots of space were supposedly from ‘Rocket Number Nine’ - a reference to the freaky Sun Ra song “Rocket Number Nine.”

6. To Be a Fan, You Must Have Patience – Unlike most TV comedy, MST3K is never really a laugh-a-minute. Some sequences in the films do not warrant much comedic commentary, thus there will be long lulls. The show is also famous for very obscure references, which means no matter how intelligent you are, you will not catch every joke. Fans must be OK with both these facts and just go along for the ride. To me, you must embrace the show on its own terms as opposed to expecting it to cater to the viewer - something that annoys me in a lot of entertainment. As such, when I hear a ‘bot make a joke referencing an obscure W.C. Fields’ film, I feel somewhat special that I caught it.

7. Democratizing the “Riff” – the show ultimately made the word “riff” something applicable to the masses:

Riff - 1: an ostinato phrase (as in jazz) typically supporting a solo improvisation ; also : a piece based on such a phrase 2: a rapid energetic often improvised verbal outpouring ; especially : one that is part of a comic performance 3: a succinct usually witty comment 4: a distinct variation

8. Refining the “Riff” (Part 1- Pop Jazz) - Many riffs on the show were based in finding connections to past films, TV shows, sports, literature, music, etc ... Mockery could now be an art form – freeform, pop culture jazz. Riffing on bad movies with friends becomes a ‘jam session.’ Who will make the best comments? MST3K’s room of writers riffed so well that they feel like jazz masters, thus never losing the musical connotations of the word.

9. Minneapolis-St. Paul – Produced for its entire ten year run in the Midwest as opposed to the East or West Coasts, the show never lost its low budget outsider charm throughout its various incarnations, from Comedy Central to the Sci-Fi Network. As such, the writers and performers of the show felt, more-or-less, “of the people” rather than elitist celebrities. They could get away with being obscure and, at times, vicious in their comedy without losing their charm or seeming too smug.

10. Refining the “Riff” (Part 2- Sub-Narratives) – One of my favorite ways of riffing is to discover what one might call a ‘sub-narrative’ in a bad movie (or to continue the musical connotations, a sub-melody). You single-out a particularly weird character(s) and give this person his/her own consistent personality and dialogue throughout the film. Classic example: a child actor in a Japanese monster movie vaguely looks like a tiny Richard Burton. Joel and the ‘bots proceeded to have the character partake in a Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff sub-narrative with his young sister for, essentially, the whole movie. He constantly berates her by scolding in a Burton-esque voice, “Martha, …”

11. Refining the “Riff” (Part 3- New Alliances) - Good riffing can make one change alliances while watching a movie. For example, the title monster of The Giant Gila Monster is given a wiseass raspy voice (like some old Catskill comedian). Since Joel and the ‘bots consistently use this voice anytime the creature appears, the monster now has his own separate movie due to the mocking comments provided. Therefore, watching MST3K’s version of this film, you find yourself rooting for the monster to kill the teens.

12. So Many Meanings, So Little Time – Henry Jenkins in “Interactive Audiences?” writes: “Commodities are a limited good and their exchange necessarily creates or enacts inequalities. But meaning is a shared and constantly renewable resource and its circulation can create and revitalize social ties.” In essence, this was the remarkable goal of MST3K long before the spread of the Internet made everybody key to re-appropriate old media for new meanings. The show understood that long dead commodities of culture simply needed a new meaning to make them interesting. Nothing is worthless if given new perspective.

13. Social Ties – To finish contemplating the above Jenkins’ quotation, MST3K created a social network of people through these dead commodities. Fans found themselves renting horrible films for the expressed purpose of riffing with friends. (Jason undoubtedly remembers some riff sessions from the OSU days). The show legitimized a whole new way to socializing that cost relatively little money.

14. Thanksgiving - Some of my warmest memories of Thanksgiving are of the once-annual Comedy Central holiday marathons of the show, which was dubbed ‘Turkey Day’ (bad movies = turkeys, get it?). While other family members watched football, I spent the holiday with Joel, Mike, Tom, Crow, Gypsy, TV’s Frank, and Dr. Forrester. Luckily, many of the original episodes are online if you look hard enough – which means I can nostalgically revisit such experiences, if I wish.



And on that note, I want to wish all our American readers a HAPPY TURKEY DAY!