News You Can Bruise for 2007 December 9

Sun Dec 09 2007 10:13: I was putting off an entry about how many of the MST3K writer/actors are once again doing MST3K-related or MST3K-like projects, and I'm glad I put it off because I believe I have now collected them all. There are four of these projects.

mst3k.com, "The Official Mystery Science Theater 3000 Website" re-envisions MST3K as a Flash web cartoon, complete with store selling catchphrase T-shirts. Cartoons feature the bots not watching movies or interacting with humans. Not really recommended, though "Thanksgiving Clown" is funny and there is an extremely awkward moment of Tom/Gypsy sexual tension in one of the other cartoons. Who's behind it from original MST3K? Jim Mallon and Paul Chaplin. This appears to be what's left of Best Brains, Inc.
Mike Nelson's well-known Rifftrax gets around derivative-work copyright problems by taking an Oleo approach to MST3K. After doing commentary for many DVD releases, Mike Nelson had the breakthrough that made it possible to MST movies (like the Star Wars prequels) he'd never get the rights to redistribute: sell only the commentary track and let the end-user sync it up with their own DVD. Frequent MST3K guests include Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. Occasional MST3K guests include Mike's wife Bridget Nelson (née Jones).
Barely distinguishable from Rifftrax is The Film Crew, previously alluded to in this space. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett perform MST3K, except with the plot from Uncle Morty's Dub Shack. The difference between this and Rifftrax is that since these are B-movies, you buy a DVD and get the whole movie, not just the audio commentary. If you know of someone who liked MST3K, one of these DVDs would make a good Holiday gift, because there's really not a huge chance they've heard of this revival.
OK, that's where the entry in my head stood as of yesterday. But we've got five, maybe six of the original MST3K people still working that angle at all. Everyone else seems content doing comedy shows and writing for America's Funniest Home Videos, though that means they're probably on strike. Except! Yesterday I found out about Cinematic Titanic, the closest thing yet to an MST3K revival, with silhouettes and everything. Tomorrow they start selling DVD ISOs. And look at the lineup: Joel Hodgson (!), J. Elvis (aka Josh) Weinstein, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, and Mary Jo Pehl. That's the whole Los Angeles branch of the MST3K diaspora!

Put those together and you've got everybody, except for Patrick Brantseg (who played Gypsy for a couple seasons), and Bridget Nelson, who shows up only peripherally in her husband's projects. I think it's great that all these people are producing fun in a style I enjoy, but it's also a little sad. It's not quite like skating on your previous accomplishments, since everyone's producing new stuff, but it's something similar: skating on the style of your previous accomplishments.

Joel left MST3K right at the time it was getting big, explaining (as I read in a newspaper at the time) that he didn't want to "end up signing pictures at an R.V. show." Later I found out that MST3K wasn't even the first time Joel walked away from a career that was going really well. This aspect of Joel's psychology is well-known to the extent that it made one fan call Cinematic Titanic a hoax. (Before pictures went up on the site of everyone holding props and working on the set, I'm guessing.)

I can empathize with Joel's walking away whever he's on the cusp of fame. "I want to get on to the NEXT weird show. I want to be an idea man." I had two great ideas, I can have three great ideas. But what if two great ideas is all you get? Why stop doing something if you're still having fun? On the Internet everyone is famous for fifteen people; that might be a number Joel can be happy with.

PS: If you're sick of my rambling and psychoanalysis, here's a straight news take on all these projects, which brings up the excellent point that there's now an experimental framework in place for Joel vs. Mike analysis.