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Joel and Original Cast of MST3K Riding the Cinematic Titanic

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the dear-god-please-no-mike dept.

AugstWest writes "Unfortunately it's in separate projects, but just after Jim Mallon (the man who owns all things MST3K) announced that he would be bringing back Tom Servo, Crow and Gypsy in animated Flash shorts on the web along with Paul Chaplin (a writer from the original MST3K), Joel Hodgson, the series creator, has announced that he will be launching a new venture called Cinematic Titanic. It will feature horrible movies riffed by the original cast of MST3K, including Josh Weinstein (the original Tom Servo), Trace Beaulieu (the original Crow), Frank Conniff (TV's Frank), Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester) and, of course, Joel himself. They've already got the rights to 12 movies, and will be releasing one a month starting in December for DVD purchase or download."

17 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. MST3K? by avij · · Score: 5, Informative

    The obligatory clarification links (from Wikipedia) -- some of us have never heard of MST3K:

    Mystery Science Theater 3000 , often abbreviated MST3K , is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc. that ran from 1988 to 1999.

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    Follow your Euro bills at EBT
    1. Re:MST3K? by albwus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Then what are you doing on slashdot...

    2. Re:MST3K? by MSTCrow5429 · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you've never seen the divine greatest show of all time, MST3K, much less heard of it, please kill yourself now. We can't have philosophical zombies wandering around who have no idea how to react to "Movie Sign!," or Mike blowing up Earth, again.

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      Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
    3. Re:MST3K? by MSTCrow5429 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Joel likes Mike, supported him as being the new host. MJP worked with Mike on Rifftrax. I don't see sides, just different groups of the same former org going off and doing slightly different things. Yeah, I'd like some people swapped, want Bill Corbett as Crow, and Paul Chaplin as Pitch, but our prayers have been answered, MST3K is coming back, and Joel is doing his own great thing too. We now have Rifftrax, MST3K 21st Century, Cinematic Titanic, and Cartoon Dump. What more could you want on that front?

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      Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
  2. No question at all. by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unfortunately it's in separate projects

    Let's see now... Joel and the original cast, or some random schmuck who owns the rights to Joel's creation? Tough call.

    I never "hated" Mike like some did, because he just filled a role. But I think we can almost all agree that Joel made the show (literally and figuratively), a fact supported by its demise once he left.

    1. Re:No question at all. by Orion_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But I think we can almost all agree that Joel made the show (literally and figuratively), a fact supported by its demise once he left. That's a pretty absurd claim to make, given that Joel left halfway through season 5, and the show ran 10 seasons. In truth, the show went on just fine without Joel, though personally I preferred Joel's screen persona to Mike's.
    2. Re:No question at all. by aberkvam · · Score: 4, Informative

      Jim Mallon is hardly "some random schmuck". He helped create MST3K back in its Minnesota UHF days, directed almost half the episodes, and played Gypsy in seasons 1-8. Joel may have provided the original creative force but he hardly could have created it alone.

      Joel left in the middle of season 5. MST3K continued until season 10 and released a feature film. I am not sure what this "demise" is that you speak of...

    3. Re:No question at all. by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The whole "Joel vs. Mike" thing always struck me as silly. First of all, the two worked just fine together for years before Joel left. Mike was the show's head writer from its second season onwards (the year they went national) and even appeared on-camera in many of the "Joel episodes." It's not like he was some "new guy" that they picked up off the street to replace Joel. He had been a major part of the show almost from day one.

      So if Joel and Mike could work together just fine for all those years, why can't their fans get along too? No Joel fans had any problem with Mike BEFORE Joel left. And if any Mike fans had any problem with Joel when he was there, they'll have to partially blame Mike too--since he was the one writing most of the jokes and bits.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  3. Re:dear-god-please-no-mike by Davenport+Spiff+jr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, Mike was OK, but having Joel AND FRANK and TRACE back - I'm looking forward to that.

  4. Don't have the MST3K DVDs, but I'd like this:q by blind+biker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have some idea of what the Mistery Science Theater movies look like, and my long-time desire is to acquire the DVD set(s). However, it would have much greater value for me, if the DVDs contained both the original version sans satellite crew, and the version with the wisecracks. That way I could first ascertain myself of the crappiness of the original movie, and then enjoy the ripping with the crew.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  5. Mike Nelson has already been doing this by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, Mike Nelson has been doing this for some time already with Murphy and Corbett (the later Servo and Crow) at Rifftrax. Looks like we've got a Joel/original-bots vs. Mike/new-bots slapfest a-brewin'.

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    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Mike Nelson has already been doing this by Boinger69 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh come on... Can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?

  6. They forgot to mention by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Informative

    that the "final" crew of MST3K(onstage anyway) is involved in yet another project(well, projects): The Film Crew and Riff Trax, both lampooning movies. RiffTrax is interesting in that you buy mp3s of the riff online and play them over the dvds of the films. The Film Crews is closer to MST3K in that it comes in 1 package and even has some filler sketches in it....

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    Monstar L
  7. The return of the original Mighty Voice! by Tetsujin · · Score: 3, Informative

    Man, just think of all the babes, the hot oil, the mango juice!

    The summary is a bit confusing given that it lumps the two announcements together... There seems to be a bit of confusion about who's doing what and how...

    Story 1: (announced earlier) The cast from the end of the series are doing some animated web shorts, using the MST3K characters
    Story 2: (new) The cast from the beginning of the series are doing some live performances and DVDs and such of movie riffing - with no details yet on the exact format...

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  8. Re:Selling DVDs? Wrong vehicle, boys. by Tetsujin · · Score: 3, Funny

    So...if you can get MST3K back on TV where it can serve as the background for whatever I'm doing with my kids or my computer, I'll tune in. Otherwise...buy it? Way too much commitment. Step 1: Put DVD in player.
    Step 2: Press Play.
    Step 3: Do things while movie plays.
    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  9. Wanna catch up with old MST3K episodes? by g_adams27 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wanna see what all the MST3K fuss is about? Old episodes (just about all of them, except for those that are commercially available) can be found at the Digital Archive Project. Old episodes of the show encouraged viewers to "keep circulating the tapes", and the DAP guys are doing just that. For legal purposes they pull down any episodes whenever Rhino decides to package and sell them, but otherwise, just about everything is there.

    Most episodes were encoded years ago in MPEG4 format, but there's an impressive (and growing) number available in higher quality DVD format.

  10. Re:MST3k by Some_Llama · · Score: 3, Funny

    yuod be surprisd how much tiem and effert is needad for soem peopal