Word: mst3k
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...show, however, MST3K may be kaput. Citing a ratings dip, the Comedy Central network first cut the number of episodes from 24 a year to a paltry but precious six, then banished the show to hours appropriate only for Psychic Friends Network infomercials (2 a.m. weeknights, 7 a.m. Sunday and the big prime-time slot, 5 p.m. Saturday). Late last year Doug Herzog, the new president of Comedy Central, said the network was not picking up the show. Negotiations to devise a new format were unfruitful; two weeks ago, Herzog gave Best Brains, MST3K's production company, permission...
This could be a tiresome jape. Making fun of show-biz effluvia has become the easiest, sleaziest way to get a laugh and feel superior. Even cut-rate exploitation movies can possess a delirious visionary gran-deur that makes any sarcasm directed their way seem small-minded. But the MST3K gang have gone far beyond Golden Turkey Awards. For this clever crowd, inept movies are mere cues to asides on politics and society, which they attack with scimitar wit. The show can even be seen as a branch of semiological (and semi-illogical) studies. "I've always been interested...
After a decade of smart people playing dumb (the David Letterman syndrome), it's a tonic to watch a show whose creators are unafraid to parade their erudition. MST3K, which is incorporated under the apt moniker Best Brains, Inc., is for snobs and slackers -- a crash course in popular culture, high and low. Pay attention, for without warning or footnoting you may hear allusions to Thomas Pynchon, Susan Faludi, Joseph Campbell, Jenny Holzer, Andrew Sarris or Anna Kisselgoff. A starlet bathing in a lake suggests "Fanne Foxe in a Maxfield Parrish painting." And don't worry if some...
...goes, 600 or more gags per show, in 104 episodes aired incessantly (24 hours a week). The staff has weathered its flourishing cult status, the challenge of devising new jokes about the same old sorts of films, flirtations with Hollywood to make an MST3K feature and, last year, the departure of creator and host Joel Hodgson. His sleepy-voiced charisma was replaced by the flummoxed gentility of the baby-faced Nelson, who also composes many of the delicious song parodies (collected on two Play MST for Me videocassettes). At the convention, Conniff asked impishly, "Would now be the time...
...actor-writers answered questions about their favorite MST3K movie (Manos -- the Hands of Fate) or about the off-camera relationship of Murphy and Beaulieu to their puppets Tom and Crow (Murphy: "We have a little place up in the Poconos"; Beaulieu: "Crow and I are not on speaking terms"). The creative staff, led by producer Jim Mallon, signed autographs for hours. At another panel, Beverly Garland, plucky star of three Roger Corman dramas savaged by MST3K, said, "My God, I wish we had had that dialogue when we were doing the picture!" The convention moved to Minneapolis' State Theater...