Saturday, June 07, 2008

MST3K

Well, right off the bat, you'll either remember it or you won't. Mystery Science Theater 3000 was the brainchild of Joel Hodgson, and ran from 1988 to 1999 on various networks. The series features a man and his robot sidekicks who are trapped on a satellite in space and forced to watch a selection of terrible movies, especially science fiction B-movies. The man and his robots make a running commentary on the film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking their way through the film in the style of a movie theater peanut gallery. Series creator Hodgson originally played the stranded man, Joel Robinson. When he left in 1993, series head writer Michael J. Nelson replaced him as new B-movie victim Mike Nelson, and continued in the role for the rest of the show's run.

About the only drawback of the show was that they could only get the rights to really really terrible films, which provided lots of comedy fodder, but made the episodes sometimes painful to watch. However, what Mike Nelson is up to nowadays, thanks to advances in technology and the internet, sidesteps that whole issue. Click the Rifftrax logo in the corner to check it out...

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