Colin McEnroe Show: Cinematic Titanic Carries On Mystery Science Theater 3000's Legacy
Joel Hodgson, Frank Conniff, and J. Elvis Weinstein on how to riff movies.
Today we have what I think of as the Terry Gross Problem.
I'm always impressed by the way Terry Gross just leads with her own pop culture tastes and doesn't seem to worry too much about whether her audience is on the same page. She'll do a whole show interviewing people from the show "Justified" and just count on her audience to roll along with her, whether they watch "Justified" or not.
That's us today. We've got some of the creators of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" with us because they're in Hartford with a new live comedy vehicle called Cinematic Titanic. For us, it's a huge deal. Especially for me. I think I can safely say there has never been anything that made me laugh as dangerously hard as MST3K. But for you? I might have to work a little extra hard to bring you along and get you to see why this unusual style of humor is so special to us. And maybe you'll meet me halfway. A guy and two robots making fun of old bad movies. I know. It doesn't leap out at you. Bear with us after the news.
Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
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MST3K
Loved the show, once I stopped cringing at the opening. I wonder how many others cringed and changed the station. (I'll bet it gave your guests pause too.) But past that debacle, the show was thoroughly enjoyable, right down to the callers' reminiscences and your guests' assessment of reality TV and comedy in general. I love what they said about reality TV viewers bringing their own irony to the table: I never actually thought of it that way. Thanks for having them on.
Mst3k
I cannot believe I missed the show and didn't even know that Joel would be on today!!!! I come from a long line of nerds and the MST3K turkey day marathon was outnThanksgiving tradition for many years...I have find memories of Manos the Hands of Fate and many other B move non-classics whose only value in the world was the fact that they provided such rich fodder for Joel and his quirky band of comedic bandits. I am so out of touch that I javen't even heard of this titanic show, but I must check it out!!! Thanks Colin!
East haven Police dept
The East haven police dept patch bears the image of the old stone church. As a municipality it raises establishment issues. What gives?
E-mail from Dawn
Hi there -
I've been home sick all week and caught your show today - tried to call in because my daughter will be at the "Titanic" show tonight with her b-friend and she was shocked that I even knew what Mystery Science Theater was (I've never even had cable t.v.) - about 5 years ago my spouse and I stopped for a take-out and there was a little "alternative" bookstore across the street with a sandwich board that said - Now showing, Mystery Science Theater 2000 - we went in and sat down to eat and watch - neither of us even knew what it was. It was the movie Mannos The Hands of Fate - there was a joke about SPAM that had us doubled over, snorting and crying - people kept staring, wondering what was so funny - and that's the beauty of the show - there's something for everyone - it has this campy, non-gratuitous appeal with so many jokes that SOMEONE is sure to find SOMETHING funny. We still chuckle about that night, the joke was totally personal based on both of us growing up poor and sharing the horrors of being fed SPAM by our mothers (we have both been vegetarians for decades). And there we were, nearly 50 year old professionals, wandering into a free movie night full of fans of the genre and making a spectacle of ourselves over a joke that only the two of us "got" - priceless.
I am confident that my daughter and her boyfriend will laugh until it hurts and take home lots of memories tonight (she bought him the tickets for x-mas).
Fun show -
Dawn
E-mail from Kathleen
Darn!
I misspelled your email addy yesterday- I *had* sent you this:
Hello Colin (or whoever reads his mail- shame on you!)
Loved it since the Comedy Channel/keep circulating the tapes! days- reminds me of old science fiction conventions, razzing bad movies at 2 AM...
Of course this has led to misadventures in grad school, work, and love, making very odd comments at not-necessarily-appropriate moments...
Looking forward to the interview tomorrow!
::wah-wah horn sound::
And today, too many other women were tying up the phone lines for me to get in...
Anyway, yes, Virginia, women DO love MST3K- and some of us are even single- now if I could only find a guy to enjoy bad movies with... Maybe this goes back to the online dating episode!
E-mail from David
yes thank you again for saying avatar was stupid. and pardon my lack of capitalization but I'm dictating this.
I like movies about "going native" and there is a rumor that joel and ethan cohen have a script for james dickeys novel 'to the white sea" floating around, which would be awesome. it's all stream of consciousness so it might be hard to do but then terry gilliam managed to do fear loathing in las vegas pretty well. but a movie like little big man sets the bar pretty high for a story about going native. avatar and dances with wolves just failed miserably.
keep up the good work
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