Captain's Log: A Bunch of Our Ship Fell Off, and Nobody Likes Me

My childhood was spent primarily in jean overalls and oversized Starter jackets whilst riding a bicycle that I thought defied the speed of light. It was a time before smart phones became the most coveted possession. It was the dawn of reality television, online shopping, and music that defined teenage angst. It was a time to be daring, a time to push the limits of standards and practices of public broadcasting. Nightly news shows were the first time I ever acknowledged current events, though most of it went over my head. Sometimes I glanced at the television whenever my parents watched Seinfeld. I wondered how they could watch something so vapid. Fast forward to now, however, and I will tell you with a smile that Seinfeld is sitcom royalty.

Like every other kid I grew up with in the 90’s, I had a love for shows like Boy Meets World, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Dawson’s Creek. When my friends and I weren’t glued to the eye candy on our televisions, we were a motley crew of explorers on bicycles. We talked about shows, but never how we fantasized about being the girl that Pacey pines for instead of Joey, or that we wished we were real vampire slayers with Buffy, or any fantasy where we save Sean Hunter from himself. We didn’t even admit it until we were adults that we sobbed like inconsolable children during the final episodes of Boy Meets World.

But there was one show I watched all by myself and never talked about until I was an adult. Don’t get weird, it’s not that kind of story. It’s a show called Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or abbreviated, MST3K). It’s a comedy series that first aired in Minnesota in the 80’s and later Comedy Central for years until it was canceled. In 2017, Netflix picked it up thanks to crowdfunding. In total, there have been over two hundred episodes, a movie, and a tour of live shows.

On the surface, it’s about a guy named Joel Hodgson (later replaced by Mike Nelson) who is marooned in space by mad scientists on Earth. He creates robots to keep him company while the mad scientists mentally torture him with movies so terrible that it should drive him insane. However, it doesn’t work because Joel and two of his beloved robots spend their time riffing on the movies and finding positivity in everything. Sounds a little far-fetched, right? But wait, there’s more. Their set has the atmosphere of a community college theater class because all their sketches are meant to be silly and family-friendly.

But this is all just a warmup for the meat of the show: riffing on the worst B movies in history. Some of them would have been forgotten entirely were it not for MST3K. Such as 1961’s Hamlet, translated from German, and starring Maximilian Schell. Unless this movie was some sort of requirement for a film class, why would anyone make themselves sit through a dour production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet made for German TV? But under the comedic creativity of MST3K, 152 minutes of Hamlet flew by with laughter and I actually paid attention to the movie. Or The Sword and The Dragon, a translated Russian film from the 50’s or 60’s, long forgotten (because it was terrible) until MST3K made it one of the funniest episodes in its history. There is no good reason to seek any of these movies unless you’re watching it under the umbrella of Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo.

Ultimately, it’s no different than sitting around with your friends making fun of a movie together, only funnier. In the 90’s, no one knew you could do that on television. It wasn’t taboo as much as it was just something no one thought of yet. It was also done tastefully by seasoned comedy writers.

Below the surface, the show promoted positivity, encouraged laughter, and gave us a look into what film production was like before our time. They didn’t write jokes that attacked actors or target anyone with shortcomings. They made fun of awkward situations, laughed through terrible dialogue, and mocked poor film production. MS3TK regularly riffed on shorts, which were mostly short educational videos made as early as the 1940’s. They ranged from how chickens lived on the farm to how to prepare for a first date. Out of context, these shorts were glimpses back in time, giving us insight of our grandparents’ lives before they became our grandparents.

Joel, Mike, Servo, and Crow embodied our inner dialogue whenever we watched terrible movies. We laughed with them because it was the first time someone made it okay to openly laugh about bad movies while watching them. It also taught us to mock them judiciously, which later would evolve to learning how to read the room, learning your audience, and perfecting comedic timing. Rifftrax, created and run by the same writers, became an extension of MST3K because there is no shortage of bad movies. That’s not a dig on the industry; it’s just that not every film can be a winner, just like life, so they make the best of it.

Netflix’s MST3K is just not the same without the original players, but I’m thankful that it found a new generation to entertain. I still watch classic MST3K and Rifftrax regularly on Pluto TV, but I still don’t talk about it or watch it with anyone because I don’t know anyone else who finds this show interesting. Even now, I struggle to explain the demographic for this show, but I think it’s for people with an irreverent sense of humor, it’s for those who understand what riffing is in comedy, and for those that have a twisted appreciation for bad movies. After all, how can we enjoy the good movies without living through the bad ones?