Within the early days of cable, round 1988, there was a man named Joel Hodgson. Weary of the L.A. comedy circuit, he returned to his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota to develop a comedy collection idea he had for native station KMTA: a hapless janitor is shot into house by two mad scientists who experiment on his thoughts by forcing him to look at dangerous films, and the janitor creates robotic sidekicks to assist him by all of it. In an period when native tv nonetheless produced its personal programming, station supervisor Jim Mallon noticed promise within the thought and thought it might be a showcase for his or her sizable catalog of B films. Enlisting assistance from KTMA cameraman and comic Kevin Murphy, together with native abilities Hint Belieu and Josh Weinstein, a tough pilot was hammered out, incomes the present a contract, and on Thanksgiving Day, 1988 Thriller Science Theater 3000was born. With Joel internet hosting, Belieu and Weinstein doubling as his wisecracking robots Tom Servo and Crow T. Robotic, and mad scientists Clayton Forester and Laurence Erhart, the present lasted for 21 episodes at KTMA earlier than being canceled.
These exhibits gave Hodgson and Mallon sufficient materials to place collectively a pitch tape for fledgling cable community The Comedy Channel, which gave them their first nationwide broadcast platform. An even bigger funds allowed them to usher in extra comedic expertise like head author Mike Nelson (who would later take over internet hosting duties from Joel), Mary Jo Pehl, and Frank Coniiff (affectionately referred to as TV’s Frank) who took over as Dr. Forester’s assistant after Weinstein’s departure, making a comedy duo that continues on immediately. After two seasons, The Comedy Channel morphed into Comedy Centralthe place MST3K grew to become a cult phenomenon. After seven seasons, the present was canceled on Comedy Central, however demand was so sturdy that The Syfy Channel picked it up for 3 extra. After spawning offshoots like Cinematic Titanic andRifftrax, crowdfunding introduced the present again from the lifeless for 2 extra seasons at Netflix with new host Jonah Ray. It continues on with Hodgson’s steerage and new comedic expertise by way of its personal platform, Gizmoplex. There’s a lot high quality riffing right here it is almost unattainable to rank all of them and each fan has their favorites, however these episodes from the Comedy Channel/Comedy Central period are on the coronary heart of the present and its format all through its many iterations.
10 “The Crawling Eye” (1958)
Season 1, Episode 1
The primary nationwide broadcast of the collection, this episode units up the format that may proceed all through the collection’ run. Joel introduces the present’s premise and his robots, Tom Servo (Weinstein) and Crow T. Robotic (Belieu), plus a brand new one named Gypsy (voiced by Jim Mallon). Mad scientists Clayton Forester (Belieu) and Lawrence Erhart (Weinstein) transfer into their lair known as “Deep 13”, and Joel affords the primary “invention change” (a working bit the place Joel comes up with an absurd invention and the Mads provide you with a comically evil one).
As for the film, in all probability the much less mentioned the higher. Forrest Tucker of F Troop fame takes on an enormous, multi-tentacled eye that terrorizes an Alpine village. Prime riff from Joel and the bots: “What’s an enormous eye gonna do, decide you up and wink you to dying? Within the host section, Joel demonstrates the Electrical Bagpipes for his invention change whereas Dr. Forester injects Erhart with an antiperspirant developed from canines that has some nasty uncomfortable side effects. Later, the bots discover Forest Tucker way more terrifying than the enormous eye, and Joel tries to clarify why big eyes are scary.
9 “Rocketship X-M” (1950)
Season 2, Episode 1
That is the primary episode to characteristic Frank Coniff because the beloved TV’s Frank, and Kevin Murphy because the voice of Tom Servo. It additionally introduces a brand new set for the bridge of Joel’s ship, now referred to as the Satellite tv for pc of Love (SOL for brief). Frank is launched as an assistant trainee after Erhardt’s disappearance results in his image on the again of a milk carton. Frank’s solely expertise are from his final job working a quick meals drive-thru, so he takes Joel and the Bot’s meals order and virtually brings the Satellite tv for pc of Love again to Earth, to allow them to “eat in” till Forester catches him and offers him a wedgie. In the meantime, Joel is adjusting Tom Servo’s new voice as a part of the invention change.
Within the almost plotless film, Lloyd Bridges is a part of an expedition to the moon that goes flawed and finally ends up on an atomic war-ravaged planet Mars. Prime riff from Joel and the bots: “There is a Mr. ‘Oh My God, My Hair Is On Hearth’ on line one, sir”. Within the final host section, Frank learns “push the button”, a bit that may finish every episode of the collection all through its Comedy Central run.
8 “The Wonderful Colossal Man” (1957)
Season 3, Episode 9
This entry from the collection’ first season on the newly shaped Comedy Central is the primary (within the Comedy Central period) to characteristic a movie from a director who would change into a favourite punching bag of the present — Bert I. Gordon. Stunningly, he had a decades-long profession starting within the Fifties, making the schlockiest movies doable with titles like King Dinosaur, Conflict of the Colossal Beast, Earth vs. The Spider, Village of the Giants, and Empire of the Ants. All informed, MST3K would skewer seven extra of his cheesiest masterpieces all through its run.
On this one, Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning is uncovered to a plutonium bomb blast that causes him to develop exponentially in dimension. The navy tries to comprise him in order that they will someway reverse the method however fail spectacularly as he grows to 50 ft, loses his thoughts, and runs round Las Vegas in what appears like a make-shift diaper, terrorizing town till he lastly falls off a cliff to his dying. The episode additionally options an early on-camera look by head author Mike Nelson, who would later go on to host the collection. He performs the colossal Glenn Manning, who visits the Satellite tv for pc of Love to clarify to Joel and the Bots what it is wish to be 50 ft tall. Prime riff: “Who else however a clown would have an expandable sarong like this?”
7 “I Accuse My Dad and mom” (1945)
Season 5, Episode 7
Joel Hodgson has named this his favourite episode, and he actually is in prime type as he and the Bots tackle this over-wrought and didactic cautionary story from the Nineteen Forties wherein Jimmy, a none-too-bright but simply corrupted younger man who stands trial for manslaughter and blames it on his alcoholic dad and mom. The movie follows Jimmy’s rise and fall from highschool, when Jimmy rushes house to point out his dad and mom his award-winning essay solely to seek out them amid drunken revelry with their pals, by his more and more absurd lies about his house life meant to impress a lady he loves who in flip will get him entangled with a mob boss, and eventually hitting backside when he makes an attempt the armed theft of a kindly diner proprietor who affords him a “hamburger sammich” and tries to rehabilitate him. Prime riffs: “He is taken to promoting his essays low cost on the road” and “I accuse you, Joel! Now, rigorously hand over the hamburger sammich”.
The episode additionally features a quick movie, the primary on this record to take action. Brief topics have been a staple of the collection, beginning with Nineteen Forties serials after which shifting to dreary, poorly acted, and absurdly written academic shorts spanning the 40s by the 70s. Their riffs have been generally even higher than the primary characteristic. This one is The Truck Farmer from Encyclopedia Britannica Movies, not one of many extra memorable shorts however amusing all the identical. Prime riff: “I’m wondering in the event that they bought this movie door-to-door”.
6 “Conflict of the Colossal Beast” (1958)
Season 3, Episode 19
Bert I. Gordon strikes once more, and so does Glenn Manning! On this Gordon-verse sequel, it appears he survived the autumn from the Hoover Dam he took in Wonderful Colossal Man and someway leads to Mexico as a 50-foot, disfigured, diaper-wearing beast hiding out within the desert. It is typical of Gordon’s work, which strikes the proper stability for MST3K. He is a satisfactory filmmaker whose films are simply dangerous sufficient for comedy however not so dangerous they dissolve in a puddle of plotless unwatchability.
However what makes this episode actually memorable is not the primary characteristic — it is the quick. A real MST3K legend and everlasting fan favourite, Mr. B Pure started the venerable custom of shorts that includes bizarre supernatural beings endowed with the power to change actuality indirectly simply to show you a lesson. Buzz Turner is a depressing baby who’s despised at college and spends quite a lot of time sulking in his room. Abruptly the androgynous Mr. B Pure seems in his room one evening claiming to have recognized his father and promising to show him “the fun of music”. What follows is an insane journey by a bizarro world the place Mr. B Pure dances and minces about making everybody weirdly uncomfortable whereas making an attempt to show Buzz to play the trumpet. Seems Mr. B is simply an instrument salesman hawking merchandise from the now-defunct C.G. Conn Instrument Firm. Prime riff: “That damage, I am all tousled inside; if solely an androgynous man would come go to me.”
5 “Bride of the Monster” (1955)
Season 4, Episode 23
And now we come to the patron saint of dangerous movie-making, director Ed Wooden. Oddly sufficient, his most notorious movie Plan 9 From Outer Area, thought-about by many to be the worst film ever made, was by no means featured on MST3K. However Bride of the Monster was the movie he made simply earlier than it, and it has simply as a lot goofball dialogue, weirdo characters, and cheesy particular results as Plan 9, however has the heroin-addicted presence of the legendary Bela Lugosi and big galoot Tor Johnsonas his assistant. Lugosi is a mad scientist, Dr. Erik Varnoff, who’s conducting experiments on folks to offer them the energy of 20 males. In fact, issues go horribly off the rails and Varnoff is became a superpowered atomic mutant (performed by a wholly completely different actor when Lugosi took off to get into rehab). Prime riff: after Varnoff turns into the superpowered mutant, Crow quips: “Oh no, now he has the energy of 20 heroin addicts”.
This episode additionally included half one of many quick “Employed!”, a Chevrolet gross sales coaching movie wherein a gross sales supervisor seeks recommendation from his father on take care of his incompetent gross sales workers. It turned out to be one of many higher shorts of the collection, however is surpassed by half two of the quick which might change into a part of an MST3K legend.
4 “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” (1964)
Season 3, Episode 21
This was the primary (and arguably the very best) of many Christmas-themed episodes all through the collection’ run, and it has change into a vacation traditional in its personal proper. Martians carrying ridiculous-looking headgear have seen Santa on their intergalactic tv units and simply do not get the entire “Christmas factor”. So, they determine to kidnap Santa from the North Pole and convey him to Mars to get some solutions. Santa is aware of he must get again to Earth earlier than Christmas is canceled ceaselessly, so he groups up with Dropo (“the laziest man on Mars”) and two kids to interrupt him out.
It has all the pieces: robots, Martians, Santa, a man in a tacky polar bear swimsuit, and even a younger Pia Zadora. The host segments are a few of the greatest within the collection. The Mads’ invention change, the “Want Squisher”, takes a cool toy any child would need for Christmas and turns it into one thing lame like a pair of socks out of your Aunt, whereas Joel and the Bots salute Rankin-Bass’ Rudolph the Pink-Nosed Reindeer with their very own misfit toys, like Mr. Mashed Potato Head. The infinitely riffable filmHighway Hometakes a beating, first with Joel’s board recreation adaptation of it after which Crow’s hilariously violent Christmas carol ode “(Let’s Have) A Patrick Swayze Christmas”. Prime riff: “And now a Deep 13-holiday presentation: Pia Zadora in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Defend your eyes, Frank.”
3 “The Mind That Would not Die” (1962)
Season 5, Episode 13
The spectacular riffing debut of Mike Nelson, this episode would set the stage for the remainder of the collection run and past. After a horrible automotive accident that decapitates his fiancée, Nurse Jan, Dr. Invoice Cortner grabs the top and takes it to his secret lab the place he reanimates it on a tray. He then searches for the right physique to connect it to, whereas “Jan within the Pan” berates him and begs for her dying. It is certainly one of MST3K’s creepiest and most ugly experiments, however the upbeat, Mid-west farmboy, appeal of Mike Nelson offers a welcome distinction. Prime riff: “Hello, I am Casey Casem. This one goes out to a heart-sick love with a severed head.”
Within the host segments, the Bots prepare Mike within the fantastic artwork of dangerous film riffing and later support Mike in an try to achieve management of the ship and return to Earth with disastrous outcomes. They struggle making numerous hats for “Jan within the Pan,” and after the film “Jan within the Pan,” exhibits up (performed by the hilarious Mary Jo Pehl, the longer term Pearl Forester) on the Satellite tv for pc of Like to reassure them she’s discovered a brand new lease on life, a loving husband, and a job as a doorstop.
2 “Mitchell” (1975)
Season 5, Episode 12
That is the traditional episode the place each bid a fond farewell to Joel as present host and introduce hapless temp Mike Nelson because the Mads’ subsequent sufferer. The film stars Joe Don Baker (who reportedly was so indignant in regards to the skewering he and the film obtained that he threatened to beat up MST3K forged and crew if he ever met them) as Mitchell, a drunken, sweaty, bloated mess of a cop who screams at kids on skateboards for no obvious purpose and sleeps with prostitutes earlier than arresting them. Someway, he is tapped to attempt to convey down a profitable businessman suspected of drug smuggling. Prime riff is only one phrase, echoed as a callback all through the remainder of the collection: “Mitchell!”
In fact, the true story right here is Joel Robinson’s departure. In essentially the most elaborate plot, the host segments ever had within the Comedy Central period (the SyFy period would see extra host section storylines), The Mads employed a temp by the identify of Mike to assist them put together for an audit by the Fraternal Order of Mad Scientists. Gypsy on the Satellite tv for pc of Love turns into satisfied that they’re plotting to homicide Joel. Determined to discover a strategy to get Joel off the SOL earlier than they kill him, she turns to Mike, who methods Frank into giving him the keys to a hidden escape pod he is discovered and offers them to Gypsy. After the film, an unsuspecting Joel is whisked into the escape pod and launched again to Earth whereas quoting from the film The Circus of Physician Lau. It is a unhappy and candy farewell, and Joel’s departure would utterly change the tone and character of the present ceaselessly.
1 “Manos: Fingers of Destiny” (1966)
Season 4, Episode 24
Arguably essentially the most well-known episode of MST3K, it was voted primary by followers in Shout! Manufacturing facility‘s latest fan voting for the highest 100 episodes. Manos, Fingers of Destiny is just about synonymous with the collection, primarily as a result of few folks had ever heard of the movie till they dug it out of obscurity. Publicity on the present gave it a standing of infamy, rivaling and presumably surpassing Plan 9 From Outer Area because the worst film ever made. The brainchild of Texas fertilizer salesman Harold P. Warren (who made the movie on a wager), he forged himself as the daddy of a household who takes a flawed flip and finally ends up at a seedy dump run by a stumbling satyr named Torgo (John Reynolds), a servant to a cult chief referred to as “The Grasp” (Tom Neyman). It begins with an interminably lengthy opening driving sequence and simply lumbers on from there.
The movie is so dangerous that even Dr. Forester and TV’s Frank suppose they might have gone too far, and its tempo is so plodding that Joel yells on the display ‘DO SOMETHING!” It is preceded by a brief, the much more hilarious half two of Employed! The riffers are at their greatest right here, and Mike Nelson makes a cameo, stumbling onto the Deep 13 as Torgo delivers a really late pizza to the Mads. Prime riff: “Each body of this movie appears like somebody’s final recognized {photograph}”. It is actually deserving to be on the prime of any MST3K followers’ record.
