Cinematic Titanic

Once upon a time there was a wonderful TV show called Mystery Science Theater 3000. It had a simple premise: a man and two robots made fun of very bad movies. It gained something of a cult following and ran (on two different cable networks) for over ten years--198 episodes were made. Over the years the cast changed. The creator, Joel Hodgson, departed mid-way through the run, and the first two voices of his puppets, Trace Beaulieu and Josh Weinstein, also left.

I was a devoted viewer of MST3K, as it is abbreviated. For a while I had to rely on a friend to tape it for me, as for a time I did not have the Sci-Fi Channel. Indeed, a sense of community was fostered out of the show, as the credits ended with "Keep circulating the tapes." I think I ended up seeing every episode, and even went to the feature film they made.

After the show ended, the various cast members continued working in show business. Hodgson's replacement, Mike Nelson, along with puppeteers Kevin Murphy and Billy Corbett (who were the second to voice the robots Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, respectively) formed a service called RiffTrax, which enables people to download the wisecracking from their computers and play it while watching a movie on DVD (they do not limit themselves to bad movies). Hodgson, along with Beaulieu, Weinstein, and former MST3K writers and performers Frank Coniff and Mary Jo Pehl, are still goofing on bad movies with their enterprise Cinematic Titanic. The difference is that they continue to specialize in bad movies (acquiring the rights to the film) on either DVD or in a live show. I had the pleasure of seeing them do their thing this past weekend in New York City.

"Are you ready to see a shitty movie?" Hodgson asked as things got underway. Truly the film chosen was shitty, which he termed "the worst Filipino monster movie" ever made. It was Danger on Tiki Island, which had South Sea islanders sacrificing women to a monster that looked like the Michelin Man after a bad car accident. Hodgson and his mates took seats to the side of the stage, their scripts on music stands, and quipped as the film, glorious in its awfulness, was shown. The result was about ninety minutes of unabated merriment.

I love the whole concept, and I think they've succeeded at it because the riffing is never particularly mean-spirited, with a polite Midwestern quality. It's also rooted in a full-range of pop-culture references. During the film I saw there were references veering from Glenn Gould to Sylvia Plath all the way to Lady Gaga. They managed to slip in some references to current events--a lot of mentions of health-care reform, and even one to the volcano in Iceland. It would be difficult to quote many of the jokes out of context, but a couple that I remember: the leading man, an aging, chiseled type, is described as looking like "Robert Goulet after a Grand Slam breakfast," and a the sexually hungry leading lady is "hornier than Mrs. Roper." Another familiar tactic is to see a bizarre creature on screen and one of the cast cries out as if misidentifying them, thus when we see the monster up close Hodgson cries out, "Mickey Rourke!?"

I had a great time, laughing a lot and having a smile permanently plastered on my face. It makes me want to go back and watch old episodes of the show. Unfortunately, I have them on VHS (taped off the TV), and my VCR isn't hooked up anymore. Note to self, after winning lottery, buy a whole bunch of MST3K DVDs, and get some of the Cinematic Titanic ones, too.