MST3K, Rifftrax, CT, etc.: Hours of Riffing

As most of you know, I am a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I help annotate riffs for the website AnnotatedMST.com.  I'm also a fan of many of that crew's subsequent projects, including Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax.

Recently, Rifftrax riffed their 200th film and that got me to thinking: how much time have the people involved spent working on talking over (mostly) bad movies?

So I did the math.

I'm looking at the time spent riffing on movies by the "main" people involved.  Joel Hodgson, Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu, Bill Corbett, Josh Weinstein (now known as J. Elvis Weinstein), Frank Conniff and Mary Jo Pehl.

(Apologies to the other writers, including Paul Chaplin, Bridget Nelson, Conor Lastowka, and Sean Thomason.  I know they've busted their butts, but it was hard enough focusing just on the people on screen.)

A caveat upfront.  Primarily, I went with some rather general times for the various shows.  Since we're talking hundreds of films, there's no way I'm going to look up the length of each movie and catalog it.  I'm not THAT obsessive.

Another thing: I'm looking at this two different ways.  First, I'll look at how much time they spend "on screen" talking at their subjects.  Then I'll examine how many hours of riffing they worked on.  Here's what I mean by that, by way of example: even though Mike didn't start hosting MST3K until episode 513, he worked as a writer since the first episode of season one.  So the first calculation will be Mike's time starting with 513 and the second will start with episode 101.

Here are the different shows as of July 17, 2015:

Mystery Science Theater 3000: 197 episodes, 1 feature film, 4 thirty minute specials.  Since I'm only concerned about the time spent riffing on the movies, I went with a time of 75 minutes for each episode and the film.  (Each show was two hours long, minus about thirty-five minutes of commercials and ten-to-fifteen minutes of host segments, intros, etc.)  The four half-hour specials I added up to be equal to one episode.  (I did not include the KTMA pilot, The Green Slime, because I am unsure of its actual length and the fact that no real riffing at all occurs during the theater sequences.)  I know there were a few other things the guys did, like riffing on a PlayStation promo and for a sports show ... I didn't include those times primarily because I forgot about them until just now, which is after I made the charts.  At most, we're talking about an additional half-hour for a few of the people.

Film Crew: a brief foray into riffing before Rifftrax, there were 4 episodes.  I decided to use 90 minutes for each as the figure.

America's Funniest Home Videos: Huh?  Yes.  Both Trace Beaulieu and Josh Weinstein wrote for the show for a few years, and what else is AFHV but riffing on amateur films?  Obviously, since neither Trace nor Josh were on screen for the show, those figures won't come into play until the second section.  I went with 15 minutes for each episode (since there's five-plus minutes of each with the host and the audience and subtracting commercials).

Cinematic Titanic: 14 different shows were written and performed, though only 11 were released to video.  (Come on!  I have to have the other three!)  I count all fourteen and consider each to be 90 minutes.

Rifftrax: Holy crap.  OK, there are 130 downloadable commentaries; 31 of the so-called "Rifftrax Presents" commentaries (meaning they're Mike-less); 97 downloadable video-on-demand films with riffs (I did my best to subtract the ones that were previously released as downloadable commentaries); 16 live shows; 5 episodes of Total Riff Off (TV specials aired on NatGeo Wild).  For the many, many films, I went with an estimate of 105 minutes ... an hour forty-five seems about right to balance out the shorter films versus the many two-hour blockbusters and the occasional three-hour epics they've done.  Also, I'll add in Total Riff Off as being 45 minutes each, plus there are a few other TV shows they've done and I'll fudge the numbers to 45 minutes on them as well.  (Another note: there are several films that were done multiple times.  For example, Night of the Living Dead.  It was released first with a Mike commentary, then a commentary was released with Mike, Kevin & Bill, then it was performed as a live show.  All three had different content, so I'm counting NotLD as three separate entries.)

Rifftrax Shorts: Seems worthy of being separate to me.  248 shorts.  Wow.  I'm going with 15 minutes each as the estimate here.

"ON SCREEN" RIFFING

(Again, this accounts only for the voices heard during riffing and not behind-the-scenes effort.)

(Click to embiggen; right-click here to download)

Yes, both TV's Frank and Pearl Forrester got a little bit of riffing time in during a couple of episodes of MST3K.  And, yes, Mary Jo Pehl has done a few Rifftrax, too.

A few other tidbits: during MST3K's so-called "Season Zero" on KTMA, there were three episodes in which Trace did not appear; one without Josh; one without Joel (leaving Crow and Servo to riff on the movie alone!); and another where Servo left in the middle of the movie to "bake muffins."

TOTALS (from highest to lowest):

1. Kevin: 628.5 hours  (26.19 days)
2. Mike: 581 hours (24.2 days)
3. Bill: 459.75 hours (19.16 days)
4. Trace: 205 hours (8.54 days)
5. Joel: 153.5 hours (6.4 days)
6. Josh: 61.625 hours (2.57 days)
7. Mary Jo: 25.5 hours
8. Frank: 21.25 hours

"ON AND OFF SCREEN" RIFFING

(Again, this accounts for the writers as well as performers.  Despite occasional absences during KTMA episodes, IMDB credits everyone so they all get credit from me.)

(Click to embiggen; right-click here to download)

Other than incorporating America's Funniest Home Videos, the only real changes here are to the MST3K totals.

As I said before, Mike was a writer almost from the show's inception.  Even though TV's Frank wasn't in the theater (except for briefly in Last of the Wild Horses), he was a writer for five whole seasons.  Mary Jo helped write for many episodes before she ever showed up as Pearl.  And Bill even co-wrote a few episodes in season six; years before the jump to SciFi Channel.

I know the process of writing riffs for movies takes far longer than just the hour and change it takes to watch the finished result.  There's no way I could calculate how long they actually spent slaving over Manos or The Room.  The final product will have to suffice for these calculations.

TOTALS (from highest to lowest):

1. Mike: 689.25 hours (28.72 days)
2. Kevin: 671.25 hours (27.97 days)
3. Bill: 464 hours (19.33 days)
4. Trace: 248.25 hours (10.34 days)
5. Mary Jo: 180 hours (7.5 days)
6. Frank: 157.25 hours (6.55 days)
7. Joel: 154.75 hours (6.45 days)
8. Josh: 99.75 hours (4.16 days)

IN CONCLUSION:

Why did I do this?  Hell if I know.  Maybe Torgo, Ortega, Norman and Gregory the Skunk teamed up to threaten me ... nah.

Seriously, though, I saw a post by Kevin Murphy reflecting on his time spent riffing things over these last 27 years, particularly since Rifftrax just did their 200th unique film.  It got me to thinking: just how much enjoyment have these people given me?  And, if I use charts and math, can I somehow sap said enjoyment from that effort?  I think the results speak for themselves.

To Joel, Mike, Kevin, Trace, Josh, Bill, Frank, Mary Jo, Bridget, Paul, Conor, Sean, Jim Mallon and everyone else ... thank you.

Review: GODZILLA VS. MEGALON (1973)

My son and I are still watching movies from THIS list before the new Godzilla film opens in May.  (We've got some work to do if we're going to make it.)

Today's is Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973).

James goes first:

Well this was a funny one, because in one moment, Godzilla and a robot named Jet Jaguar were surrounded by a ring of fire and Gigan's expression when they fly away was amazing and hilarious.



 anyways, this movie got a record for funnest moment in the first era but it has a shrill Ewok kid. 

So, rating wise, i'll say 3.9087 out of 5 Atomic Breaths of Awesomeness!!!

My turn:

I feel like I've seen this one a hundred times, thanks to its use on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  It doesn't get better with repeated viewings, in case you're wondering. 

Keeping it simple, here's the plot: the undersea realm of Seatopia (see what they did there?) decides to unleash their beetle deity Megalon on mankind because they're pissed at all the nuclear testing.  An inventor has built a robot named Jet Jaguar and the Seatopians want to use it to control Megalon.  Jet is instead sent to Monster Island to retrieve Godzilla so he can fight off Megalon.  Oh, and Gigan shows up, too. 

Some may claim that this movie is aimed at kids, but my son's unnatural hatred for the screechy kid in this one would seem to be that theory's undoing.  It's goofy.  No question.  But there's enough of the "good" kind of goofy in it to prevent this film from falling into the same camp as the horrific Daigoro vs. Goliath. 

In reading up on it, I see that this movie was made in three weeks.  I can believe that.  There's hardly anyone in it at all.  Seriously, there's like six speaking roles.  In scenes where there should be people, someone said, "I guess everyone was evacuated."  Yeah, I guess so. 

Megalon may have his name in the title, but he's not the "star" of this film.  Let's talk about Jet Jaguar.  He's in here thanks to a contest won by a kid who wanted a robot man in the films.  And thanks to the Ultraman craze of the era, boom goes the dynamite. 

There's a great deal of weirdness here.  Jet Jaguar's self-programmed ability to change sizes.  His communication with Godzilla (and G's obvious understanding).  Megalon's hoppity-hoppity means of locomotion.  Godzilla's entry to the fighting area wherein he pumps himself up like an OG WWF champ.  The "slice and dice" motions of both Gigan and Megalon (I said, "slice and dice," aloud when I saw this, not unlike the Mutants from The Dark Knight Returns and now my son says it in the same creepy way).  The red grenade goobers that Megalon spits.  The unintentionally hilarious mannerisms of Gigan when Jet flies G out of the ring of fire.   

And, of course, how can anyone forget this: 

 

Yeah.  You can't beat that. 

Because of the way it was distributed, this movie did very well in the US.  In fact, it aired on NBC.  In primetime.  I have vague memories of this, watching it with my dad.  What I don't remember, though, is John Belushi hosting the premiere ... while wearing a Godzilla suit not unlike this one: 

 

Godzilla vs. Megalon ... Maybe I'm nostalgic.  2.5 out of five atomic breath blasts.

Here's a "best of" video of moments from MST3K:



Here's the trailer:



Next, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.

(GIF by DestructionMode)

Review: GORGO (1961)

As many of you know, my son and I are watching 70+ kaiju/tokusatsu films in preparation for the new Godzilla film, due in May. We’ve made our way down the big list to the Brits’ attempt at a kaiju film, Gorgo (1961).

I’ll give my thoughts first:

We’re coming into a period of films where the mood begins to lighten. The kaiju, as we’ll see, are being made into the heroes of the movies and there’s a greater sense of fun. Since Gorgo isn’t a part of the Toho family, it’s unaware of this tonal shift and maintains a dreary and grim tone. 

TL;DR: Gorgo isn’t much fun. 

The attack on London is extended and fairly brutal. We see hundreds of people die in falling rubble, a flooded underground tube, and so on. One of the lead characters, feeling guilty over what’s happened, loses himself in alcohol. If you want to see Gorgo in a fun light, watch the ninth season episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 that features it (see below). 

Grim isn’t a bad mood for a monster movie to have (see 1954’s Gojira) but it helps if there’s a point for it. In Gojira, there was a message about nuclear testing, proliferation, war, etc. In Gorgo, … um. Don’t put animals on display? The standard “hubris of man” thing? Leave nature alone? It’s hard to say. 

When Dr. Heywood Floyd isn’t drowning his troubles, there’s a lengthy bit near the middle when stock footage assaults the mother Gorgo. Oddly, most of the footage depicts American planes and ships despite the efforts supposedly being British. 

All that being said, the effects in Gorgo are among the best of this era. The myriad scenes of debris falling on people, bodies being flung from London Bridge, the destruction of Big Ben and Picadilly Circus … It all looks good. Unfortunately, the monster itself and the suit isn’t so hot. And the performer inside … there are a few times it seems as though he’s posing or moving in an odd way so that he can see his way out of the eyeholes. 

Gorgo … much of the death and destruction could have been avoided if they just let the stupid kid monster go. 3.5 out of five atomic breath blasts.

And here’s James:

I thought it was good,and it reminded me of JAWS 3, with the baby at the beginning, and the parent picking up the kid at the end. 

But everyone was killing themselves trying to run away, people falling down stairs, people throwing people out of windows, everything was just chaos! 

And it all so reminded me of The Valley Of Gwangi because they, you know what, just watch the movie yourself!! So, i’ll give it 4.2 atomic breaths of awesomeness!!!

The trailer:



A selection of moments from the MST3K episode:



Up next, Konga.

MST3K: James' Robots

As I mentioned in Tuesday's post, I felt there was something missing from this year's Dragon*Con: Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Every other time we've gone, some folks from the show were there to talk about old times, Cinematic Titanic or Rifftrax.  On one night, Joel, et al, would even show a whole CT episode to a room of hundreds.  Big fun.

I was disappointed when I saw none of the Brains were coming this year and I was even more surprised when I emerged from the weekend with a Satellite-of-Love-shaped hole in my heart.

There's a legit reason for this and it's all about my son, James.

When he was about two (maybe less), he toddled into the living room and saw me watching an episode.  He saw the 'bots goofing around on the bridge.  He looked at me and asked, "What's that?"  I answered, "Robots."  He said the word himself and plopped onto the floor and kept watching.  He got bored during the movie but he always perked up during the host segments.

Since I watched one episode every week at that time, he sat with me and watched with me.  He said the "La, la, la"s in the theme song, laughed at the shenanigans and said, "Robots silly."  After a couple of months, I had an idea.  I'd make a MST3K storybook for him.  We read a couple of books to him every night so why not one about MST3K?  I got the lyrics to the theme song, pulled some screencaps and made the thing.

Here it is.

I kid you not, he learned how to count to six because of the door sequence on that page.

I planned on making a Mike version, but time got away from me.  (In case you're wondering, James doesn't have a preference.)

So, you're wondering, exhaustedly, what the poopie does this have to do with Dragon*Con?

Beginning with our first trip some years ago, I took the book with me to Atlanta.  It was just me and my wife; the boy stayed with relatives given his age, natch.  But since folks from both Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax were there, I got them to sign the book.  Bill and Trace signed Crow's page; Kevin and Josh signed Servo's page; Frank signed the Mads' page; Mary Jo signed the page with the feather cannon.  (Haven't met Mike, Jim Mallon, Patrick Brantseg or Paul Chaplin yet.)

One year, Joel was there.  I had gotten a couple of the CT crew's signatures and I moved down the table.  He saw the book and immediately seemed intrigued.  He said, "Tell me about this."  I explained, in condensed form, how James first saw the show, his love for it, how he learned to count to six ... Joel smiled, nodded and said, "That's really cool."  And then he signed a page:

"To James, from your friend, Joel Hodgson"

Couple ALL of that with the fact that this year, the first of any year we went to Dragon*Con, was the first we took him with us ... I think you'll understand why I came away disappointed that nobody was there.

"'Waa, waa, waaa,' emo-Trey."  Yeah, I know.  James had fun and he's eager to go again.  Maybe next year he can meet the Best Brains himself.

Dragon*Con 2012

Got back yesterday and here are some cool pix.  I didn't take nearly as many as I had in the past and there's a simple reason for that: we took our 9-year-old son with us.  Far more stressful than we imagined it would be.  While we navigated the crowds, we were too focused on getting him through with us intact and not so much on taking pictures.

Regardless, he had fun, we did, too, and here are some of the highlights for which we managed to take pictures.

 At the parade, a slew of Ghostbusters, including Jake & Elwood Blues.

Dr. Clayton Forrester (in boxers, for some reason) and The Master from "Manos": The Hands of Fate.

A DeLorean Time Machine (with Dr. Forrester at the wheel?).

A classic Time Machine, straight outta HG Wells.  The disk spun, too.

The Dude, complete with White Russian.

A Steampunk UFO, I think.  Whatever.  It looked cool.

Stan Lee.  Excelsior!

Amidst the video game characters, there came a group of Tetris blocks.

Mr. & Mrs. Freeze.  Nice that Nora came out of the cryo tank and joined him in his life of crime.

Go, Speed Racer!

Random characters, including Marceline the Vampire Queen, Lock, Stock & Barrel, Inspector Gadget, Mr. Hat and Carmen Sandiego.

The entire periodic table was represented, as seen here.

Sleestaks!  SSSsssssSSssssssSSSSSssssssssssss ...

AMC was on the ball with their anti-DishTV campaign.  The faux campaign character was staggering through the parade and meeting people all day long.

My son as Finn the Human, poses with Lady Rainicorn at the Cartoon Network store in the CNN Center.

He also managed to pose with a couple of Fiona's.  Here's one.

Here's another.  There were more but we didn't always get pictures.  And, for some reason, he didn't want his picture taken with one particularly badass (and hot) looking Marceline.

We did other stuff, too.

He met Adam West.  We've been watching the original series and he got a big kick out of that.

I saw Gillian Anderson.

She was totally making eyes at me.

We also met (and got an autograph from) Katee Sackhoff.  So pretty.  I had her convinced for half-a-sec that my son knew her as Bitch Pudding.

My favorite autograph is still this one from the Shat back in '09:

The Star Trek: TNG panel with Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn and LeVar Burton was a riot, the Saturday Galactica panel with an unscheduled Aaron Douglas filling in for Katee was hilarious, the big Lord of the Rings/Hobbit panel was funny ... Oh, and the Masquerade.  I nearly forgot.

This to-scale Totoro captured hearts and an award.

So did this cool pair of dinosaur skeletons.  Seems to have a Tyrannosaur skull, but with three-fingered forearm claws and a raptor toe claw ... I'm a dork.  I know it.

Stuff-wise, my son got a purring Tribble and an Adventure Time map, my wife got some jewelry and I got a signed Batman print from Neal Adams.

I realized after all was said and done that I missed something.  No, not a thing that was there and I missed but something that just plain wasn't there.  I knew going in it wouldn't be there but I didn't expect it to dampen my enjoyment as much as it did.  What was it?

The lack of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Seriously.  This was our fifth trip to Atlanta for Dragon*Con and for every other trip, there was some contingent of MST3K vets there to talk about the show, present some Cinematic Titanic or Rifftrax stuff and sign things.  In a day or two, I'll post the thing that really made me appreciate their coming.

In the meantime, Dragon*Con 2012.  It was fun.

Killing Time: Annotated MST3K

I've been a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 since the mid-'90s ... and we didn't even have Comedy Central on our cable.

My dad was a television repairman.  Doesn't get much work now, as you can imagine.  He traveled to some workshop in a different area that had a different cable system and while he was working on a set, he saw "a show with a guy and some robot puppets watching Amazing Colossal Man."  The riff on the giant syringe (by Tom Servo, I believe: "Where's the giant cottonball?") hooked him.

It was a couple of years before I managed to see an episode myself.  Staying at an aunt's house, I got to see Last of the Wild Horses.  The movie bits were OK, but it was the "Mirror, Mirror" host segments that really ensnared me.  I mean, Mike Nelson as evil Mike, Crow T. Robot singing the Star Trek fight song ("Die-die-DIE, die-die-die-diedie!"), Dr. Forrester & TV's Frank in the theater, Gypsy as Uhura, the flipping Satellite of Love ... good stuff.

Thankfully, a few episodes were available for rental and then the show moved to SciFi, which we had.  Once the Internet became dominant in the late '90s, I was able to find and procure every episode.  (I'm an anal retentive completist that way.)  I started watching one episode a week and it takes me about three years to go through the whole series.

Fast forward a bit and I discovered some really cool sites with info about the show, the movies they watched and more.  Satellite News is a great site for news about the show and what all of the Best Brains are doing these days and Annotated MST is a fun site to use to follow along as you're watching the show in case you hear a riff that gives you the Linda Ronstadt treatment.**

Problem is, Annotated MST doesn't have most of the episodes done.  So, I decided to pitch in.

About a year ago, I started with the KTMA episodes (Season Zero).  I just finished Season One, too.  I'll be starting in on Season two soon.  You can see all of the episodes done here (some of the ones I've finished haven't yet been encoded and uploaded by the webmaster; takes a while, as you can imagine).

How does it work?  Well, I watch an episode of MST3K and have a Wordpad window open.  I type everything they say while they're in the theater.  It takes about an hour to transcribe twenty minutes worth of riffing.  (That's about four hours of transcribing per ep.)  As I type, if I spot something with a reference (meaning, a pop cultural, historical, scientific, etc. -- anything that may need explaining), I put an asterisk under that riff.

Once I'm done transcribing, it's time to annotate.  I go to all of the asterisked riffs and explain what's up.  My only real rule is that I don't try to explain the joke.  This takes a bit longer ... maybe six hours per episode.  Yes, I do this on days when I'm not really planning to write.

Here are a few examples from Episode 105, The Corpse Vanishes:

Why does the Earth have a shadow? –Why are there clouds in space? –Why are we watching this? –Daddy, what’s Vietnam?
Ah, the 1980s. Without the Internet, people had to buy overpriced libraries of books from the Time-Life Company cataloging stretches of history. This line, specifically, refers to a commercial for their History of the Vietnam War series. In the ad, a father and son are at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the son asks, “Daddy, what’s Vietnam?” Buy the books and find out.
...
Can’t believe those thugs are taking orders from a guy dressed in spandex. –Yeah.
Spandex (also known as Lycra or elastane) was developed by DuPont’s Joseph Shivers in 1959. The name originates with the fiber’s elasticity: “Spandex” is an anagram of “expands.”
...
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away.
Variations of this phrase originated with cards inserted in silent films of the early twentieth century. In westerns, this was often “Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...” Once audio became a common component, the phrase was still used by narrators for films, radio, and television shows. Most recently, it was used in the various Superfriends animated series of the late 1970s. Narrator Ted Knight or Bill Woodson would say, “Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice ...” or “Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom ...”
...
We gotta go. Carry me back to the ol’ Satellite, Joel. –Carry me, too. –No. –You’ve got legs.
“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” was written by African-American minstrel James Bland in 1878 and is about a former slave who struggles in the post-Civil War economy. It was Virginia’s state song until 1997, when it was retired because the lyrics were deemed offensive (well, they do include the word “darkie,” after all).

And here's a bit of trivia: what film, book or TV show is the single most referenced on MST3K?  Highlight below to find out:

The 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

"Why in the name of Zeus would you want to do this?"

Well, I've seen every episode a minimum of four times now.  And there are still references I miss.  I don't like that (see? "anal retentive").  Doing this helps me catch every single joke they throw out there.  I'm getting humor now that I never really caught before.  In the future when I rewatch these shows, I'll remember the annotations and appreciate what it means.

There you go.  If you want to watch old eps of MST3K and you miss some of the references, go to Annotated MST.  It'll help.


** You know, "Blue Bayou."