The creators, Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 gave a talk at MIT on Saturday the 17th. I took it as an opportunity to go do something unique and convinced my friend Mary to come along. We started early, watching an episode she had on dvd to get in the mood and then headed down to see the talk. It was in 26-100, the same lecture hall in which many of the ROFLCon events took place. The hosts/moderators opened with a montage of their favorite MST3k clips. It was hilarious. The unexpected part is that it was hilarious even though it was entirely out of context, which I previously thought necessary for that kind of humor. Perhaps they slipped just enough context in under my nose to make the clips work.
There were some other interesting clips, mostly from before they made it big, on to comedy central. This included the first few minutes of the pilot, which they used to sell the local station in Minneapolis on the show. That is the station they were on before being on cable . They also showed the entirety of the “best of” clip reel from the 22 episodes they made there, which was used to sell comedy central on the show. I certainly learned a lot about the history of MST3k, of which I was previously not at all aware.
The creators, stand up comics by training, took every opportunity to make a joke, which made for a fun evening. After the talk we came back and watched another episode, which I think made for just enough MST3K for one night. I also learned that they have a new similar project called Cinematic Titanic, which is straight to dvd, includes the full original cast, and also includes a live tour. They will be at my favorite, the Somerville Theater on February 20th and 21st. Mary and I are totally going!
