Mystery Science Theater 3000 Hits Hulu: Which Episodes Do You Demand?
Recent Saw sequels and Diane Keaton projects validate that film mockery is necessary to our lives. A real shame, because the practice was mastered, patented, and cemented in time on the finest cult TV show of the 1990s, Mystery Science Theater 3000. Beginning as Twin Cities public access programming in 1988 before expanding to The Comedy Channel (which became Comedy Central) and ending its run on Sci Fi, MST3K followed a space-traveling adventurer -- first creator Joel Hodgson, then Michael Nelson starting in '93 -- who was forced to watch terrible movies with his snappy robot pals. The payoff for viewers included 90 minutes of real cinematic trash and the hostages' sarcastic film commentary. Now that five fabulous episodes have appeared on Hulu (including the infamous jet-fighter doozy The Starmaster), let's start wishing for our favorite celebrity-laden episodes to appear. Related: Why, Raul Julia, why?
While Ernest Borgnine's perplexing '80s film Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders, Michael Landon's classic I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and an insane Mamie Van Doren hitchhikers-forced-into-labor film called Untamed Youth also rank as favorites, the greatest celebrity-fronted film trash must be Raul Julia's 1983 TV movie Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.
Maybe you caught the cool bank pun in the title. That doesn't compare to the movie's excellence, which includes sets inspired by IBM computer monitors and techie-jargon-based humor that really transcends time, space, and Julia's apparent agony. Also: This film was partially funded by a New York PBS affiliate, so Viewers Like You actually paid for this masterpiece. Go on, get your money's worth.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 [Hulu]
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
True purists stick with Joel and the real Crow. Everybody knows that.
I never thought either Joel or Mike was better. But the real Crow is another story; I concur.
Almost all the episodes are available on other streaming websites but Hulu has that whole HD thing going for it. With MST3K there are movies that are painfully bad (Manos: Hands of Fate) and movies that are so bad they're good (Village of the Giants). The riffing is always funny. If you want to see live riffing check out Cinematic Titanic. Joel & Company were at Largo in October, but will probably be back sometime soon. Hilarious as always.
Son of a bitch. I Was gonna do that Christmas shopping thing today. Now I'm gonna be watching this all day. Thanks a lot, Hulu jerks.
It may not be the same without the unironic promos for SciFi channel films that were nearly as poor in quality as what Mike and The 'Bots were shredding on the show. Welcome nonetheless.
You are smart. Welcome.
Mom, my nuts?
...the first Darrin was always my favorite...
I truly love films I could not really live without...
[...] Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXV (Shout Factory; DVD [...]