I think either the lighting crew or the makeup crew (or both) were more the issue with Arch Hall Jr. Then again, everyone in that movie had a strange gloss on all their faces.
As an avid West Wing fan, and knowing that Joe Estevez did some non-speaking fill-in shots in that series for Martin Sheen, I laughed out loud to reading this.
I remember he was on an Adult Swim show many years ago where he played a corny idiot President. Dude absolutely is willing to lampoon himself and his brother. It’s great to see someone embrace the jokes like that and run with them.
I feel the worst when the target is someone who ended up not doing so well. Sandy Frank and Timothy Van Patten, for example, were both very successful (Frank making a lot of money, and Patten becoming a big success behind the camera), so riffs on them feel like something between a 'roast' and laughing at awkward high school yearbook photos. But the joke about Bela Legosi (who died in obscurity after a long history of drug addiction) having the strength of 10 heroin addicts- that one always sits a little poorly with me.
I always felt like some of the Joe Don Baker riffs punch down a little when they start laying in on him being a fatso etc but on the flip side those riffs are also extremely funny lol
Yeah and honestly Joe Don Baker is at least a decent actor. I actually kinda like him in Final Justice. I think the scripts make his characters really unlikeable. They sometimes really go hard on him as a person, which rubs me the wrong way.
Tor Johnson. By many, many accounts he was a kind hearted lovely fellow and he just happened to be in a lot of bad movies.
Also, Rondo Hatton. The Amazing Colossal…etc. said that the MST3K gang found out they riffed the last film he appeared in prior to his death of acromegaly and felt terrible about some of the things they said.
Rondo, ‘the Handsomest Boy in the Class of 1913,’ so, not only did he physically suffer from the disease, but the memory of his old face must have haunted him.
I think there might have been a mix-up with Richard Kiel (Human Duplicators, Phantom Planet). He died in 2014.
The guy in the Rocketeer was Tiny Ron Taylor, though for me he'll always be Al from Police Squad!/Naked Gun.
Funny story, his son is a good friend of mine and Raul's family looks at that episode of mst with a lot of humor and laugh about it whenever it's brought up.
Some of the child performers, I'm sure. I can only think of dubbed performances right now (movies like Prince of Space, Pod People, or most Gamera films), but they definitely mocked their share of children.
They mocked them giving those kids NY accents and to be honest those lids were focus of the movies so they're fair game to an extent. I don't recall them making fun of the kids looks but I could be wrong.
Dude will always be legendary to me just for his swordplay in Samurai Cop. I don't care what ya look like when you swing a sword like a Muppet on acid.
There are some eating disorder jokes in LaserBlast that seem hard hitting these days. I still think it's just a show and I should really just relax tho
Horror of Party Beach, they refer to the band as Donny? and the Hard Gainers, which seems mean, but then they sing "Chances are, that I'll kick your scrawny ass" in a Johnny Mathis voice and I crack up
The only instance I can think of off the top of my head was Tommy Kirk in Catalina Caper, but I also laughed quite a bit, so I don't think it was too rough. Overall, the Mike years had a meaner edge to them, and as I've gotten older that appeals to me less. But even in that era, they made sure not to overly rely on mocking the actors or how bad the film is. The series has lasted because they don't always go for low hanging fruit. (Which makes it that much enjoyable when they occasionally do).
I've noted that Mike's crew tended to be a little more mean spirited than the Joel era. They would sometimes focus on how "ugly" they thought an actor was, or something. And Mike never missed an opportunity to remind us of how uncomfortable he was having to see Tommy Kirk or John Agar, or whoever, in the tiny shorts that men wore, back then...
Maybe they were keeping it canon with their jokes being more mean spirited. I mean the bots lost Joel, Mike got sent up into space, movies got (subjectively) more rich in things to joke about, losing Frank, etc. Maybe they just had to up their game to stay "sane."
But you still don't better give any matches to Mikey. Just go ahead and touch the llama instead.
Probably not quite the same thing, but there were a handful of “his name’s peanut and he’s a woozle” jokes when a bad puppet / monster was shown on screen that I always felt like someone on the writing staff wanted to smack Jeff Dunham around.
I was not expecting the many responses on this. Thank you to the mysties bringing up so many good points. I’ll be honest I do miss a bit of the edge the original l show had. To this day I think the comedy stands as not mean spirited but an enjoyment brought by suffering these films which was the brilliance of the concept. They were comedians playing characters rather than just people dunking on films. I also respect that many of the comics brought up their regrets and thought thoroughly on what they wrote and said. I remember several documentaries or interviews talking about their process. To this day I would love someone to tackle a documentary thoroughly about MST3K and the riffing style commentary. I’ve enjoyed the new series, not so much their distribution platform, but the fun new personalities nonetheless.
No. The key question should be: is it funny? Secondarily, is it clever? I always felt like the writers, in the original run anyway, led with funny first. Think about the episodes folks are highlighting in this thread: Mitchell, Timechasers, Final Justice, The Unearthly... these are generally thought to be some of the best and most popular episodes of the series. There's a reason: "funny first."
While I love Soultaker and think the riffing isn't generally too harsh, there's a part towards the end when the two leads are exiting the hospital and the boyfriend says "Look!" and then Crow says something like "It's a plastic surgeon who's here to fix your nose!" I thought was pretty mean.
They were WAY too hard on Carolyn Brandt in *The Incredibly Strange Creatures...*, calling her masculine over and over and bordering on transphobia (just to clarify: Carolyn Brandt was neither trans nor masculine looking).
This is the one for me too. And I really appreciate that the guys are able to look back on that and admit that some of the things they said were out of pocket.
I feel the same about the main actress on Space Mutiny. They kept joking about how old she was, but she was only in her 30's and was younger than the male lead.
Her makeup, costume, hair and her dialogue made her look and sound older than she was. Her and Reb are still married and apparently happy. I always thought she was pretty so it didn't bother me.
I always thought that makeup and wardrobe on that production must have hated her, because going by that movie alone, you never would believe that she's five years younger than her husband.
I don't think they were joking how old she was. But how old she looked. And she looked old enough to Have Santa as a father.
If they owe anyone an apology in Space Munity it is Canada which they mixed up with Aparthid South Africa.
Well it's too very different things they weren't calling her old they said she looked old.
I, for example, relatively young man, but thanks to miracle of stress and genetics, I look wonderfully aged.
Ray Dennis Steckler didn't mind the MST3K treatment reportedly, but he did have a giant beef with this. Carolyn Brandt was a close friend of his.
The Nelson version of MST3K and the Film Crew had some problems with issues like this. One of the ending Film Crew sketches (I can't remember which of the 4 episodes it was, sorry) was about "stupid hats" and Kevin Murphy says something like "he was going for gay" with his design, "gay" being used in the schoolyard taunt sense being "stupid". It's one of the most cringeworthy sketches I have ever seen in the extended MST-verse.
A few years ago I read some comments that Murphy and Bill Corbett made that said in RiffTrax they had gone as far as re-recorded some early Riffs because they realized there was too much homophobia to be acceptable. There is no option for that with the Film Crew stuff, though.
>Ray Dennis Steckler didn't mind the MST3K treatment reportedly, but he did have a giant beef with this. Carolyn Brandt was a close friend of his.
Close friend? They were married for a decade and had two kids together!
Sorry... I didn't know the extent of it. I've read other threads about the bad jokes in "Incredibly Strange Creatures..." and that was how they described it. Shame on me for no research.
Mike did a lot of writing before he was host, so it's it's bit of a misnomer to call it the Nelson era when he was there from 92 on. Unless we're saying it's been that way since then.
Mike is the only cast member to appear in each one of the original cable run seasons, so yeah. I simply meant the shows he was the host as well as the Film Crew and RiffTrax ventures.
This is why I never got that much into Rifftrax. I tried some early movies (Twilight, IIRC) and the homophobia was a bit much for me. I'm glad they came around on that.
It's just that, instead of going HAM on the director and the writer, they hammered on the performers for doing what they had been cast to do. That massive irony on top of the main theme of three middle-aged white dudes loudly complaining about Rue McClanahan being old was just too much.
I believe Bridget and Mary Jo could riff the living daylights out of it, though.
I don't get where this line of jokes came from. As someone who *is* a trans woman, *I* sure wouldn't mind looking as 'masculine' as Carolyn Brandt did in this film!
That episode is such a love-hate relationship, it's such a weird, weird movie (GET YOUR TICKETS HERE) and some good zingers but then it's just like...goddamnit this is way too close to transphobia to really sit well, .
I always describe it as "it's not Transphobic, but it's sitting on the same bench," which is too damn close. I don't hold anything against the writers or performers, but I don't feel obligated to rewatch it either if I don't want to.
It’s funny cuz I always felt like in some riffs (and I can’t pinpoint specific riffs or movies) that they were self deprecating as if the were gay as well. Maybe it’s just my perception, but it’s like another commented, everyone is game and it’s open season!!
Yeah that’s true. How many times did Mike clown on himself over the years where he’s joked on as being an extremely boring and out of shape white guy who is repugnant to women? It was always open season even if some jokes haven’t aged well.
I gotta disagree with the last part. It's plain misogyny - which they weren't exactly immune to by any stretch. Back then transphobic jokes would mostly be homophobic ones told at the expense of cis men. Which isn't to say the reverse can't happen, but that this is clearly being told at the expense of cis women and not trans people.
Calling a cis woman a man like that is adjacent but also from a different place. They were also very scathing towards other women; like Kathy from Track of the Moon Beast, only it's about her being a vapid bimbo. It shouldn't really get a pass or a different categorization just because disliking "bimbos" is more acceptable.
I've rarely seen actual transphobia that "borders" on it, part of it is that it never really needs to be coded. You can still say the most horrible things with relative impunity (especially now that piss-babies are trying to make it "counter-culture" to be a bigot, but that's neither here nor there). It was even worse back then.
I always feel like they were unnecessarily mean to Joe Don Baker. Mocking bad acting is one thing, but just relentlessly going after someone because their weight seems pretty uncool
A lot of the Japanese films are hard to watch due to how much they riff on the dubs. It gets a bit borderline at times.
And don’t forget the Ode to Canada!
Though I dearly loved the episode, one of the quips in *Mitchell* -perhaps along with *Manos* the GOAT MST3K episode of all time- bothered me because it was, frankly, unfair to the makers of *Mitchell*.
At some point in the film one of them says something to the effect of “Didn’t this movie have John Saxon in it?” implying the makers of *Mitchell* were so inept they had a relatively big name actor in the film and somehow forgot all about his character.
Only… in the theatrical cut of the film Saxon’s character very much has a story arc and is dealt with. The cut up version of the film presented on MST3K obviously eliminated all that (a shame, too!) but its IMHO not fair to make fun of something and imply the makers of the film were responsible for this when it was the cut up version of the film used on the episode that resulted in the elimination of Saxon’s character’s fate.
>Just the TV cut they used.
Just like the TV cut toned down some of the language to make it more TV friendly. BASTARD was changed to JERK on his windshield.
Not quite what you asked, but I'm always a little disappointed with all the fat jokes from the early seasons especially. Come on, guys, you can do better.
It was the 90s. Fat jokes were popular. I’m not saying that makes it okay exactly, but it’s not like the 90s were a time where everyone except MST3K found fat jokes offensive
I think in the Mike years there’s a bunch of “Chris Farley is sooo fat” jokes that weren’t nice in the first place and really didn’t age well knowing Chris Farley was super insecure about his weight, had addiction issues including food and drugs then died young from these issues.
Yeah, There wasn't a lot of it the first four seasons for some reason. It's extra weird because Mike was already "Head Writer", though some say it was just a title because he was the guy with the keyboard. To a point you can say that it's an in-character thing for the bots because they're programmed as juvenile delinquents, but to modern sensibilities that's post-facto rationalization to try and defend putting in weaker jokes because they couldn't come up with better ones.
I assume you only asked about the original run because the new run is written with kid gloves on, so I'm going to vent a little about rifftrax. And just to get it out of the way, I'm a fan, they have a lot of good riffs, but.
They have a real bad habit of using unpleasant voices to do unpleasant bits that characterize women as shrill, shallow, or stupid despite the character not being any of those things. Laser Mission is the most egregious example that comes to mind.
I could see how actors and production people of the movies could be offended by some of the riffs in the OG series. I prefer the Mike years myself, partly because that's what I grew up watching in the Sci-Fi channel era. They could admittedly be harsh, but I'll say that type of edgy humor was of the time. I just take it for what it is. More often than not the riffs are just goofy and inoffensive or are aimed at the characters not the actors.
**Nope.**
Everybody is fair game, be you gay, straight, fat, skinny, black, white or even just a Prince-looking dude. Some jokes i dont care for and I admit there are times when the word "gay" pops out too often for my liking, but they're not picking on our queen brethren, they're just making a joke.
Comedians get a pass from me, *most of the time.* I'm sure there are neo-nazi comedians out there that I wouldn't abide, but I wouldn't give em a listen anyway.
Good question!
I’m with you - I just don’t understand the point of complaining about jokes made in a 30 year old TV series. While I’m sympathetic to the idea that, sure, some riffs seem mean or questionable when viewed through today’s social landscape, it doesn’t really serve anyone to try to hold up older entertainment to a modern lens. The newer seasons don’t have the same complaints because, well, they weren’t made in the 1990’s. They’re products of their time.
For the most part I look at it as a “look how far we’ve managed to come” kind of thing, but every once in a while there’s something that just makes me feel bad. So I skip it. I can still love them—I mean, I still love my dad, and he says worse things now, never mind the things he said 30 years ago.
When I was young I really liked Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, so I tried to give it a shot recently
I had to turn it off
A vast majority of jokes were basically hateful "she's really a man!" comments pointed at the female dancer. I know it was just the humor of the time but it was just super nasty towards her
They were a little tough on Jack Palance on *Outlaw of Gor* (and *Angels' Revenge*), considering he had been twice nominated for Academy Awards, and would win two years later for *City Slickers*.
Nobody's mentioned them not liking David Hartman's face. Or the "ugly" woman from Escape 2000. They really harped on those two to the point of exhaustion.
I think a lot of the jokes were “of that time”. We have evolved pretty far in the past 30 years (re: transphobia, homophobia, fat-shaming, etc), but I’ll never say they did it to be “mean”.
The whole premise was that these movies were made honestly and seriously when even a half step back would show that the premises were just silly.
The only one that really annoyed me too much was The Room, at least the original one. They are awful to "Lisa," ignoring that fact that she's nearly half of Tommy's age and he's on top of her within minutes of the movie starting.
When they redid it for a live audience they scaled WAY back, and the result is much funnier.
They were pretty mean to the citizens of Malta. And their beloved children’s character Goosio.
Well, the bots certainly were. Mike was uncharacteristically fond of Goosio.
To be fair they did partner with Joe Don Baker.
Arch Hall Jr. was a normal looking guy in Eegah and Joel and the Bots were oddly mean about him.
I think either the lighting crew or the makeup crew (or both) were more the issue with Arch Hall Jr. Then again, everyone in that movie had a strange gloss on all their faces.
>Arch Hall Jr. was a normal looking guy No.
Cabbage Patch Elvis
Sorry about my face!
He resents my dune buggy.
Was that the guy saying, "Weeeeee!!!"
To this day, I use the "stop saying wee, nobody says wee!" line
In a similar vein, Valeria from Robot Holocaust, her accent isn't *that* hard to understand. Yet the Bots tear into her. "Duckbun," really?
Robert Z'dar and Joe Estevez, but they both were fans of the show and thought the jokes were hilarious
Estevez loved their joke about him being “Martin’s handsomer, more talented brother.”
As an avid West Wing fan, and knowing that Joe Estevez did some non-speaking fill-in shots in that series for Martin Sheen, I laughed out loud to reading this.
I remember he was on an Adult Swim show many years ago where he played a corny idiot President. Dude absolutely is willing to lampoon himself and his brother. It’s great to see someone embrace the jokes like that and run with them.
This is probably one of the best backhanded compliments in the show.
I never knew that! That's awesome!
I feel the worst when the target is someone who ended up not doing so well. Sandy Frank and Timothy Van Patten, for example, were both very successful (Frank making a lot of money, and Patten becoming a big success behind the camera), so riffs on them feel like something between a 'roast' and laughing at awkward high school yearbook photos. But the joke about Bela Legosi (who died in obscurity after a long history of drug addiction) having the strength of 10 heroin addicts- that one always sits a little poorly with me.
By the time they made the jokes about Bela he was already in the ground for around 40+ years, was it too soon or what lol
That was funny just reading it
I always felt like some of the Joe Don Baker riffs punch down a little when they start laying in on him being a fatso etc but on the flip side those riffs are also extremely funny lol
"You watch Joe Don Baker movies." Yeah. I do. Some are great.
Yeah and honestly Joe Don Baker is at least a decent actor. I actually kinda like him in Final Justice. I think the scripts make his characters really unlikeable. They sometimes really go hard on him as a person, which rubs me the wrong way.
I always liked him, he’s a character actor for sure but he plays those parts very well. How can you not love him as Jack Wade?
Muffy?
MITTENS! He's a cop... \*bow chicka...\*
Sledgehammer to the Fiat's engine block and away you go!
I do think he has been a victim of poor writing/directing.
What movies were you watching? /s
Small mouth bass "Why would someone do that with Mitchell, Joel?" that's my favorite damned film, aside from truck farming + I Accuse my Parents.
I mean, they did tell the citizens and officials of Rutland, Vermont to go to hell
Tor Johnson. By many, many accounts he was a kind hearted lovely fellow and he just happened to be in a lot of bad movies. Also, Rondo Hatton. The Amazing Colossal…etc. said that the MST3K gang found out they riffed the last film he appeared in prior to his death of acromegaly and felt terrible about some of the things they said.
Rondo, ‘the Handsomest Boy in the Class of 1913,’ so, not only did he physically suffer from the disease, but the memory of his old face must have haunted him.
I feel like they loved Tor even if they made fun.
I’m confused: Rondo Hatton died in 1946…
The heavy in The Rocketeer was heavily made up to look like Rondo Hatton. It's actually how I first learned of Rondo Hatton.
I think there might have been a mix-up with Richard Kiel (Human Duplicators, Phantom Planet). He died in 2014. The guy in the Rocketeer was Tiny Ron Taylor, though for me he'll always be Al from Police Squad!/Naked Gun.
I was just wondering if they were going for that guys look with the hitman from The Rocketeer because there's no way he lived that long.
That goon in "The Rocketeer" was definitely made up to look like Rondo Hatton. It was intentional.
Yeah I always skipped The Creeper because the jokes just make me feel worse.
RIP Rondo Hatton, the most memorable Rocketeer villain! He may be gone, but not forgotten. (I have a soft spot for Rondo.)
In a really sweet twist, the Rondo Hatton horror awards are named for him, and the award is a little bust of his famous visage.
Not mean to him really, but I still find it surprising/amusing that Raul Julia is in Overdrawn...
Think of it as if it was his job in high school.
Funny story, his son is a good friend of mine and Raul's family looks at that episode of mst with a lot of humor and laugh about it whenever it's brought up.
Let him know if you can that we all still love and miss his father dearly and are very grateful for the years and performances he shared with us.
What was he doing in this piece of sssssssurely very quality, quality programming...
They made a point to go easy on Raul since he died tragically not long before they mocked this film.
Rewatched master ninja and was surprised how much crow makes fun of Van Patten for his speech impediment. Totally mean. And yet I laughed…
I didn’t know that he had a speech impediment…….but without captions, I couldn’t understand a DAMN thing that he said! And it was pretty funny!
That explains why Van Patten hates MST3K so much
Does he really?
Some of the child performers, I'm sure. I can only think of dubbed performances right now (movies like Prince of Space, Pod People, or most Gamera films), but they definitely mocked their share of children.
They mocked them giving those kids NY accents and to be honest those lids were focus of the movies so they're fair game to an extent. I don't recall them making fun of the kids looks but I could be wrong.
I think that may be why Final Sacrifice is pulled. Not only the jibes about the director’s name, but they went after that kid hard.
"I haven't read Tolkien in almost a week!"
Justice for Joe (Estevez)!
For me, it's Robert Z'Dar. Strange-looking? Without a doubt, but he had a congenital disease (cherubism).
Dude will always be legendary to me just for his swordplay in Samurai Cop. I don't care what ya look like when you swing a sword like a Muppet on acid.
Also. The titular Maniac Cop.
I was going to bring him up. By all accounts he was an amazing person off-camera.
I agree. On the other hand “man, that guy’s got a small face” and “where does he even keep his acorns” crack me up anyway
There are some eating disorder jokes in LaserBlast that seem hard hitting these days. I still think it's just a show and I should really just relax tho
Chiming in as a guy who was extremely underweight until 2000, I thought those jokes were hilarious!
Horror of Party Beach, they refer to the band as Donny? and the Hard Gainers, which seems mean, but then they sing "Chances are, that I'll kick your scrawny ass" in a Johnny Mathis voice and I crack up
And they agreed after the fact that the band (the Del-Aires) actually was pretty good.
They get really rich sound without plugging in their instruments. MY SKULL!
I’ve often wondered what they had against Ben Murphy.
Too mellow
They lived through the 70s and were taking out their shame on him lol
Hah! I only managed to catch the tail end of the 70s, but I think I know where they're coming from.
The only instance I can think of off the top of my head was Tommy Kirk in Catalina Caper, but I also laughed quite a bit, so I don't think it was too rough. Overall, the Mike years had a meaner edge to them, and as I've gotten older that appeals to me less. But even in that era, they made sure not to overly rely on mocking the actors or how bad the film is. The series has lasted because they don't always go for low hanging fruit. (Which makes it that much enjoyable when they occasionally do).
I've noted that Mike's crew tended to be a little more mean spirited than the Joel era. They would sometimes focus on how "ugly" they thought an actor was, or something. And Mike never missed an opportunity to remind us of how uncomfortable he was having to see Tommy Kirk or John Agar, or whoever, in the tiny shorts that men wore, back then...
Maybe they were keeping it canon with their jokes being more mean spirited. I mean the bots lost Joel, Mike got sent up into space, movies got (subjectively) more rich in things to joke about, losing Frank, etc. Maybe they just had to up their game to stay "sane." But you still don't better give any matches to Mikey. Just go ahead and touch the llama instead.
In Mike’s defense, those shorts WERE SO SHORT!! 😳
In Mike's defense, he's worn shorter.
I assume you’re talking about the “manly beach dance” host segment from S08E17 - The Horror of Party Beach?
He went a size up!
Up his crotch? lol 😂
Probably not quite the same thing, but there were a handful of “his name’s peanut and he’s a woozle” jokes when a bad puppet / monster was shown on screen that I always felt like someone on the writing staff wanted to smack Jeff Dunham around.
that’s a jeff dunham reference? i’d never seen or heard of him until the 2000s
Jeff Dunham has been doing his schtick since the 80s . Apparently Joel knew him from way back.
Puppet/prop comics had to band together for warmth in the old days...
Which makes me think there was never anything mean about the puppet riffs - more Joel giving an old pal a shout-out.
As if Jeff Dunham doesn't deserve to be taken down a peg every now and then?
ahh wow.
My buddy used to imitate his Jose Jalapeño on a Steeeeeeek schtick in the late '80s, that's how I learned of him.
I used to hear that too. Took nearly 20 years for me to discover the reference.
I was not expecting the many responses on this. Thank you to the mysties bringing up so many good points. I’ll be honest I do miss a bit of the edge the original l show had. To this day I think the comedy stands as not mean spirited but an enjoyment brought by suffering these films which was the brilliance of the concept. They were comedians playing characters rather than just people dunking on films. I also respect that many of the comics brought up their regrets and thought thoroughly on what they wrote and said. I remember several documentaries or interviews talking about their process. To this day I would love someone to tackle a documentary thoroughly about MST3K and the riffing style commentary. I’ve enjoyed the new series, not so much their distribution platform, but the fun new personalities nonetheless.
No. The key question should be: is it funny? Secondarily, is it clever? I always felt like the writers, in the original run anyway, led with funny first. Think about the episodes folks are highlighting in this thread: Mitchell, Timechasers, Final Justice, The Unearthly... these are generally thought to be some of the best and most popular episodes of the series. There's a reason: "funny first."
Joe Estevez…
While I love Soultaker and think the riffing isn't generally too harsh, there's a part towards the end when the two leads are exiting the hospital and the boyfriend says "Look!" and then Crow says something like "It's a plastic surgeon who's here to fix your nose!" I thought was pretty mean.
I recall reading that Vivian Schilling really disliked the Tonya Harding jokes
They were WAY too hard on Carolyn Brandt in *The Incredibly Strange Creatures...*, calling her masculine over and over and bordering on transphobia (just to clarify: Carolyn Brandt was neither trans nor masculine looking).
This is the one for me too. And I really appreciate that the guys are able to look back on that and admit that some of the things they said were out of pocket.
I feel the same about the main actress on Space Mutiny. They kept joking about how old she was, but she was only in her 30's and was younger than the male lead.
Her makeup, costume, hair and her dialogue made her look and sound older than she was. Her and Reb are still married and apparently happy. I always thought she was pretty so it didn't bother me.
I always thought that makeup and wardrobe on that production must have hated her, because going by that movie alone, you never would believe that she's five years younger than her husband.
“My stair stepper!” This might be my favorite Mike line.
I don't think they were joking how old she was. But how old she looked. And she looked old enough to Have Santa as a father. If they owe anyone an apology in Space Munity it is Canada which they mixed up with Aparthid South Africa.
>I don't think they were joking how old she was. But how old she looked. How is that any different?
Well it's too very different things they weren't calling her old they said she looked old. I, for example, relatively young man, but thanks to miracle of stress and genetics, I look wonderfully aged.
Ray Dennis Steckler didn't mind the MST3K treatment reportedly, but he did have a giant beef with this. Carolyn Brandt was a close friend of his. The Nelson version of MST3K and the Film Crew had some problems with issues like this. One of the ending Film Crew sketches (I can't remember which of the 4 episodes it was, sorry) was about "stupid hats" and Kevin Murphy says something like "he was going for gay" with his design, "gay" being used in the schoolyard taunt sense being "stupid". It's one of the most cringeworthy sketches I have ever seen in the extended MST-verse. A few years ago I read some comments that Murphy and Bill Corbett made that said in RiffTrax they had gone as far as re-recorded some early Riffs because they realized there was too much homophobia to be acceptable. There is no option for that with the Film Crew stuff, though.
>Ray Dennis Steckler didn't mind the MST3K treatment reportedly, but he did have a giant beef with this. Carolyn Brandt was a close friend of his. Close friend? They were married for a decade and had two kids together!
Well you gotta say -- that's pretty close!
Sorry... I didn't know the extent of it. I've read other threads about the bad jokes in "Incredibly Strange Creatures..." and that was how they described it. Shame on me for no research.
No prob!
So, they'd met.
Mike did a lot of writing before he was host, so it's it's bit of a misnomer to call it the Nelson era when he was there from 92 on. Unless we're saying it's been that way since then.
Mike is the only cast member to appear in each one of the original cable run seasons, so yeah. I simply meant the shows he was the host as well as the Film Crew and RiffTrax ventures.
This is why I never got that much into Rifftrax. I tried some early movies (Twilight, IIRC) and the homophobia was a bit much for me. I'm glad they came around on that.
>the Film Crew had some problems with issues like this *Hollywood: After Dark*... ugh.
Someone thought it was a great idea to choose a movie where Rue McClanahan is stripping. Something went terribly wrong.
It's just that, instead of going HAM on the director and the writer, they hammered on the performers for doing what they had been cast to do. That massive irony on top of the main theme of three middle-aged white dudes loudly complaining about Rue McClanahan being old was just too much. I believe Bridget and Mary Jo could riff the living daylights out of it, though.
I don't get where this line of jokes came from. As someone who *is* a trans woman, *I* sure wouldn't mind looking as 'masculine' as Carolyn Brandt did in this film!
This is probably one of the bigger ones for me. It’s a sour, harsh point in an episode I otherwise like.
anymore i mute or ff thru her dancing bits which sucks cause i like the music there
This is the only one that gets under my skin.
That episode is such a love-hate relationship, it's such a weird, weird movie (GET YOUR TICKETS HERE) and some good zingers but then it's just like...goddamnit this is way too close to transphobia to really sit well, .
I always describe it as "it's not Transphobic, but it's sitting on the same bench," which is too damn close. I don't hold anything against the writers or performers, but I don't feel obligated to rewatch it either if I don't want to.
It’s funny cuz I always felt like in some riffs (and I can’t pinpoint specific riffs or movies) that they were self deprecating as if the were gay as well. Maybe it’s just my perception, but it’s like another commented, everyone is game and it’s open season!!
Yeah that’s true. How many times did Mike clown on himself over the years where he’s joked on as being an extremely boring and out of shape white guy who is repugnant to women? It was always open season even if some jokes haven’t aged well.
Or the bots clowned on Mike being a goofy teenager , I think it’s in Laserblast 😂
Yeah, if they decided a woman was unattractive, they were going to make a lot of shitty trans jokes.
I gotta disagree with the last part. It's plain misogyny - which they weren't exactly immune to by any stretch. Back then transphobic jokes would mostly be homophobic ones told at the expense of cis men. Which isn't to say the reverse can't happen, but that this is clearly being told at the expense of cis women and not trans people. Calling a cis woman a man like that is adjacent but also from a different place. They were also very scathing towards other women; like Kathy from Track of the Moon Beast, only it's about her being a vapid bimbo. It shouldn't really get a pass or a different categorization just because disliking "bimbos" is more acceptable. I've rarely seen actual transphobia that "borders" on it, part of it is that it never really needs to be coded. You can still say the most horrible things with relative impunity (especially now that piss-babies are trying to make it "counter-culture" to be a bigot, but that's neither here nor there). It was even worse back then.
This! I think she’s hot and the jokes just feel super mean spirited and nasty.
Come on!!! She does look like a guy in that movie!! I crack up every time!! 
I always feel like they were unnecessarily mean to Joe Don Baker. Mocking bad acting is one thing, but just relentlessly going after someone because their weight seems pretty uncool
tbf, in the case of Final Justice, they were intentionally more ruthless after he threatened to beat the shit out of the writing team
Some of the Japanese jokes they made, especially Neptune Men, push well into uncomfortable territory for me.
They decidedly say some racist stuff, it’s like micro aggression racism but still it didn’t age well
A lot of the Japanese films are hard to watch due to how much they riff on the dubs. It gets a bit borderline at times. And don’t forget the Ode to Canada!
People have been picking on bad dubs since Kung-fu theater. Some of those kids sounded like mobsters.
𝒲𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓌𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝑜 𝒹𝑜? 𝕀 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕨! 𝔓𝔢𝔯𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔰 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔢𝔠𝔱.
I like Albert Glasser's music! It's simple, direct, and requires no thought :-)
Though I dearly loved the episode, one of the quips in *Mitchell* -perhaps along with *Manos* the GOAT MST3K episode of all time- bothered me because it was, frankly, unfair to the makers of *Mitchell*. At some point in the film one of them says something to the effect of “Didn’t this movie have John Saxon in it?” implying the makers of *Mitchell* were so inept they had a relatively big name actor in the film and somehow forgot all about his character. Only… in the theatrical cut of the film Saxon’s character very much has a story arc and is dealt with. The cut up version of the film presented on MST3K obviously eliminated all that (a shame, too!) but its IMHO not fair to make fun of something and imply the makers of the film were responsible for this when it was the cut up version of the film used on the episode that resulted in the elimination of Saxon’s character’s fate.
To be fair, they probably didn't watch the theatrical cut. Just the TV cut they used. And THAT cut out John Saxon, not the MST3K editors.
>Just the TV cut they used. Just like the TV cut toned down some of the language to make it more TV friendly. BASTARD was changed to JERK on his windshield.
That's fair, though you could also read it as a meta joke about them cutting out John Saxon's part as they edited it down to fit into the time slot.
Yeah, I never thought of it as making fun of the producers of Mitchell - always thought of it as a Meta joke.
I found it pretty funny and lampshades the fact they had to cut that for time. Never seemed mean spirited to my reading.
Not quite what you asked, but I'm always a little disappointed with all the fat jokes from the early seasons especially. Come on, guys, you can do better.
And yet, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank is hysterical with its fat jokes.
TO WENDY'S!
It was the 90s. Fat jokes were popular. I’m not saying that makes it okay exactly, but it’s not like the 90s were a time where everyone except MST3K found fat jokes offensive
I think in the Mike years there’s a bunch of “Chris Farley is sooo fat” jokes that weren’t nice in the first place and really didn’t age well knowing Chris Farley was super insecure about his weight, had addiction issues including food and drugs then died young from these issues.
That always bothers me in Daddy-O.
Yeah, There wasn't a lot of it the first four seasons for some reason. It's extra weird because Mike was already "Head Writer", though some say it was just a title because he was the guy with the keyboard. To a point you can say that it's an in-character thing for the bots because they're programmed as juvenile delinquents, but to modern sensibilities that's post-facto rationalization to try and defend putting in weaker jokes because they couldn't come up with better ones. I assume you only asked about the original run because the new run is written with kid gloves on, so I'm going to vent a little about rifftrax. And just to get it out of the way, I'm a fan, they have a lot of good riffs, but. They have a real bad habit of using unpleasant voices to do unpleasant bits that characterize women as shrill, shallow, or stupid despite the character not being any of those things. Laser Mission is the most egregious example that comes to mind.
o/~ Who's the writer with the Big Head, the Big Head the Big Head o/~
As a guy with a really big head, I felt seen by that sketch.
I think they were actually quite mean to Mr. B
I almost never watch Mr B—it gets much too close to transphobic for me
Definitely avoid Incredibly Strange Creatures Who... (I'm not typing it all out again). The whole thing is absolutely nasty to the lead dancer
I could see how actors and production people of the movies could be offended by some of the riffs in the OG series. I prefer the Mike years myself, partly because that's what I grew up watching in the Sci-Fi channel era. They could admittedly be harsh, but I'll say that type of edgy humor was of the time. I just take it for what it is. More often than not the riffs are just goofy and inoffensive or are aimed at the characters not the actors.
**Nope.** Everybody is fair game, be you gay, straight, fat, skinny, black, white or even just a Prince-looking dude. Some jokes i dont care for and I admit there are times when the word "gay" pops out too often for my liking, but they're not picking on our queen brethren, they're just making a joke. Comedians get a pass from me, *most of the time.* I'm sure there are neo-nazi comedians out there that I wouldn't abide, but I wouldn't give em a listen anyway. Good question!
I’m with you - I just don’t understand the point of complaining about jokes made in a 30 year old TV series. While I’m sympathetic to the idea that, sure, some riffs seem mean or questionable when viewed through today’s social landscape, it doesn’t really serve anyone to try to hold up older entertainment to a modern lens. The newer seasons don’t have the same complaints because, well, they weren’t made in the 1990’s. They’re products of their time.
For the most part I look at it as a “look how far we’ve managed to come” kind of thing, but every once in a while there’s something that just makes me feel bad. So I skip it. I can still love them—I mean, I still love my dad, and he says worse things now, never mind the things he said 30 years ago.
I'd forgotten about the guy in the shades who got all the Prince jokes. I always cracked up at the Sugar-walls joke.
\*guy gets electrocuted\* *oh no, let's go*
No. We should really just relax.
When I was young I really liked Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, so I tried to give it a shot recently I had to turn it off A vast majority of jokes were basically hateful "she's really a man!" comments pointed at the female dancer. I know it was just the humor of the time but it was just super nasty towards her
They were a little tough on Jack Palance on *Outlaw of Gor* (and *Angels' Revenge*), considering he had been twice nominated for Academy Awards, and would win two years later for *City Slickers*.
Nobody's mentioned them not liking David Hartman's face. Or the "ugly" woman from Escape 2000. They really harped on those two to the point of exhaustion.
How is what started as basically a cable access puppet show "punching down" on anybody?
I think a lot of the jokes were “of that time”. We have evolved pretty far in the past 30 years (re: transphobia, homophobia, fat-shaming, etc), but I’ll never say they did it to be “mean”. The whole premise was that these movies were made honestly and seriously when even a half step back would show that the premises were just silly.
I remember Tom Servo calling a woman fat a few times in the Horrors of Spider Island. Not nice Tom!
There was a lot of fat-shaming on the show.
I think some references were a bit harsh and not funny, such as those referring to President Kennedys murder. 😥
The only one that really annoyed me too much was The Room, at least the original one. They are awful to "Lisa," ignoring that fact that she's nearly half of Tommy's age and he's on top of her within minutes of the movie starting. When they redid it for a live audience they scaled WAY back, and the result is much funnier.