Monday, January 14, 2008

The New "Original" MST3K

Two summers ago I posted about RiffTrax, a project wherein the writers/stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Mike "Mike" Nelson, Kevin "Tom Servo" Murphy, and Bill "Crow T. Robot" Corbett) were recording and selling MP3s of their snarky commentary to play in sync with Hollywood blockbusters and classic turkeys. They also occasionally perform live (e.g. this week at the Castro).

Now the original writer/star of MST3K (Joel Hodgson) has assembled several of the other "original" writers/stars to create their own retread of the brand, here called Cinematic Titanic. This project retains MST3K's emphasis on colossally bad (and inexpensively rights-managed) movies, and have released their first film, The Oozing Skull, as a DVD.

Hodgson does have Trace Beaulieu (the "original" Crow T. Robot/Dr. Forrester) and Frank Conniff (TV's Frank) on board, but Mary Jo Pehl did most of her work during the Nelson era (and has appeared on at least one RiffTrax project). And the "original" Tom Servo, Josh Weinstein (also participating), had quit before the shows appeared on Comedy Central, so the only Tom Servo I know is Kevin Murphy (on the RiffTrax team).

Keeping up with this is starting to feel like following The Temptations.

No comments: