Otherwise known as MST3K, it first began as a local show on KTMA-TV back in 1988. It finally became a big thing when it debuted on Comedy Central in 1989 and I believe it eventually moved over to the Sci-Fi network, but I'm not 100% sure on that one. The show as originally created by Mike Nelson who was actually not the original star of the show, but did end up becoming the human face of MST3K. The idea of the show was about a man (originally Joel Hodgson) who was forced into space and had to live aboard the Satellite of Love with robot companions. Down on Earth an evil mad scientist (Dr. Forrester) would send awful movies to Joel and his crew to sit and suffer through. These were meant as experiments and were supposed to break Joel but that was never the case.
The core of MST3K was the movies. Joel (later it would be Mike) would sit in the theater with his robot pals Crow and Tom Servo (a gumball machine with a mouth and arms) and watch these B movies that were just plain terrible. The three pals would rip the movie apart with their zany, witty comments. They would literally talk almost the entire time and pretend to be characters in the movie saying ridiculous and hilarious things. This was a great show for friends who like to watch flicks and talk through them mouthing over the actors. MST3K was arguably one of the funnier shows to ever grace our TV sets. It's a classic.
The final episode aired in 1999 with Mike and his robot friends finally being sent back to earth. And what was the first thing they did? Sat down on the couch to watch a movie. The movie they watched was "The Crawling Eye" which actually the very first movie they riffed on when the show debuted on Comedy Central. In 1996 they took their TV gig to the big screen with a theatrically released film. It was all the same concept just on a larger screen. This time they spoofed the movie "This Island Earth" and it was a GREAT movie. Well...the MST part was...not the movie they ripped apart.
When it ended in 1999 this young lad (I was about 15 or so) was very upset. I was really sad to see these guys go. Years later the gang would resurface! Mike Nelson and his vocal counterparts Trace Beaulieu and Kevin Murphy started a website called Rifftrax (www.rifftrax.com). On there you can download TONS of audio tracks where they spoof a bunch of popular well know movies such as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight, the list goes on. They even did ones on the first episodes of "Lost" and "Heroes". You can even find riffs of classic movies like "Halloween" and "Night of the Living Dead". How it works is, you download the audio clip and you have to own the movie, or at least be able to watch the movie because Rifftrax does not provide the actual video. The audio link will prompt you when to pause the audio clip and wait for a moment in the movie to start the track again. This should sync you up with the movie. Throughout the film, you will hear a robotic voice come on a say a line from the movie at the exact same time to know your on the same page. It's not easy to get it perfect which is why they have their own Rifftrax player. Just pop your movie into your computers DVD player and it will automatically sync the movie.They have expanded a lot recently. They now have featured Rifftrax guys and gals, people like you and me who submit their work and you can download theirs. They have tons of short films you can watch directly, it's awesome! I'm so happy they are back and better than ever! If you feel nostalgic, you can watch a bunch of the classic episodes of MST3k on the Netflix Instant Queue, or you can rent the DVD's directly from them.
At any rate, if you have never been exposed to Mystery Science Theater 3000...you should really check it out! Because it is laugh out loud hilarious!
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