MST3K: Evolutions

No, it's not the new movie project. This is a quick analysis of the evolution of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and how the riffing of bad movies changed from plain comments to lists of references and involvement in the movies.

I now have the (actual first season) KTMA original season and the official Comedy Channel first season of the show, so compared to the final seasons on the Sci-Fi Channel I have full knowledge of the various stages of the show. First allow me to run over the list of characters and actors who played them on the show for reference. For the original season, Joel was the human, with his own created robots Servo, Crow, and Gypsy. (of course, Cambot was there from the beginning as well...but is the actual camera so there is no need to involve it.) Voicing Crow was (my personal favorite) Trace Beaulieu. Tom Servo was voiced by the young Josh Weinstein, and Joel Hodgson was of course the experimentee. After 2 seasons, Kevin Murphy (finally) replaced Josh as the voice of Servo, and during season 5 Mike Nelson took over as host of the show while Joel was jettisoned back home to earth. And finally when the Sci-Fi series of seasons began, Trace's Crow was replaced with the more ever-so-sarcastic Bill Corbett. And Servo, Crow and Mike dwelled in our hearts until Sci-Fi turned evil and gave them the boot.

The show first aired on a Minneapolis station—KTMA—and was extremely low budget. The host segments felt completely unreheasrsed and the riffing of the movies seemed almost totally improvised on the spot. It seems as though they maybe watched the movie one time before actually taping the riffing scenes. In fact, on some episodes the riffing was so sparse you couldn't help but watch the movie. On some episodes, some of the cast (mostly Crow) wouldn't even be there and once Joel riffed a movie all by himself. But still, if we didn't have this KTMA season, there would be nothing else to write right now.

As we moved to the official first season, aired on The Comedy Channel (Comedy Central's forefather, maybe?) We still had Joel, Trace as Crow, and Josh as Servo. However, Mike Nelson had been hired as writer (though not promoted to Head Writer yet), and the improvements in riffing was noticeable. However, it is my belief that the real downfall of this season was indeed Josh Weinstein. I'm so sorry Josh, I know that you would leave the show and go on to do great things (Like have a hand in Freaks & Geeks coming to life) but I really didn't enjoy your Servo. To me, Kevin Murphy would prove to be the best Servo. [as a side note, Servo's voice in the KTMA season began as a squeaky Kermit the Frog type voice, then Joel gave him a puberty upgrade and he got a Commercial Announcer voice. See episode #K06] Once Kevin took over, he would become the one actor to stay on the show the longest, and would help improve the comedy.

As Michael J. Nelson became head writer, and more writers were brought in to work on the show, it fast became a powerhouse of non-stop jokes and riffing. However, with more intelligent writing, the riffing became smarter, and a majority of jokes dealt with references that would make the most proficient expert of Pop Culture blush.

The major difference between the first riffings and later seasons is that in the beginning they would point out 'obvious' things, and just talk over the movie. Later, with the 'smart' writing, it would become references and making jokes without 'making jokes.' Basically, if you weren't aware of pop culture within the past 30 years, you wouldn't get the joke. But then again fart jokes would always be funny.

Then, during season 5 we had to bid farewell to Joel, yet warmly welcome Mike Nelson. Now the show had it's perfect cast and could do no wrong. Everything remained the same all through season 7 and the feature film. Then, season 8 saw light on the Sci-Fi Channel with a 'new' Crow—Bill Corbett. Bill's nasal Crow didn't do goofy voices and had more of a dry I-really-don't-like-the-world sarcasm tone. But, teamed with Mike and Kevin, he still worked. And besides, that's the only Crow I knew for a long while, so I accepted it. (I started watching during the Sci-Fi years)

So in 1989 in Minneapolis, if you were watching TV late one Saturday and saw 3 things 'watching' a movie and talking, you would think it a novelty and love it. Fast forward 10 years, and you would see the same on a basic cable network, only now smarter and unapologetic, you would ummm still love it.