It was a sad day in 1999 when Best Brains closed up shop and shut down the cult favourite MST3K (that’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 if you’re not into the whole brevity thing). After enduring 3 venue changes (cable access to Comedy Central to the Sci-Fi Channel) and nearly every cast member and writer appearing in front of the camera before moving on to other things, the show lasted nearly 200 episodes and 11 years. For those not familiar with this touchstone of indie American TV, the premise was that three guys would sit in a theater (projected as silhouettes) and mock (aka riff) old cheesy films that had lapsed into the public domain. It was funnier than that previous sentence makes it sounds. It’s goofy, dorky and childish, but also clever, subversive and hilarious.

The show gave me a deep seated love of both gloriously trashy 1950s and 1960s sci-fi, monster, gangster and teen angst movies but it also introduced me Mario Bava when the bots took on Danger Diabolik. Also, MST3K put Manos: Hands of Fate on the cinematic map. Furthermore, their constant unearthing or old industrial films, corporate training videos and educational films for riffing were nothing short of brilliant re-purposing of nostalgic minutiae.

Fans of the show often got into Kirk-Picard debates over who was the better ‘host’: The shows creator (droll) Joel Hodgson or the shows head writer and successor, (peppy) Mike Nelson. On a personal note, I think I preferred Joel, but Mike had some of the best shows.

Well the debate can continue, because a few years ago, Mike Nelson gathered some of the later shows writers and cast members to record MP3 tracks that could be played alongside mainstream Hollywood movies that would shred them verbally. They called it RiffTrax and have over 50 commentaries to date. Some of the film choices are quite savvy: Roadhouse, Point Break, The Wickerman (2006) and most of the big franchises like Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Jurassic Park. He has had some cherry picked celebrity riffers on hand as well, including Weird Al Yankovic, Fred Willard and Neil Patrick Harris. Yes, when Mike gets the entrepreneurial spirit, he does it with class. The catch is, in order to avoid being sued out of existence, Mike and Co. require that you provide the DVD and synchronize the audio at the beginning of watching. Out of nostalgia for MST3K, they also do some videos of old industrial/educational shorts which can be downloaded from the site.

More recently, in late 2007, Joel Hodgson and many of the very original MST3K cast members formed Cinematic Titanic where they buy the rights to old flicks, record the silhouettes in front of the screen and riff away, almost exactly the same as the original show, just without the intermediate sketches. Currently they are only shipping DVDs for about $15 a pop, but next month the website is offering direct downloads.

Just a question for the RowThee-ers out there. Did you enjoy MST3K? Have you downloaded a RiffTrax or CinemaTitanic? Would You?

This article came about from noticing an interview with Joel over at IFC.