1992-1993: 'The stupid show'

The day after my 11th birthday—October 23, 1993—is a personal red-letter date for a couple reasons. Not only did I have an enjoyable birthday outing with friends, complete with an epic session at Aladdin’s Castle, it was also when Joel Robinson escaped from the Satellite of Love, leaving Mystery Science Theater 3000.

I was crushed.

Robinson’s character, played by MST3K creator Joel Hodgson, was replaced by Mike Nelson, performed by longtime guest actor and writer Michael J. Nelson. (Creative character names, huh?) Though the series continued for about six more years, it was never the same for me after Joel left; I stopped watching new episodes of what had quickly become my favorite show.

The epic Joel vs. Mike flame war aside, MST3K is probably my all-time favorite TV show (despite the fact I wrote that I don’t have many favorites). It helped shape my sense of humor and began the sharpening of my critical skills. Though I did not discover it in either 1992 or 1993, the two-year period was when I was head-over-heels in love with the silhouetted trio enduring cheesy movies, the worst the Mads could find.

Originally produced for a local TV station in Minneapolis, the premise of MST3K focuses on Joel, who is imprisoned on the Satellite of Love by mad scientists and forced to watch bad movies. Joel creates robot friends—Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, Gypsy, and Cambot—to keep him company and wisecrack during the movies.

It’s comedy gold.

I remember the night I discovered MST3K. It was December 1991, and the family was preparing to attend the annual Cocoa and Carols holiday show presented by the university’s Old Gold Singers. (Do the Old Gold Singers still exist? It doesn’t look like it.) Stuffed in an uncomfortable “nice” sweater and pants, I was flipping through the channels while everyone else was getting ready and found the famous silhouette of characters watching a cheesy movie, probably one of the myriad Godzilla films.

I was hooked. The quick, witty humor; the pop culture references (most of which were way over my head); the mocking impersonations; and the B-movies appealed to my interests and tickled my funny bone. The show made me laugh my ass off—and still does! (Courtesy of the MST3K channel on PlutoTV, I watched episode 44 while writing this.)

Though I loved MST3K, my mom was not a fan—which was ironic since she and my dad quipped like Joel and the ‘bots when we watched TV and movies as a family. She called it “the stupid show.” It made her laugh, but she could not wrap her mind around the concept of TV characters talking over a movie.

MST3K developed a cult following of fans, known as “MSTies,” who sent letters and drawings to the show, which were showcased at the end of episodes. I subscribed to the Satellite News, the show’s newsletter. MST3K’s popularity no doubt created stable ground for Comedy Central in the fledgling cable landscape of the late eighties and early nineties. Besides MST3K, standup comedy and reruns of Kids in the Hall were all Comedy Central had—or at least that’s all I remember. (Now that I think about it, Comedy Central showed reruns of Absolutely Fabulous ad nauseum as well. Reruns of Soap were also featured for a time.)

After Joel left, I started recording MST3K’s midnight reruns. In the mornings before school, I checked what episode played the night before. If it didn’t appeal to me, or if I had recorded it already, I rewound the tape and recorded over it that night. As a tribute to Joel, I always kept his creator credit at the end of each show. I remember amassing a ton of tapes filled with recorded episodes (three per tape when using EP/SLP). Unfortunately, I never labeled many of the tapes, so my mom “accidentally” taped over them.

(Here’s a related aside. Each MST3K episode lasts two hours, including commercial breaks, so the midnight reruns ended at 2 a.m. It was an opportune time because the channel switched from Comedy Central to VH1 at 3 a.m. That’s right: Comedy Central and VH1 shared a channel in the Iowa City area. I think it was channel 32. It was VH1 from 3 a.m. to 2:59 p.m., and then Comedy Central from 3 p.m. to 2:59 a.m. Why the 3 a.m./3 p.m. switch? I don’t know. Maybe our cable overlords thought that nobody would notice since they were either asleep or at work/school. Also, a lot of people must have liked watching VH1’s “hipness impaired” playlist in the morning and standup comedy at night.)

I lost touch with the show when our local cable monopoly dropped Comedy Central from its channel lineup sometime in the mid-nineties. Comedy Central returned to the area in 1998—likely due to the popularity of South Park—but sans MST3K because it had moved to Sci-Fi. Characters and voices changed, and the original series ended in 1999. Thankfully, the show lived on not only through my cherished tapes (only three of which remain), but also DVD releases and YouTube uploads. Netflix revived the series in 2017, and its second revived season debuts soon.

I have not seen any of the new episodes, though, and I’m hesitant to do so—even despite the fact that Felicia Day is involved (raar!). Though I’m sure the new episodes are funny, and now admit that Mike is funny too (his writing and humor were prominent in the Joel era), those old episodes with the original Comedy Central lineup mean so much to me. They are a formative element from two years that made me who I am today.