#I love Gypsy mst3k^_^

[orbot5]

i love gypsy she’s so underratyed,,, ^_^ human gypsy drawing

[dinsdalepiranah]

This Island Earth can be yours... if The Price is Right!

Jason Edmiston

[chaifootsteps]

Drop the Gypsy origin lore? Also, how’d you choose her name?

Not too much of an origin story to tell! I'd been wanting a puppy forever and then COVID hit, I lost Loki and then my grandma...I was tired of losing people, tired of loss. I went puppy hunting, found a little blue merle one with crazy eyes, and knew I couldn't be without her.

Her name was actually fourfold.

The Fleetwood Mac song, and the fact that she looked hauntingly like a dog I lost years ago. Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice.

Gypsy from MST3K.

The fact that I've always loved the word "gypsy." I'm a hodgepodge of things and Roma is one of them. It's a beautiful word to me, one of my favorites.

The fact that the gypsy moth caterpillars were swarming that year.

Even if she drives me crazy, she's still one of the best things in my life.

[gen-x-catmom]

This Old Satellite of Love

A MST3K Fanfic

***This is AI Generated!***

I directed Gemini to write an MST3K x This Old House fanfiction. I chose a specific episode of This Old House - the second one of the first season- and included a brief synopsis, as well as a few of my own opinions. I apologize in advance.

Characters:

DR. CLAYTON FORRESTER: a mad scientist who conducts bizarre, deeply unethical psychological experiments on humans.

TV'S FRANK: Dr. Forrester's... IDK, assistant? Emotional support weirdo? W**d guy? 🤷🏻

JOEL ROBINSON: a janitor who was kidnapped by Dr. Forrester, shot into Space on the Satellite of Love, and forced to watch the worst movies on file. In order to cope, Joel built robots out of various parts so he'd have someone to interact with besides the Mads.

TOM SERVO: one of the sentient robots that Joel created. Tom helps Joel by keeping him company and "riffing" on these movies.

CROW T. ROBOT: another companion bot. He tends to be a little more snarky than Tom.

GYPSY: Another sentient robot. She takes care of the higher functions on board the Satellite of Love. She needs to use most of her computing power to handle this responsibility.

CAMBOT:It is through Cambot's "eye" that we watch Joel and the other robots as they watch the movies that are sent to the Satellite of Love each week.

(Deep Space, the Satellite of Love, sometime in the early 1990s.)

DR. FORRESTER: (Pacing maniacally in front of a giant monitor, wearing a ridiculously oversized hard hat.) Well, Joel, my boy, today's experiment is designed to truly test the limits of human endurance! Forget the B-movies, forget the creature features! Today, we're going all the way back… to 1979!

TV'S FRANK: (Adjusting a miniature, blinking "Construction Ahead" sign on his desk.) Get ready for some real pain, Joel! Architectural pain! Structural pain! The kind of pain that comes from watching… informative television!

JOEL: (From the theater, sounding weary.) Oh, no… not Antiques Roadshow again, guys. I can’t take another minute of evaluating porcelain figurines.

DR. FORRESTER: (Cackles.) Oh, Joel, you wish! No, no, much, much worse. We're talking about… home improvement!

TOM SERVO: (Voice rising in alarm.) Home improvement?! Is it one of those shows where they find a perfectly good wall and just demolish it for no reason?!

CROW T. ROBOT: (Terrified.) Or worse, Joel, one of those shows where they paint everything taupe! The horror!

DR. FORRESTER: Prepare yourselves, you fools! For today, you'll be watching… This Old House! The very first season! Episode Two! And remember, Joel, no turning off the tape! We’ll be watching!

(The screen flickers to life, revealing the familiar, folksy theme song of This Old House. A vintage title card appears: "THIS OLD HOUSE.")

CROW T. ROBOT: (Groans.) Oh, it smells like polyester and good intentions in here.

TOM SERVO: And sawdust! I can already feel the splinters in my soul.

(The scene opens on Bob Vila, standing in front of a grand old house. He’s in his early 30s, with a full head of luxuriously wavy black hair that somehow remains perfectly coiffed despite the outdoor setting. He's wearing what appears to be a knit sweater- a truly baffling concoction of green, gray, and sickly yellow stripes. It looks like a retired golf course’s attempt at camouflage.)

JOEL: Oh, man, that sweater. It's like a bad dream from a department store clearance rack.

TOM SERVO: It's so ugly, it cycles back to being… still ugly.

CROW T. ROBOT: He looks like he lost a fight with a box of old crayons and the crayons won.

BOB VILA: (Enthusiastically.) Welcome back to This Old House! We're here in Dorchester, Massachusetts, ready to tackle the next phase of our renovation. Today, we're joined by a very important member of our team, our master carpenter… Norm Abram!

(The camera pans to Norm Abram. He's in his late 20s, clean-shaven except for a truly magnificent, luxuriant porn-stache that dominates his upper lip. He has a calm, almost serene expression, as if he's holding the secrets of the universe, or at least he either knows the crew's weed guy or he is the weed guy.)

JOEL: (Snickers.) Whoa, Norm! That 'stache is… powerful. It's got its own gravitational pull.

TOM SERVO: He looks like he's about to offer me a ride in his shag-carpeted van.

CROW T. ROBOT: I bet he solves all his carpentry problems with… good vibrations.

NORM ABRAM: (Nods gravely, for despite the appearance he means business, baby) Bob, we've got some significant rot issues up here in the eaves. The gutters and their brackets are pretty much water damaged through and through. And up on the roof, the boards near the edge, they're going to need replacing. Of course, new shingles will be added.

JOEL: Rot! Always with the rot! It’s like the house is saying, "Please, just let me crumble into dust!"

TOM SERVO: This house needs more than a contractor; it needs an exorcist!

(Cut to Bonnie Shatsky Hammer, the associate producer, inside the house. She’s explaining the history of the house, which dates back to 1861.)

BONNIE SHATSKY HAMMER: This house has a rich history, tracing its ownership back to 1861. It was first owned by a writer, then, sadly, lost to the bank in 1932 during the Depression. It was later sold to a prominent surgeon, who lived here until 1965.

CROW T. ROBOT: So, a writer, then the bank, then a doctor. Sounds like the house had a mid-life crisis, got financially unstable, and then went to therapy.

TOM SERVO: I bet the writer used to sit in here, staring at the rot, thinking, "This is good material."

(Back outside, Bob Vila surveys the exterior demolition work. He then moves inside and stands in what will be the kitchen.)

BOB VILA: (Gesturing expansively.) And here, in what will be our kitchen, the plan is to create a space that’s bright, clean, and modern - 1979 modern, of course.

JOEL: "1979 modern." So, lots of avocado green and harvest gold appliances? Maybe an orange wall phone with an extra-long cord?

TOM SERVO: And probably a built-in blender that only works half the time.

(Bob shows blueprints, discussing energy efficiency issues and the plans for adding insulation and closing leaks.)

CROW T. ROBOT: Ah, the classic 70s energy crisis episode. Next, he'll be telling us to turn down our thermostats and wear more sweaters. (Looks pointedly at Bob's sweater.) Though I think he's already taken that advice to heart. (Looks back at the screen.)

BOB VILA: (Solemnly.) Energy efficiency is a glaring issue in many older homes. We'll be adding insulation and sealing up those pesky leaks to keep this home warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

CROW T. ROBOT: You know what would be a really effective way to increase efficiency, Bob? Burn that sweater. Get a twofer- increased energy efficiency for you, one less eyesore in existence for the rest of us.

JOEL: Pesk-E! E-N-E-R-G-Y! Pesk-E!

(Bob talks about demolition work, recommending renting a dumpster for large jobs and outlining the right tools for DIY demo: gloves, hat, facemask, claw hammer, sledgehammer, flat bar, and a crow bar.)

TOM SERVO: Gloves! Hat! Facemask! It's like he's going into battle, not just taking down a wall.

CROW T. ROBOT: (Muttering.) I just need a baseball bat and a good playlist.

JOEL: Remember, kids, safety first! Unless you're Bob Vila, apparently.

(Bob returns inside, ready to tackle the demolition of a small downstairs powder room. He strides in with an air of overconfidence.)

BOB VILA: Right then! Time to get to work on this powder room. No time to waste!

JOEL: Uh oh, I sense a montage… or a mishap.

(Bob rushes into the tiny powder room, sledgehammer in hand. He swings wildly, making an enormous mess. Plaster dust flies everywhere. He’s clearly forgotten to shut off the power, and as he haphazardly swings, a shower of sparks briefly flies from a damaged outlet. He barely flinches, then coughs through the dust, looking more disheveled than ever. His impeccably styled hair is now a wild mess, thanks to the constant jostling of his hat.)

CROW T. ROBOT: (Gasps.) He almost got zapped! Oh, the humanity! Or the lack thereof!

TOM SERVO: Bob, you left the power on! What is this, amateur hour?! Oh, wait… it is.

JOEL: (Shaking his head.) And his hair! Oh, the tragedy of the ruined hair! That's worse than any electrical shock. Well, almost.

DR. FORRESTER: (Through the monitor, laughing gleefully.) Excellent! Near electrocution! Messy hair! The perfect blend of mild peril and aesthetic chaos! Your torment continues, Joel!

TV'S FRANK: (Wipes a tear of joy.) Oh, the sheer, unadulterated mediocrity! It’s beautiful!

JOEL: (Sighs, as the credits roll.) Just another day on the Satellite of Love. Or, in this case, the Satellite of Home Repair.

CROW T. ROBOT: (Shudders.) I think I just learned more about rot than I ever wanted to know.

TOM SERVO: I'm never looking at a mustache the same way again.

[gaykarstaagforever]

I keep trying to give new MST3k a chance.

I do. They worked hard on this. We all wanted it to be good. Jonah has serious Joel energy, and I appreciate the revival of the invention exchange.

But

I have liked Felicia Day in things exactly twice. And this ain't one of them. Her smarmy Buffy-esque whatever does not work with this.

Patton Oswalt is RIGHT THERE. Take his brakes off and let him do this.

If we want to keep a woman Dr. Forrester, fine. I loved Pearl. And I can think of like 10 actresses / comedians who would be better for this than Felicia Day.

Also the commentary jokes are bad but not funny bad.

And I don't know why or what they did to my girl Gypsy in this. I guess they didn't want her name to be a slur? Okay. But the voice...

That was her whole thing. And they just didn't care.

At least Shout! Factory is dumping these for free in YouTube now.

[silver-stargazing]

I’m glad I decided to go back to trying to finish up MST3K because I missed this goofy space family and Cave Dwellers delivered so much in the first 5 minutes alone.

[lesbian-samus-aran]

Haha I love your URL & your blog! Mst3k is my favorite show! Do you remember the episode where Mike got called a “white male middle class power holder” your blog reminded me of that scene

All of Gypsy/GPC’s lines in this segment are amazing lol

[robotroll-call-blog]

Cookies and Cream if you're still doing the headcanon thing.

[sorry this is a bit late!! There’s a ton of goodies under the cut!]

Cookies and Cream: a family headcanon

Crow is older than Servo, and it drives Servo insane. Every time they argue he a l w a y s pulls that “"older brother” card on him. G, being the oldest, always shuts Crow down with HER seniority card is she’s fed up enough.

Cambot is the youngest and is constantly babied by everyone on the SOL.

As Joel was their creator, all the bots really did look up to him as a father figure and treat him with more respect than Mike. He read them bedtime stories and dressed up as Santa and sang songs with them, and it didn’t take long for them to start calling Joel “Dad.” Joel might have cried a little.

Th bots canonically got awful separation anxiety when Joel left, and Joel most likely did as well. He’d be working on something and turn around to show it to G, and she.. Isn’t there. Or he’ll make a joke about a movie he’s watching and glance over to th side, expecting a chuckle from Crow or Tom, but it’s silent.

Even though Crow and Servo are harsher with Mike, they do latch onto him quickly. He acted like their older brother, but he was always kind and maternal when things got serious, and even when they didn’t. After a while Mike was “Mom.”

Crow and Pearl strangely get along really well. Every Christmas Crow gets really elaborate gifts from Qatar that always contain some kind of deadly weapon, so that he can decide who lives and who dies. And every year Crow brings Pearl to school for Career Day so that she can show all the second graders what it’s like to be an evil villain. He calls her “grandma” but she won’t admit she likes it.

When the satellite crashed, one of the first things they all did was track down Joel. It took a while for the bots to fully trust him again, but they were all patient about it. Joel and Mike had dual custody of Crow, tom, and Cambot, while G ran her own company in New York. The bots were so excited to experience Earth firsthand and Joel and Mike were happy to show it to them. Crow loves the beach and amusement parks and the zoo, and tom loves the studios and bookshops and musicals they go see. (Although, Mike was the overprotective parent when Tom and Crow start dating)

Then all four bots were suddenly kidnapped in late 2016, and it took them a lot longer to connect with Jonah, and when they finally did, he was stolen from their grasp.

[edith-moonshadow]

Comfort Characters

Rules: post your top 5 favourite comfort characters

I was tagged by the absolutely wonderful @lovebillyhargrove thank you so much 💜💜💜

1. Harringrove 😗😛

I know I’m cheating but I can’t really think about one without the other these days, by the end of season one I knew that I’d die for Steve Harrington and that love has only grown stronger as Stranger Things (2016-) has progressed, the only person who loves Steve Harrington more than me is Billy Hargrove. And Billy Hargrove what an asshole, I love him 🥰🥰🥰

2. Will Graham

Everyone’s favourite little sassy murder muffin, I’ve loved him since I was fourteen and read Red Dragon for the first time, my favourite depictions are the wonderfully intense portrayal by William Petersen in Manhunter (1986) and of course the fantastic Hugh Dancy in the blood soaked aesthetic murder opera that is Hannibal (2013-2015), a show that feels like a fever dream, that it shouldn’t exist but I am eternally grateful that it does 🥳🥳🥳

3. Monsieur Hercule Poirot (with his husband Arthur Hastings and their best friends James Japp and Felicity Lemon)

I can’t even begin to explain how much I love Poirot and friends, Agatha Christie created an amazing character in the little fussy Belgian detective, there have been many great adaptations of his stories, it’s impossible not to love Peter Ustinov, John Moffat in the BBC radio dramas but the ITV series that ran from 1989-2013 is pure comfort tv at it’s finest ☺️☺️☺️

4. Carrie White

I would take Carrie to the prom every time, I first saw this film when I was seven and I fell in love so hard, Carrie (1976) was the beginning of my love of horror, it is quite 70s but I love the aesthetic, the music and the performances, has anyone ever portrayed vulnerability like Sissy Spacek, someone who goes from timid to terrifying over the course of an evening maybe but not like Sissy in Carrie 🥺🐷🔥

5. Tom Servo (I love Cambot, Gypsy and Crow too)

I love MST3K so much that it’s practically become a vocabulary for me I quote it so much and they’ve created a love for entertainingly bad movies. I love all the bots but Tom Servo is my favourite, I love his wit, his wonderful voice and how pretentious he is and he’s so goddamn cute 🤖🤖🤖

Tagging: Anyone who would like to do it (it's really hard to only pick five 😳😳😳) 💁🏼‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️

[mst3kproject]

Countess Dracula

In Countess Dracula we have the tale of a lonely old woman who discovers that she can make herself young again, just so long as she doesn’t mind having to murder somebody to do it (she doesn’t).  Our antiheroine uses this newfound youth to seduce the least interesting man in the movie, until at last her misdeeds catch up with her when her latest victim turns out to have been the wrong demographic to make the magic work.

Does that sound familiar?  Yeah, this is a very Leech-Woman-y movie.  It stars Nigel Green, the news announcer from Gorgo, and comes to us from Hammer Studios, home of Moon Zero-Two.  The director, Peter Sasdy, never made anything that wound up on MST3K but he did work on the legendary Pia Zadora bomb, The Lonely Lady.  Countess Dracula is not a wild ride, as its pace is fairly sedate, but it is certainly a ride nonetheless.

The count of somewhere or other has just died, leaving his realm to his nineteen-year-old daughter Ilona – and technically also leaving his spiteful widow, Elizabeth, free to marry her longtime lover Captain Dobi.  Most people would consider this a perfectly acceptable retirement, but Elizabeth is impossible to satisfy.  She doesn’t want to grow old while Ilona (currently on her way home from finishing school in Vienna) rules the county and gets all the attention.  When Elizabeth discovers that bathing in the blood of virgins restores her youth, she embraces murder as a hobby and has Ilona locked up so she can stay in charge while posing as her own daughter!  In that guise she sets out to pursue handsome young Imre, the son of her husband’s most trusted general, while jealous Dobi can only sit and seethe.

I bet you think you can guess how this movie ends.  I bet you think Dobi tells Imre the countess’ secret, and the two of them defeat her.  Or else the real Ilona escapes and meets him, they expose Elizabeth as a fraud, and then get married and rule the land with justice and mercy or something.  That’s what would happen in a normal movie… but you guys know I don’t watch normal movies.  Maybe instead you’re guessing that nobody does shit and Elizabeth just carries on her merry way until she’d destroyed by her own hubris?  That’s more like it.

Not all of Hammer’s films were good, but they were generally pretty well-made and Countess Dracula is not an exception.  The elaborate costumes and sets are very nice, although areas like the town square are obviously artificial and the old lady makeup on Ingrid Pitt as Elizabeth is pretty bad.  There’s also a young woman made up in very ugly brownface as a ‘gypsy girl’, except they totally forgot to do any makeup on her for the scene where her naked corpse is discovered in the woods.

There are even a couple really well-done moments of storytelling and worldbuilding.  A scene in a pub, when everybody falls silent as Dobi and Imre enter, shows eloquently how terrified the peasants are of the aristocracy. Elizabeth gets some chilling bits when we see the true depth of her depravity.  She sees no difference between controlling people through love and controlling them through fear – either way, she gets what she wants, and their feelings don’t matter.  My favourite detail is the subtle cultural conflict going on in the background, as the characters speak disparagingly of ‘Turks’ and yet have clearly picked up some bits and pieces of Ottoman culture.

Although its plot outline is very similar to The Leech Woman, the philosophy of Countess Dracula is completely different.  The Leech Woman didn’t really give June a viable alternative to her poisoned fountain of youth.  Old women in its world can only sit around and drink and know that nobody loves them. Elizabeth, however, has a possible future – Dobi repeatedly notes that he’s been waiting twenty years for the opportunity to legitimatize his relationship with her.  He would have happily devoted himself to her for the rest of his life, and the two of them could have lived in retirement while Imre and Ilona gave them grandchildren to spoil.  Dobi even says there is dignity in age, directly contradicting The Leech Woman by applying it equally to both sexes.  June was more or less forced to become a monster, while Elizabeth chooses it explicitly.

So there’s honestly some pretty good stuff in this film.  Where it unfortunately falls on its face is with the characters, none of whom can really be said to have an arc, and the ending, which is rushed and unsatisfying.

The movie’s main focus is always on Elizabeth, but she refuses to grow or learn anything at any point.  She starts off as a nasty, selfish bitch and just stays a nasty, selfish bitch.  She has no actual master plan, but seems convinced that she can keep up this charade indefinitely, even though Dobi points out the impracticality of that.  Dobi believes she’s going mad, but the truth seems to be she’s just horrible.  She is evidently terrified of growing old, but that is never explored.  We see her react to aging, rather violently at times, but we never find out what the root of this fear is.

All this means that Elizabeth, despite being the focal character, is never sympathetic.  June in The Leech Woman at least started off as somebody we could pity, before she descended into depravity.  Elizabeth is a terrible person from the get-go, as illustrated in the very opening when she has her coachman run over a peasant who wants her to fulfill a promise her late husband made her.

Imre and Ilona are pretty much complete ciphers. Imre spends the entire movie in Elizabeth’s thrall one way or another.  He is madly in love with her in her guise as Ilona, and after finding out the truth he’s too scared of her to openly defy her.  The only personality trait he manifests is gullible foolishness, and any sympathy we might have had for him evaporates when he cheerfully kisses a barmaid’s tit on the same day when he’s proposed marriage to the woman he believes is his true love.  Ilona spends most of the movie locked up in some mute peasant’s hut doing not much. When she finally enters the story properly, she comes across as stunningly stupid.

The character who does the most to try to thwart Elizabeth is her lover Dobi, but he’s less interested in stopping her from killing virgins than he is in having her to himself.  He gets Imre drunk and tosses him in bed with the barmaid in the hope that Elizabeth will reject him, and later takes Imre to see Elizabeth bathing in blood to youthen herself.  These things don’t work, partly because Imre is an idiot and partly because Elizabeth is always more evil than he thought she was, but at least he tries.

At the end of the movie, Elizabeth’s latest bloodbath wears off in the middle of her wedding to Imre, and she runs off to murder Ilona in order to make herself young again.  Imre tries to stop her and gets stabbed for his trouble, which does at least expose Elizabeth’s evildoing to one and all, and she and Dobi are hanged. What happens to Ilona I’m not sure, but I know they didn’t have therapists in the seventeenth century.  Nobody wins here.  It’s a downer for everybody, including the superstitious peasants, who will continue to be terrified of their rulers now that their worst fears have been confirmed.

Several things might be made of the fact that it’s young women Elizabeth is killing.  It’s interesting to note that the idea of male virginity is never even brought up.  We could contrast two depictions of motherhood, in the form of Elizabeth’s jealousy of Ilona versus Juli the nurse’s unconditional love for her.  There’s Imre’s description of ‘Ilona’ as embodying all aspects of womanhood, to which Dobi replies that no woman can be maiden, mother, and whore all at once… yet that is just what Elizabeth is trying to be.  What I find interesting in this, however, is how the movie depicts Elizabeth’s own internalized misogyny, in the fucked-up attitudes she displays towards youth, beauty, and gender.

Elizabeth feels that age and experience have made her undesirable.  Dobi assures her that he finds her as attractive as he ever did, but she evidently does not believe him, and her mistreatment of her female servants has a definite note of jealousy in it.  She kills young virgins not only to gain their desirability, but because she hates them for what they have and she does not.

What’s unusual is that she applies this same attitude towards the men in her life.  Elizabeth is no longer attracted to Dobi, because he is old and experienced. Their affair has gone on for years, and in Dobi’s mind this has only deepened his love for her – but Elizabeth is tired of it and wants something new.  Imre is young, handsome, and innocent.  He has no wealth of his own and has not yet really accomplished much in life, but Elizabeth doesn’t care.  If all she has to be is young and pretty, then how could she ask anything more of him?

Here, Dobi and Elizabeth represent two different versions of gender equality as it applies to sexual attractiveness, with him raising Elizabeth to his level, and her lowering Dobi and Imre to hers!  Elizabeth treating the men in her life as she has been treated illustrates the inequality quite sharply, but what ultimately destroys her is applying the same standards to herself.  She believes so totally that nothing else matters as long as she is beautiful that she doesn’t care what she has to do to accomplish it, or who sees her do it.  In the end, she is undone by her own self-loathing.

[highly-radioactive-nerd]

Anyways, I had an idea for a MST3K reboot that follows the structure idea and naming convention of star trek the next generation.

Same general premise, man and robots forced to watch bad movies, but with new characters and minutia.

The mads are an evil executive who has hijacked a scientists bad movie research and perverted it for his own use. The Scientist was trying to identify what makes movies bad so they could "cure" them, but the executive just wants to use the research to make more mass-marketable shill. They have the M.Bison-Dhalsim dynamic from the street fighter movie, the executive tyrannically holding the Scientist captive and forcing him to use his work for evil. The Scientist, sympathetic with the Host and bots plight, but powerless to do anything.

It's no longer set on a satellite, but a deep sea research base named Marine 13. It surfaces once a... Time period to resupply air and download the movie from Gizmonic.

Mostly new bots. Cambot is the same, but the others are new. CAP-10 is kindve the new Gypsy, he runs the higher functions of Marine 13. Talks kindve pirate-y, and doesn't like "Joe" and bots at first, but grows more fond of them the longer they're stuck there.

I've only come up with one riffing bot: Proxxi. She's kindve a loudmouth. Unafraid to speak her mind, a little pushy, but good at heart. Think Rebel Wilson, but more unhinged.

"Joe" is just a placeholder name, because I believe the Host should always take the name and personality of the actor playing them.

Joel Hodgeson hire me when MST3K inevitably gets picked back up by someone else, someone who will love and appreciate you.

[fancoloredglasses]

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (making it cool to talk over the movie since 1988)

[All images are owned by Factory. Seeing as you got your material from public domain, I hope you would find it hypocritical to sue]

(Thanks to jumpsuitjoel)

I’m going to apologize ahead of time. The start of this review is gonna seem a bit dry and rambling, but I promise there’s a point.

In the days before cable, there were two types of stations on TVs:

Channels 2-13 (for whatever reason, there was no Channel 1) were VHF (or “Very High Frequency”) stations and had better reception on these things called “antennas” that were either large enough to need to be mounted to the top of houses or small enough to be on top of the TV (the good old-fashioned “rabbit ears”) These were usually the stations that were the local affiliates for the major networks (at the time those were ABC, NBC, PBS, and CBS) due to the signal being more expensive to maintain.

Channels 14 and up (83 until the 80s, then it was cut back to 69) were UHF (or “Ultra-High Frequency”) were cheaper to operate but often were difficult to receive depending on where the antenna was located, what was around it and its alignment (you either had to adjust the rabbit ears or install a device that would rotate the antenna on your house) The majority of these were unaffiliated (or “independent”) stations that mostly aired reruns and local-interest programming (like sporting events involving the Home Team) When cable took over and every production company wanted their own network (Fox, UPN, WB, CW, etc.), most of these were gobbled up as affiliates.

You may be asking what the history of broadcast TV has to do with Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or “MST3K”) Trust me, I’m getting to that.

One of the mainstays of independent stations is the afternoon movies. Most stations on weekends from noon until prime time would have a steady stream of older movies. They tended to have the same hundred or so movies on rotation (did you miss The Ghost and Mr. Chicken on the afternoon movie? No sweat, it’ll be back in about 3 months!) The reason the movies were older was they were cheaper to purchase. In fact, some were so old they were in the public domain and could be bought by the station for next to nothing!

Now, a lot of these movies were, shall we say, less than fresh if Rotten Tomatoes had existed when they came out (why do you think they were so cheap?) Which brings us to our review.

A comedian named Joel Hodgson approached an independent station in Minneapolis about a way to “spice up” the stinkers the station had acquired: he and his friends would crack jokes at the movie. The backstory was that he’s forced to watch them after being imprisoned on a spacecraft known as the Satellite of Love. The show was enough of a hit that the idea was bought by the Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central)

The premise stayed pretty much the same, but Joel was an employee of a company known as the Gizmonics Institute.

His supervisor Dr. Clayton Forrester and his minion assistant who went by the name “TV’s Frank” were the ones who kidnapped Joel and shipped him off to the Satellite of Love. The plan was that they would see how long it would take a steady diet of bad movies to drive Joel insane.

Joel might’ve succumbed to madness had he not scavenged parts of the satellites to build robotic companions (though given their personalities, it may have already been too late for poor Joel)

Tom Servo is one of the bots that Joel watches the films with along with...

...Crow T. Robot.

Gypsy controls the major functions of the Satellite of Love. Since that takes up much of her processing power, she can sometimes seem a bit slow-witted.

Cambot is the primary means of communication between Forrester and the Satellite of Love.

After 6 seasons (including Minnesota), Joel decided to leave the show. However, Dr. Forrester needed a new guinea pig for their experiment so...

(Thanks to Xander Lars Knight)

Other than the change in guinea pigs, nothing much changed.

Two seasons later, TV’s Frank was killed off leaving Dr. Forrester alone in his lab, so he brought in...

...his mother Pearl. This lasted one season before Comedy Central cancelled the show. However, the show got life as a feature film (so...a movie about guys talking over a movie?) before being picked up by the Sci-Fi Network (what is now known as SyFy)

Due to lack of funding. Dr. Forrester cut his losses (literally; he sent the Satellite of Love into deep space!), but 500 years in the future, a cyrogenically frozen Pearl (don’t ask) is thawed and she drags the Satellite of Love back to Earth to continue the experiment (and Mike hasn’t aged much in the meantime) until the series was finally ended with season 10 (until it was revived on Netflix in 2017 with a new guinea pig named Jonah. I haven’t seen the new series but I can’t imagine the format has changed much)

These days, Foundry (the production company that owns MST3K has started a streaming service where you can watch the first 10 seasons for free.

As always, if you would like to see any episodes reviewed (how exactly would I do that? I mean, the cast is already telling better jokes than I could...), let me know.

And now for the sign off...

(Thanks to DovahBudgie100)

[annakie]

I did it!  I binged six episodes of a 80 - 90 minute show in one day!

Overall, I loved the season.  I’m generally pretty easy to please with the media I love, and really, I’m still even after all this time just so happy it’s back.

Spoilery stuff below!

I think I saw Mac and Me around the time it came out, like maybe a cousin watched it or some kids I was babysitting when I was a teeenager because I had enough latent memories that parts of it seemed familiar, but I feel like even back then it had to have been obvious how truly terrible that movie is.  Wow.  

It was weird watching Atlantic Rim.  It felt like, with that movie coming out in 2013, it was just too new?  I mean it was appropriately terrible, even knowing that it’s kinda supposed to be low budget and terrible.  It was just... really weird watching a movie that new for MST3k.  But, they can’t all be from the 50′s to 80′s anymore.  That leaves such a host of terribleness they’d be leaving out.

The Day that Time Ended was just fever-dream terrible.  It’s the one I had to take a nap in the middle of.  It was just so incomprehensible.  But the Concepts song really helped in me realizing I was 100% right in not being able to understand what the fuck was going on in that movie.  The weird ending really sealed it.  Also I thought the host segments in this ep were especially good, especially the ending.

Lords of the Deep and Killer Fish were both just right in that sweet spot of bad cheesiness for me.   And Ator was great... kind feel like maybe I need to watch Cave Dwellers tomorrow.

I felt glad that the riffs were definitely slower.  Not quite classic show slow but we usually had time to breathe in there, and that was great.  They had fewer writers per ep and fewer “celebrity” writers so I think they knew they’d been throwing too much at us.  I was happy with the pace.

The full-length songs we got, and the one in the theater with Gypsy/M. Waverly/Growler joining in during Killer Fish were great.  I hope we maybe get an un-interrupted song from Atlantic Rim at some point.  Especially liked the song during the credits of Ator!

The surprise guest appearance we got was really great.  I was hoping for Mike and/or Joel to show up for reals, and had also been hoping Pearl, Bobo and Brain Guy would stop by again but... that was still really awesome.  I really love how they are continuing to add to the lore of the show without dwelling too much on, or forgetting about, their own past. 

I need to watch them all again and in a slower pace to really pick out favorites.  I mean, I loved season 11, I don’t think there’s any MST3k that’s bad MST3k... just a few where the movie is so terrible that the experience really suffers (Red Zone Cuba, anyone?) But I can’t wait to watch the Gauntlet again in the next week or so and really digest it better.

I made a post last year before the debut of The Return about loving this show for close to 25 years, and I just... continue to love it more and more.  

Now I’m gonna go throw some money at Rifftrax to thank our other Riffing overlords for continuing to exist, as well.

[enderon]

The best thing about MST3K is looking at the family like dynamics between the bots and the hosts.

Joel is clearly their dad figure. Maybe at first he waskind of resentful towards them, as he was resentful towards his situation, but he clearly came to accept this new role in their lives and clearly cares so much for his little bots. And, while Crow and Tom Servo can be real brats at times, it's just as clear that they respect Joel and see him as something of a father figure.

Then we get Mike, sweet bumbling Mike, who was like a fun older brother to the bots. I almost called him 'cool', but really he was more like that sort of nerdy older bro who the little siblings can easily trick and take advantage of. And even though they didn't respect him nearly as much as Joel, and they gave him an even harder time, there are quite a few moments that show that they really do care about Mike a lot.

And then, last but certainly not least, we have Jonah coming into the picture. This role is a little bit harder to place, since we really do only have a season of interactions to go off of and the relationship has been described in a couple of different ways, but I think the best way to describe Jonah's relationship woth the bots is that of a stepparent. Not necesarily expected or even wanted, but not really disliked as the bots have admitted that they do like Jonah and enjoy having him around. They still give him a hard time (i know the canon reason they do this, but ot seems lile such a show of affection for them) but they like hanging with him. Like a stepparent, and taking into acount how Joel describes the character, Jonah wants to be liked and accepted by the bots, and does try to be theor friend. Perhaps the relationship might turn more brotherly in the next season, but for now I see Jonah as the bots new stepdad.

And as for the bot's relations to each other, I generally enjoy looling at them like they're all siblings. Gypsy, I definetly see as being the oldest, just the hardworking older sister who looks after her little brothers and occasionally lays down the law. And looking at the ways that Crow and Servo are best friends and also constantly bicker and foght woth each other, totally like that of a pair of bratty little brothers. Cambot is a little harder to place in this since there's really not too much personality from them, but I guess they could be seen as that one quite sibling who isnt so much a loner but more that theyd rather just observe the insanity than engage in it.

Just, I love this weird family of humans and robots. Its so endearing to watch.

[iwantmystery]

Here’s a 30 second time lapse video as I draw #fanart of one of the newest #mst3k Satellite of Love robots M. Waverly!

Only a few hours left in the #makemoremst3k Kickstarter campaign so make sure to visit makemoremst3k.com

#mysteryscience #mysterysciencetheater3000 #waverly #mwaverly #tomservo #crowtrobot #crow #gypsy #cambot

[agirlandherhund]

As I reflect on 2017, I want to take this moment to especially thank all of the MSTies who have so graciously + kindly welcomed me into this phase of MST3K. 2016 was filled with anticipation, writing, recording, filming, waiting + keeping all of this a secret. 2017 was the Big Reveal of it all + the love from my fellow MSTies was beyond anything I could have hoped for. Please know how very much it means to me + how truly Thankful I am for all of this. You sure know how to make this Bot/Clone actually feel things! Keep circulating the tapes. Keep circulating the URL. Keep circulating the Love. Thank you. Hope to see you in 2018. 💜 Gypsy/Synthia/Rebecca