Mike Nelson & MST3K

In the beginning — 1988, to be exact — there was Mystery Science Theater 3000…and it was good. Established by Josh Weinstein, Kevin Murphy, and several other colleagues, the popular show — which took an inventive route to make fun of various B-movie classics, such as Manos: Hands of Fate and other similar disasters — soon took off and went from a small show to a full-blown cult phenomenon. The show, which showcased an awful movie per episode, revolved around a human and his robot sidekicks who were trapped on the satellite of an evil scientist. The movies are their main form of “torture” as prisoners, and their commentary is what made the show undeniably hilarious and peculiar. Unfortunately, after a long TV run and despite its popularity, Mystery Science Theater 3000, or MST3K, was cancelled in 1999.

The TV show went through various short revivals in the years after its cancellation, including a webisode and a feature film, but was never outright restarted until cast member Mike Nelson decided to establish RiffTrax along with co-stars Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett in 2006. Nelson — who joined the Mystery Science Theater 3000 cast at the beginning of the fifth season of the TV show, with his “evil scientist’s temp worker” character of the same name after getting started in what he deems to be the “wild days of early stand-up comedy in Minnesota” — sees the new revival of MST3K for a more technologically advanced society.

“There will always be an audience for it,” said Nelson. “We wanted to use new technology to essentially do the same thing but to reach a large amount of people immediately.” He also cited, jokingly, the ridiculous amount of requests to record a track for Twilight as a main reason why RiffTrax has taken off. The format of these new “trax” is the same as before, but this time you provide the movie. All the movies Nelson and company have done commentary for are easily available on DVD, so all you have to do is sync up the audio with your movie and you’re ready to go. Many of the cult films that were originally featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, such as Plan 9 From Outer Space, are now available in this new RiffTrax form, and many of these more “cult movie trax” will be available in DVD format starting this week. Some of these include such classics as Reefer Madness and Night of the Living Dead.

Since its establishment, Nelson is now planning on shifting toward doing more and more popular films. “The big issue is here is availability,” said Nelson, “so while we were planning on doing more mainstream films before, the fact that the DVD has to be readily available is pushing us even further in this direction as time goes on.” Nelson has since done commentaries for such films as the Vin Diesel “masterpiece” xXx and for films that are also widely praised, such as the timeless classic Casablanca. Expect many other films to be released soon, but not too quickly! A considerable amount of time is invested into every single one of these commentaries.

“People’s interest in viewing the movie with a commentary track is the first thing we mainly consider,” Nelson stated. “After that, we begin to form the commentary. At the end of it all, we’ve probably spent about 70 hours watching the particular movie that we’ve been making the commentary for.” The creation of a commentary is certainly not a one-viewing job. Each commentator first sits down with the film separately and creates their own commentary. After that is over and done with, each person swaps ideas and anything overlapping is edited out. After this comes what Nelson refers to as the “tedious editing process” in which the commentary comes together. Clearly, it takes a lot more work to be funny than a lot of people think.

Mike Nelson wasn’t always into the B-movies that characterize Mystery Science Theater 3000. In fact, he wasn’t really aware of them before coming to work on the show. However, it’s clear now that his sudden realization of his love for beach horror comedies, such as the aptly titled Horror At Party Beach, is certainly paying off career-wise. Just when you thought lampooning movies meant sitting around your family room with a pack of friends and bowls of snacks while screaming obscene things at the television, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is back in its new incarnation to save the day! While many may have been initially concerned over what RiffTrax would eventually amount to be, fear not. While the final product isn’t an episode but an MP3, rest assured that the same amount of hilariously appropriate parody is packed into those tiny audio files that was featured in every single episode of the original TV show. Now, where is that Showgirls commentary I’ve been waiting for?