Rehearsing on the S.O.S. set.

There was an initial burst of gumption that was slap-dash and adlibbed and short-lived. But, a few months later, their ring-leader, Edgar (last name Justus), got the ol’ bee in his bonnet astirrin’ again with a plan to create something more substantial than just a triple of kids ladding it up in the basement. The MMT2K project was finally off to the races.

While their KTMA-era effort was entirely unscripted and lacked production value, the new approach for this league of Justus would involve more pre-production, actual sets, and scripted host segments (with the movie riffing to be improvised). Instead of, as they had tried originally, just pausing the camcorder in-between to record the segments sequentially, MMT2K’s post-KTMA-era would be recorded out-of-sequence and then edited together using what MST3K superfan Edgar describes as his parents’ “VHS copier”.

The change in tactics was inspired by a VHS tape Best Brains, Inc. put out called the MST3K Scrapbook. Edgar watched it over and over and could see how the big boys did it and wanted to emulate the pros:

Watching the process of how their show was made, the process of the creation of the sets, the bots, the scripts, the filming process, everything–it really inspired me to want to do the same. I thought, “Wow, it would be so cool to do something like that. I wonder if we can do that, but here at home.”

The premise of MMT2K is a tale as old as time: a regular mug trying to make his way is shanghaied by mad scientists and shot into space as a test case for an evil experiment. Dr. Brent Hamster (Brent Rossen), TV’s Prank (Ed), and Joke Rubinson (also Brent Rossen) work at Techtronic Institute. The duo-former are forcing the singulatter to watch bad movies as he orbits the Earth inside the Satellite of Stuff. Up on the S.O.S., Joke creates some off-brand MST3Kesque robot pals to watch the movies with him. Respectively, Crowmatic T. Crowbot, Tom Sweetanlow, and Tipsy are respectfully nicked allusions to MST3K’s golden spider duck, squat crimson pig, and Mrs. Richard Basehart:

Yep, pretty much a complete ripoff! – Edgar Justus IV

The summer of 1996 brought with it one big question: how come Universal Studios focused all their film distribution and advertising efforts on Pamela Anderson’s post-apocalyptic Barb Wire instead of on the big-screen debut of cult television show Mystery Science Theater 3000? That summer also brought with it a few months of a flurry of activity on what would have been one of the earliest MST3K fanvids.

Ed’s bedroom, featuring the S.O.S. set.

Ed wrote a script for the host segments. And, with the help of his parents, built the bots and the sets. There were two sets: the Mads’ Lair and the Satellite of Stuff. Both were set up in Ed’s bedroom. The “lair” set was pretty simple, according to Ed, Edd, and Justus. Just some green table cloths on the wall with some movie posters and a computer. The S.O.S. set was a tad more involved. It was a make shift desk and a few large styrofoam sheets with some gray cloth and tape for the traditional MST3K geodesic look. Some spray paint was used to make the (barely) operational theater door look just right. In order to mimic the traditional MST3K desk lights, they used a real bathroom light fixture.

My parents, Edgar and Angela Justus, were absolutely invaluable in making this whole thing for us possible. They spent money, time, effort in creating everything with and for me, and we were the lucky kids who got to play and be creative with it all.

Amazingly, even after losing track of the bots over the passing of one score and three years, Eddie J. still remembers what the bots were made of. These days, he has replica MST3K bots. But, for his home-brew riff-do, the bots were much less canon accurate. Sweetanlow does have an actual gumball machine head (filled with packets of Sweet’N Low®), but it’s a different than expected brand. His body is made from candy dishes, egg slicers, be-handed slinkies, and a bunt cake pan with gray foam tubing. Crowmatic had ping-pong ball eyes, an assemblage of dinner trays and bowls and a bucket for the body, and plastic tubing arms with plastic fork hands. His webbing was from a football helmet. His beak was a mustard bottle. And, to round out the cranial region, a couple of plastic bowls in a sort of Edward D. Wood, Jr. UFO shape with a hole cut in the front. And, not to be forgotten, Tipsy was a flashlight, two painters trays with foam tubing lips, and some of that corrugated drainage tubing that’s so hard to find in the unperforated form factor.

Rehearsals go off the rails.

But, to pay off all the foreshadowing, a completed episode of Mystery Movie Theater 2000 never came together in its entirety. Ed owes the fizzling out of the project to the obligations and ineffable qualities of youthful whathaveyou. The summer did produce the Mads’ half of the host segments because Brent and Ed had already been cast in those roles. They were never able to lock down someone to play Crowbot. So, all that exists of the S.O.S. half of the host segments is some rehearsal footage with Crow being controlled by their (mysteriously uncastable) friend Adam Gardner. There was also never any in-theater footage shot for the same reason. The end of the summer came and school started back up. At some point, the sets disappeared from Ed’s bedroom and life just went on– without Mystery Movie Theater 2000.

Lair of the Mads

Years later (this one just last, in January), Ed re-discovered some old video tapes and revealed to the world via the Twitter the existence of his old fanvid project with a screen shot of the rehearsals. He released a few minutes of the video of it on July 13th (HST) of this year. He says that there might be some some behind the scenes footage of the bot construction laying around somewhere, too, but he’s still looking.

He also says that he might be interested in, after all these years, finally finishing the project. But, he’s not making any promises. The sets are gone, and so are the bots they constructed. There is, though, a possibility that the footage of Ed and Brent, in their youngsterines, as the Mads still exists somewhere. If the project gets started again, Ed thinks he might use that old footage and shoot the rest of the show using the replica Tom and Crow bots he has, in his old age, been able to obtain. The original project derailing hitch in the ointment though is still finding some people interested in being a part of it.

If the project had been completed back in 1996, the experiment was going to be the 1956 Toho classic “Rodan“.

Dr. Brent Hamster and TV’s Prank

These days, Ed works in a book store in Hawaii that his cat owns. The book store, Talk Story, is the only remaining actual bookstore on the island of Kauai. It also boasts the distinction of being the United States of America’s westernmost bookstore.

In Japan, the age of twenty is a pretty big deal. There’s a whole coming-of-age ceremony and everything. Twenty-year-olds (or “二十歳“/hatachi) put on their Sunday best traditional clothing, sit around watching slideshows memorializing their younger days, and listen to government officials drone on about responsibility and civic duty and something called “key money”.

Well, hatachian college student Brayton Conner (series creator) is having none of that. He’s doing MST3K fanvids instead. (Also, he’s not Japanese.) Bray-bray was too young as a mere baby to notice the cancellation of a cult television series by the Scifi Channel in 1999. He was similarly too young to dance in front of his parents’ gigantic cathode-ray-tube TV, singing the theme song to subsequent re-runs of a show which he would not encounter until middle school. He was born in the age of the world-wide-web, and it was a “website” thereupon (“YouTube”) which gave him his first taste of the original movie-riffing series, Mystery Science theater 3000, by suggesting an episode featuring the experiment “Time of the Apes“. He went on to discover more and more episodes and was transformed into the sort of person who would actually build their own home-made replicas of puppets from a TV show; even winning a prize in an art contest for his Crow T. Robot (mixed media, PVC/styrene/hot glue). But, his robot pals would collect dust until his senior year of high school.

Home-brew bots.

In the mean time, he would meet other people across the world who not only were not also from Davenport, Iowa, but who were also totally into these giant monster movies from Japan that he, too, was also totally into. Have you seen these things? They’ve got people sized rubber suits pretending to be very large, city berubbling creatures with varying cautionary tale origins. Sometimes they battle the human condition. Sometimes they battle each other. And, sometimes, there’s a little kid who somehow has managed to secure an all-access pass to any area that is for “authorized personnel only”. Not even the Japanese military denies this kid passage. Look it up: Kaiju Eiga. Intthat something? In any case, Brayton found a few like-minded folks on the Facebook and they started hanging out online and at G-Fest in Chicago and making YouTube videos and doing podcasts and whatnot together.

When, as a high school student, Brayton hatched the plan to make his own MST3K episodes, it was not lost on him that the original series had forgotten to riff on three of the Gamera movies. There was never any doubt as to which movies would be experiments in his fanvids. The first episode will feature Gamera vs. Viras. When they are eventually completed, the second two episodes will feature Gamera vs Jiger and Gamera: Super Monster. Gamera is a giant flying turtle monster. In the sequels following it’s original horror movie debut, it was found to be “friend to all children”.

Unless you’re Jason Soto or Kyle Pittman, you probably need a few people to star in and write jokes for your fanvid series. Brayton-san already had a Kaiju cadre. But, they were all too far away from each other to meet, economically, in-person. Using modern technological marvels (Skype’n’such), the cadre would meet teleconferencically to watch movies together and write riffs which were recorded and later filtered for quality before being transcribed. As a group, Gamera vs Viras was teleconviewed three times. Brayton watched it a few more times on his own to fill in the gaps and get the script finalized. He says that, by the end of production, he’d seen it quite a few more times besides:

[A]fter writing, recording, filming, editing, adding more jokes, editing some more, I’ve seen “Gamera vs. Viras” a good 15+ times.

While professional entertainment folks have been using similar methods to collaborate for many years, this may very well be the first time such techniques have been applied to the MST3K fanvid scene. (Unless you include Cinematic For The People, which is a live-record via Skype and is mostly unscripted.) Skype technology was used again during production to record the voices for Tom and Crow. Their voices were then synced up to the bot mouths flapping on set with Brayton. The actor in the role of The Crimson Weirdo set up his own camera and directed himself. He sent the footage to Brayton who then edited it in.

[W]hat ended up happening is Andres and Andrew recorded their lines for the robots over Skype, which was then lip-synched with Tom and Crow on my end. While Raf filmed all of his bits on his own. The magic of technology!

MST3KvG:R2 stars Raf Enshohma as The Crimson Weirdo, Brayton Conner as Helmutt Carusoe, Andres Perez as the voice of Tom Servo, and Andrew Battaglia as the voice of Crow T. Robot. Respectively, they are an artist working in comics Los Angeles, a college student, a teacher of English in Japan, and, in New York, an “associate” with mysterious responsibilities at a large online retail concern named for a river in South America. They are also four of the six writers.

Look for a cameo from Ken Wilson of Ken’s Cinema of Shenanigans in a future episode. (His cameo is the only one that isn’t so-far still a secret. Brayton hints that there could be some YouTube reviewer/MSTie/riffer stunt casting in the works.)

“I remember him… quite fondly, in fact”

MVG2 is semi-standard Mystery Science Theater 3000-style fan-made video series. According to B. Conner, the series fits somewhere in the MST3K universe between seasons 7 and 8 of the original series. At the end of the final episode of the Comedy Central era of the original series (Laserblast), everyone on the Satellite of Love left their corporeal bodies at the edge of the universe to become pure energy. Cut to the first episode of the Scifi Channel era (Revenge of the Creature) and we find out that Crow had gotten bored after 5 minutes of that and recorporealized back on the Satellite of Love. While everyone else was off galavanting across the universe as beings of pure energy, Crow “had a few hundred years” to himself (after a fashion) “to kick-around” on the Satellite of Love. That’s how they explain how the set got redecorated between networks, anyway. That’s also how they explained the existence of the Nanites. Which can only be seen with a piece of technology left behind by someone named “Helmutt” who lived with Crow on the Sat du Amor, “for about twenty years”.

M versus G (A.K.A – Round 2) gives that guy a last name (ala Robinson, not David) and, now, his own story. Turns out he volunteered (volunteered!) to be a test subject for a new round of evil movie-watching, mind-monitoring experiments being perpetrated by Dr. Clayton Forrester. Who, as you may recall — hey, you can’t expect everyone else to do your homework for you. Go watch the MST3K episodes mentioned above and get up to speed. Gee Criminy! Yadda Yadda Yadda, Dr. F is on vacation and second-banana hopeful The Crimson Weirdo is in charge until he gets back.

The Crimson Weirdo

Anyhoo, new fanvid, new set, new door sequence, new test subject, new mad, new premise revealing theme song and opening sequence, host segments, theater segments, bots, magic voice, shadowrama, stinger video clip, commercial breaks with actual commercials, Satellite of Love, rocket number nine, Gamera, Gamera, Gamera, won’t you?

B-Ray says that he concocted the idea to hatch a plan to do an MST3K fanvid project a while before he even attempted to make a go of it, but the prospect of it filled him with daunt. It was do or daunt for a while there. Then his daunt surrendered to the French in 1807 and he was inspired to “do” after coming across projects such as Project Popcorn, Ken’s Cinema of Shenanigans, Mystery Fandom Theater 3000, and something called “Incognito Cinema Warriors XP“. He also has a fondness for Media Center Theatre 3000:

Theirs was the first I saw and found incredibly inspiring, letting me know that I wasn’t crazy for wanting to do something like this.

The immediate plan for the series is that they’re going to do three episodes for sure. The first episode,  MST3K vs. Gamera – Round 2: Gamera vs. Viras comes out Saturday, March 30th, 2019. Originally, they were going to do all three concurrently. But, after discovering what it takes to make an episode they decided to stick to making just one at a time. The host segment scripts for episodes two and three have already been written. But, they’re still working on the riffing, which, a reliable source reports, is “well on its way”. Depending on the effects of unknown circumstances, the second episode should come out by the end of this summer, with the third in the trilogy sometime in the fall.

“Helmutt Carusoe, Don Serbo, and Bird of the Satellite of Love.”

One fortunate result of not doing three episodes at the same time is that future episodes can have fan-mail. To that end, they’ve set up an email address “for viewers to write in to Helmutt and the bots if they do so wish”. If you’re lucky, your letter (or beautiful, hand-hewn fan-art) might end up being shown in the next 2 episodes! It flashes unobfuscated on the screen near the end of the first episode, but it also can be obtained by solving a riddle: ‘sattoflovemailbag at the gmail’.

As for plans for episodes beyond the three already announced, BrayCon says that they’ve been kicking some ideas around but they’re not in stone:

We want to stop producing them while we’re still having fun doing it… the last thing I would ever want is for paying tribute to [MST3K] to feel like a chore. So right now, the Gamera trilogy is the only definite plan, but never say never.

The equipment Brayton and his local crew used for production was a Panasonic G7 camera, an LED panel with a photographer’s umbrella for a key-light, 4 multi-colored light bulbs to gussy up the set, and a Sennheiser shotgun microphone spent it’s time soaking in the sound waves, man. The SoL background is plywood and 2×4’s with falderwhatsit glued thereupon. To save money, rather than build something elaborate with all those angles and facets like how done the original series what did, Helmutt’s adventures were moved to what turns out to be “deck 7” of the Satellite of Love, and a flatter design was adopted. B. “The Butcher” C. says he took a cue from Project Popcorn (the “Russian MST3K”) in that regard. But, while PP shot in an empty piece of real estate in St. Petersburg, MstVeGaRTu:GamVerVir was shot in Brayton’s garage. (Which was not in St. Petersburg.)

We angled the the two sides out to give it some dimension, glued a bunch of plastic vacuformed material and egg cartons to it, painted it grey, gave it some interesting lighting, and for how cheap it is, it turned out looking pretty decent.

The plan had its ups and downs and fits and starts throughout the years after it was hatched, but eventually the first episode was finally on its way into the can and onto your lean-back-experience. You can watch the inaugural episode of MST3K vs Gamera – Round 2 when it’s released tomorrow on the official BranzanFiLMS YouTube channel. Or, if you’re in a hurry, you can take in the opening sequence and a few other short bits and bobs as amuses bouche.

A tip o’ the old cap to Agonywolf Media for the heads-up.

When all the presents are opened; when all the turkeys are carved; when all the carols are sung; when all the eggs are nogged; when all the ale’s are wassed; when all the Rankin’s are Bassed; when the light above the ol’ stage door turns off and the little dude playing baby Jesus goes out to have a smoke, it’s time to mop up the blood and entrails and sit back in the La-Z-Boy for a night with Joikah, the ‘Bots, and some experiments featuring that jolly old elf, Santa.

If you want to do it up chronologically, discover why Dropo is the laziest man on Mars and start off with the old classic, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. It’s a Joel episode from season 3 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Then, jump on over to season 5 for a Mexi-horror staring the devil, called, simply, Santa Claus. It’s a Mike episode that will leave you lusting for keytar music and, if that’s alright, all-inclusive music for holidays of all faiths.

It’s time now to take a break. Get some left-overs. A little Swiss Miss? Oh, that’s fine.

Well dopple my Fingal, the third episode to mingle with Kris Kringle comes straight from season 11. Newest captive human host, Jonah learns that even Saint Nick has a mortgage. Santa gets a job (and warms our hearts) in a movie they called The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t.

That makes three episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 that feature family-friendly experiments where Santa Claus overcomes adversity to make sure that kids all over the world get presents– even if they’re on Mars. Adversity is one thing, but… hey, are the kids asleep? Good. Now that it’s after-hours, it’s time to pop in something from the other side of the tracks– it’s time for Christmas-themed slasher films. It’s time for fan-made MST3K.

If nobody is looking, open the secure vault to your extra-special, secret collection of MST3K fanvids that you dare not speak of except in hushed whispers. There’s a bare bulb swinging above the stairs. Pull the rusty chain to turn it on. What’s that creaking? Is it me bones? Golly, it’s damp in here. Oh, there it is. The first of several fan-made, Christmas-themed, Mystery Science Theater 3000 inspired videos. This one is from B-Movie Central 5000. Learn why garbage day is such a perilous time when Professor Snyder forces Jason Soto to watch Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part II. Haven’t seen Part I? Don’t worry, there’s a recap.

You don’t have all night, and you’re in the mood for blood, so you brush past riffing of clean fare the likes of The Year Without A Santa Claus, Annabelle’s Wish, and Yogi’s First Christmas. Ah, here we are: Bromance on Film. Philip and Taylor find out what happens when Santa tries to clean up the filthy streets of London in Don’t Open Till Christmas. Gene Simmons is in it, too. Wait, that’s Alan Lake. Anyhoo, it’s getting late. There’s time left for only one more MST3K fanvid. It’s another one from Bromance on Film. Released just yesterday, on Christmas eve. Taylor and Philip go to the movies (on purpose) to watch a cautionary tale for finishing school girls about why it’s a good idea to go home for Christmas vacation called To All A Good Night.

It’s time to make your way out of the vault. Make sure nobody is looking. Wait! Okay, the coast is clear. Pull the rusty chain, lock the vault door, brush your teeth, put in your retainer, and go to bed. Three Christmas movies for the whole family, riffed with care by professionals. Three Christmas-themed slasher-flicks with nudity, sacrilege, and bloody knives, riffed with care by regular people, with regular jobs, who loved Mystery Science Theater 3000 so much they committed flattery in its ultimate form. You’ve had a full day.

Patrick Swayze would be proud.

Addison Binek, Johnathan Gogoleski, and Andrew Barber (the few fellas), star as Himself, Corny, and Reelie, respectively. Himself is a disillusioned usher who is left in charge of a movie theater “for a few hours”. His dissatisfaction with what he thought would be a fun job gets the better of him and, yadda yadda yadda, he ends up in the front row of the theater, watching a movie with a box of popcorn and a reel of film. All three of which having been gifted with the power of speech.

In real life, Addison is a budding film-maker. He had a run in with MST3K, pre-second-cancellation. But, it took nigh on a decade before the MSTie obsession took hold with the Joe Estevez masterpiece, Werewolf. In the mean while, the The Toxic Avenger franchise introduced him to the movies of the fiercely independent film company Troma. Well, 2011 rolls around and Addison starts putting his MSTie chops to the grindstone with a movie review series called Movies To Watch on a Rainy Afternoon.

MTWOARA, which he still produces even nowadays, takes a Reader’s Digest version of a movie and gives it a The Film Crew-style treatment. It’s a combination of riffing and reviewing, with some comedy bits sprinkled in. A few years of riffviewing go by (to this day reaching something like 82 episodes) and he gets noticed by Troma. They liked his episode on Rabid Grannies, and decided to include episodes featuring Troma movies on TromaMovies (one of Troma’s official YouTube channels — the one that shows over 250 Troma titles for free) and their on-demand monthly subscription service TromaNow; adding to them their signature “A Troma Team Release” cityscape imprimatur.

Troma is mostly a movie distribution company. They’re totally into what they call “independent art”. (Co-founder Lloyd Kaufman often rails against the “devil worshipping conglomerates” that have monopolized world-wide motion picture distribution.) And, they encourage boisterous fan engagement. Sometimes they bank-roll movies, sometimes they produce their own, sometimes they provide finishing funds, and, sometimes, Lloyd Kaufman will have lunch alone with a 17 year old girl and write her a personal check. But, Addison says that Troma is neither producing TMPT nor paying for anything. He and his friends are doing it up fan-art style. What they’re getting from Troma is moral support, official permission, and an introduction to the eyeballs of Troma’s worldwide fanbase. (On TromaMovies, TroMPiTh has broken 3000 views. On Addison’s own channel, it’s at just over 500.)

After coming to the attention of Troma with MoToWaOnARaAf, and becoming pen-pals with Uncle Lloydie himself, Addison pitched the idea of Tromasterpiece Theatre. He says that Lloyd has given him permission to use Troma movies in the series (excluding, of course, the The Toxic Avenger franchise) and an admonition to make it funny. Production took about a year from start to finish, and included three days of shooting at the historical Main Art Theater in downtown Royal Oak, Michigan. A month or so after posting Tromasterpiece Theatre: The Battle of Love’s Return to his personal channel on the YouTube, on August 1st, 2017, TMPT:TBOLR appeared on TromaMovies. It has also since become a part of the TromaNow catalog. Your Subscription Model May Vary.

Another bit of sage advice Lloyd gave Addison was his suggestion for the pilot episode. Back in 1971, before Troma was Troma, Lloyd directed and starred in a motion picture called The Battle of Love’s Return. It’s about a bestriped, yet directionless, doofus who ambles about a city getting into all kinds of scrapes and muchados. His misadventures are juxtaposed by interviews with denizens of the city who tell it like it is — according to them. Lloyd himself has described this movie, his debut into sync-sound filmmaking, as “unwatchable“. Addison reveals that Lloyd has suggested Poultrygeist for a second experiment. But, what the next experiment will actually be has not yet been chosen, because the fellas still have a stack of movies to go through before deciding.

“[Y]ou made the movie almost entertaining!”

– Lloyd Kaufman

Who are these Michigander fellas, anyway? The guy in the Pee Wee Herman hat is TMPT director and editor, and budding filmmaker, Addison Binek. He works in a Walgreens, but also assists the budded filmmaker who directed the Troma Team Release Hectic Knife (Greg Deliso). Johnathan Gogoleski is a trained recording engineer and musician who’s in a couple of bands. He used to drive a forklift, but these days he makes ends meet by cooking lines at a restaurant. By night, Andrew Barber is in a band with Johnathan, but spends his days with Addison, mild-manneredly managing that Walgreens. These latter two voice and puppeteer the googley-eyed box of popcorn and reel of film, but you can get a sneak peek at their actual faces when they double dip as the theater manager and a litterbuggy theater patron, respectively.

During a host-segment, Corny, Addison, and Reelie read from a naughty book they saw on a shelf in the movie.

Before you get up in arms about how there’s already a popcorn themed riffing puppet out there…  when asked, Addison said that he hadn’t heard of Agonywolf Media’s Incognito Cinema Warriors XP, until recently. Apparently, two different groups came up with a popcorn themed character after also independently deciding to have a concession stand as the setting for the host-segments of their movie-riffing series set in a movie theater. In any case, Topsy Bot 5000‘s head is a bucket and Corny’s entire being is a box.

Tromasterpiece Theatre is a non-standard Mystery Science Theater 3000-style fanvid series. It has shadowrama, host-segments, a premise, a theme song explaining the premise (see “yadda”, above), and a couple of puppets watching a movie with a puppet of meat. The first episode was shot in the new-fangled “4K” format, and edited with Final Cut Pro X. It was written by a pile of long-time friends near Detroit, Michigan. You can watch it for free on the YouTube (on either Addison’s personal channel or on Troma’s TromaMovies), or you can have it as part of a paid TromaNow subscription.

Bromance on Film is a presentation of “p3“, an independent film production outfit out of Austin, Texas. In September of last year, they presented the first episode. It featured a motion-picture which can only be called Grizzly. In twelve months, twelve episodes were released onto the Youtube. Except for August missing out on its monthly allocation due to a delay caused by a natural disaster which can only be called a hurricane, an episode of B.O.F. was released every month. They had planned to do the series for a year and then decide where to go from there. It’s been a year, and it looks like they have decided. A message containing a positive exclamation appeared via the show’s official “Twitter” account, just as their riff of Scream was going live on the Youtube:

“Enjoy the last show of the season! We’ll be back in a couple of months!”

Phil’s hand passes judgement on one of the many hinders that end up centered in the frame during The Alien Dead.

In addition to their F.O.Ray into an experiment filled with aquatic, cop-a-feel zombies presenting an extraterrestrial, existential threat to southern townsfolk (and a couple of gratuitously-filmed, nudie-cutie bathing-beauties), Bromance on Film: The Alien Dead also starts off with a short, educational film from 1945 called Despotism. It’s an Erpi Classroom Film produced by the folks at Encyclopædia Britannica Films whose subject matter was definitely not whatever it was that Lady Macbeth was wringing her hands about.

Episodes of Bromance on Film are available on the YouTube.

Erpi!

Peter David, Bob Greenberger, and Michael Jan Friedman have been writing and performing Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000, their Mystery Science Theater 3000 Alive!-style live-show featuring Star Trek universe experiments nearly every year at the Shore Leave scienty fiction convention in Baltimore, Maryland for neigh on 25 years.

The doors opened on their first performance, featuring the Star Trek original series episode Turnabout Intruder, the morning of Sunday, July 12th, 1992. Ever since, they’ve been wrangling their friends, an innocent bystander or two, and usually a cameo from a celebrity, onto the stage. In the early days, noted letterer of comic books Bob Pinaha and scienty fiction writer Brad Ferguson served time as the opening-skit mad-scientists who forced them to watch bad Star Trek episodes. After a while Shore Leave regular T.A. Chafin came aboard and he’s been playing the mad scientist ever since. Eventually, the Sunday evening slot came open and MTT3K turned into a regular Sunday night thing that closed out the con.

MTT3K is arguably the first ever homage to Mystery Science Theater 3000; beating Ryan K. Johnson’s fanvid by a few months. (Interestingly, both featured experiments from Star Trek.) And, it was nearly the first ever live MST3K-style show! When MTT3K first started, MST3K had been going on television for five years, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 Alive! was nearly not even yet a thing. But, two days before P, B, and Jan (and pals) performed their first live-version homage of MST3K, Best Brains (the folks that produced the original show) performed their own live version of MST3K in Minneapolis, Minnesota — at the first Conventioconexpofestarama, which shared a weekend with Shore Leave.

Come this Sunday evening, Peter David, Bob Greenberger, and Michael Jan Friedman will have enjoyed a long and well-received run of their MST3K-inspired live-show, with what will be 24 total performances of Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000. But, come this Sunday evening plus about an hour, Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000 will be no more. They’ve decided to retire the show.

Why would they do that? Why now? Quick! Someone email them a torrent of questions and compile their answers together into what will then appear to be one long, leisurely conversation about a show the last 25 years have trained us to expect would never leave us!

Someone did.

Let’s “listen” in:

BINDING POLYMER: What inspired you to start doing a live Mystery Science Theater 3000-style show? Who brought it up first?

PETER “PAD” DAVID: It was pretty much my idea.  It was a chance to do something every year with Mike and Bob, who are long time friends and collaborators.

BOB GREENBERGER: It’s Peter’s fault. He conceived of it to have some fun with two of his regular collaborators and friends. He was also seeking a way to ensure he’d be invited back year after year.

MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN: It was Peter’s idea. And since we were friends and had already collaborated on books, it seemed like a natural team-up.

BP: Why Shore Leave?

MJF: It was the biggest forum where we were all likely to show up together. And as Peter will tell you, it was a way to ensure that we were always invited.

BG: It was the one show of the year that we were all guaranteed to be at. Additionally, there was a cadre of performers under the umbrella name Cheap Treks that would mount musical parodies of whatever genre material was in vogue. Peter even wrote one and I appeared in another. When they chose to retire, we were asked to shift from a Sunday morning slot to the closing event, cementing our place in Shore Leave.

PAD: In the old days, Shore Leave didn’t always invite me as a guest.  So I came up with MTT3K as an idea that would prove so popular they would have to invite me back year after year just to get the show.  I took pains to make it clear that we would never do it anywhere else, so Shore Leave would have an exclusive thing.  And believe me, we’ve been asked.

BP: Why Star Trek only?

BG: Shore Leave started out as a Star Trek con in the early 1980s when they were largely the only game in town. When the original syndicated series boom came, followed by the explosion of basic cable offerings, I suppose we could have added other shows, but with five iterations of Trek, we never thought about it. Of course, Peter suggested we use the William Shatner pilot for Alexander the Great as a surprise and it remains one of the best received shows we did.

PAD: Well, it IS called “Trekkie Theater.”  But we haven’t done only Star Trek.  One year in the opening sketch, Mike complained about how he was sick of trashing Star Trek, and the Mad Scientist suggested “Alexander,” which startled people because the Brad Pitt “Alexander” film was still in the theaters. And we started running this old black and white TV program, and the audience had zero idea why we were watching it…until Alexander came riding up, and it was a pre-Trek William Shatner.  The fans went nuts.  They were finally going to see something on Mystery Trekkie that they’d never seen before.

MJF: Trek is the best known of the sci fi screen products and it offers the most possibilities. Plus our attention spans don’t go any longer than 45 minutes, so movies weren’t an option.

BP: How did you guys meet?

PAD: Bob I met through Howie Weinstein.  Bob was editing a magazine called “Comics Scene” and he hired me to write a story about the comic book direct sales market, which led to my becoming Marvel Comics’ assistant direct sales manager.  Mike I’m pretty sure I met at a convention.

BG: Peter and I may have crossed paths at the old August Parties, but we were formally introduced when Howard Weinstein called me at Starlog Press to ask if I could assign an article to Peter, who just lost his job at Playboy Press. I called, he did a superb job, we struck up a friendship and have been watching one another’s backs ever since. During the 1980s, Dave Stern was the Star Trek editor at Pocket Books and he began hosting cocktail parties for all the local authors including me, since I was editing the comic for DC. That’s where we met Mike, who turned out to be a kindred spirit although he’s way too athletic for his own good.

MJF: In thunder, lightning, and in rain. No, wait, that’s someone else. I’m pretty sure it was at one of Pocket Books’ Christmas parties. I’d been avoiding these guys for as long as possible and eventually my luck ran out.

BP: In a nut shell, what is Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000?

PAD: It’s Mystery Science Theater but with Trek.

BG: We lovingly skewer the weaker episodes from across the Star Trek franchise, pointing out story flaws, bad acting, bad scene continuity, and have developed a recurring set of responses that audiences have come to expect and even join in on (such as fart sounds every time someone sits down). We replicate the MST format complete with puppets, opening skit, mad scientist, and “Movie Sign!”.

MJF: The end-product of six thousand years of Western civilization. Seriously…we sit behind a screen and mock an episode the way MST3K mocked sci fi movies.

BP: [From the not too distant future] What was the experiment? How did the show go?

PAD: We’re actually bringing it full circle and doing the very first experiment we ever did:  “Turnabout Intruder,” the last episode of original Trek.

MJF: It was the best performance of anyone, ever.

BP: Will it be a second performance of the original script from 1992, or did you guys write all new stuff?

PAD: We definitely no longer have the script from a quarter of a century ago.  I remembered a handful of lines, but we wound up doing it the way we always do it, from the beginning.

BP: You guys are already pretty well known to the Shore Leave crowd, but if you got to talking with an uninitiated stranger in an elevator, how any floors would it take to explain what you do for a living?

PAD: I’m a writer, so less than a floor.

BG: One floor: I’m a writer/editor/English teacher.

MJF: One. I write science fiction and fantasy. Oh, and I teach. And I…okay, maybe two.

BP: When you started doing MTT3K, had you heard of any other fans doing versions of MST3K?

PAD: Nope.  Then again, it was before the rise of the Internet, so it’s possible that there were others doing it and we never found out.

BG: Not me. I do want to note that even earlier than that, a fan named Lynne Stephens took ST:TMP and managed to reedit it, adding sound cues and TOS footage to shorten and enliven the turgid film.  She showed it at a few cons in the very early 1980s and may be the first time I saw any one mock the original material.

MJF: No. At least, I hadn’t.

BP: Were you able to use Star Trek in your show because of your relationships with Star Trek and Paramount, or is it because Shore Leave has blanket permission from Paramount to show Star Trek during the show?

PAD: I honestly have no idea.  Since we never sell any of our shows on DVD, there’s no copyright issues because no money is being made.  As long as no one is profiteering off stuff, Paramount generally doesn’t care.

BG: It’s parody, which is legally protected, and since we three (and Alan Chafin, our Mad Scientist) do not personally profit from the event, nor does Shore Leave charge a separate fee that can be construed to profit from it, Paramount and CBS Consumer Products ignore us.

MJF: As one of my compadres has said, it’s satire.

BP: Has anyone at Paramount contacted you to express an opinion (hopefully positive) about what you guys have been doing with their franchise?

PAD: Nope.

BG: Not that I can recall.

MJF: I don’t recall any such contact.

BP: You’ve had some Star Trek actors participate in your show (e.g. Takei, Picardo), but have any other actors expressed a desire to participate but it never came about?

PAD: Never.  We always approach the actors and they’re happy to participate.

BG: None have sought us out, but we have been able to invite other guests to participate on an as-needed basis and once the actor agrees, Peter tweaks his opening skit script to accommodate them. In addition to Trek actors, we’ve also had Andrea Thompson and Kevin Sorbo among others to kindly play with us. They show up, do their lines and leave, making the fans, and us, very happy.

MJF: No one in their right mind would offer to take part in our shenanigans. They generally have to be dragged in kicking and screaming.

BP: Over the history of performing MTT3K, what memory stands out in your mind the most?

PAD: As I mentioned, probably “Alexander” because the audience was caught so flatfooted.  I doubt any of them even knew the show existed.  And the best moment was when the opening credits were running, and I said, “You gotta hand it to the mad scientist.  This could not possibly get any worse.”  And then it said, “Co-starring:  Adam West,” and we chorused, “It’s worse” as the audience howled.

BG: Our skits got increasingly ambitious […] Riverborg and a stage full of red shirts doing “Red Shirt Riot” stand out as particularly strong ones. Robert Picardo’s surprise appearance was perhaps the best received cameo.

One year we were doing our final late night rehearsal and were making so much noise with laughter that the next door guest banged on our door. We opened it to find an irritated Ann Crispin who saw it was us, complained, sighed, and went back to bed.

MJF: I get kicked in the nuts a lot. There, I said it. I mean a lot.

BP: Do you remember any jokes or skits that went over particularly well? Any that didn’t get the reaction you expected?

PAD: RiverBorg went over pretty well.  “Star Trek Boulevard” in which we riffed “Sunset Boulevard” and climaxed with our Mad Scientist, T.A. Chafin, having a heart attack on stage.  We ran to him and I shouted, “Is there a Doctor in the house?!” Several people actually started to stand up and then Bob Picardo stepped out and said, “What is the nature of your medical emergency?” I also loved “Fairy Home Companion” in which we recreated “Prairie Home Companion” with Bob, Mike and I wearing fairy wings.  What didn’t go over?  We were the backup singers for George Takei, and unfortunately George was horribly off key, so it was kind of awful.  Unfortunately that’s one of the few opening sketches on Youtube.

BG: We would individually watch the episode then meet some time in June to compare notes, rewatching the episode. Often things occurred to us during the group watch that were unanticipated and made it into the final script, which I would type on my laptop. Over time, it got eerie how often we came up with the same gag, perhaps worded differently. We’d practice timing the jokes with the time code and refine accordingly. Usually, on Saturday night, after the con’s Masquerade, we’d sit in a hotel room and do a final run through where jokes were refined or added.

What always surprised me was that some of the things that made us laugh the loudest, literally fall off our chairs funny, went over poorly with the crowd while throw aways we had went over far better.

MJF: I thought our rendition of Sunset Boulevard went over especially well. We pre-produced a video of me floating face down in the hotel pool and then I wore the same clothes to the live skit, so it was particularly convincing.

BP: Any particularly special memories of any of the celebrity guest stars who participated? Did anyone give you more than you could have hoped for?

PAD: Andrea Thompson did a fantastic job.  She played a reporter and she wound up flirting with Chafin.  She smiled at him and said, “You’ve been looking up naked pictures of me on the Internet, haven’t you.”  He grinned and nodded and she wound up seducing him away on stage.  To this day he says that was his favorite sketch.

The one who went over the top in expectations.  Corin Nemec joined us when we did “Fairie Home Companion” in which we riffed on the famous radio show.  Corin played the lead role in one part of the sketch in which he was hard-boiled detective investigating a case.  His dramatic reading was absolutely terrific.  Then the sketch climaxed with Katie Greenberger and me singing a take off of “Cotton Eyed Joe” called “Rotten Old Q.”  We had a bunch of dancers on the stage (including a Mugato) and Corin, unscripted, came bounding out on stage and started swaying to and fro right behind me.  I spotted him out of the corner of my eye and started swaying in counter to his movements, and the audience loved it.

Actually the Mugato was a set up for one of my favorite Mystery Trekkie moments.  We were doing “Private Little War” and I kept referring to the creature as a Gumato.  Bob and Mike corrected me with growing frustration, but I kept insisting it was a Gumato.  When the final credits rolled, Mike said, “See?  See?  Right there, in the credits.  Janos Prohaska as…the Gumato?!?”  I smugly said, “Told you.”  The audience went nuts, because sure enough, the credits had been getting the creature’s name wrong for forty years and apparently no one had noticed.  But I’d spotted it somehow when reviewing the episode and knew I could have a ton of fun with that.  That was the second best audience reaction we ever got.  The best was when we were watching an episode of Enterprise and the theme song started.  I said, “I hate this theme song.  Could we get another one, please?”  And it cut to Eric Cartman singing “Come Sail Away.”  The audience was in hysterics because it actually fit quite well to the visuals.

MJF: Are we talking during the skit…or after hours?

BP: Are there any Star Trek episodes you were itching to use as an experiment, but now won’t get to because this is MTT3K’s last year?

PAD: Nah.  If there was a show we were itching to do, we did it.

BG: One of the reasons we considered ending things before realizing it was the 25th anniversary and a good time to call it a career was multifaceted. One, with Mike’s teaching schedule and my move to Maryland, getting us together was getting problematic in addition to a sense we had skewered the shows most deserving.

MJF: No, I think in 25 years we covered everything we wanted to cover, and then some.

BP: Were there any episodes you thought needed to be an experiment, but for whatever reason they just didn’t lend themselves to riffing?

PAD: “Omega Glory.”  I was geared up to go after that one, but we watched it and frankly it just didn’t lend itself to parody.

MJF: Occasionally some episodes didn’t work out as well as others. Hard to say why.

BP: What was it about Alexander the Great that made it the only non Star Trek experiment you did?

PAD: It was an incredibly young Shatner, the audience didn’t know about it, and it lent itself to great moments.  I remember one point where Alexander’s men were in battle and they had their shields up as archers fired on them.  And in a Scott’s brogue, I said, “The shields canna take much more of this!”

MJF: It had the audience baffled at first…till the rider’s horse wheeled and we saw that it was Shatner. Adam West, Joseph Cotton, John Cassavetes…it was a fascinating artifact that few fans had ever seen before. Our contribution was just icing on the cake.

BG: William Shatner and Adam West. ‘Nuff said.

BP: The announcement on the Shore Leave website suggests that you guys have decided to stop doing MTT3K because Mystery Science Theater 3000 was returning. Is that true?

PAD: Not really.  With Bob moving down to Maryland, it became more a matter of logistics than anything else.

MJF: It’s a combination of things. We never wanted to outstay our welcome, so we’re not. Also, with Bob down in Maryland, the logistics were getting insane. This year we actually had to meet in a neutral state for our rehearsal.

BP: What sort of reaction have you been getting since announcing that your show was ending?

PAD: So far?  None.  I figure I’ll get reactions at the convention though.

BG: A lot of surprise and disappointment and complaints from friends and family they had to learn about it from the website.

MJF: None so far. I imagine we’ll get some at the con.

BP: What did you think of the new season of MST3K? Favorite new episode?

PAD: I’m loving it so far.  I’ve seen the first five episodes so I don’t have a single favorite yet.

BG: Here’s my dirty secret: I have never seen an episode of MST3K, old or new. Ironically, I will finally pop my cherry with the live performance in Washington D.C. that evening.

MJF: Um…I…actually…haven’t seen it yet…

BP: Has it always just been you three watching the experiment during the show? Were you ever able to wrangle a celebrity into watching with you?

PAD: Never happened, because the celebrities are always off at their autographing.

BG: When we settled on rehearsing at Peter’s house, his wife Kathleen always joined in as did Peter’s daughter Ariel and then their daughter Caroline. When my son was ill, the two kindly [travelled up to] Connecticut where we did the rehearsal in Robbie’s hospital room. He got to make some suggestions we used. Alan Chafin would join us for the final run through and would also make suggestions.

MJF: One time I couldn’t make the con and Keith DeCandido sat in for me. But never a celebrity.

BP: Are you three the only writers for MTT3K? Were there any guest writers or stray lines friends or family threw at you that you used because they were too good to pass up?

PAD: T.A. Chafin has contributed ideas, as have my wife and daughter, Kathleen and Caroline.

BG: We’ve never had guest writers although, when circumstances demanded Mike or I miss out [on the show], we were able to recruit Pocket Books editor John Ordover and Keith DeCandido to fill in for us.

MJF: Since our rehearsals were usually at Peter’s house, sometimes his wife Kathleen or daughter Caroline would come up with a bon mot.

BP: Were all of the opening skits written solo by Peter?

PAD: Pretty much, yeah, although last years, “Dating Game of Thrones,” was suggested by a friend of Kathleen’s, Angelo.

BG: Yes. Mike and I just aren’t twisted enough.

MJF: Those were Peter’s? Not Andrew Lloyd Weber’s? Are you sure?

BP: Did you ever toy with the idea of taking the show to other conventions?

PAD: Nope.

BG: Not that I recall. There was once discussion of going down to Florida to perform a special event at the movie theater run by Peter’s daughter Shaina, but we decided to keep it a Shore Leave exclusive.

MJF: Nope. It was always going to be a Shore Leave exclusive.

BP: How would you feel if a new set of enterprising writers started a new MST3K live-show at Shore Leave? Would you rather that it was left as a special thing that used to happen?

PAD: I would not be thrilled with that.  MTT3K is our thing and I would not want to see someone continuing it.  Especially at Shore Leave.

BG: Once word got out we were done, Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore, and Dave Mack began brainstorming ideas to become our replacements with something new and different. I’ll be very curious to see if that becomes something.

MJF: I’d rather that field was left fallow. But then, we don’t own any rights to it.

BP: Now that Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000 is ending, do you think you’ll release the scripts (skits and riffs) for each of the shows? Or, will the script for “Beat the Klingon Geeks” remain the only script ever released publicly?

PAD: Christ, I don’t even remember that script.  Why the hell did I release it?  I have no plans to do so at this moment, but maybe I’ll start releasing them on my Patreon account.

BG: Peter wrote them and that’s up to him.

MJF: I’ve given out my skit scripts over the years so I don’t have any of them. If anyone has the files, it would be Peter. As far as I’m concerned, that’s up to him. As for the riffs…I don’t know if Bob has preserved them or not.

BP: Did you record any of the performances for posterity? Do you have any plans to release the recordings? (Or, to have them playing in a video room at Shore Leave in future MTT-free years?)

PAD: Many of them were recorded by Shore Leave, but I certainly don’t have any plans to release any of them.  If Shore Leave wants to run them in a video room, they’re welcome to.

BG: The cons may have recorded these, but I doubt a complete set exists which I now realize to be a real shame.

MJF: We’ve never recorded the shows in their entirety. There may be some skit videos, though.

BP: Have you seen any other MST3K fan-made live-shows or fan-made episodes?

PD: No.

BG: No.

MJF: I have not.

BP: What was the usual process for writing each year’s script?

PAD: I would write the opening sketch and choose the episode.  I would get copies of the episode to Bob and Mike.  We’d all watch it individually and make notes.  Then we’d gather, usually at my house, and screen the episode while tossing out our jokes.  Bob would type them all up on his computer.  He would produce a script and give them to me and Mike at Shore Leave and we would have our final run through on Friday night of the convention.

MJF: We each wrote separately. Then we came together and rehearsed at Pete’s house. I’ve seldom laughed as hard as I have at those rehearsals. At the con, we do a run-through Saturday night. Then we perform Sunday morning. That’s when I get kicked in the nuts.

BP: Who decided which episode to take on next? Why did it take so long to do Spock’s Brain?

PAD: I always said that Spock’s Brain was unquestionably the worst one and could not be topped, and if we ever did Spock’s Brain, it would be the last one.  I kept to that.

BG: Usually, by Farpoint in February, we’d have settled on a show with lots of suggestions. Eventually we’d reach a consensus and get to work. Peter always felt “Spock’s Brain”, perhaps the easiest show to mock, would be our finale.

MJF: We decide together. It just felt like time for Spock’s Brain–and we always said that when we did Spock’s Brain, we’d be done.

BP: Why no MTT3K in 1995 or 1999?

PAD: I wasn’t available and Bob and Mike didn’t want to do it without me.

BG: Really? I don’t recall that.

MJF: Don’t recall missing those years.

BP: In 2004, Peter “totally lost it” when Mike did his tongue-less Tom Paris imitation. Are there any other instances where any of the cast totally lost it and the others had to cover for them?

BG: Mike or I usually flubbed a line or a cue, causing adlibbing or awkward silences. That was never fun.

MJF: I think we’ve all lost it a bit from time to time, and when that happens, we’ve got each other’s backs.

BP: When T.A. Chafin filled in as a mad scientist for Bob Pinaha in 1997, was that the last time Bob Pinaha and Brad Ferguson were a regular part of the show? What is your relationship with those three guys and how did they react when you asked them to be a part of the show?

PAD: Yes, I think it was.  They just didn’t want to continue for some reason, and Chafin was happy to continue in their place.

BG: Bob and Brad stopped attending the show for their own personal reasons and we adapted. Bob was my letterer on the Star Trek comics and a good pal while Brad became one of the Pocket regulars and lived locally so was someone we could count on for the shows.

MJF: I’d worked with Bob Pinaha in the comics industry, where he was known as a terrific letterer. Brad was a Trek author like Peter, Bob, and me. They liked being part of the show. Then they stopped coming to Shore Leave and we had to seek out new talent.

BP: How far before Shore Leave were the scripts usually finalized. Were there ever any last minute changes?

PAD: The night before.  But there are times when we would actually come up with something while on stage and we’d just ad lib stuff.

MJF: Seldom last-minute changes, but some. Scripts were usually finalized at our initial rehearsal at Pete’s house.

BP: How much rehearsing were you usually able to get in? Did you ever just wing it?

PAD: Never.  Aside from occasional ad libs, everything was rehearsed.

MJF: Never winged it. We always had two rehearsals–at Pete’s and then Saturday night at the con.

BP: Did the opening skit always include an invention exchange?

PAD: Initially it did, yes, but we dropped it pretty quickly.

MJF: No, not always an invention. Seldom, in fact, if I recall correctly, and less so as time went on.

BP: Peter’s life was affected by MTT3K because one year you guys needed a prop for the skit and he bought a Klingon puppet from a lovely young lady that eventually became his wife. Michael/Bob, has MTT3K affected your life in such a significant way?

BG: I have newfound appreciation for how well Mike can take a knee to the groin. Other than that day’s applause, no not really.

MJF: Did I mention I got kicked in the nuts a lot? Outside of that, not really–other than it gave me an excuse to do one of the things I like best, which is have some laughs with Bob and Peter.

BP: What will life be like without Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000?

PAD: —I dunno.  Ask me in a year.

BG: Well, we regain a few hours in our lives before the show and it allows us more flexibility to go home. It will certainly feel very odd not to rehearse and deepen our bonds of friendship in this unique way.

MJF: Good question. I really don’t know. I’m sure I’ll miss it, and all the fun we had, a great deal. But then, to borrow a phrase from Next Gen, “All Good Things” must end.

Thanks to Peter, Bob, and Michael Jan for taking the time on the eve of the con of their final performance to sit and have a long, leisurely “chat” about Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000.

STC4K’s non-standard premise, instead of a mad scientist shooting someone into space, has a mad scientist trapping a guy under ground. In fact — and this isn’t explained in the instrumental theme song or in any on-screen exposition — the guy the evil Dr. Wehttam has trapped underground is his own clone! Dr. Wehttam’s favorite TV show is MST3K. So, after the show went off the air, he went to work trying to recreate the show himself — a mile beneath the surface of the Earth. He strands his clone in a subterranean bunker, with a couple of robots (Vic and Ray). Then, “phase 2” of his evil plan begins: force the clone to watch bad movies.

In a fit of unseemly obsession, Wehttam spent ten years constructing an underground, highly secure bunker to unleash his master plan–an experiment in media based torture, for his own entertainment. Wary of his claustrophobia, he decided to clone himself so he could function as both the observer and subject of the experiment. (STC4K/Facebook)

The first experiment was the 1993 feature film Robot Wars.  The milk shake that brings the boys to the Robot Wars yard is gigantic, robotic war-machines brought to life with stop-motion animation — and the main character’s sweet feathered hair. Some might call it a sequel to Robot Jox from 1989, but some might argue differently.

“It gives me great pleasure to introduce phase two of my master plan….”

The creator of SubTCin4000, Matt Reck (who played Matt), says that he started building Vic and Ray originally without any plans to use them in anything. Building them was just something to kill the time over a few weekends. The same goes for Dr. Wehttam’s robotic left arm; he made it a few years earlier for no good reason at all. It was Matt’s aimless creative output that finally lead to the four friends, who had met in high school, to get excited about doing an MST3K-style project:

I built a bunch of stuff and my friends got more and more excited at the idea every time I’d show them something else I’d built.

Things started to get going in earnest around July of 2010 and he says that it took about nine months to write and shoot the first episode; most of the shooting taking place in the cold, cold Illinois winter months from October to January. Soon after shooting ended, Matt moved out of town to seek his fortune in Florida — leaving his friend Dustin O’Dell to complete the editing.

Matt and the bots having a devil of a time in some footage from the ill-fated second episode of Subterranean Cinema 4000.

Work on the second episode of Subterranean Cinema 4000 began not too long after the first episode was released, giving Matt a whole year to decide to move back to town. The second experiment was originally going to be the feature film The Prisoners of the Lost Universe, starring Battlestar Gallactica‘s own Richard Hatch. But, the plan was derailed when they discovered that Rifftrax had already trod those boards and they decided to abandon the riffs they’d already written and take on a different movie: 1989’s Night Shadow.

Originally, the second episode was planned to be released in the summer of 2012. After two years, they had written and shot footage for some host segments, and had written riffs for something like 3/4 of the new experiment. Dustin, who also wrote the understated morceau of an overture at the beginning of the first episode, even wrote a whole new theme song. But, Subterranean Cinema 4000 succumbed to a common affliction of MST3K fanvid projects. As Dustin puts it:

…the whole thing unfortunately sort of fell apart for us as life happened–we all parted ways physically and so couldn’t do more episodes. There wasn’t a falling out or anything but physical distance made working on the show’s skit material inconvenient.

It wasn’t Randolph Cohlan’s genre picture that killed the project. It was just plain old life getting in the way. Eventually, the sets were dismantled. Official Twitter and Facebook postings teasing progress of the second experiment ceased in early 2014.

Dr. Wehttam’s henchman Internet Jeff eats a microwave samich as Matt, Vic, and Ray get the low down on the experiment and the effects of disobeying the “movie alarm”.

As far as the future of STC4K goes, Trevor Klump (who played Ray) posted on Facebook, not too long ago, his interest in getting the gang back together. Dustin is also game, noting that there’s hope in that they had never formally declared that the project was dead. But unless the problem of Hillsboro, Illinois not being able to keep its residents from moving away can be solved (even Matt’s twin brother Andrew Reck, who played Dr. Wehttam, skipped town for a while), it looks like the most that those encouragement posting YouTube commenters might be able to hope for will have to be cobbled together from what’s already in-the-can. Which, Matt thinks, needs to see the light of day:

Episode 2 has a ton of stuff filmed.  I’ve thought about uploading a short-film style of everything we have filmed because it’s really funny and deserves [to be uploaded] since we put so much work into it.

Another MST3K fanvid series that ended its run by putting out an unfinished episode is Nathanial Torres’s Moon Base Nine. The third episode of Moon Base Nine (The Transformation of Fanghorn) features the MB9 characters in the host segments; but the theater segments were never shot, so even though the characters mention having to go in there, they never actually do. The experiments are short cartoons Nathanial produced himself. They appear as they normally would have, only shadowrama (and riff) free. But, not all unfinished episodes escape the edit bay.

Subterranean Cinema 4000 has a few things in common with MST3K fanvid project Subterranean Cinema Realm (1999-2002) — besides their names (which turns out just to be a pretty neat coincidence). Neither of them has anything to do with Don Alex’s Subterranean Cinema nor Kyle Pittman‘s Subterranea; but, both of them do have an unreleased episode languishing unfinished, with no clear future. They both take place, eponymobviously, subterraneously. And, they both were produced in Illinois; a stone’s throw from St. Louis, Missouri.  (If you add the once a year performances over the last 20 years of Mysterious Theatre 337, Illinois seems to be a hot-bed of MST3K fan-made activity!)

Technically speaking, STC4K was edited with Sony Vegas; the sound was recorded with two shotgun microphones, and those goofy over-the-ear mics; and the camera they used was a Panasonic DVX100a. The garage where they shot everything (a friend’s garage dubbed Buckeye Trail Studio) had a noisy kerosene heater they couldn’t use while they were shooting; so it was always something like 40 degrees in there. The shadowrama was done with a green-screen chroma-key effect.

There’s a whole channel on the YouTube, if you want to check out the one episode of STC4K; you can also check out a blooper reel and a “trailer” for episode two. If you’d like to be surprised by future postings on disused or defunct social media accounts, keep an eye on the STC4K Twitter and Facebook pages. There are even Facebook pages for Ray the Robot and Internet Jeff (Dr. Wehttam’s dopey, tum-tum-exposed minion played by Jesse Elliot). To round out the cast, Vic the Robot (a fictional character who doesn’t seem to be on social media) was played by Jarrod Law.

Bromance on Film: Asylum of Satan was released, say, noonish (Austin, Texas time), unto the YouTube on June 25th. Phil and Taylor meet up, discuss their shared love of classic literature, and then head to the theater to get up to their first shared love-of: watching bad movies. Before the main feature is a provocative educational short film from 1959 for plant supervisors, commissioned by McGraw-Hill Book Company, called The Trouble With Women. Movie riffing enthusiasts may remember this popular little number that asks the question, “What is Brad’s trouble,” from its 2005 appearance as part of Jason Soto’s B-Movie Central 5000: Shorts Spectacular!! (Volume 1); and as a stand-alone short-subject riff by Rifftrax in 2008. Horror movie enthusiasts may be interested to know that Asylum of Satan features cross-dressing, stylish checkered pants, and a blind chick who definitely didn’t watch out for snakes!

NOTD concerns itself with a group of college-aged campers, camping out in the woods, with their professor, who has dragged them along to investigate a reported Bigfoot in the area. Some very parental guidance events occur throughout the movie, but BOF has efforted to censor the most egregious and offensive uncovered body parts in order to keep viewers from having to give their age to watch it. This latest episode makes nine total episodes from Phil and Taylor.