Review of Mystery Science Theater 3000

It's a shame this show doesn't get much airplay anymore, but when it was on I tried to watch as regularly as I could. To this day the show affects the way I watch certain movies. And, really, they make it so that it's the ONLY way I can watch some of these movies. I could maybe see myself seeing a bad monster movie or an undercooked message sci-fi tome or something that was made with (stolen from a grade-schooler's) lunch money and put shoddily to celluloid, but not too often unless in the company of a lot of friends and a mood to heckle. Instead, this show basically does it for you, and though it seems all improvised bashing and goofing, it is definitely all written out, from scene to scene the observations are by a team of professionals- more or less- and the wit is at best scabrous and at least worth a few chuckles. The method is so ingenious that they've made it actually really enjoyable to see some of the worst drek ever contemplated. Some of these for me in the past have included, but not been limited to, Manos: The Hands of Fate, The Hellcats, The Sinister Urge, a Godzilla movie, a Cuban missile crisis movie (I forget the name), Mixed-up Zombies, and many others I can't remember. The only drag comes in the in-between filler segments, with the sort of dialog that really can only be classified under 'banter'. But when Joel/Mike, Crow and Tom Servo get their critique on, it's very, very funny more often than not. And now that more and more of them are popping up on DVD, the bad-movie night choices are endless, if ironically daunting at the promise such bad movies made fun of well can bring.