You got to love those geniuses who create Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K). For years, America has been inundated with unspeakable bad science fiction movies, you know-bad dialogue, horrible acting and primitive special effects. The only thing that kept you keep from bashing your head into the coffee table was to make fun of everything with witty commentary. The folks at MST3K took this survival technique and made it an artform. Creating a television show that reworked bottom of the barrel B-movies and made them comedy classics in an unique piss-your-pants hilarious way.

     Joel Hodgson and the later Mike Nelson, who replaced Hodgson, were sent to a station in outer space by an evil scientist who just didn't like them. As punishment, these humans was forced to watch cheesy movies. Luckily, Hodgson and later Nelson had the companionship of Tom Servo and Crow, two wise cracking robots who kept the prisoners from going crazy. As a way to make the movies seem interesting, the trio makes fun of everything, from dialogue to body language, displaying a keen sense of everything that goes on in the film and making every second of the bad movie much more enjoyable to watch. The show garnered success on Comedy Central and finally on the Sci-Fi Network. MST3K even had a movie made based on the show. Once cancelled fans of the show would have to turn to syndicated repeats if they could find it, but now, Rhino has released several episodes in DVD collections, bringing back to life these cheesy films and making them entertaining for all the wrong reasons.

     The Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD Box Set comes complete with cheesy pop-up children's activities box, included are four movies critiqued by the MST3K cast from the show's annals on four DVDs. The four films, The Catolina Caper from the second season with series creator Joel Hodgson. Bloodlust, The Creeping Terror and the Skydivers from later seasons with Mike Nelson as the host, are as bad as you can get, which is actually a good thing for us viewers. This DVD collection is a must have for anyone who likes a good laugh. Each movie has its great moments that really stand out and shine and the funny thing is, there were actually better shows that could have shown up on the collection, so it should get even funnier with each new collection.

     The first film, The Skydivers is weird, because there is little skydiving in the film. Rther the movie focuses on a love triangle or square that makes little sense to the viewers. Nelson said it best when he commented, "It seems like they forgot to have something happen in this movie." They sure did and the acting just made it worse. One character screams before going on with the dialogue prompting one robot to quip, "Oops, stage direction." Funny thing is, in this film, the best line didn't come from our hosts, but the bad actors themselves. The wife of the skydive shop owner asks her husband's best friend if he'd like to have a cup of coffee, to which he replies, "Coffee… I like Coffee!" That just made me laugh hysterically and the trio actually timing how long it took for him to get that coffee just made it that much more funny.

     Humor like this seems to permeate every film in the collection. The movie Creeping Terror uses narration so much, the narator actually ends up telling the audience what each character is saying. When the characters actually do speak, our robot friends say, "Actual dialogue startled everyone." As for Bloodlust, which stars Robert Reed of Brady Bunch fame, our cast notices something instantly about the film. "This film would be suspenseful except for the fact that it isn't." As for the one film Joel Hodgson is featured in, Catalina Caper; the film is so bad, that the robots believe that Little Richard is the best talent in the film. Even Tom Servo, our naïve robot friend, falls for one of the actresses and passes the time away by singing "Oh Creepy Girl" in her honor. Hilarious. As for the film itself, "The only difference between Catalina Caper and Titanic is talent," says Hodgson.

     I swear they make these bad movies so people could make fun of them. This collection does it to absolute perfection. Hell, they include the original films on the reverse side of the DVD for your own viewing antics. Though, I would have liked to have seen some other extras thrown in there, like commentaries and things of that ilk, but if I had to pay a penny per laugh, this is certainly worth the money and then some. Bad Movies…I like Bad Movies, but I like them a whole lot better with Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Enjoy your cheesy flicks today.

     Send your questions and comments about this article to JMinners@ybfree.com.

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