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MST3000 takes on REEFER MADNESS
Jeri Jacquin, Movie Maven
In 1998 a series called Mystery Science Theatre 3000 began to air on cable television. What made this show just a little different was that it was hosted by a man and his two robot sidekicks who are stranded on a spaceship. An evil scientist forces these three to watch B-movies and to keep from losing their sanity, the three wisecrack (or, as they call it, riffing) their way through the film.
Yes, I too stayed up into the late night hours because I knew this was something different, something special, something so damn twisted I had to watch every weekend! The fondest memory I have of this time period is sitting up all night laughing so hard I cried.
And all because, sitting in the bottom corner of my television screen in theatre seats, were a man and two robots providing a running commentary of hilarity that kept viewers coming back for more until the shows ended in 1999.
But fear not! Mystery Science Theatre 3000, or MST 3K as it’s now referred to, is back but on the big screen as your favorite man and robots take on the biggest B-movie ever made with the 1936 film “Reefer Madness”.
For anyone who has lived in a cave, “Reefer Madness” is a film about the wickedness and life destruction that can happen with the use of – dare I say it – reefer! The original film was financed by a church group teaching their children about cannabis use. Entitled “Tell Your Children”, it was quickly purchased by Dwain Esper who gave the film its new name “Reefer Madness”.
In 1971, “Reefer Madness” was found in the Library of Congress by Keith Stroup who bought a copy of the print for $297. He began releasing it to college campuses and the students created a new cult following. Now, instead of being a teaching tool, it has turned into a comedy due to its over acting and low budget production.
In 2004, 20th Century Fox and Legend Films released a color version of the film for DVD release. Now, MST 3K will take it on in theatres on August 19th with Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy once again do what they do best as a live event!
For more information go to www.mst3k.com or buy tickets at www.fathomevents.com.
So, without further adieu – a few words from the stars themselves, talking about MST3K and riffing on anything they can! Ladies and gentlemen – Mike, Kevin and Bill – your MST3K guys!
Keith: First, I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to participate with this. I’m glad everyone is super excited about this as I am.
I know you know these guys but I’ll remind you that Mike Nelson is former host and writer of Mystery Science Theatre whose been on numerous radio shows and writer for TV Guide. Kevin, Red Robot, and Bill played a host of characters on the show, he writes for Prairie Home Companion and All Things Considered.
They are taking on “Reefer Madness” and doing it live in theatres across the country. There is an ongoing contest where people can submit their “Reefer Madness” jokes. The audience will also be treated to a world premiere of three shorts. There is also an ipad giveaway on RIFFTRAXX.
The fact is that you really don’t want to hear form me you want to here from Mike, Bill and Kevin. Thanks for being a part of this.
(At this time you can hear the cast making silly noises and giggling, but I say here, “ahhhhhh, it’s so good to hear again!”)
Q: I was wondering, how do you guys come up with your jokes? Do you ad lib?
Kevin: These days we have them manufactured in Korea and they are pre-assembled. Now a days Bill and I live in Minnesota and Mikes lives out in San Diego. We divide the movie out in chunks. The jokes come from our own mad inspiration and the dog talks to me constantly.
Mike: We had someone contact me personally and said they just found out that we all didn’t write our own jokes and he was kind of angry about it.
Bill: That would be kind of impossible to do with the amount of bureaucracy involved. We just take big chunks. There was a time when we sat in a room together in San Diego with our two other writers. The fun part was that we improvised.
Kevin: But the jokes came from Korea.
Q: You’ve done such a wide variety of movies, is there a particular era that you look forward to that you can riff on from a particular decade.
Kevin: I’m loving the 30’s “Reefer Madness” gives us that late 30’s and early 40’s and the suits and the way they talk. The way they talk is wonderful. Plus the cars are very cool.
Mike: The women have that shrieking voice.
Bill: It might be because they were all stage actors and maybe that’s why they are yelling at each other.
Kevin: We love the 30’s.
Mike: I’m a fan of the 1980’s. That seems like a lost world of insanity and bad hair.
Bill: We recently ripped “Boy in a Plastic Bubble”. John Travolta in those tiny shorts but I don’t think it would get produced today.
Q: Back in MST days there was less of a chance of running into the actors and directors you are lampooning there’s a greater chance you run into them. Have you run into them?
Bill: I don’t think so. When there is an actual celebrity at Comic Con they are swarmed so you can’t get in within 100 feet of them.
Mike: Pretty much everyone in Riff Traxx went to see Tommy Russo.
Kevin: For those, Tommy Resso is the star director “The Room”. We did a Riff Traxx of it, which was quite popular.
Bill: He wasn’t fond of us riffing on it but it didn’t’ come to blows.
Mile: He thought we were stealing his soul.
Kevin: “Your taking my dark comedy and making fun of it how, how could they laugh?” (He says in an over dramatic voice)
Bill: We should send him a basket; he’s a gold mine for us. We depend on people like Tommy.
Q: How do you feel about the resurgence…..
Kevin: I think that’s wonderful as long as I don’t ever have to watch it again.
Mike: That’s the movie I’m not even allowed to mention around my wife. I’m endlessly amused by it and she finds it an object of pure horror.
Bill: She does the slowly turning thing.
Kevin: There’s been one documentary done and there’s this guy who walks around in his TORGO.
Mike: He has the theme song tucked in his underwear.
Kevin: We need to get underpants in this conversation.
Mike: I think they are trying to make a sequel.
Kevin: They want to make it from TORGO’s point of view.
Bill: That’s how I want to go out.
Kevin: Maybe we can get Tom Russo to direct it.
Inaudible question due to insane static.
Kevin: I hear a demon but not a human.
Q: This is your third theatre event of RIFFTRAXX. Before that you had “Kronos in Space”. Are you surprised?
Kevin: I usually think that no one is going to show up to see me. It’s true. They show up to see Mike and Bill. We’ve added more theatres as we’ve gone on. Quite delightful! The thing I like most about it is that we can get it to places that wouldn’t get to see it. I think it’s really cool in that way.
Mike: Maybe consider a 3D version in the future.
Kevin: I always wanted to force people to see me with eye wear.
Mike: Bill is trying to peel back his dimensions and be one layer.
Q: Do you think any films of this generation will be an up for you?
Kevin: I think the “Twilight” series will be nominated.
Bill: There are several Nicholas Cage films in the running.
Kevin: Any of those where he sees into the future.
Bill: I definitely nominate “The Wicker Man”.
Mike: There’s also, I would nominate “The Happening”. I think that is classically horribly funny movie in the same vein of those guys. I think the thing that separates it that is not homemade but I think there’s plenty of those being made.
Kevin: Now that you can do special effects on a Mac…wait till you see “The Last Airbender” guys.
Bill: There’s high budget really bad and then there’s really bad because it’s funny because you can see the workings of it.
Q: Can we expect more life shows from RIFFTRAXX and if you were given the ability to pick any what will it be?
Kevin: Yes, we are doing more live shows. “House on Haunted Hill” we are doing for Halloween. If we could get it I’d love to do “Road House” but they don’t want us to make fun of it.
Mike: It’s the power of Ben Gazarra.
Bill: Yea, he can crush us like a bug.
Mike: I’ve wanted to do the 70’s film “Billy Jack”. I love that it’s about a peaceful half-bread Indian who didn’t want any trouble. Having seen it again a couple of years ago I’d love to do that.
Q: What movie has just been absolutely painfully difficult to just sit through and make fun of? Has Joe Don Baker forgiven any of you yet?
Kevin: What leaps to my mind immediately is “Transformers”. I found that to be like hitting in the kneecap with a rock.
Mike: He is splitting the hate into three dimensions.
Bill: Yea, he’s doing to dial down the racism.
Mike: I would definitely co-sign the “Transformers 2”. You don’t even know what to make fun of. “Memento” was a hard one to write because its sort of a good movie but hard for us to get into. You have to have enough movies for people to go one but can’t be shy to run over dialogue.
Kevin: It’s a technical challenge. As soon as Mike said “Transformer” I started to itch so I’m definitely in that camp. We don’t do comedies as a rule and that one tried to be funny and failed and that made it worse. It’s hard to make a joke out of a joke let alone a lame joke. You can only make so many jokes out of Shia LaBeouf.
Mike: “Crystal Skull” (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) was no picnic in its own right.
Kevin: I’ve only heard about the South Park version of that, I haven’t seen it.
Q: I absolutely loved the MST 300 movie, that is my all time favorite comedy movie. We still quote lines from it! In line with what you’re doing with “Reefer Madness” and those notorious hygiene movies, are they begging to be made fun of.
Kevin: Yes. I think in a way I almost feel a slight tinge of guilt how I take something completely out of context and make fun of it. Reefer is quite hilarious on its own but they kind of forget there’s filler and that’s where we have fun. I think we lift the whole experience if I may be so modest. I am the wind beneath “Reefer Madness”s wing. It will be piped into theatres across the country. One of the shorts we are doing is a decent into sheer madness.
Bill: What were they thinking at this point in the country that they had to teach people in the country how to brush there teeth. I think there was a weird controlling mentally waiting for us as anarchists.
Mike: The candy counters will be doing a booming business that night.
Kevin: We do condone buying candy.
Bill: Refined sugar is the way to go.
Kevin: Deep breathing exercises.
Mike: Not eating for a week.
Q: Who would be your dream guest riffer?
Mike: I will say, I’m not trying to be coy is Neil Patrick Harris, Fred Willard and Weird Al Yankovich and Chad Vader. I was happy with all of them.
Kevin: Don’t forget Joel.
Bill: I will have to say Don Rickles. He had an unnatural hold on my brother and I since we were kids. I still find him amazingly hysterical. Any decade now he can come work for us.
Mike: I refuse to ever work with you again Kevin.
Kevin: Zach Galifianakis!
Q: What do you guys think of what you do compared to Cinematic Titanic and do you still stay in touch with Joel and the original crew.
Bill: WE are much better looking.
Kevin: I’ve chatted with, I was at a show with Trace along with Bill and we had a grand old time with him. I’ve talked to Joel and Josh. Mary Jo can go to hell. Just kidding!
Bill: We have these two projects that evolved form the same mother ship but have evolved in different ways. There are to many people now to drag out and do one project together. We specialize in different things.
Kevin: If you tried to get us all on stage to riff it would be like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Mike: Plus we all weight more so there’s no room.
Q: I just want to point out I’m the only woman talking to you guys. So you mentioned you work with celebrities, when you approach one do you have a movie in mind or do you give them a list and they pick. What’s the process?
Kevin: With each one I’ve given them a wide-open field. That’s why when we did Neil Patrick Harris with “Willy Wonka”, and it wouldn’t be my pick, but it was a great choice. I just approach the person and Joel McHale went for “Red Dawn”. It’s been a little give and take.
Bill: “Red Dawn” was a great take because there were a couple crusading for it.
Q: The soldiers in Iraq would love to see you!
Kevin: I was just in contact to a guy in Afghanistan, not a live show, he tells me they do viewings there, which I’m really exited about. I would pick up and do a live show. As for being Red Robot - I got my character after it was already created. The madness you see is the product of the room. Everything from the character is from the writing I credit every person in the writing room - except for Bill.
Bill: I tried to bring Tom Servo down and it didn’t work
Q: Do you guys still hold on to the old MST 300 catch phrases like “ we’ll kill you”?
Mike: I find myself using the terms “I’m huge” and “bite me”, I say at least once or twice of year.
Kevin: When the song from “The Puma Man” gets in my head it will stay there for a couple months before I can dislodge it.
Mile: What I loved about those moments from the movies …one that comes to mind is there is this sort of douche guy and he said “suuuuure” and by the time we were done with it (“The Clone of Death”) and it was a minor moment we stretched. They were a product of use bouncing off each other in the room and getting very high.
Q: I loved the shorts and I recently saw “One Got Fat” and lost my mind over that one. Could you talk about your favorite shorts and the ones at RIFF TRAXX.
Mike: We try to pick a theme and one is from the same era and we’re doing our first animated one and I don’t want to give it away but its really old and terrifying animation. The story is sort of impenetrable.
Bill: That’s sort of a Betty Boop fashion.
Mike: The other one I mentioned earlier, it’s a craft short. I think it’s from the 70’s but it seems to be from some world of madness. It’s the most astonishing thing. Its one of those things where you try to figure out what, who made this, what possible motive and it ends up being your obsession and that’s one of those shorts.
Q: Any other favorites?
Mike: “Mr. Bungle”
Bill: It’s called “Lunch or Manners”. Once recent on I’ve liked is called “Drawing for Beginners” and drawing rectangles, there was a lot of good gaps for us to get in and be silly with.
Kevin: I enjoyed shaking hands with danger and its sort of a Waylon Jennings guy about hands getting cut off
Bill: “Little Lost Scent” about a skunk named Gregory.
Q: I’ve listened to the long list of movies like “Red Dawn” and other genre films, are there any films in the whole universe of shorts or off limits…or is everyone fair game.
Mike: I’m sure there are some off limits.
Kevin: Your talking porn aren’t you!
Bill: I would think we would be monsters if we went after “Schindler’s List” or “Hotel Rwanda” you can’t do that. You can’t ignore the thing that’s in front of your eyes. The closest we came was the beginning of X MEN and there’s a concentration camp scene with magneto as a boy and we did a joke about it. I thought I was going to see spandex superheroes and we are in Dachau but I saw “this is not what I signed on for Nelson”.
Kevin: There’s no redeeming tragedy in comedy in that direct fashion. Failed comedies as well are not a source anyone would be interested in.
Bill: Like “Saw”, slasher or porn just don’t work. I mean I can’t see us doing “The Devil’s Rejects”.
Mike: I think we’ve learned again and again whether something is good or bad comedy it’s not the best of us. We did “Pirates of the Caribbean” and you can argue whether the comic bits are funny or not and they are tough to riff. If you try to score a joke off a funny joke seems kind of pushy.
Kevin: I liked a few Bruce Campell films but I can’t see riffing them.
Q: Have you ever riffed on the Sid and Marty Kroft stuff.
Kevin: They might be asking for it but they were just adventures with giant puppets going off each other.
Mike: “Lidsville” comes to mind.
Kevin: Charles Nelson Reilly comes to mind.
Bill: HR Puff n’ Stuff
Q: How do you approach a live Riff Traxx compared to recording. You said you’d never do “Schindler’s List” but if you got permission for “The Day the Clown Died”.
Bill: You have to be a little lighter on your feet in front of a live crowd. I enjoy doing that. I think it’s a lot of fun.
Kevin: I find that we do little tweaks to an upcoming joke when you sense the mood or rhythm of the audience.
Mile: I think that’s a move for more complicated promise. When we do our recorded stuff we can be a little wordier but in live stuff those adverbs you trip all over them.
Mike: As to the second one, as I understand it the film in its entirety doesn’t exist am I right?
Q: It does but it’s not edited, its purely raw footage.
Mike: I think it’s the only bit of notorious that has not made it to YouTube which made me think it didn’t actually exist.
Bill: I don’t know, my knee jerk reaction is that anything in that setting - stay far away from but I can’t say, if it was dopey enough there might be something there.
Mike: It would be making fun of the dopiness - not the holocaust.
Q: What has been the most popular Riff Traxx that you’ve noticed?
Mike: We have a definitive answer to that “Twilight”; it’s just like honey.
Kevin: That one we took a flyer on it. It didn’t seem like it would be in our genre. We did it and the reaction was really huge. It was a lot of boyfriends that were subject to this. We ended up with it being one of my favorites to write and do.
Bill: The second one was just as much fun.
Mike: It has something that takes itself to seriously in such a kind of melodramatic way and secondly technically it had a lot of space for us to work with. We could get in good jokes. Like transformers it was a lot of noise. Twilight had lots of space.
Kevin: I wonder how there going to pull a rabbit out of the hate with the last two movies. Its pretty gruesome and but I’m not sure how its going to play to a larger audience.
Mike: We’ll be there guaranteed.
Q: Keeping in the “Twilight” vein, I’m a card carrying member of team I hate Jacob, have you gone back in to the Lautner closet to “Shark Boy and Lava Girl”.
Bill: Before you start ragging on Taylor have you seen him without a shirt, he’s beautiful.
Kevin: I’m team Harpo all the way.
Mike: Your team Mustache Dad. I’ve never seen anything else by him.
Bill: Isn’t he 11? He can’t have much of a body of work.
Kevin: I think ole’ RobRob was smoking reefer when he did that one. I’m on point.
Q: Godzilla or Gamera?
Kevin: Gamera all day.
Mike: I assume you mean to eat?
Bill: We believe in Gamera!
Kevin: Godzilla is a one trick pony.
Q: If you guys ever did a movie you like but felt bad about riffing it.
Kevin: We did, we did “Casablanca”.
Mike: I should say though we are psychopaths as a rule and don’t feel bad about anything.
Kevin: I don’t have a soul.
Bill: It was more of a roast than a riff. We were just having fun with it.
Mike: It’s a roast. There are movies we all like, we did “Jaws” a movie we all liked and we did some of the “Lord of the Rings” movie that we actually liked. In those cases we aren’t going with the material but ways of weaving funny around it.
Kevin: I think we are just giving it a good ribbing, that’s what its all about.
Q: This is your third live event correct? Are there any sort of pitfalls that you’re sort of leery of going into the live events.
Bill: Kevin’s drinking problem (which sets off fits of giggling).
Kevin: The very first time out when we did “Plan 9” and we did live television things can go wrong. Between the Fathom folks and our production company Camp Digital, they made us so relaxed and it made it easy for us to sit down and do our stuff. So I worry more about me messing up then them messing up.
Heath: I wanted to thank everyone for participation and of course to Mike, Bill and Kevin for sitting through all this and making us all laugh and the inside to how this all works. “REEFER MADNESS” theatres August 19th live with your favorites here.
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