From: tsd@umich.edu (Tammy Stephanie Davis) Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc Subject: College Newspaper Article Date: 1 Feb 1996 16:12:33 GMT Organization: University of Michigan Following is an article which appeared in The Michigan Daily, the student newspaper at The University of Michigan:
This holiday season, Comedy Central has officially killed off "Mystery Science Theater 3000," its formerly prized possession and arguably the most intellectually challenging program on television. For the uninitiated (though it's a bit late to start explaining now), "MST3K" is built upon the ingeniously simple concept of a "why-haven't-I-thought-of-that" kind: Three wisecracking dudes watch bad movies and creatively heckle them.
Thus, the humor of the show is mostly referential, and you are expected to get the allusions. The scriptwriters' minds circle freely in some breakneck cultural orbits, unexpectedly shifting altitudes. During one average "Godzilla" screening, we get references to Ingmar Bergman, Buddha, Dostoyevsky, drawstring pants, "General Hospital," Nixon, Picasso, REM, Ed Wood ... the show turns into a postmodernist IQ test of sorts.
Though never quite embraced by the mainstream, "MST3K" quietly changed the face of television. Not counting the 50,000-plus fan club on the Internet, to which we'll return later, it has paved the way for more of the literary free-associating brand of humor in sitcoms and spawned several straight rip-offs -- including "Beavis and Butt-head" (not that I'm trying to bring down the genius of Mike Judge, mind you).
"MST3K"'s relationship with Comedy Central was always a little jittery. Created by Jim Mallon and Joel Hodgson as a one-time-only special on a local Minneapolis station, the show has since prided itself in having a scrappy public-access look, regardless of the actual budget; its producing company, Best Brains, always remained distanced from its distributor.
Comedy Central, on its side, consistently created an impression of having a very vague idea of what it had on its hands. First, it tried to promote "MST3K" as a children's show. For some unexpected reason, kids and Orson Welles jokes didn't click. Then, the show was shoved into the midnight time slot, where it found a more loyal audience. Now, reruns are appearing occasionally, with no apparent pattern, at 2 a.m.; the usual time slot is occupied by "Groovy Movie," the program which choice of films heavily reminds one of "MST3K" -- without Mike and the robots.
Comedy Central's timing has thrown everybody off: The show was canceled around the time "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie" was completed for Gramercy and a tie-in book was getting ready to go into print. Declining comments and ignoring plight of the show's most famous and influential addicts (Rogert Ebert and Jack Perkins, among others), Comedy Central sources suggested that the cancellation (officially due to "poor ratings") is part of the new president's policy of total overhaul: The channel has already canceled Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect." Maher, however, was immediately snapped up by ABC. "MST3K" has no such luck: "Best Brains" can't shop for a new network until1997 because of some contractual obligations, and, frankly, the format doesn't make the show an appealing syndication item.
Left without support, the show's fans have sprung into action, at least in cyberspace anyway. There are several "Save `MST3K'" groups presently on the Net, the most notable being "The Cabal," reachable via e-mail at blm@dana.ucc.nau.edu
And it looks like CC is going to have to deal with a completely different brand of a scorned fan than, say, the timid teens that tried to raise the (ultimately failed) campaign to keep ABC's "My So-Called Life" on the air. No, these people are driven by genuine anger of someone betrayed by a friend -- with a dash of the show's trademark acid humor. Take "phone-a-thons" and "fax-a-thons" orchestrated by the group's organizers -- the acts of simultaneously flooding Comedy Central switchboards, paralyzing the channel's communications for a day. However, the rebels do have a work ethic. Nobody spouts death threats; the introductory letter to newly subscribed "Caballers" makes a specific point about being polite to the CC staff.
---TSD(And they say you don't learn anything in college.)MST in the Media