The MST3K revival is now complete…in two pieces.
It was announced last week that the original team behind the cult hit show Mystery Science Theater 3000 would reunite to work on a new movie riffing project which they call Cinematic Titanic. The group consists of Joel Hodgson (the original host of the show), Trace Beaulieu (the original Crow), Josh Weinstein (the original Tom Servo and mad scientist sidekick), “TV’s Frank” Conniff, and Mary Jo Phel (Pearl).
I think that this news would be far more exciting…except that it’s not the first MST3K-related revival. Over a year ago, Mike Nelson (former MST3K head writer and Joel’s hosting successor) started up Riff Trax, a business where he produces funny commentary tracks to play along to DVDs. He’s been able to regularly recruit other MST3K alumni like Kevin Murphy (best-known for playing Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow’s Sci-Fi Channel performer) as well as the occasional celebraty. Riff Trax has focused mostly on recent films, but has experimented with episodes of popular television shows.
This means that we will soon have not one, but two sources of movie riffing goodness. While this is great for all fans of MST3K, there comes a friendly rivalry between the two groups. It’s yet unclear how Cinematic Titanic will act to compete with the Riff Trax team. What’s also not yet known is what movies that Cinematic Titanic will cover. If I were to guess, I’d expect that they would continue to older MST3K tradition of taking on mostly older B-movies. But since their business would depend on the video library of their audience, it might be wiser to give adequate attention to current, more popular titles. So that means we just might be able to hear the classic MST3K teams take on movies that Riff Trax have already produced tracks for.
With the two groups in competition, it might be a while before we see a cooperative act. Cinematic Titanic will need to fight hard for a while to make a place for itself in the market before it can afford to play with their Riff Trax family members. Though it’s not impossible just yet, it may be a bit longer than fans expected to realize their dreams of experiencing a movie riffing involving both Joel and Mike. So far, Mary Jo Phel is the only player that will have worked on both sides of the coin, since she teamed up with Mike to riff on Mariah Carey’s bomb, Glitter.
To be honest, while I first fell in love with MST3K during Joel’s reign on the show, I found the direction of the show after his departure to have some of the show’s funniest runs. The Riff Trax team has more of my favorite people, but the gem that might just bring me over to Cinematic Titanic is my all-time favorite performer, Trace Beaulieu. To me, MST3K began spiraling down in quality after he left. So while for now Riff Trax has my favor, Cinematic Titanic just might win some of my dollars after all…even if I hate the name.
