Not everyone likes watching bad movies, but everybody likes watching good television. The genius of Mystery Science Theater 3000 was that this cult show combined the two pastimes, transforming incompetent motion pictures of little cultural value* into the subject of a new and infectious form of humor. Yes people had talked back to the movie or television screen before, but now they had a frame of reference. Now they had “riffing.”
The premise was charmingly absurd: a hapless boob was shot into space and forced to watch bad movies, so that his mad scientist captors could discover the one film bad enough that they could use it to conquer the world. To save his sanity, Joel Robinson (Joel Hodgson) and later his replacement Mike Nelson (Mike Nelson), teamed up with a group of robots who were specifically design to keep them company, joke about the dumb goings-on in monster movies, and sing adorkable new show tunes.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 debuted 27 years ago, spawned 11 seasons of television and a theatrically-released motion picture, and inspired a generation of imitators. The cast and crew of the original shows have moved on to similar endeavors like Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic. But although riffing lives on in many forms, those of us who grew up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (affectionally abbreviated to MST3K) will always prefer the original. The characters, the sketches, the soul of the series was a unique entity that none of the follow-ups have captured… yet.
Related: MST3K Passes Its Kickstarter Fundraising Goal
Yes, as MST3K approaches its latest resurgence under series creator Joel Hodgson, we look to the future with hope. And since it’s Turkey Day – when Comedy Central used to run an all-day marathon of MST3K episodes, much to the delight of their pre-DVR audience – we’re celebrating with a retrospective of Crave’s picks for the The 15 Best MST3K Episodes Ever! We’re looking back at the weirdest movies, the funniest riffs, the most memorable sketches, and only highlighting the best of the best of the best.
Keep circulating the tapes!
The 15 Best MST3K Episodes Ever!
*To be fair, some MST3K movies are actually more significant than they were given credit for, including (but not limited to) the influential Euro thriller Danger Diabolik and Roger Corman’s proto-feminist western The Gunslinger.
Photo: Comedy Central
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
The Top 15 Mystery Science Theater 3000 Episodes
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Honorable Mention: This Island Earth
It's a classic, but it's also not technically an "episode." The cheesy sci-fi classic This Island Earth was the fodder for the first, and thus far only, Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, giving Mike and the Bots a widescreen presentation for the very first time, and a film of goofy giant foreheads and "mu-tants" and science hunks to riff about. As a bonus: they even talked over their own movie's closing credits.
Classic Riff: "Normal view... normal VIEW... NORMAL VIEWWWWWW!!!"
Photo: Universal Pictures
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15. Eegah
Richard Kiel (better known as the James Bond villain "Jaws") plays a caveman in this awkward attempt to combine the teen crooner and horror genres. As the title character, Kiel laps up shaving cream while a comely young lass's father urges her to seduce him. Meanwhile, Arch Hall Jr. - whose appearance is lampooned practically to the point of cruelty - dune buggies throughout the desert forever and sings forgettable song after forgettable song. It leaves you feeling unclean, but it makes for a hilarious episode.
Classic Riff: "Sorry about my face!"
Photo: Comedy Central
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14. Hobgoblins
An otherwise forgotten low-budget 1980s horror film, now elevated to cult classic status because of MST3K. This film about pint-sized aliens who make you hallucinate your wildest desires is so dumb, so sleazy, so off-key that it's probably unwatchable without Mike and the Bots' furious riffs, and yet - based on the post-MST3K popularity - it finally got its own sequel in 2009.
Classic Riff: "Can you catch a venereal disease from a movie?"
Photo: Sci-Fi Channel
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13. The Day the Earth Froze
Some of the films featured on MST3K weren't long enough to carry an entire two-hour episode, so short films - usually educational flicks from the 1950s - were tacked on too. So we get a fantastic double feature like The Day the Earth Froze - a surreal Finnish fantasy about kidnapping and woodwork - and Here Comes the Circus, a twisted cavalcade of vaguely perverse performances that coax such disturbing jokes out of the Bots that Joel has to repeatedly order them to get less "dark." Both parts of this episode are packed with thigh-slappers.
Classic Riff: "Yes, children's windows of perception are opened for a second, only to take in the horror that is the circus."
Photo: Comedy Central
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12. Viking Women and the Sea Serpent
Some MST3K fans don't much care for the sketches that get intercut with the movies, but some episodes wouldn't be classics without them. Case in point: Viking Women and the Sea Serpent, an ambitious piece of exploitation sleaze from Roger Corman about buxom babes who fight to rescue their enslaved husbands (and also there's a sea serpent). The riffing is funny, but the real gag here is that every scene on the Satellite of Love is - for no reason whatsoever - entirely about waffles.
Classic Line: "...Waffles."
Photo: Comedy Central
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11. Warrior of the Lost World
This low-budget, meandering Mad Max rip-off isn't the most remarkable MST3K episode ever made, but it is pound-for-pound one of the funniest. The bizarre sequence of events - including a fight scene between "That Guy from Paper Chase" and every stock extra in Hollywood, and a baffling contortionist night club - combine with the most annoying talking motorcycle in the world to create the stuff classic comedy is made of. And when Megaweapon finally shows up, all bets are off.
Classic Riff: "YES! MEGAWEAPON! MEGAWEAPON! MEGAWEAPON!"
Photo: Comedy Central
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10. Space Mutiny
Few MST3K riffs have enjoyed the same enduring popularity as the one from Space Mutiny, in which Mike and the Bots concoct one phony-sounding hero name after another for the film's star, former Captain America Reb Brown. Add in a love interest who could be literally any age, characters who show up after they've already been killed and a climactic golf cart chase and you've got one of the dumbest sci-fi movies ever, and a beloved episode of MST3K.
Classic Riff: "Slab Bulkhead!" "Fridge Largemeat!" "Big McLargehuge!" "Bob Johnson... oh wait..."
Photo: Sci-Fi Channel
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9. Pod People
"Pod people got no reason to live," Joel riffs in this beloved episode, and he has a point. What was supposed to be a horror movie got a whole bunch of feel-good E.T. references shoved into it at the last minute, leaving this murky-looking film so uneven that it's hard to imagine why it was even released. A rock band, a precocious kid and a bunch of poachers all seem to be in completely different movies, even as they face off against the dumb-looking monsters, but that just gives the Satellite of Love crew more material to work with than usual.
Classic Riff: "Even the movie The Fog didn't have this much fog!"
Photo: Comedy Central
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8. Werewolf
Archaeologists go all Road House on each other and accidentally scrape up against a werewolf skeleton, setting off a chain of events that are incredibly stupid in this low-budget monster flick. Joe Estevez's Eraserhead hairstyle, pointless werewolf car chases and actors who can barely say their lines give Mike and the Bots more material than they can handle in this ludicrous lycanthropy "thriller."
Classic Riff: "Paul, you is a wahrwilf!"
Photo: Sci-Fi Channel
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7. Mitchell
Joel Hodgson's last episode of MST3K will always bring a tear to our eye. Fortunately, he went out on a high note. This oafish Dirty Harry knockoff stars Joe Don Baker as a lazy slob who takes down the mob with really slow action sequences, and by mooching off of their dinner. It's bad enough that Joel and the Bots have to watch Baker have sex, but when he reaches for the baby oil, it's one of the show's most nightmarish moments.
Classic Riff: "Oh, thank goodness. They merged successfully. My heart was in my throat there."
Photo: Comedy Central
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6. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
The title says it all, even though Santa Claus never actually conquers any martians. This lame 1964 kids movie is actually about martians kidnapping Santa Claus to make him to give toys to their disenfranchised children. Meanwhile, a guy in a terrible polar bear costume competes with the comic relief sidekick Droppo to be the worst part of one of the worst films ever made. Joel and the Bots rattle off classic joke after classic joke, but the best part of this beloved episode is Crow's new holiday carol, "Patrick Swayze Christmas."
Classic Riff: "What's Vietnam?"
Photo: Comedy Central
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5. Santa Claus
Both of the MST3K Christmas episodes were classics, but Mike's episode is just a tiny bit better than Joel's. Why? Because Santa Claus is one of the most messed up Christmas movies ever, in which cackling robot reindeer come to life under a pentagram so Santa can do battle with Satan himself, or at least his bumbling personal assistant, "Pitch." It's one of the most surreal films ever featured on the program.
Classic Riff: "Well, at least he made the sleighs run on time."
Photo: Sci-Fi Channel
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4. The Hercules Saga
MST3K tackled several film series over the course of the show, including the Gamera and Rocky Jones films, but the sword and sandal Hercules movies are still the best. These ambitious exercises in homoeroticism stir strange feelings in Joel and the Bots, and non-stop laughter in the audience. Hercules Against the Moon Men gave us "Deep Hurting," but Hercules and the Captive Women gets bonus points, because it's the only time Gypsy was allowed into the theater to riff away with the rest of the crew.
Classic Riff: "Hey, get this: they're steam cleaning the horses!"
Photo: Comedy Central
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3. Manos: The Hands of Fate
Nobody had even heard of this dingy, sleazy, incompetent horror film before MST3K featured it in 1993. Then, almost, immediately, it shot up the ranks of the worst motion pictures ever produced. This saga of an abusive family who get lost and order a pervert satyr to carry their luggage was the film that finally made Joel and the Bots go completely insane, and made the Mad Scientists themselves actually apologize. (When MST3K can't handle how bad a movie is, you know you're in trouble.) Fortunately, the film became the subject of one of their all-time funniest episodes.
Classic Riff: "DO SOMETHING! GOD!"
Photo: Comedy Central
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2. Mr. B Natural
There are lots of great short films in the history of MST3K, but only one that completely overshadowed the feature length film that followed it. The creepy Mr. B Natural deserves the #2 slot all to itself, for its David Lynchian jaunt to the heart of whiteness, its androgynous hero(ine), and the infamous debate that ensued about whether "Mr. B Natural" (played by Betty Luster) was a man or a woman. Should he/she be allowed to sneak into children's bedrooms? The film that followed this, War of the Colossal Beast, was funny... but it pales in comparison.
Classic Riff: "I... I gotta go finish my letter to Jodie Foster!"
Photo: Comedy Central
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1. Cave Dwellers
The best? We think so. This chesty Conan rip-off gave Joel and the Bots some of their best material, including an evil John Saxon-type-guy with duck on his head, a invisible warriors and Marmaduke performing surgery, and it features some of the biggest anachronisms in movie history. Ator the Fighting Eagle flies a hang glider over a modern city and dodges tire tracks on his quest to save a boring old guy. We defy you not to laugh from the opening moments, all the way through the end.
Classic Riff: "Tits all over, I mean it's all over for you, Ator! I know we've been breast... best friends..."
Photo: Comedy Central
