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Welcome to the fourth issue of the Antipodean MSTie Newsletter, and the
first for what I hope will be an enjoyable and productive 1998 for all
of us ....
New in this issue! Articles written by people who aren't me! Letters,
also not written by me! This is a big one folks, get your reading
glasses on!
As always, anyone who wants to stop getting this drivel, let me know.
If you know someone else who might want to see this, please get them to
e-mail me to add them to the list. I won't add anyone who doesn't
request it directly. Feel free to print this, show it to your friends,
blow your nose on it - whatever works for you.
Remember, I think this will work best (if it's going to work at all) if
this is a co-operative effort. If you've got something you want to
share with us all, even if it's only a paragraph long, send it to me and
I'll include it! I'm not fussy! As long as it's got something vaguely
to do with MST3K and is somehow relevant to us, I'm happy to see it! As
an editor I plan to have a pretty relaxed style <g>.
WE'RE FAMOUS!
Had a look at the MST3K Info web site lately? We've got our name up in
lights! Check it out ... http://www.mst3kinfo.com, as if you need
reminding ....
JOIN US!
New to this issue's mailing list are Phil Gilson, from Newcastle, where
all truly distinguished individuals are born* (but few choose to remain
in); and Carl Leichter from New Zealand! Yes, we're now international!
Carl is an expatriate from the US and apparently has a big MST3K
collection, the lucky swine. Wave hello to them, everyone!
* There may be a slight editorial bias behind this statement. OK, so I
was born and lived in Newcastle for 25 years! I was never consulted!
ADMINISTRIVIA
I will be on leave from work for two weeks from 19 January, so I won't
be able to respond to any e-mail sent to the Telstra address until after
I get back. The ibm.net and CompuServe addresses will still be checked
regularly as usual, though, so if you need to contact me you should
e-mail to those addresses.
MULTIVERSE 3
(repeated from last issue)
Tom Marwede says:
"Greetings all,
Just a word to everyone about Multiverse 3, Melbourne's Premier Science
Fiction Convention. Every couple of years The Official Red Dwarf Fan
Club, Enterprise: The Star Trek Appreciation Society Of Victoria, The Dr
Who Club of Victoria, The Australian Babylon 5 Fan Club and the
Melbourne Science Fiction Club band together and bring a Multi-Universal
con to all those interested. February 13th - 15th, 1998 is Multiverse
3. Special Guests include Robert Llewellyn from 'Red Dwarf' and Claudia
Christian from 'Babylon 5', appearing in person. For more info check
out our website
http://yarra.vicnet.net.au/~multivrs/
To prepare others for the onslaught, MST3K is playing a big part in our
programming, at the moment I have included approximately 10 episodes for
consideration to the videos, possibly more to come. We are trying to
get them screened in the theaterette at the convention, to give it the
true MST flavour.
Hope to see you there."
Red Dwarf, Babylon 5 and MST3K - who could resist? (If anyone from
interstate is interested in coming, but you're worried about costs of
accommodation, I have a limited amount of floorspace and blankets etc.
that I'm happy to provide for the weekend. All you would need to bring
are pillows, air mattress or whatever, etc.)
NEW ARRIVALS
As a first step in improving inter-state relations and leading to
greater global harmony, Andrew Parkinson from Brisbane kindly sent me
down copies of several of his tapes for me to add to my little
collection ... certainly the best thing that I got at Christmas time!
REVIEW: BAD MOVIE MARATHON IN CANBERRA
Our correspondent, April Herzog (amh@adminserver.canberra.edu.au),
writes:
Perhaps before I rave on about this amazing movie marathon I attended,
here's a viewing schedule to give you some insight. On a Friday night
in December over 270 people in Canberra came out to enjoy:
10.30 pm MST3K The Movie
12.15 am Mars Attacks!
2.00 am Plan 9 From Outer Space
3.20 am Independence Day
5.20 am Robot Monster
6.30 am Men in Black
8.20 am Breakfast for the survivors.
Yeah! Us MSTies in Canberra got the chance to see MST3K on the big
screen. That's one of the things that drew us to this movie-viewing
madness. The other was the chance to see "Plan 9 From Outer Space". We
have seen "MST3K: The Movie" already thanks to the video Kim Huett lent
us. But seeing it on the big screen was like a totally new experience.
I strongly suspect that we were the only two who had had the MST3K
experience before. We didn't make comments like, "What the hell is
that?" when Gypsy appeared. I laughed my head off, much to my
embarrassment, at a reference to "MANOS: The Hands of Fate." Us two
MSTies were the only ones laughing at the time.
So a Canberra audience got their first taste of MST3K and I think they
thoroughly enjoyed it. After MST3K we had a little costume parade.
With the theme of Alien Invasion the audience was invited to come in
costume. I wished I had one of those Crow T Robot tee-shirts with "Bite
me!" Out of the 10 or so brave enough to dress up we had assorted green
aliens, a two-headed beast and two Men in Black. The theatre owner's
daughter was a sure winner.
Next was "Mars Attacks!" If you haven't seen this movie I highly
recommend it, it's a real enjoyable watch even on it's third viewing.
It's got something from just about every B-grade Alien Invasion movie I
can think of.
"Plan 9 From Outer Space", wow! what can I say? A truly awful movie.
I've had the Ed Wood experience before and for any interested I
recommend the "Ed Wood" movie for an insight into Ed Wood and his
horrible, horrible movies. No wonder MST3K has done a couple of his
movies.
Watching "Independence Day" for the second time we saw some startling
similarities to "Mars Attacks!". American President: "Why can't we
live together in peace?" Alien response: "We come in peace, shoot to
kill!!" It's a mean, loud movie which kept us awake at 3am just nicely.
"Robot Monster", oh wow. Loved the alien costume, a gorilla suit with
diver's helmet. I now know why MST3K did this movie, and I wish I could
see that episode. It's an awful movie, very enjoyable to watch with a
large audience to share your agony. I highly recommend it for parties
with a good mix of people.
"Men in Black" is a nice enough movie, it signaled the almost-end of our
all-nighter on a fun note. Very enjoyable.
Free breakfast with pancakes was highly enjoyed by all who survived at
8.20 am. There were a few dead bodies in sleeping bags as we exited the
theatre, but most of us enjoyed the night wide awake and laughing.
Coffee was most important and allowed me to stay awake long enough to
get home at 10.30 am and crash. I'm very glad I gave in to this mad
idea of a movie marathon.
(Bruce adds: This appearance of The Movie marks only the second
Australian cinematic showing that I'm aware of. (Second location, I
mean, it ran for several weeks when it was at the Valhalla in Sydney.)
The choice of movies was fairly inspired, I thought, and I wish I could
have been there. I second all of April's recommendations on the movies,
incidentally. You can make some fairly interesting comparisons between
"ID" and "MA!", e.g.:
ID: US President: "We will not go quietly into the night!"
MA!: US President: "Yikes!")
DECEMBER MELBOURNE GATHERING REPORT
Organised at short notice and at a pretty crappy time of year, the
December gathering at my house ended up being a non-event.
Oh well. I commiserated with myself and watched "Red Zone Cuba". Brrr.
Maybe I should say I punished myself ....
Future Melbourne gatherings are tentatively scheduled for Jan 17 and Feb
21. Note that the Feb gathering is contingent on people not being
wasted from Multiverse the weekend before. I think MSTies are
inherently hardy chaps (and chapettes) so it shouldn't really be a
problem, I would hope ....
CORRESPONDENCE
Kim Huett (rub@macquarie.matra.com.au) writes:
"On sober reflection the host segments for MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE did
contain two high points for me. I'm quite fond of the Mads' chocolate
bunny guillotine and the line 'His only crime was being delicious!'.
Also, being of low tastes, I appreciated Torgo's delivery of pizza at
the end. Especially with the follow-up joke so many episodes later."
I must admit that when I wrote in my review that I found most of the
host segments for "Manos" to be pretty ordinary, I was forgetting the
opening invention exchange. I'm particularly fond of Joel's "Cartuner"
and the line "Ziggy had Garfield neutered? Now that's funny!" Admit
it, haven't we all secretly wanted to see Garfield go under the knife?
I know I have.
Something else that I meant to point out in my review: once you've seen
"Manos", there's an extra little treat to notice in "MST3K: The Movie":
when Mike grabs the manipulator arms controls, you can see that they're
labelled "Manos" ... and Torgo's theme plays very briefly in the
background.
MORE CORRESPONDENCE
Jenny Erdahl (s364128@pop.urgrgcc.edu) writes:
"Hello,
"I saw in the Satellite News that you are the new MSTie in Australia.
First let me welcome you and say hi. Second I was surprised
to find out that there are MSTies in Australia.
"My name is Jenny Erdahl and I live in the Ohio in the USA. I want to
say hi and want to know if I can help you new guys out in any way. I
don't know much about computers but I know tons about MST3K. I'd be
more than happy to write to anyone who want a MSTie pen pal or an
article for your newsletter. I'm more than happy to answer any
questions about MST3K's history, episodes, or the show in general. I
might not know all the answers but I can point you in the right
direction.
"I also have taped episodes and some rare stuff (like specials and
conventions and stuff) that I'd be happy to trade or give you. (For
price because of shipping and stuff.) Anyways if you're not interested
please still put my letter in your newsletter in case anyone else is. I
just want make sure you met a nice MSTie before you ran into the
dickweeds out there.
"But here's a list of Do's and Don'ts that I found out the hard way.
(So you don't have to!)
"Do be careful when you talk about Comedy Central (the old place that
had MST3K) and Don't mention Doug Hertoz (the guy who cancelled the show
on CC). Some MSTies might still be mad and have not forgiven them for
what they did. (Let's just say they were very mean and inconsiderate.
I will tell you more if you want me to.)
"Do make sure if you challenge Mike Nelson to the computer game Doom
that you are very good. (Last convention he beat everyone!)
"Do be careful when you tell others who you prefer (Mike or Joel), you
don't want to start a flame war and there are some people who can be
mean when you don't share the same opinion as they do.
"If you're at a convention, Don't throw underwear at any of the Best
Brain cast members. (It was done at last Convention.)
"Do be careful when you tape-trade. There are some people who will just
take your money and won't give anything. In fact don't trade unless you
really want it, you know that you can depend on the person, or you can't
get it anywhere else.
"Do request Kevin to sing something at conventions. He has such a
great voice.
"Don't ask a stupid or smart a** question in an on-line chat session
with the cast of Best Brains. You might come off looking like a
dickweed when you just want to be funny. I find helpful to gather some
people together and have a pre-question session before the actual thing.
You can test it to see if the question is funny or just dumb. This is
also good to find if someone already knows the answer to the actual
questions. (That way you can get all the good and funny questions asked
when the time comes for chat.)
"That's about it for now. Hope you write back and have a good time
meeting other MSTies.
"Jenny Erdahl
">From the episode 'Mitchell'
'Great, Joel has landed safely in the Australian outback.' (Dr. F)
'Maybe he landed on Yahoo Serious.' (TV's Frank)"
(I have printed Jenny's letter here as she requested. Some good advice
there ... especially the bit about the underwear! If anyone is
interested in contacting Jenny directly for more chat or for trading
please do so!)
FAN MSTINGS ON THE INTERNET - by Quintas
Today MST3K is one of my favourite TV shows, but 12 months ago I didn't
even know it existed. Considering that it has never been shown in
Australia that's hardly surprising, but it does pose the question that I
know has been resting heavily on all of your minds, "So how did I find
out about it anyway?" Well guys, wonder no longer, because I'm going to
tell you now!
You see, I'm a self confessed comic book addict, and when I got Internet
access I quickly realised that there was a plethora of fan fiction
(fan-fics) on the web for me to devour. Fan-fics are unauthorised
stories written about various TV shows, comic books, movies, novels and
characters. They are written by fans and no money is paid for them.
This doesn't mean that they aren't any good, there are many fan-fics out
there that are as good or even better than the shows, books or movies
they are emulating. On the flip side there's also plenty of fan fiction
that is complete crap and makes you wonder what on earth the author was
on when they wrote it. The Internet has both types, as I had begun to
realise as I dug through its resources for things to read.
It was on one of my periodic browses through the net's fan fiction that
I came across a truly awful pseudo-X-men fan-fic called "2000-X".
However, this story hadn't been posted untouched. After every few
lines, three strange characters apparently called 'Crow', 'Tom' and
'Mike' would make a disparaging and frequently hilarious remark, while
about three times through the story they stopped for a break and a bit
of extended commentary. By the end of the piece I was in stitches and I
quickly sought out another by the same author. At the time I had no
idea that these stories were based on a TV show, I just thought that
these characters were the author and two of his friends. When it dawned
on me that the 'friends' were robots, I searched through the fine print
at the bottom, and after a quick read through several FAQ's I finally
realised that I'd just read my first fan MSTings.
Fan MSTings were created a few years ago when people began applying the
MST3K 'treatment' to really awful Internet postings. Though they
started off with paranoid rants and spam advertising, this was quickly
expanded to include bad fan-fics and practically any other crappy piece
of text. There are now hundreds of examples available on dozens of
sites throughout the Internet. For a great list of sites try "Send them
the post, Frank" at http://www.stolaf.edu/people/beall/button.html.
As you may have guessed, I've got a real soft spot for fan MSTings. They
can be absolutely hilarious, at times just as much as the show. That's
why I'm going to try having a vaguely regular column in this newsletter,
spotlighting ones that I think are particularly good. I'm going to
start off with one of my favourites; a particularly goofy piece called
"The Project".
"The Project" is so good mainly because the plot is so intrinsically
ludicrous. It's basically a serious cross-over between "MST3K" and "The
X-Files". Yes, you did read that right. Apparently Dr Forrester's
ridiculous plot to take over the world with bad movies is actually a
deep dark conspiracy connected with the government. If you can swallow
that you'll find mischaracterisations galore, Forrester actually shows
some degree of competency, while Joel spends that entire story whining
about how his life isn't worth living now that he's escaped from the SOL
(gee, you'd think he'd be happier about it). The MSTing itself is
really good, and it's a kick reading Mike and the 'Bots' reaction to a
story about people they actually know (Crow sneaks in a few eerily
accurate impersonations of Dr Forrester <grin>). All in all this has
to be one of my all-time favourites.
Rating: 9 1/2 out of 10 - because I need to leave some leeway in case I
find a better one :-)
Available at: http://pinky.wtower.com/mst3k/mistings
Snippet:
>THE X-FILES
> Basically a show about two FBI agents assigned to bizarre cases
with no rational explanation.
CROW: But actually a show about Chris Carter's own disillusionment and
total lack of faith in humanity.
> Fox Mulder is a renegade with a strong belief in the
paranormal.
MIKE: He explores such unfathomable mysteries as: Do UFOs exist? Are
ghosts real? And why is "Baywatch" so damn popular?
Until next time folks!
Quintas
(Bruce adds: I agree that many Internet-MSTings are amongst the funniest
stuff I've ever read. For particular awfulness/humour you should check
out the Voyager MSTings - actual episodes of Star Trek: Voyager getting
"the treatment" - and the Ratliff "Marissa" stories - truly, truly awful
Star Trek fan-fics written by a man with absolutely no literary talent
of any sort, but who has a passion for seeing Star Fleet staffed by
no-one over the age of 16. Perhaps Quintas will bless us with more
detailed reviews of these in due course! The Voyager MSTings can be
accessed at "Voyager MSTing Headquarters"
http://pages.nyu.edu/~kes5149/index.html and the Ratliff MSTings at
"Mike's MiSTing Page" http://rtt.colorado.edu/~barklage/mst/mst.html.)
EPISODE REVIEWS
Red Zone Cuba
Ugh. Erg. Glunng.
This was my reaction after viewing RZC. I'm left with the feeling that
RZC is actually a worse film than "Manos".
How can that be, I hear you cry? How is it possible? Dear God, could
we be so deserving of punishment?
Well, let's start with the cast. Lead player, as well as being director
and writer (always a dangerous combination!) is the mighty Coleman
Francis, a man who has the looks of the Three Stooge's Curly (as
gleefully and repeatedly pointed out in Mike & the 'Bots' riffing), the
charisma of your typical dead rat, and the acting ability of a block of
wood. He plays Griffin: an escaped criminal, a dangerous man, prone to
fits of jealous rage ... when he isn't busy lying about in a
semi-comatose state, that is.
Wisely, Coleman has surrounded himself with supporting actors who are
completely incapable of rising to the extremely low standards that he
sets them. Or to put it another way, that little girl from "Manos" can
out-act the lot of them. Hell, the poodle can out-act them all!
(Mind you, that was also true of the cast of "Manos".)
Then there's the story. As I've already mentioned, Coleman is a Man On
The Run From The Law. Well, not so much On The Run as On The Waddle.
He hooks up with two drifters who seem to have nothing better to do than
do whatever he tells them to do. Not that he tells them to do anything,
he prefers communicating with blank stares and deep frowns. But that's
OK, they seem to understand him well enough. They decide to get on a
plane to ... somewhere or other ... and join up with an elite fighting
force determined to invade Cuba and liberate the island from the
clutches of Castro. Ten minutes of training and the force - all seven
or eight of them - are ready to go!
Surprisingly, eight men with ten minutes of combat training prove
inadequate to the needs of the job (just like the Bay of Pigs! - only
not as funny), and they're all captured and shot, one by one. We get to
watch each execution, it's apparently more suspenseful that way. But
not our three heroes, they escape and make their way to an airfield,
steal a plane from right under Castro's nose and escape to freedom! Or
something. At least we assume that they escaped, because they seem
to be back in the US. But it's never really made clear (more on this
later). Then these guys wander around a bit, watch a spastic piano
player, murder a caf=E9 owner (apparently his offer of breakfast was more
than they could take) and end up with the wife of one of their fellow
ex-soldiers, looking for a tungsten mine that promises them riches
beyond their wildest dreams! Then Griffin is shot by the police and the
other two are arrested. The End.
What really makes this the worst movie I've ever seen though is the
editing. "Jump cut" is not the right term here, it's too relaxed.
"Hyperjump cut", perhaps? Entire plot points are resolved in a bare
moment as we switch from one scene to the next. Why do they murder the
cafe owner? Who knows, no time to explain, it's on to the next scene!
It's not all frenetic activity, though - we get many long drawn out
scenes of two or more characters staring blankly at each other as they
ponder what their next line will be.
Yes, it's for all these reasons and more that I think I have to declare
RZC to officially be the Worst Film I've Ever Seen.
As for the episode as a whole ... it's a bit hard to say, I was somewhat
numbed by the movie. Dr F. gets beaten to a pulp by the mob, because
they think he's TV's Frank. Well, it could happen to anyone, couldn't
it? And the movie drives Mike mad, so that he thinks he's Carol
Channing. What more can I say?
Oh yeah. There's also a short telling us how important it is to keep
our shoes shiny when we make a speech. No strong lip and tongue action
needed here!
"I'm Cherokee Jack!"
That's it for this time around. Please let me know about anything you
liked (or didn't like)! Keep those cards and letters coming!
Time to push the button ....
Bruce
MSTie #72759
Any of these e-mail addresses will get to me, all are checked regularly:
bprobst@vitgbsd3.telstra.com.au <-- work
bprobst@ibm.net <-- home generic internet
100372.1643@compuserve.com <-- CompuServe (duh)
