Photos: Adam Miszewski
Mystery Science Theater 3000 didn’t become a cable fixture in the ’90s because it was the funniest show on television, but rather because it was one of the most cost-effective. For a nascent cable network with huge blocks of time to fill on a budget, a two-hour show requiring little more than some flimsy sets and the rights to a cheap movie was a dream come true, and Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel took full advantage, filling countless hours of airtime each week with the cult program. Given the current rush for content in the streaming era, it’s no surprise that Netflix rebooted the show last year. Whenever there’s a need for cost-effective comedy, MST3K will be there to fill it.
Full disclosure: Even as somebody who probably watched hundreds of hours of MST3K as a kid, and who saw the Mystery Science Theater movie three times at the Oriental Theatre when it came out, I wasn’t able to make it through more than a few minutes of Netflix’s relaunch of the show. It just seemed to be trying so hard. Part of the appeal of the original was its laid-back charm, and the odd novelty of a program made by mostly unknowns from Minnesota. The new version, in contrast, stars nerd superstars Patton Oswald and Felicia Day, and features writing input by seasoned pros like Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab. I miss the scrappiness of the original. And, if I’m being honest—and longtime fans have heard this complaint before, when the show’s cast turned over for the Sci-Fi Channel era—I’m thrown off by the new voices of the robots.
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Nonetheless, I was drawn to the show’s current 30th tour for the same reason that many in the crowd at the Riverside Theater Wednesday night were: The participation of show creator Joel Hodgson, donning his iconic red jumpsuit for the first time alongside the show’s new cast. Well, some of the new cast: Oswald and Day sat out the event, but new host Jonah Ray was there, along with the bots and new characters Synthia Forrester (Rebecca Hanson, who doubled as the night’s emcee) and Deana Rooney, as a Jane Goodall-style protectionist who cares for retired B-movie monsters, including the grotesque alien that was the centerpiece of Wednesday night’s feature The Brain, a forgotten 1988 Canadian horror flick with an early-MTV aesthetic.
Ray was more charismatic and comfortable on stage than he seemed during his on-screen debut, where he initially made little impression as a blandly telegenic, nerd-approved millennial stand-in for his predecessors. He's developed some real chemistry with his robot pals, which is half the job. But the night’s loudest cheers went to Hodgson, the guy much of the crowd grew up watching. It was never a fair fight for the audience's affection. A Wisconsin native, Hodgson worked the crowd with local in-jokes, even if some of his intel might have been a little outdated (Milwaukee doesn’t still love the B-52s nearly as much as he thinks it does).
The night pit the two hosts and their robot partners against each other in a friendly, game-show-style competition that involved various riffing challenges during the movie. That conceit gave the event some structure, but the extra hook wasn’t necessary—the riffing was funny enough to stand on its own, and The Brain, between its very ’80s ideal of teen cool and its endless scenes of an out-of-shape henchman chasing the protagonists up stairs, gave them plenty of material to work with. And although age has only further slowed his already laconic delivery, Hodgson is still a gold-standard riffer who landed some enormous laughs. By the end of the night it didn’t even matter that the robots’ voices still sound all wrong to me. After all these years, and all these changes, MST3K is still seriously fucking funny.
