Nearly 30 years ago, Mike Nelson and his robot pals Tom Servo and Crow bade us farewell as the Sci-Fi Channel years, and 10 seasons of Mystery Science Theater 3000, took a long break. In the interim, Nelson along with Tom and Crow’s performers, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, founded RiffTrax, which brough the idea of making fun of movies to more modern fare. Now, the trio have returned, along with other old friends, for Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments. The first episode, Sting of Death, is out this Friday and it’s like putting on an old, warm sweater.
Seeing Mike don (an approximation of) a jumpsuit again and sit between two robots really is a jolt of nostalgia to my 42-year-old brain. During the Sci-Fi Channel years, from 1997-1999, I was just becoming a thinking comedic person at ages 13-15. It was at this time I also discovered Monty Python’s Flying Circus, so it was peak time for me. I’ve since gone back and watched the Joel and early Mike years of MST3K, and I enjoyed the Netflix years with Jonah. But it’s always going to be this crew that will make me feel like high schooler, in a good way this time.
The first of the four RiffTrax Experiments finds Mike at a desk job at a cheese factory. With no fanfare, Tom and Crow arrive to warn him that Pearl Forrester (Mary Jo Pehl) is back on her bullshit and, using Brain Guy (Corbett)’s powers, transports the three back up to a satellite to watch cheesy movies. Instead of the Satellite of Love this time, the SOL is the sponsored Syd’s Olive Loaf. Branding abounds. Professor Bobo (Murphy) definitely looks the most aged. But, you know, ape physiology.
The movie at hand for the first go is William Grefé’s 1966 sci-fi/horror/teen dance romp, Sting of Death. This is the exact kind of movie we’d have gotten during the original run of the series, only now it’s in HD and looks halfway decent. It doesn’t take away from the hilarity of the riffs one bit. The movie follows a bunch of college kids in Florida who head to one’s father’s home in the Everglades for a weekend of dancing to Neil Sedaka and making fun of a weird guy who lurks and has the most mild of facial disfigurement.
This is enough, though, for a human-sized Portuguese man o’ war to begin attacking and killing the kids at a pretty alarming rate. If you want shots of people’s butts from unusual angles and a monster with a plastic bag on his head, then really there is no better movie for you.
I watched this first episode on an airplane on my laptop and I did have to stifle a few belly laughs so as not to draw attention to myself. As with any new MST3K era, one can worry the tone or the joke rate won’t work for you. And it’s not like every single joke makes you laugh equally. But Nelson, Murphy, and Corbett have worked together for so long and honed their skills and comedic voices over decades. In a lot of ways, that means no time has really passed at all, it’s just a matter of seeing the silhouettes again.
If you’re like me and rewatch old episodes of MST3K over and over again as comfort watches, you’ll find this first episode fits in perfectly. It does feel much more in line with the old series than the Netflix series and after. The joke pacing is less breakneck and there are way fewer bells and whistles. Though, the new tunnel sequence heading into the theater features some fabulous stop-motion parodies of classic films. That was a very fun surprise. But references to things like AI aside, this is classic MST3K.
Sting of Death is the first of four new episodes, all of which will drop on RiffTrax.com every other week. If the rest—including a mystery title!—are as funny as this one, MSTies are going to be eating well this fall.