Female Musician

What IS Mst3k?

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999) is a sci fi-comedy show from Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's about a janitor who is sent into space by his evil bosses to watch godawful movies for the sake of mad science. In order for the janitor (Joel) to not go insane watching these movies, he builds himself some robot buddies out of parts of the satellite he’s trapped on. The robots (Tom Servo, Crow, GPC) keep Joel company and riff on the movies they watch, effectively making the films more digestible and funny. Later on in the show (mid-5th season) Joel gets to be sent home and is replaced with Mike, a guy temping for the evil bosses. There’s a bunch of other cast changes throughout the show, but I don't know the later seasons that well...sorry Mike nation


This show is really neat

What I like most about MST is its comforting aura, low-budget/public access appearence, and witty humor. There’s also not a single character in the show that I don’t like; they're all my favorites. It's kinda hard to describe– it all just overwhelms me with joy.

I initially knew about it from my parents. My mom owns a VHS of the Mystery Science Theater Movie which she acquired while working at a video company in the ‘90s. When I was really young, Netflix had a few of the Gamera movies, which I watched over and over again. I also remember watching Pod People, which is still one of my favorite episodes. When I was in 5th grade, my mom told me that a reboot was coming onto Netflix, which was really exciting to all of us. We got really attached to the “Avalanche” (IT WAS A REALLY SOLID EPISODE) and we continue to watch it every winter. For some reason I got sick a lot in 6th grade so I spent a lot of time at home watching the MST reboot too– Fast Forward to now: While I always looked at the show fondly, I was never super interested in it. BUT SUDDENLY a few months ago I was thinking about it and realized: “wow this show really fits my 80s-90s kitsch aesthetic…” I then rewatched Pod People and it was downhill from there. I also started watching Joel’s old standup sets (d amn....). After discovering that almost every episode was on youtube, I dove in.

I like being in older fandoms because there are tons of cool archived fansites and graphics, which are always a pleasure to explore. It’s so cool looking through old forums/livejournals/DeviantArt pages and seeing recurring usernames everywhere. It seemed like these folks knew each other, got on skype calls and drew fanart together LIKE MAN that seems so FUN WHY COULDNT I BE THERE

Nowadays there isn’t as much fandom activity (at least from people my age) so I’m kind of just making fanart for myself. BUT there seems to be a small MSTie community on tumblr so that's nice! (I personally recommend Dirty MST3K Confessions; I found it to be a enlightening experience)

Conclusion: This show makes me very happy



Fanfic Recs

...And Other Science Facts (Unfinished)

The first fanfic I ever read for MST, my gateway drug. It’s basically Joel's origin story of being shot into space.

Experiment #209: An Unusual Satellite Tale

!NSFW! From Livejournal! The story it doesn't take itself too seriously (which is in tune with the show) but I have a soft spot for this fic