The Meaty Filling of MST3K
Posted in friends, monsters, consumer culture, psychotronic, kitsch, humanism, Christianity, movies, retro, lowbrow, C. S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis, mst3k, mystery science theater 3000, comedy, satire on Dec 28th, 2008 No Comments »
Our tribute to Mystery Science Theater 3000 goes out with a bang as Lint delves into the mysteries of satire, pop culture, and that time Tom Servo sang to his pet turtle, Tibby, for a full five minutes. Meanwhile, Susan is having a baby — tomorrow! Yikes! That makes baby number four! Yikes! The current three already drive us crazy! Yikes! We shall have to change and become more stern and paternal and “draw the line” and no longer “put up with that crap” in our tiny (very tiny) maison - just to create some kind of groundwork for peace and quiet and mutual respect and less screaming! Yikes! Susan has suffered from post-partum complications in the past, but the meds are ready to go! Yikes! We are just a couple of crazy Catholics who actually paid serious attention to Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s big time letter about contraception linked here! Yikes! Which makes us crazy even among Catholics! Yikes! But if we had dissented because of Susan’s post-partum problems we wouldn’t have Sarah and Holly now! Yikes and double yikes! Please pray for us in our odd combination of seriousness and silliness! And blessings to all the members of Best Brains, Inc.
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For many years, one of the great pleasures in life (in my life, at least) was watching Mystery Science Theater 3000. I remember one Thanksgiving, in particular, when they had a marathon of around thirty episodes. I was in fanboy heaven, scarfing down turkey and watching turkeys at the same time. Although some took offense at the jibes and riffs and such, I couldn’t help but enjoy Joel and the Bots, then Mike and the Bots, in their peculiarly painful dilemma: stuck on a satellite in space, forced to watch bad movies. It seemed a smaller version of our own dilemma, since Earth itself is a satellite in space, as it were, and we also are forced to imbibe so much inane, mind-numbing, soul-destroying stuff simply while driving to the grocery store: billboards, radio ads, road rash, the whole sense of swimming endlessly through a consumer culture which has drastically changed the human horizon. Sometimes, the best option is to poke fun at it all and thereby make it less omnipotent and omnipresent. With that in mind, here is part one of our two part tribute to Mystery Science Theater 3000. Thanks Joel, Mike and everybody else at Best Brains, Inc. (Of course, past episodes of the show are available in various dvd boxed sets and episodes unavailable in that form can be found online through various bootleggers making use of the “one collector to another” legal loophole. As they say, keep circulating the tapes!)
I’ll go ahead and blaze a trail of ignorance and say that Derek Yaniger’s art has always reminded me of the Sixties — of Jay Ward cartoons and Quisp cereal. In the description for his new book, Wildsville: The Art of Derek Yaniger, Amazon links his style with the Fifties: “Celebrating a retro subculture of tiki gods, hillbillies, and burlesque, this collection of Derek Yaniger’s incredible body of 1950s-style cartoon art is a must for all tiki and Kustom Kulture addicts. The only work devoted to his illustrations for Cartoon Network, Marvel Comics (for which he worked on such titles as Hellraiser, Transformers: Generation 2, and Web of Spider-Man), and more, this book contains more than 150 original paintings and illustrations. Derek’s illustration style, reminiscent of cocktail napkin art of the 1950s, delves into the retro world of beatniks, tiki bars, and Vegas glamour. Original cartoon art collectors, students of cartoon art, and fans of lowbrow artists will all find this an essential reference. …Derek Yaniger publishes in such magazines as Atomic, Barracuda, and Car Kulture Deluxe and does prints for shows such as Hukilau, Tiki Oasis, and the Wild Weekend. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.”
Is it self-indulgent of me to post a promo that is over two minutes long? I can make a shorter version, but I love the song (from the Sixties cult film, Danger: Diabolik, which I’ve yet to see) and thought maybe you’d like to hear more of it once my gabbing was over. Please share your comments, critiques, etc. on whether this promo should actually be promulgated throughout the world, to distant lands where people are struggling to reconcile their love for God and for Ed Wood movies. At any rate, if you like it feel free to pepper it throughout your own podcast, blip playlist, etc.
