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I’m bored, it’s Sunday, and my avatar illustrates that I’m a fan of MST3K. So, I’d been thinking about it…and wanted to go ahead and compile a top 10 list…now this isn’t my top 10 favorites list. That would be hard to do. This is the Top 10 *Essential* MST3K episodes that any casual or die hard fan MUST see (in the case of a die hard, you should have seen all of these already).
I guess there’s always going to be a debate about what the 10 best episodes are. There’s even debate about who was better, Joel or Mike (they were both great in their own way). But I think these are the definitive episodes, most talked about, and will always be mentioned when talking about how great the show is. There may already be a top 10 list that includes all of these, I don’t know. I’m still writing this, damnit!
So I tried to include YT part 1's so you could get started watching these episodes, but it said I was over the maximum of URL's. What I don't get is, I got rid of the url commands and left the website links and I guess that's not allowed either. So just go to YT and enter MST3k and a part of the episode title, and enjoy.
So now I give you the Top 10 Essential MST Episodes.
And I start right off the bat selling out, and giving you…
Number 10: The Movie
Yes, I’m including it because it really does just feel like an extended episode of the show. Actually it is a bit shorter because the movie’s pretty short. There is a bigger budget, but it still feels like you’re just watching a regular episode…and an HILARIOUS one. There are some great jokes in this one, and they do make a few more obvious and crass wisecracks, I guess to appeal to a bigger audience. The movie wasn’t a smashing success or anything, but it did get Two Thumbs Up from Siskel & Ebert back in 1996. The movie is “This Island Earth” and it’s actually not a terrible movie…it was given a good review by Leonard Maltin, in fact (I guess it depends on whether you consider him a reliable source for movie criticism).
Number 9: Pod People
This one’s most noted for its “song”, “Idiot Control Now”, called that because of the horrible dubbing job in this Spanish language film called “Pod People”, an ET rip off that’s…something you just gotta see for yourself to believe. The beginning of the film makes absolutely no sense (Crow has a great line that basically speaks to what you’d be thinking watching it), and the effects of the space creature are laughable. Also, the title sequence isn’t even original; it’s taken from another movie that I guess had the same distributor, called “The Galaxy Invader” (which is also a pretty bad movie). This is a classic among the Joel era, and has some great jokes on props, new age music, and the casio effects of the soundtrack. It’s definitely a must see.
Number 8: Master Ninja I
This one has its own theme song! Again, another from the Joel era and is full of big laughs as they riff on this really bad miniseries that was mashed together in a 2 part movie “series”. This is part one, which includes a smug and annoying hero (“I’m Max Keller!”) played by Tim Van Patten (a director of some of the “Game of Thrones” episodes now!) and he’s a young aspiring and idiotic American Ninja who is trained by an old idiotic American Ninja, Lee Van Cleef. This movie has a total feel of early 80’s bad TV show, and I believe is the debut of Demi Moore, inauspicious as it is. The best line for me is when a kidnapped dancer of a rich dad is threatened by one of the villains who yells “You’re a dancer, DANCE!” to which Joel responds, “You’re an actor, ACT!” It’s good fun.
Number 7: Time Chasers
This was from the SciFi era, which I didn’t get to watch until the last season because I didn’t have SciFi for years. It was well worth the wait, though, to see this gem. A really bad low budget movie about time travel that has plenty of dumb characters and one of the worst (see number #3 for THE worst) “hero” characters ever. A total computer nerd who wears a Castleton shirt and has a bad mullet and big goofy glasses and tight jeans. He builds a time machine in the form of an airplane that would make the Wright Brothers laugh, and he is at odds with a villain (“I’m Bob Evil!’) who works…in a mall of some kind, I think. Anyway, this episode’s fun because one of the Bots actually go back in time to rescue Mike from a life of bad jobs and winding up on the Satellite of Love and end up bringing Mike’s surly brother Eddie back and he joins the quipping for a little while. Fun fact about this episode: the cast & crew of the movie found out this movie was going to be featured on MST, and thinking that it was a positive thing, they wound up watching the episode WITH the cast of MST, and were more than surprised in a bad way to see what they had said. Well, that’s what you get. Castleton snobs.
Number 6: Space Mutiny
Another one from the SciFi years, this has to be one of the most consistently funny Mike episodes of all time. Not just because the movie itself is so laughable (the character of the daughter is maybe a year younger, or older, than her dad) and it has one of the worst continuity errors in movie history; but it also features a total meathead hero named David Stryder who is given a hundred better names by the boys (Slab Bulkhead, Punt Speedchunk, and Blast Hardcheese being a few). It’s a great episode, but it’s not in my top 5 because…well, just keep reading. Trust me, though, this one is well worth the time watching.
Number 5: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Now any Top 10 MST list that’s missing this episode is a FRAUD. Because it is one of the most iconic episodes ever. Everything from the jokes about Santa Claus and…martians that wear funny little helmets and some of them have epic mustaches…to the timeless Christmas classic carol penned by Crow T. Robot, “Let’s Have a Patrick Swayzee Christmas”, this episode is the goods. Of course, you probably would only watch it around Christmas time; but to me, it’s worth watching any month of the year. It’s a great episode, and it belongs in the top 5. Check it out.
Number 4: Outlaw
This episode was so good, it actually won a Peabody Award for Outstanding Quality Programming (doesn’t the fact that it’s outstanding make it quality?). The movie’s bad. Real bad. But it has Jack Palance in it! And one of the worst delivered dubbed lines ever, by the evil villainess. The name Cabot is thrown around like a whore in the Playboy mansion, and his annoying friend Watney Smith is someone you’d love to throw in a ditch and bury him deep. It’s a fantasy movie that also takes place in the beginning and end in the modern world, and the two of them are coworkers. Once on the fantasy world, we’re given the typical B movie treatment of fantasy films. It makes “Red Sonja” look like a masterpiece. The invention exchange is pretty funny, too, with the Fabio kit.
Number 3: The Final Sacrifice
This episode is the stuff of legends. It’s an episode that, whenever you’re talking about MST, it’s going to come up: “You’ve seen ‘Final Sacrifice’, right?” Anyone who knows this show will try to pimp this one out, and for good reason. It’s a Canadian horror film, for one thing. That alone should pique your interest. But it also features…THE *worst* hero in film history: Zap Rowsdower. Now, the kid, Troy, is also arguably a “hero”, although any hero that eats cold pizza and sounds like an effeminate elf, you probably need to tweak the definition of “hero”. The film has some great bad characters, like a grizzled old man who sounds like a 19th century prospector, and a villain whose voice is bass amplified and he still sounds like a wuss. This one has a lot of really big laughs and is one of the best Mike episodes ever.
Number 2: Mitchell
Mah-mah-mah MITCHELL. This one’s an episode that even people that don’t watch MST have seen and loved. It’s a very accessible episode because the film itself is so fun-bad. It also has a pretty good cast for a TV movie: Joe Don Baker, Martin Balsam, John Saxon, and even Merlin Olsen’s in it. It’s about a drunk, lazy detective…and that’s really all you need to know. It has one of the worst “love” scenes ever, and it has one of the most unintentionally awkward but hysterical exchanges between 2 characters when he gets into it with a little kid (“Buzz off kid!”). It’s a total classic episode, and one that you have to see to consider yourself a MSTie. It’s also the last episode with Joel.
And now…could it be anything else? Any other episode more definitive of MST3K ever…than…
Number 1: Manos: The Hands of Fate
Anyone who watches this show knows this episode as the best one ever. I mean, it’s not even up for debate, in my opinion. They were hitting their stride at the time this aired, and I think it’s the best Joel episode anyway. The episode begins with a short (“Hired!“ part 2) as well. The film has got to be one of the worst, if not THE worst, movie of all time. Its boring title sequence (missing the credits!), its bad use of lighting, and its really bad villain sidekick…Torgo. The actor who played Torgo wore his costume wrong and wound up with really large knees (something Joel and the Bots mock in a pretty amusing segment). It’s an episode that just gets funnier every time you watch it. There’s always more jokes that you miss the first time (this happens in any episode, too) and it just hit’s the bullseye enough to earn it my number one spot. So sit back, order a pizza from Torgo’s, and enjoy. (don’t forget the complimentary crazy bread!)
So there you have it. Now, not only was there a change from Joel to Mike; but in some of these episodes, Dr. Forrester is replaced by his mother, Pearl, and when Trace Beaulieu left the cast, he was replaced by Bill Corbett playing “The Observer” and the new voice of Crow. I go back and forth which Crow I like better; but again, both were great. So enjoy the episodes, and find some others that are great, too. Because it was one of the best shows of all time, no doubt.
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