Tuesday, July 10, 2012

MST3K: The MST Scrapbook

I'm watching all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes in order. More about that here and here.

Video: The MST Scrapbook

First released: VHS, Best Brains, Spring 1995
Availability: Best Brains VHS (out of print)

Label from the VHS tape.
Between Season Six and Season Seven, in 1995, Best Brains took advantage of the popularity of MST3K by releasing a couple of videos.

We've already covered the original Poopie! release, the bloopers tape. Now, it's The MST Scrapbook, which was both a behind-the-scenes look at the show as well as a collection of clips from the beginnings of MST3K.

Many of the clips from the KTMA season are from shows I've already seen. But, there were a couple of clips from the "lost" episodes. There are also lots of clips from other KTMA episodes, but we've seen those. However, that's because of the Fan Copies you can find at Websites -- such as MST3KVideos.com -- allow you to see those episodes.
These clips from the "lost" episodes......are all we can see.
But, for two of those three "lost" episodes, The MST Scrapbook offers a brief glimps.

There are also excerpts from the sales tape presented to The Comedy Channel that helped them decide to pick up the show for national broadcast. And, we are treated to the building of the new sets for when the show went national.
Crow. Or parts of Crow.Building Deep 13.
It was interesting to see the work they went through to put the sets together. And, it wasn't a situation of them hiring a bunch of people to come in and build stuff for them. Joel, Trace, Kevin, Jim, and the rest of the crew built the sets.
Kevin and Trace operate Servo and Crow on the SOL bridge.Trace/Crow, Joel, & Kevin/Servo riff a movie.
We were also treated to seeing the operation of the puppets during filming. We get to see "the trench," where Josh, Trace, Kevin, Jim, and, in later seasons, Bill, operate the puppets on the Satellite of Love bridge. We also see the setup in the "theater" where Josh, Trace, Kevin, and, later, Bill, scrunched down to riff with Joel or Mike.
The first Turkey Day Marathon.Toolmaster Jeff Maynard.
The behind-the-scenes work by Toolmaster Jeff Maynard -- he said "props" don't accurately convey what they really do -- was interesting to see. And, we get the entire batch of bumpers from the first Turkey Day Marathon in 1991.

I could take those, take all the episodes that aired, and have my very own 30-hour marathon (although it would only run about 22½ hours) I could watch...

Hmmmm....
A Comedy Central commercial from 1992.A Joke... by Ingmar Bergman, from 1994.
Oh, one thing I enjoyed seeing was the Death And Taxes commercial from 1992. The idea was recycled 2½ years later during Episode 617: The Sword and the Dragon. It was "A Joke ... by Ingmar Bergman," a 4½-minute drawn-out 30-second lame joke.

The MST Scrapbook is interesting to watch ... for most of the tape. The 16-minute segment from the 1994 ConventionCon was ... heck, I'll just say it bored me. But, for most of the Scrapbook, it was fun.



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