ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300070
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
Everything's up-to-date in outer space. Reluctant astronaut Mike Nelson and his staff of wacky robots are back circling the Earth in the Satellite of Love. That can only mean that ``Mystery Science Theater 3000,'' probably the funniest low-budget TV show of all time, is back on the air.
It hasn't been an easy trip. ``MST3K,'' which developed a wildly devoted cult of fans during six insane seasons on cable's Comedy Central, was callously canceled early last year. MSTies, as the loyalists call themselves, rushed to the Internet and even to the old-fashioned post office to send out wails and wails of mail.
Then the enterprising Sci-Fi Channel came to the rescue and announced it would pick up the show for at least 13 new episodes. The first airs Saturday at 4 p.m. and again at 11 p.m. Is the show as hilarious, inspired and playfully irreverent as ever? Well, no, but it's close.
``MST3K'' remains as irresistible as free money, bedroom eyes or a big box of chocolates. Make that a big bag of Cheetos. We're talking really irresistible here.
Even those immune to the show's charms probably know the format by now: Our astronaut hero and the robots have been condemned to eternal orbit in their spacecraft watching terrible old movies as part of some blatantly pointless experiment. Bad movies bring out the best in them, at least as far as wisecracks, smart remarks and screwball asides are concerned.
They liberate old movies from the chains of their own banality.
First up for the crew on the new Sci-Fi Channel journey is ``Revenge of the Creature,'' a sequel to the hugely popular ``Creature From the Black Lagoon'' released by Universal back in the early '50s. Although directed by the normally proficient Jack Arnold (who did such true classics as ``The Incredible Shrinking Man''), ``Creature'' wreaks the lamest revenge imaginable. It reeks more than it wreaks, really.
Movie audiences of 40 years ago could be frightened by a fellow in a rubber suit but, as we all know, it takes a lot more to scare folks now. Nelson and his colleagues have a very merry time suffering through the movie.
During a listless love scene between the film's hero and heroine, one of the robots sarcastically exclaims, ``Oh, the white-hot indifference!'' Among the odd assortment of cultural and historical references that pop up during their comments: Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bert Lahr, ``The Incredible Mr. Limpet,'' Mahler's Ninth Symphony and mass murderer Richard Speck.
When a very young Clint Eastwood appears briefly on the screen in a bit part as a lab assistant, a robot says, ``This guy's bad. This is his first and last movie.''
Unfortunately, ``MST3K'' didn't make the transition from one cable channel to another completely intact. The cast and crew were jolted when they made a theatrical film version of their show last year and it flopped. It deserved to flop because the movie they chose to pick on, ``This Island Earth,'' was much too good - one of the better sci-fi films of the early '50s.
Many of the original writers and cast members have left, among them maniacally funny Trace Beaulieu who played Dr. Clayton Forrester, mad scientist extraordinaire. Also gone is his fabulous flunky Frank, played by Frank Coniff.
Even Crow, one of the puppet robots, has a new voice, that of staff writer Bill Corbett. The crew's new Earth-based nemesis, Mary Jo Pehl as Dr. Forrester's widow, doesn't arrive until late in the first episode. It's now supposedly the year 2525 and, just like in ``Planet of the Apes,'' Earth's humans have devolved into monkeys. Except for Mrs. Forrester, that is.
All this is neither here nor there. Or, actually, it's both here and there. The point, though, is that ``Mystery Science Theater 3000'' is back, lampooning the lampoonable and skewering the skewerable. For some of us, it's sure to become a magnificent obsession all over again.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB