This Is MST3K (1992 TV Short) User Reviews

This Is "This Is MST3K"

[zmaturin · 13 December 2002]

I remember when I first saw this (during Turkey Day '92) how tantalizing it was to get my first glimpse of the inner-workings of Best Brains. Oh, how I froze every frame of the behind-the-scenes shooting of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians". And how I relished every soundbite from the cast and crew (Joel: We never say 'Who's going to get this'. We always say 'The right people will get this'). The footage in the writing room alone is worth it's weight in Spacom.

But now I watch it and am annoyed, first of all by the hosting job done by Penn Jillette, and second of all by the presence of Doogie Howser's Neil Patrick Harris. The whole special has the air of having the show described to you by people who have only seen it once. Why, why, why?!? The Sci-Fi era "making of" special is much more satisfying (and only slightly as annoying).

Entertaining "Behind the Scenes" Featurette

[Pythe · 18 July 2004]

Unfortunately, I had never even heard of MST3K at the time this special first aired. About a decade later, I downloaded it off the DAP website (God bless the Digital Archive Project). I'm such a big freak of MST3K now that just about anything mentioning the show will entertain me. While this does have some pretty solid behind-the-scenes info, I wish more time were spent interviewing the people actually involved in the show rather than continually having different people describe what the show is about. Watching Penn Jillette continually stuff his face with popcorn while attempting to form coherent sentences in the midst of his loud smacking and chewing, followed by showing him slumping down in his chair only to straighten up when we cut back to him a minute later, is not exactly riveting television. I wish somebody had just stuck the camera in the writing room for thirty minutes and let us watch the magic happen for ourselves, rather than having Doogie Hauser (sp?) explain the show's concept to us seventeen times. Why do we care that various people find the show funny? I wanted a little more actual insight.

Though my comments are largely negative, this is a pretty harmless, if not completely informative, documentary about one of the greatest shows of the century. It's fun to watch just for the sake of completion, and hey, maybe you'll even learn something from it.