FanFare

MST Club presents! The Devil Bat was released in 1940, and stars Bela Lugosi, who--get this--invents an aftershave lotion that causes giant bats to attack the wearers. All, um, according to plan? Premiered November 2022.
posted by JHarris on Oct 24, 2024 - 1 comment

MST Club presents... the first of the many popular short compilations that "TV's" Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu have riffed for their Dumb Industries series. It's one of their longer bits at an hour and a half. The nine shorts riffed are: Are You Listening?, How Friendly Are You?, an episode of Mighty Mister Titan, Office Etiquette, Halloween Safety, More Dates for Kay, Health - Your Cleanliness, Danger! Poison and The Cautious Twins. First riffed in October of 2020. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Sep 26, 2024 - 1 comment

MST Club presents! While one of the absolute worst movies ever to be featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Creeping Terror isn't nearly as well known as Manos "Everyone Loves Torgo" the Hands of Fate, or Monster "Couldn't Think of An Ending" A Go-Go, or any of the Coleman Francis trilogy. This is a shame though, as The Creeping Terror features absolutely the most ludicrous headline monster of any MST'd movie, essentially a carpet with vacuum cleaner hoses attached to it, that eats victims by apparent dint of them actively crawling into its mouth. MST3K tackled the Terror while both Frank Conniff and Trace Beaulieu were still at Best Brains, so this is a second trip through this film for both of them. Riffed December 12, 2023, and available either standalone (for about $12) or part of a collection of nine other MST-featured items (70 bucks).
posted by JHarris on Aug 1, 2024 - 1 comment

The Mads have been doing this for four years now, and the show begins with a roll of wellwishers! The before-show, and after-show Q&A, have special guests Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett, Mary Jo Pehl and Felicia Day! The shorts this time out seem to all be from Coronet Films: How QUIET Helps a School (1953), Boy and Girl of BRITIAN (1976), CITY PETS: Fun and Reponsibility (1953), Rumpelstiltskin (1949) and Understanding Your Ideals (1950). The riffing premiered just two days ago, July 9, 2024.
posted by JHarris on Jul 11, 2024 - 1 comment

The Man does The Madster, uh, the Mads do The Manster in a riff from just a few days ago on June 11, 2024. An American journalist in Japan is given an injection by a mad scientist that causes him to develop an extra eye... that develops into an extra head... that eventually develops into an entirely separate person, and he's EEEEVIL. But Master Manster couldn't past muster even as a Munster mister.
posted by JHarris on Jun 20, 2024 - 0 comments

For some reason the title of this one uses the roman numeral for 10 instead of a digit. The shorts this time are Bookkeeping And You (1947), Special Days in February (1953), Why Study Industrial Arts (1951, a reriff from MST3K), Hoppy: The Bunny (1953), Joan Avoids A Cold (1947) and Life in a Medieval Town (1965). First streamed January 2023.
posted by JHarris on May 30, 2024 - 1 comment

A.k.a. "Marijuana - The Devil's Weed." "How bad can a good girl get?" "Stay up or stay dumb." One of those anti-drug movies, from 1949. A young woman's life is wrecked through the use of 'the reefer.' The actress playing the main character is Lila Leeds, who had been the subject of scandal after she and Robert Mitchum were arrested for smoking marijuana. Due to the scandal it would be the last film Leeds would appear in, and she left acting, while Mitchum would go on to receive multiple Academy Award nominations and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I'll let you guess as to why Mitchum's career took off and Leeds' died, and here's a hint: it rhymes with "exism." Riff first shown September 19, 2023.
posted by JHarris on May 2, 2024 - 4 comments

MST Club presents this 2022 riff of a 1961 movie. It's referred to as Season 3, episode 1 of The Mads Are Back. A mysterious rogue planet called The Outsider is approaching the Earth, and everything but Professor Benson thinks it'll hit! Prof Benson is right, but that's only the beginning of Earth's problems. At the end, a little dog is sad.
posted by JHarris on Apr 11, 2024 - 1 comment

Tonight on MST Club.... The Mads Are Back's Night of Shorts 7 was on sale recently, so I took the opportunity to purchase a copy. The five shorts shown are mostly from the late 40s and early 50s. The initial stream was on April 12, 2022. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Mar 28, 2024 - 1 comment

A radioactive monster wreaks havoc; for some reason the heroic scientist has to develop a relationship while saving lives from it; also, the monster's maker has to perish in his attempt to stop his creation. All these things the way they have to be in 50's monster movie world. (Riff from 2024, earlier this week)
posted by JHarris on Mar 14, 2024 - 3 comments

Next up on MST Club's current mostly random sequence of further riffing as we can get it is The Mads' showing of (gulp) Manos The Hands of Fate. Infamously one of the worst movies MST3K ever did, this return to the trough has Trace Bealieu and Frank Conniff tackling it by themselves. Rifftrax also covered Manos, in a live show, but we'll save that for a future date. As for the movie... yeah, its Manos. A family of three on a vacation trip unwisely stay the night at the mysterious Valley Lodge, run by "Torgo," a balking goat-man with intrusive theme music. Turns out Torgo is in league with the forces of darkness, which include The Master and his undead wives out in the desert. Things don't well, either for the family or for the viewer. Good luck, once again, everyone. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Feb 29, 2024 - 7 comments

The Mads are Trace Beaulieu, who played Dr. Clayton Forrester and was the original voice and performer for Crow on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Frank "TV's Frank" Conniff. They partner with Dumb Industries to riff movies and shorts! We are doing some of their shows in our continuing exploration of the wider universe of riffing. Their most recent show was Mutiny In Outer Space. The Commander of Space Station X-7 has come down with a bad case of space raptures, and his crew has to mutiny to save their station from being destroyed.
posted by JHarris on Feb 22, 2024 - 3 comments