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I happened to see the text that would be on the back of the latest official Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD collection on the Shout! Factory site store before I had my copy. It took just instants to realise the blurb was intended to key into an upcoming movie release with plenty of Star Wars references. I do have to admit this juxtaposition can get uncomfortable for me, but further into the blurb there happened to be references to "generally grievous movies" and "an attack of the clowns," and that did seem to be just the sort of reference that perks things up and puts them together for me.
Just as I was getting started into my copy of the collection, though, I did find myself thinking about how all of the movies in it were black-and-white films from American International Pictures. The two "Mike episodes" were from the latter half of the black-and-white endurance course at the beginning of the eighth season, and I wondered about my previous impressions of them. Then, I decided to be bold and mix things up, beginning at the "end" of the set at least as far as the titles are always listed on the boxes in "episode number order." "The She-Creature" did seem funnier than I might have been thinking it would, however; I was more than ready to enjoy the needling of Dr. Carlo Lombardi. Jumping to the start of the set next, I watched "Viking Women and the Sea Serpent," perhaps wondering a little about more recent and conceivably more historically accurate depictions of Vikings. This disc did include a short introduction from Frank Conniff, commenting only on the episodes in the set he'd been around for, and a long documentary about American International Pictures, concentrating the "bonus content" together this time around. The documentary did manage to say a bit about every movie in this collection, as well as mentioning other memorable pictures in the MST3K canon, and pushed beyond that in the story of AIP.
After that it was back to "The Undead" with its collection of strange characters crammed into what I knew from the documentary to be a studio converted from a supermarket, and then off to "War of the Colossal Beast." I might have been saving this for last most of all because of the short "Mr. B Natural," but did find myself wondering all of a sudden if some of the reactions of our heroes to "the spirit of music" have begun to take on dread overtones of "political incorrectness," which of course may only provoke unpleasant counter-reactions. Of course, I don't seem as ready as some to enjoy a character being needled just for "being annoying"; that's the sort of thing that can be safely brushed off by lots of other people.
Just as I was getting started into my copy of the collection, though, I did find myself thinking about how all of the movies in it were black-and-white films from American International Pictures. The two "Mike episodes" were from the latter half of the black-and-white endurance course at the beginning of the eighth season, and I wondered about my previous impressions of them. Then, I decided to be bold and mix things up, beginning at the "end" of the set at least as far as the titles are always listed on the boxes in "episode number order." "The She-Creature" did seem funnier than I might have been thinking it would, however; I was more than ready to enjoy the needling of Dr. Carlo Lombardi. Jumping to the start of the set next, I watched "Viking Women and the Sea Serpent," perhaps wondering a little about more recent and conceivably more historically accurate depictions of Vikings. This disc did include a short introduction from Frank Conniff, commenting only on the episodes in the set he'd been around for, and a long documentary about American International Pictures, concentrating the "bonus content" together this time around. The documentary did manage to say a bit about every movie in this collection, as well as mentioning other memorable pictures in the MST3K canon, and pushed beyond that in the story of AIP.
After that it was back to "The Undead" with its collection of strange characters crammed into what I knew from the documentary to be a studio converted from a supermarket, and then off to "War of the Colossal Beast." I might have been saving this for last most of all because of the short "Mr. B Natural," but did find myself wondering all of a sudden if some of the reactions of our heroes to "the spirit of music" have begun to take on dread overtones of "political incorrectness," which of course may only provoke unpleasant counter-reactions. Of course, I don't seem as ready as some to enjoy a character being needled just for "being annoying"; that's the sort of thing that can be safely brushed off by lots of other people.