Mystery and Science! With Robots!

I've been watching old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, courtesy of the fine St. Paul library system. If you've never seen this show, it was a local, low budget program that featured a guy and his talking, wise cracking robot friends. The premise was that they'd all been banished to a space satellite called the Satellite of Love, where they were doomed to exist in a sort of "No Exit" way and watch bad, bad movies. So each episode of the show is basically you watching them watch movies, with breaks for a little live action. A very similar model to Beavis and Butthead, now that I think about it, except, of course, Beavis and Butthead watched bad music videos.

And I have to tell you, the show still holds up today. The references are still fittingly obscure and if you get most of them you have to feel you're doing alright for yourself. I can't imagine I got most of the references back in the day, so I must have been happy simply watching robots make fun of a movie. The show's writers possessed the ability of turning otherwise dull movies into a sort of hypnotic experience in which you are both engaged and not. Of course, a few drinks doesn't hurt your viewing experience, either.