Children's Reaction to MST3K

My Facebook page brought up this memory from a few years back and it got me thinking of what other reactions we’ve gotten from our children when we’ve introduced them to MST3K. I know we’ve heard from Emily and some of the others on the show on some of their own experiences, but curious for what others have found as parents with the show.

Here’s the FB memory I had:

Just an observation from watching an old MST3K episode with my nine-year-old daughter last night. We were watching for a bit and then she asked, “Why are there so many empty seats there? Did all the other test subjects die and Mike is the only human left?” “No,” I told her, “it’s just to help simulate a theater setting. But nice attempt to go dark there.”

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Related:

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MST3K is usually our go-to show. My kids (13 and 10) think it’s just that weird show their weird parents like. But we’ve watched Mac & Me together enough that “pretty nice!” has entered our family lexicon.

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Well, now I want to know the words to Mystery Science Bedtime! :smiley:

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I got laid off when my daughter was 3 months old, so we spent some very formative time watching the show. The theme song is one of the first songs she recognized. Not sorry.

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My dad literally expected for me to roll my eyes and call it weird.

But I ended up absolutely hooked to it.

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My kids are 13 and 9 and have been watching MST3k since Jonah’s first season. My husband and I are long time MSTies and MST has provided some great family bonding experiences for us (especially during the pandemic.) One of the upsides of kids growing up with MST is that they have a really good sense of humor, a little more sophisticated than those of their peers. One of the downsides of having kids watch MST is that now they riff EVERYTHING we watch :rofl: My husband and I work in theatre and when we first took both kids to a play, we had to explain to them that while riffing is fun, it’s only for home. We don’t riff while seeing a performance live–because that’s called heckling and that’s not cool! :rofl:

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I once saw my Mom watching the Beatniks when I was in fourth grade, I did see her watch a few before that, but just the movie segments, mostly season 3. But in the Beatniks, I absolutely cracked up over the “Gypsy Crushes Joel!” part. That was a great childhood memory.

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