Another reason why the host segments are important: Sometimes the movie featured is unpleasant and doesn’t have much of a happy ending. That concluding segment where they sing a silly, random song to cheer themselves up or a character shows up on the Hexfield to assure them they’re okay is so needed.
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Like this one at the end of Red Zone Cuba!
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Great point. We had to have something like that after The Girl in Lovers Lane.
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Without host segments, why have a theme song or pretend it’s an experiment? You also lose the mads.
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Also Yongary. Holy crap, that movie got dark at the end.
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The Sidehackers, too. Granted, the whole movie was a singularity of grimness from which no light could escape.
But yeah, “Only Love Pads the Film” was needed at the end of it all.
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I realize I’m way in the minority, but I can take or leave the host segments. Sometimes they’re wonderful, often meh, and occasionally just unbearable. And I’m really going to anger some folks by saying all the non-ship stuff is not at all funny to me.
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Yeah it’s combining the Horror Host Show and the Riffing Show into one beautifully weird thing. Without the Host Segments you don’t have CHARACTERS… and lets be honest, our lives would be a little bit lesser without Art Crow and Tommygun Servo in them…
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Just curious, what so you mean by “non-ship” stuff? Like any segments/arcs where one or more characters are not on the SoL?
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I think the best in-theater and host segments have been bits that tied in to the short or film, or at broadest some of the folks involved in production. There are some excellent bits outside of this, but many of those are the more hit/miss for me. I miss the invention exchanges too. (which in my head was the reason Joel stayed on the SoL- he knew how to escape, but loved the weekly dig of building a better something than the Mads ever would, providing the reason they didn’t like him)
Anyway, think the host segments, though absolutely not all of them hit, are vital to the connection with the show and to the films.
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When shopping, I never walk past the giant plastic jars of Megalo-Mart cheeseballs without thinking of RT. [salutes]
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Without the host segments, there’s no reason for the bots to be bots or puppets. You might as well have Hampton and Baron sitting there with Jonah, while Rebecca/Jeffsie would probably be in the projection room with NORMAL CAMERA
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I mean…Patrick Swayze Christmas, the Squaremaster, the Hobgoblins cardboard cutout bit, Timmy (Evil Crow), Crow tunnels to Earth (from the movie)_, the Pina Colada Song, Mike’s brother Eddie, “Beyond Thunderdome”, “Bold” BBQ sauce, Turn Your Crank To Frank, “I Don’t Get You”, etc…
Even if you don’t think those bits are funny, they’re so integral to the show MST3K would not be the same—and would be much lesser—without them.
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I think the host segments are important for the identity of the show, but ironically I don’t like most of them. I like them when they continue to riff on the movie, and I hate them when they’re just random unrelated BS (looking at you, most of the sci fi channel episodes).
Edit: Oh, but A Joke By Ingmar Bergman gets a pass. That one was great.
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I like the host segments, but they don’t all have to be the Invention Exchange. It got a little tedious having it in EVERY Jonah episode.
The Invention Exchange is in every Joel episode too, and he had a LOT more episodes.
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I’m watching Moon Zero Two on Twitch right this very minute, and the slow-motion Zero-G fight host segment is all the argument you’ll ever need on this subject.
Pro all day, every day.
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I know the last Comedy Central season was a Mike season, but it’s kind of funny having the contrast of two 6 episode seasons, 7 and 12, how different the circumstances are
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Host segments are the cornice to MST3K’s Decameron.
Which is to say, a lot of the surrounding story around the tales of the Decameron is of dicey quality. Mostly it’s everyone praising this or that and eating and drinking. But it’s also the thing that makes it a book and not just a bunch of short stories. It gives a reason for collecting the hundred stories therein.
Host segments are way better than Boccaccio’s frame was, but they can sometimes be brilliant and sometimes stupid and sometimes perfunctory, but they always help to define the characters and set the “story,” even if the story is just “person forced to watch bad movies with robots”. “I don’t get you” is actually a perfect host segment, because if you show it to someone, they get a fair snapshot of all three bots at the time. It also has a simple but classic punchline. And it’s also entirely fluff. They built a whole interlude off of the idea of G’p-c not “getting” Crow.
That’s what makes the host segments so nebulous, and I definitely think the core of the show is great riffing (ie: an episode with bad host segments and a solid riff is a better ep than one with great host segments and a mediocre riff), but i also think that the host segments make MST what it is, and make it more than it would be without them. It’s a value add, for sure.
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As others have said, the host segments are necessary for MST3K, but not necessary for riffing in general.
MST3K has a backstory to it - the whole guy shot into space and forced to watch bad movies as part of an experiment. RiffTrax (and others) do not have that kind of a story. They are just “we’re here to riff a film”. The host segments add to the story aspect.
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