When I was 15 I was hanging out with some older friends who I basically idolized. I mentioned I had watched a show called Mad Movies with The LA Connection with my dad a few years previous, and one of my buddies mentioned MST3K. Of course being a budding cinephile, and wanting to impress my “cooler” older buddies, I immediately watched every episode I could catch on cable. A quarter of a century (And change. Cough Cough) later the show has become what I turn to when I’m down in the dumps and the soundtrack to anything I’m doing in the kitchen.
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You young whippersnappers with your seven stations. I only had 3 on a clear day. Now get off my lawn!
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Pure chance. Flicked on SciFi UK one Sunday morning for background noise while working and caught half of “I Was A Teenage Werewolf”. I’d never watched “Bonanza” but the riff caught my attention. Then I noticed the shadows. Then the next riff, and the next. Then a host segment and I gave up working for the morning.
And the hook was in…
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My brother got me into it, I was about 16 so around 97, watched Mitchell and Pod People and was hooked.
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Summer vacation as a kid! Every year I had nothing but time on my hands and nothing on tv during the middle of the day… except, MST3K. I was too young to get most of the jokes, but like a bottle of cheap wine, the more you drink it in, the better it gets!
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I was in college in the early 90’s and a girl I liked told me about this show she thought I would enjoy. My apartment had satellite but no Comedy Central. She would record the shows and let me borrow the tapes. First episode was “Attack of the Giant Leeches.” All it took was a joke referencing an old Imperial Margarine commercial, and I was hooked. Never got out of the “friend zone” with the girl, but still love MST3K all these years later and have my kids addicted to it also.
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Well at the Rifftrax shows in London there were probably less than 300 at each show. The Mad was sold out probably about 150. So I expect theres around 400 MSTie out of 66 million people. I stole my ‘too small to be a cult’ from my favourite ‘cult’ band The NoMen who put that motto on their business cards and make 1-50 copies of each of their albums.
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Similar experience. Dad and I watched a lot of the 90s episodes on the Sci-Fi Channel. He introduced me to Monty Python, Firesign Theatre, and Mad Magazine.
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Ha! We had four!
Of course, one was the DuMont network.
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HazardousLazarus thanks for sharing this. I think you really hit the nail on the head with your 2nd paragraph.
While I came across MST3K back when it was on Comedy Channel just as Joel was leaving and Mike was taking over. What you said about it being emotional comfort food really strikes close to home with me.
I work in a hospital. And last year as the pandemic was hitting its peak in New Jersey, I was a zombie. Waking up every morning and going to work was going into ground zero. There was a refrigerator truck parked on the loading dock to house all the bodies as our morgue was at full capacity. The one solace I found in my everyday life was the MST3K and RiffTrax channels on Pluto TV. Without these channels I’m uncertain what might have happened to my mentally. I know that it made me laugh despite what I witnessed daily and kept me sane.
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Caught it switching channels late in Season 2, thinking it was annoying, nonetheless intrigued - switched over from Letterman’s “Viewer Mail” late on Friday into the “X Marks The Spot” short and never missing an episode again
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Watched with my Dad as a kid.
Found it again as I got older with clips and bootlegs on YouTube, before you could stream them.
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A friend introduced me and I passed out from laughing so hard. I’ve been hooked ever since, and now have my 3 boys watching!
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Comedy Central in the late 90s. My curfew was removed in my early to mid teens. I could stay up late as I wanted as long I got myself to school the next day.
In a sleepy haze I found a bad movie on TV, noticed the silhouettes in the corner and realized the were funnier than the bad movie. Host segment have me more clues to what I saw. Figured out when new episodes aired and I’ve been hooked ever since.
I’ve bought VHS, DVDs and Books for Mst3k, Rifftrax, Legend Films, Film Crew, and Cinematic Titanic. Even got to attend Rifftrax Live once for Plan 9.
This show has shaped my humor and created my love for the worst movies
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So, being a massive nerd, I had HEARD about MST3K from various magazines in the early 90s, and having huge love for late night weekend movies, horror hosts, and things like USA’s Up All Night and TNT’s MonsterVision, it was always something that appealed to me, but sadly only had an antenna, living in the middle of nowhere Vermont.
In '94, I went to a summer program at a college in MA, and I saw there was a common room with a tv and cable. So I totally looked up stuff in tv guide, knew there was gonna be some MST3K, and I had some free time. So I managed to catch the season six premiere, Girls Town, live.
I didn’t have any further access for another year, when I went off to college for reals, to the same place! and brought a tv and VCR of my own. I still have a few of those episodes recorded to tape, today!
When I went back home, I introduced friends to the show, and while staying with one of them, who DID have cable, but not Comedy Central, we enjoyed several of the Mystery Science Theater Hour edited episodes, and eventually followed the show faithfully once it hit Scifi Channel.
And now you know, the rest of the story.
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I first saw MST3K when it first aired on the Comedy Channel in the late 80s, early 90s. Along with The Higgins Boys and Gruber and The Kids in the Hall.
The earliest episode that stuck in my mind was episode 106 The Crawling Hand.
“June’s boy?”
Been hooked ever since.
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I first saw MST3k on vacation. We didn’t have cable so I had no idea it existed before stumbling upon it in a hotel room on a rainy day at the beach. It was Teenagers From Outer Space. After TOHTCHA, too much chlorine in that pool, the lobster shadow, and hand puppet leader on the screen, I was hooked. I proceeded to quote the riffs for the rest of the trip. (…life) From then on it was trips over to my grandparents’ house to set up recording episodes. I’m not sure if they ever taped anything else on that machine, but I taped about 6 seasons of MST.
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I was 20 years old in 1991, and living in my first group house. I walked into the living room one day, and my housemates were watching this ridiculous show with robots. I’ll never forget that moment. That room was all painted in warm colors and a fire was going in the fireplace. Everyone was so happy. One of the only good memories from a rough time in my life. After that are many lovely memories of Thanksgivings, cooking and laughing with friends while watching the marathons. Good times.
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I was a bored young teenager and was going through various channels on TV when whatever was on Comedy Central jumped out at me. I had no idea what I was watching or why I could see silhouettes of some characters on the screen, but they seemed pretty funny. Still no clue exactly what this show was, but then the middle host segment of The Day The Earth Froze happened (What’s a Sampo?) and my life was forever changed.
Thanks to Satellite News’ broadcast archive, I also now know exactly what day that was.
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20-something years ago, my partner introduced me to MST3K The Movie - the only one that was reliably available here in Australia. After a bit of searching, I discovered the whole actual world it came from - my partner hadn’t realised it went beyond the film. So we got a few more DVDs of episodes (The brain that wouldn’t die was one I remember) The relationship was fated to end, but I’ve carried a long term relationship with MST3K since then, and so I can’t really be mad about it. 
They say everyone comes into your life for a reason, and it was certainly one of the best things to come out of it.
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