I loved the black and white shorts where they skewed episodes of the soap opera General Hospital.

MST3K Central
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I really enjoyed the old shorts where they made fun of a few of the daytime soap opera General Hospital episodes.

Wish they’d do something like that again with more episodes.

Or others.

Any storyline or soaps you’d think would be ripe for the riffing?

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I agree. I will admit it took me a little time to warm up to them due to the slow pacing of classic GH but I think these are a treasure trove of riffable material.

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They should riff the episodes where the nurse gets jealous of the doctor and the wife suspects the husband of infidelity.

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So every episode?

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I’m more or less with you. They were fun.

On a related note when they would do the serials it also served to introduce to me a lot of silly fun ones of those that I’d watch in non riffed form elsewhere.

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Yeah. I love those, and honestly I’d watch more Undersea Kingdom and Commando Cody, too.

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How did they get those General Hospital clips any way? Did they actually go out looking for soap opera kind of stuff or did some one just happen to make it available to them? GH was probably the first thing I saw riffed by them that I had ever seen before.

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I have a DVD of all the riffed Commando Cody chapters and every time I put it on, I end up finding myself just that little bit disappointed they didn’t see it though. But I totally understand that they were that burned out on it’s truly ridiculous levels of padding and repetition (you practically feel the strain over trying to find a new spin on those never-changing credits).

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I’ve wondered this too. As far as I know, General Hospital is still going, and presumably those shorts aren’t public domain. I could easily watch the gang riff hours worth of those old GH episodes, and perhaps even watch hours of them unriffed. I’ll always make room for Nurseferatu in my life.

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I concur, more old TV episodes and serials would go down a treat. The General Hospital ones are great, so possibly they could mine others from that seam, such as The Days Of Our Lives.

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A part of me would love to see them riff Passions, but that might be too new.

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Just to add: I also enjoyed Undersea Kingdom and wish they had done more chapters. They are just so Out There and the fact it was made eighty-five years ago adds a real unique layer of weirdness to the whole thing.

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I suppose if they wanted to riff episodes of an old soap opera that fits more into their lineup, they could do Dark Shadows.

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I would love to see them tackle some Dark Shadows episodes (or even just scenes, like they did with GH). I love DS, but goodness knows there is a wealth of material there waiting and deserving to be riffed. I doubt they could ever get the rights to do it though. Even 50 years after it went off the air, DS is still a pretty good money maker for the Dan Curtis estate.

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Agreed, I don’t think they’d be able to pry that one loose, unless the rightsholders thought an MST3K appearance would be good for their property. Considering what they tolerated with the Dark Shadows movie, it’s possible they might.

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I watched All My Children from the earl 90’s until it went off the air (even the short-lived streaming version) and pretty much any episode of any soap opera would be terrific riffing material, if you could get the rights. But the really old ones are even better because they’re such museum pieces.

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I wonder if they could get ahold of 60 year old episodes of Coronation Street.

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Nice to know I’m not the only one who wanted them to finish a serial (even though I understand why they didn’t!)

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Yeah, as shorts went, General Hospital and Undersea Kingdom were very underrated. They helped to give Season 4 that terrific vibe.

For some odd reason, I liked that two of the General Hospital shorts preceded the Rocky Jones features. Pairing the two gave some consistency to the Rocky Jones experience.

And honestly, I would have loved to have seen how they would have tackled the rest of Undersea Kingdom.

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I think one aspect of Host Wars that’s so funny is the dogged insistence by… certain fanatics that there’s this solid line partway through Season 5 where magically the jokes suddenly became super-adult because of the host change. As if Mike hadn’t already been head writer for years. General Hospital is an absolute treasure trove of blue or borderline-blue zingers.

“I won’t be long.”

“No kidding you don’t have to tell ME.”

:laughing: That one still gets quoted in our house all the time.

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