MST3k tends to dig into really obscure movies that all the fans are likely seeing for the first time on the show. But has anyone had the experience of seeing an episode and recognizing a movie you’ve already seen?
With the release of the Season 13 schedule, my count is now two: The Land That Time Forgot (it was on AMC one day and I figured the premise sounded cool) and Munchie (it aired incessantly on the Disney Channel in the early '90s, and I was a kid and didn’t know any better). Also, I saw Robot Monster and Black Scorpion before watching the episodes, but it was after they aired so I don’t really count them.
Invaders from the Deep, most of the Gameras, SST Deathflight, Marooned(first saw this at a Drive-In), Attack of the Eye Creatures, Rocket Ship XM, the Godzillas, The Amazing Colossal Man, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, San Francisco International, Laserblast, The Deadly Mantis, Reptilicus, Star Crash.
I was never an obsessive movie watcher, especially bad movies, before MST3K. The only ones I know I saw before I saw the riffed versions are Village of the Giants and The Land That Time Forgot. (I saw TLTTF in a theater in Florida in the mid-70s.)
My dad definitely saw a few MST movies in the theaters. The Killer Shrews is the only one I distinctly remember him saying “hey, I remember seeing this one,” but I know there were others. The two of us definitely watched The Land That Time Forgot at some point, probably on broadcast TV one Sunday afternoon or something.
And I’m pretty sure I saw Mac and Me in theaters… so now I know how it feels!
I saw the TV shows that made up KTMA experiments 1, 2 & 10. I also think I’d seen Superdome before, but I’m not sure.
I’d seen some Godzilla movies before, but can’t remember exactly which.
Jump forward to Season 8, and I’d seen a bit of The Incredibly Strange Creatures etc. before switching off in utter boredom.
Then Gorgo, Starcrash, At the Earth’s Core and (God help me) Mac & Me.
I think that’s the lot.
In no particular order
a couple of the Gamera films
Laserblast
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
Star Crash
A couple of Hercules
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Warrior of the Lost World
and I think I saw The Gunslinger at some point in the early 80s
I saw a silly amount of the old monster movies. Growing up in the 70s (damn I’m old) there used to be on WXIX in Cincinnati a thing called Creature Feature every Sunday and also had the Cool Ghoul that showed them and young me didn’t realize how bad they were scarring my young mind.
I even remember voluntarily going to see Star Crash and Godzilla vs. Megalon in a theater and being upset when my mom wouldn’t take me to see Laserblast when Starlog magazine said it might be the next Star Wars. Little did I know what a bullet I dodged there!
I also saw and enjoyed Alien From L.A., which I saw on one of the movie channels before it was on MST3K. I liked and still like the low-rent cyberpunk aesthetic.
I also saw Being From Another Planet / Timewalker around the same time and also enjoyed that.
Ditto This Island Earth, which I still think is superior to the vast majority of its sci-fi contemporaries.
every Gamera film
every Godzilla film
several Hercules films At the Earth’s Core Attack of the Eye Creatures Attack of the Giant Leeches Beginning of the End Bride of the Monster Earth vs The Spider Gorgo Hangar 18 I Was a Teenage Werewolf Indestructible Man Invasion of the Neptune Men It Conquered the World Laserblast Marooned Monster a Go-Go Phase IV Prince of Space Revenge of the Creature Robot Monster Rocketship X-M Santa Claus Conquers the Martians Starcrash Teenage Cave Man Terror from the Year 5000 The Amazing Colossal Man The Beast of Yucca Flats The Black Scorpion The Brain That Wouldn’t Die The Brute Man The Corpse Vanishes The Crawling Eye The Crawling Hand The Creeping Terror The Deadly Mantis The Giant Gila Monster The Horror of Party Beach The Incredible Melting Man The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? The Killer Shrews The Magic Sword The Mask The Mole People The Screaming Skull The She-Creature This Island Earth War of the Colossal Beast
Thanks, Creature Feature, for a rich and/or squandered childhood.
My father would watch the Saturday afternoon creature features, so I have vague memories of things with giant ants or other bugs, but nothing of the films themselves.
The only “movies” I saw before MST got a hold of them were Master Ninja 1 and 2. I watched The Master in the 80s because, well, a lot of 80s TV was like that!
I also saw the first two episodes of that show. It did that skeevy thing (that basically all '70s action-oriented shows did) where it was “girl of the week”.
And I’m, like, “You have a perfectly serviceable Demi Moore in the first episode, and then in the second episode you have a different girl?”
At least these:
All the Gameras, Godzillas, and Hercules movies.
Master Ninja I and II.
This Island Earth
Village of the Giants
The Painted Hills
Beginning of the End
Hangar 18
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Teenage Cave Man
Marooned
Robot Monster
Rocketship X-M
Star Crash
Terror from the Year 5000
The Deadly Mantis
The Giant Gila Monster
The Amazing Colassal Man
The Land that Time Forgot
At the Earth’s Core
Robot Wars
The Mask 3-D
Werewolf
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
Kitten with a Whip
Agent for H.A.R.M.
Revenge of the Creature.
Riding with Death
Thankfully not. I think it’s only tolerable in riffed format. The riffing shields you from harmful White Trash Exposure.
I also remember watching some of the TV shows like The Gemini Man and San Francisco International Airport which were chopped and channeled into cheesy films, but don’t recall seeing those film versions themselves until MST3K.
I’m not 100% certain, but I’m fairly confident I saw “Squirm” on Morgus back in the 80’s.
I have seen Gamera Vs. Jiger a couple of times as well. Probably saw Mac & Me as a kid too, it was pretty ubiquitous on Blockbuster shelves.
