0 - Superdome
1 - The Corpse Vanishes
2 - First Spaceship On Venus
3 - Viking Women
4 - The Magic Sword
5 - Secret Agent Super-Dragon
6 - Zombie Nightmare
7 - Escape 2000
8 - Jack Frost
9 - Puma Man
10 - Future War
11 - The Beast of Hollow Mountain
12 - Killer Fish
3 Likes
Great idea for a post!
Season 1- Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy
Season 2- Wild Rebels
Season 3- Gamera
Season 4- Fire Maidens from Outer Space
Season 5- Teenage Strangler
Season 6- The Sinister Urge
Season 7- Deathstalker
Season 8- The Giant Spider Invasion
Season 9- The Final Sacrifice
Season 10- Squirm
Season 11- Carnival Magic
Season 12- Atlantic Rim
Season 13- ???
These are my picks. I’m exited to see everyone else’s picks!
3 Likes
Season 1: Robot Holocaust
Season 2: Hellcats
Season 3: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Season 4: Manos The Hands of Fate
Season 5: I Accuse My Parents
Season 6: Zombie Nightmare
Season 7: Laserblast
Season 8: Space Mutiny
Season 9: Werewolf
Season 10: Future War
Season 11: Cry Wilderness
Season 12: Mac and Me
4 Likes
I’m calling Season 13 now, Green Slime, it’s in the bag.
I know they haven’t said they are doing Green Slime, but I can dream, can’t I?
(maybe I’ll pester Matt about it…
just kidding Matt) 
3 Likes
Volume 2
Season 1: Moon Zero Two
Season 2: Lost Continent
Season 3: Pod People
Season 4: The Magic Sword
Season 5: Eegah
Season 6: The Starfighters
Season 7: Night of the Blood Beast
Season 8: Prince of Space
Season 9: The Phantom Planet
Season 10: Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders
Season 11: Starcrash
Season 12: Ator
3 Likes
What is your favorite episode of each season? (you can list 2 for season 5 due to Joel and Mike sharing the season)
I’ll go first:
1: Moon Zero Two
2: Catalina Caper
3: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
4: Manos the Hands of Fate
5: Eegah/Teenage Strangler
6: Girls Town
7: Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell
8: Horror of Party Beach
9: Quest of the Delta Knights
10: Girl in Gold Boots
4 Likes
For many of these seasons it’s a very tough call, but:
- SST Death Flight
- Project Moonbase
- Catalina Caper
- Master Ninja I
- The Giant Gila Monster
- Operation Double 007
- Angels Revenge (neck and neck with Danger!! Death Ray and Girls Town)
- Deathstalker
- Devil Doll
- The Space Children
- Girl in Gold Boots
- The Time Travelers
- The Day Time Ended
- Santo so far, but looking forward to Sumuru.
6 Likes
1: Untamed Youth
2: Rock Climbing… I mean, Lost Continent
3: Time of the Apes (a very close tie with 3 other episodes)
4: The Rebel Set
5: Radar Secret Service (very close tie with I Accuse My Parents)
6: Invasion U.S.A. (I realized a third of this season’s episodes I’ve rewatched numerous times, many could be picked)
7: This season isn’t my thing, so I’ll say The Movie (or the Turkey Day '95 segments)
8: Riding With Death
9: Warwhilf
10: Final Justice
11: The Land That Time Forgot
12: The Day Time Ended
4 Likes
Sure, I’ll choose the favorite of all my children, what could go wrong?
Season KTMA SST Death Flight
San Francisco International, my all-time favorite, sadly didn’t make this list, so this represents it, for as Mike riffed “Airport movies are the watering hole of B-movie actors”, and boy does this waterhole have talent both pre & post prime! I think John De Lancie is my favorite, and the fact that they give a single mention of his role as Q in Star Trek given this was 1989 right before it hit its prime is fantastic, plus I REALLY wanted this revisited in later seasons.
Season 1 Project Moonbase
Robot Monster and Robot Holocaust both get TONS of callbacks, but I love this film for its ambitiousness to be progressive but completely botch it by the end. Plus I always love me a good “this must be a spy, he doesn’t follow [local sports team]”. I promise you this: a gun held to my head, I couldn’t tell you anyone in my local sports team; I’d be lucky if I got the mascot right. Also bonus points for meta-referencing the show.
Season 2 Godzilla vs Megalon
This film holds a special place for me because it was my first ever Godzilla film courtesy of my older cousin. Also, while Gamera is, rightfully so, the patron kaiju of MST3K, I love it’s only because Toho got super sensitive over Godzilla and don’t like people making fun of it at its worst. A shame, really, cuz there’s plenty more Showa-era Godzilla films that needed riffing.
Season 3 Earth vs The Spider
This was a very tough choice. My heart wanted to put It Conquered The World, as it is peak Corman, and that speech…that wonderful speech, but Spider is just peak B-Movie goodness. Plus it’s Bert I Goron Gordon at HIS best. From the guys not taking the Spider’s threat all that serious to the callbacks to Dr. Erhardt, this is a classic episode.
Season 4 Manos: The Hands of Fate
Could there BE any other choice? In a season with MVPs like Monster A Go Go, the Day the Earth Froze, and a frickin’ Ed Wood classic, one film stood above them all, a film that was literally lost to time and would likely never have found its audience if not for this show. That the actors themselves were able to find appreciation so long afterwards thanks to them and have embraced and been embraced by MST3K shows how important this show is. This is EVO Moment 37 for MST3K…video included for reference.
Season 5 Mitchell
As far as I’m concerned, the transition from Joel to Mike was smooth as silk, and some of Mike’s all time best episodes were in this season, but being that this is Joel’s swan song (post season 10 notwithstanding) and there are classics abound in his final season, what better episode than the one he went out on. Super 70s (1970s, I mean) and featuring Joe Don Baker doing his best at being the worst, this is an episode that is so monumental that Mike felt he should go out on a JDB episode too (turns out he was five episodes early). I almost went with I Accuse My Parents as its one I like much more (it’s my favorite Joel episode), but Teens-in-Trouble episodes are a dime a dozen; we only got two shots at Joe Don Baker, and this one is standing tall (or should it be Walking Tall?) alongside the best.
Season 6 San Francisco International
Remember earlier when I said San Francisco International didn’t make this list? I LIED! Yes, this is my all-time favorite episode. No, I don’t think it properly represents the best of THIS season, but I’m including it here because it represents a genre of experiment that I feel doesn’t get near enough love with fandom: the TV pilot/movie/strung-together-episodes. Arguably, the Coleman Francis trilogy might deserve to be here…but their awfulness and incoherence sucks out nearly all enjoyment to all but the hardest of hardcore MST3K fans. SFI is a celebration of TV itself, and given that’s MST3K is the best of television, period, what better than a TV movie (that would likely be shown in an in-flight film)?
Season 7 Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell
This is a really tough season, marred by the impending doom of cancellation, troubles with the movie, and being incredibly short. Nothing really defines this season, so I’m choosing a cheesy sword & sandal flick, of which there were many. Troxartes is most definitely the best thing about this film.
Season 8 Space Mutiny
While the transition from Comedy Central to Sci-Fi Channel had a few growing pains and marred by numerous breaks and repeats, by the halfway point the show found its footing and the latter half stands tall against the best of any season prior. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the final three of the season are so united for me that I consider them all a loose trilogy, and I cannot watch just one, but all three in order. The one I choose to represent is the solid block of 80s cheese that led to a wonderful string of riffs regarding nicknames, railings, and not a single one about the footage swiped from Battlestar Galactica. Also, thanks to The Spoony Experiment, Reb Brown is a patron saint of riffing, a wonderful action star who has one mode and does it well; it’s a shame more of his films weren’t featured, especially given they were knock-offs of Predator, Rambo Part II, and other 80s action goodness.
Season 9 The Pumaman
While a relatively shorter season, there were a good number of episodes that easily end up on the best-of lists. Pumaman has a lot going on: it’s a VERY low-budget ripoff of Superman, and you WON’T believe a man can fly, let alone a puma, after seeing these terrible flight effects (complete with a score that would make John Williams cry with laughter). This also gives us the awesomeness that is Donald Pleasance, a very capable actor who, while doing a lot of bad stuff for a paycheck, never once let that affect his work, and he gives it his all. Before the MCU, before Batman, before Superman…ran itself into the ground, there was the PCU, and its sole entry was Pumaman.
Season 10 Future War
I almost put Soultaker here because, in a season that seemed like it was saying goodbye, a reunion episode serves as a wonderful start. However, while the hosts segments were strong, there was nothing much to say about the episode itself that made it worth being on here, save that I used to watch it so much and loved it. However, I wanted to highlight this episode for two reasons: it is one of the few films to have been produced and released fully within the life of the show (in fact, until season 12, it was the latest episode to be released, only two year prior to being featured), and supposedly members of the production crew felt it was so bad that it deserved to be featured on MST3K, showing how influential the show had become. Unlike some films to come out later that are made intentionally bad, this one still had a genuine earnestness to it that made it worthy to be featured. Not the best or most memorable, but proof that the show itself had made an impact. Also, sorry, Joe Estevez, you don’t get to be on this list, but your co-star Rob Z’Dar does!
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie: This Island Earth
This is the most mainstream that the show ever got, which works against it as studio meddling forced the film to not only cut things down way too much, leaving the overall running time shorter than any given episode on the show, but cut down on the exposure to people outside of the target audience, which is kind of the point of taking a niche television program and putting it on the big screen. On the plus side, this serves as a perfect entry-level episode, given that the film is decent, though still undeniably cheesy, and the jokes are way less obscure and don’t require too much obtuse trivial knowledge. That said, it still manages to produce wonderful moments that have long stuck with us, and it’s the first official episode I ever bought.
And this is where I’m going to stop, because I’ve not seen seasons 11-13 enough to digest them and properly place them.
3 Likes