The story goes that they cut together the best stuff and shopped that tape around. A little nip. A little tuck. Viola! Nothing but gold. There’s also the notion going around that the Comedy Channel had lots of air time to fill in the early days and MST3K gave them 2 hours at one go.
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I found the KTMAs to be kinda rough–you can tell this is the chrysalis stage of MST3K going from “horror host”-esque show to what it would become, but when I saw some later episodes like City on Fire and Million Eyes of Su-Muru they seemed to have a pace almost at the level of the seaosn 1 episodes, with a bit of an edge, and those are easy and fun to watch.
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I love the KTMA episodes! I actually enjoy watching Phase IV just as a movie in its own right. It is not a great movie, but it is very entertaining!
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For awhile Comedy Central was showing MST3K three times a day.
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I think I’ve watched them all at least once. I genuinely enjoy most of the made-for-TV fodder and the way that stuff like The Last Chase manages to be ultra-bland and yet deeply bewildering and bizarre at the same time. Shouldn’t be possible, but… Thanks, Canada! 
The riffs at this stage are just the homemade icing on the off-brand remaindered snack cakes.
If we have a thread somewhere about the most inept and unconvincing villains, Lanie Wiley Coyote from Superdome would for sure be way up on my list. Susie from The Skydivers could take her out with one eye closed. 
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The rest of the time? Clutch Cargo.
Whether they were sure it was really funny or it was cheap and there was a lot of it. . .who knows?
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So Legends of the Dinosaurs and Monster Birds is getting a Blu-Ray release through Discotek…
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