Has any other science fiction television series produced in the past two decades garnered as rabid a cult following as Mystery Science Theater 3000?

The ingeniously daft brainchild of Joel Hodgson featured a mild-mannered janitor, Hodgson in the first five seasons, head writer Michael J. Nelson in the remaining six, stuck on a satellite orbiting Earth and forced to watch some of the stinkiest movies ever made. His only solace came from his two robot companions who assisted him in providing frequently riotous commentaries as the films un-spooled. Originally airing on KTMA public service TV in it's first, embryonic season, then moving to Comedy Central and finally the Sci-Fi channel, MST3K garnered a fanatical following of "MST-ies" who devoured each and every 90+ minute episode and who mourned it's eventual cancellation in 1999.

Thankfully, the show's fan base has never faltered in the near-decade since the show's demise, still flooding cyberspace with discussions of the series. Last year, Mike Nelson started releasing Rifftrax, a series of downloadable MP3s that could be played in one's iPod and which offered new commentaries for recent multiplex turkeys like Battlefield Earth and The Wicker Man. And now, the Shout! Factory has given MST-ies a new reason to live with the first installment of The Film Crew, a series of DVDs that reunites some of the key creative personnel behind MST3K.

Nelson is joined by Kevin Murphy, the voice and puppeteer of bubblegum-domed Tom Servo for nine of the show's 11 seasons and Bill Corbett who took over the role of bowling pin-beaked Crow T. Robot when the series moved to the Sci-Fi channel as... well… themselves; three men working in a bland basement in an anonymous office building. Their job: to provide commentaries for every movie ever made on the orders of their boss, Bob Honcho who's seen only as a framed picture that needles his employees via a speaker phone. So, after a brief prologue setting up the basic premise, the three settle down on a trio of barstools, get their headphones on, and watch as their first feature begins to play, and it's a doozy...

1962's Hollywood After Dark is a sordid-for-it's-day piece of exploitative crap featuring a pair of virtually unrelated storylines smashed up against each other like bumper cars. In one, we follow a rather wan heist involving an armored car, which, bizarrely, seems to be delivering money to a ramshackle hut right next to the beach. In the other, we follow the trials of a wannabe stripper played by (wait for it...) Rue McClanahan. Yes, from The Golden Girls. After you're done dry heaving at the mental image of a topless McClanahan shaking her cellulite (*URF*), we can continue.

As in MST3K, Mike, Kevin and Bill provide a steady stream of wisecracks poking fun at the nauseating concept of Rue McClanahan in pasties and a G-string (lunch...coming...up...), the dull-as-dishwater crime aspects of the story ("This is like Heat, only bad"), the soundtrack that sounds like harmonized jazz flatulence...the film would be nigh un-watchable by itself, but with the snarky commentary, it all goes down easily. One only misses the gang's silhouettes at the bottom of the screen, but it's a minor complaint.

The only inherent problem with the Film Crew concept is that we miss the host segments that were a big part of the success of MST3K. While not every host segment on the show was great, they served the crucial purpose of breaking the movies into tasty, bite-sized chunks and allowing the audience a breather. All we get here is a "lunch break" roughly halfway through the movie wherein Bill tries to goad Mike and Kevin into brainstorming ideas to improve future commentaries, and they can only come up with "ideas" based on objects immediately within their eye line ("ham" and "paper clips"). Kind of lame comedically, but anything's better than more of McClanahan frolicking on the beach in a bikini (*choke*).

Anyways, The Film Crew is off to a solid start, and any MST-ie suffering from withdrawal symptoms (i.e. all of them) ought to enjoy hearing Mike, Kevin and Bill back in the saddle.


Disc Presentation
The host segments are presented in non-anamorphic 1:85 widescreen, so those with widescreen TV sets will probably get annoyed. The film itself is presented in 1:33 full screen, and, like most of the movies presented on MST3K, looks appropriately awful, with countless bad splices, visible reel-change circles, and scratches marring the negative. However, the bad presentation was a part of MST3K's low-budget charm, and so it is here. The audio likewise is presented in a very basic 2.0 English. You can hear the dialogue, and that's about it.

Disc Extras
All we get is a 1:31 segment entitled Ode To Lunch, with Corbett offering a eloquent soliloquy about...well, lunch. Sorta funny, but I doubt you'll want to watch it again.

Bottom Line
Fans of MST3K should be thrilled with this first installment in the Film Crew series, which resurrects the show's cheeky attitude and bawdy humor in a fresh new shell. Hai-keeba yourself to the nearest electronics store and snag a copy posthaste.