Since the news editors did their job well and cut out anything remotely interesting (you see now one of the many, many reasons why I ran screaming from journalism and into commentary), I'm posting here the article as I sent it. Following that is the transcript of my conversation with Mr. Nelson.
Once again, thanks to those of you kind folks at Rifftrax for making this possible.
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Some of Michael J. Nelson’s former coworkers are now his competition, and he has an idea.
"I've tried to encourage a rivalry like the World Wrestling Federation," Nelson says, "where we taunt each other in public and then behind the scenes we make giant piles of money."
"The only thing missing is the giant piles of money."
For over a year, Nelson, the former host of cult TV hit "Mystery Science Theater 3000", has stood alone in the ring, holding aloft the mighty belt of Rifftrax (
www.rifftrax.com ), a catalog of downloadable full-length movie commentaries. The television show about a man and his robots marooned in space and forced to watch horrible movies ended in 1999, but through a variety of projects since, Nelson has fine-tuned, rather than fled from, his forte as a professional detractor of Patrick Swayze.
In that sense, he’s tended the flame of bad-movie commentary more faithfully than the show’s creator and original host, Joel Hodgson. “It's a lot of fun for us,” Nelson said in an interview with MSNBC.com, “so I've never repudiated it.”
By “us” he means ex-castmates Bill Corbett, who puppeted Crow T. Robot, and Kevin Murphy, the man behind (or, rather, beneath) Tom Servo. The two joined Nelson first in a quartet of DVDs as “The Film Crew”, and now on Rifftrax, which currently boasts almost fifty commentaries. "We’re like a band that just can't stop playing the music," Nelson said.
Wait… speaking of music, what’s that coming over the loudspeakers? Why—that’s Joel Hodgson’s theme! Where the Internet is concerned, there's rarely zero-sum happy, so currently sprinting down the ramp and into the ring is Hodgson.
And he, too, brought a tag team.
After five years in his character's red jumpsuit, Hodgson, fearing a cult star’s future doomed to “signing pictures at an RV show,” climbed into an escape pod titled the "Deus Ex Machina" and left “MST”. Following him was Trace Beaulieu, who played the evil, movie-inflicting scientist as well as the original voice of Crow. Frank Conniff, the portrayer of Beaulieu’s sidekick, also departed. All three cited a desire to explore life beyond movie ridicule.
In late October, the "Deus Ex Machina" came crashing down on the Internet in the form of Cinematic Titanic. (
http://cinematictitanic.com/) "Thanks for mentioning ['Mystery Science Theater 3000'], thanks for keeping the dream alive, and thanks for buying the DVDs," wrote Hodgson on the site. "It's all been strange and mysterious and lovely, and it makes me want to do it all over again."
But although Hodgson has no qualms about touting Cinematic Titanic as “powered by the original cast of MST3K,” he has edged away from limiting himself to “MST” fans, who, since the show’s demise, have had to comfort themselves with sporadically re-released episodes and rapidly disintegrating VHS tapes. Hodgson is quick to announce that his new product is "gentle and easy to swallow for those that are new to movie riffing."
Beyond the understandable desire for a broader customer base, details are sparse—even for Nelson, who served as “MST”s head writer before stepping in for Hodgson. Still, he maintains that the movie-derision water is plenty warm: "The more people doing the Rifftrax thing, the better," he said. “…I think they're being secretive, as we are with our future releases."
Hodgson, no fool he, seems to have returned to his revolutionary concept of literally contrasting his main characters against cinematic dreck. His new venture’s logo involves scaffolding supporting five silhouetted cast members, whom apparently represent Hodgson, Conniff, Beaulieu, former “MST” villainess Mary Jo Pehl, and -- this was the true shocker -- J. Elvis Weinstein, who first served as Tom Servo when “MST” was but a fetus, a hotglued, mostly ad-libbed timefiller on a local Minnesota television station.
Why not dust off the iconic theater seats? Hodgson doesn't own the rights to the "MST" silhouette he helped to fashion. That horizontal gold mine is in the hands of former executive producer Jim Mallon.
Wait a minute… what’s that music?
That would be the original theme song to "Mystery Science Theater 3000," which Mallon also owns, along with the rights to the characters, the logo, the merchandise-- and now a re-launched mst3k.com. (
http://www.mst3k.com/)
Mallon, not to be deterred by the spin-offs of his two former hosts, barreled through the ropes on the same day Hodgson released his new offering. Recruiting former "MST" writer Paul Chaplin, Mallon reclaimed the URL from a fan site, put together two Flash cartoons featuring Crow and Servo, and introduced a retreaded web store. And although they're seen in vintage video clips, conspicuously missing from the relaunch were Nelson, Corbett, Murphy, and every single person on Hodgson's scaffolding.
Nelson pronounces the site "cute." "It seems to be an after-the-fact use of the (robot) characters," he said. "It's kind of hard to see them again after all this time, and think of them in that context, so it looks completely different to me."
Less forgiving are the fans. Unimpressed by Mallon's offerings, at least one cyber-trotted his Flashtoon over to Cuts (
http://www.cuts.com), a Rifftrax site which allows users to drop pre-recorded ridicule from Nelson and company into video clips. Therefore, viewers are now treated to the sound of Murphy meta-heaping scorn upon the character he played for nine years.
"I think my head just exploded," Nelson said when informed of this development.
The web will do that. Users are now fully prepared to find entertainment online, and as Americans weather a television writers' strike, the timing of the virtual “MST” explosion highlights the industry's tension. "The necessity of having some pesky man who has to actually create the thing that you do is really a thorn in the side, and (producers) loathe paying writers," Nelson says.
The supreme irony is that "MST" and the Internet shared a social nursery; the program was just taking off when the Web began its slow lava flow out of labs and businesses and into homes and dorm rooms. Both are marked by intellectual intensity and a snug sense of community, and it was little surprise that when Nelson took Hodgson's seat in the theater, the virtual villages that had sprung up in support of the strange, cheerful show burned with “Joel vs. Mike” flame wars.
Now that a series created in 1988 has gone kaboom all over again in 2007, the matchup is fully riff-to-riff in the virtual marketplace. Courted by both hosts as well as the holder of the brand, the online realm may have become the fans' playground, but what of cast members caught in the middle, such as Pehl, who recently joined Nelson for a Rifftrax treatment of the Mariah Carey debacle "Glitter"?
If the market has its say? Plenty of work, with giant piles of money for all.
Mary Beth Ellis runs BlondeChampagne.com (
www.blondechampagne.com) and is the author of Drink to the Lasses.(
www.drinktothelasses.com )
And here's my chat with The Nelson:
MB: So you move to California, and the state immediately bursts into flames.
MN: Back in Minnesota, snowstorms are charming. You sit inside with hot chocolate and you sweater on, and you watch movies and you cook turkeys and things, and everyone gets a day off. You don’t flee in terror. So it was an odd experience. When you hear the words “mandatory evacuation,” you tend to get a little nervous.
MB: Well, fortunately Rifftrax seems to be doing a little bit better, and your former castmates have been moving forward as well. Have you heard anything about Joel’s Cinematic Titanic?
MN: Just that it’s coming out. I haven’t heard much of the details, and I think they’re being secretive, as we are with our future releases.
MB: Ever since Mystery Science Theater ended, you’ve embraced the jumpsuit. You’ve never kind of renounced it and said, “No, I want to see what else is out there.” You’ve really embraced that this is a particular talent of yours, and you’ve never gotten too away from film commentary, whereas Frank went off and did different things, and Joel as well, and now they’re back at it. Do you think they’re finding their way home again?
MN: Well, I hope so. I mean, the more people doing the Rifftrax thing, the better. I’ve gotten the question before, sometimes in somewhat accusatory tones, from some people—“Why don’t you move on?” I’m like, “Well, I do a lot of things.” I’m very happy in my work. I’ve written books, and I do magazine writing, and I speak, and I sometimes do stage work very occasionally. So I’m not wanting for anything else.
And I really like the specific kind of writing and performing this is. And with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett and I, we’re like a band that just can’t stop playing the music. And it’s a lot of fun for us, so I’ve never repudiated it. I just—I really like it.
MB: Well, you’re obviously very good at it, and it’s interesting to see what’s going to happen now with all these separate camps setting up. Do you think that will bring about tension between you and Joel, and, for instance, Bill and Mary Jo, since they have all these different opportunities? Or do you think they’ll be able to slide back and forth with no issue?
MN: Well, I’ve tried to encourage a rivalry like the World Wrestling Federation style, where we sort of taunt each other in public and then behind the scenes we make giant piles of money. The only thing missing is the giant piles of money. I’m willing to make overblown threats to the other camp, but I’ll have to come up with them. I’ll get my writers on that.
MB: And they’re on strike right now!
MN: Yeah, exactly! I can’t come up with the taunts, because there are no writers to write them for me.
MB: And you are not affected by that, correct?
MN: No. I have never been protected by a union, and therefore I don’t have to go on strike.
MB: But in a way this is kind of an issue which affects you, with the DVD’s that are being released of the show—that’s your writing and your acting. So what do you think about that issue of getting a larger cut of residuals?
MN: I have always been on the side of the writers, being a writer. I’m a writer-performer; sometimes I produce things, but at heart, I’m in the writer camp. I think it’s no secret that writers are hated. The necessity of having some pesky man who has to actually create the thing that you do is really a thorn in their side, and they loathe paying writers.
Every time you get called to do something, they pitch it to you, and then it’s, “Well, we really don’t have a lot of money for this.” And—really? That’s your only job as a producer, is to do that. The guy who brings the meat tray in and everything…they never negotiate with him and tell him, “We’ll give you thirty bucks if it works out.” They pay him. So, as you can tell, I’m on the side of the writers.
MB: That’s completely understandable. In that vein, have you seen the new MST3K site?
MN: I did. I did see the new one that Jim and my buddy Paul put up.
MB: And what was your reaction to that?
MN: It was cute. It’s sort of a—it seems to be an after-the-fact use of the characters. It’s kind of hard to see them again after all this time, and think of them in that context, so it looks completely different to me.
MB: Because you really have moved on.
MN: Yeah. I work with Servo and Crow, the guys who brought voice to them, I work with them all the time. So I never thought when I was working with the puppets—the characters were so good, but they were the guys. They’ve kind of been with me, and we’ve always—it’s sort of odd to think about Kevin and Bill and I. We’ve done radio pilots, and we’ve kind of worked on one website, and books and things like that, and it’s always kind of funny that it’s Mike, Crow and Servo. It’s just kind of worked out that way. And we’ll realize, when we’re sitting in a restaurant, we’re sitting in the same shape and pattern as on the screen, and it’s, “Stop doing that!”
MB: You’re always in the middle!
MN: “Would you move over to the other side, please? This is embarrassing.”
MB: I noticed on the Film Crew DVD’s that you were most assuredly not in the middle, and that made me a little sad.
MN: Well, it was conscious. “Let’s just move the chairs around and see what happens.”
MB: And are you aware, also, that one of the Bots cartoons has already made it onto Cuts? So, the levels of meta…
MN: …Oh, my God. Oh. I think my head just exploded. I’ll need a second. Wow.
MB: Yeah. So, Kevin Murphy was mocking Servo, and Bill Corbett was ripping on Crow, and… yeah, it was just—I think the universe imploded, and we’re still dealing with the rendering.
MN: Yeah, that was always my fear. People would ask, “Okay, with the Film Crew stuff, are you guys going to take on Mystery Science: The Movie or—Jim and Kevin worked on an early horror movie, will that be seen? And that was always the fear, like, “No, the world will explode! We can’t mess with these things at the atomic level! We have to leave them alone!”
MB: Well, it’s out there, and if you’re not doing it, the fans are indeed stepping up.
MN: Oh, what hath we wrought?
MB: It’s all coming back to get ya. Now, I have to ask you a writer question. You brought up the book you’d been working on—you did Death Rat—and I was just wondering what that experience of going from humorous nonfiction to fiction was like for you. Did you enjoy that? Because I know the aftermath wasn’t all that much fun, as it seldom is—
MN: Yeah.
MB: --the actual fun is the sentence construction. So, I was just wondering what that was like for you, this creative exercise of fiction.
MN: It wasn’t a great leap. I’ve always written a little bit like that, in fiction, totally non-published kinds of things, in goofy stories. So I plotted it out the way I would my non-fiction comedy. It wasn’t astoundingly difficult. The only thing was, it took a while to do, and I was in the middle of it when September 11th happened—
MB: Ohhhhhhhh.
MN: It’s really tough, as you know, to get back up for that. But that sort of killed the publishing industry, in a way, for a while. They really just were reluctant to put anything out, so it was really kind of tough in that way. So that cast a little bit of a pall over it.
But I enjoyed the writing of it, and the plotting, and writing funny prose is probably the most challenging thing ever, and I do it in short does. So I took it like that—“Just do your 1200 word funny essays one at a time, and put them together and make them make sense.” Because when you write in a concentrated from like I usually do, I try to make every sentence at least have the possibility of entertaining in some way, or leading to the payoff which will entertain. That’s always the goal. It’s never, “Just tell the story.” So it's intensive, I guess is what I’m saying.
MB: Are there any plans, perhaps, to do a live webcast, for instance riffing presidential debates? Or is that, again, getting in to head-exploding territory?
MN: Years ago, Comedy Central asked us to do that. They asked us to do it, and we said, “No, we’ve tried this live before, and it doesn’t work very well.” Most people, no matter how witty you are, cannot be witty right now, and again and again. So they tried it, I think with Dennis Miller, if memory serves, and with David Spade, or somebody like that, and they did some of the political stuff live, and it was about as successful as you’d expect—which is occasionally amusing, but mostly guys really trying hard to keep up with it. Which is no knock on them—they’re funny guys—it’s just tough to do.
But as far as live things on the web, we may do shows and sort of offer them live, either live-live or sort of “after the fact live.” There’s a lot of plans for stuff like that, but probably not that specifically.
MB: I know you have nine million of the same repeated questions, like—“Do you still talk to Joel?” and “Can you sit in a movie theater and not talk back to the movie?” So I won’t ask you those. But is there anything that you’ve always wanted to be asked, and you’re just like, “I just want to let loose on this topic.” So with the 45 seconds I’ve got left, is there anything, Mike Nelson, that someone has never asked you that you wish you’d had the opportunity to discuss?
MN: Nobody asks me about my extreme coffee geekiness. I mean, I try to throw it out there but--
MB: Mike, please tell me about your coffee geekiness.
MN: Oh, you want to know about my coffee geekiness?
MB: All day!
MN: What an interesting question! Well, because of writing at home—and I proselytize all the time, and I’ve actually won a lot of converts to home roasting coffee, and also brewing it in only a vacuum brewer.
MB:…
MN: Now, the fact that that’s an incredibly boring thing to talk about shouldn’t detract from the fact that I have made the world’s best coffee.
MB: I don’t doubt it.
MN: So if anyone ever wants to challenge me on that, I will take them on.
MB: Okay, so you’ve gone from challenging people to playing Doom to coffee making.
MN: Well, my Doom skills have, I must say, lapsed quite a bit.
MB: But if that’s not a sign of growth, I don’t know what is.
MN: I hope it speaks well.
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