Hamlet
I understand why so many pick this as one of their least favorite. Even unwatchable messes like Wild World of Batwoman and Monster A-go-go have enough truly bizarre moments to pique your interest for at least a few moments at a time. This film doesn't even have that luxury. The riffing is good enough, however, that I am still able to enjoy it, provided I only watch about 30 minutes at a time. And even 30 minutes in a row is pushing it with this movie.
To me, the fact that so many people list this as their "least favorite" MST3K episode indicates that they aren't familiar with Season 1 and the KTMA episodes. I'd much rather watch Hamlet than Legend of the Dinosurs, Mad Monster, The Robot v. the Aztec Mummy, or The Corpse Vanishes.
My guess is you'd like it better if you actually forced yourself to watch it all in one sitting.
Well, Technically I didn't say it was one of MY least favoirtes. Due to the incredibly tedious nature of the film I understand why many others feel this way. As I said, I was able to enjoy it in 30 minute increments due to the solid riffing. And while it will never be one of my favorites I would still choose it over anything from season one. Over the last few years I've learned to finally appreciate seasons 2 and 3 much more than I used to but I still can't seem to warm to season one. It just seems like such a work in progress compared to the rest of the series. Have never seen the KTMAS and have no desire to.
Sort of off-topic, but it may be worthwhile before it's too late for someone.
The only real reason to watch all of the KTMA episodes would be to "witness the evolution of the show" or something alog those lines. The problem is that many of the episodes do not have all three riffers (Joel, Josh, and Trace), because someone is missing for personal or job-related reasons. The run is very disjointed, and you end up wasting a lot of time with the early episodes (all Sandy Frank, all redone). I finally saw them all, but I owned a copy of
Mighty Jack for about four years before I tackled it, just for example.
There are a handful of really good KTMA episodes that are worth seeing:
1.
SST: Death Flight2.
Superdome3.
City on Fire4.
The Million Eyes of Su-Muru5.
The Last RaceSST and
Superdome are about as good as a typical Season 1 episode. They are two of the most riffable movies they've ever done. I wish Cinematic Titanic would re-do those instead of
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Hangar 18 and
Phase IV are "alright." You could certainly do a lot worse.
People may have different tastes, but you would probably get about 5-7 answers from just about anyone who has seen them all. I would be very surprised if anyone claimed to have liked them all well enough to recommend buying them all.
EDIT: I should probably point out that some of this is actually objective, not subjective. You'll notice I didn't list a "redone" film. Trust me, almost all of the funny lines or ideas from the KTMA eps get recycled in the Comedy Central versions. Also, there are some
really long periods of silence in some of the other KTMA eps that I didn't recommend.