Cinematic Titanic (aka The Return Of Joel Hodgson)

Forget about Kirk versus Picard. That’s just nitpicking. The real debate is Joel versus Mike: which one of the hosts of the cult classic “Mystery Science Science Theatre 3000” was the best? Now that’s a debate for the ages.

I’ve always been more of a Mike fan myself, but only because I’m most familiar with the show’s latter seasons. However, if I started working my way back through the MST3K archives—which I hope to do someday before I die (or go blind)—and became more familiar with Joel’s tenure, that opinion could easily change.

Or it might be changing sooner than that. Joel Hodgson is coming back with a new enterprise entitled Cinematic Titanic where—get this!—he’ll be riffing on bad movies. And he won’t be alone. Trace Beaulieu (aka Crow T. Robot and Dr. Clayton Forrester), J. Elvis Weinstein, Mary Jo Pehl (aka Pearl Forrester) and Frank Conniff (aka TV’s Frank) will also be along for the ride.

They’re currently working on their first victim, er, title, which according to Hodgson, makes ‘Manos the Hands of Fate’ look like ‘Santa Claus Conquers the Martians’ in a car wreck with ‘Eegah!’ with notes of peach. The plan is to have the release out in time for Christmas. In addition, the crew will be doing a live performance for their world debut in December, for I.L.M/Lucasfilm employees and guests.

Between this and Mike Nelson’s RiffTrax, there’ll be plenty of bad movie riffing to last us for a good long while. Which is fine by me. Via

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• Oct 30, 2007, 9:26pm