In honor of Joel Hodgson’s upcoming one man show Riffing Myself at the excellent  Loft Cinema here in Tucson on Saturday 4/6 at 7:00pm (tickets available here), I am going to count down my top 10 favorite episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 featuring Joel.

For the uninitiated, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) is a brilliantly bizarre show in which janitor Joel Robinson (Hodgson) is shot into space by mad scientists where he is forced to watch bad movies in some kind of experiment. Joel uses parts of the ship, dubbed the Satellite of Love, to make robot friends for himself. Two of the robots, Crow and Tom Servo, go into the theater with Joel and the three of them make fun of the movie to hilarious result.

The show, created by Hodgson, started out on KTMA, a Minneapolis UHF station, before moving to Comedy Central and then eventually SyFy (before the stupid name change) for a total of 10 official seasons (11 if you count KTMA). During that time there were multiple cast changes as people came and went with Hodgson himself departing in the middle of season 5. This lead to head writer Mike Nelson taking over as the marooned human in space and created something of a fan war that has raged for years as to which host is the best.

I love MST3K. It is my favorite show of all time hands down. I loved what Mike brought to the show but I am very solidly in the Joel camp. This is probably partially due to the fact that Joel was the host when I started watching but I also prefer his delivery and sensibility and I really enjoyed the invention exchange segments of the show which faded after Joel left. Joel’s relationship with the bots was significantly different as he was more of a father figure to them where Mike was their buddy. Again, I like what Mike did and the show retained its quality when he took the host spot, but I will always prefer Joel.

Given the above, and the upcoming Joel one man show, I devote this list to his episodes. I made my choices based not just on the quality (or lack thereof) of the movies and the riffing but also the out of the theater segments and invention exchanges. My list goes against a lot of conventional fan wisdom on some of the episodes but these are my favorites. I would love to see other people’s lists as well so hit the comments with your favorites. Here we go:

10. War of the Colossal Beast (ep 318):

A sequel to the Amazing Colossal Man (featured on episode 309), War of the Colossal Beast continues the saga of 60 ft tall Glenn Manning. The movie is pretty terrible but the real star of this episode is the short Mr B Natural which features an attractive if incredibly annoying woman playing a male pixy who appears to teach a boy about the spirit of music. It is batshit nuts and hilarious even without the riffing. The out of the theater debate between Crow and Servo about whether Mr B Natural is man, woman or hellbeast is terrific and Mike Nelson’s appearance as Glenn is excellent.

9. Master Ninja 1 (ep 322)

Master Ninja is a ‘movie’ in the sense that it is two episodes of the show ‘The Master’ which ran in the mid 80’s featuring Timothy Van Patten and Lee Van Cleef. The Master was a cheesy take on Kung Fu with a ninja master wandering around solving low level crimes in towns that apparently couldn’t find the A-Team. It was absolutely awful which is something I didn’t notice when I was a kid watching the show because at the time anything having to do with Ninjas was automatically badass. Master Ninja will always have a special place in my heart because it is one of the few movies (or shows in this case) that I had seen before I saw it on MST3K but it is also a great episode with the out of the theater segment with the Master Ninja Theme Song capping it off.

8. Fugitive Alien (ep 310)

Another ‘movie’ built out of two episodes of a television show, Fugitive Alien tells the story of Wolf Raider Ken who finds himself a fugitive from his own people as he finds he cannot kill a child whose name also happens to be Ken and kills one of his own companions to save the boy. This leads to all manner of shenanigans as Ken joins the crew of the spaceship Bacchus 3 and finds himself at constant odds with alcoholic Captain Joe and other crew members. One of these crew members tries to kill him with a forklift which led to in the theater song ‘They tried to kill him with a forklift’ which remains one of my favorite songs to come out of MST3K. The out of the theater segments are great with Joel doing a hilarious impression of Captain Joe’s debauchery and the introduction of Mike Nelson’s impression of former A & E host Jack Perkins.

7. Mitchell (ep 512)

A bittersweet episode as it was Joel’s last, Mitchell is fantastic as the movie is absolutely horrible and the riffing is particularly on point. This episode created real acrimony toward the show from Mitchell’s star Joe Don Baker as he took exception to the riffing about him but for my money he had it coming. If you doubt that, just watch Mitchell. He knew what he did and shame on him. The out of the theater segments served the storyline where Gypsy overhears the Mads talking about how they want to kill their new temp Mike and thinks they are talking about Joel. She sets a desperate plan into motion which allows Joel to escape on an escape pod hidden in a box marked Hamdingers and leads to Mike being shot into space to take his place. The episode is a fitting send off for Joel and remains one of the best of the series.

6. Gamera Vs Guiron (ep 312)

The 4th Gamera episode on MST3K this one stands out to me as it brought us the Gamera Song, which is another of my favorite songs from the show. The movie itself is bizarre even if you are measuring by the ‘giant flying turtle’ metric. Two kids find a spaceship and fly it to a planet in opposite orbit around the sun and encounter some aliens who want to eat the boy’s brains. Gamera, friend to all children, shows up to help them and runs afoul of Guiron, a blade headed monster in the aliens’ thrall. The battle is hilarious and the movie makes no sense whatsoever. Easily my favorite of the Gamera series.

5. The Giant Gila Monster (ep 402)

Something of a hidden gem, I think this episode really deserves more attention. The movie itself, which is about a small country town under attack by a giant gila monster who can only be stopped by a singing young adult mechanic, Chase, who the Sheriff strangely consults with about everything, is unintentionally funny on its own but the riffing here is some of the series best. The ridiculous songs Chase sings are worth checking this out for by themselves and led to a recurring joke on the show afterward.  The Mads’ invention exchange is also a highlight as it is a line of inflatable Renaissance Festival characters and led to the awesome line from TV’s Frank ‘Sample my wares? SAMPLE MY FIST!’

4. Manos: the Hands of Fate (ep 424)

Widely considered the best episode of MST3K ever by the majority of fans, Manos: the Hands of Fate is  a special kind of pain. The movie, a horror movie about a family finding themselves stranded in a strange house run by the bizarre Torgo, is probably one of the worst ever made. The riffing rises to the formidable challenge of the movie and the out of the theater segments gave us Mike Nelson playing Torgo as a pizza delivery boy, a character he would reprise in several future episodes. This one also features part two of the riveting Hired! short which details the exploits of a beleaguered sales manager who seeks the advice of his father on how to whip his car sales team into shape. Not as bad as Manos itself but still pretty painful. As a side note, since Manos: the Hands of Fate translates into Hands: the Hands of Fate, it was of great help when I took Spanish in college in that I giggled any time anybody said manos.

3. Bride of the Monster (ep 423)

Everyone knows about Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outerspace but for my money his earlier Bride of the Monster takes the cake. Featuring Bela Legosi as a mad scientist and Tor Johnson as assistant/brute Lobo, Bride of the Monster is cobbled together with stock footage, a mechanical octopus with no battery, a terrible script and even worse acting. The making of this movie is prominently featured in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood and having seen this episode really enhanced that experience for me. This is one of the funniest episodes of MST3K ever with terrific riffing and great out of the theater segments including Joel doing his Bela Legosi impression intercut with scenes from the movie. This episode also features part one of Hired! which, like part two mentioned above, is plenty horrible itself.

2. Santa Clause Conquers the Martians (ep 321)

I really don’t know what anybody involved with this movie was thinking but it is a horrible, horrible Christmas movie with Martians kidnapping a Santa Claus to bring Christmas joy to the children of Mars  who have no joy in their lives. Two earth children stowaway with Santa and become embroiled in Martian intrigue as one of the Martians attempts to sabotage and kill Santa. Holy shit this movie is bad. In addition to some of the best riffing of the series, this episode features Crow’s attempt to introduce a new Christmas standard ‘A Patrick Swayze Christmas’ which is one of the best songs of the series. Another out of theater segment features Joel and the Bots’ Christmas wishes which takes quite a turn and the Mads try to give each other Christmas presents. This movie is so bad Joel did a new commentary for this episode for his post MST3K riffing venture Cinematic Titanic. If you dig this episode, check out the CT version. It is hilarious as well.

1. Pod People (ep 303)

Far and away my favorite episode of MST3K ever, Pod People was probably the second or third episode I saw of the series and is probably most responsible for my undying love for the show. The movie is an absolute mess of a film directed by Juan Piquer Simon filmed in Spain that tried to horn in on the ET zeitgeist by combining the killer alien from space plot with a alien befriending a boy plot. They then throw in a sub-plot about poachers and another sub-plot about a rock band for good measure. The good alien, Trumpy, looks like a bi-pedal Mr Snuffleupagus and he can do crazy alien magic while the bad one, which also looks like Snuffy, seems to only be able to karate chop people to death. For my money this episode has the best riffing of the series and the out of the theater segments are all winners. It is also chock full of great songs from Idiot Control, a parody of one of the songs in the film, to Music from Some Guys in Space which parodies New Age music. There are a few different running gags that came out of this one as well with recurring ‘It Stinks!’ lines and the ‘Chief?’ ‘McCloud!’ exchange when calling out people’s names. All that and a metric ton of Renaissance Festival jokes and you have my favorite episode of MST3K ever. It is also worth mentioning that if you are a fan of Pod People this director did another movie with Pod People star Ian Sera the year prior called Pieces which is a pretty horrifyingly hilarious mess of a film in its own right.

So there is my list. Obviously these are just my preferences and there are many, many great MST3K episodes out there. I have a lot more favorites than just these 10 and obviously Mike episodes aren’t included here. As mentioned above, if you have your own favorites please chime in below in the comments. Further if you are an MST3K and haven’t already, check out Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic for all your movie riffing needs. If you are local to Tucson, AZ and love bad movies and riffing, you owe it to yourself to check out Mondo Mondays at the Loft Cinema where $3 will get you in to the terrible movie of the week complete with an audience full of fans riffing their hearts out. I should mention that the Buzz Media is not in any way associated with the Loft Cinema, they just happen to do amazing things on a weekly basis and deserve the recognition for it. And there it is.