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Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) is an American television series in which "bad movies" are shown with the silhouettes of a man, two robots, and a row of theater seats superimposed over the bottom of it. The premise of the show is that a human test subject has been imprisoned aboard the spacecraft Satellite of Love by mad scientists and their henchmen and is forced to watch a series of bad movies in order to find one that will drive the test subject insane. To keep his sanity, the human built himself a series of sentient robots (Tom Servo and Crow) provide humorous commentary while the movie plays, which has become known as "riffing".
The series premiered on KTMA in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It later aired on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central for seven seasons until its cancellation in 1997. Thereafter, it was picked up by The Sci-Fi Channel and aired for three seasons until another cancellation in August 1999. The series' original creator Joel Hodgson used crowdfunding to revive the show as a Netflix original in 2017, now known as "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return".
Ghostbusters is referenced or spoofed in many episodes, as listed below. Furthermore, the idea of superimposed silhouettes of people sitting in theater seats while providing commentary on the film underneath was later used as part of the "Video Commentary" bonus feature on the Ghostbusters DVD released in 1999.
Original Series[]
In the original series, the first human test subject was Joel Robinson (played by Joel Hodgson), then it was Mike Nelson (played by Michael J. Nelson).
The information below comes from IMDb's Movie Connections page and is assumed to be correct. Feel free to elaborate it with more details.
- "Gamera vs. Guiron" (1969 movie) (September 7, 1991) (Season 4, Episode 12) - Crow says, "Good shootin', Tex."
- "Indestructible Man" (1956 movie) (August 15, 1992) (Season 5, Episode 9) - Ghostbusters is mentioned by Joel.
- "Tormented" (1960 movie) (September 26, 1992) (Season 5, Episode 14) - Joel, Crow, and Tom all say, "Ghostbusters!"
- "The Human Duplicators" (1965 movie) (December 26, 1992) (Season 5, Episode 20) - Someone says, "Who you gonna call?"
- "The Day The Earth Froze" (1959 movie) (January 16, 1993) (Season 5, Episode 22) - Someone says, "The Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man in Chains"
- "Mitchell" (1975 movie) (October 23, 1993) (Season 6, Episode 12) - In the movie, after Cummins says, "And who have we got on our side?", Joel replies, "Ghostbusters!"
- "The Giant Spider Invasion" (1975 movie) (May 31, 1997) (Season 9, Episode 10) - In the movie, after someone says, "What are we gonna do?", Crow yells out, "Ghostbusters!"
- "Invasion of the Neptune Men" (1961 movie) (October 11, 1997) (Season 9, Episode 19) - Servo says, "The Stay-Puft Marshmallow boy".
- "Soultaker" (1990 movie) (April 11, 1999) (Season 11, Episode 1) - Someone says, "He uses Ghostbusters Technology"
The Return[]
After being off the air for almost 20 years, the show was revived through crowdfunding as a Netflix original now titled "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return". The human test subject is Jonah Heston, played by Jonah Ray. All 14 episodes of the first season were released on April 14, 2017. All 6 episodes of the second season were released on November 22, 2018.
- "Reptilicus" (1961 movie) (April 14, 2017) (Season 1, Episode 1) - When the military use a flamethrower on the titular character, Jonah remarks, "Don't cross the streams, Venkman." (timecode 52:11)
- "The Time Travelers" (1964 movie) (April 14, 2017) (Season 1, Episode 3) - When the aliens crash the base, Jonah (sounding like Dave Coulier as The Real Ghostbusters' Peter) says, "Mass hysteria! Cats and dogs living together." (timecode 1:11:40)
- "Avalanche" (1978 movie) (April 14, 2017) (Season 1, Episode 4) - An ambulance that looks similar to the Ecto-1 pulls up to the ski lodge to rescue people, prompting Jonah to remark, "Who you gonna call? Snowbusters." (timecode 1:13:00)
- "The Beast of Hollow Mountain" (1956 movie) (April 14, 2017) (Season 1, Episode 5) - A bull with really long horns is found in some quicksand, which Crow calls a "Ghostbusters Demon Dog". (timecode 9:47)
- "The Land That Time Forgot" (1974 movie) (April 14, 2017) (Season 1, Episode 7) - As a dinosaur roars, Crow puts "Zuul" into its mouth. (timecode 1:02:55)
- "Wizards of the Lost Kingdom" (1985 movie) (April 14, 2017) (Season 1, Episode 10) - Pink water falling off a cliff is called "Ghostbusters II sludge" by Tom. (timecode 1:12:40)
- "Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II" (1989 movie) (April 14, 2017) (Season 1, Episode 11) - When a character calls something "gauche", Crow remarks, "I ain't afraid of no gauche". (timecode 48:35) The episode also features references to Ghostbusters actors Kurt Fuller (at 31:36), Rick Moranis (at 59:50), Ozzy Osbourne and Brian Doyle-Murray (at 1:18:25).
- "Lords of the Deep" (1989 movie) (November 22, 2018) (Season 2, Episode 3) - As Claire (Priscilla Barnes) walks inside a pink-colored cave-like area in the movie, Jonah calls it "Ghostbusters II: The Bar" (at 54:00). Then he adds, "You'll love our slimerita."
External Links[]
Gallery[]
Original Series[]
The Return[]
