We went to the launch party of the new project from the original MST3k team last night. The Cinematic Titanic was christened not with a bottle of champagne but with cheap rail drinks at the ACME comedy club here in Minneapolis. We misunderstood the description evidently because while we knew the whole cast was going to be there, we were expecting to see a screening of their first film The Oozing Skull which is currently only available on DVD. Instead we saw just a few clips, and the rest of the evening was each cast member in turn doing standup routines, followed by a Q&A with everybody.
The place was packed with aging geeks (I include myself) to the point of discomfort but we were happy that the turnout was so good. Everybody that loved Mystery Science theater wants these guys to be back in our lives and to succeed again. I haven't seen the first film yet, but the reviews are really promising and the promo is encouraging as well.
The standup routines weren't very good, I must say, but then again with very few exceptions (Sarah Silverman, etc) standup comedy's not really my thing. But even though the acts were mediocre, none of us cared much at all really. People were laughing hard and couples looking at each other I think less because they thought it was funny and more because they were high on the fact that Joel, Tom Servo and the gang were not only back, but right in front of us. Joel's act was a fairly weak carrot-top style prop-act but i really enjoyed it just because he's so god damn endearing. J Elvis (original Tom Servo) Weinstein's bit was the best I think, followed by Mary Jo (Pearl) Pehl's.
They finished up with a live, acoustic performance of the MST3k theme song that Joel says he and Weinstein wrote at a local Denny's, and which Weinstein says they wrote at Alice's.
Best of all was that they said a live performance of the first film is now secured for the State theater later in the spring. I think I may hold off on getting the movie and just go see that. I really hope it's good. I love those guys. How can you not.
P.S. The ACME comedy club is a terrible venue. Don't go there unless it's the only place you can see the original cast from MST3k launch a new project. Seriously it's bad.
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