100 ways to laugh at bad movies

Netflix’s revival of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” (MST3K) is only the newest “bad movie mockery” content available on streaming services.

The original cult comedy series began in 1988 with a wonky-but-fruitful premise — A human test subject is imprisoned by mad scientists aboard a spacecraft and subjected to awful movies. The human and his robot comrades then provide rapid fire wisecracks and riffs dubbed on top of the film presentation.

The series ended in 1999, but in 2015 show creator Joel Hodgson launched a Kickstarter campaign to revive the series. Last month, the 14-episode revival series debuted on Netflix with comedian Jonah Ray as the test subject, and Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt as the mad scientists. The likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Mark Hamill and Neil Patrick Harris appear in cameos throughout the season.

Like previous iterations of “MST3K,” the success of each episode largely depends on the movies presented. During the films, the jokes supplied by Ray (alongside comedians Hampton Yount and Baron Vaughn as robot companions, Crow and Tom Servo) come fast and from all sorts of comedic sensibilities. Everything from pop culture references to dopey puns to pseudo-musical numbers are utilized to make the awfulness on screen more tolerable.

With so many different kinds of jokes, even a good episode might only hit a 30 percent laugh rate, depending on a viewer’s comedic preferences.

The new batch of episodes contain numerous monster movies that are “MST3K” staples, including “Godzilla” rip-offs like “Reptilicus” and “Youngary.” Ugly rubber suits always provide decent onscreen entertainment even when the jokes don’t land.

If I had to pick three highlights of the 14 movies, I’d go with the awkward bigfoot-little boy relationship drama, “Cry Wilderness,” the shabby “Star Wars” rip-off, “Starcrash,” featuring David Hasselhoff and his typically fantastic hair, and the Rock Hudson-Mia Farrow skiing/disaster flick, “Avalanche.”

The success of the non-movie aspects of “MST3K” depends on how much you enjoy cheesy skits about purposefully lame inventions. I never loved these moments from previous incarnations, but Day and Oswalt find ways to mine humor from even the goofiest setups.

Just before they released the new “MST3K” episodes, Netflix added a collection of 20 episodes from the classic series, including popular takes on “Manos: The Hands of Fate” and “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” There’s a mix of content from the Hodgson-as-host years, as well as episodes featuring Michael J. Nelson as the series lead.

After consuming all the Netflix content, hop over to the Amazon Prime streaming service for a heaping of presentations from Nelson’s post “MST3K” offshoot, “RiffTrax.” While there’s a ton of audio commentaries available for purchase on the Internet (including an especially enjoyable takedown of “Star Wars — Episode I: The Phantom Menace”), Amazon’s offerings provide both the movies and the riffing on titles such as Vanilla Ice’s magnum opus, “Cool as Ice.” Nelson and his “MST3K”-era crew also offer their take on “Manos: The Hands of Fate.” Be careful what you pick on Amazon though, as some titles are free through Prime while others cost a few bucks.

If you enjoy your bad movies without dubbed-in jokes, Amazon Prime also offers riffed movies like “Manos” without the joke tracks. For the more adventurous type, Prime is home to many supremely terrible movies from Troma Entertainment, like “The Toxic Avenger” and its numerous sequels. Keep in mind, Troma movies are typically disgusting and filled with gratuitous violence and nudity.

Aside from the first “Toxic Avenger,” I’m not huge on the Troma catalog, but it has its supporters. Even with its absurdist skits, “MST3K” is cleaner and much more accessible to the average bad movie aficionado. Some of the episodes are even fairly safe for kids. Meanwhile, “RiffTrax” can be a little edgier, but never, ever show a child even a minute of a Troma title.

These streaming titles only scratch the surface of bad movie fandom, as popular audio podcasts like “We Hate Movies” and “How Did This Get Made?” make fun of the movies by simply describing their absurdities.

Of course, you could also just be the type of person who only wants to watch good movies. This is a more normal and satisfying lifestyle, I’m told.

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.