Back in 2017, I started doing write-ups about the long defunct Cinematic Titanic, a riffing project that the reunited Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Josh Weinstein, and Mary Jo Pehl. It started as a studio project, but quickly became a touring show, and transitioned to DVDs of shows recorded in front of a live audience.
My posts were modeled after the episode guide for Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Satellite News. I intended to show how Cinematic Titanic (and Rifftrax frontrunner The Film Crew) bridged the gap between the end of MST3K in 1999 and its revival in 2017. My last post in this series was back in 2018. So it’s been an almost 7-year hiatus.
But I’m bringing it back. During that hiatus, Shout Factory published a DVD set containing the complete run of Cinematic Titanic. It has since gone out of print. Shout also started streaming episodes of Cinematic Titanic on various services, including YouTube, though Shout has also lost the rights to four of the episodes since then.
Two members of Cinematic Titanic, Trace and Frank, started doing live tours as The Mads Are Back, around 2016 (I got to see them three times in Omaha). When Covid hit in 2020 they took things online. They’ve since done more than 50 live broadcasts that you can purchase or stream on Dumb Industries, YouTube and Twitch.
Mary Jo started hosting The Mary Jo Pehl Show and a monthly unscripted Movie Jo Night, where she watches cheesy made-for-TV movies from the 70s and 80s, along with other bad movies. As mentioned in a previous blog, I even got to write a one-act play for her show that she and Frank acted in. In high school my dream was to some day write for MST3K. Having two of its performers act in something I wrote is pretty much the next best thing. You can watch through all these episodes on The Mary Jo Pehl Show Clubhouse, or catch them as they air live on Twitch.
Joel obviously revived MST3K via a successful Kickstarter, and the show got two seasons on Netflix. Josh returned for a few appearances during the second Netflix season, and Joel, Josh, and Mary Jo were all a part of a third revival season (season 13 overall) that came from another successful Kickstarter.
There was also a series of live tours for MST3K, riffing movies like Eegah, Making Contact, No Retreat, No Surrender, The Brain, and others.
Unfortunately, a third Kickstarter for a season 14 did not hit its goal in 2023, and for now the show seems to be back in limbo.
I plan to continue semi-regular posts about Cinematic Titanic over the new few months, followed by a run on the four Film Crew releases, and maybe some other odds and ends along the way. Sorry that it has taken so long, but I promise that it won’t be seven years between posts again. Unless it is. But I do want to complete this MSTing Links project, and then do more writing about MST3K. Because I really like the show and all its various incarnations.
Until then, here are quick links to my previous write ups about Cinematic Titanic.
Episode 2: The Doomsday Machine
Episode 5: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Episode 6: Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks
Live Local Man 