Joel's (and later Mike's) solitary march across space on the Satellite of Love is clutching-the-stomach, rib-aching humor, from evil Dr. Forrester and bumbling, square-haired TV's Frank, to the ridiculous invention exchanges, to the snarky little skits and brilliant commentary during the laughably horrible films they were forced to watch in their perpetual suspension above earth.
There was some uncertainty in whether or not we'd be able to attend this momentous, life-changing film extravaganza, but by seven o'clock that night I was snug in the backseat, irrationally proud of the home-made MST pin on my messenger bag, and jittery with excitement.
As soon as we pulled into the parking lot we knew these were our people.
Super-hero T-shirts, to-the-ankle dreadlocks swaying with every step, pudgy guys at the ticket machine chiding in gravelly frustration, "Twelve dollars? That's retarded!"
The movie was fantastic. There were some tasty little appetite-wetting slides before the previews, reading snippets like "Did You Know? The Spider-Man Franchise has been re-booted seven times since you sat down in this theater!" and "Manos: The Hands of Fate, the worst movie ever made that's not a Transformers movie, is showing tonight! And you payed to see it!"
Then Mike, Bill, and Kevin sauntered on screen from some blessed live stage, and showered viewers across the country with their hilarity. I was laughing so hard it hurt and breath eluded my heaving chest.
Then, around halfway through, the unspeakable happened.
The connection to the live stream failed.
Instantly the theater was a sea of nervous chatter, cell phones illuminating every face. Thunder rolled like crashing boulders outside, muffled in enormous room. Precious, irretrievable minutes slipped.
Four, then five.
A theater attendant entered the room and a strained hush came over immediately as she updated us on the situation, carrying with her also the promise of a free movie ticket to any showing of our choice in the future. That was a tremendously generous compensation and we clapped, but the IMAX screen remained dismally dark.
Eleven minutes, twelve.
My hopes steadily deflated like a forgotten party balloon in the dark shadow of the elephantine error message, mocking the audience with its facade of simplicity.
But then, vibrating to our bones, we heard Bill's booming voice rise out from nowhere like that of some satiric deity and seconds later the screen sputtered back to life. Uproarious applause reigned for a moment or so and we fell back into the rhythm of gleeful, geeky comedy.
I left satisfied, grin stretching and stomach soar from laughter, and with a crisp white ticket in my hand for the Birdemic: Shock and Terror one-night showing in October.
That movie, the RiffTrax of which I've already viewed, is so indescribably life-altering it's unutterable. No mere mortal can ever comprehend.
"...Such as seals."
~Elizabeth
P.S. RiffTrax is the official reincarnation of MST3K. MST was a full show, and in order to shamelessly mock whatever horrible movie was on set for that episode they had to buy the rights to it. So they were mostly old "films" (and I use that term loosely) accessible for cheap or nothing at all. But now the guys just do audio files of the commentary, to be played alongside the movie they're "riffing", so no rights are necessary. Thus, they can do all kinds of the modern-day train wrecks of our time like Twilight without shattering their metaphorical piggy bank! Huzzah!
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