It’s Just A Show
Chris Piuma
A conversation with Mystery Science Theater 3000, in which Adam, Beth, and Chris rewatch episodes of MST3K and then talk about things that come up in each episode: Weird Hollywood, curious history, half-forgotten music, and lots of Donald Pleasence.
- 59 minutes 59 seconds185. Everything Is Beautiful. [MST3K K01. Invaders from the Deep.]
Happy Turkey Day! Let’s celebrate with the very first episode of MST3K, which premiered on Thanksgiving 1988! Invaders from the Deep (which is to say, four episodes of Stingray spliced together into a movie) dives after Chris and Charlotte while they flap their lips about Turkey Day, Supermarionation, brief introductions, earnest ecologists, and beer nuts.
Show Notes.
Invaders from the Deep (David Lane, 1981 (based on Stingray (1964))): MST3K Wiki. IMDB.
Details about this year’s Turkey Day, which is happening when this podcast goes live.
You can see a print ad for the debut of MST3K on the KTMA era page of The Epicurean History of MST3K.
Our episode on Humanoid Woman.
Phones and Marina over on the Gerry (and presumably Sylvia) Anderson wiki.
Filmed in Supermarionatin (Stephen La Rivière, 2014) is the documentary Chris watched, now available on YouTube.
Our episodes on the test pilot, the first Comedy Channel episode, the first Mike episode, the first Sci-Fi episode, the first Jonah episode, and the first Emily episode.
Silent Running (Douglas Trumbull, 1972).
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
27 November 2025, 5:00 pm - 33 minutes 47 seconds184b. It’s Just A Town. [Assignment: Venezuela, from the MST3K CD-ROM.]
Assignment: Venezuela sends Chris and Charlotte off to discuss economic colonialism, oil extraction, Latin American history, lying husbands, and CD-ROMs.
Show Notes.
Assignment: Venezuela (Jack Tobin, 1956): MST3K Wiki. IMDB. UnMSTed.
Our episode on The Beast of Yucca Flats, with the short: Progress Island, U.S.A.
The surprisingly robust Wikipedia article on Assignment: Venezuela, with lots of MST3K content.
Eduardo Galeano: The Memory of Fire trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind — as well as The Book of Embraces.
Some documents about the integration of Levittown, PA.
The Wikipedia article on Robert Moses has a subsection on racism which details the recent arguments that have been made about the Jones Beach story.
Don’t Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022). (Charlotte notes that the movie gets pretty dark.)
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 CD-ROM.
The Voyager Company, and a list of the CD-ROMs they released (or planned to release).
Laurie Anderson recently had a chance to revisit The Puppet Motel.
Someone uploaded a playthrough (if you want to call it that) of The Puppet Motel.
Support us on Patreon and hang out with us in a friendly Discord.
16 November 2025, 5:00 pm - 59 minutes 31 seconds184. Fish Flopping. [MST3K 1005. Blood Waters of Dr. Z.]
Blood Waters of Dr. Z (a.k.a. Zaat) gets in its tank while Chris and Charlotte blurble on about fish supremacy, fish people, fish fingers, fish controversies, and smokeless tobacco.
Show Notes.
Blood Waters of Dr Z (Don Barton (and Arnold Stevens), 1971): MST3K Wiki. IMDB. Watch on YouTube.
HubrisWeen! on Zaat.
Our episodes on Revenge of the Creature and The Batwoman.
Gill-Man from the Creature from the Black Lagoon films, Kraken from Clash of the Titans, and the Gill Monster from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Faith No More: Epic. An article about the video.
Remembering Marine World Africa USA.
Update: Marineland was sold!
Pride and Prejudice (Simon Langton, 1995). Featuring a particular scene.
Visit beautiful Switzerland!
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
4 November 2025, 6:45 pm - 59 minutes 55 seconds183. Win the Butkus Award. [MST3K K15. Superdome.]
Superdome will give Chris and Charlotte tickets to the big game if they can give the inside scoop on 70s made-for-tv movies, Donald Pleasence, David Janssen, Donna Mills, and surprisingly little about football.
Show Notes.
Superdome (Jerry Jameson, 1978): MST3K Wiki. IMDB.
Previous Donald Pleasence Day episodes: Warrior of the Lost World. The Pumaman. Alien from L.A.. Circus of Horrors. Pod People. Teenage Crime Wave. Prince of Space. Hangar 18. SST: Death Flight.
Columbo: Any Old Port in a Storm. (One of Peter Falk’s favourite episodes.)
Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978).
Dracula (John Badham, 1979).
Our friends over at HubrisWeen! have tackled The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews this year.
Our episodes on It Lives By Night, The Sidehackers, and Space Travellers.
The Fugitive: With Strings Attached.
Centennial (1978–79).
1776 (Peter H. Hunt, 1972).
Star Trek (TOS): The Day of the Dove, The Trouble with Tribbles, and Journey to Babel (which has Spock’s mother).
The Jackson 5: Never Can Say Goodbye.
Amen.
Blacula (William Crain, 1972).
We discuss Klaus Kinski most recently in our episode on The Million Eyes of Sumuru.
Uptown Saturday Night (Sidney Poitier, 1974).
Miller Lite, recommended to you by Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith.
Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales.
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
28 October 2025, 4:00 pm - 59 minutes 59 seconds182. You’re Pro-Crime, Aren’t You? [MST3K 520. Radar Secret Service.]
Radar Secret Service spies on Chris and Charlotte as they discuss horror safety films, maligned westerns, unseen threats, hype cycles, and elegies for the dead.
With the short: Last Clear Chance.
Show Notes.
Radar Secret Service (Sam Newfield, 1950): MST3K Wiki. IMDB. Watch on YouTube.
Last Clear Chance (Robert Carlisle, 1959): IMDB. UnMSTed.
The Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke, 1934).
Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man.
The latest episode of Chris’s bookish podcast, The Spouter-Inn, which mentions Dashiell Hammett.
We still haven’t done the rock climbing of Lost Continent, but we discuss Deep Hurting in our episode on Hercules Against the Moon Men. See also our recent episode on The Bubble.
A playlist of the Red Asphalt films, but, seriously, viewer discretion advised. Extremely gory, and not staged.
We discuss Chicken in a Biskit crackers in our episode on Invasion of the Neptune Men.
Crossbuck and Wigwag. They fight crime.
The Terror of Tiny Town (Sam Newfield, 1938).
Randy Medved: The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way).
Theodore Rex (Jonathan R. Betuel, 1995).
Pernell Roberts narrates a tribute to Morrison-Knudsen, shortly after William Agee became CEO.
The Train Depot Museum in Nampa, Idaho.
Our episode on Jungle Goddess.
An article on the development of radar iconography was one of the more interesting things on the history of radar that Chris found. Check out what radar looked like before they designed that iconic circular swoop!
The movie describes radar working underwater; that’s more like sonar. Here’s the difference.
Walt Whitman: O Captain! My Captain! and When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.
Chris talks more about Whitman on an episode of The Spouter-Inn.
Paul Hindemith: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.
Impaler: Vicious Dreams. The album cover. And that live video. (cw: pretend gore, non-educational.)
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
30 September 2025, 4:00 pm - 57 minutes 33 seconds181. He Does What We Do! [MST3K 507. I Accuse My Parents.]
I Accuse My Parents of leaving Chris and Charlotte no other option but to talk about Trace, Frank, farmers, parents, and badgers.
With the short: The Truck Farmer.
Show Notes.
I Accuse My Parents (Sam Newfield, 1944): MST3K Wiki. IMDB. Watch on YouTube.
The Truck Farmer (Second Edition) (Unknown, 1954): IMDB.
The Truck Farmer (First Edition).
Turns out Brownsville was named after a fort named Brown which was named after a guy named Brown.
The Mads Are Back: I Accuse My Parents.
The Ashley Madison scandal. Now a Netflix documentary.
Tedros is from The Idol, which is in fact an (HBO) Max (whatever they’re calling it now) show, so you don’t need to write in. Unless you think Charlotte should watch it.
Our episode on The Mad Monster. We’ll get to the rest.
The Terror of Tiny Town (Sam Newfield, 1938).
Our episode on Last of the Wild Horses.
It’s a Wonderful World (W.S. Van Dyke, 1939).
Omoo-Omoo the Shark God (Leon Leonard, 1949), which you can watch with Mary Jo Pehl if you want.
Doris Day: Que Sera Sera.
Oprah talks with John Bradshaw.
Our episode on Swamp Diamonds.
Frank Conniff: Twenty Five Mystery Science Theater Films That Changed My Life in No Way Whatsoever and its audiobiook.
Russell Hoban: A Baby Sister for Frances.
Three Dog Night: Liar.
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
17 September 2025, 4:00 pm - 59 minutes 10 seconds180. Walt Disney Knew. [MST3K 1312. The Bubble.]
The Bubble has trapped Chris and Charlotte, who keep saying things about Arch Oboler, radio horror, wartime hitchhikers, zoos in space, and the side effects of childbirth.
Show Notes.
The Bubble (Arch Oboler, 1966): MST3K Wiki. IMDB. Trailer.
Our episode on Fugitive Alien and Edmond Hamilton.
Brian David Gilbert making pepcorn.
Toronto Event Generator by Misha Glouberman, and Billy’s Popsicle Stand.
Our episodes on Manos and San Francisco International.
Arch Oboler’s radio plays can be found on Archive.org: Lights Out and Plays for Americans include the episodes we discuss, but there so much more.
After recording, we discovered that someone is working on a biography of Arch Oboler, and the Library of Congress has a whole collection of his work. So that’s good!
We talk about fictional human zoos for aliens in this episode, but human zoos (for humans) were a real and terrible thing.
Edward D. Hoch: The Zoo.
The Twilight Zone: People Are Alike All Over.
We discuss Slaughterhouse-Five in our episode on The Slime People.
Mary Poppins: The Chimpanzoo. (See also the Disney wiki.)
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
29 August 2025, 2:00 pm - 1 hour179. We Know Who’s Blonde. [MST3K 203. Jungle Goddess.]
It’s a big birthday for Chris and Charlotte, and Jungle Goddess surprises them with new songs, old tropes, Superman, Dick Tracy, and tricky family dynamics.
With the short: The Phantom Creeps, chapter one: The Menacing Power.
Show Notes.
Jungle Goddess (Lewis D. Collins, 1948): MST3K Wiki. IMDB. Watch on YouTube.
The Phantom Creeps (Ford Beebe, 1939): IMDB. UnMSTed. Regular Wiki.
Twenty Thousand Hertz: Phone Tones: The hidden language of phone number beeps.
The Minor Thirds: The New Songs is available on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, YouTube, and more. Enjoy!
The Minor Thirds: The New Songs (the music video for the first song on the album).
Avogadro’s Number, if you need a refresher.
Jack Kerouac: Doctor Sax.
The humble gobo and the matte box (into which you can slide mattes, or masks).
Our episode on Catalina Caper, which, being Chris’s favourite episode, also came out in early August...
William Henry Hudson: Green Mansions.
Edgar Rice Burroughs: Tarzan of the Apes.
The Jungle Goddess (James Conway, 1922).
Chris primarily draws upon Rhona J. Bernstein: White Heroines and Hearts of Darkness: Race, Gender and Disguise in 1930s Jungle Films. If you know of exciting and newer scholarship on this topic, please let us know!
Trader Horn (W.S. Van Dyke, 1931).
Stamp Day for Superman (Thomas Carr, 1954) vs. Superman (James Gunn, 2025).
Dick Tracy (Alan James & Ray Taylor, 1937) vs. Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, 1990).
Thunder in the Pines (Robert Gordon, 1948).
Jungle Queen (Ray Taylor & Lewis D. Collins, 1945).
Danger! Women at Work (Sam Newfield, 1943).
Chris discussed the trucker films of Joe Gage for our episode on Robot Holocaust, and The Gay Amigo for our episode on The Corpse Vanishes.
Our episode on The Rebel Set.
Bomba, The Jungle Boy (Ford Beebe, 1949).
We discuss chapter three of The Phantom Creeps in our episode on Ring of Terror.
Milton the Monster. (Probably someone has uploaded some episodes to YouTube, mm?)
An interview with Hal Seeger, creator of Milton the Monster (and Ratfink, which we’ve discussed before).
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
8 August 2025, 5:00 pm - 59 minutes 58 seconds178. Good Job, Bud! [MST3K 906. The Space Children.]
The Space Children telepathically command Chris and Charlotte to discuss peep shows, touch tones, Professors, Uncles Fester, and a former child actor.
With the short: Century 21 Calling.
Show Notes.
The Space Children (Jack Arnold, 1958): MST3K Wiki. IMDB. Trailer.
Century 21 Calling (Robert W. Larsen, 1962): IMDB. UnMSTed.
The Great Betrayal (1974) is on The Scare Archives Volume 2: Danger Stories.
Staplerfahrer Klaus – Der erste Arbeitstag (Forklift Driver Klaus – The First Day on the Job) (Stefan Prehn and Jörg Wagner, 2000) (with English subtitles). Read more about it. (Warning: comedy gore.)
Frank Conniff: Twenty-Five Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Films That Changed My Life In No Way Whatsoever, the audiobook.
The Mads Are Back riffed Century 21 Calling in their A Night of Springtime Shorts show, which we discussed in our episode on Last of the Wild Horses.
A history of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, Century 21 Exposition.
The adult zone of Seattle World’s Fair.
We discuss the 1970 Osaka World’s Fair in our episode on Gamera vs. Jiger.
Expo 2025 is happening right now in Osaka!
DTMF signaling, aka Touch-Tone dialing.
Home automation in the 1970s (and today).
Our episodes on Revenge of the Creature, This Island Earth and The Brute Man (with the short, The Chicken of Tomorrow).
A scene from The Kid (Charlie Chaplin, 1921).
The California Child Actors Bill and Coogan Accounts.
We discuss both Won Ton Ton: The Dog that Saved Hollywood and The Greatest Story Ever Told with other Megaphonic hosts in our Patreon-exclusive holiday specials.
The Beverly Hillbillies: Jed Gets the Misery.
Them! (Gordon Douglas, 1954).
Our episode on Village of the Giants.
Macbeth (Orson Welles, 1948).
Dr. Cyclops (Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1940).
Michel Ray de Caravalho. And an interview with him.
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
25 July 2025, 4:20 pm - 30 minutes 13 seconds177b. We’re Always Making Bloopers [MST3K Poopie! & Poopie! II.]
Whoops! Chris and Charlotte accidentally watch the Poopie! and Poopie! II compilations, and talk about bloopers, mishaps, flubs, gaffes, and boo-boos.
Show Notes.
Watch Poopie! and Poopie! II on YouTube.
The Poopie Parade of Values is not yet on the official MST3K YouTube channel, but you can probably find it if you search.
Our episode on Turkey Day 1995, aka the MST3K Anthology, which includes the Poopie Parade of Values.
Kermit Schafer’s albums of Bloopers are also available on YouTube if you search hard enough. As are episodes of TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes.
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
15 July 2025, 4:00 pm - 58 minutes 40 seconds177. Be Very Suspicious of Big Forklift. [MST3K 310. Fugitive Alien.]
Fugitive Alien is back for season 3, so Chris and Charlotte finally get to talk about forklifts, forklifts, forklifts, forklifts, and tongue twisters.
Show Notes.
Fugitive Alien (スターウルフ) (Minoru Kanaya & Kiyosumi Kuzakawa, 1978 / 1986): MST3K Wiki. IMDB. Watch on YouTube.
Our previous episode on the KTMA version has more behind-the-scenes details about this “movie”.
The National Hat Museum in Portland.
Chris was in Liminal’s production of Far Away by Caryl Churchill. (Chris’s hat isn't in the publicity shot of hats.)
That top 100 episodes list.
Jack Perkins: Finding Moosewood, Finding God.
Syd Field: Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting.
Some articulation exercises.
UPDATE: It has been found! Thanks, listeners. Morton Thiokol was the contractor that manufactured the O-rings that failed and led to the Challenger explosion. (I haven’t found evidence of anyone else abbreviating the name like Tom does, but that has to be the reference.)
Support us on Patreon and you can listen a special bonus bit that was cut for time from this episode.
23 June 2025, 4:00 pm - More Episodes? Get the App