Mystery Science Theater 3000
From Homestar Runner Wiki
From the Late Nite JengaJam Interview - 4 Oct 2007:
JENGASHIP: You get a lot of these recurring inside gags for people who are following the site for a long time, almost rewarding them to keep up.
MATT: That's something that I feel like I learned from Mystery Science Theater. I felt like they were always dropping either references to a joke they had already made that was totally exclusive to the show, or making some weird reference to a commercial from the late '70s or something, that they knew that only about ten people were gonna get, but they made that joke anyway. So it was just sort of like: "This is for you 10 dudes that're gonna like this joke!" I thought that was very cool.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a cult comedy sci-fi TV show. It initially ran from 1988 to 1999 on KTMA-TV, Comedy Central and The Sci-Fi Channel. In 2015, a revival season was successfully crowdfunded and premiered on Netflix in April 2017.
The show featured a hapless janitor (initially Joel, later Mike and then Jonah) trapped in an orbital space station, forced to watch an endless slate of terrible "cheesy movies" by his mad-scientist superiors. To keep sane, he builds four robot companions — Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo, and Crow. Joined by Servo and Crow in the screening room, the trio interject over the movie with mocking jokes and wisecracks in a process called "riffing". Though not a major success in its initial run, it has proven to be highly influential in comedy and social television. The Brothers Chaps occasionally reference the show's original characters as well as some of the infamously bad movies and short films it has featured.
[edit] Appearances
- A Jorb Well Done — Tom Servo can be seen in silhouette, similar to the way he appears during the movie portion of the show.
- Email personal favorites — Coach Z says, "I'm a blade man, man", a reference to a riff of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: "Santa's gonna cut you, man. Santa's a blade man, man!"
- Random Toon — Nicknamed Rando, which is a running gag in the feature film version's end credits.
- Which Ween Costumes? — The Poopsmith dresses as Voldar from Santa Claus Conquers The Martians.
- I Killed Pom Pom — Marzipan dresses as Tom Servo and asks Strong Sad if he wants to make snappy comments and obscure references at a bad horror movie.
- @strongbadactual Instagram post (8 Aug 2016) — Strong Bad posted a photo of a Tom Servo puppet.
- Later That Night... — Homestar Runner dresses as Mr. B Natural from the short of the same name featured on the show.
- Dangeresque Puppet Squad: The Hot Jones Hijack — The song Santam'n is a Blade Man again references the riff of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
- @StrongBadActual tweet (1 May 2021) — Strong Bad nominated Humidibot for the Robot Roll Call.
