Joel Hodgson, creator of the greatest TV show ever, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (yes, better than Doctor Who, if you can believe that) was born today in 1960. Joel got into performing at the age of seven when he received a ventriloquist's dummy as a birthday present and soon added magic tricks to his act. While attending college in Minneapolis, Joel took class on theater of the absurd, which he says laid down to foundation for his comedic style. After graduation, Joel moved to California to take part in the great standup comedy boom of the early 1980's. While performing at the Comedy Store he was spotted by a talent scout for Late Night With David Letterman, which led to four appearances on that show and several on Saturday Night Live. After growing tired of the stand up circuit, Joel moved back to Minneapolis where he met Jim Mallon, the production manager at the low-rent independent TV station KTMA. This friendship would prove fruitful, if stormy.
In 1987, Joel combined the two loves of his life, bad movies and building robot puppets, and created Mystery Science Theater 3000. Joel's inspiration came from the 1972 Bruce Dern move Silent Running (thankfully without the Joan Baez soundtrack). Joel plays the hapless janitor Joel Robinson who gets shot into space by mad scientists who want to find the worst movie ever in order conquer and subjugate the world. They force Joel to watch the movies and "monitor his mind" to see which one drives him over the brink. In order to keep a hold on his sanity, Joel creates his "robot friends" out of spare parts who watch the movie with him and make wisecracks.
In a shocking move, Joel left the show in 1993. At the time he said it was because he was uncomfortable with being a nationally beloved figure and just wanted to build robot puppets. With the passage of time it has come out that there was a considerable degree of friction between Joel and producer Jim Mallon. Joel wanted to keep the show low-key and casual and, as producer, Mallon wanted to aim at the big time. Mallon wanted to make a theatrically-released MST3K movie and Joel didn't see the point. (In 1996, Mallon got his wish with MST3K: The Movie: This Island Earth and, while it's a great episode, it's not the kind of thing you're going to go out of your way to see in a theater.) Joel's reasoning for not being bluntly honest about his reasons for leaving the show was that he didn't want to cause a schism in the fanbase over "old MST3K" and "new MST3K" when series head writer Michael J. Nelson took over hosting duties. Good luck with that, Joel.
The internecine Great Joel vs. Mike Flamewar of 1993 divided MSTie against MSTie and proved the old adage that there isn't a TV show fun enough to prevent Internet dweebs from hating each other over it. Well, if that's not an old adage, it should be. In the wake of that war, most MSTies decided to just not talk about it, or at the very least, to take the moral high road and say that both hosts were different from each other but both were very good. Joel made a final guest appearance on MST3K in the 10th season episode "Soultaker" (episode 1001) when the axe was about to fall for the last time (the show had been canceled, saved and changed networks several times) and spoke directly to the camera when he told MSTies everywhere to "keep the flags flying!" Aw, Christ, I'm tearing up a little as I type that. Best goddamned show ever. Any year, any host. From KTMA to the SciFi Channel, it doesn't get any better than that.
I could start a whole other blog with great moments from the show, but I'll limit myself to this host segment from episode 411, The Magic Sword. An aged Estelle Winwood stars in the movie and Crow T. Robot falls hard for her and this is how he expresses his love for the fair Estelle:
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