Product Description

Join Joel, Mike, and their "robot friends" as they endure the worst movies ever made, all for the pleasure of an evil scientist. To survive and maintain their sanity, these crazy captives make stinging quips and hilarious jokes at the expense of these torturous cinematic stinkers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6951 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-26
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 360 minutes

Amazon.com
It's business as usual for Mystery Science Theater 3000 in this sixth volume of episodes taken from the archives of the long-running television show, which is nothing but good news for MST3K's many adherents--and with four discs and six hours of content, neither longtime fans nor newcomers to the series will be shortchanged. The formula is the same as ever: having been sentenced by mad scientist Dr. Clayton Forrester to watch unspeakably bad movies (all part of the doc's wacky plan for world domination), janitor Joel Robinson (portrayed by series creator Joel Hodgson, who would later write for Jimmy Kimmel's variety show) and his robot buddies Crow and Tom Servo sit aboard their spaceship, the Satellite of Love, and do exactly that. Their own skits and interstitial shtick are mildly diverting, but as always it's the wisecracks our heroes direct at the screen that dominate the proceedings far more than the movies themselves. By turns genuinely witty and groan-inducing, their nonstop riffing, laden with puns, sarcasm, and cultural references (from poet Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" to atrocious pop songs like Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods' "Billy Don't Be a Hero," all in the space of a couple of breaths), usually drowns out the dialogue in the films. That's not a bad thing, of course, when the movies are turkeys on the order of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 6 lineup, which comes from episodes first aired between 1990 and 1994. They include Attack of the Giant Leeches (boasting perhaps the least convincing movie monsters ever created), Gunslinger (a Western that drags on interminably), and the self-explanatory Teenagers from Outer Space. Disc 3 contains six shorter films, and may be the best of the lot for that reason alone.

With Mystery Science Theater 3000 having departed the airwaves in 1999 (it began in '88), the show lives on primarily by way of these DVD releases. And while some would argue that a little of this stuff goes a fairly long way, Rhino's typically fine packaging and presentation (even without any bonus features) make this and the other MST3K sets a collector's treat. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews

A selection of great MST3K from Comedy Central years
This release from Rhino Video goes back to the "classic" Comedy Central years and some of the best MST3K. Episodes include:

Teenagers From Outer Space: One of the funniest episodes ever, it's a 1959 low-budget b/w science fiction movie about an alien invasion from a planet with a totalitarian regime and the struggle of one sensitive alien teenager to escape and live free as an individual here on Earth. An evil and sadistic alien teenager charged with bringing him back to their spaceship dead or alive hunts him through the picture, while the teenage hero finds love and friendship in small town America. Filled with ray guns, flying saucers, alien monsters that look suspiciously like lobsters, jump suit "space suits" and more low-budget fun, Joel and the `Bots have an easy time milking this one for continuous laughs throughout.

Attack of the Giant Leeches: Another b/w low-budget 1959 picture, this one is "sci-fi/horror" about some really over-sized leeches capturing rural townsfolk and keeping them around as food stock in their underwater cave. The subplot leading into all the leech-infested fun involves a devoted if unexciting husband (Bruno Ve Sota) trying in vain to keep his young wife (Yvette Vickers) happy. Seems she is steamier than the swamp and looking for someone to cheat and run away with about every 10 seconds. Anyway, there is lots of drama and cheesy horror for the MST3K crew to hurl jokes at, making this one a lot of fun.

Gunslinger: This Roger Corman "classic" stars John Ireland and Beverly Garland. Garland is the strong-willed widow of the last sheriff and she is determined to clean up the town, while Ireland is the hired gun sent to kill her who ends up falling for her charms. The good cast make this a better than average Corman picture, and the western setting gives the MST3K crew a nice change of genre on which to launch their humor.

Mr. B's Lost Shorts??!!: The shorts on this disc, previously available on VHS directly from Best Brains, are not to be missed! They are all winners, and the first one in the collection, Mr. B Natural, is legendary among MST3K fans as one of the funniest things ever done on the show. You simply have to see it to believe it and if you've seen it before then you know how much fun this one is to watch again and again. Other shorts include the hilarious, "X Marks The Spot", "Hired!-Part 1", "Design for Dreaming" , "Johnny At The Fair" and "Are You Ready for Marriage? ". These all amply demonstrate the terrific wit of the writers and performers of MST3K as well as anything they ever did. This is truly top-notch material. The only sad thing about having the shorts separated from the episodes in which they originally appeared is that one doesn't then get to see the hilarious host segments based on those same shorts, which followed them in the full episode. For example, Mr. B Natural was followed by a host segment in which the `Bots debate whether Mr. B is a man or a woman; it was an INCREDIBLY FUNNY and terrific follow-up to some of the best humor ever done on MST3K, making the experience even funnier. Nevertheless, don't let that stop you from enjoying this collection because you definitely will.

I will be buying this 4-disc set as soon as it's available and highly recommend it. Movie Sign!

Buy This, Won't You?
...with yet another welcome release of a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" Collection. This time the episodes are from Season 4 - these haven't been broadcast in almost a decade, and most fans will want these. Some comments about the episodes:

"Teenagers From Outer Space" - There's nothing like watching a movie about sullen, snotty teenagers. This movie's got 'em, and they're dressed in ridiculous spacesuit-type outfits, too. Our hero Teenage Alien, "Derek", is a fugitive from his peers who wield deadly ray guns that turn people into cheap plastic skeletons after an awkward jump cut. (At least I think that's what the director wanted us to think...)

"Attack of the Giant Leeches" - Lots of things to recommend about this one. It starts with a classic 'Undersea Kingdom' serial as the short. Hilarious by itself, Joel and the 'Bots savage this very bad example of late 1930s pulp cinema. As far as the feature goes...thing of it as a hate letter to the South. It involves a giant leech infestation of a Southern swamp, and some sort of love triangle. It doesn't make a lot of sense, actually....but then again we're not here for the feature.

"Gunslinger". Roger Corman. Beverly Garland. Actually, it's not that bad a movie, but something about the pairing of Corman and Garland make for an excellent MST3K flick. Someone once wrote that this dreary western was 'turgid, uninspired, cliched, confusing, and artistically bereft of merit'.....but those are the GOOD points of this classic Corman flick. This disc justifies the entire price of the collection, and it's great to see this on DVD.

"Mr. B's Lost Shorts" Fortunately, this shorts collection pretty much is the last of the shorts shown during the last half of the MST3K broadcast run. The gem here is "Mr. B. Natural", a disturbing short in which an androgynous elf convinces a young boy of the power of music. Jerry Falwell will have a fit when he sees this young boy corrupted by the perky Mary Martin/Richard Simmons/Peter Pan being. One of the greats.

All in all, Rhino seems to have gotten the message about which episodes the fans seem to want most. There is a small but vocal cult for this show and it looks like it will continue to grow with a decent collection of episodes.

Ok, so a gender-confused woman in leotards...
...shows up in your bedroom and tries to coerce you into joining the school band, all the while claiming that musical instruments are her family and that she knew Adam and Eve and your father. What do you do?

Well, you can be happy that this is happening to gawky middle schooler Buzz instead of you as you watch Mr. B Natural, a vomit-inducing school film turned into comedy gold by our heroes at MST3K.

The 6th DVD box set breaks away from the Sci-Fi channel era and back to Comedy Central for three movies and a fourth collection of shorts. The shorts include X Marks the Spot, in which a slain motorist is brought before the God of New Jersey who probably won't let him into New Jersey heaven because of his many sinful moving violations, and the mythical Hired Pt. 1 which is just what Manos fans have needed to learn why Jimmy the Salesman doesn't think that sales are an important part of his job.

It also features Teenagers from Outer Space, your usual 50's produced, teenagers-in-their-30's centered hokum about giant lobsters, a "tohcha" loving commander and a malicious alien empire "We are the supreme race. We have the supreme weapons. We have the supreme pizzas". Gunslinger (which was already released on VHS) is classic Corman about an old west feud betweeen two rough and tumble women with anachronistic access to eyebrow pencils. Finally, Attack of the Giant Leeches (or are they guys in black rain ponchos, no wait, they're definitely leeches) which features playful murderous bantering between a slovenly hillbilly and his nymphette wife, a main character who pretty much does nothing, and some semi-intelligent human livestock-raising leeches (as Joel hypothesizes: "They're smart enough to enjoy eating at Chili's, but not smart enough to realize it's a chain).

Unforunately, there are no extras to speak of, but since it has long unseen episodes of the most original, inventive, and aggressively funny shows to ever hit the airwaves, it can all be forgiven. Fans have no reason not to pick this up and newcomers owe it to themselves to see the cult show that never should have just been cult. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got movie sign.