Talk:List of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes

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List of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes is part of WikiProject List of Television Episodes, which aims to improve, standardize, and guide episode lists on Wikipedia.
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Contents

[edit] "Thunderbirds" or "Stingray"?

K01 Thunderbirds in Outer Space ("Thunderbirds Are Go") (1981, Color, Image Entertainment, UK) (11/24/88) Puppet movie about aquatic creatures who attempt to take over the planet. The first episode ever aired. No fan copy is known to exist.

This is inaccurate. The poster is clearly confusing Thunderbirds with Stingray.

I changed K01 to reflect published information, which indicates it was Invaders from the Deep, a movie version of Stingray. I also filled in the descriptions and corrected some other info about K01 and K02. -- Jeff Q 04:36, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Interesting and relevant trivia: Thunderbirds are Go is mooted as a potential episode in the MST3K sales tape that also offers a riffed scene from The Green Slime, the unaired "pilot". Also, there are a number of episodes where Joel & the Bots say things like: "Hey, look familiar? 'Thunderbirds are Go!'". These things suggest that Best Brains spent some time working on this film version of the TV series. Apparently none of it ever came to fruition. — Jeff Q 23:52, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Very probable; after all, they were referencing "A Case of Spring Fever" as early as season 3 when they didn't actually riff it on the show until season 10... -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:17, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've been wondering about that, as I annotate my MST3K Quotes project. Willy the Waffle (featured in Viking Women and the Sea Serpent and Bride of the Monster host segments, to make Antaeus Feldspar's reference explicit) was clearly modelled on Coily in A Case of Spring Fever. I suspect Thunderbirds is different, in that they apparently did some taping on it before the sales tape was produced, while Spring Fever may have only been something that one of the BBI writers had seen (i.e., absorbed as a cultural reference) until they MSTied it in the penultimate show. Does anyone know for sure how Willy came to be introduced in Season 3? — Jeff Q 05:45, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This is discussed briefly in the official episode guide for 'Squirm'. Here is the relevant part: A bit of MSTory: This short was considered a bunch of times for the show, going way back. Those of you who've been watching the show for a while may remember show 317- Viking Women and The Sea Serpent, with its many waffle-based sketches. Segment 4 of that show was actually based on A Case Of Spring Fever [...] The short itself was never used, but it did inspire this waffle-y version. (Larry Hastings)--216.101.162.42 12:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Punctuation in titles

Timvasquez, in a recent edit, said he made "a few title name tweaks so that Wiki links are captured". I'm not sure what he meant, but it looks like he felt it advisable to remove periods from titles like "Gamera vs. Barugon". However, Wiki links and article titles can include punctuation, and many do. Since the actual titles include such punctuation (as registered with IMDb, at least), I will restore these periods (plus add such punctuation to any titles that were missing it) in a week or so, unless someone makes a case not to do so. -- Jeff Q 04:04, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I finally got around to changing all "vs" instances to "vs.". Besides the above reasons, "vs" is not a word, but an abbreviation for "versus", and therefore requires a period to denote its abbreviated state. As far as the other punctuation issues, I expect to fix those as I update episode titles in general. Quite a few episodes have inaccurate titles. Some of these are simple errors. Others likely occurred because the official movie title doesn't always match up to the way Best Brains recorded the MST3K episode title. (I think there are even problems between the BBI and the Rhino titles for the VHS- and DVD-released episodes!) As I edit, I've been using Timvasquez's convention of quoting the episode title, followed by the movie title, where different, in parentheses, adding Wiki markup to italicize the latter per English style guidelines. There's still quite a lot of work to do on these entries. — Jeff Q 19:23, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
but versus is not abbreviated as vs., only as vs or v. but not as vs. or v , read the article on Versus.
Yes, the article that is currently tagged as needing cleanup? Seriously, any reference that claims that "vs" should not include the period is ignoring widespread practice, at least in the U.S, where we typically mandate periods for abbreviations. I do not know if this is "official" practice by any style guides, or if it's just another example of the decline of literacy even among publishers. I'll take a look at some style guides to find out. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] condensing?

Since there's considerable overlap between KTMA and the later years, can/should we create anchors to the first appearance of a given movie and then make the later reference to the same movie a link back to the earlier anchor? This has the advantage that if the film description needs fixing it won't be necessary to do it two places (as I had to with Mighty Jack.) -- Antaeus Feldspar

Your idea is certainly logical. I have a concern, though. Far more people have seen the repeated movies from KTMA in their Season 3 versions. Even The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide only lists the KTMA episode movies, while describing them in the Season 3 chapter. Therefore, even though it isn't typical practice, it might make mor--Larry Hastings 15:26, 31 December 2005 (UTC)e sense to have the links in the KTMA section, and the texts in the Season 3 section. (For what it's worth, this also accomodates Best Brains' general desire to focus on post-Season 1 episodes, when they felt they'd gotten the hang of the show.) It may not make much difference in the current show descriptions, but it just seems better (to me, at least). — Jeff Q 06:54, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'm not stuck on a particular order; I agree it makes more sense to put the episode descriptions with their more refined and polished incarnations. I'll be honest, though, I haven't found a good way to do that sort of anchoring in wiki syntax. Do you know how? Antaeus Feldspar 18:41, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
No, nor have I found a way to use wiki-proof HTML markup yet. For now, I'd just suggest diligent monitoring of the 8 repeated episodes (5 Gameras, 2 Fugitive Aliens, and Time of the Apes), which were all originally featured in the KTMA season and repeated in Season 3. Whenever someone makes an edit to one, concerned individuals can synchronize them. (Would-be editors should note that this makes it more likely someone will tweak your editing unless you edit both entries yourselves!) — Jeff Q 19:31, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Make that 9 repeated episodes. How could I forget Mighty Jack?! — Jeff Q 07:06, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I thought I had a solution, using the new feature of MediaWiki that allows you to link to the second of two duplicate headings by appending a "_2" to the heading text. However, in my excitement, I forgot that the show titles aren't headers. Oops. Nevertheless, I added unlinked forward references to the KTMA episodes that are repeated in Season 3, and also shortened some of the KTMA descriptions to encourage people to add details to the Season 3 entries instead. — Jeff Q (talk) 19:40, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I finally remembered someone's tip (I wish I could recall who, to give them credit) about using <div id="LABEL"> tags to create arbitrary link targets within a Wiki page. So we finally have forward references from the KTMA shows to their repeated shows in Season 3. Yay! This can also be used to make backward links. In fact, it might be nice to give each show its own DIV tag (I've used the show number as an obvious ID value), so that other articles can make targeted references to any show's description. — Jeff Q (talk) 07:35, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
<div id="LABEL"> has some problems; if you have two <div id="LABEL"> paragraphs in a row, you can't get normal spacing between them. Either it has no paragraph break, or a giant one. The solution: use <span id="LABEL"> instead, which doesn't imply anything about the flow of the page. --Larry Hastings 15:26, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Jeff, I appreciate all the work you're doing on this page but I have to point out that a lot of your changes are increasing the POV content of the descriptions, not decreasing it. Things like changing 'the U.S. Army' to 'America's most incompetent military personnel' would be a good change if Wikipedia was a fan site, where colorful descriptions are better than factual, NPOV descriptions. But it is not; factual, NPOV descriptions are what we are aiming for. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:31, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You have a good point. I suppose I took this approach for several reasons:
  • The original article text had a number of somewhat humorous takes on the movie plots.
  • Wiki policy encourages a somewhat lighter tone and occasional wryness in descriptive text, although that doesn't free one from factual accuracy or POV concerns.
  • IMDb and even TV Guide often feature similar critical and even mocking descriptions of flawed movies in their plot summaries.
  • The concept of MST3K, the subject of this article, is to poke fun at bad movies, making citation of the notable flaws in these films quite appropriate in describing a MST3K episode, as opposed to the original film.
However, one can certainly carry a good thing too far. As for your specific citation, re-reading the text, I realize one could easily misinterpret my meaning. I did not mean to impune the U.S. Army or the U.S. military in general, which are obviously not incompetent, but rather the specific personnel displayed in this movie, who are supposed to be from both the Air Force and Army, as I recall. It's excrutiatingly embarrassing to watch the scenes with these Stooge-like and rather disgusting servicemen. I will try to revise this and other entries to avoid inadvertently expressing POVs while still describing what makes these films MST3K episodes. Does this sound reasonable? — Jeff Q 02:01, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Fully reasonable. Sounds good to me. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:49, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You all have done a great job. I agree we should keep the humor in this list to prevent it from becoming too "dry", but anything lengthy can of course be put in the actual Wiki movie pages (something I'm slowly working on, e.g. The Skydivers). Timvasquez 16:25, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC) 16:25, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I disagree; I think the page should be "dry". The Wikipedia is a factual resource, not a joke book.--Larry Hastings 03:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Nobody said anything about a joke book. I think he means that a light writing style can be preserved while conveying all facts (e.g. Fire Maidens: "While they're not lighting up smokes at every opportunity, the crew helps battle a monster that has been terrorizing the planet.") -Rolypolyman 18:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Just skimming this article, I noticed tons of POV statments. I know these movies are bad, but this is stil an encylcopedia and, there shouldn't be any POV. --The_stuart 03:29, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, I've gone through and tried to make a short list of the ep descriptions with the NPOV problems that need fixing most. I haven't gone hog-wild and listed every one, just the ones that seem to need the most help. Hopefully we can find NPOV ways to replace rather than simply remove these perspectives.
  • 703 Deathstalker and the Warriors From Hell -- "Cheesy"
  • 806 The Undead -- "STAY!!" Not a POV problem, but only makes sense to those who have already seen the movie.
  • 808 The She Creature -- "Amusing turn by Lance Fuller"
  • 814 Riding With Death -- "artlessly stitched together", "painful enthusiasm"
  • 902 Puma Man -- This isn't a POV problem, but it describes the movie misleadingly as a "The Greatest American Hero-type ripoff" when GAH didn't come out until a year after the movie.
  • 908 The Touch of Satan -- "On the plus side, he gets to see where the fish lives." Not a POV problem, but it doesn't make any sense if you haven't seen the movie.
  • 1002 Girl In Gold Boots -- "The Monkees-esque title song is sorely overused and you won't be forgetting it anytime soon."
  • 1008 Final Justice -- describes the ending line as "massively anticlimactic".
Note: I wore out before completing the list (working from the end to the beginning.
There are some POV statements and adjectives I didn't mark, in particular when a movie was described as "low-budget"/"ultra-low-budget" or a "ripoff" of another movie. I think it may be best to discuss just how far we need to go before targeting things on this level. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:02, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
I've started combing through the article (from the beginning, opposite of Antaeus Feldspar's review) to reduce the general POV issues. I'm trying to tone down the film criticisms without removing humor that doesn't intefere with accuracy. (It's a challenge, which is one reason I've been slow to get started.) There are instances where implied criticisms (like "low-budget") are documented (e.g., Robot Monster). We shouldn't feel obligated to remove anything just because it makes a film look bad, but we should be able to back up any arguable statements with factual citations, preferably in the film article (many of which haven't yet been created). I think we have our work cut out for us. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:05, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
I would prefer that you remove humor entirely, as humor is a POV. I've done some editing (seasons 7 and 10 so far) in an attempt at producing NPOV strictly-factual entries. --Larry Hastings 03:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I have a proposal for things like "STAY!!"; please see the Points Of Interest section at the bottom of this page. --Larry Hastings 03:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some title and format standardization

I've just done a lot of editing in an attempt to standardize several title-related formatting issues, including the following:

  • All movie, TV show, and "short" titles are now italicized. (MST3K episode titles are still bold as well.)
  • All cited episodes of TV shows turned into movies are quoted.
  • All foreign movies now show their original titles in transliterated Roman letters, with accents and following the native countries' capitalization style.
  • Multi-part "shorts" now show "Part X" outside the title, with the episode title (where given) in quotes, per above standards.
    • General Hospital is slightly different, in that it doesn't follow the serials' practices, so its parts are called "installments" to avoid inaccurate implications of episode numbers.

A few other updates I did during this mass edit:

  • Added missing short, A Case of Spring Fever. (How did we miss this?)
  • Changed Commando Cody references to actual title of serial, Radar Men from the Moon.
  • Added a few links inside some entries' text.
  • Added a few alternate titles where potential confusion exists (e.g., un-MSTied DVD title versions, better-known titles).
  • Added names of episodes, where known, that were spliced together for the TV movies used as MST3K episodes.
  • Started changing some titles to what I'm calling "canonical form" — whatever form is given when both the Best Brains title and the movie's own title screen match exactly. This is a tentative definition of "canonical form", and is, in fact, far from definitive or complete. I will create a separate Talk page section to discuss the complications, as I expect a long and drawn-out debate.
  • Moved three Wikipedia pages (Angels Revenge, SST: Death Flight, and Hired!) to reflect more accurate title names.
  • Fixed a few English capitalization inconsistencies within a few titles. (Didn't standardize overall, though.)
  • Removed Space 1999 alternate title for Cosmic Princess, as the movie version was released under the latter, not the former, name. (The entry still describes its TV-show origin.)
  • Removed Airport tack-on suffix for San Francisco International as the pilot (i.e., the MST3K episode) did not include that word. (The entry still gives the complete TV-show title.)

I didn't adequately address the following related issues yet:

  • Accented characters should probably be replaced with HTML special-character equivalents.
  • A few spliced TV-show experiments are still missing their component episode names.
  • Didn't really deal with vs/vs./versus issue. (See upcoming title debate.)
  • Didn't standardize English title capitalization. (See upcoming title debate.)
  • Left alone most titles with conflicting versions between authoritative sources for later title debate.

Hopefully I combed out all the typos in these changes. I would ask anyone who disagrees with some of the title changes I have made to wait a bit until I can start the title discussion. I have compiled a considerable amount of data from eight different authoritative sources, so I haven't made any changes lightly.

— Jeff Q 07:03, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] General title cleanup

I have compiled a complete list of MST3K episode titles in their exact forms given in eight different authoritative sources:

  1. Movie title screens, as shown during the opening movie segment in each MST3K episode
  2. Internet Movie Database (IMDb) movie pages
  3. mst3kinfo.com Episode Guide listings
  4. Rhino DVD titles
  5. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide entries
  6. Cue screens that precede some episodes (accompanied by someone saying "Mystery Science Theater 3000, show 404, reel 1" or the like [Jim Mallon, maybe?] [That would was usually editor Tim Scott; see [MST3k FAQ]. --Larry Hastings 23:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)])
  1. Handwritten episode titles on notepads/blackboard/labels displayed just before some commercial breaks
  2. Titles spoken during episodes

At the moment, I do not have this data in a browser-accessible form and location, and I haven't figured out a reasonable way to display it within Wikidom. For the moment, I'll just discuss what I've found.

Looking at a massive table of all these sources, I've found that no one source provides what I believe a majority of readers would consider the official title for all episodes. Each source has its unreliabilities for at least several episodes. I have been unable to find any single consistent means to rank these sources, either. Here's what I've come up with so far:

  • The movie title screen would ordinarily be considered the primary authoritative source, but there seems to be a consensus among MST3K fans (driven by Best Brains' episode titles) to accept variations as official (e.g., Puma Man vs. The Pumaman). This is a reasonable argument, as a MST3K episode matching its movie's title is merely a Best Brains convention. (Example: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie is not called This Island Earth.) The issue then becomes how much one relies on sources outside the title screen. This must be done on some occasions, as there are three episodes whose title screens I couldn't verify: Invaders from the Deep, Revenge of the Mysterons, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. (The former two are not available outside Best Brains' archives, if even there, and do not appear to be available in their TV-movie form for commercial purchase. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians does not provide a title in its opening movie segment, nor does its Rhino DVD include the uncut version. The original is supposedly available on VHS and DVD, however, so perhaps someone can check it.)
UPDATE: The commercial SCCtM DVD is also missing the title screen. — Jeff Q
  • IMDb is not only fairly reliable but rather thorough, often providing many titles for a movie. However, it is not infallible (e.g., Devil Fish is not listed as such, but rather as Devilfish). Many MST3K titles are not the primary entry, either (e.g., The Sidehackers, most Sandy Frank movies, some Film Ventures International re-releases).
  • The mst3kinfo.com Episode Guide is probably the most canonical online source today, but it has its problems as well (e.g., Humanoid Women; The Million Eyes of Su-Muru; Manos, the Hands of Fate).
  • Rhino's titles not only conflict with all the other sources, but even with themselves in places. (Examples: The Gunslinger VHS vs. Gunslinger DVD; The Unearthly on the MST3K Collection box that includes the DVD labelled Unearthly.)
  • The MST3K Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, besides only providing titles for Seasons K-6, has plenty of conflicts and some outright errors (e.g., The Revenge of the Mysterians, The Million Eyes of Su-Muru, Invasion U.S.A., Angels' Revenge).
  • The cue screens before episodes are only available for a few Season 4-5 shows, and often conflict with the movie's title screens and even the other "official" BBI titles.
  • Likewise, the handwritten forms shown between commercials are only available for some shows in Seasons 5-7 and often conflict with other sources.
  • The MST3K actors frequently misstate titles during the episodes, sometimes intentionally for comic effect. (My favorite example is how Joel consistently referred to a certain giant turtle as "Gameron" in the KTMA season. I got the impression this was not intentional.) For this reason, I've ignored most of the spoken versions except when there is no cue screen or handwritten title.

There are other issues to consider:

  • What capitalization rules should be followed? The vast majority of movie title screens show all-uppercase titles, which many find unacceptable for online text. Even so, some are mixed-case, and four are all-lowercase. There is no consistent mixed-case policy practiced among the many other sources, and mixed-case capitalization rules are hotly debated on Wikipedia anyway. Few seem to know exactly what the official rules are, and some people argue for all capitalization (i.e., uppercase initial letters), regardless of part-of-speech.
  • Punctuation is triply difficult. Official titles sometimes make unconventional use of punctuation (e.g., SST- Death Flight, Danger!! Death Ray, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?). Standardization attempts are not universally agreed upon. And there are additional concerns about including punctuation in titles when creating Wiki articles (which I see Timvasquez, Jesster79, Dlloyd, Antaeus Feldspar, and many others are busily creating). Punctuation can complicate searches and require many redirect pages to cover all reasonable variations.

As an example of how these problems come together, witness the nine movies (counting duplicated episodes only once) with variations of "versus" in their title, using the movie title screen, IMDb, mst3kinfo.com, and Amazing Colossal Guide versions:

Movie Title Screen IMDb Movie Entry mst3kinfo.com Episode Guide Amazing Colossal Guide
EARTH VS THE SPIDER Earth vs the Spider EARTH VS. THE SPIDER Earth Vs. the Spider
GAMERA VS. BARUGON Gamera vs. Barugon GAMERA VS. BARUGON Gamera Vs. Barugon
GAMERA VS. GAOS Gamera vs. Gaos GAMERA VS. GAOS Gamera Vs. Gaos
GAMERA VS. GUIRON Gamera vs. Guiron GAMERA VS. GUIRON Gamera Vs. Guiron
GAMERA vs ZIGRA Gamera vs. Zigra GAMERA VS. ZIGRA Gamera Vs. Zigra
GODZILLA vs. MEGALON Godzilla vs. Megalon GODZILLA VS. MEGALON Godzilla Vs. Megalon
GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER Godzilla Vs. the Sea Monster
THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY The Robot Vs. the Aztec Mummy
SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN Samson vs. the Vampire Women SAMSON VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN Samson Vs. the Vampire Women

You can see two things rather quickly:

  • Most titles use the "vs." spelling rather than "vs" or "versus" for all versions. Exceptions: Earth vs the Spider (title screen, IMDb), Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster (IMDb), GAMERA vs ZIGRA (title screen).
  • Each source (other than title screens, which aren't a single source) tends to standardize its "vs." capitalization scheme, even though each standardizes it differently: IMDb all-lowercase; mst3kinfo.com all-uppercase; Amazing Colossal Guide initial caps. ("Versus" is an preposition. Prepositions are typically not capitalized in titles, except [in some style guides] when they're long. Is "versus" long? If so, is "vs." long by association? You see the problem.)

This rather simple example already divides the sources into different camps. Many individual title issues are more complicated.

I offer no immediate answers to these issues and questions. I hope to be able to post a browsable table of the data I've come up with so it can be discussed. In the meantime, I would suggest anyone wishing to debate these various points (or any others) create specific sections to address each issue (e.g., "Title capitalization", "Title punctuation", "Preferred sources", "Versus"). I will provide illustrative examples to show how the different approaches occur in the above sources.

— Jeff Q 01:54, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There is now a page called Wikipedia:Redirects to be made where you can list alternate spellings/titles of an article that is not yet made, so that if someone creates an article under one version of the title redirects can be made from other versions. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox for episode film articles

I was just updating two episode titles, Godzilla vs. Megalon and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (adding the periods, based on the canonical sources I mention above in Some title and format standardization). I came across a second article for Sea Monster, which is also known as Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. While merging these two, I found a handy template for movie details: {{Infobox Movie}}. Trouble is, the template is heavily biased toward English-language movies. While that isn't surprising for en:Wikipedia, readers here will recognize the need to accomodate the thousands of dubbed movies that are available (in one form or another ☺) in English-speaking countries, especially MST3K's home country.

Could the folks who are graciously and industriously adding episode film articles take a look at how I've added one of these film infoboxes to Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster and review the template for possible problems with MSTied movies? I've already identified two major ones on the template's talk page: the need for alternative titles and second languages (especially to note dubbing). Of course, you might also want to start using this infobox for your movie articles. — Jeff Q (talk) 04:42, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Compact table of contents

I've just created an experimental compact table of contents for Wikiquote's MST3K article. As it shows the entire 11 years in a table that fits on one screen, is color-coded for cast and channel changes (which are elucidated upon in a second footnote table), gives a quick visual indication of how long each season is, and provides links to each and every show and short, it occurred to me that this might be extremely useful for this list article. Could folks take a look at it and discuss here whether it would be desirable to implement for this article? There are some technical issues (e.g., adding anchors to each episode and short in this page for the links), but they aren't hard to do. I'd be happy to create a live demonstration page to show what the finished result would look like, if there is interest. — Jeff Q (talk) 23:35, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My MST3K compact table of contents is now live in Wikiquote's MST3K article, in case anyone wants to take a look. — Jeff Q (talk) 07:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Attack of the the Eye Creatures

I've just reverted a change from Attack of the Eye Creatures to Attack of the the Eye Creatures and added as an alternate title the original, The Eye Creatures, per existing practice which I earlier attempted to standardize as discussed above. This is one of several cases of an "official" MST3K episode title not corresponding to any exact form outside MST3K. Specifically, we have the following:

Screen title ATTACK OF THE THE EYE CREATURES
BBI cue screen Attack of the Eye Creatures
IMDb
(main entry bold)		 The Eye Creatures
Attack of the the Eye Creatures
Amazing Colossal Ep Guide Attack of the Eye Creatures
mst3kinfo.com ATTACK OF THE THE EYE CREATURES

Based on the BBI cue screen and Amazing Colossal Episode Guide citations, and what I think of as the "Puma Man Principle" (for eps with titles different than an official source), I'm maintaining that the MST3K episode title is the long version without the doubled "the". But unless and until we can determine or establish a "canonical" form for MST3K ep titles, this is quite debatable. — Jeff Q (talk) 02:28, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Uncut films for article creation

To help folks create movie articles for the individual MSTied episodes (and some shorts), here is a current list of un-MSTied DVDs that Netflix has available to rent. Serious article creators can use them as a cheap way to fact-check and compare the originals to the MSTied versions, in order to create an article that accurately depicts the film itself. Titles in parentheses below are variations that should be used to find some films using Netflix's search function.

  • Full episodes
    • Alien from L.A.
    • Amazing Transparent Man, The (2 versions available on 2-in-1 discs; one with "Indestructible Man", one with "Bloodlust!")
    • Atomic Brain, The
    • Attack of the Giant Leeches
    • Beast of Yucca Flats, The
    • Beginning of the End
    • Black Scorpion, The (the cheesy 1957 film, not the cheesy 1995 Corman TV series)
    • Bloodlust! (2 versions available on 2-in-1 discs; one includes "Amazing Transparent Man")
    • Brain That Wouldn't Die, The (2 versions available)
    • Bride of the Monster
    • Brute Man, The
    • Castle of Fu-Manchu, The
    • City Limits
    • Corpse Vanishes, The
    • Cosmic Princess (Space: 1999) ("Space Warp" only, disc 14)
    • Crash of the Moons
    • Crawling Eye, The
    • Crawling Hand, The
    • Day the Earth Froze, The (on 2-in-1 disc with "Magic Voyage of Sinbad")
    • Devil Doll
    • Escape 2000
    • Final Justice
    • First Spaceship on Venus
    • Future War
    • Gamera (Gammera: The Invincible) (also on 3-in-1 disc "Gamera: The Ultimate Collection")
    • Gamera vs. Barugon
    • Gamera vs. Gaos (Gamera: Return of the Giant Monsters)
    • Gamera vs. Guiron
    • Giant Spider Invasion, The
    • Girl in Gold Boots
    • Girl in Lovers Lane
    • Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
    • Gorgo
    • Hangar 18
    • Hercules
    • Hercules Against the Moon Men
    • Hercules Unchained
    • High School Big Shot
    • Horrors of Spider Island
    • I Accuse My Parents
    • Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, The
    • Indestructible Man (on 2-in-1 disc with "Amazing Transparent Man")
    • Invaders from the Deep (Stingray) (don't know which eps besides "Big Gun" [disc 1])
    • Invasion USA
    • Killer Shrews, The
    • King Dinosaur
    • Laserblast
    • Lost Continent
    • Mad Monster
    • Magic Voyage of Sinbad, The (on 2-in-1 disc with Day the Earth Froze)
    • Manhunt in Space
    • Monster-a-Go-Go
    • Night of the Bloodbeast
    • Painted Hills, The
    • Parts: The Clonus Horror
    • Phantom Planet, The
    • Project Moonbase
    • Racket Girls (Wrestling Women USA) (at least some "RG" footage is included)
    • Revenge of the Creature
    • Revenge of the Mysterons (Captain Scarlet: The Complete Series) (don't know which eps)
    • Ring of Terror
    • Robot Monster
    • Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, The
    • Rocketship X-M
    • Samson vs. the Vampire Women
    • Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
    • Screaming Skull, The
    • Slime People, The
    • Soultaker
    • Space Travelers (Marooned)
    • Squirm
    • Swamp Diamonds (Swamp Women)
    • Teenagers from Outer Space
    • This Island Earth
    • Tormented (2 versions available)
    • Unearthly, The
    • Village of the Giants
    • Violent Years, The
    • Werewolf
  • Shorts
    • Appreciating Our Parents (Educational Archives: Social Engineering 101)
    • Phantom Creeps, The (disc 1 of 2-disc set)
    • Radar Men from the Moon (2 versions available)
    • Robot Rumpus (Gumby 3-disc series) (disc 1)
    • Undersea Kingdom
    • What to Do on a Date (Educational Archives: Social Engineering 201)

Many of these titles are also available through Blockbuster Online (but I don't have an active account with them, so I haven't researched it as thoroughly). Some titles have more than one version, usually a single disc and one or more 2-in-1 or 3-in-1 discs (noted above). I've found interesting variations in different un-MSTied prints, which may explain why some people think Best Brains cheated on editing to make riffing easier. — Jeff Q (talk) 11:43, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate Versions of Episodes

This is a wonderful resource guide. However, one should point out that there are two alternate versions of episodes that are not listed.

701T was aired twice (one accidentally) with special Thanksgiving (Turkey Day) themed host seguments (the episode premeired during Comedy Central's 1995 MST3K Turkey Day marathon) which were very different from the regular version.

I've added a mention of 701T to the entry for 701 in the Season 7 list. Although 701T was shown first, it was always intended to be the "alternate" version of that episode.--Larry Hastings 03:56, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

901E is lesser known that 701T. Best Brains experimented with an echo effect for the theater seguments, to give the riffing more of a theater-esque feel. The resulting effect was that the theater seguments sounded as if they were recorded in a 50 gallon drum and was not well accepted by the fans or BBI. This episode aired only once and is very very rare even among the fanbase.

Again, kudos on this project. I would like to see the above information added, but alas I do not know the correct form for which such alternate episodes should be listed, and I don't want to break anything. If needed, I can supply more information on these episodes if so desired. --RevRaven, 08:52 11 Nov 2005 (UTC)

So that's why one of my videotaped telecasts of The Projected Man (901) sounds so horrible! RevRaven, do you have any documented source for this info? It might make an interesting note in the existing entry, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it a second "version" of 901 for this article. On the other hand, the Turkey-Day Night of the Blood Beast (701T) is well-documented, I believe, and we probably should include an entry for it. I'm not sure how we'd list it, since 701T came first, making the non-TD version the logical second entry, but possibly making for an awkward entry. Ideas, anyone? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:53, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I have found one documented source for the 901E online (http://www.mst3ktemple.com/season8-10b.html) ,which is a very indepth and through site. I also have a studio tour of BBI from 1999 (the next to last tour, actually) where a fan comments to editor Brad Keeley "Thanks for fixing 901!". For completeness sake, I again urge 901E to be included as a seperate episode, since the inclusion of the echo effect makes it remarkably different from the regular 901. However, mine is only a humble suggestion. 701T however should be listed first, with 701 being perhaps a comment on the difference in host seguments? Also, has inclusion of the Mystery Science Theater Hour been considered? RevRaven 10:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
If a complete transcript of 901 is identical for the echo and non-echo versions, I respectfully suggest there's no point in having two entries. It should be sufficient to include in the sole entry something like: "Best Brains used an echo-chamber effect for the theater segments in the initial telecasts, but later restored the usual acoustics after substantial fan complaints." As far as The MST3K Hour goes, since they were telecast individually and are numbered and described somewhere (I don't recall where offhand), it seems logical to include them somewhere in our list. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Points Of Interest

I have a proposal. It would be nice to have a resource for people who are trying to remember "which episode had...?" Just a simple, short list following each the description of each episode, listing major points of the episode. For instance, for Warrior Of The Lost World, you might have 'Paper-Chase Guy', Einstein the talking motorcycle, Megaweapon. This would allow submitters to draw attention to notable points of episodes (like California Lady in Track Of The Moon Beast) without having to construct sentences around them. It would be best to keep these lists short, so it should be restricted to things which Best Brains themselves took prominent notice of, rather than minor things the submitter thinks are particularly funny.

If I started compiling those, would they be preserved? --Larry Hastings 03:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Certainly, at least in the History if anyone removes it. I say give it a go! --InvaderJim42 22:57, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've started by doing a pass over seasons 3 and 5. Take a look-see, see what you think. --Larry Hastings 15:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Episode articles

A guideline like "things which Best Brains themselves took prominent notice of, rather than minor things the submitter thinks are particularly funny", as mentioned above in #Points Of Interest, won't really work, as there's no clear dividing line. In fact, the same problem occurs with other interesting elements of this list, like stingers (what makes a quotable stinger?), riffs (which are the most important to mention?), and other trivia. This list is getting rather bogged down in details.

I'm beginning to think that we might address a number of these problems by treating MST3K as a standard television show and providing episode articles (e.g., "Mitchell (MST3K)") that parallel their films. I'm not the first person to have thought of this; I've noticed some redlinks specifically referencing MST3K episodes (as opposed to the films) in other articles. The idea would be that, like other TV-show ep articles, the key elements of the MST3K show would be included. The film itself might have only 1-3 lines about its subject, plus a link to the original-film article, of course. But the MST3K article would provide a place to include (and argue about) the show elements for each episode, and allow us to be more concise in this article. What does everyone think about this? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:57, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I've been looking at the way a few other prominent television series have been handled on wikipedia, and I think that the Joss Whedon fans have the best concept. Take a look at List_of_Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_episodes. Though MST wouldn't break down in the same way, we could have a film synopsis section, a section on major riff elements of the story (like the "Chief? McCloud!" bit in Pod People), a section for the stinger, the host segments. There are a lot of ways that it could be done, but not in a page like we currently have.
Right now we're doing it more like List_of_episodes_of_The_X-Files. Such a style doesn't lend itself well to great depth. Compare The X-Files (season 1), which features expanded information, to The X-Files (season 2), which does not. This format gets bulky and ugly quickly.
I think that we should try a couple out. Perhaps others would get more excited about it if they could see an example of one that was done well. I say pick a favorite episode, follow a variation of the Buffy template, upload it and then let's discuss. It can't hurt to try.
Jwadeg 18:17, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Jwadeg's suggestions, except I strongly oppose the kind of "synopsis" that most TV-show articles (including Buffy) have. This material more properly belongs in the original film articles, most of which either don't yet exist or are stubs. One hope I have in proposing this parallel-article scheme is to get two articles started for each episode, advancing both the MST3K content and adding to the WikiProject Films work. Placing detailed synopses in the MST3K articles would be redundant and even misleading, as many MSTied films have elements that are missing in their edited versions (not necessarily to sabotage, as some suspect, but clearly to trim their lengths). Both the episodes and the films deserve articles that discuss their distinct qualities: the films for their own values (however questionable or amusing), and the episodes, for which the film plots are only riff fodder. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm all for having distinct pages for each of the episodes—more is always better at Wikipedia. But I still think there's a point to the "Points Of Interest" on a central summary page. It makes for much more convenient browsing, and gives you a single place to search if you're looking for "now what episode was it that had...?" As for there being no clear dividing line—that's true, in theory, but I think it would work fine in practice. Contentious listings would be the exception, not the rule. --Larry Hastings 18:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Of course, we can't know how it might work out (either way) until we try it, but I'd suggest that many shows have enough points of interest (just take a look at The Satellite News episode guide) that the entries could easily get absurdly long for a single-page list. If we move all such information to individual episode articles, people can easily (and more likely) find "what episode had…" if they use the wiki (or even Google) search function, adding "mst3k" to the search text. But whether we include "points of interest" in the list article or not, let's please remember that, in the episode articles, the section header should be "Points of interest", not "Point Of Interest". After fixing capitalization errors in 144 Buffy articles, I don't want to have to do it for 195+ MST3K articles. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Public domain status of MSTied films

Many films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 have been tagged in their articles as "public domain". Recent discussions on some of the relevant film talk pages (see Talk:The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Talk:Teenagers from Outer Space) have led me to believe that this tagging effort has been based at least partly on an incorrect assumption that just because it's been "MSTied", it's public domain. However, Best Brains had to obtain the rights not only to use the films, but also for their ongoing broadcasts (which is why many episodes gradually disappeared from reruns and syndication), and separately for each release on VHS and DVD (which is why some never made the transition, some have been withdrawn, and why it takes so friggin' long for new episodes to be released). Many copyright holders of MSTied films have refused to release them for any more MST3K-related distribution, an obvious sign that these films are not in the public domain.

Another assumption I've seen is that, if it's available through the Internet Archive's Moving Images Archive, it must be public-domain. This is also a false assumption. MIA's general goal is "to provide easy access to a rich and fascinating core collection of archival films", but they go on to say "By providing near-unrestricted access to these films…" (emphasis mine). They specifically point out in their FAQs that "Each collection has come from some donor and may impose some restrictions on use and re-use." One cannot place restrictions on public-domain material, so this is evidence that such material is also not public-domain.

From what I've dug up so far on MIA practices, each film should have the following prominently displayed:

  • The line "Creative Commons license: Public Domain" in the main film box, with a link to the "Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication".
  • A Creative Commons License icon at the bottom of the "Download" box.

If there is no statement or icon, we cannot assume anything about the licensing. It should go without saying that if the film isn't even in the Archive, we can't claim MIA as a source for PD status.

Just like for any other factual issue, we editors are responsible for ensuring that claims like public-domain status are backed up by reliable sources, not speculation and assumption. Wherever we find such an unsourced claim, we are encouraged by policy to remove it, or at least tag it with a {{fact}} template to request a source. I invite my fellow MST3K editors to sift through the collection of articles on MSTied films and shorts to clean up this problem. I will be compiling a matrix of sourced information, and I hope to eventually mass-edit articles to conform to what evidence we can find, but any individual work on this project will save me time on this massive project (188 distinct films and 48 distinct shorts!) and would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I found an interesting post from someone apparently involved in MIA's "Feature Films" collection which seems to have collected some films without any license statements. It lists basic guidelines for checking copyright status. To sum them up:
  • "If the work was made in 1923 or earlier, it is public domain and can be uploaded." This does not include films originally produced in this time but since processed by others (e.g., new soundtrack, restorations), as the copyright of the new material goes with its new production date.
  • "If the copyright notice is 1964 or later, the copyright is still valid and the film should not be uploaded."
  • Anything in between is complicated, so MIA's general policy is "ask us" before uploading.
What can we deduce from this? The problem is that the need for this post on policy suggests that MIA is concerned people are not paying enough attention to these legal issues when uploading. The lack of licensing statements on "Feature Films" collection items is suggestive that some people are treating MIA as a means to distribute unlicensed digital copies of films. Unless MIA tightens up its practices, we must be careful when citing it as a source for licensing statements. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
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