The other night* we watched Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show I've been basically obsessed with since I was 13. Over half my life. It's mind-boggling when I think of how young I was when I started watching. It was an episode from 1992, season two. It brought back memories of VCRs and Friday-night viewings; the awesomeness of new episodes, the marathons, the tape trading. It goes on and on. And the reason for this nostalgia is the latest in DVD viewing: using the Playstation to stream movies through Netflix
directly over the interwebs. They have EVerything on there. It's the most amazing thing in a long time. And here we were, an ungodly number of VHS recordings of MST3K (three per tape because they are 2-hour episodes) right in the next room, with old commercials for Comedy Central and AbFab and whatever products they thought us Msties would buy; and now, with the push of a button, we get perfectly clear streaming episodes with no commercials or anything.**
I miss the old shows like Dr. Katz, Short Attention Span Theater, The Vacant Lot, Small Doses (Patton Oswalt's first show), Ab Fab; and Penn Jillette was the voice of CC. Then there were the old days of VH1 (pre-reality show), when they had Stand-Up Spotlight with Rosie O'Donnell (pre-lesbian), and the first few seasons of Saturday Night Live (pre-suck) every night. This is what I was raised on. A bit too old for me at the time? Probably. But I grew into them, and I look back on those days of comedy as some of the best TV I've watched. All comedy, all the time. It definitely had an impact on me and my sense of humor.
A Hot Pocket and MST3K...that was my teen years, and they were great.
*Like, two weeks ago.
**I blame Infinite Jest for this run-on. I'm picking up his style.
2 comments:
Here's a quote I thought of re IJ from my fave writer and thinker, Samuel Johnson: "A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."
I guess my footnote would be that making yourself read something daunting--say, Moby-Dick--and plowing thru even when it's hard slogging also have benefits. On the other hand, if you're going to summarize IJ and pick out all the good bits, I can spare myself that effort. :)
Thank you, person that I actually don't know! I appreciate the comment! I don't want to make it sound like I am not enjoying it, I actually am. But I do agree that slogging through huge books can be a good or bad thing. So far, this one good, fortunately :)
Thanks for reading things,
~ardie
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