It was a very quirky and amusing late-night program that showed old “b” through “e” rated flicks while the main characters did a running commentary on the multitudinous shortcomings and inadequacies of the writing, acting, screenplay, directing, continuity and so forth.
Irony, sarcasm, snark, it was all there. Very entertaining when up late for whatever reason. There used to be theme nights and group viewings occasionally.
You never heard of it for one of two reasons:
1 It stopped being aired in 1999 and you were sound asleep in your crib when it was on
2 You didn’t watch much late-night TV in the 1990’s. I’ll bet you never heard of Tom Snyder’s show “Tomorrow” either.
I saw it but it wasn’t funny.
Those “B” through “E” movies they made fun of were far better than most of what’s on TV today.
Um, Dalereed is a WWII vet. Don, meet Dale. Dale, meet Don.
I "discovered" MST3K back in the early '90's when Comedy Central was The Comedy Channel and have been a fan ever since.
It was a very quirky and amusing late-night program that showed old "b" through "e" rated flicks while the main characters did a running commentary on the multitudinous shortcomings and inadequacies of the writing, acting, screenplay, directing, continuity and so forth.
IIRC the first time I caught the MST3K was not during a late-night TV watching binge but by accident late on a Saturday afternoon when I was bedridden with a very bad cold / flu and channel surfing, and this was back when fledgling cable channels only had so many programs and repeated them often.
I remember my husband coming in after hearing me laughing so loudly, looking at the TV and asking, "What the heck are you watching?" He didn't "get" it. He didn't get Ren and Stimpy either. : )
What MST3K did; "riffing" on, i.e. making a running commentary or jokes while watching bad movies was something my brother and some of my friends and I had been doing for years. Some movies are so "bad" that they are actually "good" as in fun to watch if with the right group of people. My mom even liked to stay up late some Friday nights with me to watch the "Creature Features", especially the Godzilla and Gamera movies, not because they were good but because they were so bad that they were good.
The reason for the crowd sourcing is that for one thing, even though these are "B" movies, they still have to acquire the rights and then the writers and performers, camera crew and others involved in the production need to be paid and they need to pay for other production expenses. They want to produce shows to prove that there is still a sizable audience and demand and perhaps convince some network to pick them up. They may not get picked up by a regular TV network or cable channel, but more likely IMO by Netflix or Amazon Prime. And that's where it is at now days.