The Best ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ Episodes

We’ve got movie sign! For the cool kids of the 1990s, those words promised a deep dive into some of the strangest films to ever hit the screen, complete with hilarious commentary.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 was the brainchild of Joel Hodgson, a prop comic who returned to his Minnesota hometown after a stint in Los Angeles. Inspired by the Bruce Dern movie Silent Running and by his love of movie nights presented by local TV stations, Hodgson and his friends constructed a comedic movie-hosting show.

In each episode, mad scientists (called the Mads) send cheesy movies to a space station called the Satellite of Love, vawhere they study the movies’ effects on a human captive. That human helps survive with the help of robots that he built, in particular Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo.

Hodgson aired the first season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K as it’s known to fans, who call themselves MSTies) on the public access channel KTVA. But when the cable network The Comedy Channel picked it up, MST3K became a worldwide smash.

MST3K first ran from 1988 to 1999, jumping stations and going through personnel changes. By the end of the show, head writer Michael J. Nelson took over hosting duties as Mike Nelson. In 2017, Hodgson brought the show back, first to Netflix and then to a dedicated streaming channel, as well as to the stage with a live show. With these changes came new hosts, Jonah Ray as Jonah Heston and Emily Marsh as Emily Connor. In between, various other actors came aboard to play the Mads and the ‘Bots.

Despite these changes, the core of MST3K has been the same: comedians watch bad movies and make fun of them. Any other questions can be answered by the show’s theme song, which advises, “Repeat to yourself, it’s just a show, I should really just relax.”

1. The Final Sacrifice (Season Nine, Episode 10, 1998)

A practiced viewer of cheesy movies understands the inverse property of scale. The more epic the scale of a cheesy movie, the cheaper it appears. Nothing demonstrates that point better than The Final Sacrifice, a 1990 Canadian adventure film written and directed by Tjardus Greidanus. The Final Sacrifice teams teen Troy (Christian Malcolm) with ruffian Zap Rowsdower (Bruce J. Mitchell) to stop a cult led by Satoris (Shane Marceau) from resurrecting a lost city of gold.

Greidanus falls far short of those lofty goals, but Mike, Servo, and Crow make up the difference. Between Troy’s airheaded innocence, Rowsdower’s surliness/drunkenness, and Satoris’s self-satisfied glower, Mike and the ‘Bots have plenty to joke about. The best joke might be a mighty theme that the trio writes, an anthem in which “Rowsdower saves us and saves all the world!”

2. Space Mutiny (Season Eight, Episode 20, 1997)

The success of Star Wars resulted in countless knockoffs flooding theaters and video stores, some better than others. Sometimes, these efforts resulted in Star Trek: The Motion Picture getting the green light. And then there was Space Mutiny, directed by Neal Sundstrom but credited to David Winters, and written by Maria Danté.

As its title suggests, Space Mutiny depicts a mutiny in space aboard a massive ship called the Southern Sun. Tired of traversing across the cosmos without settling on a planet, the evil Elijah Kalgan (John Phillip Law) teams with pirates to overrun the ship. The one thing standing in Kalgan’s way is the beefy action hero Dave Ryder (Reb Brown), whom Mike and the ‘Bots give different names throughout the episode. Every time Ryder does something cool, the trio tosses out a new nom de guerre, including Slab Bulkhead, Stump Beefknob, Punch Sideiron, Blast Hardcheese, and Bob Johnson.

3. Mitchell (Season Five, Episode 12, 1993)

Those not familiar with MST3K might consider Joe Don Baker a solid if sometimes goofy, character actor. Baker’s fifty-year career included appearances in Cape Fear, Walking Tall, and GoldenEye. Yet Baker became a bad movie legend when Mystery Science Theater lampooned two of his films, 1985’s Final Justice and Mitchell from 1975.

With Mitchell, director Andrew V. McLaglen and writer Ian Kennedy Martin try to recreate the charm of Baker’s breakout in the Walter Matthau-led Charley Varrick. However, the creators go so low-key and grounded with the material that it limps along at a sleepy pace, with a bumbling, disheveled Baker in the lead.

The ‘Bots try to liven things up by replicating the funk score (“Watch-aka, watch-aka!”) and Joel talks about the star like he’s a kind parent (“Mitchell, honey, get your shoes on, we’re at Grandma’s,” he coos at the sight of Mitchell waking up. The MST3K version doesn’t show much respect to Baker, but it does improve Mitchell.

4. Mac and Me (Season Twelve, Episode 1, 2018)

Even the most hardened MSTie sometimes feels bad about the drubbings that the hosts give the movies. After all, everyone understands the challenges of movie making, and most involved tried their best. But once in a while, a movie like Mac and Me comes along, an E.T. rip-off that operates more like a commercial for Coke and McDonalds than it does an object of art or entertainment.

Directed by Stewart Raffill, who co-wrote the script with Steve Feke, Mac and Me stars Jonathan Ward as a boy who befriends a lost alien he dubs Mac, thanks to the extraterrestrial’s love of McDonald’s. In between moments of crass commercialism, the movie also features extreme violence and horrific-looking alien effects, all inappropriate for a kids’ movie. All of these aspects get roasted by Jonah and the ‘Bots, making a terrible film something worth watching.

5. Pod People (Season Three, Episode 3, 1991)

Mac and Me wasn’t the lone E.T. rip-off to get the MST3K treatment. Way back in season three, Joel, Crow, and Servo watched Pod People, a Spanish cheapie directed by Juan Piquer Simón of Pieces fame, and co-written by Simón and Joaquín Grau.

For those who know Pieces or his other infamous exploitation flick, Slugs, Simón seems like the absolute, wrong person to make a movie directed at kids. In fact, Pod People feels like two different movies squished together, one involving alien monsters hunting snotty teens in a cabin and another about a kid who befriends a pod alien called Trumpy.

Both stories get equal treatment from Joel and the ‘Bots. The standout of the teen storyline involves a non-sense rock song recorded by the snotty Rick (Ian Serra), which inspires a garbled hit from Joel. The kid storyline asks child actor Óscar Martín to react with amazement to the laughable effects representing Trumpy’s powers. One awful display prompts Joel’s riff, “Trumpy! You can do stupid things!”

6. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Season Three, Episode 21, 1991)

Warm-hearted holiday feelings cause some viewers to go easy on Christmas movies, leading families to gather around even the most awful yuletide offering (see: The Polar Express). But Kris Kringle himself would struggle to find something positive to say about Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a 1964 sci-fi kid’s movie directed by Nicholas Webster and written by Paul L. Jacobson, from a story by Glenville Mareth.

The too-complex plot involves Martians kidnapping Santa Claus (John Call) and a pair of human children (Victor Stiles and Donna Conforti) to teach the kids of Mars how to have fun and thus avoid a horrifying prophecy.

Through all of this nonsense, Call leads the way with a guileless performance as Santa, befitting an old elf so jolly that not even killer robots and angry aliens can deter him. Joel and the ‘Bots follow Call’s lead, poking fun at the movie, but with a warm sense of playfulness. The standout moment occurs in one of the interstitials, in which Servo leads Joel and Crow in a rendition of his new carol, “A Patrick Swayze Christmas,” mixing the holidays and Road House into something special.

7. Laserblast (Season Seven, Episode 6, 1996)

The best MST3K episodes have a specificity that sometimes makes them dated. Take, for example, a running gag in the 1978 sci-fi flick Laserblast, directed by Michael Rae and written by Frank Ray Perilli and Franne Schacht. Noticing the similarity between a beefy, bearded side character and country singer Hank Williams Jr., the Satellite of Love crew belts out “Are you ready for some football?” every time the former appears on-screen. For those who don’t remember the long-running Monday Night Football theme song, the joke falls flat.

However, Laserblast offers much more to enjoy, beyond cracks about Bocephus. The movie follows a lanky, bored teen (Kim Milford) who becomes a being of pure destruction when he finds an alien weapon. For example, a misjudged love scene includes a close-up of a man kissing a woman’s ear. “If you could taste what I hear…” says Mike, in his best soap opera voice.

8. The Deadly Mantis (Season Eight, Episode 4, 1997)

‘50s sci-fi movies, with their amazing monsters and endless scenes of scientists talking in labs, tended to get attention during Joel’s tenure. But Mike takes a shot with The Deadly Mantis, the 1957 William Alland production written by Martin Berkeley and directed by Nathan H. Juran. As the title indicates, The Deadly Mantis involves an attack by a giant-irradiated praying mantis, most often depicted through extreme close-ups of a real praying mantis.

The more cynical approach of Mike’s hosting tenure makes for an interesting contrast to the triumphalist Eisenhower-era tone of The Deadly Mantis. While a narrator heaps praise on American industry working in the Arctic, Crow jokes about environmental destruction. A straight-laced scientist studies the remains of the monster through a magnifying glass, trying to describe its strange features until Mike snaps, “It’s your thumb, you dork.” Perhaps too mean-spirited for some, The Deadly Mantis proved that Mike had a way with Joel’s favorite genre.

9. The Pumaman (Season Nine, Episode 3, 1998)

Superhero movies have become big business over the past fifteen years, but they didn’t start with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Filmmakers have long tried to bring the action and wonder of comic books to the big screen, albeit with much less success in 1980’s The Pumaman, directed by Alberto De Martino and written by Massimo De Rita and Luigi Angelo. When Professor Tony Farms (Walter George) discovers an ancient Aztek mask, he becomes the mighty Pumaman. With the help of his mentor, Vadinho (Miguel Angel Fuentes), Farms must master his powers to defeat the evil Kobras (Donald Pleasence).

That might sound like a fine setup for a quality superhero movie, but this bit of Italian schlock fails in almost every regard, much to the delight of Mike and the ‘Bots. “Pumaman, he flies like a moron!” sings the theme written by Crow, just one of many chuckles prompted by the film’s lackluster effects. Not even the reliable Pleasance escapes unscathed, as a shot of Kobras peering from behind the mask prompts Crow to intone “Peek-a-boo… PEEK-A-BOO!”

10. Werewolf (Season Nine, Episode 4, 1998)

For a variety of reasons, most movies that end up on MST3K released several years, if not several decades ago. For Werewolf, producers made an exception, sending a 1996 movie to the Satellite of Love. Werewolf comes from director Tony Zarrindast and writer Brad Hornacher, but according to cast member Kevin Murphy, “Werewolf is a gift from God!”

Indeed, Werewolf takes a basic lycanthrope story and bungles it so badly that MST3K couldn’t resist. The attempts to ground wolfman lore in Navajo culture come off as racist, and the unconvincing effects don’t help either. Worst of all, however, might be Adrianna Miles’s performance as love interest Natalia, who slurs her lines with a heavy French accent, leaving room for Mike and the gang to translate.

11. Teenagers From Outer Space (Season Four, Episode 4, 1992)

The big reveal of 1959’s Teenagers From Outer Space occurs in the movie’s last act when the titular adolescents deal with a Gargon, the fabled monster that they have come to Earth to raise. Throughout the film, created almost in full by writer/director/producer Tom Graeff, the teens warned about the unimaginable danger posed by the Gargon. But when we get a look at the creature, it’s nothing but close-ups of a lobster in a trap, sometimes rear-projected with shots of the teens, to unconvincing effects.

In other words, Teenagers From Outer Space makes an ideal movie for Joel to riff on. Graeff leans hard into the wholesome cheese when the teens arrive in an Earth suburb, for which Crow adopts a thick New England accent and declares, “Life is simple here in Grover’s Corner.” When the alien Derek, played with stone-faced seriousness by David Love tells human girl Betty (Dawn Bender) that the Gargon will arrive soon, Joel pairs a reaction shot of her puzzled face with the line, “Oh, then I should set out some snacks.”

12. Cry Wilderness (Season Eleven, Episode 2, 2017)

The revival series of Mystery Science Theater 3000 got off to a shaky start with the premiere episode “Yongray.” Fans had to get used to new host Jonah, new ‘Bot voices, and new versions of the Mads. But by the end of the second episode, the new crew proved themselves worthy visitors to the Satellite of Love, thanks to 1987’s family fantasy adventure Cry Wilderness, directed by Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, who co-wrote the script with Academy Award winner Philip Yordan.

Young actor Eric Foster plays Paul, a boy beckoned by visions of a Sasquatch to go to the woods and find his missing father (Maurice Grandmaison). Together with his father’s friend Jim (John Tallman), Paul finds a safe place for the Sasquatch, a plot that leads to many absurd scenes of animals frolicking in unusual ways. The strange plot sets up a fantastic interstitial scene, consisting of Jonah letting loose with a boisterous laugh while the bots, dressed as raccoons, destroy the set.

13. Time Chasers (Season Eight, Episode 21, 1997)

Written and directed by David Giancola, Time Chasers gives MST3K one of its most enduring running gags. Scientist Nick Miller (Matthew Bruch, not the guy from The New Girl) invents a time machine from a stuffy-looking turboprop plane, all the while wearing a t-shirt promoting his alma mater, Castleton State College, who donated clothes to the production. Miller makes for a poor representative to the school, not because his time machine doesn’t work, but because Bruch plays him as an aggressive nerd, not helped by his tendency to lean into people or by his mullet haircut.

In fact, much of Time Chaser falls apart because of its production value. Giancola writes a standard time travel story, in which a guy goes to the past to stop an evil corporation in the future, but the budget can’t meet such expectations. When the bad guy gathers his minions, all stiff-suited mafiosos, Mike adds to the dialogue, “Let’s go director’s college buds who brought their own suits.” It’s no wonder that references to Castleton continue throughout the rest of the series, including its most recent episodes from 2023.

14. Cave Dwellers (Season Three, Episode 1, 1991)

“How much Keefe is in this movie, anyway?” asks Joel while watching Cave Dwellers (1982). “Miles O’Keefe,” answers Crow, riffing on the name of the movie’s star. Joke-worthy name aside, it’s easy to see why O’Keefe would get the role of the barbarian Ator, the hero of the Italian sword and sandals movie Cave Dwellers. O’Keefe has the ripped muscles and constant glare necessary for the film, written and directed by Joe D’Amato.

At the same time, it’s easy to see why Joel would choose Cave Dwellers for the season three premiere. Cave Dwellers wants to follow in the sandals of the Arnold Schwarzenegger-led Conan the Barbarian flicks but has the quality of a high school play. In particular, Joel and the ‘Bots point out the excessive pregnant pauses by villain Zor (David Cain Haughton) and the film’s slow pace. “Let’s recap the action so far,” says Tom midway through the film, to which Joel answers, “Nothing really.”

15. The Giant Spider Invasion (Season Eight, Episode 10, 1997)

Late in The Giant Spider Invasion, Crow breaks. It’s not just that the 1975 film has low production values, even by the standards of most movies that end up on MST3K, with its almost impenetrable darkness. But it is also the unpleasant, trashy characters who hurl unspeakable insults at one another. After one disgusting barb, Crow belts out, “The movie hates us! It hates us!”

However, Wisconsin native Mike cannot help but take pleasure in The Giant Spider Invasion’s setting in the Badger State. Directed by Bill Rebane and written by Robert Easton and Richard L. Huff, The Giant Spider Invasion sets a monstrous arachnid loose on a town of cheeseheads, leading to many shots of a crowd running through the streets. “Packers!” shout the viewers every time the crowd shows up. “Packers won the Super Bowl!”

16. Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders (Season Ten, Episode 3, 1999)

Except for sci-fi flicks, children’s movies and horror pictures make for the best MST3K entries. 1996’s Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, written and directed by Kenneth J. Berton, combines both, a horror anthology framed around a grandfather (movie great Ernest Borgnine) telling spooky stories about the famous magician to his grandson (Mark Hurtado).

In theory, the tales told by the Grandfather have scary qualities, including a married couple who accidentally summons the devil or a cursed monkey toy. But Berton relies on an overbearing score and over-the-top performances to insist upon the existence of scares, because none of the actual stories frighten the audience. What Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders lacks in frights, Mike and the ‘Bots provide in jokes, including running gags about Merlin’s hair care routine or references to the white-bearded musician Leon Russell.

17. Eegah (Season Five, Episode 6, 1993)

By giving their 1962 movie the title Eegah, director Nicholas Merriwether and writer Bob Wehling were just asking for jokes. In fact, Eegah made regular appearances on “the worst movies of all time” lists, long before it played for Joel aboard the Satellite of Love in 1993.

The story of an unthawed caveman (Richard Kiel, best known for portraying James Bond villain Jaws) who runs wild in a square 1960s town, Eegah doesn’t lend itself to a serious reception. To the surprise of no one, Joel and the ‘Bots jump at every awkward moment Eegah presents to them, cracking wise about a terrible romance scene between the caveman and Roxy (Marilyn Manning) and the girl he kidnaps. One odd shot of Roxy’s band-leading boyfriend Tom (Arch Hall Jr.) invites Crow to shout, “Sorry ‘bout my face!”

18. Gamera (Season Three, Episode 2, 1991)

Godzilla sometimes got attention on MST3K, but Gamera was the show’s kaiju of choice. Gamera released in 1965 as a mixture of The Birds and Godzilla, taking a heretofore benign creature and making it into a major threat. Production company Daiei Films didn’t have high hopes for the picture, but it became a hit in Japan, thanks in part to its kid focus, so American producer Sandy Frank brought the movie to the U.S. to much less success.

MST3K covers several Gamera movies and other Sandy Frank releases (“Hey, Sandy Frank! Isn’t that when you drop your hot dog at the beach?” asks Servo during the Gamera opening credits). Most modern viewers will find the film dull and cloying, but Joel and the ‘Bots have a blast mocking images of a giant turtle ambling in between giant explosions.

19. The Crawling Eye (Season One, Episode 1, 1989)

MST3K’s first season is a tough watch, as Hodgson and his co-creators wanted the riffs to feel organic. So instead of writing the jokes before the episode, the trio would produce riffs in real-time while watching the movie. A noble approach, perhaps, but the long lags between jokes forced viewers to spend more attention on the actual film.

The Crawling Eye stands out as the single example of a movie weird enough to watch while waiting for jokes. Released in the U.S. in 1958, The Crawling Eye stars Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, and Jennifer Jayne as a trio investigating disappearances on the mountain Trollenberg. Director Quentin Lawrence and writer Jimmy Sangster do nothing compelling with the script, but the weird-looking effect always impresses, especially when Joel and the ‘Bots come up with a great zinger.

20. The Incredible Melting Man (Season Seven, Episode 4, 1996)

Although horror movies often show up on MST3K, the show tends to steer away from the gross stuff. For that reason, the show wouldn’t often do something like 1977’s The Incredible Melting Man, despite its delightful throw-back title. Writer/director William Sachs holds to the storytelling tropes of 1950s sci-fi, including a sympathetic monster and lots of laboratory babble. However, it also features gross-out effects from master artist Rick Baker, making it an upsetting experience.

However, The Incredible Melting Man’s production history makes it an ideal experiment for the Satellite of Love. Sachs wrote and directed the movie as a parody of ‘50s sci-fi, lampooning all of the same things that Mike and the ‘Bots like to mock. But the production company changed its mind after filming and edited out all the jokes, leaving just a dull but goopy excuse for a horror picture. Fortunately, Mike and his friends pick up the slack, making endless riffs about the gooey man who ambles through the film.

21. The Sidehackers (Season Two, Episode 2, 1990)

Some of the best MST3K movies come from clueless producers who want to cash in on a larger trend. So when biker movies became all the rage in the 50s and 60s, producer Ross Hagen gave the green light to The Sidehackers. The Sidehackers focuses on a real and forgotten sub-culture of motorcycle racing, in which a passenger would hold to the side of the bike and lean into and out of turns, to provide more impressive handling. The 1969 film The Sidehackers, directed by Gus Trikonis and written by Larry Billman and Tony Huston, does nothing to make this idea look cool.

This is, of course, why Joel and the ‘Bots have so much fun with it in season two. Knowing that jokes about people hanging off of motorcycles would make the gags too easy, the trio instead taps into the pseudo-cool of the era, complete with a song that Servo composes about “Sidehackin’,” a surf-rock ditty that celebrates a sport that never caught on.

22. The Touch of Satan (Season Nine, Episode 7, 1998)

Directed by Don Henderson and written by James E. McLarty, 1971’s The Touch of Satan has pretensions to folk horror. It follows a cross-country traveler (Jodie Lee Thompson) who stumbles into a quiet farm town just after a hideous murder that might have occult connections. The producers think they’re making an American version of The Wicker Man, but they achieve banality instead of that film’s creeping terror.

The unsuccessful mixture of attempted gothic dread and a boring farm setting gives Mike and the ‘Bots plenty of space to make fun of the movie’s failed pretensions. While the credit sequence shows the traveler driving down a country road, the trio attributes everything from lack of a turn signal to hay fever to the titular Satan. When a farmer hints that something terrible lurks in his barn, the trio jests that it’s just a walnut uprising. These observations can’t make up for the missing terror the movie wants, but they do make it entertaining.