A Look at the Shorts From Mystery Science Theater 3000

Quite possibly one of the funniest shows ever to grace several cable stations had to be the genius that was Mystery Science Theater 3000. For the most part, the premise was simple: a space-lost janitor and his two robot buddies were tortured relentlessly by being forced to watch horrible movies while simultaneously making fun of them. But there was more to than even that. You see, there were moments where there was no movie (presumably days it wasn’t on the air, but that’s just semantics) so the trio had to fill time with other forms of entertainment, so skits and such were part of the show as well. In fact, some movies offered an extra helping of hilarity in the form of ‘Shorts’ that ran before the actual movie. These little bits of 50’s tripe often made for even funnier riffs. And it’s those very ‘Shorts’ we explore today. He he he… I implied shorts exploring. I’m a comedic champion. Anyway, this is by no means a complete and comprehensive rundown, there are more and I might showcase them in a future installment, so there’s no need to tell me I forgot any. Also, if you miss these guys doing what they do best as much as I do, you can check out Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett at Rifftrax and Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, J Elvis Weinstein, Frank Conniff, and Mary Jo Pehl at Cinematic Titanic.