Download or read book In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000 written by Robert G. Weiner and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999) has been described as "the smartest, funniest show in America," and forever changed the way we watch movies. The series featured a human host and a pair of robotic puppets who, while being subjected to some of the worst films ever made, provided ongoing hilarious and insightful commentary in a style popularly known as "riffing." These essays represent the first full-length scholarly analysis of Mystery Science Theater 3000--MST3K--which blossomed from humble beginnings as a Minnesota public-access television show into a cultural phenomenon on two major cable networks. The book includes interviews with series creator Joel Hodgson and cast members Kevin Murphy and Trace Beaulieu.

Download or read book In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000 written by Robert G. Weiner and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-03-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999) has been described as "the smartest, funniest show in America," and forever changed the way we watch movies. The series featured a human host and a pair of robotic puppets who, while being subjected to some of the worst films ever made, provided ongoing hilarious and insightful commentary in a style popularly known as "riffing." These essays represent the first full-length scholarly analysis of Mystery Science Theater 3000--MST3K--which blossomed from humble beginnings as a Minnesota public-access television show into a cultural phenomenon on two major cable networks. The book includes interviews with series creator Joel Hodgson and cast members Kevin Murphy and Trace Beaulieu.

Download or read book Reading Mystery Science Theater 3000 written by Shelley S. Rees and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First broadcast in the not too distant past on a television station in Minnesota, Mystery Science Theater 3000 soon grew out of its humble beginnings and found a new home on cable television. This simple show about a man and two robots forced to watch bad movies became a cult classic, and episodes of the series continue to be packaged in DVD collections to this day. Before its final run, the show received Emmy nominations and a Peabody award for Television excellence, and in 2007, Time magazine declared MST3K one of “The 100 Best Shows of All-Time.” In Reading Mystery Science Theater 3000: Critical Approaches, Shelley S. Rees presents a collection of essays that examines the complex relationship between narrative and audience constructed by this baffling but beloved television show. Invoking literary theory, cultural criticism, pedagogy, feminist criticism, humor theory, rhetorical analysis, and film and media studies, these essays affirm the show’s narrative and rhetorical intricacy. The first section, “Rhetoric and the Empowered Audience,” addresses MST3K’s function as an exercise in rhetorical resistance. Part Two, “Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Genre,” analyzes MST3K through distinct generic traditions, including humor studies, traditional science fiction tropes, and the B-movie. Finally, the third section addresses postmodern and intertextual readings of the show. By providing an academic treatment of an iconic television phenomenon, these essays argue that Mystery Science Theater 3000 is worthy of serious scholarly attention. Though aimed at a discerning readership of academics, this collection will also appeal to the intellectual nature of the show’s well-educated audience.

Download or read book Mystery Science Theater 3000 written by Matt Foy and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-08-20 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fun and fascinating deep dive for "devoted and loyal MST3K fans" (Library Journal) that reveals the impact and creation of the cult-hit television series Mystery Science Theater 3000. Few television shows can boast the long-term cult popularity and cultural influence of Mystery Science Theater 3000—or MST3K to its legions of devoted fans, known collectively as MSTies. Created by quirky standup comic Joel Hodgson and producer Jim Mallon, Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a low-budget and altogether unconventional comedy series about a man trapped in space and forced to watch the worst movies ever made alongside a pair of homemade, wisecracking robots named Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot. In Mystery Science Theater 3000: A Cultural History, Matt Foy and Christopher J. Olson explore the vast cultural influence of the cult television series, charting how the show’s aesthetics, style of humor, and distribution innovations heralded shifts in popular culture and media production and criticism. The show also engaged viewers in the do-it-yourself media subculture of the 1980s that blurred the lines between media producers and consumers and introduced the art of media “riffing” into popular culture. Beginning with the humble origins of MST3K, Foy and Olson dig into everything from the show’s journey across networks to the must-watch episodes. Also discussed are the endeavors of cast members after the show’s cancellation, including RiffTrax, Cinematic Titanic, and the Mads Are Back, as well as the show’s second life through a Kickstarter campaign and a Netflix revival. This is an essential guide to all things MST3K for fans both new and old.

Download or read book The Greatest Cult Television Shows of All Time written by Christopher J. Olson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-05-29 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reaching back to the beginnings of television, The Greatest Cult Television Shows offers readers a fun and accessible look at the 100 most significant cult television series of all time, compiled in a single resource that includes valuable information on the shows and their creators. While they generally lack mainstream appeal, cult television shows develop devout followings over time and exert some sort of impact on a given community, society, culture, or even media industry. Cult television shows have been around since at least the 1960s, with Star Trek perhaps the most famous of that era. However, the rise of cable contributed to the rise of cult television throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and now, with the plethora of streaming options available, more shows can be added to this categorization Reaching back to the beginnings of television, the book includes such groundbreaking series as The Twilight Zone and The Prisoner alongside more contemporary examples like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Hannibal. The authors provide production history for each series and discuss their relevance to global pop culture. To provide a more global approach to the topic, the authors also consider several non-American cult TV series, including British, Canadian, and Japanese shows. Thus, Monty Python’s Flying Circus appears alongside Sailor Moon and Degrassi Junior High. Additionally, to move beyond the conception of “cult” as a primarily white, heteronormative, fanboy obsession, the book contains shows that speak to a variety of cult audiences and experiences, such as Queer as Folk and Charmed. With detailed arguments for why these shows deserve to be considered the greatest of all time, Olson and Reinhard provide ideas for discussion and debate on cult television. Each entry in this book demonstrates the importance of the 100 shows chosen for inclusion and highlights how they offer insight into the period and the cults that formed around them.

Download or read book Focus On 100 Most Popular American Science Fiction Films written by Wikipedia contributors and published by e-artnow sro. This book was released on with total page 1180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book German Science Fiction Student Fiction and Essays 2013 2014 written by Kevin Alan Richards and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents an array of creative, analytic and research work presented by students of the Popular Culture and German Literature: Science Fiction sections of the academic year 2013-2014 at the Ohio State University. This course has been evolving over the past 5 years into a highly experimental and experiential classroom that augments lectures with literary and film analysis in order to further student's critical potential. Students work with concept building, social and historical background and cultural recognition, as well as psychological analyses of texts that conclude with the creative synthesis and the committal of the day's activities to long-term memory through journaling and discussion.

Download or read book Focus On 100 Most Popular United States National Film Registry Films written by Wikipedia contributors and published by e-artnow sro. This book was released on with total page 1724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Giant Creatures in Our World written by Camille D.G. Mustachio and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-10-13 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dismissed as camp by critics but revered by fans, the kaiju or "strange creature" film has become an iconic element of both Japanese and American pop culture. From homage to parody to advertising, references to Godzilla--and to a lesser extent Gamera, Rodan, Ultraman and others--abound in entertainment media. Godzilla in particular is so ubiquitous, his name is synonymous with immensity and destruction. In this collection of new essays, contributors examine kaiju representations in a range of contexts and attempt to define this at times ambiguous genre.

Download or read book The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film written by Sonja Fritzsche and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive companion to science fiction film as a global, rather than solely Anglo-American, concern.

Download or read book Universal Terrors 1951 1955 written by Tom Weaver and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-09-11 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Universal Studios created the first cinematic universe of monsters--Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and others became household names during the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1950s, more modern monsters were created for the Atomic Age, including one-eyed globs from outer space, mutants from the planet Metaluna, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the 100-foot high horror known as Tarantula. This over-the-top history is the definitive retrospective on Universal's horror and science fiction movies of 1951-1955. Standing as a sequel to Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas and John Brunas's Universal Horrors (Second Edition, 2007), it covers eight films: The Strange Door, The Black Castle, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, This Island Earth, Revenge of the Creature, Cult of the Cobra and Tarantula. Each receives a richly detailed critical analysis, day-by-day production history, interviews with filmmakers, release information, an essay on the score, and many photographs, including rare behind-the-scenes shots.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures written by Aga Skrodzka and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stereotypes often cast communism as a defunct, bankrupt ideology and a relic of the distant past. However, recent political movements like Europe's anti-austerity protests, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street suggest that communism is still very much relevant and may even hold the key to a new, idealized future. In The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures, contributors trace the legacies of communist ideology in visual culture, from buildings and monuments, murals and sculpture, to recycling campaigns and wall newspapers, all of which work to make communism's ideas and values material. Contributors work to resist the widespread demonization of communism, demystifying its ideals and suggesting that it has visually shaped the modern world in undeniable and complex ways. Together, contributors answer curcial questions like: What can be salvaged and reused from past communist experiments? How has communism impacted the cultures of late capitalism? And how have histories of communism left behind visual traces of potential utopias? An interdisciplinary look at the cultural currency of communism today, The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures demonstrates the value of revisiting the practices of the past to form a better vision of the future.

Download or read book Robots in Popular Culture written by Richard A. Hall and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-07-12 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robots in Popular Culture: Androids and Cyborgs in the American Imagination seeks to provide one go-to reference for the study of the most popular and iconic robots in American popular culture. In the last 10 years, technology and artificial intelligence (AI) have become not only a daily but a minute-by-minute part of American life—more integrated into our lives than anyone would have believed even a generation before. Americans have long known the adorable and helpful R2-D2 and the terrible possibilities of Skynet and its army of Terminators. Throughout, we have seen machines as valuable allies and horrifying enemies. Today, Americans cling to their mobile phones with the same affection that Luke Skywalker felt for the squat R2-D2. Meanwhile, our phones, personal computers, and cars have attained the ability to know and learn everything about us. This volume opens with essays about robots in popular culture, followed by 100 A–Z entries on the most famous AIs in film, comics, and more. Sidebars highlight ancillary points of interest, such as authors, creators, and tropes that illuminate the motives of various robots. The volume closes with a glossary of key terms and a bibliography providing students with resources to continue their study of what robots tell us about ourselves.

Download or read book East German Cinema written by S. Heiduschke and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: East Germany's film monopoly, Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, produced a films ranging beyond simple propaganda to westerns, musicals, and children's films, among others. This book equips scholars with the historical background to understand East German cinema and guides the readers through the DEFA archive via examinations of twelve films.

Download or read book The Worst We Can Find written by Dale Sherman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Had you tuned in to the small television station KTMA on Thanksgiving Day, 1988, you would have been one of the few witnesses to pop culture history being made. On that day, viewers in and around St. Paul, Minnesota, were treated to a genuine oddity, in which a man and his robots, trapped within a defiantly DIY sci-fi set, cracked jokes while watching a terrible movie. It was a cockeyed twist on the local TV programs of the past, in which a host would introduce old, cheaply licensed films. And though its origins may have been inauspicious, Mystery Science Theater 3000 captured the spirit of what had been a beloved pastime for generations of wags, wiseacres, and smartalecks, and would soon go on to inspire countless more. The Worst We Can Find is a comprehensive history of and guide to MST3K and its various offshoots—including Rifftrax, Cinematic Titanic, and The Mads Are Back—whose lean crew of writers, performers, and puppeteers have now been making fun of movies for over thirty years. It investigates how “riffing” of films evolved, recounts the history of these programs, and considers how a practice guaranteed to annoy real-life fellow moviegoers grew into such a beloved, long-lasting franchise. As author Dale Sherman explains, creative heckling has been around forever—but MST3K and its progeny managed to redirect that art into a style that was both affectionate and cutting, winning the devotion of countless fans and aspiring riffers.

Download or read book Undead in the West written by Cynthia J. Miller and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012-08-17 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Undead in the West: Vampires, Zombies, Mummies, and Ghosts on the Cinematic Frontier, Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper have assembled a collection of essays that explore the many tropes and themes through which undead Westerns make the genre’s inner plagues and demons visible, and lay siege to a frontier tied to myths of strength, ingenuity, freedom, and independence. The volume is divided into three sections: “Reanimating Classic Western Tropes” examines traditional Western characters, symbolism, and plot devices and how they are given new life in undead Westerns; “The Moral Order Under Siege” explores the ways in which the undead confront classic values and morality tales embodied in Western films; and “And Hell Followed with Him” looks at justice, retribution, and retaliation at the hands of undead angels and avenger. The subjects explored here run the gamut from such B films as Curse of the Undead and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula to A-list features like From Dusk ‘til Dawn and Jonah Hex, as well as animated films (Rango) and television programs (The Walking Dead and Supernatural). Other films discussed include Sam Raimi’s Bubba Ho-Tep, John Carpenter’s Vampires, George Romero’s Land of the Dead, andSergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West. Featuring several illustrations and a filmography, Undead in the West will appeal to film scholars, especially those interested in hybrid genres, as well as fans of the Western and the supernatural in cinema.

Download or read book Camp TV of The 1960s written by Isabel Pinedo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Camp TV of the 1960s offers a comprehensive understanding of all of the many forms camp TV took during that critical decade. In reevaluating the history of camp on television, the authors reconsider the infantilized conceptualization of sixties television, which has generally been characterized as the creative and cultural ebb between the 1950s Golden Age of television and the networks' shift to "relevance" in the early 1970s. Encompassing contributions from a broad range of media and television scholars that (re)consider programs like Batman, The Monkees, The Addams Family, Bewitched, F Troop, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, chapters closely examine beloved 1960s American prime-time programs that drew significantly on aspects of camp, many of which were widely syndicated and left continuing imprints on popular culture. Other chapters consider key TV precursors from the early sixties; British camp television programs such as The Avengers; the use of musical codes to convey camp humor (even on black-and-white sets); the role that the viewing strategies of queer communities played - and continued to play even decades later; and how camp's multivalence allowed for more conservative readings, especially among older audiences, which were critical for the move to "mass camp" throughout American culture by the early seventies. Camp TV of the 1960s is essential reading for students and scholars in television studies and others interested in the history and theory of camp, the 1960s, or popular culture, as well as fans of these well-known but generally understudied television programs.