9th Annual MST Club Xmas Video Marathon December 22, 2022 9:16 AM   Subscribe

Going from the early morning on December 23rd (going by US Eastern time) and going to midnight December 25th and usually a bit beyond, three solid days of riffing, weird movies and Christmas specials! It all takes place in MST Club's video share room. See inside for details!

Wow, we started doing this in 2014! I always say I don't know if we'll do it again next year, but for now at least we're still rolling on. Our hosts this year are myself ("rodneylives" in the room there), TheSnakeofArgument and valkane. oneswellfoop is an honorary maintainer. Hobgadling and a few others used to help in the past, and are always welcome in the future. But then everyone is welcome, even non-MeFi members! (Although we reserve the right to moderate and ban troublemakers, of course.)

Our motto is "no stress," which we continue to stand by even if sometimes stress happens. It's just a silly show we do. We're around if you want something fun to watch during the holidays, or need entertaining background for whatever you're doing, or want electronic company, or an excuse to avoid family. We have a chatroom alongside the video, and commenting on what's being shown is encouraged, but absolutely no expected.

We tried scheduling everything in the past but it didn't work out well. So now we keep things pretty freeform, but we do aim to have particular kinds of things available at different times:

This year, a highlight of the show will be on Christmas Eve morning! In the year 1983, Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday, as it does this year. Back then there were no child-focused cable networks, so mornings on TV were the domain of kids. TV Party found a recording of Saturday Morning television from that year, with commercials intact, and we're going to show it at the same time it aired back then, starting at 8 AM! That includes (in general order): The Best of Scooby-Doo, the Monchichis, the Little Rascals cartoon, Richie Rich, Pac-Man, Rubik the Amazing Cube, The Littles, The Puppy's Further Adventures, The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show, and an ABC Weekend Special! Note, if you want to watch along, that 8 AM Eastern is 5 AM Pacific. I'm considering showing it twice, back to back, for this reason, but it depends on how much interest there is. If you want to watch it on your own time, it is here.

Late nights (after midnight/ very early morning) are when we show our strangest material. Sometimes Snake finds weird things to put in at this time. I can't tell you what we've planned this year, some of it is not Christmas-related. We try to hearken back to the days when Night Flights was on superlate, and Up All Night, and other bizarre owl-time fare.

On the morning of the 23rd, when we're getting started, we usually put in Rifftrax of the worst things. (All riffing content we show has been bought and paid for or is on Youtube. Frequently, both. If you want your own copies I encourage you to obtain them yourselves, at MST3K and Rifftrax!)

Other than that, mornings are generally Christmas specials, and evenings are riffing. We show Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny and the Star Wars Holiday Special every year on the 25th! We also show MST and Rifftrax Christmas content. Late on the 25th, when we're winding down, we go more freeform.

Between shows we have a variety of fun oddities to fill time! Some we made ourselves specifically for our show! For example, did you know there's a Star Wars Christmas Album? We like using clips from it for bumpers!

Whenever you visit, we'll have something fun and/or weird and/or unexpected for you. And if video isn't your thing, don't forget there is always Metafilter's own chatroom, at chat.metafilter.com! And the unofficial Metafilter Mastodon server, at mefi.social!

That concludes my introduction. To our hosts, regulars current and former, people who drop in randomly, and the whole darn world, I wish a happy holiday season, and many many more to come.

Previous years: 2021 - 2020 - 2019 - 2018 - 2017 - 2016 - 2015 - 2014
posted by JHarris to MetaFilter-Related at 9:16 AM (17 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite

Oh this is great, I'll definitely show up for some of this.
posted by JanetLand at 10:25 AM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]


Rubik the Amazing Cube?!? O wow I may have to watch this!!! Thanks!!!
posted by riverlife at 11:45 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]


Yay! It’s going to be a very cold and icy holiday weekend, so I’ll be hanging out with y’all for quite a long while.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 12:00 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]


Oh yay! Will stop by! Y'all are fun!
posted by mochapickle at 2:34 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]


I always pop in once. I love this tradition. Thanks for putting it on. Greatly appreciated. 🙏🏾💙
posted by Fizz at 2:15 AM on December 23, 2022 [2 favorites]


okay, it's 0830 on Christmas Eve Eve and we're deep into Nutcracker 2010 where the little girl grows up to be Elle Fanning!
posted by valkane at 5:31 AM on December 23, 2022 [2 favorites]


1015 Eastern and Santa Jaws is just starting!
posted by valkane at 7:16 AM on December 23, 2022


1730. I'm doing crab cakes and asparagus. One tastes good, one makes your pee smell funny. So there you go.
posted by valkane at 2:30 PM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]


We're up to the Christmas specials portion of today's programming. Later on we have a lot of riffing to get through tonight!
posted by JHarris at 9:07 AM on December 24, 2022


We're in the last leg now! In about an hour we'll show the Star Wars Holiday Special! We usually show some fun things after it too!
posted by JHarris at 5:48 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]


Is anyone still reading this? The marathon is over, and I'd like to talk a bit about if, if anyone would like to provide their input. I'm trying to analyze what people who show up enjoyed, and why people left. The marathon is a lot of work and time every year, and I hate to think I'm just spinning my wheels.

I want to make it clear up front that I don't mean this as a complaint, people come by 1. if they think it'll be fun, 2. if they don't have something else going on, and 3. if they know about it and remember. Point 3 I always have to work on; point 2 I can't do anything about; point 1 is mostly what I'm looking for input on.

We got fewer people this year than in the past. I kind of divide people who come to MST Club into three categories, regulars, semi-regulars, and others, people who have never or only very rarely come before. This time, while regulars showed up pretty faithfully, most others who showed up were semi-regulars, folk who drop anywhere from once a month to once a year. The most people ever seen at once this time was 16, on Christmas Eve night, which was also unusual; usually more show up on Christmas night, and it gets up to 20 or so. I think one year it even got up to 30, but I have not kept records. (I have reported on the number of people who have shown up in past threads. Maybe I should check those.)

It's been noted that Metafilter's userbase, for whatever reasons, has declined in recent years, and I'm sure that plays a role. Different people have different explanation (I don't want to get into those), but really, I think a lot of it is our userbase is aging. Participating in a community weblog is less of a draw these days, especially as it has become harder to find cool things online. Sometimes people drift away. A few people have died. There's not much we can do there but try to bring more people in to participate in our site.

I am wondering about show content. We show a wide variety of weird and fun video at the marathon. This mostly comes down to MST3K episodes, Rifftrax we've bought, Christmas specials (an under-represented category this year), and other things. These things are pretty much what the marathon is for, if we changed them too much we'd lose our identity.

One thing I'm worried about is a lot of the stuff we show has become "traditional," things we repeat every year, and may have gotten stale. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, for instance, is well over ten years old now. The Star Wars Holiday Special is always good for some seasonal WTF, but we show it every year. One thing though is it's really hard to find things to replace them with. We're avid buyers of new things Rifftrax puts out every year, but truthfully it's not always the case that their new material is a must-see. Similarly, MST usually does a good job, but it's not easy to find movies with just the right kind of weirdness.

Maybe we should go back to showing more specials, but other than a few particular items, I don't think most of them are huge draws. The Saturday Morning Cartoon block I mentioned in the post, for instance, which I was excited about going in, was barely seen by anyone. In the past we tried scheduling things out, which was difficult for me and my cohosts to maintain and so was abandoned. I try to make it clear in the post what kinds of things we show at particular times. Maybe I should put out more information on that?

Part of my sadness over the marathon I think has to do with people who used to come by and enjoy the show but don't any more, for whatever reason. Sometimes things come up, but you'd think that by the numbers it'd balance out. MST Club in general has slowly become more static over time. We used to get more random people than we do now. We have a solid seven or eight people who come by, who usually show up, but rarely more or less. Of course, we've been doing this for a long time now. We've almost been over the entire show twice. It's understandable if people are tired of that.

Anyway, that concludes another year's marathon. To those who came out, even if for just a little bit, thank you. If there's something you think we should show next year, please let me know! If there's something you thought drove you away, or just found uninteresting, also let me know. Next year, if we do one, will be the 10th annual show! I'll be fifty! Oh frog that's scary.
posted by JHarris at 11:01 AM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]


Oh! We don't always announce this in Talk (because it's so close to announcing on so many other shows), but we do a New Year's Eve thing too if anyone wants to drop by. Thank you!
posted by JHarris at 12:18 PM on December 26, 2022 [1 favorite]


I did not show up because I forgot. It crushed me just now to realise that. I don't check MetaTalk that often any more.

So I am wondering if you could post it to IRL (as a remote thing) in the future so people like me have more opportunities to be reminded.

It is a lot of work, and I don't think you should keep doing it if it's too much work. The time difference means that I will never be able to hang out as long as I want to. But when you are doing it, I totally want to show up if I can. It's just so much fun for me to hang with y'all.

So thank you, JHarris, for all your work. Am so sorry I missed it. Also: next year I'll be even older than you. By a lot! But yeah, 50 is a milestone for sure. Hang in there!
posted by Bella Donna at 12:18 PM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]


I want to thank you JHarris for your efforts this year and all the many previous. I was SO excited to show up and participate this year, and then an unthinkable assault occurred to me and my partner the afternoon of the 24th. We're just now getting things back together, but of all the holiday things I missed this was the one I truly regret having to bail on.

This is not my way of saying please please do it again next year (because clearly I've had multiple chances previously and have not availed myself of them, that's totally on me), but is my way of saluting your awesome hard work over the years and my hope to join next year if there is a next year, barring unforeseen assault. All love!!
posted by riverlife at 7:39 PM on December 26, 2022 [2 favorites]


Oh no! I hope the both of you are okay!

We always do a New Years Eve show too, if anyone wants to turn up for that. It has real-world party competition issues, of course, but if any of you are staying at home we'd be happy to have you.

To Bella Donna, I have issues telling people about it. Truthfully I tend to feel bad even bringing it up in Talk, and it's usually valkane that requests that it go up on the sidebar. Mentioning it on IRL might be an option, but I think even fewer people watch that than Talk?
posted by JHarris at 8:06 PM on December 26, 2022 [3 favorites]


Thank you for all your work in putting this together, JHarris. I am a somewhat regular with more solo time than in years past, so I had it running most of the weekend.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 12:23 PM on December 27, 2022 [2 favorites]


The NYE shows are rolling.
posted by Pronoiac at 6:25 PM on December 31, 2022 [2 favorites]


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