Election Destress Video Marathon November 7, 2016 1:21 PM   Subscribe

Over in MST Club, oneswellfoop had the idea to show MST3K (especially Pod People, the one with Trumpy, a much less dangerous version of the one that currently afflicts our nation) in an election day marathon over on the MST3K Club video page, running all day November 8. Sounds good to me! Details below.

It's the same "rules" as the Christmas shows, that is, we're here to decrease stress. Engage with us in chat and mock movies along with us, or have it running in the background all day long, or drop on for a few minutes here or there, or don't come by at all, or any combination of the preceding, or anything else. No guilt, no fuss, and that's for all of us, viewers and show maintainers alike. (Our viewing site is a lot more robust this year, over our old one, so technically I don't think we even need a channel op in during the whole thing.)

We usually only do this for Christmas but this year I think we can handle a special showing.

These are the prospective episodes being considered, list open to addition:
MST3K: Pod People (Trumpy!), Rocket Attack USA and Invasion USA (good ol' cold war paranoia) and Parts: The Clonus Horror. (A US Senator secretly running a clone farm as an organ bank! Ripped [not] from today's headlines!)

Other videos and stuff, like the Monty Python election special sketch and episodes of awful 60s cartoon Super President, will be interspersed among the others. And we're always up for throwing stuff in based on suggestions from the audience!

Finally, please do not let our little show distract you from taking some time out from your day to vote! I voted several days ago so I can stick around. Be sure to vote some time tomorrow, so that you can say you did your best to ensure we only have to suffer through one day's worth of Trumpy instead of four years.
posted by JHarris to MetaFilter-Related at 1:21 PM (19 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite

There's no way I can legally project this onto the wall at the polling place where I'm election judging tomorrow but a boy can dream.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:07 PM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


Isn't ep 305 - Stranded In Space about a second earth under a fascist dictatorship?
posted by Chrysostom at 2:12 PM on November 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


Sounds cool, will probably drop in at some point and drop out at some later one. Traditional UK election broadcasting/viewing is the first Blackadder The Third episode "Dish and Dishonesty" which revolves around an attempt to get a *ahem* favourable candidate into the House of Commons. Just a suggestion!
posted by comealongpole at 2:52 PM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


It helps an awful lot if the video is on YouTube, or some other cytube-compatible video service. It's not a deal-breaker if it's not, but it's very agreeable if it is.
posted by JHarris at 3:08 PM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


look, it's 2016, so please amend the post to "Over in MST Club, oneswellfoop who is still alive and well had the idea to show MST3K (...)"

OK? Thanks.
posted by boo_radley at 3:44 PM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


oneswellfoop who is still alive and well
Let me be the judge of that.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:39 PM on November 7, 2016 [5 favorites]


While this won't officially begin until tomorrow morning, a provisional playlist is up now.
posted by JHarris at 4:42 PM on November 7, 2016


Yay!
posted by soakimbo at 5:03 PM on November 7, 2016


For the record: alive, not terribly well but I won't have the whole story until after two doctors' appointments in the next two weeks. But well enough to be present to help give the MST3K Clubhouse a quorum.

There is one short MST3K Political Debate sketch on YouTube that should be inserted between shows.

Of course, "Rocket Attack USA" and "Invasion USA" are ColdWar-themed MST3K episodes, and I've said before that "Mitchell" is the perfect episode for a 'change of administrations'. And considering how many weird nicknames have come out during this campaign (We Put Our Faith in Egg McMuffin), I'd recommend the 8th season episode "Space Mutiny" with the Dave Ryder nicknames.
Of course, there was the recently collected "13 MST3K Episodes to Watch on Halloween" (which does include Pod People and Trumpy) with other stuff that can be inserted if the election results get suspenseful/scary.

There's also a lot of good RiffTrax content that have various loose connections to current politics, from "Duck and Cover" (nuclear scare) to "Sharknado" (the non-reality based community) to "The Walking Dead" (which I blame partly for the currently popular 'fear of The Other') as well as all the Mary Jo and Bridget riffs to salute women in general (they have one titled "Duties of a Secretary" [not of State]).

Of course, there have been many classic comedies about politics that don't need additional riffing, from the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup" to Woody Allen's "Bananas" (and Allen's weirdly-dubbed "What's Up Tiger Lily" is considered the great 'pre-riffed' movie)... but my all time favorite is "The President's Analyst", with a Freudian protagonist, a sympathetic Russian spy, FBI bad guys, gun nuts and dangerous high tech from the cablephone company - so much that still applies, 49 years after it was made.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:30 PM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


And some clips you can toss in from this thread especially my cartoon characters for President.
oh, I see JHarris has already favorited both the post and my comment
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:39 PM on November 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Thank you, this is perfect for making dinner and trying not to worry about tomorrow!
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:48 PM on November 7, 2016


You guys watch Joe Don Baker movies?
posted by valkane at 4:55 AM on November 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


The list is going now! There's a lot in there, including a total of six MST episodes, with lots of other stuff surrounding it.
posted by JHarris at 7:51 AM on November 8, 2016


bb8. Hillary Voter.
posted by valkane at 7:57 AM on November 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


Thanks everyone who made it out, which ended up being 11 people at highest occupancy, and I estimate probably about 13 overall. I was freaking out a little in chat alas, and honestly I don't feel very well today and dearly want to find work outside the United States at the moment, but in the end the marathon helped me, I think. I hope it helped you guys too.
posted by JHarris at 8:03 AM on November 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


Thanks for everything, JHarris.
posted by valkane at 4:04 PM on November 9, 2016


I want to thank MeFi's JHarris aka rodneylives on cytube* for an excellent chaser for the cocktails of tears the election reports brought us (although on reconsideration I should have suggested against the Cold War downer movies that were in the mix). And before you get too serious about "finding work outside the United States", ma I suggest California? Except for the Big mistake of Governor Reagan (at least it gave him some working experience so he didn't screw up America even more), we've been a somewhat different place. And, if you've seen it on the post-election thread, there's now a 'Calexit' secession movement. Anyway, see you tomorrow (Thursday) for the regularly scheduled MST3K Club.

*not passing judgement; I have multiple online identities, originally wendell on MeFi; oneswellfoop for the name of my original blog; when I wanted to de-emphasize wendell in favor of my real name: someothercraig (not the one with the list or the late late show or the license to kill); plus a couple $5 sockpuppets that MeFi management knows I have...
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:14 PM on November 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Stumbled into this late. But thank you. It only took like 10 minutes of watching and I already feel better. Yeah!
posted by jeribus at 1:30 PM on November 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


(Sorry to awaken this thread for this, but I didn't want to make another Talk post so soon for it, especially since I'll end up making one for the Christmas Marathon in only a month from now....)

Notice to everyone:

MST3K Club is not showing 607 BLOODLUST, the expected episode this week. Instead, we are going to try to embed the official MST3K YouTube stream into the cytube room! Testing with other livestreams indicates it should be at least possible, but YouTube allows each stream to be marked as embed-able individually, so until the official stream goes up, I won't know if we can watch it with just our gang, in our own cozy chatroom of MeFites, or if we'll have to compete with the thousands of other viewers in the YouTube chatroom and its horrendous scroll rate.

In the meantime, MST Club is showing a playlist of Turkey Day bumpers from throughout the years! It's all at https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub.
posted by JHarris at 6:06 PM on November 23, 2016


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