In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000: Essays on Film, Fandom, Technology and the Culture of Riffing

Acknowledgments Foreword: Riffing and you (and riffing ) / by Kevin Murphy Foreword / by Robert Moses Peaslee Introduction / by Robert G. Weiner and Shelley E. Barba PART ONE. DIRECTORS There's been an accident at the studio: How we made hobgoblins! / Rick Sloane "Remember: Only you can prevent Roger Corman": The king of the Bs under siege / Cynthia J. Miller PART TWO. SPECIFIC FILMS Communists and cosmonauts in Mystery science theater 3000: De-Camping East Germany's First spaceship on Venus/Silent star / Sebastian Heiduschke The semiotics of spaceflight on the satellite of love / Matthew H. Hersch Resurrecting the dead: Revival of forgotten films through appropriation / Cheryl Hicks PART THREE. FANDOM Becoming "The right people": fan-generated knowledge building / Kris M. Markman and John Overholt Converging fan cultures and the labors of fandom / Megan Condis "Consume excrement and thus expire": conflict resolution, "fantagonism," and alt.tv.mst3k / Jeremy Groskopf Cinemasochism: bad movies and the people who love them / David Ray Carter PART FOUR. MEDIA TEXTS, AUDIENCES, AND THE CULTURE OF RIFFING Double poaching and the subversive operations of riffing: "You kids with your hoola hoops and your Rosenbergs and your Communist agendas" / Ora Mcwilliams and Joshua Richardson Frame work, resistance and co-optation: how Mystery Science Theater 3000 positions us both in and against hegemonic culture / Michael Dean "Not too different from you or me": the paradox of fiction, joint attention, and longevity / Michael David Elam Mystery Science Theater 3000: a media-centered exploration / Zachary Grimm Authorship and text remediation in Mystery Science Theater 3000 / Kaleb Havens PART FIVE. MENTAL HYGIENE: THE MST3K SHORTS "People were Whiter back then": film placement and in-theater commentary as sociopolitical dialogue / Erin Giannini Endearing educational shorts / Amanda R. Keeler Writing history with riffs: the historiography of the "shorts" / Miranda Tedholm PART SIX. SATIRE AND GENDER Robot roll call: Gypsy! (Hi girls!) / Michele Brittany What's the difference? Satire and separation in that "Little Puppet Show" / Alana Hatley PART SEVEN. TECHNOLOGY AND EPISODE COLLECTING Design and speculative technology of MST3K: Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu at MIT / Jason Begy and Generoso Fierro "Cambot eye": the synthesis of man, machine and spectatorship / Danielle Reay MSTies and mastery: circulating the tapes in a digital age / Joseph S. Walker PART EIGHT. HISTORY AND PRE-HISTORY "Hamlet will return in Thunderball": historical precedents of riffing / Mark Mcdermott From techno-isolation to social reconciliation / E. Mitchell Fishing with cheese on a Blood Hook: MST3K's unlikely origins on a lake in the woods of Wisconsin / Robert G. Weiner Afterword / Mary Jo Pehl.