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Q: I've heard CC cancelled
MST3K! Is that true?
A: Where have you been? MST3K stopped running
on Comedy Central at the end of December, 1996.
Q: Why?
A: Executives at CC cited low ratings as the
reason, but fans who had been following the
behind-the-scenes battles between BBI and CC know that the
two sides had been growing apart for sometime. It seems
likely that this was less about ratings than it was about
those battles.
Q: Now that the series has left
Sci-Fi
Channel, might CC want to
run the old episodes again?
A: Management at CC has
given no indication at all that this is something they might
want to do. It seems extremely unlikely since, even if they
were interested, the channel would have to spend millions to
reacquire the rights to the films featured on the
series.
Q: What was Gizmonic Institute?
A: Within the premise of the series as it was
explained on CC-era episodes, it was the top-secret research
lab where Dr.
F. previously worked as a
scientist and where Joel
Robinson previously worked
as a janitor. The corporate culture of Gizmonic revolved
around inventing. Everyone who worked there, including the
janitors, were inventors. In fact, one of the reasons
Dr. F. chose Joel Robinson to send into space was because
Dr. F. resented the fact that Joel was a better
inventor. During the KTMA
episodes, The Mads spoke to Joel from what was apparently a
lab in Gizmonic. But The Mads moved to Deep 13 in the first
episode shown on network TV, and the inside of Gizmonic was
never shown in the network episodes. (In fact, it was seldom
even mentioned -- except in the theme song -- after the
first few episodes of season one).
Q: Who were "The Mads"?
A: The Mads was a collective term for the
inhabitants of Deep
13. The term is short for
"mad scientists" (although Frank was really neither mad nor
a scientist).
Q: What was Deep 13?
A: It's a cavernous underground lair, located
deep in the sub-basement of Gizmonic Institute (13 levels
below ground level, hence the name), near the Institute's
atomic pile, where Dr.
F. and TV's Frank lived after they fled Gizmonic
Institute.
Q: Why was Dr. F. living in Deep 13?
A: The management of Gizmonic Institute banished him after he shot Joel into
space, so he fled from Gizmonic to Deep 13 in order to
continue his work.
Q: What was Turkey Day?
A: It was the annual marathon of the series
CC ran every Thanksgiving weekend from 1991 through 1995.
The marathon usually included about a dozen episodes
back-to-back, often separated by little connecting comedy
bits called "bumpers."
Q: Why choose Thanksgiving to run a marathon of the series?
A: Thanksgiving and MST3K have been connected ever since the show debuted on KTMA on
Thanksgiving Day, 1988, and first began running on national TV about
that time in 1989. Since the beginning, droll jokes about
the SOL crew watching "turkeys" were often employed.
Q: What happened in the last CC episode?
A: Dr. F. was forced to close Deep 13
for lack of funding. He disconnected the SOL from its tether
and informed the inhabitants of the SOL that they would soon burn up in the Earth's
atmosphere. But the SOL managed to escape the Earth's
atmosphere and was hurled into deep space, eventually
reaching the edge of the
universe. There, everyone inside the SOL was transformed into "pure spirit" and happily
floated away. Meanwhile in Deep 13, Dr. F. (in a take-off of
the ending to the movie "2001") watched himself grow old and, on his
death bed, saw before him not a monolith but a giant
video cassette, the label of which read "The Worst Movie Ever Made." Dr. F. was then transformed into a
star baby.
ABOUT THIS
FAQ | THE
BASICS | LYRICS | COMEDY
CENTRAL | THE
SCI-FI
CHANNEL | CANCELLATION | SYNDICATION | BEHIND THE SCENES | OTHER MEDIA | MST3K -
THE
MOVIE | MSTIE
CYBERSPACE |
CONVENTIONS | MSTIES | JOEL VS. MIKE
DISCUSSIONS
| LEGALITIES | PARTS: THE BOT BUILDING HORROR
| SUBTLETIES | WHERE ARE THEY NOW? | AWARD
NOMINATIONS
| BRIEF EPISODE
GUIDE | GUEST
STARRING
ROLES
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