Mystery Science Theater 3000

I recently got into the early 90s programme, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST 3K). It's a sci-fi comedy show revolving around Joel Robinson and, later Mike Nelson, who is held captive in space on the Satellite of Love by Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank, so that they can experiment on him and eventually drive him insane by forcing him to watch bad movies. Joel/Mike "riffs" on the movie, with the help of his robot friends, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo. There's also Gypsy, who controls the satellite's piloting system, and CamBot, who records the crew "riffing" on the movie and communicating with Dr Forrester and TV's Frank.

It's rather metafictional, with many references to the show itself and how bad the show is. The movies are always spectacularly awful, only made better by the crew making fun of them. The show doesn't take itself seriously with the theme song saying "if you're wondering how he eats and breaths, and other science facts, repeat to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax..."

I can't really explain why I love it so much. Perhaps it's the fact that the characters are so funny, and the fact that I love really bad movies. I also like the fact that the show had a really low budget for seasons 1-5, and even though they had an increasing budget, they kept the bric-a-brac motif of the sets, reminding themselves that they used to be a "cow- town puppet show". Fans of the show call themselves MSTies, and I now consider myself one.