Tweet
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: XXII IN STORES DECEMBER 6 FROM SHOUT! FACTORY.
FEATURING TIME OF THE APES, MIGHTY JACK, THE VIOLENT YEARS, AND THE BRUTE MAN.
Our long cultural nightmare is over. On December 6, Shout! Factory, in association with Best Brains, Inc., will release Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXII, a 4-DVD set that includes Time Of The Apes, Mighty Jack, The Violent Years, The Brute Man and a cornucopia of extras worthy of the holiday season. All four episodes are previously unreleased on DVD, and Time Of The Apes and Mighty Jack are two of the most beloved and most requested episodes of the comedy phenomenon!
Disc 1 of Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXII features Time Of The Apes, which enjoys a mythical cult status among MSTies. Adapted (i.e., shredded and stitched into incoherence) from the 1974 Japanese series Saru No Gundan, Time Of The Apes follows the travails of a scientist and two small children who are accidentally frozen and thaw into a future ruled by apes. The plot may sound familiar, but the riffs are absolutely unique.
Over on Disc 2 we have the long-awaited Mighty Jack, one of the funniest episodes of one of the funniest TV series ever made. The Japanese apparently had a license to kill television when they handed this prized Tsuburaya production to Sandy Frank. Long before “junk bond†joined the English lexicon, the 007-ish exploits of Mighty Jack — a government organization created to defeat the notorious crime syndicate known as “Q†— took everything that was bad about cool and thrilling espionage movies and threw the rest out. Fortunately for us, Joel and the 'bots had a license to riff. And fortunately for you, Shout! Factory has a license to release it on DVD.
Next up, The Violent Years is a tale from 1956 of girls gone wild. Mike and the 'bots take on this low-budget black-and-white potboiler about a neglected rich girl and her hardened gang of babes who, thanks to inside information from her unwitting father, always manage to stay one step ahead of the police. In this delirious episode, we find the Mads “softening to reach a wider audience,†which includes performing their new theme song, “Living In Deep 13.†The DVD also includes the 1952 short film A Young Man's Fancy, wherein a visiting young man prefers the household electrical appliances to the teenage daughter.
Last but not least, Mystery Science Theater 3000 presents The Brute Man. Rondo Hatton plays a disfigured man, a/k/a “The Creeper,†who hunts down and kills the people responsible for his deformity. During his downtime, he falls for a blind woman and engages in some light felony by stealing to pay for an operation to restore her sight. She may regret that. The DVD includes the 1948 short film The Chicken Of Tomorrow. Remember the stylish sequence in Casino that takes us through the mechanics of the operation? It's like that, except with chicken farming and without the style.
The Mystery Science Theater 3000 series was created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Jim Mallon. After a year on KTMA TV in Minneapolis, its national broadcast life began in 1989 on the Comedy Channel (later to become Comedy Central), where it ran for seven seasons. The show's final three seasons aired on the Sci-Fi Channel. The premise of the series features a hapless man who is trapped by mad scientists on a satellite in space and forced to watch old B-movies of questionable worth. To keep sane, he's built two robot sidekicks, and together they do a running commentary on the films, affectionately mocking their flaws with inspired wisecracks and acting as a demented movie theater peanut gallery. Series creator Hodgson originally played the stranded man, Joel Robinson. When he left in 1993, series head writer Mike Nelson replaced him as the new B-movie victim Mike Nelson, and continued in the role for the rest of the show's run. The format proved to be popular and remarkably durable. During its 11-year run and 198 episodes (including one feature film), MST3K attained a loyal fan base and critical acclaim. The series won a Peabody Award in 1993, and was nominated for writing Emmys® in 1994 and 1995.
Shout! Factory is a diversified entertainment company devoted to producing, uncovering and revitalizing the very best of pop culture. Founders Richard Foos, Bob Emmer and Garson Foos have spent their careers sharing their music, television and film faves with discerning consumers the world over. Shout! Factory's DVD offerings serve up classic, contemporary and cult TV series, riveting sports programs, live music, animation and documentaries in lavish packages crammed with extras. The company's audio catalogue boasts GRAMMY®-nominated boxed sets, new releases from storied artists, lovingly assembled album reissues and indispensable “best of†compilations. These riches are the result of a creative acquisitions mandate that has established the company as a hotbed of cultural preservation and commercial reinvention. With its fingers on the pulse of pop culture, Shout! Factory continues to impact the entertainment media landscape through acquisition of top quality programming for home entertainment releases. Shout! Factory is based in Santa Monica, California. For more on Shout! Factory, visit www.shoutfactory.com
Bonus Features Include:
New Introduction By Mary Jo Pehl
Origin Of The Creeper: Birth Of A B-Movie Icon
Introductions By August Ragone, author of Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters
The Making Of MST3K (1997)
Mystery Science Theater Hour Wraps
Ed-ucation: Archival Interviews with Delores Fuller & Kathy Wood
The DVD Menus of MST3K
4 Exclusive Mini-Posters By Artist Steve Vance
