One Of My Guilty Pleasures

I was asked by a friend recently if I remembered the show "Mystery Science Theater 3000". I most certainly do!

I was late to the party when I first heard about this show, but once I started watching, I rarely missed an episode.

In a nutshell: The series features a man and his robot sidekicks who are trapped on a space station by an evil scientist and forced to watch a selection of bad movies, often (but not limited to) science fiction "B-movies". To stay sane, the man and his robots provide a running commentary on each film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking (or "riffing") their way through the movie.

There are no shortage of websites about this show. Just google "mst3k" and see for yourself. 

The worse a movie was, the funnier the show was. Fans of the show agree that the absolute worst movie they ever featured was a turkey called "Manos: The Hands Of Fate".

See for yourself:



Once the show ended, the staff went their separate ways and formed 2 separate websites that continue riffing on more current films.

One is called "RiffTrax" and it features Kevin Murphy, who was the robot Tom Servo on the show. Mike Nelson is also featured. He was the human who was 'imprisoned' with the robots for the last few seasons of the show.

Another website called "Cinematic Titanic" was created by Joel Hodgson, who created the show, and features the same team that first brought the series to life: Trace Beaulieu (Crow, Dr. Forrester), Frank Conniff (TV's Frank), and Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester).

There are samples of the recent riffing all over You Tube, here's a look at what RiffTrax is doing:


These shows are like a certain kind of potato chips: "You can't eat just one".

Carl Reiner

I had the chance recently to talk to TV legend Carl Reiner.

Let me back up a second.

As a DJ on a radio morning show, I get ALL kinds of requests for interviews. Most often the requests are from people who no one would know, or they are pushing a book that's just not interesting.

There are interview bookers, who set up celebrities in a radio studio for a couple hours and then send email out saying that they will be available to talk to you for 10 minutes between 8 and 10 am on a certain date. I will email back and request any time available, to be as accommodating as I can.

Think about that. They sit in a studio for 2 hours, and every 10 minutes they are talking to a different morning show in a different city somewhere in the country.

I've talked to Penelope Ann Miller from "The Artist", Valerie Harper, Barry Manilow, and Mickey Mouse and Goofy (!) using this method. It usually works out. Sometimes I tape the interviews after my show, or if I'm feeling especially daring, I try and go live with it.

There's a small problem with going live sometimes. Let's say that during one of these "radio tours" I have an interview scheduled for 8:30 for someone who has been doing interviews since 7:00. That means they've had 9 interviews before calling me. All the interviews prior to my time need to run exactly on time, or else I won't get my call on time. If each interview before me runs just one minute over, that means I won't get MY call until 8:39! That's a lot of time to fill!

My interview with Carl Reiner came through an entirely different route.

We receive a monthly magazine with interview topics and suggestions. 99% of the time the magazine usually goes right in the trash. Once in a great while we find a diamond in the rough.

Carl Reiner was one of those diamonds, and boy did he shine.

He was promoting his book, "I Remember Me".

I don't know how other DJ's are, but when I get the opportunity to interview someone, especially someone that I'm a HUGE fan of, I get star struck. I'm THIS close to sounding like Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney: "Remember when you were in the Beatles? That was awesome!"

We booked a time, they sent me the book to read, and I started to think up what I wanted to talk about.

The time we settled on was after my show, so I could record it and not worry about time constraints.

I was extremely nervous. Here was this TV legend waiting for ME to call HIM to plug his book.

So the time comes, and he couldn't have been nicer. We talked for THIRTY EIGHT minutes!!! There was no way I could run the entire interview at one time during my show, so I found 3 to 4 minute stories and played them back. Thank God for the internet, because I can share the entire interview online. I will post it in due course, but for now I want to share with you the snippets that I used:

  Carl Reiner Talking About The Dick Van Dyke Show by Tom's Radio Basics

  Carl Reiner Talks About Steve Martin by Tom's Radio Basics

  Carl Reiner Talks About His Dog Rinnie! by Tom's Radio Basics

  Carl Reiner Talks About Mark Harmon And John Denver by Tom's Radio Basics

  Carl Reiner Telling A Story About Jack Benny by Tom's Radio Basics