Attack of the Rockoids: MST3K - tm

First, an explanation of the backstory for those of you who have no clue about Mystery Science Theater 3000.

It began with movies. Bad movies. Horrid movies. The sorts of movies that make you wish that you had gerbils knawing away at your insides just so you would have something to distract you from what was on screen. Anything by Ed Wood in other words. These movies had no redeeming value, no benefit to the unwashed masses, and they were everywhere.

This fact was noticed by one Doctor Forester, self declared mad scientist with dreams of total world domination. He had everything he needed, secret underground lair, bumbling side-kick, sob story childhood, freaky looking hair, and maniacal laugh. He was, however, lacking a plan.

Enter the movies. Somewhere out there, he thought, there must be a movie so awful, so horrid, so mind-wrenchingly tedious that the mere viewing of it would make men's minds turn into quivering bowls of undercooked oatmeal. If he could find this movie, and show it to all the peoples of the world, he could take over and set himself as ruler supreme.

Not a bad plan all told. A lot better then the one his friend had come up with the week before, the one involving giant tomatoes. The trick, however, was finding this movie. He couldn't search through all the piles of filth or else his psyche would be infected beyond repair, the same went for his side-kick.

Enter Joel, janitor, inventor, all around nice guy and model citizen who just happened to have a job keeping Dr. F's generators all spic and span. A small scuffle and some cheap special effects latter, Joel had been transported aboard a spaceship high in earth's orbit. A sanitized, inescapable location in which Dr. F could subject the hapless man with the worse of the world's cinema disasters.

Things, however, did not go according to plan. First, the specially preserved isolation was destroyed when Joel, using spare parts from around the ship, created four robots to keep him company (Note that Gypsy and Cambot will not be making an apperances. You can ignore them). Then, when subjected to the awful might of Santaclaws Vs The Martians, Joel and his creations discovered a secret weapon to deploy against the celluloid catastrophes.

Riffing.

That stuff you do to the movie at 3 in the morning when you and your friends are drunk off your asses and can think of nothing better. That's what they did. They made a TV show about this and it lasted nine seasons.

Scary.

There were changes, of course. Joel eventually found a way to escape the Satellite of Love, replaced by temp worker Michael J. Nelson, Dr. F's assistant left to start his own evil empire, and so on. By the time the series ended, Mike and the bots were some 400 years in the future, being sent movies by Dr. F's mother, Professor Bobo, a highly evolved chip from future earth; and Observer, a member of a omnipotent species who carried his brain around in a pan.

What can I say; it got really weird after the Sci-Fi Channel took over.

In any case, as with any long lasting show, there is a huge fan base for this, most of them the sorts who would spend lots of time on the Internet. This meant that, when the first trickles of fan-fiction and net-writings started to appear, the few sparkling gems obscured by floods of god-awful crap, they were there at the forefront, fearlessly facing the onslaught. Because they had the secret weapon to survive the growing tide of bad writings, the MSTY.

And so was born a new age, when the residents of the Satellite of Love were joined by many others, riffing, mstying, blasting, flaming, and lambasting the worse of what the net had to offer. From poorly written Star Trek slash to paranoid ramblings of black helicopters. From B*ll P*lmer and all the other net-kooks to more Suisy Mays then should legally be allowed to exist.

Into this maelstrom of, well, crap, has entered a new contender. A piece of writing that, while not the worse of the net, has made itself infamous in it's short existence for a variety of reasons. The chance was too perfect to pass up.

The Cast:

Michael J. Nelson: Human. Mid-30s. Temp worker from Wisconsin, current test subject of Pearl Forester. Happy-go-lucky fellow who does not deserve his current situation.

Crow T. Robot: Robot. No one knows what the T. stands for. Ignore it. Physically, Crow is a golden, slightly humanoid construction with a large beak and a curved net/satellite dish at the back of his head. Hard to describe, but a Roman labeled him as the "Golden Spider Duck". It's as good a description as you're going to get. Acts like your typical teenager, despite being only nine years old. Catch phrase: Bite me.

Tom Servo: Robot. He's a gumball machine with a small beak and slinkies for arms. No legs, he just hovers. Slightly more neurotic and nitpicky about things then the rest of the crew. The more balanced of the two bots, which isn't saying that much.

First, a few words from the author. I am a moderately long-term MST3K fan, and have often spent many an hour enjoying myself with either the show, the movie, or the flood of on-line material created by the fans. I have often toyed with the idea of writing one myself one of these days, but have never felt the need to bury myself in the vast slush-piles of the Internet to search for good material.

A few days ago, however, Sal happened to mention a current spat going on in a newsgroup that I'd never been at before. Something to do with a horrid book. After hearing what the title was (and confirming that it was not a parody as I had first thought) I realized my chance had come.

I would like to clear up a few things right off. First, to Gene and his son. I believe that Rockoids shows promise, in that the author(s) involved appear to have a very good chance to become talented professionals, assuming that they make a focused effort to improve themselves. What exists now, is... well, MSTY fodder. This is not an attack against either of you, and I have made double sure that no personal attacks appear in any of the riffs. If any do appear, I apologize. I do, however, attack the writing, plot, and the characters. Especially the characters.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 and all related characters are owned by Best Brains, no attempt to get some money out of their use is being attempted.

Attack of the Rockoids is owned by Gene, and he's welcome to it. This is a parody and the original text has remained unaltered and can be found at www.rockoids.com.

My last note, I promise. Usually there are breaks and host segments in these works, however I've yet to think up any that would work. I apologize for the fact that there's no respite from the terror that is Rockoids, I am doing my best to remedy this.

And now, onward!