MST3K-OZ #7 3 April 1998 Welcome to the seventh issue of the Antipodean MSTie Newsletter! As always, anyone who wants to stop getting this drivel, let me know. If you know someone else who might want to see this, please get them to e-mail me to add them to the list. I won't add anyone who doesn't request it directly. Feel free to print this, show it to your friends, blow your nose on it - whatever works for you. Remember, I think this will work best (if it's going to work at all) if this is a co-operative effort. If you've got something you want to share with us all, even if it's only a paragraph long, send it to me and I'll include it! I'm not fussy! As long as it's got something vaguely to do with MST3K and is somehow relevant to us, I'm happy to see it! As an editor I plan to have a pretty relaxed style . -------------------------------------- MORE FAN CLUB NOTES Just as more food for thought, continuing the discussion from last issue ... Barbbb from Best Brains has informed me that BBI don't endorse fan clubs in any way. In other words, whatever we did (and let's remember that this is purely still in the speculation stage) we would be "on our own" so far as BBI is concerned. Which is fair enough. Further, I think that *if* we did a fan club, it would *have* to have a paper newsletter. The responses I've received so far mostly indicate that people either prefer the current electronic version or don't really care either way. So I'm tending to the feeling that it's not worth pursuing the idea of a paper newsletter unless/until we're ready to set up a formalised fan club ... which so far as I'm concerned is still a ways off yet. (The good news is that a couple of folks have volunteered support if a fan club *is* set up, so if/when we go that route at least it won't be a solo effort .) It would be remiss of me to fail to point out that of course you can always join the "official" MST3K Info Club, which will get you your very own MSTie Number that you can show off proudly to all your acquaintances. Just send an e-mail to Barbbb at Barbbb@aol.com. Easy! -------------------------------------- WE'RE ON THE WEB! Quintas has been working hard and has actually set up a Web site for us! Cor blimey. Visit http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/pimlico/131/oz.html and tell her what you think! This is a site in development, so mind the girders and don't step in the paint! Suggestions for improvements always welcome! Neither Quintas nor I were able to come up with a snappy, relevant and wildly humorous title for this web site, so if you have any great suggestions, please forward them to her (syntax@picknowl.com.au). ------------------------------------- NEW ARRIVALS Nothing new for me yet (I'm waiting for my Rhino copies of "Manos" and "Gunslinger" to arrive ...) but Paul Dossett tells me that he has received a tape with a copy of episode 901, "The Projected Man" ... which just might make him the first person in Australia to see this episode! Bask in your moment of glory, Paul, before you return to the dismal grime that is your normal life! (And bring the tape to the next Melbourne Gathering!) ------------------------------------- MARCH MELBOURNE GATHERING REPORT Well, the numbers were down again. Dean and Alison were the only ones able to make it this time around. Oh well, we had fun, as would you have, if you had been there! We watched "Agent From H.A.R.M." (a cheesy TV movie with a lead actor so sleazy you just want to hit him and keep hitting him until your fists are reduced to bloody pulp ... sorry, but oh, how I hated that man), old classic "Godzilla vs. Megalon" (also starring robot Jet Jaguar, and a little Japanese boy with pants so short they must have been doing permanent damage), and "Time Of The Apes" (a Japanese rip-off of "Planet of the Apes", except that no explanations for anything that happens in the movie are ever given, so even if you cry out in anguish "a planet where apes evolved from men?!", the response can only be "well, maybe"). Tentative next gathering date: 18 April. Mark your calendars! ------------------------------------- REVIEW THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION - Review by Alison Campbell (a.campbell@pmci.unimelb.edu.au) This would have to be one of my favourite MSTed movies. It's got everything - redneck yobbos, crowd panic scenes, faded 'stars' in minor roles, scientists doing "Science", confusing religous drivel and, of course, Giant Spiders. (In fact, about the only thing this movie is missing is the fantastic bubble machine.) For anyone who suffers from arachnophobia, I'd definitely suggest this movie - it should cure you for once and for all. Basic outline - a big rock and lots of smaller rocks fall in the countryside near a hick town. Spiders crawl out of smaller rocks and proceed to do very little apart from being squashed. Eventually (and it does take quite a while) the star of the movie appears and everyone runs screaming in terror. People die in various amusing ways (yes, I am being sadistic here!) and finally someone stops panicking and comes up with the Baygon Solution. Religion - in the form of some rabble-rousing preacher - is dispensed at the beginning and end of the movie for no apparent reason. (The spiders are from *hell*? Huh?? What is this guy trying to say???) The MSTing is really good - my favourite lines coming mostly during the crowd panic scenes - and the movie moves fast enough that even during the slow bits you're still with it. "Well you can't blame the spiders for *that*!" [Bruce adds: Other highlights of this movie are Alan Hale ("Skipper" from Gilligan's Island) calling everyone "Little Buddy" and the priceless "scientific" explanation for where the spiders are coming from ("well, a black hole has landed in this paddock and is sucking them in from another dimension and spitting them out here" - oh, of course, that makes ... HUH? And on the SOL, Mike and the Bots are being replaced by Pod People! Pearl and Observer have already been replaced! Fortunately Tom's underpants collection (as first seen in The Movie) proves surprisingly useful, and Professor Bobo saves the day!] "Let's face it, Mike, I *do* have a red butt." ------------------------------------- That's it for this time around. Please let me know about anything you liked (or didn't like)! Keep those cards and letters coming! Time to push the button .... Bruce MSTie #72759 Any of these e-mail addresses will get to me, all are checked regularly: bprobst@vitgbsd3.telstra.com.au <-- work bprobst@ibm.net <-- home generic internet 100372.1643@compuserve.com <-- CompuServe (duh)