Snarks in space

I MISS TOM SERVO AND CROW, THE WISE-ASS ROBOTS of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The robots, alongside their caretaker Joel Hodgson or Mike Nelson, would savage bad cinema by shouting insults at the screen or, even better, providing their own hilarious dialogue.

Well, the bots are back ... sort of. Mike Nelson has recruited the men behind the voices of Crow. T. Robot (Bill Corbett, who replaced the great Trace Beaulieu) and Tom Servo (Kevin Murphy) to join him for The Film Crew, an imprint that offers straight-to-DVD slaughterings of cinematic cannon fodder. We now see the real guys behind the robot voices, and the setting has changed. They don't sit in a theater anymore, so the silhouettes against the screen are gone, and that's a little sad. The Film Crew's job is to provide commentaries for movies so bad their producers refused to include one on the DVD release. Rest assured, MST3K fans, once the trio gets rolling with the barbs, it seems like old times.

Shout Factory has issued two DVDs to inaugurate this enterprise. The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark features a deplorable 1968 film starring a young Rue McClanahan (formerly of Golden Girls) dancing and stripping into your nightmares. The Film Crew derides the flick with the same mixture of obvious and obscure insults that was patented on MST3K. As one of the men slyly observes, a young McClanahan strongly resembled The Who's Roger Daltrey. And, yes, there are Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur jokes for you Golden Girls fiends.

The sight of McClanahan half-naked elicits many comments about her "junk" and the notion they would rather see Golda Meir in a bikini. The best lines come when an African American woman starts a rather violent erotic dance routine. "It's one of those aggressive, Africanized strippers!" they suggest. "So this is how Condi Rice got through college."

The Film Crew: Killers From Space is blessed with Peter Graves as its lead actor, so that means lots of Biography and Mission Impossible jokes. The plot involves, well, killers from space, bug-eyed aliens in tights who have some sort of mind control over fighter pilot Graves (code names for his fellow pilots all start with Tar Baby. I'm not kidding ... Tar Baby). Strangest improvised dialogue from the Crew: When Graves goes to open a tobacco tin, Nelson utters "Now, for the smooth. satisfying flavor of purple skunkweed."

There is some behind-the-scenes action. The backstage banter includes an intro, a middle of the film "lunch break" and a wrap-up. The skits aren't as good as the Satellite of Love material from MST3K, but they manage some decent laughs.

While the films they're desecrating were made decades ago, the Film Crew finds ways to mix in modern references, with everybody from Gary Busey to Darren Aronofsky getting a mention. Some of the humor will be lost on those of us younger than 35. When a dorky white-haired guy shows up, they crack "This guy's auditioning for the role of Marlin Perkins." Perkins was the host of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, which aired more than 20 years ago.

If the cancellation of MST3K in 1999 left a sarcastic void in your life, grab hold of these DVDs and partake. Hopefully, Shout Factory will keep the material coming and the boys will get around to ripping this year's Kickin It Old Skool somewhere down the line. Jamie Kennedy's breakdancing opus screams for the Mike Nelson treatment.