"Welcome to the MST3K Little Gold Statue Preview Special! The show where we tell you what to think and you accept it at face value, with no backtalk!"
What's this? An Mystery Science Theater episode that's only a half hour long? What madness is this?
Why it's an award show special, of course! The MST3K Little Gold Statue Preview Special was a late sixth season surprise, airing in between Angels' Revenge and The Amazing Transparent Man. Mystery Science Theater 3000 was getting close to being out the door on Comedy Central, so there wouldn't be another one like it on the channel (the closest thing we had at that point was a making of documentary called This is MST3K). It did however inspire a few half-hour goodies on the Sci-Fi Channel, including a similar Acadamy of Robot's Choice Awards Special and a pair of Blockbuster Reviews. I liked the back and forth between artfilms and empty Hollywood schlock these two half-hour special concepts provided, but I don't think they quite refined them enough to a point where they had a satisfactory formula with them.
This first special, is hosted by Crow and Tom Servo. And why should we care what they have to say? Well, in their own words...
"Folks, you haven't seen the any of the thousands of films nominated for Oscars this year, and yet, you need to have opinions..."
"So use ours!"
This is a parody of critic specials that would provide an overview a year's nominees for the Academy Awards and then give their opinions and select their own picks. Crow and Servo then go through the categories and list at least one nominee, very rarely looking at more than one, and selecting it as their definitive choice for the year, usually with some backhanded comment. They often rush through the clips a little too fast, and the jokes barely present themselves, but there are a few chuckles.
The categories looked at are
This is a parody of critic specials that would provide an overview a year's nominees for the Academy Awards and then give their opinions and select their own picks. Crow and Servo then go through the categories and list at least one nominee, very rarely looking at more than one, and selecting it as their definitive choice for the year, usually with some backhanded comment. They often rush through the clips a little too fast, and the jokes barely present themselves, but there are a few chuckles.
The categories looked at are
Best Make-Up
The only nominee they look at is the Kenneth Branagh's Gothic horror tale Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The basic joke of this one is that the film was obviously nominated for the make-up on Robert DeNiro's monster character, though the clip they show is a mundane clip of Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter.
The eventual winner of this category was Ed Wood (why oh why wouldn't MST have selected this movie? IT'S ED WOOD, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!).
Best Actress
There are several nominees interspersed throughout the special. They take a look at Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv), Winona Ryder (Little Women), and Jessica Lange (Blue Sky). Crow has a great line about Tom & Viv being the love story of Tom Bosley and Vivian Vance, but Lange gets the spiciest clip of the line-up.
Lange was the eventual winner in this category.
Best Director
They humorously judge this category by which director is the dreamiest, dismissing Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) and Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) for not being attractive enough. They eventually come to the conclusion that Robert Redford should win for Quiz Show, because he's so dreamy.
Zemeckis was the eventual winner.
Best Costumes
They preview two very distinct costume choices, the French period drama Queen Margot and the transgender comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The contrast between the two clips is pretty much the joke here, though they seem taken with both of them.
Priscilla won this category.
Best Song
They take a look at two nominees, the first being "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King, which is just a springboard for Elton John jokes. The second is a discussion of the song "Look What Love Has Done to Me" from Junior, though when they cut to a clip from it all they get is a clip of Emma Thompson describing a womanly body functions to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"Can You Feel the Love Tonight" was the song that took home the trophy.
Best Screenplay
First they take a look at a clip from the film Red, which is certainly not the Bruce Willis action film, but rather the Polish film that concluded the Three Colours trilogy. Servo has a great comment on this one: "You see, this is one of those important films, which means it's boring, you see it in a theater full of people with B.O., and you pretend that you get it." They then show a clip from the pre-overhyped nerd god Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures, which makes them both weep.
Pulp Fiction eventually won the award.
Best Actor
They only have a brief clip of John Travolta being interviewed for Pulp Fiction here. It's mostly just a springboard to talk about Pulp Fiction as a Best Picture nominee.
The eventual winner in this category was Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump.
Best Picture
They talk about the nominees interspersed throughout the special, commenting upon a sex partner conversation in Four Weddings and a Funeral, fawning over Robert Redford directing Quiz Show again, say surprisingly little about Forrest Gump, and comment on Uma Thurman's potty mouth in Pulp Fiction. They also accidentally drop in Hoop Dreams in this category, even though it was only nominated for editing. They neglect to mention The Shawshank Redemption at all, which leads up to a pretty funny stinger for this special, as after the end credits they rush back on camera to mention the film.
Forrest Gump was the eventual winner.
The special has a few bonus bits, one with a phone call with "corespondent" Gypsy, who doesn't know why they're calling. Also they tease an appearance by Ed Asner, who is just Mike with a shirt sticker that says "Ed Asner." They're moderately amusing.
And that's really how I can describe the whole special, "moderately amusing." There's an idea here, but you can tell they don't really know what to do with it yet, and in the end we get this little special that tries to do too much with what little time it has. It completely misses the fact that MST's chief appeal is movie riffing and shows clips with only after the fact comment and it has very little bite to it. Meanwhile, the clips it does show move through the special way too fast and the comments amount to little because they need to rush to the next clip. If they had more room to breathe and do more creative sketches, this might have worked better, but instead it's just a quick oddity that barely exists.
The only nominee they look at is the Kenneth Branagh's Gothic horror tale Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The basic joke of this one is that the film was obviously nominated for the make-up on Robert DeNiro's monster character, though the clip they show is a mundane clip of Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter.
The eventual winner of this category was Ed Wood (why oh why wouldn't MST have selected this movie? IT'S ED WOOD, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!).
Best Actress
There are several nominees interspersed throughout the special. They take a look at Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv), Winona Ryder (Little Women), and Jessica Lange (Blue Sky). Crow has a great line about Tom & Viv being the love story of Tom Bosley and Vivian Vance, but Lange gets the spiciest clip of the line-up.
Lange was the eventual winner in this category.
Best Director
They humorously judge this category by which director is the dreamiest, dismissing Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) and Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) for not being attractive enough. They eventually come to the conclusion that Robert Redford should win for Quiz Show, because he's so dreamy.
Zemeckis was the eventual winner.
Best Costumes
They preview two very distinct costume choices, the French period drama Queen Margot and the transgender comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The contrast between the two clips is pretty much the joke here, though they seem taken with both of them.
Priscilla won this category.
Best Song
They take a look at two nominees, the first being "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King, which is just a springboard for Elton John jokes. The second is a discussion of the song "Look What Love Has Done to Me" from Junior, though when they cut to a clip from it all they get is a clip of Emma Thompson describing a womanly body functions to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"Can You Feel the Love Tonight" was the song that took home the trophy.
Best Screenplay
First they take a look at a clip from the film Red, which is certainly not the Bruce Willis action film, but rather the Polish film that concluded the Three Colours trilogy. Servo has a great comment on this one: "You see, this is one of those important films, which means it's boring, you see it in a theater full of people with B.O., and you pretend that you get it." They then show a clip from the pre-overhyped nerd god Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures, which makes them both weep.
Pulp Fiction eventually won the award.
Best Actor
They only have a brief clip of John Travolta being interviewed for Pulp Fiction here. It's mostly just a springboard to talk about Pulp Fiction as a Best Picture nominee.
The eventual winner in this category was Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump.
Best Picture
They talk about the nominees interspersed throughout the special, commenting upon a sex partner conversation in Four Weddings and a Funeral, fawning over Robert Redford directing Quiz Show again, say surprisingly little about Forrest Gump, and comment on Uma Thurman's potty mouth in Pulp Fiction. They also accidentally drop in Hoop Dreams in this category, even though it was only nominated for editing. They neglect to mention The Shawshank Redemption at all, which leads up to a pretty funny stinger for this special, as after the end credits they rush back on camera to mention the film.
Forrest Gump was the eventual winner.
The special has a few bonus bits, one with a phone call with "corespondent" Gypsy, who doesn't know why they're calling. Also they tease an appearance by Ed Asner, who is just Mike with a shirt sticker that says "Ed Asner." They're moderately amusing.
And that's really how I can describe the whole special, "moderately amusing." There's an idea here, but you can tell they don't really know what to do with it yet, and in the end we get this little special that tries to do too much with what little time it has. It completely misses the fact that MST's chief appeal is movie riffing and shows clips with only after the fact comment and it has very little bite to it. Meanwhile, the clips it does show move through the special way too fast and the comments amount to little because they need to rush to the next clip. If they had more room to breathe and do more creative sketches, this might have worked better, but instead it's just a quick oddity that barely exists.
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