I'm betting a lot of people who stumble upon my blog wonder why I'm so obsessed with DVD releases. Nobody uses physical media anymore! Just get Netflix like a normal person, ya boomer!
So here's the deal: When it comes to this show I will ride or die by my physical copies. For one, I don't want to be internet reliant on whether or not I can watch the series (I have gone many periods without it in order to make ends meet). Second, while a good amount of the series is available online, there are still a sizable selection of episodes that are only available on DVD. Which means DVD collecting gets you more episodes than hunting down digital. That means I win and you lose!
Except in the case of Quest of the Delta Knights, which is digital exclusive for the time being and I will die mad about it.
Also for most first generation MSTies who became fans while the show was on the air, one aspect of fanhood that was very important to us was an underground episode exchange called "tape trading." It was quite popular at the time to tape episodes off of television and make copies and trade them for either episodes you didn't have or better quality versions of ones that you did. This became especially defining of our fanhood as the series would eventually lose the rights to certain movies and episodes would stop airing, which meant this was the only way they could be seen for fans who had missed out on them.
Of course, those who grew up with all the out of print episodes readily available on YouTube can't imagine not having the entire library at their fingertips at every waking moment. Back in my day we had to walk FIFTEEN MILES IN THE SNOW to watch our puppet show and THAT'S HOW WE LIKED IT!
This was also in a time when full TV shows being available for on-demand viewing through any sort of home media was rare. One had to subscribe to some scam club called Columbia House or whatever (like that Disney Club except you can order R-rated stuff with boobies and guns and stuff) to have video cassettes with two episodes on them sent to you once a month, and in some instances the whole series was available on VHS, but not all. In the case of Mystery Science Theater 3000, whole episodes ran a little over ninety minutes without commercials, which meant only one episode could fit on a cassette, traditionally speaking of course. If quality meant jack to you, you could tape three off of TV on one VHS and they'd all look and sound like shit but you'd save on space and money.
With tape trading so hot, it was probably a no-brainer for MST3K to hit the home video market. It's complicated to make the attempt due to legal agreements, but the fans would buy them, twenty to thirty bucks a pop. The tapes would be higher quality than any fan copy and wouldn't include commercials to edit out. Rhino Home Video made the deal with Best Brains to distribute the show on VHS in 1996, which incidentally coincided with the release of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, which would also see VHS release from Universal Home Video that year. Rhino started our collections off with a trio of Joel era favorites: Cave Dwellers, The Amazing Colossal Man, and Mitchell. It's a solid start to the line, though frustratingly Colossal Man found itself pulled from shelves as the rights to the film became a hellhole. To date it's the only episode of the series that has been released on VHS but never on DVD.
Rhino would eventually follow up in groups, finally releasing a Mike episode in the next batch with The Brain That Wouldn't Die, which would be paired up with Pod People. They would gradually continue the line through the late 90's as the series was cancelled by Comedy Central and moved to the Sci-Fi Channel. Rhino would never touch the Sci-Fi era episodes for VHS release, which was probably a wise decision. Not because the CC episodes were better, but rather that Sci-Fi was nurturing new fans with episodes that were exclusive to that channel and Rhino's line of tapes allowed these fans to look back at what came before.
Side Note: The Rhino releases would usually edit out the commercial bumpers during the theater segments, which are not necessary but the choice was still controversial. They also excluded the stinger from their release of The Atomic Brain. They claim this was something that was absent from the copy of the episode they received from Best Brains, which is probably true because the mistake was also present on their DVD release and wouldn't be fixed until Shout Factory released the episode many years later.
The VHS line also saw tapes of Short compilations, as they released three volumes full of MST shorts on video, and they also gave fans a retail release of Poopie!, a half hour blooper reel that Best Brains had originally sold fans through their own stock. While Rhino was working their magic in stores, Best Brains was working more directly with fans by offering tapes they put together themselves for die hard fans. These tapes included compilations of host segments called Tom Servo's Favorite Host Segments, compilations of music from the series called Play MSTie For Me, rare behind the scenes footage and clips in the MST3K Scrapbook, a second blooper reel in Poopie II!, as well as an exclusive short compilation in Mr. B's Lost Shorts (Rhino would eventually distribute that as well, but not until the series hit DVD). Best Brains also sold episodes from the Sci-Fi era as well while Rhino was exclusively working with Comedy Central material. They offered up The Touch of Satan, Girl in Gold Boots, Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues..., and Hamlet.
Of note, the Best Brains VHS line did not feature any box art. All of these tapes were sold with basic sleeves housing the tape, with a little hole on the front that showed off the sticker that told you what tape it was. Rhino's tapes were a different story, all of which featured a still from the movie, with the theater seats at the bottom featuring Joel/Mike and the Bots making comments on the still above in little word balloons. Sometimes the jokes were cute, sometimes they were lame, sometimes they were lifted from the show, sometimes they were made up, rarely did they result in a laugh. These designs would be retained once Rhino started releasing episodes as single discs once they started to release the show on DVD. Rhino's Shorts tapes just featured stills of Crow and Tom Servo surrounded by boxer shorts, stating things like "I see London, I see France!" and the like. The Poopie! tape had stills of the characters surrounding the Poopie! logo in the center, which was featured in front of the Hexfield Viewscreen.
As home media changed, the VHS line slowly died out. Rhino's last release to it was The Hellcats in the year 2001, and soon after the media switch those fancy pants shiny discs was made. Rhino would release thirteen Joel episodes in total, with the highlight probably being Eegah. They released nine episodes featuring Mike, with my personal favorite being Bloodlust (though I'd probably say my top pick for any Mike "episode" on VHS was probably The Movie). The quality of episodes could be a bit all over the map, and there are a couple of stinkers there. Though I will admit some of my least favorites are actually iconic fan favorites like Catalina Caper and Pod People, so they'd at least earn their spot on the VHS line based on that alone.
Episodes Released on VHS
The Crawling HandBut wait! What's Reptilicus doing on there? That episode wasn't released until 2017! VHS was caveman technology by then! Reptilicus was actually released on VHS as a Kickstarter reward for those who pledged higher than $300. There was heavy nostalgia attraction to this item for those of us who lived through the tape trading days and it's actually kind of a cool little collector's piece. Shout Factory replicated the look of a Rhino VHS with a custom sleeve for the tape and even came up with a cheesy item description for the back, just like the good ol' days! I have not personally opened my copy, so I have no idea what the presentation is like. I remember hearing a rumor that there is an intro for it, but I can't vouch for that. Personally I like my little mint nostagia piece.
This whole thing is archaic today, but for the fans of this series, the days of VHS are a very important part of our identity and I don't think we should forget it. Our history lies in these rapidly deteriorating pieces of media that look like fuzz and sound even worse. The day has long since passed in which MSTies have kept "Circulating the Tapes," but the spirit will never die.
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