So, on a whim I traveled to Pennsylvania for MST3Kon at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, which was a part of their BlobFest celebrations for the year 2023. This was something I don't normally do, but the thing is the last MST Live tour was supposed to come to Boise last year, but they got snowed out, and I always felt salty that I never got to meet the cast that day.
But making my way here was not easy. I'm an Idaho boy, and I've never been on the East side of the country in my entire life. I do not have the disposable income for a trip like this and my job can be very anti-flexible at this time of the year. I made it work, somehow, though my job did work like hell to keep me here, up to the point that they wanted me to work on the night of my flight. I had to rearrange some shifts and work almost nonstop to get the time I needed to fly out. It seemed like it was going to work out until I injured my back early on and was unable to get it checked out before flying out because I was so pressed for time. But I made my flight and wound up in Philadelphia on time and without a hitch in my travel plans.
The first thing I was struck by was this feeling of heat. I felt this unsteady discomfort of warmth as I was leaving the airport terminal, which I felt was odd because I felt the air conditioning should have offset it, but it's summer, so I didn't think too strongly about it. Arriving outside, the heat felt different than the heat I am normally used to and didn't realize what was going on until I picked up my car rental. I took one look at my car and wondered to myself "Why is it bone dry but look drenched like it's been raining?" At this point I realized it wasn't just hot, it was humid. I had experienced humidity before, but not for quite a long time, and I don't think I ever drove in it. As I drove my rental, the windows kept fogging over, which was...terrifying. I eventually found a balance for that, but the first hour was quite scary.
This was still early morning, and my hotel check-in wasn't until 3, so I decided to do some sight-seeing. I drove around the Philidelphia area hoping to find the Liberty Bell so I could send photos with a cheesy trite caption saying "I wish to speak to a manager. This bell has a crack in it." I successfully found the sidewalk to the Liberty Bell but did not find a parking garage. The thing about Philidelphia is that the streets are very narrow one-ways, and there are jaywalkers everywhere who will just walk out in front of your car with little notice. So, I wound up finding my desire to find a tourist destination being superseded by my desire to not run some schmuck over. I tried to double back but took a wrong turn, wound up on a one-way street leading to the bridge to New Jersey. New Jersey was the opposite experience. There were buildings and parked vehicles everywhere, but the whole spot was a ghost town. There were zero people driving on the road, and the few pedestrians I saw all looked like they were being haunted by the entity from the movie Smile. I felt safer with the jaywalkers because this place looked like it was evacuated and ready to be nuked. I did have some light consideration for driving across Jersey to reach the coast, but I felt like I was too jetlagged for a trip like that. So instead, I familiarized myself with the road down to Phoenixville, saw some gorgeous country in Valley Forge, and poked around the neighborhood to the Colonial Theater, which had its road closed off for BlobFest. I was thinking about checking out the place beforehand, but had difficulty figuring out where to park, so I kinda just made my way to my hotel to check in. I was disappointed that I couldn't attend the screenings of Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein they were hosting, but it intercepted by check-in time and was so tired that it was likely I was going to fall asleep in the theater. Incidentally, I still got back to my hotel before check-in and had to spend two hours trying not to fall asleep in the lobby. But it's better than trying not to fall asleep while driving, I suppose. I checked-in, wondered what I was going to get for dinner, and fell asleep almost instantly, because at this point I was awake for twenty-six hours on four hours of sleep. I woke up around 11, ordered something real fast, ate dinner, and fell asleep again, because holy shit was I done with being alive at that point.
The next morning was the big day. I made sure I was up early and ready, and made my way to Phoenixville, this time familiar with the parking lots so I knew where to go. But on arrival, it began to rain, because of course it did. So, we all stood in line getting rained, while it was still humid as fuck. By the time we got in, I was soaked from the rain and sweating like I've just got out of the gym. What's irritating about this is I put some effort into looking presentable that day, and now I was in line for the photo-op looking like a drowned rat. I was so wet that the name tag they gave me would not stay on, no matter how hard I tried. Just as I was two spots away from getting my picture taken with Joel, Jonah, and Emily, I noticed that my nametag was completely gone. At first, I thought it just fell off somewhere down the line, but then I looked forward in horror to the sight that somehow it was stuck to the back of the guest in front of me. I tried to subtly pluck it off and I don't think he noticed, but if there's any chance he did and is reading this, I wasn't trying to feel you up, dude. It was a Homer Simpson/Gummi Venus DeMilo situation.
The photo-op was fairly uneventful, otherwise. Emily was the one to greet me by name and a glowingly enthusiastic smile, while Joel and Jonah were smiles of warm acknowledgment. Mostly it was an in-and-out affair to keep the line moving. I looked like floating wet trash, but from Emily's attitude, I probably wasn't the only one. She kept saying to those around her "Oh, is it raining? I couldn't tell." with a sarcastic zing. From there we were led into the theater to get ready for the show to start.
The theater was already crowded, so I decided to go to the upper rows, which had less people in them. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but the back row was roped off. It was curious, but it was something that quickly left my mind. So, I went to the second to the last row toward the right end, which was just above the entryway, where I saw people coming and going. Festivities got to a slight beginning as Joel entered the room and quickly left without a word, which may or may not have been a bit, but the audience went loud with hysterics just the same. It didn't start for a few more minutes, but I did start recording some footage, because I wanted a record of this event to write this blog entry. If you're wondering if I'm going to post it, I am not. You're not missing much, because it looks like trash, because my phone is crap and you can barely see anything.
The show started with Joel getting up and doing an intro to the event, but he eventually gives way to the warm-up act of Paul and Storm, who sing a couple of songs. Probably the highlight of this portion is a patron gets up and goes to the concession stand during their act, but with the way the theater is set up, she can't do it without going through Paul and Storm, so they acknowledge her while still playing and point her to the exit (Paul also added "Quick, while she's gone...everybody...HIDE!"). Later during the second song, I saw her standing off to the side of the theater, trying to wait them out so she wouldn't interrupt them again. I guess she decided there was no correct way to go about this, so she walked back into the theater and, in a humorous gesture of peace, she offered Storm some popcorn. Since Storm is playing guitar and he has no hands to accept her offering, he just divebombs his face into her popcorn bag in the middle of the song, to which they just grind to an impromptu halt, because how can you continue from that? Paul chides Storm for a minute, but they played it up, because it's hands down one of the funniest moments of the night and they realize that.
After Paul and Storm, Joel introduces Jonah and Emily, who introduce the episodes they'll be showing off the for the night: The Batwoman, Demon Squad, and Munchie. Jonah vocalizes that he doesn't think they should be showing Munchie, but Joel says it's a fan favorite. Jonah responds "Maybe it's Matt's." (referencing series producer Matt McGinnis). Joel shoots back "Matt only likes it because he can cosplay as that kid." But talk quickly turns to Batwoman, which Emily says the thing she recalls the most is how many musical riffs they packed into the episode. She then says about the movie "It's a little bit Shape of Water..." which had the audience giggling, to which Jonah finished "But somehow even more horny," which brings the house down. But Emily feels like this was the episode where she hit her comfort zone on the show, to which Jonah relates to. And with that, they introduce Batwoman, which the audience was very rowdy for. Of the three episodes they showed tonight, this was the episode that I found myself most tepid on though I leaned positive, but the audience rolled with laughter the entire time. I feel like home viewing a Mystery Science Theater episode sometimes doesn't do it justice. Watching it with a crowd though, that's how you do it.
I should point out that at this point I started noticing voices behind me talking through the show. Apparently they had opened up the seats behind my row, and the people behind me seemed to have some behind the scenes experience with the show and was interacting with other people who seemed less familiar with it. It was partially amusing because at least one of them seemed to be watching the show for the first time. She seemed to think it was funny, but she really disliked the movie. I would randomly hear interjections like "I hate this!" or "Why is she in a bikini?!" A male voice next to them would respond "You're asking the wrong person."
We broke for lunch after Batwoman, while Joel picked several audience members to help with a theater door showcase when they returned, and Jonah and Emily went to the theaters around us that the feed was broadcast into to find a few more volunteers. Upon returning, they had the flatimation door setup on stage, while Paul and Storm performed another song. As they finished, Joel had their volunteers line up along the doors and demonstrate how they created the theater door sequence, where they had a person on the side of each door as a camera ran backwards through them. The highlight of this portion came from Jonah playing around and walking into the round frame of the last door and shooting a finger gun into it like James Bond. After this, Joel thanked various members of the crew, including producer Matt McGinnis, who he says is in the theater right now while pointing straight at me.
Oh wait...he's pointing at the seat behind me. The whispering people behind me were Matt McGinnis and his group.
Oh shit.
I have been recording all of these con segments with a producer directly behind me the whole time. To his credit, if he ever noticed, he never called me out on it. Thank you, Matt, for not being a narc.
From there on, they started making some fun announcements, which Joel started up by showing off a merch shirt being sold at the event that glows in a blacklight, while also letting slip they are playing with blacklighting for the upcoming fourteenth season. NEW SEASON HYPE! The primary portion of the announcements went to Jonah, who announces that "We've teamed up with the Chinese government on TikTok." They use the time to talk about starting a TikTok channel to help grow the fanbase, while they decide to film one right there in the theater by having Jonah ask the audience what they think about MST3K joining TikTok, only to have us yell back "IT STINKS!" (TikTok video here) We turned our attention to Emily to close out, who decided to address remaining Kickstarter rewards for Season 13, making the claim "We are pleased to announce that we thank you for you patience." She then promised we'd hear more about it soon.
The next episode they showed was Demon Squad. This was a slower burn than Batwoman, as the audience laughed more and more further into it than when it started, and even gave a rowdy cheer when Servo's voiced changed from Conor McGiffin to J. Elvis Weinstein. I also got to hear Matt McGinnis's real thoughts on this movie from the seat behind me, of which he was more gloves off with it than he was on the livestream.
Following a ten-minute break to stretch our legs, Joel came out to introduce Munchie, claiming he wanted to introduce it with Jonah, but Jonah was unavailable. Instead, Paul came up and stated that he was Jonah, to which Joel continued with the bit, claiming Jonah joined "Height-Watchers." But then an exclamation is heard from the audience of "THAT'S NOT THE REAL JONAH RAY!" as Jonah descends from the audience and takes his spot up front. With Jonah now at his side, Joel asks him what the experience was working on Munchie, and Jonah just responds "Bad." Pleasantries are kept short for this intro, as they choose to dive into Munchie fairly fast, though Joel reiterates his wish to see Matt cosplay as the kid from the movie, and Matt yells from the audience "I HEARD THAT!"
Munchie probably got the most laughs and most reaction from the audience. Watching this episode with a crowd is an experience, let me tell you. It's clearly the worst movie we've watched a country mile, and since we're a group of MSTies, the worse a movie is, the more vocal our reaction is going to be. At every point Munchie came onscreen, the crowd hollared and jeered, and jumped out of their seats during his various sudden entrances.
Post-Munchie is a Q&A with Joel, Jonah, Emily, and Matt McGinnis, who decided to stop judging me from the seat behind me and join the group onstage. The Q&A is filled with many highlights, including the little tidbit that they are going to try and have the rights cleared to every movie they hope to use next season before they do their next fundraiser, but they also concede that they'll also have to wait until the WGA and SAG strikes to end before they can actually go into production on the show (Jonah says he's back to the picket lines as soon as this is over). There are generic questions like what your favorite song on the series is, all the way to asking Emily what it was like to break the glass ceiling and become the first woman to host the show (to which Jonah hilariously interjects "I got this question..." and tries to answer for her). We also address questions about whether an animated film would work on the show (they say they'd rather shy away from it) to whether AI would ever be used on the show (AI is already used on the show, their names are Crow and Tom Servo). The Q&A comes to a satisfying close as the woman who fed Storm popcorn gets handed the mic, and asks him "Was it good for you too?"
As the event got out, I found out that attendees were given a free tote bag full of goodies! Some of this stuff I had already bought at the merch store, but...FREE TOTE BAG! It was better than the plastic Walmart sack I was hauling around because I came grossly unprepared for this entire thing. Though to be fair, it was a nice, sturdy Walmart sack. Way thicker than the ones we have in Idaho. So we all went to the lobby for snacks and drinks, and also got in line for a signing session. I selected one of my swag posters for the signing, and got our three leads to sign it. It was cool to get five or so words with them, even though I had to keep it brief to keep the line moving. I got to tell Emily and Joel how far I came for this little con, and related to Emily that the primary reason I flew out was because her group's Boise tour date was cancelled. She gave me a knowing nod and said "I remember that," telling me about how all the roads were closed off because of the snow. Joel seemed to know very little about this, so he listened attentively to it. During this exchange, Jonah was conversing with someone else, as my poster was slid to him to sign. I seemed to catch him off-gaurd, because he was still talking to the other person while he signed it, then he saw me and seemed to realize it was for someone else. But what I loved about my interaction with Jonah is that he swiftly caught his bearings, and we had a humorous exchange afterward. Jonah is very quick and witty with a conversation, and I don't know if I ever really appreciated that about him, but I certainly do now. Meeting him in person really gave me perspective on why Joel hand-selected him to be the new host on the series.
As my allotted time ended, I got to shake hands with Joel and Jonah, which was a high point of my life. I didn't shake hands with Emily, so I can only assume it's because she was terrified of me. But I have no hard feelings about that. I am pretty off-putting and scare people easily.
I wish I could say I mingled more. There are two things that must be pointed out about this point in the day, though, and the first one is my back pain was flaring up. Sitting in a theater for hours did it no favors, and it was politely asking me to go home and go to bed or it will retaliate by hurting me. The second was that I don't go to cons, and the primary reason is because crowds give me headaches. So if anybody caught someone standing off to the side, away from people, that was probably me, with a throbbing head and a stiff lower back. I did talk to some people, notably the people who run the theater, and I had a nice chat with them about some of the monster movies they showed that week that I wish I had attended. And I stayed a good long while, watching the place disperse. I came all this way, I wanted to stay until the end. By the time I did leave, there were only a few patrons left and the crew were starting to clean up the place. The only member of the MST cast that was left was Joel, who was still greeting people, while Emily and Jonah had been long gone.
I finally made my journey back to my car and made the ride back to Philly to get packed to my long flight home. Upon returning to my hotel, I made the discovery that either through rain or humidity, the poster I had signed somehow got moist and was a bit ratty now. I was disappointed in that. But you know what? I got to meet my heroes. There are things I wish I could have told them that I never got to, but I was there. I got to say hi to them, I got to make them smile and laugh with me. That's worth more to me than a signature. I'll always have that.
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