It's the year 2000 and television on home media is about to make an impact in a big, bad way as seasonal sets are about to become big business for studios. But there is some residual from the days of VHS, when only a handful of episodes (if you're lucky) are offered per release. Some shows could get away with releasing their entire series like this, Star Trek notably (us Trekkies are huge nerds/completionists). If film rights weren't such a bitch, Mystery Science Theater 3000 might have got away with it too. When you have one of those shows that has that fanbase that tapes every episode, that means you have a fanbase that will buy every episode. It took several decades and a reboot to finally release a seasonal set, but these releases started out as single episode releases back in the year 2000. And while most migrated to the four episode box set format it would eventually adopt, MST3K never really dropped the single episode release idea either, even if it did evolve as it went.
MST on DVD started with Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, which was released by Image Entertainment licensed from Universal Pictures while DVD was in its infancy in 1998. This early DVD features quite a few of what would be considered "DVD sins" in the years since its release. It has no menu, features a subpar transfer, non-animorphic widescreen, and no bonus features. It's just pop the disc in, and the movie plays, looking a bit better than the VHS copy, but nothing worth writing home about. The one noteworthy thing about this release is that the film is unaltered, as all future releases of the film has the opening Universal logo, which was initially the 1990 version of the logo, replaced by the Universal logo that debuted in 1997, the year after the film came out. This Image DVD is the only disc release that leaves the original logo intact. But I think for most that might not be a big deal.
However despite how bad this disc was, Universal pulled its contract with Image Entertainment and the disc went out of print, which led to copies of this disc going for obscene prices on eBay in aftermarket sales. What hurts so much about this is that fans were rabid enough to pay these prices, even though the product was not worth the money they were spending. But at the time we had no idea if the film would ever be re-issued, which it eventually was. I was lucky enough to not be suckered into paying $150 for a non-animorphic DVD, so I'm thankful for that. I do actually own a copy of the disc for posterity's sake, which I bought for about twelve bucks last year. I have no intention of watching this particular version again, but I guess you can say I own it ironically. For years it was a holy grail collector's item, and now it's just a coaster.
A few years after this disc's release, Rhino Home Video, who was releasing episodes of the series on VHS, made the decision to jump to DVD. They started with titles they had already licensed, pumping them out two at a time and starting with the episodes Eegah and The Brain That Wouldn't Die in early 2000. These discs were a large improvement over the Image release of The Movie, as the video was superior and bonuses were featured. Like Rhino's VHS tapes, these single episode discs had a box art that featured a promotional still from the movie with the theater seats at the bottom and word balloons that displayed humorous captions (some were more successful than others). Probably the most innovative thing about this pair of discs is that there is an emphasis on making the movie featured in each episode a bit of a centerpiece. Brain's primary bonus feature is an uncut version of the film and while Eegah doesn't supply one, it does have a little pop-up icon that appears during the episode that allows the viewer to watch scenes from the movie that were deleted from the episode. The big downside to Eegah's presentation is that there is no way to turn the icon off, so every time you watch the episode you have to put up with a little Crow head that appears off and on during the episode. The disc menus are both the same, featuring cutouts of Crow, Tom Servo, and Gypsy on the Satellite of Love bridge with swaying around (the music differs between the two releases, Eegah being the theme and Brain being music from the movie). Disc art for Eegah was the still from the cover, while Brain was a flipper disc that featured the MST episode on one side and the uncut movie on the other, so it had no disc art.
Rhino eventually followed these episodes with two more episodes, The Wild Wild World of Batwoman and Beginning of the End. These episodes followed suit of Brain That Wouldn't Die over Eegah, as both featured the MST episode and an uncut version of the film. The one thing they didn't follow was that instead of utilizing a flipper disc, they holds both versions on one side and the disc feature disc art. It's just a cheesy starry backdrop with titles over them, but it's disc art nonetheless. These utilized the same menus as the previous discs.
"Manos" The Hands of Fate and Mitchell followed suit a few months later, however these discs dropped the uncut versions of the films as special features. I don't believe there is any "official" reason as to why, but one can assume maybe fans complained "Why would I want to watch these movies without MST3K?" (and I say those fans are cowards), or it could just be they didn't have available prints of these movies. Instead Manos featured the MST3K blooper reel
Poopie! as a bonus, while Mitchell only featured a trailer to the film. The menus are different as well, this time using the theater doors as an sort of intro-screen before a full menu of Joel and the Bots looking at a clip from the movie. Disc art became more simple, as the disc was just plain frosty silver with clear lettering and logos on it.
I Accuse My Parents and Red Zone Cuba were released the following year, and neither had bonus features, as finally Rhino scaled back to mostly minimalist qualities. The episode presentations were still pretty good, and you got new menus for each release. However one bizarre thing that Rhino did with their menus began with the Red Zone Cuba disc, which utilized the Mike era doors to introduce the menu of the Mike era episode, but in the menu itself it would feature Joel sitting in the theater seat. This would last all throughout Rhino's tenure with releasing the series on DVD.
The last gasp of single disc releases for Rhino before they switched to the four episode volume format were The Crawling Hand and The Hellcats. The only thing they bring to the table is that they bring back the uncut versions of the films featured, while they also feature trailers for the films as well. Rhino then, probably wisely, abandoned the single episode format. However, it wasn't dead, as we'd find out a few years later.
In 2008, fans would hear word that Shout Factory would acquire the license from Rhino for future DVD releases, and almost coinciding with this announcement Universal had announced they were re-issuing MST3K: The Movie on DVD, this time under their Rogue Pictures banner which they usually used for films with niche or cult appeal that they didn't really want their primary logo on. There are still no special features on this release, but it's a huge improvement on the Image disc based on it having both a menu and animorphic widescreen. But as stated before, the opening logos have been altered for some bizarre reason. The cover art is very strange, mostly a glossy blue color. There are fairly basic theater seats at the bottom, and the MST logo is completely remade and on the planet Mars for some reason. I don't know if they didn't want to shell out money for to Jim Mallon for use of the actual logo or if they thought this was "cooler," but holy crap this cover is something else.
Normally one would assume that this would have been MST's last single disc release, but after a few years Shout Factory would experiment with a series they called "Shout Select," which were a series of online exclusive discs of previously released episodes aimed at collectors who had not purchased the Rhino discs. These discs were barebones and featured stock art and menus, both utilizing a starry backdrop with title logos and the theater seat silhouettes at the bottom of the image. I don't think these discs sold super well, as the line just kind of disappeared after a while, while the "Shout Select" brand re-emerged as a blu-ray line for cult films years later. But like Rhino's singles, they were released two at a time every few months. They started out with Beginning of the End and Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, followed with Gunslinger and Hamlet, then came The Unearthly and Red Zone Cuba, another pair in Atomic Brain and Touch of Satan, before ending the line with The Wild Wild World of Batwoman and Girl in Gold Boots.
While these discs were being produced, Shout experimented some more by doing a two-disc special edition release of the show's most popular episode, "Manos" The Hands of Fate. This is a completely loaded set, featuring new interviews with the MST cast, an uncut version of the film, the Hotel Torgo documentary, the two Hired! shorts edited together, and a documentary on Jam Handy. Like the box sets that Shout was doing at the time, there was box art by Steve Vance, which feature Crow and Tom Servo dressed up as the wives of the Master as the Master himself hovers above them. There is also a CGI skit used for the menu, which featured Crow and Servo having a barbeque on the Satellite of Love bridge and harassed by Torgo and the Master.
Once again, you would think this would be the end of it, but it's not. Shout then did an interesting little stunt of bargain bin releases. What they did was they took episodes from box sets that they had released and took those discs and released them as singles for about ten bucks in stores like Target, maybe trying to trigger impulse buys from people who don't know what the series is. These releases are very odd, because even though I understand what their motive might have been, there is something a bit off about how they're done. For starters, their first attempt at this was in 2013 with a single of Zombie Nightmare. Then three years later they do it again with releases of The Mad Monster and The Undead, before releasing one final episode in The Black Scorpion. Zombie Nightmare and The Undead aren't necessarily poor episodes to do this with, but if you're targeting impulse buys from people who don't know what the show is, Mad Monster and Black Scorpion are first season episodes and I think most would agree that first season episodes are not good starters for the series. These are the only four episodes they did this with, and then their quiet attempt at continuing singles died out.
Episodes Released:
Interestingly, single releases are still continuing to this day, just on a different format. Shout Factory and Film Detective have released a handful of episodes as bonus features with blu-rays of uncut MST films. This seems like its a smarter way to introduce newbies to the series than those last few DVD singles because someone may find it as a bonus on the copy of the film they bought and maybe they just might dig it. So, in a weird way, the single spirit is still alive.
It's funny to think about how these types of releases have persisted throughout the last few decades even though they became obsolete. Some episodes are even only available as singles, such as The Wild Wild World of Batwoman, Beginning of the End, and Red Zone Cuba. "Manos" The Hands of Fate was technically never released in a traditional box set either, though it was featured in a double feature pack called The Essentials with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. At any rate, the show's dysfunctional DVD history is kind of interesting to me and it probably always will be, even as physical media becomes obsolete. But when the apocalypse comes and the internet falls, I'll always have these discs next to me. Who's laughing now, losers?!
