Please Don’t Spoil The Movie By Adding Your Own Soundtrack: An Interview With Mike Nelson

Interviewed by Megashaun

Mike Nelson was a writer/host for the cult classic TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000. In it, Mike (and in earlier years, Joel Hodgson) and their robot pals onboard the Satellite of Love were subjected to watching b-movies while their fictitious employers at the Gizmonics Institute observed the crew’s reactions. These reactions ranged from goofy commentary during the films to sketches between the film and they were, for the most part, very funny.

Mike Nelson of RiffTrax

Now, years after the Satellite of Love made its last television appearance, Mike Nelson and several MST3K alumni (including Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy) have been continuing the tradition of making fun of movies via RiffTrax. Embracing digital distribution, RiffTrax allows you to easily download an audio commentary track, sync it with a movie you already have, and enjoy. Oh, but there’s a catch. For best results, it’s recommended that you sync up a RiffTrax with the movie it’s intended to be watched with. Unlike MST3K before it, RiffTrax makes fun of many current movies, including Hollywood blockbusters, rather than older movies that you may not have heard of.

RiffTrax, simply put, is brilliant in both concept and execution. Recently, the Riffers took their show on the road and performed live in San Diego along to Plan 9 From Outer Space. Mike Nelson called up Popshifter headquarters a few weeks before the show to talk about it and RiffTrax. He had missed a previously scheduled call with us and being the gentleman that he is, apologized for it right off the bat.

Mike Nelson: My apologies again for the other night.

Popshifter: Oh, that’s fine; don’t worry about it.

Mike Nelson: It was bizarre. I was getting these strange phone calls from some number I couldn’t identify and they were leaving these really creepy messages. I think I was in the middle of listening to those when the reminder [to call you] went. It’s really weird. I discovered it was like a fundraiser and they had this weird electronic dialing and it was all messed up but it sounded like the Cloverfield monster was trying to scare me or something. Really weird.

Popshifter: (laughs) And of course, he does that via the phone.

Mike Nelson: He does. He’s always ringing up people ’cause he’s got nothing to do now.

Popshifter: Well, thanks for calling! I’ve got a couple of questions for you, and one of them is about RiffTrax Live. How did the idea of taking RiffTrax on the road and performing it live come about?

Mike Nelson: We’ve done some live shows in the old MST days and they were always such great fun and that was what gave us the idea to do the feature film years ago in the first place. It’s that infectiousness of doing it live. So you get to see the cumulative effect of these jokes that we work so hard on. Sharing them with someone else is so much better. We’ve tried to keep them up. We’ve done a few of them already. We’ve done a number of them in San Francisco and this will be the first time we’re doing one in San Diego, which is where I live now.

Popshifter: Is that the same time as Comic Con?

Mike Nelson: Yes, it’s on the Saturday of Comic Con.

Popshifter: Is it affiliated with it in any way?

Mike Nelson: No, it’s not. It’s right next to it, real close to it. It’ll be easy for all the Comic Con people to be there, but it’s not affiliated.

Popshifter: I imagine there’d be quite a bit of crossover with the fans and so forth anyway.

Mike Nelson: Yeah, I think so. We’ve been there two years in a row and it does seem that way. I think there always is a bit of crossover.

Pages: 1 2 3