Revealing mistake: After the second movie sign, when everyone gets into the theater and sits down, there's a very obvious cut, as all the characters cut immediately from the position that they sat down in to a completely different position. (00:28:05)
Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (1996)
Directed by: Jim Mallon
Starring: Jim Mallon, Kevin Murphy, Michael J. Nelson, Trace Beaulieu
Visible crew/equipment: In Servo's room, Trace Beaulieu's hand is very visible operating Crow. Watch the bottom of frame when Crow approaches the Interocitor and says "Well, let's see what this baby can do." (00:48:00)
Continuity mistake: When Mike first enters the theatre, he's wearing his exercise clothes, shorts and a college t-shirt. But when the film later breaks and Mike leaves the theatre, he's wearing his blue jumpsuit.
Trivia: When Mike puts on the Manipulator Arms, you can hear Torgo's Theme from 'Manos: The Hands of Fate' for a bit in the background.
Trivia: In the scene where Mike is lifting the Hubble off of the SOL after crashing into it, notice the mechanical arms are named "Manos". "Manos" is Spanish for "Hands" and is also the name of the worst movie MST3K ever did: "Manos: The Hands of Fate."
Trivia: In one scene, you see Crow pick up a chainsaw from Tom's bedroom. You never see him do anything with it after that. This is beacause Grammercy, a small company owned by Paramount, who also put this movie in theaters, took out two scenes. They were the one who told them to put in segments like that to make some kind of a story, but in the end, they took out two or three, completely killing the story they wanted in the first place. Originally, Crow was going to cut through the SoL like he did in one of the first segments.
Crow T. Robot: Shall I compare thee to a summers daaaaaaaa.
Mike: Joe, I'm in one of these boxes, find me.
Tom Servo: Wow, that ringing! Now he knows what the world sounds like to Pete Townshend.
Question: This applies to the TV series as well as the Movie. How are the "watching the movie" segments filmed? Are they literally sitting in front of a large screen? In some of the TV episodes, Joel/Mike is seen pointing to something on the screen. And do they film each segment as one, or is it cut into different takes?
Question: Are the foreign movies dubbed or subbed?
Chosen answer: Dubbed.
There might have been a technical reason they did not use subtitled movies, because the superimposed row of chairs and actors at the bottom of the frame would have covered up the subtitles.
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Chosen answer: They sit in front of a big screen -- or rather Joel or Mike sat. The puppeteers crouch down below the row of seats and hold up special black puppets to project the silhouettes. They did do takes for segments of the movies. I imagine it would be painful for the puppeteers to crouch for 90 minutes!
Carl Fink
The robot puppeteers laid down on the floor and the human host deeply reclined in front of a piece of plywood cut in the shape of the seatbacks. There were TV monitors playing the raw cut of the film in front of them with their lines on a teleprompter. The theater screen itself was simply a giant green screen which had the movie video added to it in post production. Search for "Last Dance RAW" for a few behind-the-scenes and some in-theater excerpts from the last TV broadcast episode.