I finished the last disc in the Joe 90 series today. I watched them at a fast jog so I could get done with them quickly. These last episodes are about the same as the others. I was glad to be done with it but didn't hate it or anything. It was just not as entertaining as I had hoped it would be.
Keeping in mind the Supermarionation theme already established I decided to watch the first 2 episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000's KTMA season. For the longest time the first 3 KTMA episodes have been lost. All the rest had been taped by one person or another. It's too bad the guys making the show didn't save high quality archive copies. In the 1st episode we get a look at Invaders from the Deep and in the 2nd we've got Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars. Both are Gerry and Sylvia Anderson films complied from episodes of Stingray and Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons. The 1st episode aired November 24 1988 and the 2nd a week later. The 3rd episode hasn't been found yet.
Invaders from the Deep is complied from the Stingray episodes Hostages of the Deep, The Big Gun, Emergency Marineville, and Deep Heat. Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars is compiled from the Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons episodes Shadow Of Fear, Lunarville 7, Crater 101 and Dangerous Rendezvous. I liked Stingray better than CSATM but stringing a series of random episodes together doesn't make much of a movie. Each series had two compilation movies but I don't see the others on YouTube and they weren't included in either show's DVD release. They did have VHS releases back in the 80s, you can see the covers of these two above.
The KTMA MST3K episodes are a bit raw. In the 1st episode Joel intros the show and then goes off to watch the movie. He doesn't arrive for a while and all we see is the movie and the seat silhouette. He doesn't say much of anything after he does get settled in, then there's a break where we get introduced to Crow. There's no Tom Servo yet, he won't appear until the 2nd episode. In this series Tom Servo is silver in color and he's voiced by Josh Weinstein. Kevin Murphy won't take over for a couple more years. I always found Kevin's Tom to be more entertaining. In the second movie segment Crow joins Joel watching the movie. It takes a while before they start commenting. I guess they wanted to ease everyone into the process.
They still have long gaps between comments in the 2nd episode. It's Thanksgiving and Joel is making a cornucopia in Gypsy's mouth. Tom Servo joins Joel and Crow in the theater. Like the other available KTMA episodes the jokes are a bit weak, this is compared to the later episodes, but some of them made me laugh a bit. Not out loud though. The host segments are OK, Joel does some prop gags and talks with the bots. This early on there isn't any interaction with the "guys at the station" who sent him a fax with the movie details. You can see most of the MST3K episodes on YouTube if you look a bit.