Mystery Trekkie Theater 2011
Posted By Kathleen David on July 2, 2011
This will be my 14th Shoreleave. Part of Shoreleave for us is a thing called Mystery Trekkie Theater. If you have ever seen Mystery Science Theater 3000, you have an inkling of what is done. In MST3K (as it is known), they take a terrible movie and have two “robots” and a human commenting on the film. You can see their shadowy outline at the bottom of the screen. It started on local cable and became a bit of a phenomenon.
In our case it is Peter, Bob Greenberger, and Michael Jan Friedman who are the shadowy figures on the screen and various Star Trek and Star Trek related shows that get skewered. There is also an opening sketch which Peter writes every year and then manages to both direct and perform in.
Now the only people who know which episode we are going to do are the three guys and their immediate families and we have been sworn to secrecy.
So yesterday was another next step in the process. The first being getting the time coded tape so we can sync the jokes to the episode. Then we dub that off and get copies to Mike and Bob. Everyone watches the episode at least once and writes up their commentary on it. Then, closer to Shoreleave, Bob, Mike, and Peter get together at one of their houses and create the final script for the whole thing.
This involved putting everyone’s ideas in the pot and seeing which we think is funniest. The process takes a number of hours to do for just a one hour show. Depending on how silly we get, it can take a while to get pass even a few minutes of the episode.
The joke writing skills of the three are a bit different and that works to their advantage.
We do get off on tangents sometimes and have to bring ourselves back to the task at hand. There is also the traditional eating of the pizza for lunch with the usual catching up on things.
And there is the laughter. We have a good time coming up with the script. I did laugh so hard that my sides are a bit ache this morning. It is nice to laugh like that occasionally.
The next steps are taken at the convention and a week from tomorrow (Sunday), they will be presenting it to the convention for their amusement.
Now I just have to get some stuff done for it and get some props together. And that will be most of today I think. We’ll see how fast I can get this together.
I am grateful that we do have fun putting this together.
[…] their Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000 to Shore Leave again next weekend. David’s wife Kathleen blogs it up as well as it can be blogged, over on her blog: No Strings Attached. If that doesn’t […]
Man, I’d KILL to see what doesn’t make the cut. And I think I can safely claim to be the first fan to get a line into the script.
My first MTT3K seriously spoiled me. That was the year they did “Alexander.” Oh. My. Lord. I still hurt remembering that one.
Ms. D, my profoundest thanks for your role in the presentation. It is the absolute highlight of the con for me and my friend.
J.