TVSquad

You may not have gotten the day off for this momentous day in American history (damn you, socialist government!), but today marks a very special anniversary: the first ever episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

The show officially hit the airwaves on a local Minneapolis station, KTMA, on Thanksgiving Day in 1988 by a young, fresh-faced Joel Hodgson. The rest, as people who rely on cheap cliches to heighten the dramatic effect with their weak words, is history. You can read the rest at the Satellite News site, the most exhaustive and interesting MST3K site on the Internet.

Every fan of the show and even occasional glancers remembers where they were when they first discovered this kind of cult comedy classics. For me, I discovered it with my old man who hates it when I call him my old man during the hilarious Pod People episode, arguably the funniest episode for the show and the worst movie the show has ever skewered.

Consider this your way-too-far-in-advance sneak preview at a future DVD extra for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 set for Shout! Factory. On January 17, MST3K creator Joel Hodgson and original cast member and writer Trace Beaulieu gave a crowd at M.I.T. a peek behind the scenes of the venerable sci-fi comedy show with their lecture, "The Design and Speculative Technology of MST3K," which they filmed to use as a future DVD extra.

For the uninitiated, Joel was the original host, was shot into space by evil scientists (Dr. Forrester was played by Beaulieu) and forced to watch (sing it with me, MSTies) "cheesy movies, the worst we can find." To help him handle the torture, Joel built four robot friends, two of which, Crow (also originated by Beaulieu) and Servo, watched the movies and made fun of them with Joel. Together, Joel, Crow, and Servo cut the best silhouette in show business (at least to comedy and movie geeks like myself).

But then, if you're reading this, you probably know all of that.